Tabitha made the driver stop at a fireworks store on the way home. They’d found a dress, shoes, and even a shawl so she wouldn’t have to cover up with her old cloth coat. Some mending and tailoring would be needed, but Tabitha thought she could handle it.
“You have to answer in kind,” she told Eleanor. “It’s tradition.”
They couldn’t afford a show like David had made. Eleanor was startled to see how much such things cost and quietly calculated what David had literally blown asking her out.
“We can’t afford any of these,” she said to her mother.
“When money’s low, your imagination should be high,” she said and pointed to a box of sparklers. “I have an idea.”
When they got home, Eleanor fetched a piece of salvaged plywood from the shed. Using a rusted saw left over from a previous owner, they cut off the chipped edges. With a handle-less file, they smoothed off the splinters. They worked into the night with crayons and a hair dryer. They melted the wax crayons in psychedelic designs around the simple message: “Yes.” The next day, Eleanor punched holes into the letters with a hammer and nail. She threaded the sparklers through the holes, bent and taped the ends on the reverse side.
“What are we going to light it with?” wondered Tabitha.
“A match?” suggested Eleanor.
“We have to get all the sparklers going at once,” she said. “A match won’t do it. We need a road flare.”
“How about another sparkler?”
“That might work,” she said. “If we work together.”
“You’re coming?” said Eleanor, surprised.
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it.”
And so that night after dark, Eleanor and Tabitha, bundled up in layers of coats and socks, carried the board between them to the trailer park. They made their way slowly. The weather was mild. They saw their way by low clouds reflecting flashing neon light from main street diners.
Tabitha had arranged with Mrs. Venn to be home with David at ten o’clock, but they didn’t arrive until closer to half past.
They propped the board against a barbecue grill by the door. Eleanor heard sounds inside the house. They’d made so much noise setting up the board that she wasn’t surprised when the house fell silent. But they hadn’t opened the door yet, so she lit two sparklers from a wooden stick match and handed one to her mother.
The big three-letter word had forty six sparklers in it. They started together at E and moved out from the center, Eleanor to the Y, Tabitha to the S. As fast as they could, they lit the sign. Eleanor finished first and sprinted to the door and rang the bell, then she jumped off the porch and ran across the road.
Tabitha had just lit the last sparkler when David appeared in the doorway. Eleanor saw him in the brilliant white light. His expression lit up as he scanned the darkness for Eleanor but couldn’t find her. He settled on Tabitha and grinned.
“How’d you get those colors?” he asked her.
“Imagination,” she said. She waved to Mrs. Venn and Wendy, who peeked out around David’s shoulders and legs. Then Tabitha left and found Eleanor waiting down the road. Eleanor threw her arms around her mother and hugged her a long time.
David had done a miracle. The following days, Eleanor was still talked about in the halls of Jamesford High, but not as she had been. David’s pyrotechnic dance invitation was the talk of the school. There’d been creative invitations in the past—a car filled with balloons, cookies baked and delivered, a singing telegram, but nothing as spectacular and memorable as David’s firework display.
It was a hard act to follow. When David described Eleanor’s answer, the girls were also put on notice. She thought she had done a good job with her mother’s idea, but David embellished it until that old piece of plywood could be hung in the Louvre. Eleanor heard their names mentioned as potential prom royalty. She was gobsmacked.
Girls whom Eleanor had never talked to sought her out to ask what she was going to wear. Girls who’d tried to talk to her in years past, maybe even tried to be her friend but were unsuccessful, approached her again like they were bosom buddies.
Eleanor’s suspicion kept them at a distance, but after the third day, she relented at her mother’s urging and took part in discussion of hair styles and makeup. Eleanor’s sudden popularity was contagious, even to Eleanor.
Jennifer Hutton laughed at Eleanor’s ignorance of lip-gloss, but it wasn’t mean-spirited, at least she didn’t think so. She patiently told Eleanor about the benefits of lip-gloss over lipstick. “It makes your lips look wet,” she said.
Jennifer was a popular girl who floated in and out of different cliques without social consequences. She was something of a barometer of school popularity. She orbited new stars like a roaming comet, and Eleanor felt both privileged and frightened to have her attention.
News of David’s fireworks also reached the teachers, and Mr. Graham commented on it in one of his lectures, saying that David Venn knew about exothermic reactions better than anyone. Russell Liddle stopped ignoring David and began to actively dislike him again. He guffawed at Mr. Graham’s comment, possibly thinking there was a double entendre there somewhere, but he was alone. Eleanor remained wary and watched his comings and goings carefully during the days leading up to the dance.
Five days before the dance, she watched him leave his friends and walk to Barbara Pennon’s table. Barbara sat with Alexi and Crystal. Eleanor knew that Alexi was going to the dance with Robby Guide and suspected Bryce Sudman had asked Crystal, but she didn’t know if Barbara was going. She couldn’t imagine her not going.
At Eleanor’s table, David and Brian Weaver were in a conversation while Eleanor, Jennifer, and Midge, who’d become a silent regular at her table, listened to Aubrey, also a new addition, describe her cat’s acrobatics on the drapes. Eleanor had known her for years and never heard more than a sentence wrung out of her mouth, but at Eleanor’s lunch table, she had become a little chatterbox.
“My dad was so mad,” she said. “The whole thing was ruined—tears and rips, floor to ceiling. But it was so cute seeing her climb up. I couldn’t stop her.”
“Shhhh,” said Eleanor. “Look.”
The group followed Eleanor’s gaze across the lunchroom. She’d been watching Russell, trying to pick out snippets of his conversation with his friends when he got up and approached Barbara’s table. The entire lunchroom noticed his awkward advance and fell silent. Eleanor perked up her ears.
“So, we’re going right?” said Russell.
“What?” Barbara said.
“The dance, you know,” he said, his hands in his pockets. He glanced over his shoulder to his friends who also watched with interest. “The guys, well Tanner, thought that I should, you know, make sure we’re still on.”
“He’s asking Barbara to the dance,” said Eleanor.
“No way!” said Jennifer.
“Here? At lunch? A week before?” said Aubrey. “She’s not going to like that.”
“She doesn’t,” said Eleanor.
“What’s she saying?” asked David.
“That’s the best you got?” Eleanor translated. “You’re a punk, Russell. A classless punk.”
“She really said that?” Jennifer said.
“Yeah, I got that, too,” said David, though Eleanor doubted he had.
Barbara lowered her voice. “That stupid David Venn made that wallflower Eleanor Anders the queen of the prom, and this is all you got for me?” Eleanor didn’t relay this to the table.
“Well, you know,” Russell stumbled, his flushed face visible clearly to the entire sophomore class who all watched the drama now. “You know, we’re already going together, so I assumed that, you know, we were already on for the dance.”
“Looks like he’s getting eaten alive,” said Brian. “Oh man, serious girl foul.”
Barbara suddenly became aware of the entire room looking at them. Even the upper classmen sensed something and followed the stares of the tenth graders to her table. She leaned in to him and whispered.
“Okay, you lout,” she said. “I’ll go with you, but only because no one else has asked me yet.” Whispers carry farther than people think. Eleanor had no problem picking her out of the quiet crowd. “You better pull out the stops at the dance,” she said. “Actually, you better start pulling them out now. Flowers every day until the dance.” She glared at him. He nodded.
“She’s going with him,” Eleanor said. “But he has to bring her flowers every day.”
“It’s your fault, David,” said Brian. “You made it hard for all of us. You cut Russell off at the knees.”
“Yeah, I have a knack for that,” he said and laughed. Eleanor didn’t share his mirth. She watched Russell walk back to his table. By the time he rejoined Tanner and the others, he was all bravado and confidence again, but Eleanor knew he’d be at the florist’s after school.
The next day, Russell delivered a bouquet of flowers to Barbara’s table. She accepted them like a ballerina on opening night and then dismissed him like an autograph seeker.
“So here’s the plan,” David said. “We’ll double with Brian and Jennifer. We’ll go to Chang’s for dinner and then the dance.”
“What about Aubrey and Midge?” she said.
“Oh, um,” David said looking at the girls. “It’s kinda up to the guys. Their dates haven’t talked to me.”
“Is there room?” asked Aubrey.
“Yeah, I think so,” said David. “We have a van.”
“Are you sure it’s okay?” asked Aubrey. David nodded. “Then I’ll see if he has plans.”
“Who’s taking you?”
“Eric Collins,” she said.
“Oh, okay. Yeah, I get along with him. Tell him to call me if he wants in. We’re starting at five.”
“I have a ride,” said Midge. No one hid their surprise.
“Who asked you?” said Jennifer in a way that did not wholly insult Midge but only a little.
“You don’t know him,” she said.
“So we’ll get to meet him at the dance?” said Aubrey.
She nodded.
“Great. We’ll all sit around and drink punch and hope no one sees us dance,” said Brian.
“Speak for yourself,” said David. “I know how to boogie.”
“I can line dance,” said Aubrey.
“Arghh,” said David. “Tell me it’s not all going to be all country and western. I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“I’ve never been,” said Jennifer, “but we are in Wyoming.”
“We don’t have to dance,” said Eleanor.
“Oh, we’ll dance,” he said. “I’ll burn a couple songs to a disc that we can dance to without spurs.”
“Okay,” she said. Eleanor had begun wearing a headband to keep her hair off her face and she was not used to it. She’d put it on in the morning when she was anxious to go to school and see her new friends and talk to David. Halfway on her walk, she’d take it off and stuff it in her backpack feeling stupid and self-absorbed. Before the bell rang, however, she forced herself into the bathroom and put it back on before David saw her. Typical boy, he hadn’t noticed the accessory, but had commented frequently and earnestly on how pretty she was.
David glanced at her and smiled. She felt suddenly exposed and bobbed her head to summon her shield of hair out of habit. When it failed to cover her, she looked away and hoped her cheeks didn’t blush.
“It’s going to be a great dance,” David said.
“It’ll be the best I’ve ever been to,” said Jennifer.
“You’ve never gone to one before,” said Brian.
“Then you have a chance to set a high bar,” she giggled.
“He’s from the res,” Midge said suddenly.
“What?” said Aubrey.
“My date,” said Midge to her lunch tray. “He’s lives on the reservation.”
“Oh,” said Jennifer.
“That’s fine,” said David. “As long as he likes warm punch, he’ll fit right in.”
Midge relaxed and finished her lunch. Aubrey talked about dancing and wanted to know what everyone did with their arms during a two-step.
Eleanor listened to her friends talk, but her mood had darkened. Like Jennifer, she was unsure about an Indian joining their group.
She mulled it over with Tabitha that night as they fitted the dress. Without a sewing machine, Tabitha had done all the stitching by hand. “I got nothing better to do,” she said through a mouthful of pins. She understood Eleanor’s trepidation with Midge’s date, but told her to ignore it.
“You’re going to run into people,” she said. “You can’t hold what others did against them. That’s just wrong.”
“I’m scared,” she said.
“You’re always scared, cupcake,” she said. “And that’s healthy, especially for you. But they’re just people. People do dumb things, ignorant things, all the time. But even the ones who are stupid are not without value. They can learn. People can change. I’ve often thought that even those Indians back then lived to regret what they did. I don’t mean they were punished, or put on trial or anything. I’m not that optimistic. But I bet it weighed on their souls.”
Eleanor didn’t think so. But Tabitha was right. She was being prejudiced. She’d gotten along well enough with Robby Guide. True, he’d not moved to their lunch table, but maybe he had a better offer. Or maybe he’d sensed Eleanor’s unease with him and stayed away out of courtesy. And then she wondered, as she always did around Native Americans, if he hadn’t sensed what Eleanor really was and kept away because of it.
“You’re going to be the prettiest girl there,” Tabitha said, standing to admire her work. Eleanor turned around and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t recognize herself. It took her breath away. She was beautiful.