It was time to find a dress.
I had never bought a dress for homecoming before, of course, and when I suggested we just buy something from Walmart, the very idea nearly drove Layla to hysterics. She insisted that we order our dresses from some website based out of New York she used for all of hers, but it was way too expensive. As a compromise, we drove half an hour southeast to the nearest mall and ventured into JCPenney.
Layla wore a pea coat and opaque Jackie-O glasses, as if afraid someone might see her and undermine her fashionista cred. The rest of us, anticipating a lot of time spent in dressing rooms, had stuck to zip-up hoodies and jeans.
“Let’s get something to eat,” I announced as we passed through the food court.
“Okay,” Layla said grudgingly, “but don’t overdo it. And nothing salty! If you get all bloated the dresses won’t fit right and you’ll end up looking frumpy at homecoming.”
“Say it ain’t so,” Chloe said, pulling out a chair next to me.
“I’ve been waiting eight years to get you in a dress,” Layla said, locking her gaze on Chloe determinedly. “You’re in my world now.”
“Whatever,” Chloe replied. “I want Taco Bell.”
“I said no salt!” Layla yelled, hurrying after her as she left to get our food.
“You okay?” Anna chirped as she sat across from me.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, taking two deep breaths and forcing a smile. This was the first time I had been in a mall since that day in the bathroom, and I was trying not to think about it. “I’m really excited, actually.” It wasn’t a lie, really; I was with my girlfriends, shopping for a dress for an actual dance with my actual boyfriend. I had been excited all the way there, and I would probably be excited again once we were in the store. “You?”
“A little nervous,” she said, twisting her fingers in her shimmering curtain of hair and pinching her mouth in worry.
“Your parents?”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “I’ve been skipping lunch for a year, saving the money they give me without them knowing. I feel really bad for lying.”
I wanted to say, Your parents are jerks and they don’t deserve you, but what I said instead was, “You’re practically eighteen, and it’s just a dress.”
“It’s not, though. You should hear what they say about Layla for wearing clothes that, like, show her collarbones.” Anna buried her face in her hands and groaned. “This is a mistake. What if they find the dress before homecoming?”
“It’s not a mistake,” I said. “It’s your life and it’s your body. Dress it however you want.” I caught Chloe coming back with a bag of tacos, Layla following with her shoulders sagging in defeat, and smiled. “And you can keep the dress at my apartment until homecoming.”
“Thank you,” Anna said with a grateful smile.
“It is literally the least I could do,” I said before Chloe and Layla sat down and three out of the four of us dug into our delicious sodium-filled tacos.
* * *
“Okay, listen,” Layla said, pulling us into a huddle in the middle of the women’s section. “This is a huge oversimplification but, no offense, I’m starting from square one with you guys. Amanda is a spring, Chloe is an autumn, and Anna, you’re a summer.”
“I’m also a Scorpio!” I said, giving her a cheesy grin.
“Don’t sass me,” Layla said, but then paused and added, “Wait, really? Your birthday must be soon.”
“You guys know astrology’s a form of witchcraft, right?” Anna said, frowning.
“Anna,” Layla said, “I love you, but shush.” She closed her eyes, took a breath, and resumed. “Chloe, the words I want you to keep in mind are ‘earth tones.’ Stick to greens and browns. You can maybe get away with a blue or a red, but it has to be really muted.”
“You can mute colors?” Chloe said.
Layla sighed and turned her attention to Anna next. “Anna, I want you to bring me anything in sort of a light purple—lavender, fuchsia, mauve, you get the idea.” Anna nodded seriously and strode off on her tiny legs to begin her quest. “And Amanda, you’re looking for jewel tones and sunset colors. Deep sunset colors. Does that make sense?”
“Got it, Coach!” I barked before turning and jogging off into the racks.
“What did I say about sass?” she called after me.
Ten minutes later I arrived at the dressing rooms with a half dozen options draped over my arm. Chloe shuffled out of one of the stalls looking miserable, swapping a pile of brown and green dresses for another dozen.
I entered a stall adjacent to Chloe’s. She just groaned. I stuck my tongue out at an orange dress that had seemed promising on the rack but made me look like a traffic cone.
We were quiet for a moment, me intent on what I was doing and Chloe probably wishing it were spring so she could wear a softball uniform instead. Then she said, “Where were you last weekend? We missed you.”
“Last weekend?” I said, my voice cracking a little. I froze in the middle of picking up my last hope—a purple dress with a dramatic cowl neck. “A friend from Atlanta came into town and we hung out…” I paused. I didn’t want to lie to her. “With Bee.”
“Oh,” Chloe said flatly. The purple dress was gorgeous, but somehow I didn’t feel as excited anymore.
“Chloe—” I began, but she cut me short.
“Don’t,” she said. “It’s fine.”
“Chloe, wait,” I said as I hurriedly put the dresses back on their hangers and left the dressing room. “I’m Bee’s friend too—I have been since before I knew you two were a thing.”
“Whatever,” Chloe said, emerging from her dressing room. “She likes you, you know.”
“What?” I said. “We’re friends.”
“As more than friends,” Chloe said flatly.
“C’mon, Chloe,” I said, shaking my head. “She knows I’m straight.”
“I’ve had crushes on straight girls,” Chloe mumbled, her voice low enough that it was hard to hear.
“Just … no,” I said, shaking my head to dispel the thought. “We’re just friends, Chloe. And we were just hanging out. It didn’t occur to me it would hurt you at the time,” I said.
“Well, it did.” She looked so lonely all of a sudden, standing there under the fluorescent light, next to that pile of rumpled dresses. I moved toward her, wanting to hug her but unsure if she would let me, when Layla rounded the corner, hangers dangling from her hands.
“Whoa!” she cried, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the mirror, taking in the purple dress. “Spin,” she ordered, and I obliged.
“Does the cowl neck make my shoulders look too big?” I asked as I came to a stop. I gazed at my profile in the mirror, grateful to have somewhere to look other than Chloe’s hurt gaze.
“No, it minimizes the shoulders,” Layla said with an eye-roll, but she was smiling. “Honestly, it’s like starting from scratch with you two. I ought to teach a class called ‘How to Be a Girl.’” She grabbed my discarded dresses to return them, and Chloe retreated back into her dressing room.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the closed door, Layla’s words ringing in my ears. I had never been good at being a boy, and I didn’t enjoy it very much, but there were parts to it that made a certain kind of sense—when boys were angry, they showed it with their fists, and then it was done. With girls, I knew, it was different. I had hurt Chloe without even realizing it, and unlike a bruise, it would take more than a few days to go away.