“But maybe it is.” She grabs my hand and finally looks me in the eye. “Maybe it’s just what you need to get over what happened with your parents.”
“Oh, I’m way over that.”
“Are you?” She squeezes my hand more tightly. “Then why does it always bug you so much when I bring up your dad? You always close off whenever I bring up trying to find him. But that’s exactly what I think you need to do, find him and talk to him. If you know what really happened, then you can make sure it doesn’t happen to us.”
“You think?” I have to admit the topic of finding my dad still annoys me, but I can’t show that now that she’s busted me for it.
“Yes, I do.” No more two-syllable yeses. Her voice has a whole tankful of certainty now. “I think it’s worth trying anything to keep us together.”
“But what if we find out something terrible, like that he’s a serial killer or a game-show host? Will you still want me to go with you to St. Louis then?”
“I’ll want you to go with me no matter what. The question is, do you want to go?”
Of course, I should do like Ricky told me, grow a spine and just tell her no, there’s no way I’m going to find my dad and no way I can move to St. Louis with her and no way we can ever work out in the long run. But Ricky’s not the one sitting here staring at the pleading in this girl’s pale blue eyes.
So I do the kind of thing I do instead—put my arm around her shoulder, pull her to me, and say, “Yes, I do. That could really work. You’re exactly right. Moving in together would be spectacular. In fact, that sounds like the greatest idea in the history of the universe.”
Chapter 52
Back in the banquet hall, the mood of the prom has changed. Or maybe it’s just that I’m sinking into the next stage of the life of the buzz—the lull, the valley that lies between peaks. This is just something that’s been happening lately. Used to, it was pretty much all peaks, but I guess you have to expect a valley every now and then when you’re in it for the long haul.
I look across the room, and this sorrowful feeling washes over me, almost bittersweet but with a whole lot more bitter. The beauty of the lame decorations has worn thin and now they’re just pathetic. The glitter is crumbling. Desperation seeps into the room. People’s smiles seem as fake as the cardboard moons.
This idea comes to me that we’re all grass blades on the same lawn. We’ve grown up together, shoulder to shoulder, under the same sun, drinking the same rain. But you know what happens to grass blades—somebody cuts them down just when they reach their prime.
A lot of kids have left for their after-parties. Cassidy and Marcus are nowhere to be seen. Neither is Ricky. But the dance floor’s still half-full, and that might be the worst thing of all. What is it about this crappy music that makes anyone even bother to lift a foot? It sounds like it was spit out by the atomic vampire’s de-soul-inator machine. Still, there they are, gyrating and grinning, even coming off with the occasional sexy pout they learned from TV. Zach Waldrop goes for a comedy dance to make up for his lack of rhythm. Mandy Stansberry, my old wild-child girlfriend from junior high, gives it the bump and grind like she’s the latest cookie-cutter teen pop diva. Or is it teen p**n diva? What’s the difference?
We’re not the Faster-than-the-Speed-of-Light Generation anymore. We’re not even the Next-New-Thing Generation. We’re the Soon-to-Be-Obsolete Kids, and we’ve crowded in here to hide from the future and the past. We know what’s up—the future looms straight ahead like a black wrought-iron gate and the past is charging after us a like a badass Doberman, only this one doesn’t have any letup in him.
That’s all right. Never fear. Sutter Keely is a veteran of the life of the buzz. I know the stages as well as I know the months of summer. And the only thing to do now is to power through the valley to the next stage—the I-don’t-give-a-damn-just-bring-it-on stage.
When the DJ takes a break, I nudge Aimee and go, “You know what? This prom’s turning to dust in its own casket. What it needs is a serious personality makeover, and I’m just the man for the job.” Without further explanation, I bounce right up to the DJ booth, ready to inject some essential Dean into the abyss.
But there’s a problem—the equipment is a little complicated and I’ve had a few drinks, so I abort the original mission and go for a new-and-improved one: the Sutterman himself belting out the Dino hits straight from his very own gut.
I tap the mike a couple of times. “Can I have everybody’s attention?”
Somewhere in the middle of the room, somebody yells, “Whoo! Sutter!”
“I just want to change the mood a little bit.” I give it my best suave-and-low microphone voice. “Add a little class to the evening. A little panache.”
I start off with “You’re Nobody ’Til Somebody Loves You,” giving it the full Dino croon. I crinkle my eyes like Dean and sway and wave my cup around like him.
“Ow!” someone yells a few tables away.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember all the words, so I have to segue into “Ain’t Love a Kick in the Head” after a few lines. But even that is a stroke of genius. The perfect medley. Those two songs pretty much sum up the state of the world. In fact, they’re not just songs. They’re revelations. Suddenly the prom has lost its cheese factor and a big fat dose of profound sweeps the room.
But there’s always somebody who doesn’t get it. Like Mr. Asterhole.