The Best of Times

As pre-teens, my sister and I played a board game called "Mystery Date." I don't remember the rules, but the objective was to prepare for a date by acquiring three matching color-coded cards to assemble an outfit for a specific kind of date. The clothing had to match the outfit of the boy who was waiting at the plastic "mystery" door. My older sister and I inherited the game, along with a Midge doll, from an older cousin. With her plastic case full of threadbare finery and multiple pairs of plastic stilettos, Midge was the only fashion doll we ever owned. And the frivolous "Mystery Date" wasn't the kind of game my parents would have purchased for their young daughters. Yet I loved the glamorous ball gown and accessories for the formal dance date. I often daydreamed about the beautiful dress I would wear to my future high school prom and the young man who would proudly escort me to the dance floor.

Fast forward to April 1981. Now seventeen, I took a deep breath and waited for the last student to amble from the language arts classroom. Through the open windows of the crusty small-town high school, adolescent laughter and conversation laced the soft afternoon air like wispy seeds from the cottonwood trees. I yearned to hurry down the hill and turn corners in a merciful split second, to shut my bedroom door on the news a friend had shared that morning. During my absence on a Spanish club trip the week before, my favorite teacher had told at least one class that I'd rejected her son's  invitation to the upcoming prom. 

In fifth grade, I'd envied him because his mom reportedly paid him $5.00 every time he read a book. In eighth grade, I nurtured a brief crush on him before I made the conscious decision to avoid teenage romance. (Not that any boys noticed.) Since we started high school, he hadn't talked to me about anything except yearbook photos or assignments for the school newspaper. 

More hurt than angry, I walked to Mrs. R.*'s desk and struggled to maintain eye contact as I set the story straight. Few students dared ignite her temper; one of the few professional women who'd grown up in our southern Utah town, she governed her students with a firm hand and lightning-sharp flashes of humor. I had blossomed from her encouragement of my attempts at writing and had willingly spent countless hours working as assistant newspaper editor. How she could believe I had turned down her son because he wasn't a practicing Mormon? I was religious, but not a prude.

After a long pause, she said, "I owe you an apology. When Darren* was trying to decide who to ask to the dance, I suggested you. Because--forgive me--I thought you might be one who'd be left out."

This painful truth didn't sink in as I smiled, said things were O.K., and walked a wind-blown mile to my home on the north end of town. It didn't penetrate my fog of anxiety as I slipped into ratty jeans and a t-shirt to paint a mural of an elegant garden for the prom. The large butcher-paper masterpiece taped to my bedroom wall would be hung as a backdrop for photographs of smiling couples during the dance. During the early stages of painting, the head cheerleader and her best friend came to see how much progress I'd made. Smiling and laughing, they returned to their decorating duties at the school, where they told other classmates the mural looked terrible. Even though their cattiness left me fuming, I doggedly painted a graceful tree loaded with blossoms that my untrained hand tried to accent with illusions of light.

A formal dress hung in my closet, but it wasn't the peach-colored Gunne Sax confection that had caught my eye during a shopping trip in St. George. Instead, I had conceded to my mom's sweet-voiced preference for an ivory gown with a three-tiered skirt that washed out my pale complexion. But the dress didn't make any difference. My left hand ached from hours of wielding a paintbrush. My hair, face, and clothes were smeared with a garish display of colors. As junior class president, I felt like a dependable work-horse who would attend the dance just long enough to endure the traditional class promenade and coronation of the prom royalty. Then I planned to drive home, fall into bed, and sleep.

Two nights before the big event, my mom called me downstairs to answer the phone. It was a Rob*, a young man who had recently returned from a L.D.S. mission. (In our town, returned missionaries sometimes dated high school girls.) In a hesitant voice, he asked if I would go with him to the dance. Surprised, yet ecstatic, I said yes.

The evening of the prom washed the high desert hills with layers of lavender sunset. After removing the cooled electric rollers from my naturally straight hair, I tried to brush layers of curls into Farrah Fawcett perfection. At last I was primped, painted, and hair-sprayed for my mystery date. When I walked downstairs in the ivory dress, my oldest sister's fiancee gaped in admiration and exclaimed, "Here comes the bride!" 

I blushed in discomfort and wobbled as fast as my high heels allowed to the living room to wait.

Wearing a dark brown suit leftover from his missionary days, Rob finally knocked on the front door. He was shorter than I expected and wouldn't look me in the eye as I invited him inside. Finally, he shifted his feet and held out a large corsage of deep red roses.

Beaming with pride, my mom volunteered to pin the corsage on the crocheted lace ruffle that accented the neckline of my dress. But my hands shook as I tried to secure a boutonniere on the lapel of Rob's suit coat. This young man was a complete stranger whose shyness aroused my sympathy when he spoke in our church meeting months before.  He didn't want to be here. What would we say to each other for the next three hours?

Once we arrived at the school multipurpose room, the throbbing beat of the live band solved most of the dilemma. Neither of us knew how to dance. But in that crepe paper palace of the early 1980s, we merely blended into the adolescent herd, exchanging forced smiles as we rocked from one foot to another or endured slow-song shuffles under a suspended disco ball.  Between songs, our attempts to prop up conversation dissolved into the surrounding hum of scattered phrases and a haze of musk aftershave mingled Jean Nate cologne. The last vestiges of my pre-date excitement vanished like careful bites of anemic sheet cake slathered with frosting that tasted too much like shortening. 

Rob never asked the photographers to take our picture in front of my painted garden. My mom snapped a Polaroid photo of my dad dancing with me after the promenade, while a duo of classmates sang a strained imitation of the Styx hit single, "The Best of Times." Then the head cheerleader was crowned prom queen, with her best friend as one of the attendants. All of the royalty smiled for Darren's yearbook camera in front of my blossoming tree.

Rob and I didn't say much during the drive home. But he shook my hand on the front porch and said, "Hey, we'll have to do this again some time."

He never called and it's just as well. On Monday, my friend admitted that Rob had asked me to dance as a kind of service project. His plan to double-date had fallen through. Eventually my corsage was shoved to the back of our fridge where it wilted behind gallons of milk and a five-pound block of Brooklawn cheese.

*Names have been changed.