The Worst Night of My Life
The sequins scratch my upper thigh and I wonder why I agreed to do this.
I had a bad feeling from the start. Two weeks ago, in the bleachers, as the crowd flooded in for the JV basketball game, Haley Stewart held up three black body-hugging dresses with strands of fringe that wrapped around like stripes on a slutty candy cane. The dresses were so short, so tight, they wouldn’t pass dress code even if girls were wearing them.
Six-foot-one Joe Thomas was skeptical. “Is this a joke? There’s no way Cole’s thighs are fittin’ in that thing.”
Damien Cole, too, was reluctant. “All three of us wear these itty-bitty dresses? I don’t know, girl.”
I stood still. Any motion seemed liable to give me away. I tried to mimic Joe’s and Damien’s hesitant expressions, tried not to give away how desperately I wanted to wear that dress, how vitally I needed to wear that dress, how my heart could not possibly continue beating if I knew that itty-bitty dress existed in this world and I was not the one wearing it.
And if you want something that badly, it’s bound to be bad for you.
Now, two weeks later—waiting in the wings as a packed auditorium heckles an empty stage, busting out of my dream dress like a partially popped can of Pillsbury crescent rolls—I need to get out of this dress. The lining under the sequins feels like chicken pox. The arm holes are too tight, like I’m wrapped in fishing wire. One thing is clear: This is a terrible idea.
The thing is, I had no choice. At least that’s what I’ll tell my parents. That’s what I’ll tell my boyfriend. I had no choice. Seconds before the JV basketball game started, Haley, who’s been a teenager since she was six years old, drew on the same authority that gets her dates with upperclassmen and extensions on math homework. “It’ll be hilarious, and we’re not actually asking you, we’re telling you that we picked you and you’re doing it,” she said, as decisive as a slammed locker. “Me and Beth will finish ‘rollin’ on the riverrrr’ really slow, and then the music goes fast, and you’ll run out from offstage and start the dance.”
“And then we’ll snatch our talent show trophy,” Beth added, with a rhythmic shoulder shimmy.
I blame my brother, actually. “If you wanna do it, do it, bud. Who cares what other people might say?” he said. “Be yourself! Your full sequin-y self.”
How could I have ignored so many warning signs?
First of all, our dress rehearsal was too much fun. Squeezed into skintight dresses, we twirled around like giddy schoolgirls playing princess dress-up. Joe and Damien were even more enthusiastic than I was, spinning on their tiptoes, the fringe of their dresses flying like helicopter blades, while I, the only one dainty enough to fit into Haley’s heels, practiced strutting like a supermodel.
If you’re over twelve years old and you’re having that much fun, unassisted by drugs or alcohol, something bad is about to happen.
And second of all, the dress rehearsal was too good. Say what you want about straight dudes, but Joe and Damien had practiced that choreo to perfection. “Nah, man, you gotta flop your wrist to the side, like a little baby swan. Boom-boom-kat!” Joe instructed. “Stick your arm up and flop the wrist. Bam. On the beat. See? Fierce.” He demonstrated about a dozen wrist flicks while I processed how bizarre it was to have Annondale’s starting power forward telling me my wrists weren’t floppy enough. Eventually, we nailed it. Every move.
And anyone who’s been in a single spring musical knows that the only way to have a good performance is to have a bad dress rehearsal.
Now, in the wings, we wait for our cue. Damien adjusts his dress, smooths down his fringe, straightens out Joe’s wig. “Bro, you were not born to be a blonde,” he jokes.
“Listen, we can’t all be as pretty as Davis,” Joe says, giving me a backslap that hurls me off my heels. Damien steadies me, and the three of us wrap our arms around each other. “All right, fellas, let’s make this a night they’ll never forget.”
The background track starts. Low, slow notes from a single guitar. Haley and Beth enter from stage right. The audience explodes before they even sing a single note. Haley, with a raspy whisper, tells the crowd how we never do anything nice and easy.
I’m so certain things are about to go horribly wrong that I’m not even nervous.
“Let’s do this!” Joe shouts as we burst into the lights.
* * *
People tell you to be yourself, as if it’s possible to have any idea who that is.
I count about a thousand different selves. There’s the person I am at school and the person I am at parties. There’s the kid who makes loud jokes in the lunchroom and the kid who can’t say the first hello. The me who wants to have abs and the me who wants to eat Froot Loops out of the box. There’s scared me in gym class and silly me at theater camp, plus hundreds and hundreds more all fighting for prominence inside one skinny battlefield known as my body.
The real me? Who knows? They’re all real and they’re all fake. The secret is controlling who sees what.
And now the entire city of Annondale is about to see the me who wanted to wear this dress. And that is some super gay toothpaste that can’t go back in the tube.
* * *
I’d mentally prepared for every possible scenario except what actually happens: It’s the greatest three minutes of my life.
Under the blinding lights, my heels feel like wings.
The dance moves dance themselves. Rapturous applause—miraculous applause!—lifts us toward the sky while I wonder if it’s possible that my smile is wider than the stage. Perhaps a reward for going to church every Sunday for sixteen years: my first miracle. The satisfaction is so consuming I don’t even think to laugh at my earlier self, that nervous wreck who was convinced everything would go wrong.
Backstage, the celebration continues. It’s my third school talent show, but the first with an after-party. Where were these superfans last year when I nailed that high note from Les Mis? Half of Annondale High wait with flowers and compliments, bursting to congratulate Haley, Beth, or their gender-bending backup dancers already mythologized as the Riverboat Queens.
“I swear, it was like I blacked out up there. What just happened? That was insane!”
“They were going crazy.”
“Dude. Little Davis. Your dance solo? In the heels?! People lost their goddamn minds!”
“It was the most epic performance in the history of epic performances. You guys killed it!”
“How did you keep it a surprise?”
“Those dresses, though. Yo, Joe, you got some titties!”
“You better take that off or you’re about to get yourself a boyfriend.”
“Mark, girrrl, you honestly slayed.”
I turn to the groupie formerly known as Jia from chemistry class. “Hey, have you seen John?”
She responds with theatrical pizzazz like she’s impersonating something she’s heard on TV. “Yasss, Queen!”
“You have? Amazing.” I exhale, then raise my eyebrows impatiently. “Where?”
“Oh. No. Not actually. I’ve just always wanted to say that.”
I scan through the crowd, searching. Where is he? I even put my heels back on to get a better view. Behind me, two seniors sneak shots from a silver flask, not realizing that the greenroom mirror reflects every swig into the teacher-infested hallway.
“Out, out, out,” Mr. Wagner shouts as he shuffles them away. “If you were not in the show, you can wait for people in the Hall of Fame hallway. We have got to clear this area. I do not get paid to be your little chaperone.”
With a collective moan, the rowdy crowd thins. I get trapped in a circle of sophomore girls complimenting my legs.
“You look better in a dress than half the actual girls in our grade.”
“Wait, did you shave?”
“No, his leg hair’s just really light.”
“I’d honestly murder someone to have your legs.”
Finally, I see him. John.
He’s celebrating with Damien and Joe, who have actually added makeup since I last saw them. He must not have been able to find me through the crowd.
I get excited, in advance, for the hug. His arms, the squeeze.
It’s not like it’s some big accomplishment, like I need some grand validation from him. We nailed some simple choreo.
But I don’t know—maybe I’m so happy because I thought it’d be so horrible? Maybe everything truly awesome starts with the possibility of tragedy? Maybe I just want a kiss.
I get closer and hear him hyping up Damien and Joe. “I didn’t think it was humanly possible to wear a shorter skirt than that powder-puff game. Dudes, y’all killed it.”
I’m ecstatic just to see him—my boyfriend!—on what’s quickly becoming the happiest night of my life.
He turns.
The hallway and everyone in it disappear. He’s always had that effect on me. The room could be full of shirtless firefighters and loose cash and I wouldn’t notice anything but John.
He sees me. Finally, he sees me.
I smile as I float up on my tiptoes, so high my borrowed heels lift off the ground.
His eyes talk first.
He leans away slightly. Looks me up and down.
Slowly, I take off my wig, hold it by my side.
The stringy synthetic hair scrapes the linoleum floor as I tug at my too-short dress.
I wait for him to say something—anything.
“You gonna change?”
Copyright © 2023 by Dan Clay
