CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT | DESIREE
‘WELCOME TO HARTFORD HIGH HOMECOMING’
I glanced up at giant hand-painted sign that was hanging over the gymnasium doors and took a deep breath.
I had never really been the ‘school dance’ type, and chaperoning the annual homecoming affair had always seemed to rekindle some of the deeply rooted anxiety leftover from my own time in high school.
It didn’t help that the campus was sprawling with glitzy prom dresses and rented tuxedos.
I felt dramatically underdressed in my black and white dalmatian print Ann Taylor LOFT dress and black blazer, which were accented with my official ‘school dance chaperone’ accessories, a walkie-talkie, name tag lanyard, and bright red whistle -- or, as the principal had called it, the ‘Twerk Alert.’
Apparently one of my dance monitor duties was blowing the whistle if I witnessed any form of inappropriate conduct, which included things like twerking, gyrating and -- my personal favorite -- ‘excessive fondling.’
To help the volunteer committee of chaperones crack down on said behavior, the principal had even played us an assortment of YouTube videos exemplifying the outlawed practices. I still wasn’t 100% sure what I was looking for, but I had the general impression that if I saw anyone dancing in a manner that could give Cardi B a run for her money, I was supposed to blow my whistle.
For now, I let the instrument bob around my neck as I navigated the crowds of students milling towards the gym entrance.
A red carpet had been rolled out leading to the main entrance, and a canopy of red and blue balloons had been built over the doors. A photographer was snapping pictures of the couples as they entered the dance, and a table was set up to solicit votes for Homecoming Queen and King.
Inside the gym, the decorations were even more elaborate. The ceiling was completely hidden under a mess of a streamers and balloons. Disco lights had been set up, flicking colorful strobes and beams across the dance floor. Giant speakers were blasting Top 40s remixes, and a DJ was bobbing his head behind the booth as he clicked through a playlist on his MacBook.
Students had started to trickle into the gym, but instead of venturing out onto the dancefloor they clung awkwardly to the perimeter walls. I couldn’t blame ‘em; the thought of doing anything remotely similar to dancing without the liquid courage from a glass of wine was unfathomable to me.
“Hey, Miss L!” a voice called. I spun around and saw a girl waving eagerly as she pranced across the dancefloor towards me.
She was wearing a black tulle skirt, fishnet stockings, and a pair of hot pink Converse sneakers. Her hair was twisted into an elaborate up-do, her glittery makeup looked professionally done, and she was wearing a smile so bright that it could easily replace the strobe lights and illuminate the entire gymnasium.
She looked like a punk rock Cinderella, and it wasn’t until she was a few paces away that I realized who I was looking at.
“Oh my God, Callie!” I gasped. “You look… amazing!”
“Thank you,” she blushed. Then she gave a little twirl and added proudly, “I made my own dress!”
“I love it!” I said, admiring the carefully crafted tulle. Then I spotted someone lurking behind her.
“Miss L, I’d like you to meet my date!” she glanced over her shoulder and held out her hand, and a guy with shaggy dark hair and an oversized suit stepped forward awkwardly and took her hand in his. I immediately recognized him as the secret crush Callie had pointed out the other day, at the bus lanes.
“This is Louis,” Callie said, flashing another megawatt smile. Then she mouthed silently, ‘I asked him to the dance and he said YES!’
I grinned and gave Callie a wink, then I turned to address her date,
“It’s so nice to meet you, Louis!”
Callie gave me a little wave, then I watched the new couple wander hand-in-hand towards the bleachers at the opposite side of the gym.
Watching them, I couldn’t help but feel reminded of Rory. My heart started to sag in my chest, but I forced myself to ignore it. The gym was starting to fill up with students, and I had to focus on my chaperone duties.
I busied myself by making laps around the dancefloor. I was on my fifth trip when I heard someone call my name from across the gym. This time, it was one of my fellow chaperones; a mousy little woman who taught French and Creative Writing.
“Miss Leduc, could I get some help over here?” she made a point of pronouncing my surname with a contrived French accent a she waved me over towards the corner of the gym, where a long table had been set up with refreshments and a punchbowl.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“We need to replenish some of the snack trays,” she said, pointing down at a partially-depleted plate of cookies. “Could you run to the supply closet down the hall and grab some more snacks for me?”
“I’m on it,” I said, giving her a thumbs-up. I made my way across the gym, then slipped out a pair of double doors that opened out to the hallway.
The sterile white lighting and silence was an immediate relief from the chaos of the gym, and I found myself dragging my feet as I made my way down the hall.
The supply closet door was unlocked, and I had just stepped inside and started to dig around for the package of cookies when I suddenly heard an all-too-familiar noise, the loud scream of a fire alarm, wailing through the cinder block walls.
It’s probably just a homecoming prank, I tried to convince myself as I continued my cookie quest. What are the chances of TWO school fires, within weeks of each other?!
But the longer the siren wailed, the more and more I started to wonder if there really was a fire. By the time I had stuffed a package of cookies under my arm and stepped back out into the hallway, my heart was racing.
I sprinted back towards the gym, but when I threw open the double-doors and stepped inside, I found the entire room deserted. Everyone was gone.
Shit! I started to sprint across the dancefloor, making my way towards the main set of doors that led outside. I was halfway across the gym floor when the alarm suddenly cut off.
I froze, standing perfectly still in the middle of the dancefloor. The bright disco lights were still strobing through all the colors of the rainbow, but gym was completely silent; no music, no siren… nothing.
Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in some teenage slasher movie?!
Suddenly the sound system crackled back to life, but this time it wasn’t some mindless Top 40s hit that drifted from the giant speakers. Instead, it was a track that I recognized right away; a track that -- I was fairly certain -- had never, in the history of Hartford High, been played during a school dance,
It was The Cure’s ‘Lovesong.’
The music flooded the empty gymnasium, and I felt my heart racing even harder than it had been moments earlier, when I thought the school was on fire again. My eyes were spinning around the room, and that’s when I saw him stride out from the shadows, the fireman.
His heavy boots rumbled on the wooden floor as he stepped towards me. He was wearing all-black fire gear and a matching helmet and mask that covered his face. A single pink rose was wedged in the front of his turnout coat, like a makeshift boutonniere.
I already knew exactly who was under that suit… but I still felt all the breath swoosh out of my lungs when he lifted off his helmet and revealed himself to me.
“Rory,” I stammered. “Wh-what are you doing here?!”
“I needed to see you,” he said. “You weren’t taking any of my calls, and I wanted to explain myself.”
“I didn’t see the point,” I shrugged my shoulders. “I didn’t want to take you away from your family…”
“You’re my family, Des,” Rory said. “You always have been. You were the only family I had when I was growing up.”
“But now you have a real family.”
“I have a daughter,” he corrected me.
“And your daughter has a mother…”
“Biologically, yes,” Rory conceded. “But sharing DNA or a child with someone doesn’t make them your family. I learned that the day my mother signed away her legal right to me at the courthouse.”
I bit my lip, remembering the night Rory had told me about what happened at the courthouse. My heart swelled and I swallowed heavily.
“Well, Charlotte’s mother seemed pretty adamant that you were one big happy family--” I started to say, but Rory cut me off,
“Charlotte’s mother has a lot of issues,” he said. “She’s a liar and a cheater and a manipulator and an addict; she’s everything I grew up with, and she’s everything that I wanted to shelter my daughter from. But Charlotte doesn’t see those things. She just loves her mother unconditionally.”
“I get it,” I nodded, understanding. “You want to protect Charlotte, but at the same time… you don’t want her to grow up without a mother.”
Rory nodded his head slowly.
“But I finally realized that’s not a choice I get to make,” he said. “I can’t force her to be the mother that our daughter deserves, but I can decide what I need to do to protect my daughter.”
He swallowed heavily and stared at the floor.
“She just checked into a court-mandated, ninety-day inpatient rehab program,” he said. “If she’s able to stay clean, then she can avoid jail time. If not…”
“That’s her decision to make,” I said.
“You’re right,” Rory nodded. “I just hope that Charlie will see it that way, someday.”
“Of course she will.”
“She’s been asking about you a lot,” his eyes flicked back up to mine, and his lips turned up into a lopsided smile.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “She wants to know when you’re coming back.”
I smiled softly, cocking my head.
“I wanted you to come back, too,” he said. “You and Charlie are my family, Des. I want us to all be a family together.”
I tried biting my lip but I couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across my face as I strode across the dancefloor, closing the distance between Rory and me.
“I’d like that,” I said. “I’d like that a lot.”
Rory smiled, then he offered me his hand.
“So… are you gonna dance with me, or what?”
I took his hand and he pulled me into his arms. In his black fire gear, I could barely reach my arms all the way around him… but as he cradled me to his chest, I had never felt safer or more at home in my entire life.
We had the dancefloor all to ourselves. Our song continued to play through the speakers, and the lights strobed all around us. It had taken eleven years, but I finally got my perfect Homecoming date.
As the song drifted to a close, he tilted my chin up and whispered, “I love you, Des.”
“I love you, too.”
Then he kissed me.