Free Prom Date by G. L. Snodgrass Page A

exasperated. “Mary is going with Troy. No way am I tagging along as a third wheel. It’s her special night too.”
    My phone ringing on the bedside table saved her from driving the spike in any deeper. She got up and left me. Looking back with a face narrowed in concern. I know her heart was breaking for me. My mom’s pretty cool like that. You know she cares. I also know that she can be a bit of a lioness at times.  Danny O’Brian had better not cross her path or he was going to find himself missing a couple of key assets from between his legs.
    I picked up my phone.
    “I just heard, Oh my god. What a douche.” Mary said before I could even say hello.
    “How is that possible, I only found out a few minutes ago?” I said between sniffles.
    “Danny told John who told his girlfriend Marla. She called Sandy who called me.”
    Great, everyone now knew about my humiliation. I wasn’t even allowed time to wallow in my misery before everyone wanted to stand around and watch.
    “Did he say why?” Mary asked.
    “No in so many words,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it’s because I told him I wouldn’t go to the hotel with him after the dance.”
    “What, he wanted you to go to a hotel?”
    “Yeah, a week ago he told me to make sure and tell my parents that I would be out all night and not to expect me back till the next morning.”
    “What’d you say,” Mary asked.
    “I told him I wasn’t comfortable doing that. We hadn’t known each other long enough. You know the normal excuses. No way was my first time going to be in the Ramada Inn after prom. I mean how cliché can you get?”
    “Why didn’t you tell me,” she said.
    “I don’t know. He didn’t press the matter and I figured it was all over with. The first hint I got that he wasn’t happy about it was the phone call a few minutes ago.”
    “Wow, what a douche.”
    I laughed. Mary is such a good friend. We 'd known each other since before kindergarten. Her family lived two doors down and our mothers were best friends. We were closer than sisters. We never fought. Well almost never, and when we did it was almost always my fault.
    “What are you going to do?” She said before pausing a moment. “Do you want to come with Troy and me?”
    I almost accepted. I so desperately wanted to go that I almost ruined my best friend’s prom night. Troy was a nice guy and he’d have tried to make it work. But no way was I doing that to Mary.
    “No that’s okay. Thanks anyway. I’ll just curl up on the couch with a gallon of Haagen-Dazs and think evil thoughts about Danny O’Brian and what I’m going to do to him in the next life.  I won’t have an opportunity in this life if my mom ever gets a hold of him.”
    She laughed. That’s the thing about Mary; she’ll laugh like you’re making a joke even when you’re dead serious.
    “Oh my god, I’ve got it,” she yelled into the phone. “Oh this is perfect. My brother can take you. He’s even got something to wear.”
    My stomach dropped. Mary’s little brother Jimmy was barely sixteen and a pimply-faced sophomore. He was a nice kid but I didn’t know about going to the prom with him. The only thing worse would be showing up alone.
    “I don’t know Mary … I, uh.”
    “No, this is perfect, he’s always liked you and he owes me big time.”
    Great, now I was a mercy date for a sophomore. How bad could it get?
    Mary must have sensed my hesitation because she pulled out the big guns. “I need you there Jenny. No way am I facing Chrissy Thompson alone.”
    “Well, uh …. I.”
    “Great, I’ll have him there in forty-five minutes. We can meet up at the dance and we'll have a great time. You’ll see. Thanks Jenny, you won’t regret it,” she said before quickly hanging up so that I couldn’t change my mind.
    “MOM,” I yelled down the stairs. “Mary’s little brother’s taking me, I need to get ready.” I had forty minutes to get dressed and somehow cover up these blotchy eyes. I looked