I manage to keep going. After, during the half-hearted applause, I look at my mother, covering her face with her hands; then on my way off the stage, I steal a look at one of the judges. Her face is kind, which helps me get to the car.
“You need to pray more,” my mother says on the way home. “I keep telling you to.”
“Oh, good God.”
She shakes her head and says something in Tagalog, then crosses herself. “Don’t make fun.”
“Sorry.” If only Paul hadn’t said what he said. I’m sure he didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m probably just being sensitive, making a big deal out of nothing.
I look out the window so she can’t see how close I am to crying. I read the freeway signs and try to forget who I am, and what just happened, try to space out on the road speeding past.
“Are you sure you can take all of this?” she asks.
“Please, Mom.”
“I just don’t like to watch you suffer.”
“I’m not suffering.”
I hear her reach for a tissue on the dashboard. The tires clunk over the divider, and I look over at her; she brings the car back to the center again. She wipes her eyes and her nose, and crumples the tissue in her pocket. Guilt washes over me.
“I really don’t know if this is a safe path for you,” she says. “It would be so much more practical if you just went into tech. There are so many jobs. And it wouldn’t be so hard for you. Don’t you think?”
I don’t answer her, hoping to bury her question with silence. Tech. It sounds like failing to me. Like settling for less than what I really want.
At lunchtime, as I emerge from the auditorium, Tash pounces with “Come to the dance with me!”
Her face is bright, but then it usually is when she’s talking about Tom. The boy who’s been showing her music.
“Seriously?” I sigh, arching my back, which has begun to ache from hunching over the keys for the last hour.
“Yeah, well, normally I wouldn’t go, either, but Tom’s going. His friend is deejaying. Weird, huh? Don’t you think it’s weird? I mean, our school with a DJ he’d know. Anyway, I know you hate dances, but will you come with me? Not go-go. Just you know, hang out there. Just in case.”
The end-of-the-year dance? Tash is sweet and dumb like that. She still thinks that a school dance could be what it looks like on TV.
“We said we’d skip junior prom for a reason.”
“Yeah, because you don’t want to go without a date.”
I frown at her. “That’s not fair. You have Tom to crush on. There isn’t a single boy in school I like.” There isn’t a single boy in school who likes me.
“Come on. It won’t be that bad,” she wheedles. “I can’t go alone.”
“Why not?”
She frowns. “You’ve been such a sourpuss lately.”
“Sorry.” I haven’t told her about my complete humiliation. Or what Paul said to me. I just don’t see the point of telling her. She’d just call him racist. And then I’d have to feel bad that I like him so much.
“Okayyyy. I’ll go,” I say. “But will you help me figure out what to wear?”
She gives me a brilliant smile. “’Course!”
On the way to the Haight, Tash puts on the playlist she’s been working on for Tom.
“You don’t mind, do you? I want your opinion.”
Tash’s playlists are massive undertakings. They’re like little kaleidoscopic worlds. Sonic dioramas. Usually we pick apart every song choice, every transition, listen to it with earbuds in the car and around her house, to see how it fits into different kinds of moods.
I feel a cold stab of guilt that I haven’t once offered to help.
It’s good — good transitions — but it’s made of songs I know too well. So dull. Like I’ve listened to them so many times, there’s no life left.
“What do you think?”
“It’s good!” I say, feeling another stab of guilt that now I’m lying to her.
At a vintage shop in the Haight, Tash flits from one rack to another, like a butterfly attracted to certain flowers, while I slowly flick dresses past me, working my way through the pale yellows, slowly deepening to mustard, zigzagging into the spring green, to forest green, to moss, to brown.
One is bad for my boobs, which are so small they’re mostly make-believe. One shows my tummy. One makes it so I can’t wear a bra. One fits perfectly but isn’t my color.
Dances are torture. Why did I say I’d do this?
“Ooh. Very ‘Future Sailors,’” Tash says, holding up a nautical halter. She means the silly song from The Mighty Boosh, this old TV show we used to watch religiously. I laugh, quote a lyric.
“You should try it on,” she says.
“It’s not too sexy?”
“Heavens no.”
I try on the top.
“Cute!” she says, her eyes drawing themselves up and down over me.
“It’s definitely not embarrassing,” I say, talking like my mom, trying to hide the fact that in fact, I feel shimmery inside.
The moment I see the open gymnasium doors, I hear the words slip out of my mouth — “Can I go home now?” No shimmers here. Just quaking in my shoes. Music too loud. Shoes too tight. Not enough people. Too many people. Why did I come? Clothing isn’t enough. Feeling ridiculous can’t be remedied by a shirt. All confidence has been obliterated by the sounds of Taylor Swift.
Tash’s already farther ahead, looking for the coat check, looking for Tom.
In her wake, I feel tiny.
On the basketball court, the preps are repeating the same dance routine, over and over, no matter what song comes on. In the corner, by the window, the one badass hip-hop dancer at our school shows off, trades off with other, lesser hip-hop dancers as a handful of boys watch. Everyone else is just standing there, looking awkward, yelling over the music. On the stage is the DJ — I guess it’s Tom’s friend — and Tom. He looks clean. His long bangs are falling in his face.
Tash drags me off to the side, close to the stage, where she can see Tom and Tom can see her, but not so close that he might think she’s stalking him, she says, which he might be thinking anyway. . . . Tash doesn’t hide. She can be seen in her yellow dress through the inky light. A gentle glow from cell phone screens bathes the blank faces of kids sitting along the walls on the bleachers. Tash tries a shimmy. I slide, pretend I can’t lift my feet from the floor. She laughs.
I turn around in place so everyone melts together, blurring the melting pot that our principal calls our school. There are the hoochie girls with their tight, stretchy clothes and awkward makeup. The preppy kids in V-neck T-shirts and particular shades of denim. That’s a large contingent, and not all Asian, just a mix of preppy types who I swear iron their jeans. Ryan DeGuzman is here, looking beautiful. I feel a jolt of nervousness just seeing him.
Timberlake segues effortlessly into Queen and Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” I feel a throb in my belly in answer to the hand claps. That soft, precise bass line. Only Bowie can make a finger snap sound urgent. Without resistance, my heart starts to feel like a helium-filled balloon inside me. I dance before I’m fully aware of it. “I can’t believe they’re playing this!” I yell to Tash, who nods, gritting her teeth and dancing like it’s the last thing she’ll do.