The Perfect Couple

37

"We have to tell Mrs. McGrew the truth," I said when Marcus and I finally got a chance to talk. We'd both had to hurry back to class when we'd left the vice-principal's office and all the rest of the day we hadn't had a minute alone. Even after school Mom had picked me up for a dental appointment, so I didn't get a chance to see him at all. The minute I got home from the dentist I dashed down the street.

Marcus was waiting for me. We went to the garage and sat in his mother's car, one of our favourite places when we wanted to have a serious talk. As bad a job as we were in right now I could tell that Marcus liked the feeling of sitting behind the wheel.

"We simply can't go through with it,"I said more urgently, as he just sat there, probably pretending to himself he was driving. "We'd be frauds. What qualifies us to be sweethearts of the ball collecting trash together? Shooting baskets? Dumping on each other whenever something bothers us? That doesn't make us sweethearts, it makes us friends. Sure, they want a couple who have a friendly relationship, but there's also supposed to be a big romance between them. Why did you say we do our best to be worthy of the honor when you know very well we're not worthy of it?"

Marcus looked at me finally and I could see now now he hadn't been pretending he was driving. He'd been thinking very seriously about the situation we were in.

"We have to go through with it, Kelly," he said. His voice was getting deep, I noticed as if that had anything to do with anything.

"Why, I'd like to know!" I responded. "We can go to Mrs McGrew tomorrow and tell her we've changed our minds. We can tell her we've broken up!"

Marcus shook his head in the stubborn the way he had when he was very sure he was right about something. "We're not going to do that. We got ourselves into this and we're going to see it through. The committee is already going ahead with their publicity. We can't let them down."

I refused to accept that. "When we started pretending we were sweethearts there was no way we could imagine anything like this was going to happen."

"That's true, but it has happened. We've been weaving a tangled web with our deception," Marcus said quietly. "Just like that quotation . . . you know the one."

"Yeah, I know," I mumbled.

At that point Megan came through the adjoining kitchen door. "What are you doing in mama's car?" She demanded of Marcus in her brattiest tone. "Are you going to drive it? If you do I'm coming along."

"You know I sat here lots of times before," Marcus told her.

"But you're almost old enough to drive now."

"Almost doesn't count. So do me a favour, will you and go play with your dolls?"

"You know I don't play with dolls!" She couldn't have been more indignant if she been accused of stealing. Before she disappeared into the kitchen she remembered her manners enough to say, "Hi, Kelly."

It occurred to me that if if Marcus and I did have a romance going, she'd be a serious impediment to it.

Marcus turn to me again. "How about it, Kelly? Will you pretend we're really sweethearts for just that one night?"

His eyes looked anxiously into mine. I was surprised that he felt so strongly about us being the sweethearts. Wasn't the kind of thing I thought he'd go for, but it's obviously meant a lot to him. All of a sudden I made up my mind.

"Why not?" I said, putting a bright note in my voice. "I guess it's the least we can do for dear old Bayside High."

I don't know who hugged whom first, but we just about choked each other as we agreed we'd put on such a good show no one I would ever guess that the sweethearts of the Christmas ball were just good friends.

As soon as I left Marcus's, I ran over to Kim's. Luckily she was home. I would have put out an A.P.B. for her if she hadn't been. She let me in and hurried me up to her room. Her mother was in the living room with some of the cast of The Glass Menagerie. Kim whispered that she was laying low so she wouldn't be pressed into reading a part as she sometimes was.

In the comparative safety of her room, we flopped on the bed, me at the foot, she at the head, in the lotus position. I'd tried that once and it had taken both Kim and her mother to get me out of it, so I just drew my knees up to my chin.

"I called you a while ago to see if I could come over, but the answering machine was on," Kim told me.

"Oh, yeah. I was at marcus's."

"It seems to me you're seeing a lot of Marcus lately. Is it getting serious? I've noticed you don't talk about Alan as much as you used to."

I threw a pillow at her. "Just because I don't talk about him every minute doesn't mean I don't think about him all the time."

She threw the pillow back at me. "So, okay, what's up? Even if I didn't know you so well I know you were bursting with some news."

"You're right," I admitted. "The most incredible thing has happened."

"Like what?"

"Like Marcus and I have been chosen sweethearts of the Christmas Ball."

I'd handed her some big surprises lately, but nothing like this. When she'd stopped sputtering and had begun to speak coherently she began to bombard me with questions and finally I spilled out the whole story, right down to Marcus convincing me had to go through with it.

"There was something I couldn't tell him, though. Oh, I guess I could have, but for some reason I didn't. This means I won't be able to go to the dance with Alan, even if he asks me me and I swore I would go with him."

Kim stared at me. "I can't believe you see that as a problem. In the first place Alan hasn't asked you to the dance and you don't know that he would. The important thing, though, is that this is the best way in the world to impress him. Do you remember how beautiful Christine Thomas looked last year, as sweetheart of the ball?"

I remembered, all right. With the spotlights on her long white, full-skirted dress with rows and rows of little tucks and a corsage of red baby roses, she'd looked like a fairytale princess. Before that I'd always thought she was quite ordinary looking.

"Yeah, I see your point," I told Kim. "There's something magic about being sweetheart of the ball."

Kim nodded vigorously. "It's pure magic. Every boy there will fall in love with you and every girl will fall in love with Marcus."

My mouth fell open at that. But then I realized that I had a brief if crush on Christine's partner last year. He looked so different from the skinny kid I saw around school every day. Would Marcus suddenly look like Prince Charming?