Dissonance | ✓

32 | Fandago

     Ah, the day before spring formal. A day of enthusiasm and anxiety and jitters and hopefulness. Giggling with friends about what would happen after the dance; praying to the formal gods to be elected into the formal court—for that year, they were Pixie Hollow King and Queen; bragging about how one's outfit for the night was better than another's; reminding each other of salon appointments in town.

     Not for the committee. The day before formal meant an entire afternoon dedicated to work. As everything was coming down to the wire, it was crunch time—the one time everyone needed to be present, yet it was as if there were less people present that meeting, and even more things to do. That left a greater load of work on those who had decided to come.

     All the members that were there scurried around the hall—arranging things, hauling things, hanging things—like worker bees, and Michelle was the queen. She hovered over everybody as she scolded them for doing poor jobs and dictated what they were supposed to do. If that one vessel at her temple was bulging when I first met her, then it was springing out of her head at that point. After a while, Michelle's voice became raspy from shouting over the buzzing people, her taut ponytail coming undone—along with herself. I would have taken a moment to split my sides open in laughter, had I not been apart of the chaos; vines had to be pinned to the ceiling; the entranceway needed assembling; the fog machines (what fog machines?) were to be placed where the belonged. To be honest, it was much easier to work without Michelle's steady screaming. I was glad when she took a seat in the corner and shoved a bottle of water into her mouth.

     Thankfully, when the work became too much for me to handle alone, which was probably all the time, I had Zoe and Wes to help me. Although they had their own things to do, we came together to get everything sorted. I deemed myself lucky to have them with me. As a group, we designed an impressive layout that earned us Michelle's nod of approval, and brought the design to life, exciting me for the night in the process.

     After the workload finally reduced and the general pace slowed, Michelle called everyone to the foot of the stage for a final talk.

     "I have to say, you guys pulled off a better job than I thought you would've." The words seemed to have pierced her throat as she said them; they came out very hard. "There's only a little left to do tomorrow, but I'll handle that with a few others. Thanks for being here, even though some of you had to, and I hope you guys have fun tomorrow night. If you don't, you have no one but yourselves to blame." With that, Michelle stretched her lips into a less-than-genuine smile and dismissed the committee for the last time, that year. It may have been in my head, but I could have sworn I heard a unisonous sigh escape from the hall as everybody plodded out.

     Zoe caught up to me when I was heading to the girls' side of campus, slinging an arm around my shoulder. "Glad that's over," she said, wiping off sweat from her bushy brows.

     I concurred, "Yeah. I don't think I would've been able to take much more of Michelle."

     "Well that sucks, because she's running for student body president next year."

     "God," I heaved. "I guess I'll have to find somebody to run against her just so she doesn't win."

     Zoe tittered at my comment, and we continued poking fun at Michelle (and the vein that we counted as a separate person) until we reached my dorm building, where I said bye to her and went inside.

     I was walking towards the elevators when I was stopped in my tracks by a bouncing Miss. Crawford. She wore a wide grin upon her face and tapped her clipboard in a syncopated rhythm. "Doesn't it feel good?" She chirped.

     "What feels good?" I asked impatiently, waiting for her to finish so I could go up to my dorm. I found myself tapping my foot furiously in time with her finger-drumming, and winced at the sudden surge of pain that licked my foot; working on my feet for several hours had my heels begging for a rest.

     "Being a barracuda!" Miss. Crawford barred her teeth as she said that, mimicking the fish. "You've included yourself in a school activity. You can finally call yourself a barracuda!"

     Personally, I did not understand the charm that came with being a barracuda—maybe it was just the title.

     "I guess it's okay." I shrugged. Miss. Crawford went on to drawl about how important it was to have a sense of belonging by joining school activities, how proud she was of the girls in our dormitory... My mind wandered as she spoke; I never noticed the paw prints painted on her jagged nails, nor did I see the puppy stickers stuck to her clipboard, either. I, personally, would have pegged the graying woman as a cat person.

     "I don't want to bore you anymore," Miss. Crawford brought me back from my observations to the conversation. "Just go up and have a good night!"

     I bid her goodnight and stepped onto the elevator that tugged me up to the third floor. I was relieved to find the hallway empty; recently, the notorious gossipers of that hall had abandoned their favorite hotspot, leaving it echoing with their old rumors. For a moment, I wondered if one of them ran The Word (that mean of gossip diffusion seemed right up their alley), but I doubted they possessed the capability to pull it off.

     In my dorm, Miranda was wringing water out of her coiled hair and onto the floor by her bed, making me cringe. "How many times have we been over this, Miranda? You can't do that!" I stressed, to which the girl just laughed at.

     She moved over to the window, where a fandango-pink gown with a ruched bodice hung on a hanger hooked to the curtain rod. Miranda stroked the fabric of the skirt, inspecting it for any wrinkles. Below the dress was a pair of black, strapped stilettos, and on the nightstand beside it were earrings and a matching necklace.

     "Whatever happened to being unexpected?" I asked from my bed. My friends happened," said Miranda with an eye roll, explaining how her friends back home had forced her into looking 'understated,' as she put it.

     I'm sure you'll look gorgeous," I told Miranda, who only shrugged but mumbled a thank you.

     "Where's your outfit?" She inquired of me after braiding her hair in two and tying a scarf around her head.

     "Oh!" I remembered and sprung from my bed to the closet. I pulled the hanger that held my dress out and unzipped the plastic bag that encased it. Miranda took it from me and hung it beside hers. The crystals of the bodice shimmered in the light of the desk lamp, the skirt fluttering in the draft that blew in through a crack of the window.

     I knelt by my bed and retrieved a shoebox where I kept my pumps for the night (they may or may not have actually been a pair I snagged from Jules' closet a while back) from underneath it. The shoes went below my dress.

     Any accessories?" Miranda asked, though she was already sorting through the few I had in my top desk drawer. With every accessory she rejected, a sigh of disapproval left her lips. At one point she sighed, "you're rich, where's all the good stuff?" I scoffed in response. 'All the good stuff was in a jewelry box sat atop my dresser in my old room of the Baker house, which was probably, by then, taken by Jules.

     Miranda managed to come across one necklace that she did not repulse. In fact, she deemed it as 'quite beautiful.' When she laid it on my nightstand, I recognized it as the pendant my mother gave me as a late Christmas gift in January. I had forgotten about the pendant, which was bad on my part, so I was glad that Miranda chose to pair it with my dress. The night was going to be all the more special, having a piece of my mother with me.

     "Tomorrow," Miranda began as she switched off her desk lamp and curled into her bed when both of our outfits were prepared, "we're going to this awesome salon in Riverdale to get ready."

     "But I was just gonna do my own hair and makeup," I protested.

     Miranda snorted, "this is spring formal, honey, not just any other day. You've gotta go all out."

     "Do we have to?" Iwhined like a child.

     "Do you wanna settle for a simple look?"

     I hated that Miranda knew I never settled. Like the conniving girl she was, she used that against me to get me to reluctantly agreed to tag along with her, even though I would have preferred staying in my dorm the whole of the next day. Although, it would not have hurt to get dolled up for one night of the year: allow myself to be pampered like a queen. After thinking about it more, the idea became more appealing. I was really looking forward to the following day.