The Prayers in Rossford

Dancing

When Mark dropped the saltshaker for the third time at the Value Burger on the Strip, Radha said, “Is there something wrong?”

“Uh, I… Uh….”

“Usually,” Radha told him, “you’re cute this way. In fact, I think it’s the reason we’re together. But right now you’re probably a danger to yourself. Especially if your drive back in the same condition you drove me here.”

“I’m fine!”Mark said, and then put a hand over his mouth. “What I mean to say is… I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Radha sat back. “You may have meant to say you were fine, but what you are, in fact, is a mess.”

Mark, rocking back and forth, a little bit like someone with serious issues, considered this and then said, raising a finger. “Well… there is something.”

“Yes?” Radha said, slowly.

“WILLYOUGOTOTHEPROMWITHME????”

“What?”

“You mean no?”

“I mean, I don’t know what you just said.”

“I…. My senior prom is coming up. And….”

“Oh—”Radha interrupted him. “Oh, prom.”

“I know you probably wouldn’t want to go. It’s just a bunch of kids and… I understand if you didn’t want to go to your own. But it is my prom and—”

“So,” Radha put a hand over Mark’s, “what you want to know… and I’ll say it slowly because apparently you cannot, is if I—being your girlfriend—would go to the prom with you?”

“Yes!”Mark breathed out.

“Well, yeah,” Radha said, blinking. “I need to find something to wear. Me and Claire were at the mall the other day and I saw all of these prom dresses at JC Penney. They had to be prom dresses. They were too ugly to be anything else. How come prom dresses and bride’s maid dresses are so ugly you can’t take them anywhere else? No,” Radha shook her head. “I’ve got to find something hot. Something to make your friends jealous.”

“Then…” Mark still appeared to be confused on this point. “We’re going?”

“That’s what I just said.”

Radha leaned forward and punched him in the shoulder.

“Silly.”

“This is so ugly,”Dena declared, standing in the mirror.

“It’s not,” her mother said. “It’s traditional. It’s blush.”

“It looks like a bottle of Pepto Bismol threw up on me.”

“Which is ironic,” Milo noted, “considering that Pepto Bismol is supposed to cure an upset stomach.”

They were in her mother’s large bedroom in the front of the house, and Dena looked back at Milo and frowned.

He shrugged.

“And with your hair up,” Nell came forward, pushing her daughter’s chocolate colored hair up a little, “Imagine—”

“I imagine,” Dena said, shaking her hair free, “that I’ll look like Betsy Meiers or Jill Mizen.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Nell said at the same time Milo said, “Who are they?”

“Some bitches I went to K-8 with,” Dena said.

“Dena,” her mother chided.

“When it came time for high school they did what half of Saint Barbara’s does and went somewhere else. I think that snotty girls’ school up in Densher.”

“Saint Ursula?” Milo suggested.

“That’s the one,” Dena said. “Look, Ma, I gotta get out of this, right now.”

“It will look nice, Dena,” Nell said.

Dena nodded, not wishing to be meaner than she already was, and went out of the room.

Milo stood up, said, “Scuse me Mrs. Reardon,” then followed Dena out.

In her room, door open, Dena struggled out of the dress in full sight of her boyfriend and breathed, “This dress is not who I want to be.”

“It’s just a dress.”

Furious, in bra and panties, Dena pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt she realized was Brendan’s.

“No,” she said.

Then she said, “You know what? Before Bill left, Mom wasn’t like this. I mean she was like this before him.”

Milo frowned.

“Dull, boring,” Dena said, going to close the door. “A woman who would keep her husband’s last name fifteen years after he cheated on her with her brother, who wouldn’t have a man or a date for over a decade and who would buy this—”Dena stabbed her finger toward the offending garment, “UGLY dress! This drab thing with ruffles all over the tits! She was turning exciting. And now….”

“I’m sorry about that,” Milo said, apologetically.

“It’s not your fault,” Dena said. “It’s not. It’s really not.”

“I guess they really were getting close. If Bill was so afraid he ran away.”

“Yeah…”Dena said, shaking her head. “And I guess we should have known she had no business getting that close. I mean… But she was so… happy.”

“She’s happy now.”

“She’s boring now,” Dena said. “And… if I wear that boring old dress, I feel like I’ll be my boring old mother, who I love. But who is….”Dena sighed and shook her head, then said, “Shit.”

She threw her arms around Milo’s strong neck, and began rubbing her hands back and forth along his shoulders.

“Milo,” she said. “Milo.”She crooned, She hung from his neck, and then pressed her face into his chest.

“Milo,” she said again.

He kissed her on the top of his head.

“You know what?” Dena spoke, conversationally to Milo’s chest.

“Hum?”

“I think it’s time we had sex.”

“And then,” Will Klasko repeated, sitting down in the open doorway of the balcony in his room, “she said you all should have sex?”

“Yes,” Milo said.

“Um,” Will reflected.

“Well, what should I do?”

“I don’t know. Me and Layla never made it that far, and given my current single status and the way I handled the last relationship, I’m probably not the best person to ask about that.”

“Then you and Layla… aren’t getting back together.”

“I think Aidan Michaelson would be a little upset if we did, seeing as he’s her boyfriend and everything.”

“Ah, but you don’t even know how real it is.”

Will held up a hand before saying: “Thank you very much. But giving me false hope isn’t really a favor. And it is false hope. I know Layla well enough to know she never pretends, so what she and Aidan have can’t be fake.”

“It’s a shame all the same,” Milo said.

“Yeah,” Will said noncommittally. And then making a stirring motion with his hand, he said, “Back to you.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe you should ask Brendan?”

“What?”

“Out of all of us, he’s the only one who’s actually had sex.”

“Yeah, with my girlfriend. Ick! No thank you.”

“Actually I was thinking with Kenny,” Will said. “They actually have a sexual relationship.”

“Yes,” Milo allowed. “But Brendan and Dena slept together. A bunch off times. That grosses me out. There’s no way I’m gonna talk to Bren about …”

“Anything.”

“That’s not true,” Milo said. “I talk to Bren.”

“You get on well enough,” Will shrugged.

“Well, does he have to be my best friend?”

“No,” Will said. “Just, in this instance it might help. He’s really smart about stuff like this.”

Milo gave Will a look.

“When he’s not cheating on two people at the same time he’s really smart about stuff like this.”

“Well, forget it. I need you to be smart about this. Or maybe Layla.”

“No,” Will said. “I can’t imagine Layla, who is still a virgin as far as I know, is going to want to coach her best friend’s boyfriend about sex.”

“She might.”

“Can you imagine her doing it without a smart mouth?”

Milo sat still for a second, and then said, “Good point.”

“Well… Why don’t you want to sleep with Dena?”

Milo looked at Will.

“I mean, maybe a good place to start is with your own feelings,” Will explained. “Like, why you think it might not be a good idea.”

“Because… Well, she brought it up when she was going on about her mother and her prom dress.”

Will raised an eyebrow.

“She said she doesn’t want to be her mother. She swore up and down that the prom dress makes her look boring, like her mother, and then she told me we should have sex.”

“That’s…. odd.”

“Women are odd,” Milo said. “I just wonder if her wanting us to sleep together is just her way of… I dunno….”

“Making her life more interesting.”

“Yes,” Milo said. “And…. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m still a… I don’t want my first time to be wasted. Besides, I think maybe she wants to sleep with me because the only person she’s been with is Brendan, who is gay, and the only person her mother was ever with was her father—who is currently gay. And—”

“And she wants to break the pattern?”

Milo shrugged. “Something like that. Maybe she wants to go around the block.”

“It’s not like her mom’s unusual,” Will said. “I mean… the only person my mother was ever with was my father.”

“Do you know that?”

Will blinked and said, “Actually… No, I don’t.”

“And anyway, that’s just it, Dena doesn’t want to be usual.”

“But I choose to believe it.”

“Believe what?” Milo said.

“I choose to believe the only person my mother was ever with was my father.”

Just then there was a knock on the door. They both jumped up, and then the door opened to reveal Brendan Miller who said:

“Hey, gang, what’s going on?”

“NOTHING!”Milo and Will shouted.

Brendan only blinked at them.

“It’s uh…”Claire began. “Well, it’s….”

“It’s prommy,” Radha noted.

“Girl this shit is ugly,” Layla said, flouncing down on her bed, and touching a sleeve of the pink gown.

“Well, that would be prommy,” Radha said. “Which explains why I never went to mine.”

“And now you’re going to ours,” Dena noted.

“Look, guys, I don’t know what to do about this.”

“What I don’t understand,” Layla said, “is why you brought it over here.”

“I thought you could….”Dena shrugged. “Give it some counsel.”

“The only counsel I have is get the receipt, take that ugly shit back, and let’s get something cute.”

“You know it’s really not that bad,” Claire said. “I wore something like that to my prom. Most girls do.”

“Claire!”Dena said, “I am not most girls.”

“I’ll give you that,” Claire allowed.

“But how do I not hurt my mother’s feelings?”

“By leaving the house in that dress and changing into something else,” Layla said. “But then the question after that is… Is it really that important? Does your prom dress really matter that much?”

Dena thought a moment, and decided: “Yes. Yes, Layla, it does.”

“All right then,” Layla stood up. “Time to go to the mall.”

“Time to get money,” Dena said. “The only way I’d have money is if I took this back, and taking this back will hurt mom’s feelings.”

“Just tell her you hate it,” Radha said.

“I don’t… I don’t hate it,” Dena said. “Hate’s a strong word.”

“You don’t want it,” Layla said. “And that’s what matters.”

“What matters is I don’t know if Mom can take much more rejection.”

“You’re not rejecting her,” Claire said.

“No,” Radha agreed. “When a married man courts you and then runs away in the middle of the night, that’s rejection. Not taking a funky dress back to the store.”

“All the same,” Dena said, and shook her head.

“I can flip you the money,” Layla told her.

“I don’t know when I can pay you back.”

“I’ll just get some more from Fenn when he and Todd get back.”

“How long are they going to be gone?” Claire said. “I miss them. I mean, I miss my brother too.”

“I don’t know,” Layla said.

“You sure you can afford it?” said Dena.

“Do you plan on spending a lot?” Layla looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“I plan on looking good,” Dena said.

“Translate that as a yes,” Radha said.

Layla shrugged. “Between Fenn and my father’s credit card, we can handle it.”