The Hard Kind of Promise by Gina Willner-Pardo Read Free Book Online Page B

"You're going to do it?"
    Marjorie nodded. "I love dressing up," she said.

    At school on Monday, everyone was talking about it.
    "The only bad part is that you have to get assigned to different boys," Lizzie said at lunch. "So if the teacher says you have to dance with Jason Webb, then you have to. You can't say no."
    "Who's the teacher?" Sarah asked.
    "Mrs. Gretch," Carly said.
    "Mrs. Gretch?" Marjorie and Sarah said together, then both burst out laughing.
    "What's so funny?" Carly asked suspiciously.
    "Have you ever seen her in the parking lot at lunch?" Marjorie asked.
    "No," Carly said. "I have better things to do than spy on the teachers at lunch."
    "We weren't spying on her," Sarah said, angry on Marjorie's behalf. Carly wouldn't have said that if Sarah had asked the question. "We just saw her one day. She got in her car and sat there smoking, with the windows closed. I think she smoked ten cigarettes."
    "Two," Marjorie said. "She smoked two."
    "And the whole car filled up with smoke," Sarah said, irritated, because ten cigarettes made it a better story. "We couldn't believe she could even breathe in there. That there was even any oxygen left."
    "She's not supposed to smoke at school," Marjorie said.
    Lizzie laughed. "I had to go into her room once and borrow some pencils for Mr. Zedaker," she said. "Her breath is heinous."
    "From the cigarettes, I bet," Sarah said.
    They all laughed. Sarah thought it was the first time since they'd been having lunch together that they'd all laughed at the same time over the same thing. Maybe, she thought, things were looking up.
    "What are you going to wear?" Carly asked. Without waiting for an answer, she said, "My mother is going to get me a little black dress, because that's what you should always have in your closet for emergencies."
    "What kind of emergencies?" Marjorie asked.
    "Like, if you have to go to a party and you have nothing else to wear," Carly explained. "You can wear a little black dress anywhere."
    She had read this in one of her magazines, Sarah knew, but she envied the way Carly said it, as if she had been in just this kind of situation, as if she really had emergencies that could be fixed with a dress.
    "My mom says I have to wear my black skirt and my red top." Lizzie took a sip from her mini-can of soda. "She says she just bought them a month ago, and that she's not made of money. My mom is so heinously cheap it isn't even funny."
    "I'm going to use the money I've been saving since my birthday to buy a new outfit," Sarah said. "Maybe new shoes, too. The shoes I have to wear for chorus are too flat."
    "Get a little black dress," Carly said. "But don't let your mom talk you into one that's too long. It has to be short and sexy."
    "Sexy?" Marjorie said. "We're
twelve
."
    For once, Sarah agreed with her. She could handle cute, but she wasn't ready for sexy.
    "What are
you
wearing? Stretch pants and a T-shirt?" Carly asked Marjorie.
    "No," Marjorie said. She smiled in a way that Sarah knew she thought was mysterious but really just made her look cross-eyed.
    "I don't believe it," Carly said. "That's what you always wear."
    "No, really. I'm wearing something else," Marjorie said. "Something special."
    "Oh, great," Carly said. "Look, Marjorie. Don't
wear anything strange. Like, your mom's wedding dress or something with feathers. Really. Don't do it."
    For once, she sounded to Sarah as though she was genuinely worried about Marjorie. She wasn't being mean. She was trying to get through to her for her own good.
    But Marjorie didn't seem to notice. "Nobody else will be wearing anything like it," she said, as though she expected there to be a contest for who was best dressed, and this fact alone was enough to assure her that she was going to win.
    "
That
I believe," Carly said.

    After school, Marjorie caught up with Sarah as they headed to the parking lot.
    "I have to give you your script!" she said, thrusting a sheaf of crumpled computer paper into Sarah's hands. "I