Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro Read Free Book Online

my personal search engine on all things Rascal and Kylie. She was quite the expert, having once brought up the rear of Kylie's Pretty Parade.
    She's the one who told me how Kylie and her mom had had a major falling-out during Kylie's parents' divorce. But how Kylie and her mother had mended fences last spring, so Kylie had decided to give living in Phoenix a try. That Kylie had actually
liked
the weeks she'd spent with her mom, until Rascal got tired ofbeing a long-distance boyfriend and asked “another girl” to his junior prom.
    Apparently, the two then burned up the phone and Internet lines over me. Until Kylie agreed to come home. Taking Rascal, the love of my miserable life, off the market again. Just like one of the prime real estate properties Mom always talked about, that she couldn't seem to get her hands on.
    Like mother, like daughter.
    “Okay,” Luther said, blowing her whistle. “Positions, everybody. Playtime is
over
.”

M y heeled sandals apparently went on strike that next morning, because no atter how many piles of clothing I overturned, they remained a no-show.
    Flip-flops were my next choice. I could never quite figure out what I hated more—their rhythmic slapping against my heel or the fact that they kept me so low to the ground that I felt like a dwarf.
    In any case, I flapped my way to school at my usual hour, through the building, to my locker, and pulled the door open. I gazed into my propped-up mirror to see if my mascara was still on my lashes instead of myskin, and that was when I saw the strange blue paper wedge on top of my geometry book. Probably slipped in through the air vent.
    I unfolded the triangle's many sides.
    Nicolette
    Meet me in the caf
    10:05 SHARP
!
    Your Secret Admirer
    Say
what
?
    I twirled around, my head rotating like that girl from
The Exorcist
to see if anyone was watching me— laughing at me—or (dare I wish) looking hopeful.
    Nothing.
    But come on …
secret admirer
? For real?
    As I sat in class later, my mind was a whirlwind of nonacademic activity. Of course I knew I should ignore the note, write it off as a prank. Wasn't it the oldest trick in the book? Anybody who liked me or wanted to talk to me would come forward on his own, right?
    Unless he was scared. And felt insecure. Kind of like I felt with Rascal. In which case, shouldn't I go and be as kind to the guy as possible, in some sort of cosmic trade-off?
    Though I couldn't help thinking about the odds that I'd end up with a dweeb, who I'd have to let down gently.
    So why, as the clock struck ten, did I move to the back of the class and pick up the wooden hall pass?
    With my heart thumping in time with my flip-flops, I made my way into the caf, only to meet a cavernous room filled with empty lunch tables, some hairnetted ladies, and a curious warm, buttery scent.
    “Can I help you?” one of the women asked, shaking her head at me. (Even the new students knew the caf didn't open until eleven-thirty) “I—”
    “She's with me,” spoke a deep and very familiar voice from behind me. Whoa. I turned. Rascal. Rascal!
    “You?” I managed. “
You
left that note?”
    •
    “Had to get you down here somehow. To give you your once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
    He cupped his hand on my elbow and steered me toward the kitchen. (We were
touching
!)
    “Janet,” he said. “Joanne. You don't mind if I bring my friend Nicolette back here, do you?”
    The ladies smiled shyly, as if they, too, were charmed by him.
    He led me to a counter bearing a two-foot aluminum tray, filled with evenly spaced, freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies.
    “Straight from the oven. Just wait.” He picked up a nearby spatula and scooped up a cookie. Then motioned for me to open my hand, and deposited it.
    Warm. Soft.
    I took a bite. The chocolate goo'd and stretched.
    Heaven.
    “Good, huh?” he said, and crammed an entire cookie into his mouth.
    I watched him chomp. Then he leaned in. So close I could see a tiny smear of chocolate on