Stories
Wonderful Tonight
Prom doesn’t have to be only cheap corsages and blundered makeouts, even if that’s all anyone remembers from it. Armed with a new-old dress and a pair of secret weapons, Claire Miccio had a prom night she’ll always treasure.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Better Baby Names Bureau (The Non-Expert)
- This Is Not a Eulogy (Profiles)
- The Vanishing Date (Spoofs & Satire)
Also by Claire Miccio
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- How Everything Turned Out (June 27, 2007)
- What's the Frequency, Musad? (June 15, 2004)
- The Education of Elisabeth Eckleman: Back to School (June 6, 2005)
Also in Stories
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Life feels awfully limited when you are 17, pimple-ridden, and waiting tables for $2.25 an hour at an all-night diner. It’s no wonder that during high school I read a lot of Jane Austen; characters with an irresistible sense of adventure even in the most circumscribed of lives literally meant the world to me.
More than anything else, I looked forward to leaving for college. The thought of meeting new people who knew nothing about me or the many questionable things I did trying to figure myself out was more excitement than I could bear. Other than that I looked forward to snow days, three-day weekends, and oddly enough, my prom.
Prom is a brilliant idea. At most it is an excuse to get all gussied up and dance; at the very least it is the one party in four years of merciless stratification that everyone—regardless of clique—is invited to. Over years of special issues of YM and two-hour finales of 90210, prom accrued a very real importance for the uninitiated. But the secret is that the one thing a party is not is important, so people are understandably left feeling duped by the prom.
I was recently made aware of this when, out with a group of my friends, I suggested the idea of throwing a prom party. It was as if I had betrayed them all by suggesting something so horribly disappointing and, worst of all, mainstream. Suddenly all anyone could do was deride the entire prom experience. They talked about it as if it were something they were forced into—some sufferable requirement, as if to get into college you had to submit your SAT scores and a picture of yourself in a ball gown in front of cardboard stars and styrofoam columns. My friends offered proof of getting the finger from prom: One girl got puked on, one girl’s hair caught fire, and one ended up passing out in her neighbor’s treehouse.
My memories of prom, however, are fonder.
* * *
For my junior prom I asked out a boy I met in church youth group who had been arrested the previous year for stealing guns from a warehouse and bringing them to school. His dancing may have been straight out of “Sussudio,” but he was very polite and even honored my request to take the weed he was dealing back to his car.
Since neither of us were invited to any of the after-parties, we drove to a rave at a lodge in the Allegheny Mountains. We didn’t stay too long; my feet were sore and some guy with a glow-stick tongue piercing kept getting fresh. No matter, the night was a success. My date drove me home and, like the gentleman he was, rolled me a present.
* * *
For senior prom I planned to wear the sexy, firsthand number I wore on my first sortie…until I found an even sexier, secondhand number—a hot gown with some presumably hot experience. It was the dress of dreams: a full-skirted, black velvet halter gown with a white lace bustier. Finally—something to wear my opera gloves with! After waltzing through the dressing room and pretending to pose for John Singer Sargent, I stared resolutely into the mirror, and knew: When they hand me my Nobel, I will be wearing this dress.
The only problem was, the only thing I was well-endowed with was acne, and this was a gown that sought a more bosomy prom-goer on its dance card. Still I bought the dress, and then called Jack, my date and best friend, for advice on how to make up for what I didn’t have. While I’m sure Jack would have preferred to go to prom with someone who needed help choosing between a cummerbund and a vest, a mere two weeks from graduation he planned to stick with inexplicitness to avoid an ass-kicking.
He agreed to take me to the mall and demurred, “Hey, nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
A few days later we went to Victoria’s Secret and I jiggled a pair of gel-filled, breast-shaped baggies, weighing their worth at $48. After my 10th product trial, Jack lost interest and relocated to the bench outside the store. The fake boobs cost more than my dress and I really couldn’t afford them—but, then again, what good is a bustier without a bust? So I bought my tits, or rented them, rather, knowing that as long as I kept the receipt I’d get a refund.
My mother, upon seeing them, called them “falsies,” but according to the box they were “Sensual Shapers.” Whatever they were, halfway through prom they leapt from my halter during “Love Shack.”
“Omigod!”
“Omigod, what was that?”
“My boobs!”
“WHAT?!?”
“My boobs! We have to find them!”
This would be no simple task. The senior class numbered more than 600. There was barely enough room on the floor to dance.
“Oh sure, do we just ask them to turn the turn on the lights?”
“But I have to return them for the refund!”
Jack exhaled and joined me in the search on the floor. He was able to retrieve one of them but it was too dark and crowded and we were getting our hands mashed by the dancers’ heels and rented dress shoes, so we gave up on its dance partner. I’ll never forget the look in Jack’s eye as he handed me back my breast—it was one of pure love, understanding, and a smidgen of adoration.
Since neither of us were invited to any of the after-parties, we went to his house, stayed in costume, and played Homo Vogue, mugging for a camera that we were both aware would never love us. But we’d already sent our SAT scores off to the colleges of our choice, and the photos we took of me in my lace bustier, filled with a single bosom, wouldn’t determine my future; they’ll only serve to remind me to invest in a better pair before I accept my Nobel.
More than anything else, I looked forward to leaving for college. The thought of meeting new people who knew nothing about me or the many questionable things I did trying to figure myself out was more excitement than I could bear. Other than that I looked forward to snow days, three-day weekends, and oddly enough, my prom.
Prom is a brilliant idea. At most it is an excuse to get all gussied up and dance; at the very least it is the one party in four years of merciless stratification that everyone—regardless of clique—is invited to. Over years of special issues of YM and two-hour finales of 90210, prom accrued a very real importance for the uninitiated. But the secret is that the one thing a party is not is important, so people are understandably left feeling duped by the prom.
I was recently made aware of this when, out with a group of my friends, I suggested the idea of throwing a prom party. It was as if I had betrayed them all by suggesting something so horribly disappointing and, worst of all, mainstream. Suddenly all anyone could do was deride the entire prom experience. They talked about it as if it were something they were forced into—some sufferable requirement, as if to get into college you had to submit your SAT scores and a picture of yourself in a ball gown in front of cardboard stars and styrofoam columns. My friends offered proof of getting the finger from prom: One girl got puked on, one girl’s hair caught fire, and one ended up passing out in her neighbor’s treehouse.
My memories of prom, however, are fonder.
For my junior prom I asked out a boy I met in church youth group who had been arrested the previous year for stealing guns from a warehouse and bringing them to school. His dancing may have been straight out of “Sussudio,” but he was very polite and even honored my request to take the weed he was dealing back to his car.
Since neither of us were invited to any of the after-parties, we drove to a rave at a lodge in the Allegheny Mountains. We didn’t stay too long; my feet were sore and some guy with a glow-stick tongue piercing kept getting fresh. No matter, the night was a success. My date drove me home and, like the gentleman he was, rolled me a present.
For senior prom I planned to wear the sexy, firsthand number I wore on my first sortie…until I found an even sexier, secondhand number—a hot gown with some presumably hot experience. It was the dress of dreams: a full-skirted, black velvet halter gown with a white lace bustier. Finally—something to wear my opera gloves with! After waltzing through the dressing room and pretending to pose for John Singer Sargent, I stared resolutely into the mirror, and knew: When they hand me my Nobel, I will be wearing this dress.
The only problem was, the only thing I was well-endowed with was acne, and this was a gown that sought a more bosomy prom-goer on its dance card. Still I bought the dress, and then called Jack, my date and best friend, for advice on how to make up for what I didn’t have. While I’m sure Jack would have preferred to go to prom with someone who needed help choosing between a cummerbund and a vest, a mere two weeks from graduation he planned to stick with inexplicitness to avoid an ass-kicking.
He agreed to take me to the mall and demurred, “Hey, nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
A few days later we went to Victoria’s Secret and I jiggled a pair of gel-filled, breast-shaped baggies, weighing their worth at $48. After my 10th product trial, Jack lost interest and relocated to the bench outside the store. The fake boobs cost more than my dress and I really couldn’t afford them—but, then again, what good is a bustier without a bust? So I bought my tits, or rented them, rather, knowing that as long as I kept the receipt I’d get a refund.
My mother, upon seeing them, called them “falsies,” but according to the box they were “Sensual Shapers.” Whatever they were, halfway through prom they leapt from my halter during “Love Shack.”
“Omigod!”
“Omigod, what was that?”
“My boobs!”
“WHAT?!?”
“My boobs! We have to find them!”
This would be no simple task. The senior class numbered more than 600. There was barely enough room on the floor to dance.
“Oh sure, do we just ask them to turn the turn on the lights?”
“But I have to return them for the refund!”
Jack exhaled and joined me in the search on the floor. He was able to retrieve one of them but it was too dark and crowded and we were getting our hands mashed by the dancers’ heels and rented dress shoes, so we gave up on its dance partner. I’ll never forget the look in Jack’s eye as he handed me back my breast—it was one of pure love, understanding, and a smidgen of adoration.
Since neither of us were invited to any of the after-parties, we went to his house, stayed in costume, and played Homo Vogue, mugging for a camera that we were both aware would never love us. But we’d already sent our SAT scores off to the colleges of our choice, and the photos we took of me in my lace bustier, filled with a single bosom, wouldn’t determine my future; they’ll only serve to remind me to invest in a better pair before I accept my Nobel.
—Published August 16, 2004
