Page 4 of Melt With You

‘For four years,’ Violet said. ‘My mom couldn’t understand how we could see a movie so many times and not get tired of it.’ From her pocket, she pulled out a Ring Pop, a giant diamond ring made of candy. One of Dori’s favorite accessories in high school.

‘I know it won’t replace the one you gave him back. But will you be mine, Dori? Will you?’

‘I’ll be your date for the reunion,’ Dori agreed, suddenly feeling excitement at the prospect, ‘but I’m not promising anything else.’

Chapter Two

‘He’ll come,’ Violet insisted.

Dori’s friends had persuaded her to attend her twentieth because of Rowan, and now he wasn’t even here. They’d been in touch several times through the reunion web site: an email here, a text message there. Rowan had said he couldn’t wait to see her – and she felt the same way.

‘Besides,’ Janie insisted, giving her an impromptu hug, ‘you’ll have fun anyway. How could you not have a good time in a dress like that?’

The dress was vintage, an oldie as much as the songs that were being played loudly inside the gymnasium – Prince’s ‘1999’, a hit from 1984, considered a classic in 2007. But although the outfit she had on was twenty years old, she’d never have been able to afford a dress like this back in high school. Even her mother would have balked at the label: Christian Lacroix, one of the top designers of the 80s. She’d snagged the piece at a second-hand store for a steal at seventeen dollars, marveling at the way the strapless top adhered to her small breasts, the waist cinched in just right. A big bow sat on the right hip, one of those design additions that had been so prevalent in the 1980s, but would be considered tacky by today’s standards.

When Dori had first bought the dress, she’d felt electrified at the thought of wearing this outfit to meet Rowan, her high school steady. Now, she felt somewhat silly. Not all of the attendees had taken the 80s theme quite so literally. The pretty princesses from her school were wearing modern attire, making Dori feel as out of place now as she often had back in school. Not that she hadn’t been popular. Just like any high school, Redwood had been divided into many different cliques – jocks, nerds, stoners, metal heads, punks, Goths – and, although everyone had liked Dori, she hadn’t been one of the A-list kids. Not like Chelsea.

Why hadn’t she chosen a simple sleek black suit, Calvin Klein or Donna Karan? Why had she let Violet talk her into dressing up?

Violet was one of the only other attendees she saw wearing 80s clothes: ripped 501 blue jeans, shiny patent-leather Docs, and a neon-painted shirt that read: FRANKIE SAYS RELAX all in capital letters. Violet had gelled her short hair into spikes, and was wearing chartreuse hoop earrings that matched the glow-in-the-dark nail polish she sported on her Lee Press-On Nails. Clearly, she had seen the event as a way to let down her guard, losing the corporate-style suits she favored when planning installations at high-end office buildings.

Janie had chosen to dress more like a grown-up. She wore a simple sheath in an emerald green which fitted the more voluptuous body she now had. Of their foursome, only Chelsea had gone all out, wearing the kind of little black dress that movie starlets are often photographed in, the back dipping so low there was no question about the fact that she’d gone commando.

Making excuses to every man who asked her to dance, Dori continued to check several times at the desk in front, ignoring the pitying expression from the overly peppy blonde girl at the desk who had been a hostess-in-training back in school and was now full-blown in her appearance as a Rachel Ray clone. But Rachel Ray had been a baby back then. Who had this girl’s role model possibly been? Martha Stewart?

Nerves running away with her, Dori ducked into a corner by the women’s restroom, reaching into her tiny turquoise pocketbook for the new scarlet slim-line phone Violet and the girls had bought her for her birthday. The thing was seriously high-tech: it could take pictures, make movies, download stock reports. But Dori hadn’t fully figured out how to make a simple call. She rolled the ball of her thumb over the options, tried to find her address book, squinting at the tiny screen, and then gave up.

If Rowan wanted to call her, he would. She didn’t need to hunt him down, did she?

Patience had never been one of Dori’s virtues, but she forced herself to remain upbeat as long as possible. She applauded her way through the range of demented awards: Most Successful, a geek turned multi-millionaire, who had arrived in a silver BMW convertible with a Playmate on his arm, an actual Playmate, who carried a copy of Playboy in her purse to prove her status. Most Changed? That award was bestowed upon a girl Dori had known all the way up through elementary school. A girl who was now a boy. A boy who accepted the prize with charm and a little flirty smile that made Dori think he was going to have his hands full tonight.

Watching him, this Jacqueline turned to Jackson, she remembered what he’d been like when he was little. In her mind, she saw him in first grade. Had he always known that he was a boy inside? Had he felt ridiculous in those little pinafores, the little frilly dresses? On some level had his mother known? Was that why she had bought those creamy little outfits for him, hoping to force him to be a girl through sheer will alone?

The dark-haired deejay responded immediately, replacing the J Geils Band’s ‘Centerfold’ he’d put on for the previous award with the Kinks’ classic ‘Lola,’ which brought a burst of laughter and applause from the audience – Boys will be girls and girls will be boys. The words were too perfect, as if the song had been written for Jackson, himself. Jack was a good sport, Dori had to give him that. He simply grabbed the prettiest girl in sight and spun her around to the music, and from the way she moved against him, Dori could tell that she was interested in discovering exactly what was hiding beneath Jackson’s dyed-black jeans.

‘Most Unchanged’ was the next award, and that prize went unsurprisingly to Chelsea, who gleefully trotted up to the stage in her spike heels. She did look like a well-preserved version of her former self: the smile plastered on her face, the hair long and straight and blonde, exactly the same style as she’d favored in school. No one could tell that the length was won by well-placed extensions. She wore the glittery tiara without any sign of irony, as if she had truly just been crowned Miss Universe.

Dori turned away from the bandstand. She felt as if she were back in school for real. The smell of the gym was the same. The music was the same. And the emotions rushing through her were the same: longing as she watched couples begin slow dancing together; longing that made her ache inside as the next song began: Air Supply’s ‘Making Love Out of Nothing at All.’ Who would have thought a ballad this blatantly goofy could make her want to cry?

She’d always hated being at dances when the slow songs started. Hated it, at least, until she had a boyfriend of her own. Then, dances hadn’t been so bad. Moving against Rowan in the dimly-lit gym, until one of the chaperones had thought to separate them, that had been sexy.

The start of sex. The promise of sex.

Why did thinking back like that make her feel so sad? Because Rowan wasn’t here? In spite of the fact that he’d promised to meet her …

Dori headed towards the ladies room, and sat down in one of the booths. There was graffiti scrawled on the walls, but nothing she recognized. Over the twenty years since she’d last been in the gym, the surfaces must have been painted over at least once. She stared at the curlicues and scrawled initials and wondered whether she could just leave. What could her friends say? Nothing. She’d shown up, as they’d asked her to. She’d made the effort. Nobody would care if she snuck out early. After a moment, she started to push open the door and saw Jackson kissing a girl by the mirror. She sucked in her breath, realizing the girl was Violet, and muttered apologies while she backed out quickly.

Christ.

She’d have a smoke. That’s what she’d done in school, taking illicit drags off a cigarette she’d stolen from her older brother’s pack of Marlboro. She was sure someone was out behind the gym with a pack. She was turning to slip out the back door when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Even the touch sent her back so many years. That hesitant touch of a boy asking a girl to slow dance, concerned that perhaps the girl would shoot him down, and he’d have to skulk back to the far wall of watchers once more, waiting for however long it took to get the courage up again to ask someone else. She turned, heart racing, thinking Rowan.

Hoping Rowan.

But it wasn’t.

Luke Robertson, one of the kings of her school, was standing there. He had been the editor-in-chief of the high school paper as well as one of her favorite people in the world. A stud on campus, a killer editor, and a drunk even before he was seventeen. He had spent hours with her in the loft at the paper, sharing sultry stories about his various sexual conquests, teasing her out to share her own stories with him and, when she didn’t have actual stories to share, urging her to tell him the fantasies that she kept private.

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