Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [7]
Of all the boys in school, only Brian seemed to notice how Tibby’s hair had grown out, how her delicate shoulders looked in a tube top, how the Pants made her small behind look especially nice. She loved being noticed like this. And also, she didn’t.
Bee and Carmen found them right away. Lena and Effie hadn’t arrived yet. Effie was an infamously slow and primping date. Bee was wearing a white halter dress and her hair was brighter than the tea lights. She looked like an extremely fit Marilyn Monroe. Carmen wore a siren red slip dress, to which the boys were already flocking. As stunning as they looked in their finery, Tibby was still grateful it was she who had drawn for the Pants.
Bridget and Carmen hustled Tibby off to the bathroom in their time-honored way. The cavernous girls’ bathroom was always the most happening spot at a school party. “You both look unbelievable,” Tibby said along the way.
“You, Tibby, are luscious,” Carmen responded. “Brian looked like his heart was going to break when we took you away.”
An army of gussied girls were perfecting makeup, smoking, and gossiping in front of the mirrors.
Bee took out her lip gloss. She put some on and shared it around.
“Hey, Bee?” Carmen said.
“Yeah?”
“If you ever meet a guy and you fall in love with him, but because of some weird genetic mutation he doesn’t seem to return the feeling?”
Bee always went patiently along with Carmen’s counterfactuals. “Yeah?”
“Wear that dress.”
Bee laughed. “Okay.”
Lena arrived a few minutes later, dressed down as usual, in an olive green cargo skirt and a black shirt.
“Lenny, did you have to wear the ponytail?” Carmen asked fake-irritably.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Come on, it’s our last high school party,” Bee said.
Together, they put some mascara and lip gloss on her and coaxed the elastic out of her hair.
Looking at their faces in the mirror, Tibby felt as though she might cry. This was the place where they’d spent the majority of school events these last four years. They had had more fun here, together, than anyplace else. This, on some level, was their real high school experience.
Carmen caught her look. “It’s sad, I know.”
“Let’s get back out there,” Tibby said. She didn’t want to feel these things right now.
Back in the auditorium, they dispersed. Brian was waiting eagerly. “Do you want to dance?” he asked Tibby.
Was she allowed to say no? Was a real live date allowed to say no? As he took her hand and led her to the floor, the fast song changed into a slow one. Was that better or worse? She couldn’t decide.
It would have taken her an hour to figure out how to get her arms around Brian, but he went right for it. He closed in and held her tight.
So here it was. This was a first. She had, admittedly, thought a lot about Brian’s body and how it would feel. Friendship seemed to fuzz at the edges as this new thing happened.
He was so much taller than her now, her head barely reached his chest. His hands were on her waist, her hips, her back. Slowly touching the places he’d looked at for so long. She felt a lightness in her lower abdomen, a wobbliness in her legs.
This was going too fast. It was getting away from her. She couldn’t do it.
Her cheeks were deeply flushed as she pulled away. “Can we go?” she asked.
“Where?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” She took his hand and led him out of the auditorium and toward the parking lot.
She suddenly had her idea. She’d get them back to basics.
He followed her into