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“For heaven’s sake,” Schroeder says, “you look fine , Charlie Brown!”
“Do I really?” he asks, tugging at the collar of his suit. Schroeder reaches over and straightens his tie, runs a hand down the front of the smooth black suit jacket to brush away any remaining motes of dust. His own clothes are perfectly pressed and perfectly straight. Bought the suit a year ago, when he went up to New York to play Beethoven’s fifth, and it still fits just fine.
Charlie’s, on the other hand, fits like a glove on a four-fingered hand, but if he tells him that, then he’ll just work himself into another tizzy and they’ll never get to the dance.
The other two in the room, Linus and Franklin, both sitting upon his bed with legs dangling above the ground—both fully dressed and ready half an hour ago, delayed only by the constant changing and tweaking of Charlie’s suit—lean over Schroeder’s shoulder to look.
Linus is the one to speak. “Yeah. Don’t worry. We need to pick up the girls.”
“Right,” Schroeder says, giving Charlie an encouraging sort of push—or, it’s supposed to be encouraging, but seems to do nothing but put him off-balance—and walks towards the door. The girls are at Linus’s, the boys at his own house, which is more than a little convoluted—he never did see why they couldn’t simply get ready in the same building—but the girls want to be picked up and to gossip in peace, or whatever it is they’re doing.
“We’re gonna be late,” Franklin observes idly, on the speedwalk through the living room. Charlie intakes a sharp sort of breath, that that preludes the spilling of many worries, but a simple shoulder-check stifles all that in his chest.
He doesn’t know why Charlie’s taking it all so seriously, honestly. It’s prom, just prom, pick everyone up and spin around a streamer-sprawled gymnasium for an hour or two, get a strip of photos from some janky old booth, all decked out in feather boas and cartoonish glasses.
In all honesty, he should be practicing. He has an audition in a week, perhaps the most important of his life , for entrance into a great, glass-domed conservatory up in New York. He knows Beethoven’s Sonata No. 23 as well as he knows himself, keys falling like water under his fingertips, but he can always be better.
Front door opens, closes with a final click. Out front, there are four cars. His own is a sleek red mustang, low to the ground, freshly-washed. The same color as the toy piano that he used to love. He quashes that niggling annoyance that says I could be doing something else .
Senior prom. A night with the friends he’s known since he was four. This isn’t productive, but that’s okay. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of entertainment. This is good.
“We all know the way, right?” Charlie asks, hand half-poised on his own car, which is actually his mom’s white station wagon. Three heads nod in unison. “Okay,” he says, “okay. I look good, right? The suit’s okay?”
“ Yes .”
He swallows. “Alright. Sorry. I just don’t want Lucy to…”
And then, suddenly, it’s not so good anymore.
—
Schroeder is the first to arrive, but he lingers alone in his car, unwilling to get out until Linus’s blue Road Runner parks rather crookedly against the curb. Only then does he unfurl his legs, unstick himself from the seats. By the time that Linus is out, the other two cars rapidly approach. Down the long line of the sidewalk, the house is a mural of cream and red and green, straight siding and the crispness of new paint. Though the windows are drawn over by curtains, he can make out many shadows moving behind them.
“Do we knock?” Charlie asks, reaching up in an attempt to straighten his tie. He just re-crooks it. Schroeder suppresses a sigh. This is normal behavior for him, always worrying in that endearing way of his. He doesn’t know why it’s putting him so on edge.
Well, he does know.
He just doesn’t want to admit it.
Before any of them can answer that question, the red door swings open, pushed along by Patty, who bounds out without waiting. She’s dressed in a boxy sort of green number that reaches her ankles, belted around the waist by a thick bolt of satin.
“Heya!” She half-yells. He winces in support of Linus’s neighbors. Not far behind her—as could be expected—is Marcie, in red, a shorter, frillier sort of thing that he would not have placed her in, but which looks surprisingly cohesive. Then, Sally, in pale, blush pink, lace at the shoulders and the hem, small rhinestones sewn into the seams. Frieda, in knee-length purple, hair eschewing traditional straightening to instead continue its free bounce around the corona of her head. No doubt all the girls coordinated so they wouldn’t pick the same color of dress, same style, all different, all unique.
He almost thinks that that is all, until the final one rounds the corner, pale hand steadying herself upon the doorway. Black hair, drawn back by a navy headband, a blue dress that cuts its way close to her chest and falls, shining sleekly, to trail on the ground, no decoration but for the shine that oscillates across each ripple under the rapid dusk.
She doesn’t need a name. He can practically taste it anyway, thick and cloying in his mouth.
Frieda to Franklin, who slides a violet corsage onto her wrist. Sally to Linus, neither of them quite looking at the other as they perform that respective ritual. Lucy walks towards them, and he almost, in some deep, dumb part of his psyche, expects her to keep going to come to him , but the notion shatters as soon as her steps turn fractionally.
Turn towards Charlie.
Schroeder helped him pick out her corsage. Thick white rose in the center of the band, surrounded by blue ribbons and dyed flowers. Lucy accepts it with a wry sort of smile, leans forwards to carefully pin a boutonniere to his lapel, some bright azure thing that’s been wrapped in dark velvet. He’s so preoccupied with watching that motion, with trying to push down the sudden queasiness in his stomach, that it takes Patty snapping her fingers in his face to remember that he has one for her too.
Strangely, not-so-strangely, she doesn’t seem mad.
“Sorry,” is all she tells him, as he perfunctorily snaps the rose onto her wrist.
All of them have a match, technically, except for Marcie, but as they climb into the car, he’s fairly sure that he’s the real odd one out. As evidenced by the fact that both girls sit in the backseat together, chattering in quiet tones that he can’t quite distinguish.
It’s going to be a long night.
—
All through elementary school, a black-haired girl leaning against his piano, running her fingers carefully over the beveled edges. Middle school, sitting on the ground, back against one of the legs of the grand, telling him that she could feel the vibrations thrumming through her spine when he played especially loud. Smashing his Beethoven bust. Theorizing about married life. A half-hearted attempt to get him to teach her how to play, only for him to end it because he could not get the smell of her perfume out of the piano after two sessions of practice.
He can’t pinpoint, exactly, when it changed. Freshman year, she still came over, but would sit on the far couch instead of the floor. Less talking, more of her silence, hunched and poring over homework, thumbing through dime novels. Told him that he was like her personal radio. If only they made you portable!
Sophomore year, more of the same. Less visits. Thrice a week to twice, to once. He’d slam down the end of a piece, let the notes echo out in the silence, look towards the living room expecting a radiant audience, and find nothing but the emptiness of pleather couches.
Who’s he kidding?
It was junior year.
He has the time to think of all this, of course, because he’s alone at the white-clothed table, nursing a glass of punch and a half-eaten cookie. Marcie and Patty are gone, poring over the food on the other side of the room, sweets and finger sandwiches and plates of withered produce. The others, as far as he can tell, are dancing. He doesn’t look for them. He doesn’t want to see .
Absently, his fingers tap out a melody on the tablecloth. The only other person here, sitting alone, is Pigpen . He’s on the same level as Pigpen right now. That’s depressing.
Junior year. There was nothing dramatic , no fallout, no shouting—he thinks that that’s how Lucy would’ve liked it to go, maybe, which perhaps makes it worse—simply the fact that, halfway through the year, she stopped showing up. That was during his concert circuit, when he bought this suit, when he was going to New York and London and Chicago, playing in front of faceless crowds, and by the time he was home long enough to realize she’d stopped showing up, it was quite too late to ask.
Besides, it didn’t matter that much. The absence was a good thing. Her presence’d always been a nuisance. Always scratching at his piano, distracting him with her voice, her eyes, her…
He screws up his eyes, takes a deep breath, exhales. It’s the routine that he uses to cleanse himself of nerves before big performances, but whatever breed of anxiety is bubbling in his chest right now, it feels like they might be immune.
Patty and Marcie weave back through the crowd, the former with a plate piled high, the latter holding the drinks. At least he’s not alone, anymore—but the prospect of sitting here and listening to other people talk feels like it might be worse.
Maybe Patty notices this, because she hesitates, turns towards him and around a mouth full of cupcake, says, “did you wanna dance?”
He didn’t, really, but he would take any lifeline that got him out of sitting here and moping over something that he’s not supposed to grieve in the first place. “Okay,” he says, tries to push a bit more enthusiasm into it with a followup, “yeah.”
“Be back in a minute,” she tells Marcie, who nods dutifully.
“Okay, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir,” she snaps back, feigning irritation, but the thread of fondness, of an inside joke, is unmistakable below that, and it makes his heart do another uncomfortable twist. He should get that checked out. He never should have come.
They walk onto the floor. Shove is a more appropriate word, bully through the crowd, mostly Patty elbowing other dancers until they’ve cleared out an approximate space. His hand about her waist, hers slung over her shoulders, and he knows that both of them are profoundly uncomfortable.
When the decision to go to prom as a group was made, it was halfway clear-cut. Linus and Sally, Franklin and Frieda. Would’ve been simpler if Patty still liked Charlie, but she’d gotten over that years ago, and in any case, it was Lucy who cleared the problem up before it became a stalemate.
Meaning, of course, she asked Charlie.
His stomach flops once. Maybe there was something bad in the punch.
The song, some sort of peppy pop piece of the genre that he’s never bothered to do more than skim, ends. When the first notes of something slow begin to unfurl in the air, he meets eyes with Patty, and by mutual agreement, they let go of each other immediately.
“I should get back to Marcie,” she rushes out, and without further ado, turns to begin hitting her way back to the edge of the crowd. It closes back in around him almost as quickly, and he turns, suddenly disoriented. Tries to shove weakly at the back of someone before him, but they do not budge whatsoever, turns to find a gap, and then-
And then, there is a glimpse of blue.
His eyes snag on it, and he takes an instinctual step towards the scrap as it vanishes around another clump of people. Weave around, follow the path it leaves. A bit of satin blue here, a flash of black hair there, until he finally breaks into the refreshment of cool air near the back of the gymnasium.
And, before him, one of the back doors snaps closed.
Whatever— whoever— he was chasing is outside. He half-turns, looks behind at the thinner crowd, many couples swaying back and forth under dim purple lights, until he finally makes out first the rumpled back of a wrinkled suit. Traces that to Charlie’s face, to the girl he’s holding.
Red hair.
Oh .
With a deep breath, he pushes the door open, and steps into the night.
—
She sits upon the back stairs of the school, head nestled in her knees, shoes discarded like some modern Cinderella. Her skirt is hiked up, clenched in her left hand, and seems to be being used quite improperly as a tissue. He hesitates on the lip of the stairs.
There’s still time to leave.
To go back to the silence of the house, to the silence that’s accompanied him for a year, no girl chattering at his side, no commentary as he played, no applause when he stands and bows theatrically.
He can’t do that.
And, what self-respecting gentleman would leave a girl crying?
Slowly, he lowers himself onto the step, wincing as he practically feels the suit wrinkle. Don’t scuff , he needs that for next week, for the audition.
“Lucy?” He asks.
“Go away!” She snaps immediately, “I don’t need this right now!”
“What happened?” He asks, like he doesn’t already know. She’s silent for a long moment, but just as he begins to scoot away in fear of an impending explosion, her head turns fractionally to reveal half her face. Her eyes are red, makeup smeared, brow furrowed in a frown.
“Do you care?”
“You’re crying.”
She lets out a husky laugh. “Don’t rub it in. Some ginger chick asked Charlie to dance. He said yes. That’s it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. Again, there’s that peculiar feeling in his stomach, anger at Charlie, anger at himself . He wouldn’t have done that. Why does she care about someone who would?
“I don’t even care ,” she spits, head rising fully, revealing the other half of her face and scrubbing one final time at her eyes, “he’s too wishy-washy! I didn’t even like him!”
A flicker of something that feels almost like hope. “Why’d you ask him, then?”
She cuts an askance look at him, mouth tightening. “Who else was I gonna ask, huh?”
Point taken. He looks down at his shoes, unsure of how to answer.
She continues after a moment, floodgates fully opened. “I know he’s been in love with that girl. Good for him! I’m just tired of… of always being second. When is it my turn to be the first choice? When will someone pick me ?”
“I never…” he starts. Before the first word even fully falls to the ground, he knows that it’s the wrong thing to say. Lucy’s head whips towards him, eyes narrowing. Before any sort of tongue-lashing comes, however, her face falls almost as quickly.
“Yes, you did. You chose your stupid piano.”
“The- the piano?” he splutters, taken utterly back, “how did I choose-”
“You can’t date,” she lists, “because you want to be like Beethoven, a bachelor. You can’t go out, because you’re practicing. You can’t talk to me, because you have a competition in a week! I go to your house, and the door is locked and- and your parents tell me you’re playing in another country and you didn’t even, didn’t even tell me !”
The last words come with a fresh spring of tears. He grabs at his suit, pulling out the handkerchief from within the pocket. Tries to proffer it to her, but she ignores it, instead choosing to swipe her dress over her eyes once again.
“...I’m sorry,” he offers after a moment. Again, there is no response.
“I didn’t even get to dance,” she says, voice muffled by the fabric, “a real dance. That’s all I wanted tonight. Augh!” Sharply, she yanks the headband out of her hair and chucks it into the ground. It bounces, rolls once, and lands—rather unsatisfyingly—at the bottom of the stairs.
“Do you want to leave?” He asks.
“I have to wait for that blockhead to finish.”
“I’ll take you,” he replies, and again, her head bobs up. When she considers him this time, it’s with the cunning that’s now rising to the forefront of her gaze, rising up over all that anger and distraught-ness.
“Will Patty and Marcie..?”
“They’ll be fine,” he replies, standing, holding out a hand to help her rise as well. Her gaze flits towards the hand, then to his face, then to his hand again.
Slowly, she smiles. “What a gentleman.”
Taking it securely in hers, she rises.
—
“This is your house,” Lucy points out, as he pulls into a stop. He nods.
“Come on.”
After a brief hesitation, she follows him out of the car, down the walkway and into the front room. Inside, it is vast and dark and empty, and he fumbles for a minute on the walls until a flick of the switch allows light to flood in once again.
“I haven’t been here in ages,” she observes, stepping in. He doesn’t respond instead crossing over to the piano at the side of the room, sliding open the lid and sitting down upon the seat.
“You wanted to dance?” He asks. She nods warily.
Slowly, he begins Beethoven’s German Dance . It’s been a long, long time since he played it last, but it’s simple, stumbling over the three flats, ¾ meter, and when he half turns, expecting to see her moving, she is-
Entirely still.
Slowly, he peters out. Her mouth is downturned.
“See,” she snaps, “ this is what I’m talking about. You and your piano! You play this, and what am I supposed to do? Dance alone ?”
He hesitates. In quick, large strides, she reaches him, grabs his upper arm and yanks him up.
“If I’m gonna dance,” she says, placing his hand upon her waist. He brings his other one up before she has to prompt it, and she locks her arms behind his neck.
“There’s no music.”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” he says eventually, “I guess not.”
It’s slow at first, uncertain, no beat or rhythm, but she’s certain enough that he can catch on easily. Step this way, step that, follow the tug of her body and the push of her hips, let her take charge. She closes her eyes. Rests her head, after a moment, against his chest. Makeup is still streaking down her cheeks, and her hair is tangled from the headband extraction, and she is beautiful, just as beautiful as she’s always been.
The end of the dance has none of the awkwardness of the beginning. They come to a stop by slow, mutual agreement, feet scuffing against the hardwood in smaller and smaller arcs, until she finally looks up, hands loosening a fraction around his neck.
“What took you so long?”
“I don’t know.” It’s the truth.
She snorts. “You’re an idiot, Schroeder.”
“Maybe,” he replies. She tilts her head, just a fraction, lips quirking up in the beginnings of a smirk, and he cannot take it anymore, this feeling that’s been slowly bubbling up for over a decade, finally boiling, finally bursting over the edges, and he leans down, presses his lips to hers. She reciprocates immediately, tightening her grip once again, pulling him down.
When they break, this time, it’s for good, hands falling to their sides. He’s not quite sure what to do with them—usually, he’s so sure, but now, they’re clammy and feel too large too conspicuous.
“...I should get you home,” he says eventually. She nods slowly.
“Yeah. What a night.”
What a night .
—
Her house is different at night, all muted colors, hardly discernible other than as differing shades of black. Linus is home already, as evidenced by the car in the driveway.
“Lucy,” he says, as she places a hand upon the door handle, “come by tomorrow?”
“What?” She asks.
“Tomorrow,” he repeats, “I have an audition next week and I think I do… I practice better when you’re there.”
She breaks into a grin. “I knew you liked it. Yeah, Schroeder. I’ll be there.”
He watches as she cracks the door open and leaves, vanishing in that small interval between the car and the porchlight, and this night wasn’t a waste, after all.