The Five problems associated with Prom (And the five times Nick overcomes them)
So they are in the kitchen, gathered around the breakfast bar. Him, Winston, Schmidt and Jess. And Jess has that look on her face. It's look that definitely spells trouble. Stirring her spoon around her favourite mug, she would look absent minded to an untrained eye. Luckily Nick had learnt from his experiences everything there is to know about Jessica Day (well, maybe not everything, there's too much crazy to document so she still has a few surprises up her sleeve.) The suspense was killing him, and Winston was concentrating on eating his cereal without it trickling down his chin and Schmidt was invested in the newspaper, like he was actually reading it. They didn't feel the tension. She glanced up at them, taking them in individually, probably weighing in their moods. His fork clattered against his plate and he gave in.
"Out with it Jess."
"Out with what?" She said with faked innocence.
"Come on, you're dying to ask us something."
"Well," She hesitated, smiling sweetly, particularly in his direction more than the others.
"Well?" He repeated impatiently, gesturing for her to go on.
"Well, I owe Joanne a favour after I 'borrowed' some craft supplies from her cupboard when I was substituting for her class when she was ill, and I went a little crazy and we did some amazing work with crayons but it turns out rainbows and robots aren't related to the second World War, so I kinda said I'd make it up to her." She scanned their faces, and continued to make her point.
"So, I agreed to help chaperone the prom with her, but at the last minute Carol dropped out and I have to find someone to take her place."
The loft was silent for a split second and all that could be heard was the faint ticking of a clock.
"NO!" They all chorused.
"Not kids!" Nick moaned.
"No way Jess-" Winston started.
"They don't know the difference between Gucci and Prada." Schmidt complained.
"Guys, just hear me out."
They all stared at her, waiting for her to carry on.
"Please!" She dragged out the word, begging, her bottom lip sticking out further than humanly possible.
"Not the lip." Nick squeezed his eyes shut. "Jess stop it!"
"Please Nick. I'll owe you for like, ever." She touched his arm.
"Puppydog-eyes don't work on me Day." He tries to convince her, shrugging her off his arm.
Great, he'd been seen as the weaker victim, and she latched onto his vulnerability when it comes to her. Well, it is hard to say no to her.
"You know, I could totally see Nick working with children." Winston called, his voice getting louder as he dashed to his room.
"Yeah, he'd make a great chaperone, definitely the right choice Jess." Schmidt added, stepping out the door subtly.
"Thanks for the help guys." Nick said sarcastically, to no one in particular.
Those blue eyes searching his were so big that Nick wasn't sure if they hadn't burst out of her eye sockets.
"No!" He refused, like telling a dog off for peeing on the sofa. "Stay back."
He darted around to the opposite side of the breakfast bar.
"I'll make you cookies for a week!" She pleaded, attempting to shuffle left.
"Still no." He shuffled right. "Besides, I'm not even qualified."
"You don't need to be. It's only prom." She reasoned.
"A day with hormonal kids as they dance around with their weirdly big egos and short skirts. No thank you."
"Please Nick, for me?"
He sighed, clearly giving in. If he was honest with himself, he'd do anything for her.
"What would I have to do?" He asked, deflated.
Her features broke out into a wide smile and she dashed around the counter and threw her arms around him.
"Thanks Nick, this will be the best prom ever!" She grinned, his hands wrapping around her instantly. "You'll do great Miller."
And just like that, she was gone.
And just like that, Nick was going to prom.
PROM.
He groaned mentally.
Okay, so maybe he had been trying to find an excuse to get out of the whole 'prom' thing. Sue him. He didn't want to pep-talk nervous boys with low self-esteem or hold back inexperienced girls hair while they throw up. It just wasn't his scene. The prom was on Friday, so he had plenty of time. It was Tuesday, he had a whole four days.
On Monday, he caught her in the kitchen.
"Hey, Jess, turns out I can't go to prom. I've gotta work." He apologized.
"No Nicholas, you haven't. I talked to your boss. Prom is going to be great!" She smiled, spooning the cookie mixture she'd made for him.
On Tuesday, he ran into her in the bathroom.
"Oh Jess, about prom, urm, I've gotta work on my novel so-"
"You're working on Pepperwood again Nick? That's great. Hey, maybe at prom, you could experience some new things to put in there." She suggested, breezing past him to her room.
On Wednesday, she was there at the bar.
"Jess! Just the girl I wanted to see. Prom is so soon, and I don't have anything to wear."
"Don't worry. I'm sure Schmidt will let you borrow something of his. You don't have to try too hard Nick, this isn't your prom." She beamed, turning to sit at the booth which contained those traitors who had put him in this position in the first place.
On Thursday, they were making their way down the freezer isle of the supermarket.
"Jess I can't go to prom!" He whined. "Everything will go wrong and I'm the worst possible person to have around at a time of crisis."
"You'll do fine, Nick." She rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at her lips. "Just don't do anything you wouldn't let your mom catch you doing."
By Friday morning, he was getting pretty desperate.
"Oh no!" He sighed from the sofa. "I'm too ill to go to prom. What a shame. Well, I tried."
"You look fine to me Nick." She admonished. "Beer?"
All he could do was nod mutely.
She whirlwind around the loft that afternoon after school, all lists of names and emergency details trailing behind her like a stream.
"Get ready Miller, you've got an hour!" She called from her room.
He groaned, hauling himself off the sofa, and trudged to the bathroom, gravity seeming to be pulling down harder on him before. He showered and shaved, then dragged his feet to his room. He changed into black suit trousers, a crisp white shirt and black blazer, casually rolled up to his elbows. He somehow found himself collapsed back on the sofa, beer in hand, when Jess appeared in front of him. She was vibrant in the strapless navy blue number, with white horizontal lines that ended at her waist. The dress ended before her knee, and her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail.
She caught him staring.
"What?" She asked, worried.
"You look like your going to a prom, not chaperoning one."
"Is it too much?" She looked down at her dress.
"No!" He amended. "You look beautiful."
She blushed.
"Not too bad yourself Miller." He complimented with a sincere smile.
He wondered how long her smile had been making him go weak for.
"Well, anyway, here is your list of students." She handed him a clipboard enthusiastically.
He grunted in response, but took the clipboard nonetheless.
"Come on I'm going to make this the best prom ever!"
He watched her bounce out of the room excitedly, her own clipboard (decorated with glitter, he might add. Wonder how that got there?) firmly in hand.
"Yep," he sighed, "this is how I am going to die."
"
Oh come on, we've only just got here!" She smiled, bounding into the middle of the hall.
"Jess, it's not even decorated." He pointed out, the sports hall looking empty and dull.
Which was fine for him, but definitely not for Jess. She was hiding something.
"Well, part of the agreement with Joanne was that I'd plan the prom." She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear awkwardly. "So, that includes decorations."
He shook his head. Jess, you have like an hour and a half to get this place prom worthy, and no one is even here."
"They're coming." She insisted, slipping into a storage room. "Hey Nick, could you help me with these tables and chairs?"
He moaned at physical labour, and made sure Jess got his angriest turtle face yet.
Okay, so maybe more help did arrive, but when it was just the two of them, things went very slowly. Jess discovered she was useless with moving the furniture, and settled for blowing up balloons. By the time the tables and chairs were in place, organized further back, out of the way of the dance floor (exactly what it was like on Jess' handy little diagram, complete with stick figure Jess dancing by the punch bar) Jess was done with the balloons, all neatly tied to one chair with a lot of paperwork placed on top, to be released later. Help then arrived and started to hang long pieces of white material over the walls, while Nick covered the tables and chairs with white sheets and Jess hurried around making phone calls.
"When can you bring the punch?" She asked into the phone, staring at the resigned table with empty bowls and plastic cups longingly. "We need punch to have the best prom ever."
Nick rolled his eyes, and continued to help the DJ set up his equipment.
Soon enough, banners were put up, and the thousands of balloons released (well, there was a lot, and Nick isn't great with math, so he just rounded) and people were buzzing all over the show. Coloured beams were streaming down from the ceiling, which housed expensive looking spotlights and a disco ball. Four speakers sat in the corners, and music was playing as everyone took their place.
"Wow. You did good, Day." Nick congratulated her, his hand slipping to the small of her back as they reflected on the room( so what if her heart sped up a little bit, it doesn't mean anything).
"What was your prom like Nick?" She asked curiously.
"No where near as fancy as this."
She smiled at him thankfully.
"And, at least for me, it was pretty bad. My date shot me down and I had my head dunked in a toilet." He added.
"That's horrible." Jess gave him a pitting look. "Maybe this is your second chance for a good prom."
"Maybe," He considered. "I mean, how many people go to prom twice?"
"Exactly." She nodded.
There was a few moments of silence, Nick's head persuading him to ask her.
"Jessica Day." He smiled, turning to face her. "Will you be my date to prom."
"Of course!" She giggled. "I thought you'd never ask."
A couple of hours later and the prom was in full swing. Nick hadn't seen Jess for an hour or so, well he had seen her, you noticed when she walked into a room, bringing her brightness and happiness in with her, but she was always passing, darting from one issue to the next. She seemed to handle them in good spirits, until he found her sat on the pavement outside, near the front entrance.
He rested next to her, legs sprawling out into the road.
"This isn't the best prom ever." She sobbed. "I'm useless. I let everyone down."
"No you didn't." Nick slung his arm over her in what he hoped was a subtle way. "You did amazing. Everyone's having fun."
"Maybe too much." She sighed. "There are kids out the back door smoking, someone snuck in alcohol and some of them are getting a little...handsy."
"Nothing Jessica Day can't handle." He shrugged, and his confidence in her made her insides turn warm.
"How do I fix it Nick?" She asked him.
"I think I have an idea." He lifted himself off the pavement and raced back inside.
"Nick!" She called after him, baffled.
What was he doing?
An hour was all he needed to make Jess smile again.
He worked his way through the crowd of teenagers and out of the back door. There he spotted the group of smokers that Jess was so upset about.
"Hey." He called out to them calmly, strolling towards them, hands stuffed in pockets. The teens snapped their attention to him, most rather uninterested, a couple worried they'd been caught out.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Nick told them, pulling a cigarette out of one of the youth's mouth. It dropped to the floor and he put it out.
"What was that for?" The boy raised his voice, annoyed.
"Look guys, a little advice. This," He lectured, taking the packet of cigarettes out of a girl's hand. "does not make you cool. Actually, it's cancer on a stick. Rat poison, tar, carbon monoxide."
"Excuse me, but who are you?" The now cigarette-less girl asked.
"It doesn't matter. I was once like you."
"Oh really. I bet he was a nerd." One of them sniggered to the group.
"I wish I was." Nick shrugged. "Be nice to nerds, folks. You know who else was a nerd? Bill Gates. Yep, one of the richest men in the world. Nerd. Great evolutionary mind. If he dropped a $100 bill, it wouldn't be worth his time to stop and pick it up. He'd of already earned it back."
The kids seemed silent, and were staring at him like he had all the answers.
"Achieve to be 'nerds'. Or at least be nice to them. One day you'll be working for them." He concluded, throwing the box of confiscated cigarettes in the trash as he passed the dumpster, walking away like some sort of superman.
He wasn't sure if it had worked, be he had tried. At least if one kid stopped, then it had been worthwhile. Hands now firmly back in his pockets, he found the door and entered the hall.
There he spotted another group of troublemakers, drinking what didn't look like punch. He didn't have any clue how he's persuade this lot, half of them drunk out of their minds already.
A drunk girl came crashing into him, but luckily her caught her before she did any damage.
"Where did you get the drink from?" He asked, standing her back up straight.
She pointed over to the corner of the room where the punch table was. "Someone spiked the punch." She slurred.
He let go of her and poured himself a cup of the 'punch', smelling it before he drank it. Definitely not punch. Great, he thought. Glancing around, he did what he did best, and he broke it. He subtly pushed the glass bowl off the table, where it fell and shattered, the contents spilling like blood.
"Oops. Watch the glass kids." He said, while beckoning over a (what he presumed) was a teacher. Nick was sure the teacher would find a substitute for the punch.
He ticked off another box on Jess' list that existed in his head. All that was left was those horny bastards.
He was quite ashamed at the amount of couples in intimate positions that were going a little too far. He was on his third round of circuiting the hall, the toilets and outside, when a small crowd seemed to be gathering in the center of the dance floor. Suspicious, he narrowed his eyes and stalked through the tables to the crowd.
Much to Nick's dismay, there were two drunk kids having a screaming match in the middle. One had an 80's blue tuxedo on and glasses, and the other was more cool-kid casual with way too much gel in his hair.
"Stop hitting on my girlfriend!" Gel head yelled.
"She kissed me!" Blue tuxedo argued.
"Stop lying you loser."
"I'm not!"
They were mere inches from each other's faces.
"All right guys, break it up." Nick interrupted, pushing them away from each other by the chest. "Keep moving folks, nothing to see."
"I'll give them something to see!" Gel head declared, his hand scrunching up into a fist and flying out to punch the poor kid. Luckily Nick managed to duck out of the line of fire before he was the one who was hit. Blue tuxedo stumbled back instantly, and the audience gasped. The same teacher that cleaned up the punch bowl dragged the attacker away while Nick helped the poor guy up to his feet. He'd been punched in the eye, and definitely needed ice.
"What happened?" Jess gasped, suddenly appearing at the front of the crowd.
"Nothing. Just get this guy some ice." He told her, handing him over to her. She helped him out of the hall and disappeared out of sight.
How could kids cause so much trouble?
After scanning everyone in the hall, everything seemed to have calmed down. Nick, double checking the crowd, left in search for Jess. He didn't have a clue where she would be. The school was big and most of it was dark, so he went outside in search of his roomfriend. Instead, he found a blonde girl in a pretty pink dress crying on the curb.
"What's up?" He asked her, taking a seat next to her on the pavement, where him and Jess had talked not so long ago.
"It doesn't matter." She cried, covering her face with her hands.
They sat silently for a minute, Nick looking at the way the moonlight swept through the trees as the girl composed herself.
"Love is hard." She said eventually, now gazing at the moonlight too.
"Love is simple." He smiled fondly at the memory. "It just hurts."
She nodded in agreement. "I'm such an idiot."
"You don't look like an idiot to me." Nick offered.
"Why did I fall in love with someone who can never feel the same way?" She looked at him.
"Because," He sighed, this was all hitting a little too close to home. "Because, I guess, as cheesy as it sounds, love chooses you, even when you don't want it."
She gazed back at the moon.
"You should go back inside, enjoy your prom. These are the best years of your life."
"Thanks." She smiled, and threw her arms around him for a second, then ran back inside to the prom.
After dealing with teenage smoking, drinking, sexually frustrated, argumentative, heartbroken kids, Nick was exhausted. The kids shuffled out in a steady stream, and Nick ran into Jess.
"There you are!" Jess smiled.
"Here I am."
"You were so great tonight. Thanks for believing in me." She looked so pleased, it made his heart squeeze.
"It wasn't a big deal." He shrugged.
"It means a lot to me Nick." She reached up to hug him, and his arms snaked around her waist and his senses were flooded with vanilla and strawberries.
Tomorrow he would tell her.
Tomorrow he would tell her that he loved her.