Prom Night
1
Billy stuffed the last of the evening editions into his satchel, and then hopped on his bike. It was May, warm and light out at five-thirty in the evening. Lovely Friday. Billy just had to get these papers delivered, and then it would be goodbye to the last week of May, 1953, and on to a weekend of baseball down at the school field. And only a few weeks left of school, and he'd be free of sixth grade. And it was pork chop night. Billy had lots to be cheerful about as he kicked off from the curb outside the newspaper office.
Down the neat and proper main street he went, past Van Dort's Plumbing Supplies and Hardware with the big green awning, a prosperous building that took up nearly a block. He pedaled past Burton's grocery and Dietz's Shoes, on past the little bookshop and the ladies' clothing store, the five and ten and the diner. Billy whipped a paper each toward the front doors of these last two.
The town square opened up at the end of Main Street. The enormous oak trees were just starting to leaf above the bandstand. The nicest big buildings in town anchored the green. The bank and the courthouse were serious brick, with imposing front doors and a sense of solidity about them. The church was classic white with a steeple and a clock, as if it had been plucked from New England and dropped here in the Midwest by mistake.
As he whizzed by, Billy saw Judge Barkis coming down the steps of the courthouse. A little too late he raised his hand in a respectful kind of wave. But the judge didn't see him. He was talking to his son, who was coming down the steps behind him. At least Billy assumed that was his son. They looked just alike, big-chinned and barrel-chested in their nice suits, except one was old and one was young. The two of them got into the back of an expensive-looking car that was idling by the steps as Billy went by.
Billy faced forward again after turning to admire the nice car just in time to avoid hitting an even nicer one. Quickly he swerved and narrowly missed the bumper of Mr. Everglot's car, which was parked in front of the bank. The driver, a guy nearly as grumpy as his employer, leaned out the open window to shake a fist. Billy pedaled faster.
On he rode past the church, making sure to hold up his hand and cross his fingers when he passed by the graveyard, steering his bike one-handed. Not that Billy was really a superstitious kind of kid. But it couldn't hurt. Next came the park and the high school, then the little wooden bridge over the river. Technically he wasn't supposed to be riding his bike on the pedestrian bridge, but it wasn't like Officer Galswells was going to collar him or anything. If he was lucky, that was.
Down the row of little tract houses he went, throwing papers with practiced aim. He'd been doing this route so long he barely had to slow down. Billy waved to some kids he knew from school, and shouted a greeting to a pack of boys playing basketball in Ben Berger's driveway. House after house, lawn after lawn, porch after porch, newspaper after newspaper. Mr. Hemmler, the assistant principal at the high school, happened to be out watering his garden when Billy rode up. He turned off the hose and limped over, taking his newspaper and handing Billy a small tip. Mr. Hemmler was an okay guy.
At the base of Nob's Hill Billy stopped. End of his line. The rich folks didn't take the local paper. Not from him, anyway. Billy did a little victory lap on his bicycle, and then headed home for dinner. He could taste those pork chops already.
0-0
Nob's Hill was a hill in only the barest technical sense, in that it was on a rise of land only slightly higher than the rest of the town. It had a modest view of the river, pretty on clear days. At the very top of the hill sat the local country club, as if it were on a throne. Everybody who was anybody belonged to the club. The bankers and financiers, the lawyers and judges, the newspaper owners, all the upper echelons of a small town.
There were only a handful of houses on the hill. The ones that were there were practically estates. They stood in sharp contrast to the little cookie-cutter tract houses and modest Victorians that made up the other residential streets. Set beneath gorgeous oaks and behind hedges and gates, these houses spelled Money. With a capital "M."
Two mansions sat directly opposite each other about midway up Nob's Hill. One was a home which had been in the family for generations, nearly a century old now. Built of stately brick and adorned with tasteful porches and a portico, it was a house in good taste, a timeless sort of house that spoke of old-fashioned gentility. Solid and square and built to last.
The one across the street, on the other hand, was Sears & Roebuck's idea of a grand Victorian. Multi-colored, so much gingerbread trim it gave the effect of an over-decorated wedding cake, a huge wrap-around porch, all topped off with a tower. It was barely a decade old, and it certainly made an impression. Not always a good one, but an impression nonetheless.
In a relatively small second-floor bedroom of the newer house, Victor Van Dort was working on one of his model planes. He really should have been working on his final project for biology, if he wanted to graduate with a C average, but Victor figured it didn't really matter. He'd already bought his way into a university.
Or rather, his dad had bought it for him, in the form of new showers in one of the older dorms. Victor's dad was the Water Fixture King of the tri-state area. Even the thought made Victor cringe a little. It would've been nice to earn his place at the state school instead of buy one at a private college he didn't even want to attend. To study business, of course, so that he could one day take the plumbing supplies crown. Victor cringed harder.
And talking of not wanting to attend...Victor wiped a stray blot of glue from his desk and glanced over at the tuxedo hanging from his door. Just as quickly he glanced away again.
With the pride of a job well done, Victor gently placed the plane on top of his dresser to dry. He'd very nearly finished the whole World War One series. Sometime this week he should stop in at the five and dime after school to pick up the next.
Victor set about tidying up his makeshift worktable. A look at the clock on his bedside table told him he had plenty of time. Just because Mom had taken the entire afternoon to primp and prepare didn't mean he had to. Victor's mother was driving herself into a tizzy over this whole country club thing. Victor didn't understand what was so exciting about it. Who wanted to play golf and tennis and have dinner with a bunch of rich, snobby strangers who had never given them the time of day before?
It was at times like this Victor found it easiest to pretend his family was not the richest in town. Richer even than the Everglots across the street, and Mr. Everglot was a bank president. Being wealthy made him uncomfortable. Not that he was a Communist or anything. It was just that he was far too unremarkable and shy for being rich. The world of the nobs wasn't for him, no matter how much money Dad made or how many parties Mom dragged him to. He'd overheard enough conversations at stuffy dinner parties to know that no rich men cared about airplanes or playing the piano or reading horror comics.
Again, Victor looked at his tux, pristine in its clear garment bag. Dinner at the country club. He was now a member of the country club. Well, he and his parents. Mom and Dad were thrilled. Victor was worried about using the wrong fork. The thought of sitting for hours with the kind of people his parents were so desperate to impress made him tired and nervous. So to get his mind off things he started putting his paints away.
He had plenty of time. And maybe if he procrastinated enough the club's board would have time to change its mind and revoke their membership and he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.
A guy could dream.
0-0
In the older, statelier house across the street, Victoria Everglot was unpacking her school trunk with Hildegarde, the family's maid. The private schools finished earlier than the public ones did, so Victoria's summer vacation had already begun. Emil, the family's driver and butler, had picked her up at the station before heading out to pick up Dad at the bank. Victoria hadn't seen Mother yet, only heard her talking angrily into the telephone in the parlor as she'd gone by. Better to let Mother cool down a bit before finding her to say hello. Who knew what had happened this time. Something related to double-booked luncheon speakers again, probably.
A long summer stretched ahead. Home for a couple of weeks to garden and play tennis at the club and try to generally fly under Mother's radar. Then charm school for a month. An entire month. With a mother who, among other things, had made her walk up and down stairs with a book on her head for years, Victoria thought she had most of the basics of etiquette and how to sit and stand and walk. Perhaps she could test out early.
"Thank you, Hildegarde," Victoria said as the maid carried a full basket of school uniforms to be laundered out of the room. A kindly smile was her only response. Alone, Victoria shut her trunk and pushed it into place at the foot of her bed. It was always nice to be in her own bed after her room at school. The pillows there were too hard, the blankets scratchy. And it all smelled a bit wrong.
Victoria patted her bedspread affectionately, then folded a quilt and placed it just so on top of her trunk. There. The school year was well and truly finished now. She was so looking forward to a nice, quiet evening at home. A book and perhaps the radio, tucked up in her window seat. It had been a long week of examinations and then a long trip home, and Victoria was ready to rest.
She'd only just finished changing into a fresh comfortable dress when she heard the car pull up. She walked over to the open bedroom door as she tied her hair back with a frayed ribbon. Victoria hadn't seen her Dad for months. He'd been on a business trip when she'd been home for Easter. It would be polite to go say hello.
Before she even reached the threshold she heard her parents in the foyer. Mother's tone carried up the sweeping staircase and echoed off the cathedral ceiling. Not promising. Victoria paused where she was to assess the situation. It might be better to stay in her room until summoned.
"Where on earth have you been, Finis?" Mother was saying. "We're due at the club at seven, and it's nearly six!"
Dad mumbled something gruff but inaudible. Victoria hoped "we" didn't include her.
"It's the new member's dinner tonight," Mother said darkly.
"And?" Dad asked. Victoria could hear them climbing the stairs now.
"Our new members are those people."
"What people?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Finis, do you ever listen when I talk to you? I told you last week that they'd applied. That was Mavis on the telephone, and she says they got in. The Van Dorts belong to our country club!"
Mother delivered this news as if revealing a twist at the end of the second act of a melodrama. No wonder she was angry. Mother had very little time for their neighbors across the street. Showy and loud and they worked for their money. Mrs. Van Dort still had the kind of accent that spoke of the poorer neighborhoods in the city, and she used it at top-volume. Mother's list went on and on about everything wrong with the Van Dorts. Victoria had heard it all so many times she had it by heart.
Victoria didn't really know them, but she didn't think they were that bad. Mother was a bit of a snob, sad to say.
"I do wonder who sponsored them," Mother mused. "And for them to be granted membership! They'll let in anyone nowadays. I mean, 'Van Dort'?"
"Now, don't be that way."
Mother and Dad had reached her room by now. Dad was loosening his tie as he walked past. He spared her the briefest of nods.
"Evening, Victoria," he grunted, and then moved on. Mother hung back, arms crossed. She was already dressed in her formal dinner dress, steely hair and modest makeup impeccable. Her diamonds caught the light of the sun setting outside Victoria's window, throwing a little rainbow on the wall.
"Come along now, get cleaned up and dressed," Mother told her. "We're dining at the club tonight."
There went her dreams of a cozy night in. Victoria bit back a sigh as Mother swept into her room, her eagle eyes casting about to make sure everything was proper and tidy. She caught Hildegarde's eye as the maid came down the hall with an armload of fresh towels.
"Run a bath, and then do something with her hair, will you, Hildegarde? She looks a fright."
"Yes, ma'am," said Hildegarde, with a small look of sympathy at Victoria. Soon the sound of the bath running reached them.
Mother had bent toward Victoria's vanity mirror to prod at her already perfect hair as Victoria sank down on the end of her bed. The mere thought of going to the club tonight made her tired. She really didn't like the country club, the whole atmosphere was so gossipy and tight and oppressive. It was nice to play tennis, yes, but that was about it.
"Be sure to wear something suitable this time," Mother went on, looking at Victoria over her shoulder in the mirror. "Not one of your ghastly frumpy sweater sets. Wear that blue dress of yours, the one you wore to your father's birthday dinner."
"Yes, Mother," said Victoria, who always felt very smart in her sweater sets.
Finally Mother, satisfied with her reflection, turned to leave. On the way out she turned, as if just remembering something. "Make an effort, Victoria," she said, a definite warning in her tone that bordered on a threat. "Bartholomew Barkis will be there tonight. He's back from his first year at law school, and I have it on good authority that he'd like to make your acquaintance again."
Victoria very much doubted that Barry Barkis would be able to pick her out of a line-up, let alone be looking forward to seeing her. But she tried to sound enthusiastic when she replied, "All right, Mother."
Mother plainly didn't buy it for a second, but all she did was cut her eyes in a warning way before she left.
Dinner at the club. As she bathed and washed her hair, Victoria had a vision of decades of dinners at the club. Now that high school was nearly finished, she'd found that her feet were planted firmly at the top of the path that her parents expected of her. Quite without her consent.
A year or two at the local state college, studying something bland and inoffensive—English, maybe. Never mind that she was only mediocre when it came to English, and that her real passion was botany. It didn't matter. No one actually expected her to take a degree. It was understood that she'd drop out to get married, sooner rather than later. Again, never mind that the only thing she was less remarkable at than English was dealing with boys. Victoria'd never had a date in her life.
Somehow, though, her mother would dig up someone for her. Someone from the club, most likely. Son of a lawyer or a judge or maybe an up-and-comer from Dad's bank. Somebody like Barry Barkis. The same young men her mother had been fruitlessly thrusting at her for years at one function or another. The older Victoria got, the more excruciatingly embarrassing it was. Seventeen and never so much as a kiss. Or even a dance, beyond the odd duty-dance with boys who seemed desperate to get away from her and find a more interesting girl.
But anyway. She'd marry, live in a house very much like the one she grew up in, and pass the endless run of days very much the way her mother did. Dinner parties, a largely absent husband, the country club, luncheons, bridge. No color, no festivity, no romance. Just boring endless gray days.
This train of thought was depressing.
Glum, Victoria pulled on her nice blue dress, the one with the cap sleeves and full skirt. Then she sat at the vanity and picked up her hairbrush, deciding to get a head start before Hildegarde came back to help her.
Author's Note:
I was inspired to write this after seeing a piece of Corpse Bride fanart, which I cannot for the life of me find again. It was a high school AU, set in the 1990's, a picture of Victor, Victoria and Emily in updated clothes. The person who drew it elaborated, saying Emily would've died in the 1970's, and that the story would be more of a romantic comedy. The idea really stayed with me, and I ran with it. But I moved it to the American Midwest of the 1950's, as prim and proper a place as Victorian England in some ways. The tone of this one is also a romantic teen comedy, rather than a fairytale. It will be fun to see how this shakes out! Reviews welcome, and thanks for reading! And thank you, mysterious person, for the inspiration!
