On Prom Season

And High School Friendships That Change You, Even If They End

A while ago, I went to the mall to meet a friend for brunch and to buy another friend a birthday present. I parked outside Macy’s and the second I entered the store, my eyes were inundated with color. Sapphire! Tangerine! Fire engine red! I had to scoot down the aisle because huge billowing skirts of satin and taffeta were determinedly encroaching on my space. Light winked at me from rhinestones and silvery thread and I couldn’t help smiling when I saw a teen girl step out of the dressing room in a cloud of coral gauze to the squeals of her friends.

More than two decades have passed since I was a seventeen-year-old girl in a gown, yet I still remember the exhilarating flutter of choosing the perfect outfit, deciding what flowers to order for my date’s boutonniere, and discussing with my friends whether or not to get a limousine for the occasion.

School dances were a fact of life for my classmates and me, as they are for many young Americans, so I didn’t think much about it until I explained the concept of prom to my partner. He immigrated from an Asian country where dressing up and dancing with someone of another gender is simply not done! But here, prom is often a rite of passage, and seeing those dresses brought back vivid memories for me.

It made me think, too, about how some friendships — especially ones between girls of that age, steadfast, intense, and all-encompassing — can shape you long after they have ended. I never had a boyfriend in high school, so the most influential relationships I had outside of family were with my friends. One friend in particular, my best friend, was my rock in my junior and senior years of high school.

She was a three-season athlete, smart, funny, and kind, a kid with a sports scholarship on her way to a great future. She was also a dead ringer for Neve Campbell. Boys lined up to date her and girls clamored to be her friend, but she picked me, her polar opposite, to be her soul sister when we were sixteen. She didn’t mind that I was quiet, too serious, decidedly not athletic, and so gentle and mild that I too often tolerated (and befriended! Or had crushes on!) kids who were mean to me.

She saw who I truly was: someone who dreamed fiercely in the dark, who had fire and grit beneath that shy exterior, and who would give her lunch money to any kid who needed it, even if it meant going without lunch herself. She took the time to look deeper, and when we fell into friendship, we fell hard. There were no secrets between us. The boys we liked, our struggles with our parents, and our most secret hopes were laid bare during many a sleepless sleepover. Lord of the Rings cemented us as a duo. We watched the films over and over, called each other “Frodo” (her) and “Sam” (me), and recited lines to each other as inside jokes in front of our puzzled friends.

In the fall, we would be going to the same university. But first, we vowed, we would go to prom together — she with her boyfriend, and me escorted by one of her friends who played baseball with her older brother.

We didn’t have “promposals” back in the day, where your date asked you out with an elaborate display the way someone might ask another person to marry them. I was simply riding in my best friend’s car one day, probably coming home from school.