How I Found the Perfect Dress by Maryrose Wood Page B

to find Wee Folk Custom Tailors and Alterations? I even looked in the Yellow Pages, but no such place was listed. I’d have to keep my half-goddess wits about me and stay alert for another clue, but for now, the receipt and the promlike nature of Colin’s dreams were all I had to go on.
    The situation became most painful at that week’s junior prom committee meeting where, naturally, the only thing the girls wanted to talk about was Colin.
    â€œIs he as great as you remember?”
    â€œWas it like you’d never been apart?”
    â€œDid he kiss you hello?”
    â€œDid he kiss you goodbye?”
    â€œHas he been seeing anybody else?” That was from Deirdre, and it stopped me in my tracks.
    â€œI—I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t ask him.” He certainly hadn’t mentioned such a thing. It sounded like he’d done nothing for months but struggle with schoolwork and his mysterious affliction.
    â€œThere’s only one question that really matters,” Sarah said with authority. “‘Is Colin taking Morgan to prom?’” The three of them stared at me like a trio of owls, round-eyed with curiosity.
    â€œHe can’t.” I threw up my hands. “He’s only here for two weeks.” Colin would be gone by the sixteenth of March; the junior prom wasn’t until the twentieth. Right on my birthday, in fact.
    Wails! Moans! Many questions were simultaneously shouted into my face—“Can’t he stay longer? Aren’t you upset? Is it true that Mike Fitch bought you a soda at the basketball game?”—but the interrogation was interrupted by the arrival of the evil prom planner, Mrs. Shirley Blainsvoort of Promfessionals Inc.
    As you might expect, she was kind of a freak: bone thin, platinum-haired and so done up with makeup and hairspray that she looked embalmed. Once a month she showed up at our committee meetings armed with questionnaires to collect our “ appropriate student input,” and never for one millisecond did she stop pretending that we were her valued clients, not the students whose God-given right to throw their own weird prom she’d cheerfully snatched away.
    â€œToday, we’ll address one of my favorite prom topics,” she announced gaily, once she’d taken off her twelve layers of pashmina shawls, demanded hot tea with lemon and perched herself on a chair. She’d made the same comment about everything so far: the location, the dinner choices, the type of flowers in the centerpieces—all were her “favorite prom topics.” “Today we’ll talk about music . They say it’s the food of love, you know!”
    We stared at her blankly. With a tight smile, she passed out a questionnaire.
    â€œWe don’t need a questionnaire for this,” Sarah said. “We know who we want to play at the prom.”
    â€œI have a wonderful DJ,” Mrs. Blainsvoort cooed. “He’s very experienced. He can play any type of music you like.”
    â€œDJs suck,” Sarah cooed back. “We need live music. We’re having a band.”
    â€œThe problem with live music,” said Mrs. Blainsvoort pleasantly, “is that the musicians can only play the songs they know . And they have to take breaks and bring in all types of instruments and what have you. And sometimes, frankly, they’re not very good.” She wrinkled her nose. “Haven’t you ever been to a wedding where the band was just—lame?”
    Could anything be lamer than hearing Mrs. Blainsvoort call something lame? She was trying to bond with us now. She must have been scared. She could feel her promfessional control slipping through those bony fingers. For sheer entertainment value, I’d say this was the best prom-planning committee meeting we’d had so far.
    â€œMy boyfriend’s band rocks,” said Sarah, speaking just as pleasantly as Mrs. Blainsvoort