#new newbies

Roderick looks sheepish, the way he always does when he asks for something he doesn’t feel he deserves. He fidgets with the headphones in his hands. “I wanted to ask you…”

Kitty can feel it coming like an oncoming train. This happens every prom season, an age-old cliché – some chubber nerd asks out the hottest cheerleader, too infatuated to show common sense. The words of the rejection rise instinctively in her mind as if she’s following a script. She’s going to have to let him down now – she wishes he’d done it in private so she could let him down gentler, but as it is her reputation as alpha bitch demands a strong line –

“Do you have time to drill the routine with me once or twice sometime this week?” he asks. “I don’t think I have the rock-step down yet.”

It feels a little like missing the bottom step of a staircase in the dark.

“It’s okay if you can’t,” says Roderick, tilting his head at her, a little crease forming between his brows.

Kitty shakes her head. She’s never thrown off for long. “Tuesday after school?”

“Tuesday.”

It’s really just that she feels a little slighted, Kitty decides later. That’s all. Jane’s taken, Madison’s clearly crazy, heaven knows he doesn’t have any other female friends – Kitty is his obvious best option. He probably just got scared of rejection and wussed out, like usual. He’ll ask later. Tuesday is probably just a gambit to get her alone.

But Tuesday comes and goes – he’s right, his rock-step needs serious work, and takes a frustrating hour to fix, during which she has to keep waiting for him to get his breath back – and he hasn’t asked squat.

Weeks pass and Kitty’s getting angry. What’s he thinking? It’s bloody inconsiderate, expecting to pull together everything at such short notice. Doesn’t he know he has to match his tie to her dress, and order the corsage, and –

One day as rehearsal’s starting Roderick sits down beside Madison. Kitty sees him take a purple silk tie out of his knapsack and show it to her. Madison smiles way too big to be just making idle chatter with him. Kitty listens.

“-That’s a perfect match,” Madison is saying, in her usual mile-a-minute powerhouse voice. “I told you you weren’t hopeless at this and I was right, as usual. Orchids would be perfect for the corsage and boutonnière – unless I can find white and purple irises.” And Roderick nods his head, wearing a blank smile.

He’s going with Madison? Madison who he’s admitted scares the crap out of him, weird creepy incest-twin Madison? She loves Madison, of course she does, but she’s all wrong for Roderick, that idiot -

Suddenly Kitty realizes it’s three weeks to prom and she doesn’t have a date. When did expecting Roderick to ask her to prom turn into expecting to go to prom with Roderick?

Well, fuck him. She’s out of his league anyway. That afternoon at cheer practice she marches across the football pitch and up to a junior running back with glorious abs and says, point-blank, “You’re going to prom with me.” He’s too stunned to say no, as she knew he would be.

Two weeks before prom, when Roderick asks her if she has time for another dance drill, she tells him go ask somebody else, fatty, she’s got too much to do to review everything with him fifty times just because he can’t see his feet.

The look on his face is such a mixture of disappointment, resignation and simple hurt that she regrets it immediately. Doing the drill wouldn’t have been so bad. She could have taught him to waltz, so he wouldn’t totally embarrass Madison. The idea of waltzing with Roderick, alone in the dance room, is not unpleasant to her.

But seriously, fucking Madison?

Kitty’s done with jealousy. By the time prom actually rolls around she’s over it. She stops him in the banquet hall, stealing a cup of punch from his hand.

“You clean up nice, Stay-Puft. It’s quite a change from those hideous cowboy shirts. And the headphones, thank God you’re not bringing those in.” It’s only barely a compliment, but she means it. His suit fits him well, the purple is nice, and his hair is a masterwork.  It’s cute.

He fiddles with his suit jacket and smiles into his collar, his round face pinkish. “Well. Thanks. I don’t think you need me to tell you how great you look.”

It’s true. She doesn’t need him to. Kitty’s in a ruby-red sheath paired with simple gold bands for jewelry, her hair straightened into a sheet of gold. She opted for classic, while the other girls scrambled after the current fashion, and all eyes are on her. Vindictively, she hopes his will be too.

She wins Prom Queen, surprising nobody. Her little speech would have done the writers of Mean Girls proud. Her date for the night makes very pretty arm candy and looks happy to be there with the best-looking girl in the place, but they don’t talk much. He says he doesn’t really dance, so they sit, and Kitty drinks punch, praying somebody’s spiked it.

Roderick and Madison are on the dance floor. They’re doing the Shopping Cart.

After a while, she sees Madison give him that big, slightly demented smile and trot off to dance with somebody else. They were always going as ‘just friends’, and Madison’s boundless energy is too much for one date to contain. Roderick looks relieved, and then awkward, standing by the punchbowl and giving repeated, surreptitious glances to the buffet table.

Kitty gets out of her seat.

“Do you know how to waltz?”

Roderick stares at her. “No?”

“Come on, you’re going to learn.”