The Petty Details of So-And-So's Life Read Free Page B

she chirped inside the dead space of her locker. She didn’t dare look at him. She was sure she was turning green. She leaned further into her locker and breathed deeply, and then quietly threw up into her running shoes.
    After a jocular exchange full of “Haar yes,” and “Of course, sir,” between Peter and her father in the foyer, Elaine and Peter drove off in his father’s white Buick.
    â€œFirst stop, Mike’s place. Then we pick up Mary-Ann,” Peter announced. Elaine froze. Mike was Peter’s best friend, and Mary-Ann, his date, the type of girl who was a cheerleader with all the sickening potential of being chosen prom queen.
    In fact, when Mary-Ann plopped down in the back seat, all flounce and ringlets, she said as much. “Petey! You know, if you guys don’t make me prom queen, I’ll have to burn the hair of the girl who wins!”
    She turned to Elaine then and commented on her dress. “Interesting” was the word she used. “Did you make it yourself?” she asked patronizingly. Elaine nodded, and Mary-Ann said, “Oh, good for you! I’m just
useless
with a needle and thread.”
    It went from bad to worse. Peter and Mike took turns dancing with Mary-Ann all night and Elaine spent a great deal of time staring at her shoes (which she hadn’t, incidentally, made herself). Peter kept coming up to the table and asking her if she was all right, bringing her aglass of punch each time. Halfway through the night, she was sitting alone at a table with six glasses of punch lined up in a row, none of which she had touched. Mrs. Petrie, the gym teacher, must have felt sorry for her, because she pulled up a chair beside Elaine and asked her if she was having a lovely time.
    â€œTerrific,” Elaine said drolly.
    Mrs. Petrie looked sympathetic and said, “I wouldn’t worry, dear. They haven’t got half your intellect,” nodding her head in the direction of the two boys flanking the now near-hysterical swirling blonde. “You got accepted to Harvard, didn’t you?”
    â€œYeah, so?”
    â€œWell, that’s better than any of them could do.”
    â€œWell, I’m not going.”
    â€œYou haven’t accepted?”
    â€œI never wanted to apply in the first place. I just ghost wrote my mother’s application. It wasn’t me. It isn’t me. I’m getting the hell out of Boston.”
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œCanada.”
    â€œCanada?” said Mrs. Petrie with such surprise you’d think it were a penal colony.
    â€œMontreal. McGill.” Montreal was only six hours away, but it was about as far away from the sordid demonstration in front of her as she could imagine.
    â€œWell, that’s brave,” she commended her.
    Not really, thought Elaine.
    Despite feeling self-righteous and determined, Elaine did still, of course, secretly hope that Peter was just being coy and saving the last dance for her. Anticipating this as the night wore on, she excused herselffrom Mrs. Petrie and went to floss her teeth in the ladies’ room. “Shhhh,” she heard as soon as she walked in, followed by a succession of hiccups and muffled giggles. A bottle of cherry brandy crashed to the floor inside the cubicle behind her and Mary-Ann let out a high-pitched screech: “Oh shit, Peter! You’ve stained the front of my dress!” Mary-Ann burst out of the cubicle then and ran to the sink beside Elaine, hitching up her dress to her navel in an effort to get it under the tap. Elaine was staring into the mirror as Peter emerged, his reflection slightly drunk and stupid.
    â€œHi,” he waved lamely at Elaine’s face in the mirror.
    â€œHi,” she waved back, mockingly.
    â€œPeter, you could at least help me!” shouted Mary-Ann, frantically scratching her nails into the fabric of her dress.
    When Peter didn’t move, Elaine said, “It’s the least