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don’t want to go alone and look like a geek), and Nathan asked me to go with him. And, I ask you, what other prospects did I have? I mean, just a couple of months ago, I would’ve done back flips at the chance to go anywhere with someone as popular as Nathan Parker. But now, it’s like I’m just using him . Is that lame or what? But I’m afraid it’s the pitiful truth. And although part of me feels totally guilty for using him like this, on the other hand, I’m wondering why can’t you just be friends with a boy and go to a dance together? I mean, is that so bad?
    I guess the part that makes it bad is that I’m actually hoping I’ll get to dance with Josh while I’m there. And I’m also hoping that Josh’s eyes will pop out and roll across the cafeteria floor when he sees me in my powder-pink satin dress that Mom let me get last weekend (with Grandma chipping in as well, she said it was my Valentine’s present). Jenny went with us and helped me to pick it out, and she said that color looked absolutely fantastic with my pale blond hair (Jenny’s dress is a similar style, only hers is burgundy which doesn’t look half bad with her dark hair).
    Anyway, I know I’ve got all kinds of horribly wrong motives going on here, and the whole guilt thing is startingto get to me a little, but I just can’t seem to help myself. Am I hopeless, or what? Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and I wonder what someone like Beanie Jacobs would say to me right now (that is if she was even talking to me, which she isn’t by the way). She’d probably accuse me of having sold my soul to the devil. To tell the truth, sometimes it almost feels like I did. But I didn’t. At least I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I don’t remember shaking hands or signing anything binding.…
February 10, Saturday (the big dance)
    Well, talk about your let-downs. I guess I should’ve known the night was doomed when my dad went ballistic the instant he saw me in my pink dress (did I mention it was strapless?). Well, my poor dad (too bad we didn’t have any tranquilizers on hand) just totally flipped out. “You’re not leaving the house in that—that slip!” I think you’d call it blustering. Anyway, he went on and on, his face growing redder by the moment and the veins visibly popping out in his neck (I was actually worried he was going to have an honest-to-goodness stroke and we’d have to take him to the hospital and I’d miss the dance altogether, which might not have been such a bad thing after all). Anyway, my mom couldn’t even calm him down. And of course, it didn’t help any when Benjamin threw in his two cents, saying that I looked like Marilyn Monroe (I mean, how does he even know who Marilyn Monroe is, or was?). And then just as my parents began getting into what sounded like a horrible fight over the whole thing, I saw Nathan’s carpull up outside.
    So I just waved good-bye and streaked out the door like a powder-pink flash. I explained to Nathan that my parents were in there going totally nuts and the safest thing was just to get away as quickly as possible. Of course, he thought I was joking and laughed.
    Anyway, we went to the dance (and the decorations looked pretty good even if I do say so myself). We sat with Jenny and Josh and a bunch of other kids, and just when things started getting fun, Jenny said she felt sick and asked Josh to take her home. And—boom—they were gone. Suddenly, everything at the dance seemed to go totally flat for me, and I didn’t even care if I was there or not. But I tried to paste on a happy face for Nathan’s sake (I mean he’d brought me a wrist corsage and everything). It’s bad enough that I was using him, but at least I wanted him to think he was having a good time.
    I can’t really remember too much about the evening after that—at least not until Nathan spilled a whole cup of red Hawaiian punch down the front of my dress. Well, needless to say, I wasn’t too happy about that