Making Out Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by Parachute Publishing, L.L.C.

  Teenage couples at prom photograph by Tony Anderson/FPG/Getty Images.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  BERKLEY JAM and the JAM design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley JAM trade paperback edition / October 2006

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stine, Megan.

  Prom night : making out / Megan Stine.—Berkley JAM trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Prom night finds high school student Lisa Marie juggling too many boys and her two girlfriends each hiding a secret.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14392-6

  [1. Proms—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.

  3. Washington (D.C.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S86035Pr 2006

  [Fic]—dc22

  2006008525

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  “Try it on.”

  Lisa Marie Santos stared at the size six Maxazria dress. She fingered the lace edge detail around the neck and felt her heart beating faster. It was the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen in her life: black peau de soi silk deliberately crinkled and cut on the bias, with tight princess seams and a ragged, irregular hemline trimmed in the tiniest pale pink pearls and lace edging.

  A cross between boho and classic Audrey Hepburn.

  This is the one, Lisa Marie thought. The dress that would make her senior prom night everything it was supposed to be. The one that would make her feel like a princess and look every bit as drop-dead gorgeous as her older sister had looked three years ago when she was Homecoming Queen. There was only one problem.

  “It’s five hundred dollars,” she said, trying not to sound like that was way out of her league. Just out of her price range.

  “Is there any chance your parents will change their minds?” Heather Proule asked.

  Lisa Marie’s two best friends—Heather Proule and Marianna Kazanjian—fidgeted uncomfortably. She knew they were trying to figure out what to say—they had been listening to her complain all afternoon about the budget her parents had given her. One hundred dollars for a dress, shoes, bag, and hairstyle. It was ridiculous. And totally unfair. Her sister Angela had been given free rein for everything when she was in high school.

  But that was three years ago, before Angela’s college tuition kicked in. Now the whole family was on a budget.

  Bye-bye trips back home to the Isla de Margarita off the Venezuelan coast. Hello neighborhood pool.

  “They won’t,” Lisa Marie said. “Money is seriously tight. My mom hasn’t even had her hair colored in three months.”

  “Well, maybe it’s too early to shop,” Marianna said. “Prom is still seven weeks away. Maybe the price will come down.”

  “Too early to shop?” Lisa Marie pretended to be shocked. “Are you feeling okay? Take her temperature, Heather.”

  “No, we should check her DNA,” Heather joked. “She must be some sort of bio-copy of the real Marianna.”

  “Ha! Like I don’t know how to shop? I’m more hard-core than either of you,” Marianna argued. “Remember last year? When Nordstrom’s stayed open till eleven and they had to escort me out to my car?”

  Lisa Marie laughed. “Yeah, that was good. I think they have your photo posted on the wall in the office or something.”

  “And the best part was, you didn’t even buy anything! You were there for, what? Twelve hours? And went home empty-handed.” Heather laughed. “I’ll bet they loved that.”

  “It wasn’t a good day,” Marianna admitted.

  “Look, all we’re saying is we could keep looking for prom dresses.” Heather put a sympathetic hand on Lisa Marie’s arm. “Maybe you’ll find something cheaper that’s just as good.”

  Reluctantly, Lisa Marie let go of the black silk dress and continued prowling through racks of potential gowns. She and her friends had already been in nearly every chic store in Georgetown, the upscale shopping district and charming old residential section of Washington, D.C. For the past three hours, she’d been searching for the perfect thing to wear to the biggest night of her life.

  Now they were back in BCBG in a mall closer to school, fingering price tags, checking sizes, and kicking into desperation mode.

  Lisa Marie circled back around to the five hundred dollar dress and touched it again. She hadn’t wanted anything this badly since she craved a Disco Barbie in third grade.

  “Besides, we don’t even have dates yet,” Marianna said. “And the prom is a long way off.”

  “We don’t have dates. She does,” Heather corrected Marianna, pulling an interesting beaded green flapper-style dress off the rack.

  “Like I could forget,” Marianna said.

  Lisa Marie glanced up. Uh-oh. Was that a tinge of jealousy in Marianna’s voice? She hated for her friends to be jealous of the fact that she’d been going out with one guy, Todd Ku, for two years, while they had barely had dates.

  There was no reason in the world for them to envy her, Lisa Marie thought. They were both smart, beautiful, and fun to be with—a “gag me
” cliché, but it was true. They just hadn’t gotten lucky yet in the guy department.

  Not that Lisa Marie had exactly gotten lucky herself. Not with Todd. Marianna and Heather knew it, too.

  Todd was perfect—exceptional, even. Perfectly nice, and exceptionally boring. Who wanted to date someone whose main claim to fame was being captain of the chess team?

  Todd’s only a habit, Lisa Marie thought. Definitely not the love of my life.

  She wasn’t even sure how she had wound up with him, except that he was the son of the first friends her parents made when they moved to D.C. from Venezuela five years ago. For some unimaginable reason, both sets of parents clearly thought their kids should go out.

  In fact, she had been thinking about dumping him, but that would be breaking Rule #1: Never dump your boyfriend right before the prom.

  No, better to hang on to him until after graduation, then reassess.

  “You’ll both have dates for the prom, don’t worry,” Lisa Marie reassured her friends. “It’s still way early.”

  In her heart, Lisa Marie knew that, in Marianna’s case, even that was wishful thinking. Marianna wasn’t even allowed to date. How was she going to hook up with someone in time for the prom?

  “I think you should at least try it on,” Heather said, sounding rational. “If it looks like crap on you, then you won’t be disappointed. If it looks great, you can always get a job and save up for it.”

  Good plan. Clutching the dress like she never wanted to let go, Lisa Marie slipped into the dressing room. Why did people just leave their reject clothes lying all over the floor in American stores? After five years here, she still couldn’t get used to that.

  She peeled off her clothes, dropped her bra straps, and pulled the strapless dress up over her boobs. Her thick auburn hair skimmed her shoulders, framing her dark brown eyes and sensuously full lips. She looked like a darker version of Jessica Simpson, with a little bit of JLo thrown in. The dress was the perfect length—it made her legs look longer than they really were.

  “Come out. Show us,” Heather demanded from outside the dressing room.

  Lisa Marie stepped out and twirled.

  “Wow.” Marianna and Heather both looked awestruck.

  “So . . . you’ll get a job,” Heather said. “Save up. But you’ve got to take the dress off sometime if you want to go job hunting.”

  “Maybe they’d hire me to model it here?” Lisa Marie fantasized.

  Heather rolled her eyes and headed back toward the display area of the store. “I’m trying on the green one.”

  By the time they left the store and wandered back into the shopping mall, Lisa Marie had spotted an incredible pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, decided on earrings, and was debating between two tiny evening bags—a black silk clutch with a carved rose clasp, or a teeny pink beaded bag. Now was not the time to listen to the quiet voice in the way back of her head that whispered, Use your sister’s bag and save a hundred bucks. If it came to that, fine. But she didn’t want to cave so soon.

  “I need a job. Immediately,” Lisa Marie announced.

  “Food court?” Marianna suggested.

  Lisa Marie made a face. If necessary, sure. She’d do whatever it took. But she was hoping to avoid anything involving ugly uniforms and going home with her clothes reeking of grease.

  “There!” Heather pointed to a Help Wanted sign in a tuxedo rental shop.

  How ironic could things get? Lisa Marie wondered. Was she really supposed to work in a formal wear shop, renting out tuxes to high school boys, so she could earn the money for her prom dress?

  “Too bad you aren’t a guy—maybe they’d give you a discount,” Heather joked.

  Lisa Marie squinted at the sign. “Look. It says, ‘Retail Experience Required.’” She kept walking, scanning the windows of stores on the right and left. Then she caught the scent of the only thing in America that invariably made her feel like she was back home: coffee. There was a Starbucks straight ahead—not just a stupid middle-of-the-mall-oasis-among-the-hoards-of-shoppers Starbucks, either. It was a real Starbucks, with tables and leather furniture and a fireplace. And they had a Barista Wanted sign in the window.

  “Perfect!” Marianna smiled. “You’re the coffee queen—they’ll have to give you the job.”

  It was true. When it came to roasts, grinds, espressos, macchiatos, lattes, even the best growing temperature for coffee beans, Lisa Marie was an expert. Her uncle in Cuidad Bolivar was part owner of a coffee plantation. She’d grown up with the smell of roasting coffee in her blood.

  “Wait here,” she told her friends, marching into the Starbucks.

  Luckily, the place was slow, and the assistant manager, a guy name Gary, with outdated spiky bleached hair and a thin leather necklace around his neck, was in the mood to get the interview over with quickly.

  “So why are you interested in Starbucks?” he asked.

  The first part of the answer was easy. “I love the smell of coffee,” she said.

  Gary just stared, waiting for something more.

  “And I love the idea of working for a Fortune 500 company, with opportunities to serve people in an environment where they’re basically at ease and enjoying themselves,” she added, layering on the bullshit.

  Gary smiled.

  Thank you, Angela, Lisa Marie thought, breathing a sigh of relief. Her sister had e-mailed her an article on what to say during a job interview just last week. When it came, Lisa Marie had almost deleted it. Now she was grateful for the help.

  “You sound like you know what you’re doing,” Gary said after she went on to describe Starbucks’ French roast as a blunt, smoky blend with intense richness and robust caramel flavor. “I’ll try you out if you can start this afternoon.”

  “Seriously?” Lisa Marie’s face lit up, but then she almost choked when he told her how much he could pay.

  “But you get tips,” Gary explained. He eyed her tight striped knit top and slim jeans. “You’ll do okay. Be back here at five, and I’ll have Graham train you.”

  Gary was definitely a little too interested in her outfit. But at least it was a job.

  Quickly, she did some math in her head. Yeah, she’d be able to buy the dress and a pair of shoes, if she worked fifteen hours a week and got lucky with the tip jar.

  “Thanks,” Lisa Marie beamed.

  “Starbucks partners say ‘thank you’—not thanks,” Gary corrected her.

  Partners? What was this—a square dance?

  The cell phone in her bag started ringing. Gary frowned. “And make sure that’s off when you come to work.”

  “Sure. Thanks again. I mean thank you!” Lisa Marie hurried out to the mall to take her phone call.

  It was Todd.

  “Can you meet me in half an hour?” Todd asked.

  “What’s up?” Lisa Marie asked.

  “Just some stuff I want to talk about,” he said in his usual unemotional way.

  Fine. Whatever. Though . . . it was a little odd for him to be calling and wanting to talk all of a sudden on a Saturday afternoon. They were supposed to study together the next day.

  She debated whether to tell him about her new job, but Marianna and Heather were waiting.

  “See you at Smooth Moves in half an hour,” she said, naming her favorite smoothie place and smiling privately, happy that she’d be working someplace much cooler than that.

  “Did you get the job?” Marianna asked as Lisa Marie clicked her phone closed.

  “I did!”

  “Coffee queen,” Heather said proudly.

  Lisa Marie beamed at her friends. She wondered if Todd would be as happy for her as they were—or whether he’d be pissed because her job would cut into their time together.

  “I start later today. But I’ve got to meet Todd, so . . .”

  “You have to work on a Saturday night?” Marianna sounded appalled.

  Yeah. Angela never worked a Saturday night in her life. Oh, well. That was then, this was now. No
point in turning the whole sibling rivalry thing into a major drama. She was tired of whining about how Angela got all the perks in the family, anyway. It felt better to actually do something about it.

  “Call when you get off work,” Heather said. “Maybe you can come over and watch a late movie with us.”

  Todd looked different when he found her sitting on their favorite bench at the edge of the food court. What was it . . . his hair? Shorter? Longer, maybe? No—he had untucked his T-shirt and was letting it hang out below his polo shirt for the first time ever. It didn’t exactly look stylish on him like it did on most guys. More like sloppy. Or maybe like he just took a whiz and forgot to tuck in. But she appreciated that he was trying harder to loosen up and change his geek-with-a-pocket-protector image.

  “Let’s get a pretzel and share it,” Lisa Marie said, suddenly famished from the shopping marathon.

  Without a word of discussion, Todd went off to buy the smoothies and pretzel while Lisa Marie got the straws and napkins. Then she found a table and sat down to hold their place.

  God, we’re like an old married couple, Lisa Marie thought. Without the sex. She and Todd fooled around plenty, but she wasn’t about to go all the way with someone she didn’t really have strong feelings for. Even their make-out sessions were getting pretty boring these days.

  But on the other hand, he was really nice to her. Always offering to do things, like install firewall software and defragment her hard drive.

  Just what a girl wants.

  It’s the thought that counts, Lisa Marie reminded herself.

  “So guess what?” she said when he had broken the pretzel in half and let her choose the piece she wanted. “I got a job.”

  “You did? How come?”

  Should I tell him about the dress? she wondered. Or was this sort of like a wedding dress? Bad luck for him to know about it in advance? Oh, what the hell. She’d have to explain to him sometime why she wouldn’t be able to hang out as much for the next few weeks.