Me and Carlos by Tom Perrotta

Author:Tom Perrotta [Perrotta, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-15T22:00:00+00:00

I’ll be honest—prom was not a great experience for me. It started with an endless photo session at Tyler’s house, all six of us guys and our dates, and you can see in the pictures how miserable I was, my arm draped resentfully around Lulu’s shoulders, a fake smile plastered on my face. When that was over, we headed back to school for the Grand Promenade, where each couple made a brief appearance onstage so they could be ogled and applauded. Katie and Carlos got a big laugh—she towered over him in her high heels—but they were both beautiful and in on the joke, which earned them one of the biggest ovations of the day. Lulu and I got polite applause, the kind you get just for showing up.

After that, we boarded a bus to the main event, dinner and dancing in a fancy hotel ballroom. I have no idea what the food was like. All I remember is that Katie and Carlos looked really happy together—he kept whispering in her ear, and she kept laughing out loud—and it made me a little sick. The whole time, I could feel Lulu watching me watching them, and I could tell that she wasn’t any happier than I was.

The only decent part was the dancing, because it was dark and I didn’t have to look at them. Lulu was really into the slow jams and totally up for making out.

“Come on,” she whispered, running her finger down the front of my shirt. “It’s prom. Let’s have some fun.”

I tried; I really did. She was a good kisser, despite her orthodontia, and it got pretty steamy for a while, our bodies pressed together like two sheets of paper, and these little humming noises rising from deep inside her throat.

We danced together till the end of the night and made out on the bus the whole way home. After that, we changed into normal clothes and reconvened for the after-party in Gayatri Patel’s basement. Lulu wanted to pick up where we’d left off, but I wasn’t feeling it anymore. Out of her sparkly dress, her face scrubbed clean and plain, she was just her normal, disappointing self again, the annoying best friend of the girl I really wanted to be with—the girl who was perched on Carlos’s lap, her long hair spilling down as they kissed, forming a curtain between the two of them and the rest of us. Carlos was wearing my brother’s shirt, which for some reason really bugged me. We watched them for a while, until Lulu said she was tired and wanted to go home.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.