A flask of vodka is being passed.
Loud music that Nanette doesn’t know or like makes it impossible to have a discussion.
It may be the same stupid song they play over and over at parties, because the boys are—once again—rapping about fucking other people’s bitches, and pointing gun-shaped hands at each other’s noses.
And as Nanette looks around the limo, she feels as if she is trapped like a wild animal in a cage for the first time.
Off to her left, she sees a heavily made-up girl reflected in the window. It takes Nanette a second to realize that the girl is Nanette. She gazes into her own pupils and sees the void that’s opened up inside her, swallowing everything like some black hole of happiness—and then something deep within Nanette sparks back to life.
She jumps off Ned’s lap, bangs her fists on the glass separating them from the driver, and yells, “Stop the limo! Stop the limo! Stop the fucking limo right fucking now!” over and over, until the driver finally brakes.
“What’s wrong?” they all ask her.
She’s no longer acting the part.
There will be a punishment for this.
Their faces are full of hatred.
Their faces say that Nanette isn’t supposed to scream like that.
Their faces tell her to be quiet, sip vodka, sit on Ned’s boner, and smile like the other girls in the limo.
She doesn’t answer but struggles to get out.
The boys pull her back and say that everything is okay.
Too many hands are on her.
“It’s not!” Nanette yells. “Let Nanette out!”
“Where do you want to go?” Ned says. The look in his eyes suggests he’s somewhere between confused and angry.
“Let her go. Let me talk to her,” says Shannon.
Shannon’s man finally opens the door, and I jump out of the limo, kick off my pumps, and start to run barefoot down the street.
“Where are you going?” Shannon yells. “What the hell, Nanette?”
When the limo begins to follow me, I cut behind houses, jump over fences, rip my prom dress in several places, scuff my pedicure, until I’m sure I’ve lost my classmates.
Then I’m sprinting barefoot through the streets like a marathoner, except for the restrictive prom dress.
I’m headed toward Booker’s.
When I arrive, I’m soaked in sweat and panting hard.
My feet are bleeding.
I look behind me and see blood on the pavement.
I ring the doorbell several times.
Booker answers and says, “Well, look who it is, my prodigal daughter. Are you wearing a prom dress?”
“Why did you write The Bubblegum Reaper? WHY?”
“Um . . . why are you yelling at me? Sandra is inside along with Oliver and his new girlfriend, Violet. We’re having the most delightful postsupper tea. Would you care to join us?”
A pang of jealousy hits me—Booker has moved on from Alex and me to Oliver and Violet. But I’m also sort of happy that Oliver has someone besides his mother in his life.
“You can’t just play with our heads!”
“Whose heads?”
“Your readers!”
“Wait a second. Is tonight your prom? Is that why you’re dressed like—”
“Yes!”
“And you stood up your prom date. Like Wrigley?”
I can see the color draining from Booker’s face.
“Yeah. Well, kind of.”
“I never told you to do that!” Booker roars. “And I didn’t tell Alex to climb the outside of a building, either! I just wrote a story! You can’t hold me responsible for everything you do after reading my novel!”
“Well, reading your novel changed my life. And now I’m confused and lost and barefoot in a prom dress regardless of whose fault it is!”
“It’s not my fault!”
“What do I do now—with my life?”
“How would I know that?”
“What did Wrigley do? After he floated in the creek at the end of the book? What happens next? I really need to know. You owe me.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“The truth!”
Booker sighs, looks at his shoes, and quietly says, “He grew up, Nanette. Worked several jobs he loathed. Failed as a writer. Was unlucky in life and love. Became an old man. Found Sandra at the end. Tried to help a few kids along the way. That’s it. Not really worthy of a sequel, if you know what I mean.”
“But is Wrigley okay after the book ends? Is he all right now?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“Why won’t you give me a straight answer?”
“Because there’s no such thing. That’s what you learn when you grow up. No one knows the answers. No one.”
I take a long, hard look at Booker.
He’s just a wrinkly old man.
And he’s telling the truth; he really doesn’t have any answers for me now.
Everything he had went into The Bubblegum Reaper, and there was nothing left over.
I might still be hungry, but that doesn’t make him an endless literary buffet.
“Good-bye,” I say, and then turn my back to him.
“We’re playing Scrabble later. You should come in. I think your feet are bleeding. You should really let us attend to your cuts. Nanette? Don’t go like this. Please. Nanette?”
I keep walking—every step hurts now—and when I arrive home limping, I tell my shocked parents about the experiment that I was conducting and how I tried to be normal, but it just was too hard in the long run.
My mother cleans the cuts on my feet and gets me out of my prom dress and into the bathtub.