Pearl River Community College's award winning literary magazine

Special Edition—Spring-Summer 1998

Short Story Section

by Anna Claire Morgan

This year for prom, I wanted a dress no one else would have ever seen much less duplicated. So I took the advice of all Prom magazines and went to every vintage dress shop I could find. When I walked into the door of the last shop in town, I was certain I would leave empty handed. The sales lady came over to me and asked, "Can I help you find something, dear?"

"Yes," I told her, "I'm looking for a prom dress, and I want something really different. Is this all you have?"

"Well, we had some donations come in yesterday morning. I think there are some dresses you could look at. Let me go to the back and get them. I'll be right back," she smiled.

"Okay." I continued looking through the dresses on the rack while I waited for her to come back. A few minutes passed, and the sales lady came out with about five or six dresses in her arms.

"Here you go!" she replied cheerfully. "These just got here late yesterday morning, and I hadn't had a chance to get them cleaned up a bit to put them out on the racks to sell. They're a little old, and they may need some work. But they're really beautiful."

"Yeah," I agreed. "They are. Thanks!"

I tried them all on, and decided the pink one was going to make my dream dress. It needed some work, but it was obvious it had once been someone else's dream dress too. It was made from baby pink satin at the top. It had a couple of stains on it. Tiny seed pearls were sprinkled across the sweetheart neckline, but several were missing. the skirt was made out of pink tulle net with a satin layer underneath it all. The tulle was severely ripped. I loved it, though. It would be perfect after I had it fixed. I left the store as happy as I could be. There was no way anyone would have a dress like mine!
 
 
 

The next couple of days were pretty normal until I went to yearbook class Wednesday. I had already finished my layout, so I picked up an old yearbook and started flipping through it. I came across a picture of the Prom Queen from...I turned the book on its side to find the date...1958. "Mary-Kate Youngly," I mumbled to myself.

"What?" my best friend, Mandi asked me, never looking up from her layout.

"Mary-Kate Youngly," I repeated. "Her dress looks just like the one I found at that vintage store the other day."

"Is that the 1958 yearbook?" Mandi questioned me.

"Yeah, why?"

Mandi's head jerked up from her layout. She stared at me wide eyed and jerked the yearbook out of my hand. "Gimme that!" She peered at its pages closely, and then whispered, "Oh my God."

"What?" She always got so worked up over nothing.

"Don't you know who this is?" she squealed.

"No. Who?"

"That's Mary-Kate Youngly!"

"Duh. So what?"

"She was the 1958 Prom Queen."

"And...?" I prompted her.

"You don't know the story do you?"

"Obviously not. What's the big deal?"

"She died on Prom Night. Well, murdered. She and her date...what was his name? Robert. Robert Layden. Everybody called him Bobby. They were murdered on their way to prom. Some thief stabbed them to death. It was just some crazy

random thing. They never even caught the guy. And, if that dress you have really is hers, then you're wearing the dress she died in. Because this picture was taken on prom night." Mandi looked rather excited about passing on the legend, and knowing that I possibly had her prom dress.

"So what are you telling me? If I wear her dress for prom, she's gonna haunt me? Get real."

"No, I'm not saying that. But wouldn't it be interesting if you were wearing some dead girl's prom dress?"

"Don't say that!"

"Well, it's true."

"No, it's not," I retorted.

"How do you know? You don't." Mandi stuck her hands on her hips.

"I'll find out," I declared.

"How?"

"I'll go back to the store and find out where it came from."

So I did what any normal person would do. I went back to the store. I could barely contain myself for the rest of the day in school. The little door bell announced my arrival when I walked into the store. The same lady who had sold me the dress walked out from behind the counter.

"Hi!" she greeted me.

"Hi, do you remember me? I was here earlier this week."

"Oh, yes, dear. You bought that beautiful pink dress. Is something wrong?"

"Well, no. Not really. Can you tell me where that dress came from?"

"Yes, dear. I can. It came from the Youngly Estate. Mrs. Youngly passed away late last month, and had no relatives after Mr. Youngly died a few years ago. Most of her things were auctioned off, but most of the clothing in the house was donated and brought here. Those dresses you tried on yesterday, including the one you bought, had belonged to her lovely daughter Mary Kate. That accident was so tragic..."

After she raved about all the nice things that came from the Youngly Estate, I left the little vintage store feeling pretty amazed and shocked. It was her dress. I thought about that dress and the poor girl who had worn it. Her poor family. She was so young. It must have been awful for them. The dress came back to my mind. The stains. The missing pearl beads. The torn skirt. The stains had to be blood. It weirded me out for a while, but the more I thought about it, the more right it seemed for me to wear this dress. There was no way I was not going to wear this dress.

The only person I told was Mandi, but I made her swear not to tell anyone. I took the dress to the cleaners, and had it pressed. The stain even came out. How that happened I'll never know. A forty year old blood stain. How in the world? My mom found some tiny little pearls that matched the old ones and sewed them on by hand. We cut the torn parts of the skirt to make the dress short. It was perfect! I figured if I was going vintage, I'd go all the way. I borrowed some long white gloves from my grandmother, and I decided to wear pearls. The day of prom finally arrived, and I even had the hairdresser do my hair in one of those poofy hair styles. Steve came and picked me up pretty early so we could go back to his house for his parents to see us. My mom made a huge fuss over the two of us.

"You two look so great!" she beamed.

"Thanks Mrs. Fending," Steve replied shyly.

"Mom, " I asked, "is the flash dead yet?"

"Lizzie, honey, I just want some memories of my baby girl's prom. That's all." Mom defended herself.

"Come on, Steve. We're leaving now."

"Wait," he stopped me."I've got a surprise for you. Close your eyes."

"Why? You know I hate surprises."

"Just do it. Okay? It's prom."

"Okay." I closed my eyes, and Steve took me by the hands. He led me out of the front door onto the porch. I heard my mom attempting to whisper to Steve.

"Oh, Steve, it's beautiful!"

"Can I please open my eyes?"

"Okay," Steve said. "Now!"

I opened my eyes and thought I would faint. Parked in my drive way was a red 1957 Chevrolet convertible (but the top was up so my hair wouldn't get messed up).

"Steve! Where did you get this?" I exclaimed.

"It's my dad's. He's been restoring it for a couple of years and just finished it three weeks ago. I wasn't sure if it would be ready for prom or not which is why I never said anything. I knew you'd flip out over it. Pretty cool, huh?"

"It's great!" I was feeling more like Mary Kate Youngly as the day went by, especially since I had been nominated for Prom Queen exactly forty years later.

We went back to Steve's house so his parents could see us, and then we met some of our friends for dinner. Prom was turning out better than I ever could have expected; everything was wonderful. But once we got to the school gym for the actual dance, all of that mysteriously changed. I expected some disco music to be playing, since the nineties were currently re-living the seventies. Instead, this really old song was playing. It reminded me of something I'd hear my grandparents listen to on the radio. Earth Angel was the name of the song, I think. Some old fifties song. This night was getting more ironic by the minute. We walked in the door, and I could have sworn the Prom theme was supposed to be "Stairway to Heaven", named after the song. That was tradition; name the Prom theme after a song. For some strange reason, there were stars everywhere. A Night Under the Stars? What was this?

"Steve, what happened to the other decorations?"

"Steve? Who's Steve? And what other decorations Mary Kate?"

It was at that moment that I took a good look around. Every girl here had on dresses similar to mine. And I did a double take at the banner above the band. It read:
 

I suddenly felt very sick. Either someone was playing a really mean joke on me, or somehow this dress had just warped me to the prom Mary Kate Youngly never made.

As we walked around the gym, faces I had never before seen were greeting me as "Mary Kate". They were calling Steve "Bobby." Where was I? What was going on? I didn't know what to do. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone or something. I suppose I came to terms with this thing that was happening to me. I actually began enjoying myself in a weird sort of way. I danced the whole night. The band's lead singer's voice came over the microphone.

"Okay all you cool cats out there, it's time to announce the Prom Queen! Envelope, please. And the 1958 Prom Queen is... Mary Kate Youngly!" I looked around, and everyone was looking at me.

"Go on up there, Mary Kate." Steve, I mean Bobby, or who ever he was nudged me toward the stage. Confused and baffled, I slowly made my way to the stage and was crowned Prom Queen. The rest of the night was a pretty big blur. But, one thing remained clear. There was something I had to do. I danced the last dance, and my date and I headed for the door. We crossed over the threshold of the gym, and in mid-sentence I heard "Lizzie"

"What did you say?" I asked.

Steve gently tapped the tiara on my head. "I said 'how bout that? My Lizzie's Prom Queen.'"

My hand gently brushed the rhinestones on my head. "Yep," I said. "I sure am."
 

I would have given anything to sleep in the next morning, but I knew what I had to do was really important. It couldn't wait. It took me most of the morning to find, but finally I found the grave site of Mary Kate Youngly. I got out of my car, and walked over to the site and stood silently for a few moments. It was just so awful. How could a young life be taken away so carelessly? I took my tiara and placed it next to the bouquet of wilted flowers.

"Here, Mary Kate. This belongs to you more than it does me," I whispered to the tombstone. I stood there for a few more moments and thought about what that night must have been like for her. She must have been so afraid. She never even made it to her senior prom. As I backed away and began walking to my car, I thought how tragic.

As I drove away from Mary Kate's grave, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw someone standing at her tombstone. It looked like a girl about my age. I squinted my eyes, and slowed down to almost a complete stop. The girl picked up the tiara, and put it on her head. I slammed on the brake and jumped out of my car. No one was there. I stood frozen in amazement, and chills ran down my arms. It couldn't have been, but maybe it was.

"Congratulations on being voted Prom Queen, Mary Kate," I whispered to myself. I got back in my car and drove away.