Chapter 25

Sammi was up before dawn, too restless to sleep. She double-checked everything she was taking with her, and then, because nobody was up and weren't likely to be up for at least two more hours, got dressed, put on a jacket, and went outside.

When she was younger she and Sam used to go sit outside and look at the stars. There was something about the last hour before dawn that seemed special, the quiet, the gradual brightening of the horizon, the stars fading out one by one, and the night-noises of the woods behind their house giving way to the day-noises as the animals there woke up. She spread a blanket in a corner of the yard and settled back against a planter, listening and watching.

In front of her she could see the lights of the valley, some coming on as people woke up, others there all night, as solid as the stars. Above her there were the stars, twinkling soundlessly; the Milky Way was high in the sky, a band of stars that stood out against the darkness. She wondered what the sky looked like in Zero Phase. She had never taken the time to look.

There were a few lights in the houses around theirs. On that last trip to Zero Phase she'd seen how the houses had covered the hillsides. That wasn't the case here. Houses were arranged in clusters—somebody had told her it was because the utilities and other services were more efficient that way—and if people wanted new houses, they and some friends started a new cluster. She knew that wasn't always the case, there were apartment buildings in each of the towns, her older sister lived in one, and when they'd first been married, so had her parents.

She could hear the occasional voice in the distance as people woke up. A dog barked somewhere, a happy bark of somebody going outside. There weren't the noises she'd heard in Center, the constant hum of the town itself. She liked this quiet, it seemed to let her gather herself.

"You out there, Sammi?" her mother called. "Wake up, dear, you need to start getting ready."

With a start Sammi realized she'd dozed off. She was cold; it helped when she rubbed her arms briskly through the jacket. Her legs felt stiff and were covered with goose bumps. She had herself to blame. Early mornings weren't meant for skirts, and she should have put on some pants.

"All excited?" her mother asked when she got back inside.

"Couldn't sleep," Sammi confessed.

"You were doing a good imitation of it just a few minutes ago." Her mother sighed and started collecting what she was going to fix for breakfast. "Sam's almost finished with his shower."

Sammi went upstairs and got her shower things. Sam was toweling his hair briskly when she slipped into the bathroom. The warm, moist air rolled over her like a wave, and she rubbed her arms again, still slightly cold from the backyard.

"Are you ready for tonight?" Sam asked. "Aside from getting your hair and nails done."

"Kind of." She slipped out of her robe and started the shower. "I think this is a bigger thing for girls than it is for boys."

"Maybe." He hung up his towel and grabbed his robe. "But after this weekend we're officially adults."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "There you go, being practical." She tested the water with her hand, judging the temperature. "It means a lot more than that."

"You mean that story that whoever you go to the Formal with is the person you'll end up marrying?"

"Partly that," Sammi said. "Unless a catastrophe occurs, you're going to marry Anna."

"Are you going to marry Rod?"

"We'll see. We'll see."

"You don't sound so sure."

"Hey, we haven't been going together all that long."

"Still..."

She ended the conversation by tying her hair back and stepping into the shower. Sam laughed and left. She didn't think you married whoever you went to the Formal with, but that's the way it seemed to turn out. Of course if you thought a party was the deciding factor, then whoever you went to a pool party with was your intended. That would be ridiculous, because in the last year she'd gone to pool parties with Sam—at least when Anna couldn't go.

She finished her shower and her morning routine, bolted breakfast, and headed for town with her mother. She wanted to hurry up and get everything done, dress, and be at the Formal. She didn't want to wait around. She saw the line of girls ahead of her and settled back to wait.

Her nails... lunch... her hair—she had only been able to make a hair appointment in Upper—and finally, finally! she got back to the hotel to dress. The other girls were there already, though nobody had started changing; they still had at least two hours.

When it was finally time to get dressed Sammi decided not to hurry through it. She took her time, not just because she wanted everything to be just right, but because she wanted to savor the experience. She wasn't going to do something like this again. Oh, she'd probably go to dances, even dances where you wore long dresses, but this was the first time for her.

Try as she might, though, things got hazy. She finished dressing, she finished her make-up, she met Rod in the lobby, they posed in the arch of flowers while they were photographed and presented, and... they danced. The night was a whirl of dancing, talking, lights, music, dancing some more, eating a little, and dancing, his arms around her, holding her as they moved to the music. Finally it was just the two of them on the terrace overlooking the gardens behind the hotel. The moonlight... his kiss... the feeling of the two of them joining soul to soul...

It was over all too soon. She lay in the hotel bed afterwards, unable to sleep. The other girls had to talk, too, until exhaustion finally claimed them one by one.

When she finally did stagger out of bed it was well past noon. Her stomach was rumbling, and after she dressed and beat her hair into shape she went looking for food. There was supposed to be a brunch buffet, and she could feel it drawing her.

Sammi came around the corner of the hall just before the main stairs, and practically ran over Maryjean. The girl was standing at the window overlooking the gardens, herarms wrapped around her.

"You look thoughtful," Sammi said.

"I was just remembering last night," Maryjean said softly. "I wished it could have lasted forever."

"I know what you mean." Sammi looked down at the terrace. Rod had kissed her right over... there.

"It's funny," Maryjean said softly. "Friday I gave Thomas a blow-job after school, and tomorrow we'll do it until he's too exhausted to move and I'm a steaming puddle of satisfied goo. But what will I remember? It'll be the feeling of his arms around me and his lips when we kissed."

"It's funny that way," Sammi agreed. "I think that's because there's an emotional need in every girl that the Formal satisfies."

"It's the Romantic in all of us," Maryjean said. Her stomach growled and she sighed. "Enough dreaming; I'm starving, how about you?"

"Me, too. Are you serious about Thomas?"

"There's a lot more to him than I thought," Maryjean replied. "I mean, first of all, he can keep up with me. He's got enough endurance for any three guys."

"You can say that again," Sammi said. She'd once monopolized Thomas at a pool party, and been surprised that he could get it up as many times as he could. "What's he going to do after high school?"

"He wants to be a Master Contractor," Maryjean said. "He needs a couple of years of college, and several years of practical experience as a plumber, electrician and carpenter. I've thought about college, but I don't know. Maybe we'll just get married and I'll get a job. I kind of like the idea of that."

"I'm going to be a teacher," Sammi said. "Marriage, kids, yeah, those too, but I want to teach."

"You'll be good at it," Maryjean said. She stopped at the head of the stairs. The dining room was half-full, but they were all girls. "Where are the guys?"

"Probably ate and left," Sammi said. "My older sister told me that at her Formal the guys were all up by 7:30, and had gone out to do things. Most of the girls didn't start getting up until after 9:00."

"Looks that way today, too. Shall we?"

Grace and Suzy were sitting together, and Sammi joined them. "Everyone looks tired this morning," Sammi said after a visit to the food bar.

"I've been more awake after a pool party," Suzy said. She picked at the fruit salad in front of her. "I didn't want to go to sleep last night."

"Me neither," Grace said. "I was looking around the room. I didn't realize there were so many girls our age in the valley."

"We're not the only high school," Suzy said. "It's only to be expected."

"I'm going to hate going home," Sammi said.

"You're like me," Grace said. "You didn't want last night to end."

Sammi smiled. "Did you?"

An older woman came down the tables passing out envelopes. "Before you go, ladies, be sure to fill these out."

Sammi opened hers and scanned the enclosed documents. "Welcome to adulthood."

"Official census forms," Grace said. "Starting Monday we're considered adults, and we can do all of the adult things we weren't officially allowed to do until now."

Sammi remembered the parties during the Center Cup. "I'm glad you said 'officially', Grace," she said. "I think we've all tried a few things."

"And yet we're still going to high school," Suzy said. "Graduation can't get here soon enough."

"One more term," Sammi said. She heard a noise and turned her head. Jeannette, with a distracted look on her face, was standing in the door to the garden. Seeing them, Jeannette came over and settled across from Suzy.

"You look wide awake," Suzy said.

"I've been up for hours," Jeannette said. "I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep."

"You look like something's bothering you," Sammi added.

"Sort of." She plucked at her light blue blouse. "Something happened last night, and I've been thinking about it."

"Something... ?" Suzy asked.

"My Formal dress." Jeannette didn't say anything for nearly a minute, not until Grace prompted her. "I loved wearing it. It made me feel so... so... so fragile and precious." She shook her head. "I've never felt that way before."

"Not even down in Seaside?" Suzy asked.

"Not even there. I think the most you feel is healthy, either that or robust. You don't feel so delicate you're afraid a breeze will blow you away into the night. I saw a flower in the garden, and I realized that was exactly how I felt last night."

"I think most of us did," Sammi said.

"You don't understand," Jeannette replied. "You live in a world of fabric, I'm only visiting. The first thing I do when I get home is get rid of what I'm wearing. When I go out I stop at the door and cover myself. I wear clothes only because I have to. But last night..." She sighed. "That dress... I felt... I felt..."

"... Pretty," Sammi said. "I felt the same way when I saw myself in the mirror last night."

"I think that's it," Jeannette said softly. "It's not... girls in Seaside are good looking, but nobody's 'pretty', not like the way I felt."

"I loved the little catch in Rod's breathing when we met," Sammi said. "I could see it in his eyes."

"That, too," Jeannette said. She stared at the table setting in front of her. "It made me wonder if I could really be happy going back home."

"You could always live some place like Lower," Suzy said. "Then you could dress or not as you wished."

"Yeah, I was thinking of that." Jeannette sipped from the water glass in front of her. "That's the only place where that happens, you know. All of the other places away from Lower are just like Seaside."

"Almost like Seaside," Sammi said. "Rod's from a small town not too far from Lower, and while they're nudists, they're populated by people from the Valleys."

"You mean they have parties and so on?" Suzy asked. "That could be interesting."

"Their classes aren't as large as ours," Sammi said, "but other than that it's pretty much the same."

"Maybe," Jeannette said. "I don't know. We'll see."

"What are you going to do after school?" Grace asked.