All characters depicted are 18 years of age or above. The author does not encourage or condone the activities described within.
*
Landon didn't exactly know what he expected prom night to be, but sitting in his gangly, pimple-faced friend Mark's den watching a porn film about naughty cheerleaders definitely wasn't what he had hoped for or envisioned. Landon was down enough already due to his expected date dumping him four days ago and having relegated himself to attending Mark's "anti-prom" celebration, but when he found out that their other friend Ken wasn't going to be joining them and it would just be the two of them, it was even worse.
Landon couldn't even force down the piss-like beer Mark had acquired, though he thanked his friend for it. Instead, he told his friend that he was feeling somewhat sick and that they should arrange another get-together on a night when the three of them could all get together and bash the prom along with all it represented. Mark half-heartedly accepted his excuse, and Landon was on his way home after Mark let loose one last "Fuck the prom!" for the night.
The truth was, however, Landon had been looking forward to the prom. After years of being tortured for his flabby physique, and after being shuffled to three different high schools in four years due to his father's job, Landon finally felt as if he might gain some acceptance among the "normals," having lost thirty-two pounds in the past year and a half and put on quite a bit of muscle. This physical change gave him a newfound confidence, confidence he used to ask out Amy, an unassumingly pretty girl he had studied with and hung around with all semester.
Then, the popular guy she had formerly dated and supposedly loved entered the picture, and Landon's prom night dreams were kicked into the gutter, as the timing didn't even give him a chance to ask out another girl. Besides, Amy was the only one he felt comfortable enough to chat with, so even if there had been more time, Landon doubted he would have worked up the nerve to ask.
Landon let out a large sigh as he entered the living room of his house. "Hi hon," he heard his mother's voice chime.
"Oh—hey Mom," he replied. She sat on the couch, her blue jean-clad legs stretched across most of it, her fiery red hair streaming over the back of the piece of furniture.
"I didn't expect you home this early."
"Yeah," he said. He meant to say more, but couldn't at the moment, hoping his defeated tone was enough to give her a sense of why he was home.
"Are you home for good?"
"Looks like it." He walked behind the couch. "I guess we don't have any alcohol, right?" His mother smiled with an irresistible glimmer in her eyes that made it impossible not to smile back.
"Well, there's that bottle of vodka," she said. "Do you want me to go out and buy you something? I thought you were going to have something to drink at Mark's." Landon walked into the kitchen. She had been fine with that, even offering to spring for some champagne, but had forgotten it on her way home from the office.
"Yeah, we were—we did."
"I don't know if any place is open," she called to him as he opened a cabinet.
"It's fine," Landon said, pouring himself a glass of soda. He entered the living room again, as he had to pass through anyway to make it upstairs to his bedroom.
"Vodka?"
"Sprite. Flat Sprite," he said, a wry grin appearing on his face. His mother smiled back. "You're up kinda late."
"A little. Had to make sure you got home safe." She turned the muted television's volume on. "Do you want to watch something?"
"No, I'm good." He slumped into the easy chair.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her easy-to-recognize motherly concern creeping into her voice.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Just isn't exactly how I pictured prom night," Landon said, taking a few sips of soda.
"I'm sorry, hon," his mother replied. "I still can't believe that Amy did that to you at the last minute." She leaned over the arm of the couch toward him and patted his wrist reassuringly. He caught a whiff of the flowery scent she was wearing. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Landon and his mother had been close throughout his life, and often her words of encouragement and support were the only things that got him through periods of his life when his appearance and shy personality made him the constant target of mockery. Even as he grew older and found himself needing the kind of advice one might turn to a father to get, because of his father's frequent absences due to work, Landon still found himself turning to her, the one woman besides Amy who he felt comfortable speaking around. What's more, she had begun to confide in him of late, discussing the strain that her husband's absence was putting on their relationship, and floating the idea of going back to school to get a degree, possibly in nutrition sciences.
Landon couldn't quite believe that his father wasn't more supportive of her, especially considering how giving, resourceful, and beautiful she was. It was a bit awkward to admit, but even at age forty-three, she was still an absolute stunner, with her distinctive, gorgeous red locks, megawatt smile, and (as far as he could tell) shapely body that all of his friends gave him hell for. "I don't know if I can explain it," he replied.
"What?"
"Well, I imagine you never had trouble finding a date," Landon said with a grin. "For prom or otherwise."
"What are you saying?" she said, batting at him playfully for a moment.
"I've seen your high school pics."
"Yes, your mother used to be quite the babe in the old days," she said, as if it were five decades rather than roughly two and a half since she'd been out of high school. "Hopefully it's not all gone." Landon tried to think of something to say to reassure her, but he could only mouth the word "no" before she spoke next. "But if you mean that I've never had my heart broken, or never been turned down by a boy I liked—well, that's just not true."
"I know. It's just...everyone builds up this idea—this perfect picture of prom night in their head, and it's like, for most normal people, it happens," Landon said. "I thought I was going to be one of the normal ones this year."
"Can I let you in on a little secret?" his mother said. "The normal ones are boring."
"Yeah—just like the boring normal guy who's with Amy tonight. Yeah, he was sure too boring for her. And now they're probably having the perfect prom night—"
"What is the perfect prom night?" his mother asked. "I mean, what did you have in your head?" Landon placed the empty cup down on the table.
"Well..."
"I mean, has it changed that much from when I was in school ages ago?" She glanced absently at the television for a moment before lowering the volume.
"Well...I guess there's dancing," he began.
"Okay."
"Maybe a little drinking. Some goofing around with your friends. Take some pictures, and that sort of thing. Then..." Landon hoped she wouldn't ask for more.
"Then...?"
"Then..." he repeated, looking at the clock. It was 11:09.
"Aha," she said. "I get it. What your father and I used to do." Landon's eyes widened instantly, as he rarely if ever heard her mother make even the most subtle of references to her sex life. He didn't know how to react, so he forced an uneasy smile.
"So that's about it," he said, trying to steer them away from the uncomfortable topic.
"Well," his mother began. "I wish I could make the perfect prom night for you, but I didn't even remember the champagne."
"It's okay, Mom."
"Wait a minute," she said. "I just remembered there's a bottle of wine Aunt Bella sent us for my birthday." She stood up abruptly. "Wait here." Landon sat patiently as he heard his mother rummaging in the hall closet.
"Did Dad go to sleep?" he asked, feeling a faint rumble of hunger.
"Yes. Here it is—got it," she said as she entered, carrying a bottle of red with a white label graced with some kind of family crest.
"You want me to grab glasses?"
"No; sit honey." His mother leaned over and placed the bottle on the table and then left the room again. She was wearing what she disparagingly called her "Mom clothes:"—a shapeless, oversized light blue T-shirt and a pair of unflattering jeans that had been out of style for longer than Landon could remember. She returned to the room sporting a pair of wine glasses. "Ta da!" she said with a cheery lilt to her voice.
Landon took one of the glasses and waited patiently as his mother poured him some of the blood-red liquid. "Thanks," he said.
"You're welcome." She took a sip, settled back on the edge of the couch cushion, and then extended the glass toward him.
"To prom night," his mother said. "I know it's not quite going according to plan, but at least I will manage to get you a little drunk."
"Hear hear," Landon said with a smile. The wine was room temperature, bitter, yet palatable. They sat and drank for a few minutes as Landon asked her about her own senior prom and she began to reminisce about the weeks and days leading up to it before getting to the actual prom, which she described in detail, including the finer points of her prom dress. He didn't mind hearing it, as the combination of the alcohol and his mother's pleasing voice was having a soothing effect on him.
He tried to picture his mother as a young woman, dressed in the light pink dress she'd described, beaming, while slow dancing with her partner, but for some reason, he couldn't, despite having seen some pictures. When he tried to imagine her younger, he failed, the images in his mind just producing a crude caricature of the forty-three-year-old woman he saw before him. Perhaps, he realized, he couldn't imagine her younger because she seemed perfectly suited to this age, as if were a particular style of clothing or hairdo that she wore well. The smile lines and wrinkles of her face didn't seem like marks of age; it was if they had been carefully placed, like delicate strokes on a canvas, to add the finishing touches to a work of art.
He realized he was drinking rather slowly, but she was already halfway through glass number two.
"I'm sorry—can I pour you some more, hon?" his mother asked him.
"Sure." She did just that, and then positioned herself back in the middle of the couch, with an empty cushion to either side. She looked at the muted television, which was displaying an ad featuring scantily clad young women exposing their strategically blurred breasts to the camera, kissing one another, and grinding suggestively on the dance floor. She caught Landon looking as well.
"Were you ever that wild, Mom?" he said, jokingly.
"Me?"
"You can tell me. I won't tell." Landon finished the last drop of wine in his glass.
