They Shoot Prom Queens, Don't They?

Each time this year comes around, I can almost smell it in the air: Prom season. Brings back memories, doesn't it, ladies? The swathes and swirls of prom dresses that were stuffed in boutique windows. Finding the perfect prom hairstyle. Fretting over the minutiae: Would he bring a corsage of cheap dyed carnations, or would he spring for the tea roses? Some of the kids I went to high school with even persuaded their parents to rent them limos. I wasn't quite that hot and bothered about going prom; I simply hoped for one clear night during rainy season when my hair wouldn't frizz.

For some inexplicable reason, my senior prom committee chose a Journey tune that had been popular yonks ago as our theme song: "Don't Stop Believing." I think the female committee members pushed that one through. Believing what, exactly? That Steve Perry would break up with Sherrie? That there was life after high school? It's not something that a 17-year-old can quite digest when a ballot is passed out during Honors English to elect a peer temporary royalty.

Everyone already knew who the prom queen would be, a vivacious girl on the cheerleading squad with streaked blond hair and the bosom of a young Mae West. She was the first human I can recall who hated me for absolutely no reason at all. I would later find out that there were a lot more like her, but in high school, I was naive, crushed that my efforts at friendship had been rejected. It was an exercise in futility to give a pity vote to the hapless girl who got nominated by the chess team, because you can't fight study hall. The blond, busty cheerleader got the winning vote, and that was that. Now the question remained: What would the Prom Queen wear, and who would she choose to be her escort now that she'd broken up with the quarterback for the football team? Oh yes, the days leading up to prom were one big Beverly Hills 90210 episode.

Funny how the titles that are doled out in high school resonate for years after the cease to have significance. There's the class geek, class brainiac, class clown, and then there's the class beauty, aka, the Prom Queen. Forget about the Prom King, that cute guy in the tux; the Prom Queen's life is brought under scrutiny by her female peers until the ten year reunion, especially if she chooses to live in the same town where she graduated. I immediately moved away after graduation. But I had a friend on the ground during that time, and she gave me the dish on our P.Q. "You wouldn't recognize her," says friend, two years later. "She gained a lot of weight." How much? "A lot." Five years later: "P.Q. got divorced. No, that was her second husband. She looks really good, though." Before the ten-year reunion rolled around, P.Q. was fighting a losing battle with cancer, and no, that is not in the least bit funny. Because you can't vote away death.

What was funny, however, was our preoccupation with P.Q.'s life, which became more mundane as the years went by. Prom Queens are mortal creatures, sometimes emotionally fragile creatures, fraught with human weakness, and ultimately presented with reality checks. "Prom Queen" has no meaningful designation or application outside of high school. It certainly doesn't belong on a college application, and forget about the resumé. So what do former Prom Queens do to let people know of their illustrious pasts? Do they show their children pictures and say, "Look at Mommy wearing pretty streamers" --? My older cousin the suburban Junior League cynic was a Prom Queen back in the 70s. On day we went through some old photo albums. "Dear. God. Look at my hair." She frowned at a picture of herself wearing a lopsided tiara stuffed in an impressively large bouffant. "Half a tub of Dippity-Do, and I slept in orange juice cans."

Because she thinks of high school in much the same way she does the period of time when she played with Barbie dolls and tea sets, that's really all she had to say about it. I don't blame her; her prom's theme song was "Age of Aquarius."

I made a cursory appearance at prom. My boyfriend, four years my senior and done with the Sonic Drive-In scene, shrank away from the mirrorballs and white, blue and silver balloons like Count Vlad in an Italian restaurant. We ducked out shortly afterward, but not until I caught a glimpse of P.Q. geared up in a tight, shimmery Lycra-blend gown. Trés Solid Gold. The last time I saw P.Q. was at the funeral of her first husband. Some kind of dirt bike accident, I think. He was one of those sweetheart homeboy types you could eat up with a spoon, and he'd always been kind to me. Still vivacious as ever, P.Q. invited funeral attendees for drinks at the Ramada Inn bar later that night, and she was even nice to me. But her energy was frenetic and unfocused, and her tone of voice registered anxiety. On that day, she stopped being the Prom Queen in my eyes. Just another woman who'd figured out that the next roll of her dice could be snake eyes. She had enough chips to stay at the table for a little while longer.

If I had a daughter who was excitedly preparing for prom, I doubt I would tell her this story. I'm not much of a Debbie Downer. Prom is the one night that girls get to dress up like princesses and, if they choose well, their dates will show up in tuxes, bearing tea roses not carnations. Hoping to finagle a limo rental. When you're 17, those small things matter, even when, in ten years, they stop mattering at all.

Don't stop believing that.