K. Z. Richards

With spring formals just around the corner, I thought I’d share with you today a corny YA story I wrote while in college. At least where I live, high school students are usually expected to ask one another to dances in creative, often “punny” ways, and this story exaggerates and exploits this culture with some mild satire. Enjoy!

Roses Are Red, Daisies Are White

The night’s scheduled vandalism is nearly complete, but instead of toilet paper and eggshells, hundreds of small white daisies now cover Katy’s lawn spelling out a fateful message: “Will you pick me for prom?”

The work is some of my best, possibly rivaled by the five-foot cake I baked for Jeff to give to five-foot-tall Whitney when he asked her out last weekend. As self-proclaimed go-to girl for creative ways to propose a date, I’ve given my friends some pretty good surprises—plastic-wrapped cars, balloon-filled bedrooms, candy-plastered posters, and chocolate-dipped delicacies with hidden messages—but Katy’s yard looks like a princess wonderland. And I know she’ll love it. Shasta daisies are her favorite.

“Wow, Claire. This looks great!” Tyler says, handing me another handful of daisies.

I shush him, throw a glance down each side of the quiet suburban street, and then pull the hood of my black jacket over my long blonde hair. Tyler, with his dark skin and hair looks invisible, but my pale skin amplifies the light of the crescent moon. It’s not a big deal if we get caught because what we’re doing is not strictly illegal—I think—but the element of surprise is half the fun.

“Well I couldn’t very well let you go along with your idea. I mean, streaking across the football field during track practice?” I roll my eyes in his direction, and he gives me a little shove.

“It would’ve been hilarious!”

“It would’ve been humiliating. Admit it—my idea’s better.”

“Yeah, this is probably more ‘Katy.’” Tyler twirls a daisy between his fingers then drops it back on the lawn. “But it still would have been funny.”

I shake my head. “Whatever. Let’s just hope we finish before a breeze picks up. I’d hate for all these flowers to go to waste.” I stuff the ends of my hair into my hood, bunch a dozen daisies together, and then clip the stems short so the flowers can rest face-up between the blades of grass.  I have just completed the letters “Fr” of “From Tyler” when Tyler grabs my arm.

 “How about ‘heart-slash-Tyler.’ Or just ‘dash-Tyler?’ ‘From Tyler’ just sounds weird.”

“Ok. I vote heart-slash. But I’m sure she’ll love it either way. She’s just lucky to have someone ask her out in such a thoughtful way.”

Tyler can detect the impatience in my voice. “No word from Brad yet, then?”

“Oh no, he’s sent words,” I say, pulling my phone out of my back pocket. “This was the text he sent me last week: ‘Hey babe, prom’s two weeks from Saturday. I thought it would be fun to go together. What do you think?’”

“Well, it sounds like he wants to go. What did you say?”

“I didn’t respond over text, obviously.” I slide my phone back into my pocket then gather the daisies that spelled “Fr” to rearrange them into a heart. “I told him at lunch the next day that it was tacky.”

“To go to prom?”

“No. To ask over text!” I throw a quick glance over my shoulder to see if my raised voice has drawn any attention, but all is quiet. “I told him that other girls were getting bears and cookies and … flowers.” I pick a daisy off the lawn and wave it in Tyler’s face.

“What do you expect? It’s Brad,” he says, swatting the flower out of my hand. “He’s too genuine to mess with stuff like this.”

“‘Stuff like this?’ ‘Stuff like this’ takes a lot of work. ‘Stuff like this’ is what girls want. If Brad had a clue he would start thinking about ‘stuff like this.’ It wouldn’t kill him to do something romantic for once.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much. You’ve only been together like what, two months? He probably just didn’t know what you expected. Now that you’ve told him I’m sure he’s got something in the works. He’d do anything to make you happy, you know.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say, setting the last daisy in its place. “Okay, I think that will do it. Let’s doorbell ditch before they all blow away.”

Once we’ve rung the doorbell, we perch behind the rosebush at the far corner of Katy’s front yard and wait for someone to answer. The porch light flickers to life, and her younger brother opens the door wearing pinstriped pajamas and fluffy slippers. He patters outside, sees the message in the yard, and calls for his mom. Katy’s mom appears wearing a pinstriped bathrobe and fluffy slippers then calls to Katy who drags herself outside in a gray hoodie and sweatpants. She throws a hand over her gaping mouth then leans into her mom who puts an arm around her shoulder. Katy takes a phone out of her pocket, tells her brother to scram just as he’s reaching for one of the daisies, and then begins to snap pictures of the scene.

I have nearly forgotten I’m merely an observer to the happy event. Katy’s beaming face, the beautiful array of flowers, the pictures that are probably already swarming social media—I have almost imagined they are mine, but Tyler’s hand on my shoulder brings me back to reality. The only date proposal I will never be able to design is my own.

“Shouldn’t we get going?” he whispers. I nod, force my steps to retreat, and escape through a path in the next-door neighbor’s backyard. “Thanks for all your help,” Tyler says once we are nestled safely in the getaway car, his Honda CR-V that we left parked on the street behind Katy’s house.

“Sure,” I say. He drives up at my house and I get out without another word. My steps are slow approaching the house, and Tyler is long gone before I reach my front porch, but as I trump up the stairs to my front door, I notice something out of place. My heart quickens as I notice a plate of pink sugar cookies wrapped in a thin plastic film resting on the top step. There is a note taped to the plastic wrap, a short message scribbled on the top.

I bound up the remaining steps, rip the note from the plastic, and read it with the light of my phone.

Julie,
Just thinking of you. Let’s have lunch sometime.
Your friend, Colleen.

It’s for my mom. I sigh, slam the front door as I cross the threshold, and slide the plate onto our kitchen counter. The house is quiet, my parents out to a late movie and our dogs exiled to the backyard for the night, so I don’t worry that I will disturb anyone. It’s Friday night and I can put homework off until tomorrow, so I collapse onto our living room sofa and stare at the blank TV screen.

My phone vibrates. I’m tempted to ignore it since it’s probably Katy raving about her yard and I’m not in the mood to give an animated response, but when I glance at the screen it displays a message from Tyler.

“Something’s happened. It’s about Brad.”

I begin typing a reply when I get another message from Tyler.

“Meet me at the street corner by Jeff’s house. ASAP.”

Jeff’s house is just down the street from mine, so I run out my front door and race down the street without bothering to finish my reply, heart pounding with each step. I want to believe that Brad has a special surprise waiting for me, but I’m not dumb enough to get my hopes up again. Well, maybe just a little.

I can tell something’s wrong long before I reach the street corner.

There are about a dozen of my friends hunched over something in the street, though what it is I can’t tell, since it is mostly obscured by Tyler’s CR-V. Tyler sees me approaching and jogs over to meet me before I reach the scene. He’s out of breath, and his eyes are open wide enough to expose the whites all around his deep brown eyes.

“Claire, it’s Brad.” His voice is hoarse and shaky.

I take a step toward the crowd but Tyler grabs me by the elbows, forcing me to look him in the eyes.

“It’s really bad.”

I shrug my arms out of his grasp then run over to my friends. Each wears a somber expression, and Whitney wipes a tear from her cheek before burying her face in Jeff’s shoulder. Some are whispering to each other, others staring at my face with wide, hollow eyes.

As I get closer, I can make out a dark form protruding from behind the front wheel, a black dress shoe still attached to someone’s leg. My friends seem to part as I approach, slowly revealing the owner of the shoe.

He’s wearing a tux, usually a creamy white but tonight splattered with waves of crimson. Long-stemmed red roses, maybe two-dozen of them, are scattered across the road, one of them bare with its petals floating in a pool of dark liquid. His long, thin legs are resting awkwardly on the asphalt, left leg sprawled behind him with the right extended straight ahead, and the left side of his face is covered in red, one of his dark eyebrows askew where a clump of dried blood has smeared the hairs out of place. 

“No, no, no! Oh Brad, no.” I run to kneel beside him, soaking the knees of my dark-blue jeans. I slip my black jacket off my shoulders and use it to smooth his eyebrow back into shape, and then tuck it under his head. His long square face is vacant, streaked with blood, strange and still in the pale moonlight.

“He came out of nowhere,” Tyler says. “There wasn’t time … I-I didn’t see him.”

“He’s barely breathing—Did someone call 9-1-1?”

“They’re on their way,” Tyler says. “But, Claire … He was holding this.”

I turn around to see Tyler holding a small white envelope. “Claire” is written across the front in Brad’s slanted, untidy handwriting, not perfectly centered but framed in an asymmetrical heart. I hurry over to Tyler, reach out to grab it, and then notice my hands, wet and red. I wipe them on my jeans, not wanting to stain the envelope, but as I take it from Tyler’s hands, I still leave red fingerprints. The red blemishes bring a fresh round of tears as I imagine keeping the letter, framed next to my bed, his beautiful writing stained with blood, his potentially final romantic gesture forever tarnished. My hands shake violently even though it’s a warm spring night, but I am able to open the enveloped without tearing it. Inside is a small red paper with a message printed in black Times New Roman font. I hold it in Tyler’s headlight to read it.

My dearest Claire,

Let nothing tear us apart,
Nor leave us mourning alone.
While mortals weep
The angels dance
And sing of true romance

Your love,
Brad

The words are jibberish, falling flat in the moment. They’re beautiful, but they are not Brad’s—it’s the verse of a complete stranger, not the voice of the jovial yet sincere person who claims to have written them. I tuck the paper back into the envelope and drop it to my side, feeling empty and numb. I know everyone’s eyes are fixed on me, but I’m frozen, unable to face the crowd that waits for my reaction.

“Claire,” a voice says behind me, and its familiarity invites me to turn around before I can resist. Brad is sitting up, his hands resting on the knees he has tucked to his chest. He scrambles to his feet, straightens his crimson-splattered tux, and snatches a red rose from the asphalt. Each person in the group behind him produces a matching red rose then forms a semi-circle behind him, beaming with anticipation.

“Claire, I’m dying to go to prom with you,” Brad says. He can hardly suppress his grin. His white teeth flash a brilliant smile, and in the light of the car I can see they are spotted with red dye.

The street is suddenly quiet—no more sobs, hushed whispers, consoling words—the only sound is the fluttering of paper against my jeans, his love note in my quivering hands. Smiling visages swim in the tears that flood my eyes, but Brad’s is forefront, the pointed corners of his mouth retracting farther into his cheeks as his grin spreads.

“Well,” he says. “What do you think?”

My friends behind him lean in closer, eager to shower us with cheers and applause. Brad takes a step toward me, arms open wide, inviting my embrace, but my eyes are fixed on the scene before me—his red-stained tux that will never again glow a pearly white, my rose petals strewn across the wet, glistening road, his dark hair oddly ruffled where it rested in the blood.

“Claire? Claire, what’s the problem?” Brad pleads as his countenance falls from delight to confusion.

I clear my throat, try again to rub the red from my palms onto my jeans and force my lips into a smile.

“Thank you, Brad,” I say, and take the rose from him. “I’ll let you know about prom.”