Prom(s)/These Arms Of Mine
My Junior Prom
It was a disaster.
For starters, my tuxedo arrived VERY late (as in about three hours before the prom). The tux I ordered had to come from a warehouse in
It wasn’t.
Three hours before the Prom was supposed to start, I was still hanging around Belk Department Store (the company I worked for at the time), waiting to get my tux. I finally called Katie.
“I don’t think I’m going to get it in time” I told her disappointed.
She assured me that it would be okay, and that we could still look forward to going to her Prom the following weekend at her School. I hung up the phone disappointed, but accepting the fact that it wasn't meant to be.
As I was walking out to my car, one of the guys I worked with shouted out to me, “We’ve got it! It just came in!” I ran back into the store, tried it on and it fit perfectly, (except the cummerbund, which looked like it went all the way up to my chest.)*
* Fashion Tip – Short skinny dudes should always forgo the cummerbund with a tuxedo and go with a vest.
I called Katie back, “It’s here, it looks like we can go after all!”
“Wait a minute, so we’re going now?" Katie asked.
I explained to her that they caught me as I was walking out to my car, and told me about the tux’s arrival, and how this one fit perfectly, (I didn’t mention the cummerbund).
“Okay, come on over, and I’ll start getting ready. We’re going to be pretty late getting there, but at least we get to go.” she said sounding a bit frustrated.
I didn’t understand why she was upset with me. It wasn't my fault that the original tuxedo didn't fit and had to be sent back. It also wasn't my fault that it took so long to arrive. Regardless, I was sure that once we finally got to Prom, all would be forgotten.
I went over to Katie’s house in my tux, and waited while her Mom helped her get ready.
I waited for two hours.
I sat on the couch in the living room with her younger brother Bobby, while Katie and her Mom occupied her bedroom with the door closed. They were having intense Mother Daughter moments as they prepared Katie for our big night. Their voices got louder and more frustrated as time went on.
Bobby was an underclassman at Katie’s High School, and wasn’t a very talkative kind of guy. He was wearing jeans with a chain wallet, a Metallica T-shirt and his hat that said ‘Slacker’ was on backwards.
The conversation between Bobby and myself was fairly one-sided.
“So… What’s new with you Bobby?” I asked.
“Nothing”, he replied obviously not wanting to talk to me.
The Braves game was TV.
“It looks like
“Baseball is stupid.” He said.
“Then why do you have the game on?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Are you looking forward to Spring Break this year?” I asked him, changing the subject, and desperately trying to start a conversation to help make the time go by faster.
“Yeah, I guess”, he said staring at the game he had just said he had no interest in watching. He wasn’t giving an inch.
“I’ve been her for almost two hours. How long does it take to put on some make-up and a dress?” I asked him jokingly, with a well intended nudge like men do when they are talking about women.
“I heard that!” Katie shouted from the next room, obviously not amused by my attempt at camaraderie with her little brother. “It isn’t my fault that we are late leaving. You’re the one who showed up two hour late because of the tuxedo problems from your work. I thought we weren’t going, but now we are. A girl can’t get ready for Prom in 10 minutes!”
"You two deserve each other.” Bobby mumbled, rolling his eyes as he got up and left the living room.
The remainder of the time, I sat on the couch and didn’t say another word.
I watched the Braves blow an 8-1 lead and lose the game. It was a good sign of how the day was going so far.
Finally she walked out of her bedroom, and I saw her for the first time in her prom dress.
She was wearing a black strapless dress and her short dark hair was fixed differently that how it normally looked. She looked beautiful, but she didn’t look like the Katie I was used to seeing.
I smiled at her as she walked into the living room. That would have been a good time to say how pretty I thought she looked, or compliment her on her dress, or say how I much I loved her hair that way.
I didn't.
After waiting in the living room for two hours, while listening to Katie and her Mom bicker and argue behind the closed door of her bedroom, the first thing I could come up with to say was – “Alrighty, are you ready?”
She didn’t respond. Obviously, it was not the best thing to say at the moment. She already wasn’t happy, and saying that didn’t help matters. Katie’s dress was a bit too puffy for her liking. No girl wants to go to prom in a dress that makes her look like Scarlett O’Hara, even if we were in the South.
So after sticking around to let her Mom take a few pictures, we finally left the house.
Because we were running so late, our dinner reservations to the fancy restaurant I had intended on going to were lost. We had to settle for an alternate plan for dinner. We settled on the local Holiday Inn’s buffet restaurant. It was nearly nine o’clock by the time we left Katie’s house, so our options were limited.
The food was horrible and made us both a little sick. Excusing yourself to go to the bathroom multiple times kind of kills any romantic intentions of Prom Night.
When we finally did make it to the prom, most of my friends had already gone home. Katie wasn’t feeling well from the horrible food we had just eaten, so she made it clear not long after arrival that she wasn’t up to dancing.
Looking back, I think she was more upset of how the entire evening had gone down.
Because it took so long to get my tuxedo, we were uncertain if we were going to the Prom at all.
Once I finally did get it, and told her we could go, she had felt rushed to get ready.
When she finally was ready, the dress didn’t fit the way she wanted.
Dinner plans certainly didn’t go as planned, as evidenced by our churning stomachs and my far too many frequent trips to the restroom.
So no, she wasn’t in the mood to dance.
Everything that could go wrong in one evening went wrong that night. We left not long after our arrival to the dance. We were both disappointed and angry. We were angry at the circumstances, the night itself, and a little at each other, though nobody really was to blame. Regardless, next day, I felt guilty for everything going wrong.
I sent her roses to her work. On the card I had written – Last night didn't work out the way expected. I’m sorry. I promise to make it up to you.
Her Senior Prom
One week after the horrible night at my prom, Katie’s Senior Prom night came.
It was a far better experience. I wore the same tux (minus the cummerbund), so there were no worries about the arrival. Katie borrowed a dress from her cousin. It was one that she was much happier with,( it was a light blue lacey dress that was far less ‘Gone With the Wind’ looking). We went to restaurant we had originally intended to go to the week before, and the food was delicious.
Every slow song that came on, I sang in her ear. She said loved to hear me sing. I knew absolutely NOBODY there, so my inhibitions were gone. We danced like fools and laughed at how crazy we thought we looked dancing.
“This is so much more fun than last weekend” she told me. I felt relief in the fact that I was giving her the Prom Night that we both wanted. The last song they played that night was ‘Never Say Goodbye’ by Bon Jovi. The lyrics seemed somewhat fitting after the night we had shared the weekend before.
Remember at the prom that night
You and me we had a fight
But the band they played our favorite song
And I held you in my arms so strong
I held her tight enough to feel her heart beat against my chest. I imagination ran wild as I felt her every curve and breath. It was a perfect night.
These Arms of Mine
The following Friday night, like I often did, I went to meet Katie after she got off work from Quincy's Steakhouse. It was raining cats and dogs that night, with a gloriously loud and well lit spring time thunderstorm. Our other friday tradition was pulling into our spot behind Scotland Memorial Hospital.
The mixture of her honeysuckle perfume, and the smell of rain on the hot pavement made a perfect late spring/early summer scent. Our kisses were long and deep in the backseat of my Blue Ford Mustang.
We played ‘These Arms Of Mine’ by the great Otis Redding on repeat in the cassette player. It was first released in 1964 on Stax records, however the melody and lyrics meant just as much to teenagers in the backseat of a car in 1991 as it did in 64.
These arms of mine, they are burning
Burning from wanting you,
These arms of mine
They are wanting, wanting to hold you
My breath was heavy and my heart beat fast with anticipation of what I thought might come of this stormy night. It didn’t take me long to know that Katie had been waiting for a night like this.
Timing and romance mean everything to a teenage girl.
I had been waiting too.
She asked me “Have you ever been this far before” as she unbuttoned my shirt.
“Yeah, a few times” I said, with my hands slightly shaking in anticipation of what they were revealing.
I lied.
With the lightning flashing all around us, and the sound of rain on the windshield mixed with thunder and Otis Redding singing/begging in the background, I learned for the first time what it felt like to feel both the ultimate state of vulnerability and to feel like a man, at the same time.
“I love you, Katie”, I said.
That wasn't a lie.
“I love you too”, she whispered.
In the spring of 1991, my entire world revolved around Katie Coleman. In the summer that followed, I would watch my world slip away. What I wouldn't know was that was best thing that could have happened to me. The events that came afterward would set the stage for life changing experiences, though I wouldn't recognize them at the time.
However, that night the future seemed so far away, as it should have.
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