The Promposal

After “The Finger,” a Folktale

Autumn, Reem, and me, in the night wilds of the hillside chaparral behind Autumn’s house, tripping and dreaming on two squares each of the shroom chocolates Autumn’s mother uses for microdosing. Sitting on a blanket under the cascading branches of an old oak tree, moonlight filtering through leaves, and all nature in conversation with itself—coyotes yipping, brush rustling chatter chatter, an owl above asking who are you.

Autumn sits between Reem and me, the connective tissue. Our shadows contort as if they’ve become unattached to our bodies, mine hovering on the edges of their friendship. Autumn and I have been best friends since third grade, then Reem transferred to our high school sophomore year and wedged like a splinter between us.

“Jane, I can’t believe you haven’t figured out your promposal yet.” Autumn’s curly hair is a nest of snakes. Earlier, she posed for us in the pale blush silk of her floor-length dress, the deep back exposing her spine, and then shucked the dress off as if it were the slinky skin of a rattlesnake.

We only have a week until prom. Autumn’s boyfriend Odin had choreographed a synchronized swimming routine after a water polo match to ask her to the prom; Reem lit red and black candles and promposaled Darcy.

“I don’t think he’ll want to go,” I say. But what I really mean: I don’t think he’ll want to go with me. Plain Jane, plain of name and face, never the sweet Jane. I play with the bracelets on my wrist, the bracelets everyone wears at our school this spring, handmade from small beads, plastic or semi-precious, and traded with friends. The one Autumn gave me with a pendant of one-third of a BFF charm. 

Darkness presses on me. Knock it off, Jane; it’s just the shrooms. Autumn and Reem will never want to hang out with me again if I flip out.

“River, he’s just so ironic, he’s too cool to go to the prom,” Reem teases, but look at Darcy, with her dyed black hair and ripped clothing, as if she isn’t going to the prom ironically.

A large moth dives toward us, tracers in its wake, and Autumn, so dramatic, screeches. I’ve known River since pre-school at the synagogue; he’s the son of Rabbi Mike and Cantor Dovid. At his bar mitzvah, everyone threw Sunkist fruit gems at him for a sweet life. I tossed a lemon gem at him, so he’d notice me, but the candy fell at his feet. It was not my fruit gem that he had unwrapped and laid on his tongue, but someone else’s candy.

“Oh, let’s practice Jane’s promposal!” Autumn says.

“Let’s don’t.” I already have an idea, but it’s so dumb.

“You’ll be less nervous if you practice.”

“Come on, Jane,” Reem says. And they start to chant my name.

Propelled by the rhythm of their chant, I stand up. The ground undulates like the ocean; whorls on the oak bark form into faces. Roots jut from the base of the oak and dive into the soil. One thin root’s texture is more like skin than bark and resembles a forearm, with a bend for an elbow.

I kneel by the root.

Autumn gasps, “That root is weird—”

Reem says, “It’s almost alive.”

I unscrew the clasp of one of the bracelets on my wrist. To make the bracelet, I strung small round silver beads and added square alphabet beads spelling “PROM?” I pretend to look into River’s deep brown eyes (I’m really looking at the swirls in the oak tree bark) and clasp the bracelet onto the root. I imagine the pale blue veins on the inside of his wrist, the short golden hairs on his arm. How warm his arm is, how his pulse stirs as I touch him.

“Will you go to the prom with me?”

The ground shudders and I fall back on my butt. Autumn screams. The root—bracelet dangling—unfurls from the ground no longer a root but a skeleton’s arm, with fingers in the air, bones phosphorescent, and then another limb breaks from the ground. Reem mumbles “Nope nope nope.” The night quiets. Hands brace against the ground and a skull emerges with empty eye sockets and then a torso erupts from the earth with ribs curling and Autumn who is not religious at all prays. Tree roots snake around our ankles.

A skeleton stands above us. In the space between its ribs and backbone, lungs expand and a heart pumps blood into veins growing like twisting vines, and I’m paralyzed and a man—no, a teenager—stands before us, my bracelet circling his wrist. His image flickers so he’s, at first, a skeleton, then skinless, like the poster in my anatomy class, and then a boy, naked, with a six-pack as if he’s worked out his entire life—OMG he’s hot—and he gets down on his knees and extends his hand to me, “Yes, I accept, sweet Jane.”

#

Autumn, Reem, and me in a pile on Autumn’s bed, under the lacey canopy, at dawn, half-dreaming, spooning, stretching, and mumbling. Eyes open at the same time. What happened last night? Do you remember? Can shrooms make you forget? The shining column of Autumn’s prom dress hanging on her stand-up mirror, a vessel to be filled with her dreams.

#

River and his friends always eat lunch at the table on the far end of the cafeteria. I time the promposal for the end of the lunch period, just as they are packing up for fourth period. Autumn and Reem behind me—for support, they say—but I can’t see them. Autumn pushes me closer to River. I hold out the substitute bracelet I’d stayed up all night to make as a replacement for the one I lost the night we’d shroomed. River’s friends’ faces upturned, one smirking.

“Hey River.” The malachite beads on the bracelet glow. “Will you go to the prom with me?” I am struck with déjà vu. Have I done this before?

“Would love to.” He takes the bracelet and clasps it around his wrist. A blown glass pendant in the shape of a mushroom lies in the hollow at the base of his neck. I want to rest my finger in that divet. “I’ll text you.”

Reem holds up her phone. “The video is already posted to Insta.”

“What if he turned me down?’

“Of course, we wouldn’t post it then.” Autumn looks over my shoulder, not at me.

#

We pose on my lawn in the lavender of twilight. A half memory of darkness and shining white and fear tugs at my mind. The parents continue taking photographs, so I smile as if nothing important has been forgotten. Autumn holds hands with Odin, his tie matching the pale pink of her dress. Reem and Darcy in black lace jumpsuits, Reem’s with a deep V in the back, Darcy’s with a deep V in the front. And River in a dark maroon tux that used to be Rabbi Mike’s, me in my retro strapless dress with a tulle petticoat; when I twirl, the skirt undulates forest green and bone white. River’s hair curls behind his ears.

Someone jumps into the middle of our pose. He’s this hot built guy, but his outlines shimmer like heat on asphalt, and I remember the oak canopy, the bent root, the skeleton, and the practice promposal. The memory is visceral, as if my entire body has been hit hard enough to bruise.

“Sorry I’m late.” He takes my hand in his, the hand with River’s wrist corsage of velvety heirloom roses, and kisses the lifeline on my palm. As if my life is his. His lips are cold and hard. He appears in phases as a skeleton, a hot boy, and a corpse of viscera.

The roses on my corsage brown, disintegrate, dry powder drifting to the grass.

“Jane, will you introduce us to your friend?” Dad asks.

“Who’s this guy?” River’s whisper in my ear is warm patchouli and spiced vanilla.

The boy strides towards my father. He wears a plain black tux; when I look at the tux sideways, like I’m looking for a star, it’s riddled with rotted holes and mold darkens the hem. The tips of his dress shoes turn up, as if his feet don’t quite reach the toecaps. “Asmodeus, call me Az,” he says. River gasps. “Jane has bound me to take her to prom, and, to boot, broke part of my ex’s curse.” His sleeve rides up when he shakes my father’s hand, exposing the silver beaded bracelet. “Sir, I hope you don’t mind me taking her to some underground afterparties.” Neither his words nor his tone are sinister. But he glances at me and smiles with bared yellow teeth, white bones, rotting tongue.

“Of course not, you kids have your fun.”

“I swear,” I whisper to River, “I have no idea who this is. I never intended . . . ”

“To ask the King of Shedim, King of Demons, to the prom?” River finishes my sentence. My stomach clenches and I stagger in my strappy stilettos, even though I’ve never heard of shedim before.

Rabbi Mike also shakes Az’s hand. Az shifts from corpse to skeleton again, and then to hot boy. Don’t the adults see it? Autumn pales under her self-tan, and Darcy clenches her stomach.

Rabbi Mike says, “Am I to understand that Jane asked two people to the prom?”

River rolls his eyes.

“She asked me on Saturday night.” Az grabs my hand again. A dark cloud radiates from his body.

Rabbi Mike raises an eyebrow at River.

“Jane asked me on Monday. Dad, don’t you see—”

My parents pull me aside. “Jane, you have to honor your first invitation.”

“Mom—”

“No momming. That poor boy—”

“He’s no—”

No one’s listening. Rabbi Mike and Cantor Dovid talk quietly with River and a consensus has been made—at least among the parents—that Az and I are going to the prom together.

“I’ve got to go—get my lipstick,” I say.

“Me too,” Autumn says.

“Me too,” Reem and Darcy say.

“I’m coming too,” River says.

As I open the door to my house, Odin—who is unfazed at Az’s appearance—says to Az, “Do you play water polo for West High?”

#

In my bedroom, I tell River about the practice promposal. Coldness washes over me; I’m shaking.

“You asked the friggin King of Demons to prom!” River says.

“Well, not like on purpose.” I pleat the fabric of my skirt. “But at least it’s only one night.”

Autumn says, “He wants to take you to underground afterparties.”

“Your very soul is at stake,” Reem intoned.

I bury my face in my hands. I will not cry and ruin my prom makeup.

“Reem, don’t make it worse,” Darcy says.

“We can’t let her go to his underground afterparties,” River says.

“She made a contract with him.” We stare at Autumn. She explains, “I’m taking business law at the community college.”

“The bracelet,” I say. “That’s the contract.”

“You need to break the contract,” River says.

Autumn says, “But then she’ll be in breach of contract.” Self-importantly. As if I could be sued by Az. “Women used to sue men for breaking engagements. It was a total thing. We don’t know what would happen if Jane breaches the contract here—especially if he’s really a demon.”

“The King of Demons,” River repeats. “Well, not totally like a Christian demon, but spirits that are bad only because they aren’t god? Some kill babies, but some will just wear down your clothes . . .”

Great, my parents made me pay for half of my dress and it’s going to end up in tatters like Az’s tux.

River continues “ . . . and they like to take human spouses.”

I shiver. I’m going to Northwestern next year. There’s no way I’m getting married now—especially to a corpse. It’ll ruin everything.

From below, Dad calls, “The limo is here!”

“Don’t worry.” River pats my shoulder as if I’m a child he needs to reassure. “In the folk tales, usually the Rabbi solves all the problems. And I’m the Rabbi’s son.”

#

We squeeze into the back of the limo. Az on the edge of a bench, Autumn, Reem, and Darcy tucking in their legs to avoid touching his. When River slips in, Az glares at him. River’s face whitens.

“What are you doing here little Rebbe?” Az says. A fly crawls out of his mouth.

River replies, “I paid for part of the limo.” He sits across from Az, arms crossed. “You don’t even have a ticket to the prom.”

From out of a pocket that is at once tattered and whole, Az pulls out an ancient iPhone and flashes the prom ticket on the screen.

Outside the window, streets and houses and car flash by like a movie reel. In fairy tales, curses are broken, or heroines saved by: (1) true love’s kiss; (2) telling stories with cliffhangers; (3) killing the witch. None of these are options here. 

#

Az surveys the Orchid Ballroom of the Palace Hotel: disco balls, swaths of white mosquito netting billowing from the ceiling, swags of fairy lights. A DJ plays dance music behind a packed dance floor. “My palace is far nicer than this.”

“As if I care,” I say.

“You should care. I built King Solomon’s temple for him in Jerusalem, and it was praised by all. I built my palace, too, and it is even more awesome than the temple.” Az touches my cheek with a finger, with rotting flesh, with bone, and I flinch. “I’m holding the afterparty there, before all the shedim I rule over, where you will be crowned as queen, and my curse will be broken so you can see my true form. The palace will be your home for all eternity.” He flicks a worm from his ear. “Well, until you die.”

#

Eva, senior class president, welcomes us to the prom. “I heard Jane had a boyfriend in college, but I didn’t know he’d be so charming.” She touches red-stained lips.

“I never said I had a boyfriend.”

Az hooks his arm through mine; a shiver runs down my spine. Eva, like Odin, doesn’t appear to think that anything is wrong. In fact, half the senior class notices nothing, just like the adults, and the other half avoids us as if Az is the wrong side of a magnet repelling them. When we move through the crowd, a sea of sequins and rhinestones and ruffles parts for us.

Az strides to a table in the middle of the room, towers over it until the couple already sitting there hastily gets up. He sits down, arms splayed over the backs of the chairs beside him, manspreading. “Sit down, sweet Jane.” He pats the seat of a chair, and I sit on it. The table glitters with silver, the fairy lights coiled into the vase centerpiece throw shadows over the table and Az’s morphing face. I swallow hard.

Autumn and Odin pull chairs out, too, Reem and Darcy behind them, but Az snaps his fingers and the chairs skitter away. “Go dance.” Reem and Darcy grab each other’s hands and go to the dance floor. Autumn squeezes my hand and says, “I’ll be back,” and disappears with Odin.

River retrieves a chair and sits down at one of the tables next to us. The light from his iPhone illuminates his face, his fingers type on the screen.

After a song, Autumn slides toward me. “Come to the photo booth.”

I stand up and smooth the wrinkles from my dress. Az narrows his eyes at Autumn. “She’s with you all of the time. It was Jane this, Jane that—until Reem came.” He grins with thin lips. “Frankly, you don’t deserve her.” His face rots now, like in that zombie TV show.

Autumn pales. “Take care,” she whispers to me and disappears onto the dance floor.

Az pulls me down. “Controlling much?” I say.

“It’s my turn to spend time with you. When I look in your eyes, I see your past. I am your future.” He lays his palm on the back of my hand. The bracelet’s beads press against my skin. He’s in his hot boy form now. Sweepy blond bangs fall into his eyes and his untied bowtie and unbuttoned shirt reveal smooth skin I have to resist to touch. His smile warms me. And then his hand is cold blanched bone; I jerk my hand away. The beads leave impressions on my skin.

When anyone approaches our table, Az holds up his hand and the person veers away. After a few dances, after people bring plates of hors d’oeuvres—sushi and meat impaled on sticks—to their tables, I hear a text notification and glance at my phone. It’s from River: found some spells to get rid of Az.

I text a thumbs up. Az glares at me, and I put my phone away.

River steps toward our table. When Az holds up his hand, River closes his eyes and takes another step, slowly, as if he’s walking in knee-high waves through a force field. He then whips out his iPhone and reads, “‘With His Wing He will cover you . . . A thousand demons will be stationed at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but they will not approach you.’” I hold my breath.

In his hot boy form, Az rolls his eyes; in his corpse form, one eye falls out and rolls under the table. “Reading a Psalm may work with a lesser demon.” He laughs at River’s surprised expression. “I’m aware of the Psalms. If you knew anything about me, you would know I’m a scholar of the Torah.” He bends down to retrieve his eye and pops it into the socket.

River draws himself up to appear taller. “Be gone, sheyd. Asmodeus. Smodeus. Modeus.” And he continues, dropping one letter at a time until there is no more letters to Az’s name.

“You are no longer amusing,” Az says. He snaps his fingers. A large invisible hand plucks River by the collar, and he dangles in the air, legs and arms swimming.

“Put me down!”

Az snaps his fingers again. River disappears.

I’m shaking. “What did you do to him? Bring him back!”

“It’s not like he’s your beshert.” I don’t know what that means. “Your Rebbeleh sleeps in the limo.” He leans back into his chair. “I’m bored.” He snaps his fingers and the DJ switches from “I’ve Gotta Feeling” to frantic music and everyone starts to dance. This means: everyone sitting at the tables, all the wallflowers and the people too cool to dance, come to the dance floor. The entire senior class dances frenetically like puppets on a string. Az’s cold hand pulls me forward onto the dance floor, between arms and legs and heads flailing and eyes reflecting fear and pain. “What did you do to them?” I ask, and he says, “They won’t remember anything,” and he waltzes with me around each person, threading between the bodies. Autumn, her mouth open in a soundless scream; Odin, dirty-dancing with Eva; Reem and Darcy, on the floor jerking in seizures.

My body presses tight against Az and my dress billows around his legs. “Please stop this.”

“Don’t you like to see your friends hurting like they hurt you?” His voice now a soft whisper.

His words have a certain temptation. I could be powerful if I were his queen. The first time, and then the fifth time, Autumn made plans with me then went out with Reem, Autumn mistakenly texting Jane’s no fun in the wrong group text, Autumn and Reem sharing inside jokes. I imagine Autumn and Reem being punished—let’s say Autumn gaining weight even if she only eats cotton balls, or Reem’s hair not holding hair dye, or hard labor breaking their nails to the quick.

“No, I don’t.” I just want my friend back.

Az snaps his fingers. The music and the dancers stop.

Eva steps to the middle of the dance floor and says, as effusively as Effie Trinket, “Well, isn’t this fun!” Everyone is silent, as if we’ve just finished one of our active shooter drills in school. “We’ve all been waiting for the coronation of the prom king and queen. Envelope, please.” Her eyes widen. “The prom queen is Jane and her college boyfriend Az! He doesn’t even go to our school.”

Everyone claps. Az winks at me and pulls me up with him to stand next to Eva. Eva slides the combs of a Party City tiara into my hair. It’s just cheap plastic but it feels so heavy. She then holds a plastic crown for Az, but he’s too tall for her to place it on his head, or perhaps she hesitates because she finally notices how he changes from corpse to living boy, living boy to bone. He takes the crown from her hands and sets it on his skull as if it’s a crown of real gold.

“Thank you, Eva.” His voice projects through the ballroom. “I’m made of fire and air, and Jane, like Adam, is made of soil, and water flows in her veins. Jane will be my queen of water and earth.” He grins, his eye sockets empty. “Think what we can do in her short lifespan; we are all four elements of creation.”

The teeth of the combs dig into my scalp. I look down at my classmates and see instead, as flickering images, shedim inside everyone. Darkness creeps into my side vision. River’s attempts at exorcising Az have failed. I’m just a girl with no knowledge of anything, with no tools to escape. I’m doomed at the end of the night. I pull out of Az’s grasp and run to the bathroom, tears streaming.

#

I run through the Women’s Lounge, with sinks on one side, counters and overstuffed red velvet chairs on the other, to the double rows of stalls. A fancy restroom; there’s no gap between the stall doors and the marble floor, so I can’t see if anyone else is in the bathroom. I slam a stall door and sit on the toilet, head in my hands. I try to muffle my crying.

Autumn’s waiting for me in the lounge. Mirrors cover all four walls. “You’ve ruined your makeup.” She spills out the contents of her clutch on the counter. The light touch of her makeup eraser pen under my eyes and the featherweight brush of mascara. She bites her lower lip as she wields the liquid eyeliner. In elementary school, she always bit her lip when concentrating on her homework. A smear of red lipstick stains one of her front teeth. I don’t tell her. She says, “You have to slay to be queen of the underworld.”

“The eyeliner of evil,” I say.

“Exactly.”

My lashes are thick spider legs, and the eyeliner is heavy and winged. Autumn’s erased all signs of tears, and the girl reflected in the mirrors isn’t plain Jane or sweet Jane, isn’t a Jane I recognize: an unending reflection bouncing between the mirrors of this new Jane, a queen. The Party City tiara, all rhinestones and plastic sprayed silver, glitters against my dark hair. I imagine Az, taking me by the hand to the underworld, through layers of soil and rock, to his palace and his demon subjects. Years of misery. I will endure and survive. I hold my head tall.

I bet I’m dead within a week.

“Autumn, tell me more about contracts.” I can’t believe I’m saying this. My father is a lawyer and it’s so boring.

“Well, to make a contract you need first an offer”—she counts a few more contractual requirements on her fingers—“and then, you need to fulfill the terms of the contract . . . that’s the most important thing.” She cries silently, tears running down her face. “Jane, I know I haven’t always been nice to you, and this whole thing is my fault—I made you practice the promposal—but I really love you.”

I hug her. “Please don’t cry, Autumn.” I push her away, shake her a little by her shoulders. “You’ll ruin your makeup.” But the crying makes her even more beautiful.

From the double row of bathroom stalls, a door slams open. And then each door slams open, except for the farthest stall door, and women crowned with tiaras step out of the stalls. They wear dresses with paniers or laced-up bodices or bustles, miniskirts, robes, tunics, fur cloaks, every era of clothing you can think of. All of Az’s wives; I wonder who put the curse on him. (I’m betting on the witchy-looking woman in a black lace mini.) Each woman stands at the threshold of her stall and, one-by-one, says, “Slay.” Each woman who knows the importance of small moments between women in small places, passing tissues and tampons and embraces, whispering are you ok he’s a jerk dump him you look beautiful do you need help.

Then they fade away.

Reem throws open the farthest stall door. Platforms dangle from her hand. “Fuck the patriarchy.”

#

The ballroom is almost empty. The DJ has started to pack up; glitter covers the floor. A couple makes out at an empty table. Odin and Darcy join us. Az stands and holds out his arms. “My Queen, it’s time to leave.”

Autumn and Reem flank me, Reem in her bare feet, Autumn in her blushing dress, Odin and Darcy behind. I could’ve had the best prom ever with Autumn and Reem and River and danced and taken photos in the photo booth with fake mustaches and huge sunglasses, and laughed at inside jokes we just created at prom and would text each other about while we’re all separated at college. River and I would’ve danced a slow dance and kissed at the end of the night. It’s so unfair that just because I (mistakenly) asked some guy to the prom I am doomed to live in the underworld forever.

And then: I just asked Az to the prom. I’ve done exactly what I promised to do.

Az stamps a dress-shoed foot, and a crack spreads across the room. The crevasse widens, chairs and tables tip in. The kissing couple almost fall in, but they notice there is no longer floor at their feet and run out the ballroom door.

Klezmer music emits from the fissure. There’s the floor of the ballroom and all the other floors below it, the basement of the hotel, and then dirt and striations of rock and a wide-open space deep down. A ballroom below the ballroom we stand in with swag curtains made of ice and obsidian tables. Shedim throw dice with many-jointed fingers. Their feet are spurred rooster claws.

Az holds his hand out to me. “Say goodbye to your friends.”

“I’m not going with you.” My voice cracks. “I asked you to the prom, not anything else, and certainly did not agree to be your queen. We’ve gone to the prom. I’ve performed under the contract.”

“Go, girl!” Autumn says. Her arm circles my waist.

Az’s arm is still extended to me. Bone rotting flesh intact skin. I hook my finger under the beads of the bracelet I gave him and break the thread. Beads fall into the crack and roll under the tables.

I hope someone’s filming this and posts it to Instagram.

“How dare you!” Az says.

“How dare you,” I say. “You have no power over me if I don’t agree to a new contract.”

Az’s face turns from hot boy to skeleton. There’s nothing in the skull, no beating brain, just empty eye sockets and the void where his nose should be. And without thinking—I push him into the crevasse. His body tumbles slowly down, his pale white bones detach from each other, his clothes shred into rags, as the shedim below stop gambling and watch his descent. Before Az reaches his palace’s floor, the crack closes with a puff of dust and seals over, as if it were never there at all.

#

We—Odin and Autumn, Reem and Darcy, and me, just Jane—find River sleeping in the back of the limo. Just as Az said. He murmurs something unintelligible, words lost to dreams, then turns on his side. “Az enchanted him,” I say.

“Perhaps true love’s kiss will wake him up?” Reem says. River’s out of luck then. No true love, just a crush gone on too long and worn thin, like a Polaroid photo faded over time. I don’t know the real River, just the image in my mind that I’ve held onto for too long, only an outline that, if we want, can be colored in.

Autumn puts her arm around my shoulder. She smells of a night dancing, of sweat and Ariana Grande perfume and the vanilla scent of her MAC lipstick. “If anyone can wake River, you can. You conquered the King of Demons.”

At the end, it’s the easiest solution. Just like besting Az, I don’t need spells or prayers. I lean over and shake his shoulder. He mutters a word in another language, and I shake him again. His eyes open.

“Ready for the afterparty?” I ask.