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This thing – her thing – isn't puffy like El's, but it is soft. Delicate.
Max isn't soft and delicate. She's tried to explain this reality countlessly: to her mother, when she'd proudly given Max the saved-up money for her prom dress; to El, when she'd dragged her around pretentiously-named boutiques. Max is certain that in Hawkins, Indiana, anything claiming to resemble French elegance must be a scam.
The one person she hasn't explained her situation to, however, is Lucas, and he's the one she's thinking about when she critically inspects herself in the mirror. The velvetine, midnight-blue dress with tiny crystals (fake), feels slippery in all the wrong places and too tight in the other half.
“You look beautiful,” El had said before leaving with Mike, who had gotten there earlier. Speaking of Mike, his “Lucas will be here in a minute, he's just freaking out,” didn't help Max one bit, despite the fact that it should've: at least they're in the same boat. But why Lucas might be freaking out is a whole different story.
Maybe she hadn't explained to him the reality of her absolute non-girlishness because she assumed he's already well aware: he's her boyfriend, for Jesus' sake. But maybe it's also why he's now freaking out, picturing Max in a fluffy tutu monstrosity (like El's) or something even more ridiculous.
Like this – the wannabe Frech elegance. Max desperately tries to pull the straps to make the cut end a little higher, but unsuccessfully. Her cleavage remains horrendously on display. Why does she have to have so much boob? Why does she have to envy El, who, perhaps throughout her time in California or just because she'd been locked in a government-sponsored zoo (as the animal) in a hospital gown for years, so she has more reason to appreciate her freedom of fashion now, has acquired a sense of style. That certain pizzazz, if you will.
Max doesn't have any of that. Max has bruised knees and swear words and skating tricks better thn any of the boys, but she doesn't get the eerie, float-like walk in a perfectly matching outfit that encapsulates an attractively mysterious persona. Max isn't the one who can put on a baby-blue tulle atrocity but still look cool because she has gold eyeliner.
She's this close to shimmying out her dress and just splouching on the bed and calling Lucas that she's throwing up – she feels as if she's about to, anyway – but then the doorbell makes its cling-clang and it's too late. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she prepares herself to sound jolly in response to Lucas' slightly nervous “Hello?” from down the hall.
Except what comes out is a small, choked up “In here”, not too far away from tears. Max looks at herself in the mirror and sees every imperfection magnified: the slightly crooked teeth with overbite, the pasty-white, freckled arms, the too-thin lips, the defiant look in her eyes. Not much of a princess, is she? Certainly not a lady, either.
“Max?”
“I'm coming,” she sniffles and hurriedly starts to look for the purse borrowed from her mum, but again, it's too late: there's a careful knock and then a creak of the door, and then Lucas' head in the slit he'd opened. “Can I co-”
He stops in his tracks, mouth slightly agape, looking at her. Max, now completely at the end of her rope, is close to bursting into tears. Instead, she blinks away the stinginess and barks at Lucas accusatorily: “Well, laugh if you want! Tell me how stupid I really look, but Jesus, at least speak!”
“W-What?”
“I know it's stupid and too-much, I never should've-” her sentence subdues in rustling of fabric, as she kicks off her shoes and starts to nearly rip her dress off. “I wanted to just- I don't know, not be me for once, but clearly, this is too not me and it doesn't wor-”
“Max, what are you doing?” Lucas sounds confused. Very confused.
She looks at him, succumbing to her tears; the damned mascara, another piece of evidence in the case Max, the fool, will make her look even more stupid. “I'm just not the type of girl to look pretty in a prom dress,” she says, studying the carpet so that he doesn't see just how desperate this revelation makes her.
“You look – gorgeous!” Lucas exclaims with so much incredulousness that Max can't believe her ears for a while. Then, a second later, he's by her side, holding her hand, clumsily trying to fix her strap with his other one. “Max- what do you mean? You're, like, the most prettiest gourgeous-est girl alive, not to mention that you're just amazing-”
He says it sincerely, but there's an undertone of laughter as he gets fierce with his superlatives, and Max finally looks at him. There are mischevious sparks in his eyes as he calls her an “elusive dreamy goddess”; she sniffles happily and slaps his arm lightly, just to pet it after.
“Okay, Stalker, let me just get my shoes and then the goddess will be ready to go.”
Lucas snickers at her happily. “You didn't even call me as handsome as a Greek god!”
She snorts. “Because you aren't.”
They joke about all the way to Lucas' brand new (actually second-hand) car, but when he's opening the door for her, he stops her before she sits down, squeezing at her hand. “You good?”
“Perfect,” she says, and the radiant smile she gives him combines the beauty of all pretty girls and Greek goddesses alike. “Thank you.”