My husband was driving recently when we stopped for a red light. In the lane next to me was the longest limousine I've ever seen. "Prom night," I said. My hubby pursed his lips and nodded in that way men have when the subject is one they don't want to talk about. If I'd asked what size engine he thought the stretch Hummer had, he would have come to life, talking about cubic inch displacement and horsepower. But I wanted to go back in time and dreamily reminisce about high school dances.
     Not that we were chauffeured in a limousine. Back then, a boy was lucky if his father gave him the keys to the family's good car, usually a station wagon or sedan. For my boyfriend's senior formal, we used his ugly green Fairlane, the car he drove to and from school everyday. If he and his friends hadn't decided to skip classes just before the big dance (and gotten caught), we would have arrived in style, in his parents' Cadillac.
     Those fancy balls were always stressful occasions for me. Mom and I would scour stores, trying to find the perfect gown. Then there was the trauma of the shoes: would Baker's shoe store be able to dye the new satiny pumps the exact hue of the dress? Add to that the biggest project of all: the hair style. Shoulder-length hair like mine could be worn in a French twist, a perky flip, or a classic pageboy.
     While my beau was undoubtedly at home that afternoon begging his parents to forgive him and let him drive the Caddy, I was downtown at the swank hair salon on the first floor of the Pillsbury Building. The shop, Christian Marcus, was named after the two owners and premier stylists. Their prices were too expensive for a high school girl going to a dance, so I was treated by one of the lesser-known hairdressers.
     He insisted a formal affair required a swept up coif. I, on the other hand, wanted a bouffant style flipped up at the ends. We compromised: the top of my hair would be an up-do and the bottom would be a flip—a style Jacqueline Kennedy had been seen wearing at a fancy function.
     Alas, it was such a humid day that, by the time I arrived home, my hair had lost its pouf and the upsweep was drooping. My mother was no help at all. She, a weekly regular at Cora Collins' beauty salon, had never styled her own hair. My year-younger sister had one of the pouffiest do's in our school, so I begged her to help me. She declared it an impossibility just as Mom announced my boyfriend was in the living room. "The corsage he brought is beautiful," she said. I wondered if I could wear it on top of my head.
     I don't know why, but every time I look back on the many formal dances I attended, it is always the one with the bad hairdo that sticks in my mind. Perhaps that's why my husband doesn't care to meander back in time with me. He hadn't been my date that evening, but he's seen the pictures. That could explain why he tightens his lips together every time I mention the word, prom. Could it be he's trying to stifle a guffaw or a burst of laughter?
     Maybe it's time for him to share his own prom pictures. They probably involve a baby blue tux and a ruffled shirt. I'll try not to giggle.