The ceremony was over, but almost none of the students had left. Sleek black cars waited patiently in the street, their drivers tallying the overtime they were earning. The exhausted staff of the banquet hall smoked cigarettes in the back and talked softly about the evening. This was by far the nicest and most stylish of all the proms they held, and they held a lot of proms.
There were of course late-night soirees and cocktail parties awaiting the students (not to mention the more traditional post-prom activity) but no one was ready to leave. The seniors, tight-lipped and blank-faced, wouldn’t leave until they had stoically congratulated the juniors on their win, and the juniors were otherwise occupied with congratulating each other. They had done the impossible that night.
The entire junior class stood in a throng around the front of the ballroom, and at its center were the Budd twins, Alexander and Lillian, and the seven members of their entourage. At the very nucleus of the crowd was a large glass jar setting on a varnished wooden case. There was a brass plaque on the front of the jar that time had long since rendered smooth and unreadable.
There was no hooting, no extravagant display of self-congratulation, only the occasional bubbling of easy laughter. The boys in their tuxedos shook each other’s hands firmly, and the girls exchanged chaste hugs, careful not to crush the other’s gown.
But though they appeared calm and refined, it was clearly a struggle to remain Proper: their smiles were just a little too wild, and their eyes shined madly. For only the fourth (or was it the fifth?) time in their school’s history, the junior class had upset the seniors to win the McMillan Award, the highest honor at Beaumonde Academy.
The most elite private high school in New Orleans, Beaumonde Academy was probably founded more than a hundred years ago, and I’m sure it has a ludicrously low teacher-student ratio, and those teachers have more degrees and are probably better paid than most professors, and its students must certainly go on to become perfectly-rounded success stories who thank their revered high school Latin teachers when they win Nobel Prizes and National Book Awards and Daytime Emmys.
But none of those things really mattered on that Friday night in late May, because it was prom night, and the end of the school year at last, and everyone’s last chance to show off their nicest clothes before the summer. Alexander always said that there were too few occasions in life where overdressing was encouraged, and that what few opportunities remained should be embraced wholeheartedly.
At an exclusive school like Beaumonde Academy, the prom is nothing like the loud and tacky spectacle that you and I grew up with. Traditionally held on the night before graduation, the Beaumonde prom is more of an elaborate dinner, with speeches from the headmaster (who was actually a headmistress, but she hated that term), a favorite teacher, and a successful alumni.
This was followed by a formal dance, where the students attempted the waltz, the tango, and the foxtrot, to varying degrees of success and enthusiasm. The chief attraction of the dance floor, though, wasn’t the dancing itself but the chance for the students to show off their elegant evening wear and the air of easy grace with which they hoped they were wearing it.
Alexander and Lillian Budd were, of course, on the Prom Committee—indeed, it was their only extracurricular activity—and they knew enough to trust their school: the invitations only stipulated “relaxed formal attire” and left it at that. The students had taken it from there. None of them had resorted to the usual prom-related sartorial antics: there were no baby blue thrift store leisure suits, no ugly novelty ties, no colorful Converses worn in a predictable attempt to prove that the wearer is shockingly unpredictable and can’t be hemmed in by the rules of fashion.
Instead, all of the juniors and most of the seniors had appeared in impeccable tuxedos and exquisite gowns; they looked like they were off to rob a European casino or attend a New Year’s Eve party circa 1935. The adult chaperones, who were also wearing tuxedos and gowns, felt somehow wildly overdressed and a bit stuffy in a way they couldn’t quite put their fingers on.
After the jazz combo brought their last song to an end, it was time for the final event of the evening, the presentation of the McMillan Award. The award supposedly went to the best grade among the Beaumonde student body; really, though, it was only technically a contest: the winners were allegedly determined by a mysterious and arcane set of guidelines that measured school spirit, but in fact it went to the seniors every year.
Well, almost every year. The juniors’ win shouldn’t have shocked anyone, considering what an impact the Budds, their Gang, and the rest of the class had made on the Academy, but at the time it seemed unfathomable. The McMillan Award is completely meaningless, of course, and therefore is obsessed over with a deadly seriousness by the students, teachers, and alumni of Beaumonde Academy. The juniors’ win was a Very Big Deal, as it hadn’t been won by a class other than the seniors in over ten years…and it was all thanks to Alexander and Lillian Budd.
*
When they first began at Beaumonde Academy freshmen year, the twins were known by most people at their school as “that overdressed faggy dude with the hot-ass sister.” By the end of their first year, though, Alexander and Lillian commanded the underclassmen.
The two actually pulled off a rather neat trick; instead of striving to excel at the notably fickle rules of high school life, they simply rewrote those rules to reward their own strengths. Alexander was, indeed, overdressed and vaguely faggy. By the end of the school year, being overdressed and faggy was not only okay, but rather the pinnacle of high school cool, something that all the boys wanted to be and all the girls wanted to be with.
The twins knew that you don’t win by playing the game...you win by controlling the game itself.
By the spring of freshman year, the most important underclassmen at Beaumonde were Alexander, Lillian, and The Gang, which is what everyone called the twins’ entourage of closest friends. (This a pretty dull name, of course, but you should always be suspicious of people who come up with overly-cute nicknames for their groups of friends.) Between classes, all nine of them could often be found moving together through the school’s hallways.
As they walked, Alexander greeted cherished acquaintances among the student body and even the faculty, and using his special ability to make whomever he spoke to feel that, though he knew simply everyone, he was taking the time to say hello to them and them alone.
Always by his side was his stunning sister Lillian, who was quiet and fierce and intelligent and chaste and who looked like a particularly fine specimen of a long-thought-extinct race of ancient beings. Because she looked so different from anyone else at the school—and, it was suspected, anyone else in the entire world—she almost never caused the sort of hatred and jealousy that other women have towards the gorgeous in commercials for low-fat yogurt and diet soda.
Alexander was bewitching and seductive, but his lovely sister was quiet and even vaguely menacing. When Lillian did open up to someone, it was always in a certain tone that implied that she was sharing a great personal secret with you. Her brother could charm hundreds for an afternoon; Lillian could inspire life-long loyalty, one person at a time.
Separately, the two had their own faults and imperfections, but together they were a single, almost indestructible, unit. A failing in one was compensated by an exceptional virtue in the other. Much like how complicated math problems or classical violin or competitive eating comes easily to certain gifted teenagers, Alexander and Lillian had an innate ability for Life.
When the two of them were together—which was almost always—nothing could stand in their way, nothing was too difficult or devious, nothing couldn’t be conquered by the simple force of their indomitable will. Not even high school.
The Budds had become, to use a vulgar and simplistic term, “the most popular kids in school.” But popularity was never their goal. They saw it simply as a powerful tool to help them achieve their ultimate goal.
Now that Alexander had the attention of half the school—not to mention a fair number of the upperclassmen as well—he began what was his true ambition: recreating Beaumonde Academy from the ground up. Over the summer and into the fall, Alexander and Lillian, with help from The Gang, began to spread the gospel of Proper among their more influential classmates.
Alexander described a nightmare in which every teenager bought identical outfits at the same three or four stores at the mall. The clothes were poorly made with low-quality material; they were ill-fitting because the fatties of the world had caused an XL of twenty years before to be relabeled a M. The uniform of the American Teenager, Alexander told them, was jeans that didn’t fit, paired with a cheap cotton T-shirt that was usually adorned with the logo of the store where they’d bought it on clearance.
Alexander apologized for appalling his fellow students with such distasteful talk. (He hadn’t.) Then, in a shocking twist, he revealed that the world he had just described was, in fact, the one they lived in.
There was a time, he said, when the young, rich, and reasonably attractive actually dressed and acted as though they were those things. But today the gravest sin you could commit was to look like you stood out from anyone else. Now there were multimillionaires dressing like frat boys. Grown men and women looked like toddlers ready for naptime. Casual Friday had become Casual Everyday, and on the weekends people actually left their houses in sweatshirts and pajama bottoms.
Adults were no longer interested in looking like adults, Alexander told them. When you’re forty and you dress like a twelve-year-old, you begin to act like a twelve-year-old. And so the social fabric was beginning to unravel. Etiquette was forgotten, email replaced stationary, men bragged about owning only one suit.
But there was hope. In a world where every day a tailor went out of business and was replaced by a Gap, in a world where every wannabe rebel wore the same t-shirt bought at the same store, in a world where advertisers told them that they could only be true originals by buying their mass-market products...in a world like that, to dress and act like adults from a forgotten age was actually a blow for non-conformity.
If a small and dedicated group of teenagers became passionate about how they looked, how they dressed, and how they acted, then there was little doubt that they would begin to change their school and, eventually, the world. This was the only rebellion left, and—if done right—it would be revolutionary.
Style is substance.
*
Their classmates were more than willing to go along with this, and slowly the twins were able to teach them how to live up to their exacting standards of style and glamour. They taught them the difference between fabrics, cuts, and styles. They gave out grooming tips, often unsolicited. They showed them how different colors and shapes of clothes are best for different colors and shapes of people.
But mostly, they taught their school what was Proper.
When Alexander first brought up the concept of Proper, he’d tried using the French term comme il faut. The phrase literally means “as it should be” and it describes something that is just utterly correct. Frankly, this is a much better description of what Alexander was trying to get across than the word ‘Proper’—which he thought somehow sounded both snobby and ghetto—but when he’d used the French term he was roundly mocked by Le Gang.
Proper didn’t necessarily just cover what clothes somebody wore. (Although, as the school would soon discover, it most certainly contained thousands of precise edicts about that, too.) Instead, being Proper was more about knowing the when and why and how clothes were worn. Almost nothing one could wear or do or say was universally Proper; only the context made it so.
Though the adherents of Proper tended to wear somewhat more formal clothing than their peers in other schools, it wasn’t about just dressing up all the time no matter what. A three-piece suit was Proper when out to dinner or at a party, but if worn to school or a movie it only betrayed how little the wearer grasped the concept.
It took almost a year, but by the beginning of eleventh grade, Beaumonde Academy was transformed. Parents were astounded to see their daughters lightly perfuming handwritten notes to their crushes and their sons carrying handkerchiefs and penknives. Other schools had problems with low-slung jeans or belly shirts, but Beaumonde’s students were brutally self-policing. The halls of the Academy looked like a fashion magazine’s photo spread about the return of prep-school chic.
But Proper was no passing fad…as any student would gladly tell you, in the end it wasn’t even about the clothes. It was about discovering a way to live with grace and poise, about always knowing what to say and do without agonizing about it like other teenagers might. It was about believing in and being a part of something that was larger than them, and the feeling of satisfaction that came from doing their small part to make it happen.
*
By 11:30, most of the seniors had left the prom, exiting the hall with their dates clinched to the side. They had shared a school with the juniors for three years now, and though they had never totally bought into the rest of the school’s tenets, they believed in acting Proper at least enough to graciously congratulate the winners. Now they could leave, off to their kegs and their darkened fumblings. They were graduating in twelve hours anyway.
The juniors were now proudly posing one by one with the McMillan Award, holding it carefully as their friends grouped together to snap their picture. It was a clear glass apothecary’s jar holding dried laurel leaves—the origin of the award, or even whom it was named after, has been lost—but in a way these photos were the real award.
Only members of the winning class were allowed to touch or be photographed with the jar…even looking at it too hard was gently discouraged. At the beginning of the prom, the headmaster had removed the award from its thick oak case, and at midnight the glass jar would be returned to the dark for another year. Only these photographs would remain.
Eventually, almost every junior had a turn with the award, and only a few minutes remained before the award had to be turned over to Dr. Hayes. The twins and their Gang were the last to get the McMillan. None of them were interested in solo photos, so they handed their cameras over and lined up for a group shot. The entire junior class formed a half circle around them, extending cameras in front of themselves or over their heads…everyone wanted a picture of this.
Junior year was over. A summer of get-togethers, sleepovers, movie nights, picnics, pool parties, and shopping trips awaited all of them, and after that would be the triumph of senior year and graduation.
And then the real work would begin. They’d spread out across the country, doing for their colleges and universities what Alexander and Lillian had done for Beaumonde. Soon, what had begun as a clique would become a movement, as tens of thousands of Proper college graduates spilled out into the coarse world beyond, ready to rebuild society in their own more elegant image.
It was a ridiculous goal, a laughable one, and no one except maybe the twins usually took it very seriously. But on prom night, as the juniors watched the twins and their friends line up, holding the McMillan, it seemed more than plausible. It seemed inevitable.
“Say cheese,” someone called out.
“Say Chanel,” David’s (sadly platonic) date suggested instead. Everyone chuckled, the Gang gave a smile, and one hundred and twenty five flashbulbs went off all around them.
*
I have one of these photos taped over my desk as I write this, and it’s heartbreaking in a way to look at, knowing what was coming. The Gang looks so happy in this picture, and I’m reluctant to move forward in time.
There’s David Sebastian, looking over with a smile at the boy just out of frame, with whom he was more or less okay with being just friends. (But if William would ever change his mind…) His dark blue slim-cut tuxedo, with its razor-sharp hems, had been worn open at the neck, with no tie. This had scandalized the rest of the prom, but Alexander had declared the move a triumph, and all the other boys began wondering if they were brave enough to try it next year.
There’s Andre Meyer, usually so sour and sarcastic, now grinning in spite of himself and looking slightly embarrassed for doing so. He’s almost certainly the worst-dressed boy at Beaumonde, but his close friendship with the Budds has exempted him from the scorn he otherwise would receive for wearing nothing but black clothes, often in a size too big for his chubby frame. (His exclusive use of black isn’t just a reflection of his worldview; he has also secretly convinced himself that the color is slimming.) In the picture, he’s wearing the sloppy all-black tuxedo Alexander had called “undertaker chic.”
There’s Michael Karlinoff, with his arm around Lillian’s waist. Michael is as beautiful as his girlfriend, and with his olive skin and dark lazy curls he flawlessly complements her fair hair and pale complexion. No one at the school knows much about Michael—and not for lack of trying—except that he was born in Macedonia, a country just above Greece, but raised in America from a very early age by his strict father, a mysterious shipping magnate and a prosperous trader of...something. No one was really sure. The only other thing that everyone knows about Michael Karlinoff is that he isn’t a student of Proper, or even an enthusiast, but rather the living embodiment of it; that night he was wearing a gorgeous bespoke tuxedo, the exact cut and make of which no one had ever seen before, not even Alexander.
There’s Emily Bellecastle, smiling sweetly and holding her hands behind her back. She almost seems to be rolling her eyes at the camera, as though sharing a private joke with the viewer. Emily’s mother had been an infamous New Orleans debutante who’d left home at 17, traveling the world as the high-profile girlfriend of minor rock stars and B-list actors, before finally marrying a wildly-successful international financier who was only 32 years older than her. Thanks to her mother, Emily is one of the cutest girls at Beaumonde, and thanks to her father, she’s certainly the richest. So, of course, she’s Alexander’s girlfriend.
There’s Robert Johnson, grimacing at the camera with his brow furrowed intently. His white classmates frequently describe him as “chill” which not only irritates him to no end but is fundamentally untrue. His demeanor is in fact far beyond chill, past inscrutable, and well into the territory of the statuesque. Closer inspection of that night’s photo, however, reveals that an eyebrow is cocked minutely higher than the other, and the very corners of one lip is meandering upwards: Robert is overjoyed, and he’s frowning extravagantly to counteract it.
There’s Elizabeth Huynh, whom everyone calls Litta’Bit, dwarfed by Robert’s arm across her shoulder. Her hair is attractively mussed, and she’s looking out at the camera through dark eyes, with a cautiously flirtatious not-quite-a-smile playing on her full lips. This mesmerizing look comes effortlessly to her; she’s practiced it a thousand times in Facebook self-portraits, holding her cell-phone out at arm’s length, often with David beside her and striking the same pose. Her burgundy gown has velvet trim, and was specially chosen by Lillian herself to highlight Litta’Bit’s petite and curvy frame. Hidden underneath are the tallest heels in the room, and she’ll gratefully slip them off within seconds of the last camera flash.
And there’s Josephine Brooks, the headmaster's daughter, just on the edge of the frame…in fact, looking as though she’s changed her mind and is about to step away from the crowd. She hadn’t even wanted to come to the prom, half-heartedly claiming she had nothing to wear, but the other girls in The Gang had anticipated this and already had Lillian’s gown from last year’s Winter Formal altered for her. She’s not quite smiling and not quite looking at the camera, but the very fact that she’s posing for a photo at all is a huge accomplishment, and perhaps the best example of how important the night was for everyone.
In this picture, The Gang have their arms around each other and they’re laughing. They’re happy, at the end of an extraordinary year and a magnificent night. Yet every one of them knows that none of this—the clothes, the award, the friends—would have been possible if it weren’t for the two people in the center of the picture.
Both of the twins are staring unsmilingly out into the camera. Alexander has an eyebrow lifted, as though asking a deceptively simple question. He holds the McMillan Award, but he’s not posing with it. He’s nonchalantly dangling it from one of the handles.
His sister is beside him, her head tilted down and looking up into our eyes. A small wisp of fine blonde hair threatens one of her eyelashes, and her mouth is turned down into something a bit like a pout. Her hand barely touches the top of the Award.
This is Alexander and Lillian Budd, better known to everyone at Beaumonde Academy—out of admiration, out of jealousy, out of fondness, out of envy—as simply The Darling Budds.
This is not their story.
