A Prom to Remember(13)

Lizzie leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. Jacinta propped her elbow on her desk and turned to Lizzie.

“So are you going to the prom?” she asked.

“Ugh,” Lizzie said.

“Does that mean yes or no?” Jacinta asked.

“The prom and I have a complicated relationship at the moment.”

“Is it really cheesy that I want to go?” Jacinta asked.

Lizzie smiled and sat up, not wanting Jacinta to think she was judging her. “Not at all. It’s more common than not wanting to go.”

Jacinta nodded. “It’s just that my three brothers and my sister went to their proms and it always seemed so glamorous to me. Like the height of what it meant to be eighteen and graduating from high school, as if you were finally sophisticated enough to own a really pretty dress and have a boy in a tuxedo whisk you away in a limo.”

Lizzie nodded.

“It’s just super corny, right?”

“No, honestly, I do feel a little more inspired to go. Because you’re right. There’s something like closure that comes along with going to the prom. It’s like a rite of passage in our society.”

“Exactly! So tell me about your complicated relationship with prom.” Then Jacinta’s eyes lit up. “I forgot about Mystery Boy. You should totally ask Mystery Boy!”

“I know.” Lizzie grinned. Jacinta had caught part of their conversation one day when Lizzie had left it up on the screen. “It’s a little weird and a little complicated, but I really want to ask him.”

“I love weird and complicated stuff. What’s weird and complicated about it?”

“I need to figure out how to even approach this idea,” Lizzie said. “How do you ask someone to meet you somewhere when you’ve never met them? When you don’t know what they look like, and they don’t know what you look like? How do you find each other in a crowd?”

“Maybe you should see if he says yes before getting too bogged down by the logistical details.”

“But logistical details are all I have to hang onto right now,” Lizzie said. “Otherwise I fall apart imagining meeting him. Maybe he’s only good on paper. Maybe I won’t like him in person.”

“Do not fall apart. We have this under control,” Jacinta said, flipping to a clean page in her notebook.

“What about the assignment?”

“We could do that in our sleep!” Jacinta said. “We only have two more questions to answer. You need help more than we need to answer those questions.”

“Thanks, Jacinta.”

“Now we just need to figure out what to say,” Jacinta said, tapping her bottom lip with her pen.

By the end of the period, Lizzie had a short message written out that she could type up quickly the next time she had an opportunity to use laptop 19.

Luckily the next day the laptop cart was in the English room. Lizzie wasted no time typing up her prom invite to Mystery Boy.

So, I was wondering. If maybe perhaps. She paused. She wanted desperately to delete what she had just typed. It’s a good thing she had a rough draft to go by, because this was harder than she expected.

I’m going to leave that stuff there so you can see that I’m a little nervous about this. But I wanted to ask you to the prom. Or at least ask you to meet me at the prom. I want to meet you, and I feel like prom is the perfect time to do that. I don’t know who you’re attracted to, maybe you’re not into girls and that’s cool. But I wanted to at least ask. So, thank you and please consider meeting me. If not at the prom, if that doesn’t feel right, then some other time? Maybe? I don’t want this friendship to end.

Lizzie quickly saved the message and then closed the document before she could talk herself out of it or add more awkward rambling.

Jacinta looked over at her and raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question. Lizzie gave her a thumbs-up.

Her heart was beating a mile a minute.

Paisley

During Paisley’s tenure as a potato technician in the mall food court, she had learned many things. One was that people talked a lot in the food court, and, because of her uniform and visor, Paisley was nearly invisible to them. Customers would continue talking to their friend or on the phone about personal things even while Paisley stood there waiting for their order. On top of that, due to a fluke in the food court’s architecture, she could also hear conversations from several yards away in a nearby alcove.

She’d heard way too many stories to keep them all to herself. She’d often text Henry the best of them during her shifts.

For example, she had heard quite a few terrible stories about sex over the past few months. At the moment there was a group of college-aged girls sitting in the magical acoustic alcove talking about STDs.

She was frantically typing their conversation to Henry.



Henry rarely even responded to these texts, but that didn’t stop Paisley from sending them.





Paisley paused in her transcription to look over at the table and get a better look at each of the girls. Was this what she had to look forward to in college?

Her phone lit up and got her attention.




Paisley considered this for a moment.



Paisley stacked napkins and refilled the utensils so that her boss wouldn’t have anything to say when he came in to help with the dinner rush. Even though what Hot Potato experienced during dinnertime could hardly be considered a rush. Paisley was happily surprised when Lizzie came in at five thirty.