by Amy Spalding
“So I know this is all . . .” Kat rolls her eyes, but in her cute way, not her actually annoyed one. “It’s all really over the top, but I do need to find a prom dress, you know, prom couple or not. And so do you. Do you want to go over to the Galleria after you’re done with practice today?”
I imagine Kat’s face and her protests if I say I’m not going to prom. “Sure.”
“Great, pick you up at your place at, like, five-thirty?”
I’m unfortunately headed back to Mom’s tonight. “You could just get me at a few after five at school. I can take a shower right after practice so I don’t smell up any nice dresses.”
“Perfect! See you in third period.”
Gretchen catches up with me during our cooldown laps at the end of practice that afternoon. “Sorry you couldn’t make the poster-making meeting last night. I know it wasn’t much notice.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m not very crafty.”
“We’re meeting up again on Saturday,” she says. “It’ll be later in the day, way after our meet, so you’ll be able to make it. We were thinking we could get Quinn and Kat some publicity. Tell local papers or blogs about how they’re changing history.”
“Do you think that local papers would care?” I ask. “It’s just prom.”
“It’s bigger than prom,” Gretchen says. “Much. Anyway, I hope you can make it. We’ll order good snacks.”
Why do all of Quinn’s friends have to be so nice and well-meaning? It knots my stomach even worse. Here they are championing something really important while Kat might just be trying to maintain her prom queen dreams.
I don’t say anything about it, though, once Kat and I are in her car on the way to the Galleria. While there’s plenty that’s probably been better left unsaid, I need to get out of this one now.
“I should just tell you,” I say, “that I’m not actually going to prom.”
Kat stares at me like I’ve just confessed to a homicide. “OMG. James. What?”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “I went last year and had fun. But I’m not with anyone this year, and everyone has dates, so . . .”
“Do you need a date? We could totally get you a date,” she says. “What about Gabriel Quiroga? You know he’d be in, and he’d look super handsome in your photos for, like, your memories later. You can tell your grandchildren a hottie took you to prom.”
“I don’t need a date,” I say. “And that would definitely send Gabriel the wrong message. Plus those aren’t the types of conversations I plan on having with any hypothetical grandchildren.”
She giggles. “Fair. But prom is totally not just about dates. It’s about your friends and your class and having this, like, beautiful time together before you all go out into the world to do your own stuff. My favorite prom memory from last year is actually when you and me and Sof and Mariana somehow all squished into the photo booth thing at the same time while the photographer guy kept yelling ‘ladies, be mindful!!’”
The memory catches me by surprise and I burst into laughter. “I forgot about that.”
“That was way better than anything with Matty,” she says. “So you have to come. We have to take that photo again, right?”
“Kat . . . I just don’t want to go, OK? It’s too hard.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I’ll still help you find a dress, though,” I say.
“Well, duh, you will.”
We’re quieter than usual during the rest of our drive, and then while we’re looking through racks of dresses at Bloomingdale’s that we can’t afford.
“Imagine actually having nine hundred dollars to buy a bright green floor-length dress,” I say, not only to break the silence but also not not because of that, either.
“Right? Like, I guess people come here for serious but I cannot imagine it.” She reaches out to touch a filmy pink dress that I can tell would be perfect for her. The thing about Kat is that if I had a spare thousand dollars I’d just buy the dress for her. I feel like almost anyone would.
“What’s Quinn wearing?” I ask, because there’s no way Quinn Morgan is wearing a dress to prom, prom couple or not.
“She won’t tell me! I told her she has to tell me something so we won’t clash, so she said I should tell her instead, and she’ll make sure we don’t clash. Quinn can be tricky. Oh! Speaking of.”
“Quinn’s trickiness?”
Kat giggles. “I know that Gretchen’s on your team, but since you don’t have all the same friends or whatever, feel free to tell your other T&F teammates to vote for me and Quinn for prom couple.”
“I’m sure they’ll see your posters,” I say.
“Yeah, but sometimes you just need, like, that personal touch.”
I watch her for a moment. “You really want to win.”
“No, whatever happens is fine,” she says very quickly. “I just want to make sure people know they can help make history if they want to.”
We go back to looking at overpriced dresses, as I try to put Kat’s words out of my head. Of course, I know that she cares about Quinn, and of course this is a matter of equality. But something gives me the feeling that she’d be asking me to talk to my teammates if it were still her and Matty, or her and a different boy. If making history had nothing to do with anything.
“Should we go somewhere you can actually afford to buy something?” I ask, though, instead of any real question I have.
“Probably so. Sometimes it’s fun to dream of the stuff I’d buy if I were rich.” Kat’s eyes widen and she flies across the section to grab something off of the clearance rack. It’s a deep blue dress with very clean and simple lines.
“That doesn’t look like you,” I say.
“Duh, for you. It’s on clearance, and it would be perfect.”
“We literally just went over this,” I say.
“No, I know, but how perfect is this? It’s, like, the Jamesiest dress that ever Jamesed.” She giggles at her own joke. “Just try it on, right?”
“Even if I was going, I couldn’t afford a dress here.”
She checks the tag. “It’s not too bad. Just try it on.”
I can’t say no with her pleading eyes watching me, so I head into a fitting room and change my jeans and T-shirt for the silky dress. Oh, god. If Mom hadn’t left us and if I hadn’t had to leave Logan, this would be it. The dress is actually tall enough for me, and I look strong and tough even in this delicate fabric. This is exactly how I would have wanted to look at prom.
“I’m dying to see,” Kat says, slipping into the fitting room. “James. OMG.”
“It’s perfect,” I say, trying not to cry.
“It’s totally solved, then,” she says. “You’re going to prom and you’re going to look like a freaking bombshell and it’s going to be the best night ever.”
“I still don’t—”
“Here.” She pulls something out of her purse and jams it into my hand. I see that it’s a few wadded-up twenty-dollar bills. “Dad gave me, like, more than enough. You have to get this. Like, it’s imperative.”
Kat might have been shopping for the rich version of herself here, and now I’m wearing a dress for a version of myself who had a different senior year.
And I can’t explain why, but I let myself buy that version of me the dress anyway.
Logan texts me a few days later. Our communication has grown more sporadic, and I don’t have a word for the emotion his name on my phone’s screen makes me feel. Somewhere in between annoyed and relieved and nauseated. Kat would say all the feels.
Logan never talks like it’s all over; I can tell from his words that I somehow still take up the same place in his heart. I wonder if I still would if he knew what actually happened.
They probably know best, I text, instead of the truth. I’m not sure why it seems less embarrassing.
And then:
I cry as I type. I can’t remember the last time I let myself.
How is the righ
t way to phrase “no” to mean yes? Or is it the other way around?
I leave my phone in my room and walk down the hallway to the kitchen, where Dad’s poring over a cookbook. “What are you making?”
“I was thinking about burrito bowls. I roasted some mango to help tell a really interesting taste story.”
I grin at him. “Dad.”
“People don’t think about it, but that’s what we all want,” he says. “Anyway, you’re in training. You need the carbs and protein.”
“You always say that.”
“Well, it’s always the case.” Dad watches me. “You OK, kiddo?”
I shrug. “None of us are OK, are we?”
He sighs loudly while taking ingredients out of the refrigerator. “James, I’m not going to pretend things have been going amazingly for me, and . . . it’s a hard thing to explain, but I understand your mom’s point of view. We were so young when we met, and . . . people can change. I genuinely want her to be happy. And . . . you know, she wasn’t.”
“Shouldn’t she have tried harder?” I ask. “If something’s already been decided, shouldn’t you try to stick to that decision?”
“She tried, James,” Dad says. “Maybe she should have tried harder. Maybe I should have. But none of that matters now.”
I shrugged.
“I know how upset you are. You’re allowed to act like it. Get it out of your system.”
“My system’s fine,” I say.
“I probably didn’t act the way I should have,” he says. “At first. I don’t want any of what I went through personally to affect your relationship with your mom.”
“I don’t need to have a relationship with her,” I say. “If her life wasn’t enough for her—”
“James,” Dad says, and it’s the harshest he’s spoken to me since I can remember. “That wasn’t what she meant. At all. And I think deep down you know that, kiddo.”
Do I?
“So . . . can we talk about college?” he asks.
“Uh, sure.”
He points toward a colander full of produce waiting in the sink. “Chop the jicama matchstick style.”
“Aye aye.” I work on peeling it and then grab a serrated knife from the knife block. “Yes?”
“This is hard to say, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to. The store is doing well, and it looks like every year we’re doing slightly better. But . . .”
“Oh, god,” I say. “Are you losing Vino Mag?” Owning a wine shop had been Dad’s dream since he got out of college, but it didn’t come true until a couple years ago.
“Nothing like that,” he says. “But out-of-state tuition would be . . . a lot for me.”
“Great, just another thing Mom screwed up for us—”
“Kiddo, no,” he says. “We’d just be making this speech together if she hadn’t—if she was still—we’d have the same talk. And, look, if Michigan is your top choice, I’ll figure out how to make it work. But if it could be Berkeley . . .”
“Dammit.” I look down and see I’ve sliced my finger and not the jicama. Dad rushes over immediately to hold a paper towel around it.
“Just take some time to think about it,” he tells me. “I know you’re eager to get away, but Northern California’s practically another state. Right?”
I laugh. “Sure. I didn’t really want to buy an actual winter coat.”
“Winter’s for chumps,” Dad says, and I laugh harder. “Look, you don’t have to agree immediately. Your mom and I will figure it out. Just put it as one of the items in your pro/con lists, OK?”
“Why does everyone assume I have pro/con lists?”
“James! Wait up!”
I slow my cooldown stride even more, and Hannah and Tobi fall into step on either side of me. “I can cool down as fast as I want, you know.”
“We’re aware,” Hannah says. “You take it pretty seriously.”
“Are you doing anything after practice?” Tobi asks. “People are hanging out at Jon Kessler’s. His parents are out of town.”
“You should come with,” Hannah says. “You never do, and it’ll be fun. Well, it’ll be stupid, but the three of us can not-drink together and gain the upper hand if anyone else does anything stupid.”
I’ve actually always liked that my track teammates aren’t really a part of my life, outside of practice and matches. Not everyone needs every part of me.
“I’ll probably just go home,” I say. “Or see if Kat’s up to something.”
“You aren’t Kat’s shadow,” Tobi says. A shadow seems like such a dark and invisible thing to be, and so I never would have thought of myself that way. But was I?
“She has, like, a million other friends,” Tobi continues. “You’re allowed to hang out with whoever you want.”
Hannah shoots Tobi a look, and I can feel how this is something they’ve already discussed.
“She’s my best friend,” I say. “I want to hang out with her. It’s just that everyone likes her. I’m obviously not the same.”
“People like you,” Hannah says.
“Well, less than Kat,” Tobi says, which makes Hannah and I both burst into laughter. “What? It’s true. People love tiny adorable girls.”
“Come to this dumb party,” Hannah tells me. “We’ll have fun.”
“For a little while,” I say, because it was only last year when I went to parties all the time. Everyone wanted Logan around, and I was part of that package. This year’s made me wonder that without him—or without Kat—who would ever think to loop me in? And it turns out that at least Hannah and Tobi will.
It’s like any other party anyone at school has, but it’s nice to have an excuse to hang out longer with my teammates. If the social order hadn’t seemed so set in stone, I guess we’d be hanging out more. Hannah and Tobi don’t seem to be drawn to the center of anything, nor does anyone feel the need to draw circles around them.
“Why do people get so excited about cheap beer?” Hannah asks.
“Because their bodies aren’t temples like mine is,” Tobi says.
“Seriously,” Hannah continues, “cheap beer has been around since about the dawn of time. It’s at every party. Why do people act as if it’s such a novelty?”
“I like that you distinguish cheap beer from other kinds,” I say. “As if you’re a beer connoisseur.”
“Please, you should hear my mom. Being a beer snob is about half of her personality. I can’t help what’s rubbed off on me.”
“You’d think my dad would be like that, because of his shop,” I say. “But he takes a weird pride in supporting wine of ‘all price points.’ It feels like a strange reverse snobbery, though.”
Hannah laughs. “Oh, like everyone should admire him for being so nice to consider cheap wines?”
“I can’t believe you guys are standing around talking about your goddamn parents when there are cute guys everywhere,” Tobi says, though she’s only looking in the direction of Miguel Carter.
“Go get him,” Hannah tells her and shoos her away. We watch, but at the last moment Tobi veers off course to talk to a completely different group of people.
Sofia walks up and joins us. “Hey, James, is Kat here?”
I start to say no, when Hannah speaks up.
“She’s not her keeper,” she says. “We have no idea if Kat’s here.”
“Do we know if this is one of her campaign stops or not?” I ask before realizing how bitchy it sounds out of my mouth versus in my head. Sofia and Hannah laugh, though, so it couldn’t have been too bad.
“She’ll win, of course,” Sofia says. “Her and Quinn Morgan are so cute. It’s good they changed the rules.”
“It’s definitely good they changed it,” I say. “I just wish it was actually for civil rights and equality and not because someone was terrified they might not be prom queen now that they’re dating a girl and not a really popular guy.”
I don’t mean to say it, no matter how true it is, but once I do, I know what to expec
t. Hannah will laugh—or at least snort—and Sofia will look a little scandalized but laugh anyway. Both of those reactions do occur, but there’s more laughter, and I realize the party’s crowded enough that other people overheard.
“Or whatever,” I add, though I’m not sure it’s an effective tactic to erase words said. I’d hate for anyone to misunderstand. All I meant was that Kat needs that crown.
“Well, the good news is equality wins regardless,” Hannah says, and I agree very loudly. I know that much is true.
“If it hadn’t been someone like Kat, people probably wouldn’t have heard about it in the first place,” Sofia says, and I realize she’s right about that. “I know it’s important, but it’s also really romantic that the cutest couple will get to win.”
“I mean, whatever to romance,” Tobi says, rejoining our group. Her gaze is still on Miguel Carter, despite her whatever. “You’re right, though, that loud people get shit done. The school probably would have ignored it otherwise and been all, but tradition!”
Kat texts before long that she’s hanging out at Pinocchio’s, so I slip out of the party and head over. Sure, Hannah and Tobi just literally called me out for being Kat’s keeper or however it seems, but Kat is still my best friend, and so many of my after-practice evenings used to be reserved for her. Friendships can look different from the inside than out, and it used to be so simple and clear-cut when it was just us.
Pinocchio’s is an old-school Italian place with cheap red vinyl booths that serves their food cafeteria tray–style. I’m all set to get myself a tray’s worth of carbs and protein when I spot them. Matty & Co., lingering by Kat’s booth.
“Hi!” she greets me as I walk up.
“Hey.” I drop my bags onto the stiff vinyl and push my way past Matty, who’s sort of leaning over the table like he’s claimed it as his territory. Kat’s eating a tiny bowl of gelato and has never looked so small. “Bye, everyone else.”
“We were friends, James,” Matty says to me.
“Not exactly,” I say. “Anyway, friends don’t cheat on friends’ best friends.”
Matty rolls his eyes. “That’s not a saying.”
“I just invented it. Go, OK? Kat doesn’t want to talk to you, and I definitely don’t, either.”
