by Amy Spalding
“Hey there.” Gabriel Quiroga pops up over Sofia’s shoulder. “Happy New Year, James.”
“It’s still December,” Mariana says, and glances at Sofia and me like we should all laugh at him. But they don’t know what happened with Gabriel the other month, and even if they did, I feel like I’ve lost the ability to share a private joke with two friends I’ve barely talked to lately. The actual shared moment is the knowledge between Gabriel and me.
“Happy New Year,” I decide to say in return. I can at least be kind. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” he says, and I see a smile somehow start in his eyes. “What about you? Right in the here and now? Enjoying your whole senior year before even acknowledging college?”
It catches me off guard and I laugh a little. “Like I said, it’s just the principle of it. Obviously, I care about college, too.”
“James!” Kat runs over to me, and I check my phone to see that it’s already after eleven. “Oh my god, I’m sorry. We . . .” She giggles. “We lost track of time.”
“It’s fine,” I say, waving to Gabriel as I feel I’m about to get dragged off.
“Come with me to get a drink.” She steers me by the arm over to the keg. I’m pretty sure Kat picked up her keg skills from Matty, because she’s as adept as a frat boy. “Soooo.”
I open up another Sanpellegrino. “Yeah?”
Kat pulls me away again, this time to a quieter spot in a corner of the dining room. “I just had sex with Quinn.”
“Oh,” I say. It’s not like when she told me about Matty. There had been such a buildup to that. She’d made me shop for lacy underwear with her and give her the contact info for my gynecologist. I had to help make a pro/con list because I was so good at them. This, though, wasn’t something I even knew that she was considering.
“For the first time,” she clarifies.
“I got that.” Then I wonder. “You were ready? Quinn didn’t—”
“James! Of course I was. And like Quinn would be like that? Quinn’s perfect.”
I see how expectant her face is, and I realize that she needs this to be like when she told me about Matty, after all. “Was it OK? Was it . . .” I don’t mean to, but I laugh. “. . . really awkward?”
She giggles, too. “It was more than OK. And you know how it is when you really like someone. It doesn’t matter that it’s awkward.”
I think back to last year, Logan’s bedroom while his parents were at a party. Awkward didn’t begin to cover it, but, no, that didn’t matter at all.
“I just wanted to tell you,” she says. “Don’t look at Quinn like you know, though. She can be really shy about stuff. She’s shy about this, I think.”
“I won’t.” I examine Kat’s face like something has changed tonight. “Do you think you’re—”
“Oh, yeah, I’m definitely bi,” she says, like it’s old news. “It’s not just Quinn. I mean, of course it’s just Quinn right now. But, no. It’s more.”
I nod.
“Is it weird now?” she asks. “I haven’t been secretly in love with you or anything.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Oh, god, Kat. I didn’t think that at all.”
She cracks up. “No offense.”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” I say, and she laughs harder. Quinn walks into the room, holding three bottles of an expensive-looking beer.
“Hey,” she greets me.
“James doesn’t drink.” Kat discards her keg beer for the sleek bottle. “But you’re super sweet.”
“I’m just good at stealing beer,” she says.
I watch her, this girl who’s changed my best friend’s life. Kat says magic so much regarding Quinn, but she’s just a normal girl. Everyone could see how special Logan was. Is. He’s not dead, after all. I could even understand Matty. There’s something about Matty, a certain presence, that even when he’s being an asshole is pretty undeniable. Quinn, though, has no magic as far as I can see.
Gabriel might have a little, if I’m being completely honest. But even if Kat could go from being in love with one person back in September and someone completely different now, I can’t imagine my feelings cycling through that quickly.
“People are going up on the roof to watch fireworks,” Quinn says. “There’s still space.”
“Kat’s afraid of heights,” I say. “It’s not that far up, though. Can you try?”
Kat shakes her head emphatically. “What if I just tip over? What if someone else does? What if, like, I drop my beer and it picks up speed and kills a little squirrel or something?”
“The probability of any of that happening is incredibly low,” I tell her.
“Yeah, are you sure?” Quinn asks her.
“I’ll look out a window,” Kat says. “I’m not, like, afraid of fireworks.”
“What about windows?” Quinn asks, and Kat laughs and winds her arms around her.
“Not windows, either. Hardly anything at all except heights.”
“I’ll protect you,” Quinn tells her, and I feel how suddenly this isn’t about me anymore.
I climb up to the roof and end up sitting with Mariana and Sofia. I guess it’s just like last year, but without Logan, and without Kat, it doesn’t feel like it at all.
“This’ll be the year we graduate,” Sofia says.
“The year we all move away,” Mariana says.
I feel that I’m supposed to have a third thing, but this coming year feels so unknowable and foreign still. So I stay quiet, sip my bubbly water, and get ready to count down to midnight.
CHAPTER TEN
May of Senior Year
KAT
Magnolia Park High’s Prom Changes with the Times
by Allison Chen for the Burbank Leader
At the beginning of this school year, many students already considered Magnolia Park High School senior Kat Rydell a lock for prom queen. Rydell certainly fits the title: pretty, popular, and at the time dating someone considered by many to be the most popular boy in school.
However, that relationship ended, and Rydell, who identifies as bisexual, began dating Quinn Morgan, another girl in her senior class.
“Prom was definitely not on my mind all year,” says Rydell. “But when announcements were made for the prom king and queen nomination period, it hit my friends and I that the whole system was super heteronormative.”
“It was not at all important to me to be on the prom court,” Morgan says. “Then I realized that only boy/girl couples could even qualify, and that fact really bothered me.”
Morgan and Rydell, along with a group of friends, organized a petition to change the prom court rules, ultimately collecting signatures from sixty percent of the student body.
“When we saw how important this was to so many of our students, we knew we had to reconsider the way we did things,” said Principal Juan Ochoa. “We never want MPHS to lag behind the times, and we’re proud to make this change.”
As of this school year, thanks to Morgan and Rydell’s petition, there are no longer any gender requirements for what Magnolia Park High School is now calling prom couple.
“It’s important to us that, in the future, kids like us feel like they’re just as much a part of the school as anyone else,” Morgan says.
“I know that prom isn’t, like, hugely important, in the whole scheme of things,” Rydell says, “but it’s a big deal at our school, and it’s so cool that two girls—or two people of any gender—together could be a symbol of it.”
Principal Ochoa agrees. “No matter who wins the crowns, these girls have made history, and they prove just how commendable MPHS students can be.”
After school, the day our issue of the Burbank Leader goes out, Raina and Gretchen convince us to drive around collecting as many extra issues as we can so that we can hand them out at school tomorrow. Quinn sighs and mutters a bunch about it, but I also keep catching her staring at our names printed right there in black and white.
“We’re famous,” I mu
rmur to her, and she laughs and rolls her eyes all at once.
“Who even reads this paper?” she asks.
“Well, us now,” I say. “And, like, pillars of the community.”
“You guys are definitely going to win,” Gretchen says, and I reply, “We’d better!” right as Quinn says that it doesn’t matter. I pretend I was only kidding. I mean, I basically was.
A car I don’t recognize is in the driveway when Gretchen drops me off, and when I walk inside I see Diane sitting with Dad at the kitchen table. I guess that seeing her is becoming almost completely normal for Dad, and so it should be for me, too.
“Kat, Charlie just showed me the paper,” Diane greets me. “It’s really amazing.”
“Oh, thanks. I mean . . . it’s just prom, I guess.” I didn’t even know that Dad had seen it. Of course, I texted him when I saw that it was out this morning, but he didn’t respond. Dad is not great at texting. Once I sent him a cute GIF of a puppy to cheer him up, and he just wanted to know whose dog it was and where I had gone instead of school.
“It’s definitely bigger than that,” she says. “You broke ground for equality.”
“Oh my god,” I say with a laugh. “It’s, like, at least one step less than that? That sounds so huge and serious. I think people are just excited to get to do something new.”
“And people like you,” she says.
“She’s real popular,” Dad says. “And she’s nice, not like the popular kids when I was in school. They were a real bunch of assholes.”
“Dad,” I say, but I like knowing that’s how he sees me.
“What’s your dress like?” Diane asks. Diane somehow always says the exact right thing.
“I don’t actually have one yet—”
“Kat,” she says in a tone like I just super casually said I murdered someone. Then she bursts into laughter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d react so strongly.”
“I know, I know. I just haven’t seen anything I like a lot, and I don’t have that much to spend—”
Dad sighs heavily. “You should have said something. I don’t know what dresses cost!”
“No, it’s not that. There was, like, this super perfect dress for James at Bloomingdale’s, so I gave her some of my cash, and—and it really doesn’t matter. I can find something.”
“I might be overstepping but . . . I’m great at finding dresses,” Diane says.
“Please!” I say without thinking about it. Then I feel my brain trying to catch up, so it’s like I set off running from it. “I totally need help. I’m gonna, like, look at these photos when I’m old, and it’ll be so sad if I don’t have the perfect dress.”
This is how I end up at The Grove after school the next day with my dad’s girlfriend. I don’t think anything about getting to know Diane is hurting Mom’s memory, but sometimes I still think about it. If Mom could see me flipping through racks of clothing with this woman when obviously ideally it would be with her . . . I don’t know how she would feel.
I guess I don’t totally know how I feel, either. It’s a lot of emotions all at once and so I’m trying to focus on the ones that are good.
“Thanks for letting me take you.” Diane piles another dress on top of the stack in my arms. It sort of seems like I don’t have much of a say over what I’m trying on today, but that might be for the best. I need the best dress I’ve ever worn in my life, and Diane is pretty much the best-dressed grown-up I’ve ever met.
“What did you wear to prom?” I ask her.
“Kat, I don’t mind telling you that it was pretty spectacular.” Diane laughs. “It was black satin but it had a large—and also shiny—white bow around my shoulders, centered in front. My dad said, ‘you look like a present’ and he did not mean that as a compliment. Though I felt ridiculously sophisticated.”
“Oh my god, it sounds totally amazing,” I say, even though I find that I can’t remember what Mom’s prom dress looked like. I focus on picturing Diane’s instead. “Was your date super dreamy?”
She laughs even harder. “Oh, I thought so at the time. I bet your photos with Quinn will age better than mine did, though.”
She takes her phone out of her bag and checks the screen. “Your dad’s nervous about how this is going.”
“He’s, like, always nervous about something, I swear. Please tell him everything is great and he has nothing to worry about at all.”
She smiles at me. “Charlie’s lucky to have a daughter who worries so much.”
“I don’t worry! I’m pretty chill,” I say. Ugh, you pretty much cancel out being chill by saying you’re chill, don’t you? How can I convince Diane I’m not some kind of stressed-out high-maintenance nightmare?
I text her, even though it’s started to feel weird just randomly reaching out to her. I don’t have to scroll up that much to see how it used to be, practically a nonstop conversation with no start or stop, just pauses for sleep and, occasionally, school. Once we messaged only in GIFs for nearly forty-eight hours before I cracked and asked her for help with our trig homework. And even then it was only because I couldn’t find GIFs that represented the hypotenuse clearly.
I frown at my phone. James! Of course you know what I mean. Why are we being this way and acting like we don’t have a million things to say to each other? Maybe I’m the worst one, because normally I say everything, and yet now I’m holding back, too.
“Everything all right?” Diane asks me.
I shove my phone back into my bag. “Totally. Of course. Should I try on some of these three dozen dresses you’ve picked out?”
“Let’s not exaggerate, Kat, I’m sure there’s no more than a dozen,” she says, with a smile. “A baker’s dozen at most.”
I head into a fitting room and slip the first dress over my head. It’s a really beautiful shade of yellow but somehow on me it looks like a banana. In a sparkly dress, I feel like a disco ball and, somehow, not in a good way. In black, all I can see is how I looked at Mom’s funeral, and it hits me that maybe I haven’t even worn a black dress since. Who wants to look like one of the worst days of your life?
“How’s it going?” Diane asks from the other side of the door. “You’re quiet in there.”
“So far everything’s stupid,” I say.
“I was actually hoping you’d say that,” she says, and slides a hanger over the door. “I know that it’s not up to me, but I’m pretty sure this one’s exactly the right dress.”
It’s a shimmery and vibrant shade of pink, and when I slip it on I’m not a banana or in mourning. I feel like a girl who could make history.
I step out to let Diane see, and her face lights up. I feel such a huge urge to have Mom there that I can’t stop it.
I’m crying in freaking Nordstrom.
“Hey.” Diane really gently rubs my shoulder. “Can I do anything?”
I shake my head, though it sends tears and snot flying in all directions. Even wearing the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen, I’m so freaking gross. “I hope this isn’t, like, a really offensive thing to say, but . . .”
“You miss your mom? Honey, of course you do,” she says.
“I mean, you have way better taste in dresses, I think?” I laugh through my snot and tears. “But, like, I wish I could feel this for, like, the last freaking time. Every new thing it’s like it all starts again.”
We’re quiet for a few moments.
“This is the dress, though . . . right?” Diane asks, and I burst into shocked laughter.
“Oh my god, obviously!” I throw my arms around her without even thinking about it. “Thank you for finding it.”
She hugs me back in such a genuine real way. It’s funny to feel so lucky and so unlucky at the same time.
Once I’m back in my regular clothes, I check my phone to see no follow-up from James but a GIF of two otters holding hands from Quinn.
While I’m replying to Quinn (OMG the cutest!!!!), Diane’s carrying the dress away from me. “What are you d
oing?”
“I’m the one who forced the overpriced dress upon you,” she says. “Therefore, the overpriced dress is my responsibility.”
“Is that like a law or something?” My phone buzzes again but it’s still not James.
I glance up at Diane. Maybe I should put my phone away if she’s being so amazing as to buy this perfect, perfect dress for me. “Can I ask, like, a weird question?”
“As weird as you want.”
“Is seventeen too young to think you love someone? Because sometimes I . . .” I cover my face with my hands. “Oh my god, sorry. I’m such a goober sometimes.”
“Of course it isn’t too young,” she says. “And you should hear your dad rave about Quinn. She sounds pretty special.”
I can’t imagine Dad being so open with someone, especially someone new. At least the someone new is Diane. “It’s only because she baked us lasagna once!”
“It’s definitely not just that,” she says. “Though he has brought up the lasagna quite a bit.”
I invite James over on Friday night, like old days, like everything’s fine. Maybe everything is fine. People sometimes say I’m dramatic. This could be what they mean, the way it’s easy to take a small kernel of something and imagine the whole popped cob. A kernel can be a kernel sometimes.
“I found a dress,” I tell her once she’s arrived and we’re sipping fruit-flavored seltzers I bought in an attempt at festivity. “Do you want to see it?”
She says yes, so we head down the hallway. It’s weird to see James at my house, in my room, and then it hits me that it’s weird that it’s weird to see James at my house. There were weeks when we were little that she was probably at my house more than she was at her own.
“Wow,” James says when I unzip the dress from its bag, and she sounds sincere. “It’s pretty great.”
“Right? It ended up being, like, this whole thing because I got all weird and missed my mom so much out of nowhere, but Diane is sort of amazing actually? She didn’t let it seem awkward at all, even though I was crying in Nordstrom like a freak. And I think she didn’t say anything to Dad, thank god, because you know he’d be all awkward about it.”
