Prom Ever After

by Dona Sarkar, Caridad Ferrer, Deidre Berry

  Ash poured herself an iced tea and added guava syrup to it as she continued to eavesdrop on the conversation.

  “Oh, goodness, no, I hadn’t realized Sebastian’s not going to the prom. That’s a shame. Did he tell you why?”

  Ash stopped what she was doing and listened harder.

  Come on, Mom. Snoop more.

  “He said that? That he’d like to go out with her if he could? Oh, how sweet!”

  What the heck, now they were just gossiping. Ash’s ears burned. She had a sneaking suspicion it was Lyra that “he” would like to go out with.

  “Oh, I’m glad! He’s seeing her tonight, I’m sure? He should just tell her.”

  Ash gripped the glass so tightly, she felt the ice from her glass start to freeze her hands. Sebastian was going out with Lyra! That must be why he hadn’t come home with her. And he’d felt the need to lie to her about it, too!

  “Oh, she’d be a fool not to like him. He’s a wonderful boy. No mother would worry if her daughter was out with a boy like Sebastian.”

  Ash couldn’t just sit and listen to this. Why was Laila so desperate to set up Sebastian? What was wrong with leaving things the way they were, anyway?

  She started to gather up her books and leave this conversation behind when a motion from the backyard caught her eye.

  Like the other day, Sonali was sliding under bushes and climbing over hedges. Ash went to the kitchen door and watched from the little window.

  This time, Sona wasn’t alone in her weird maneuvers.

  A plump, cherub-faced blonde was close at Sona’s heels, doing the exact same thing. She struggled as she climbed over a hedge into their backyard. “You wait till I catch you!” she called out. Ash’s hand reached for the doorknob. She was not going to let some kid harass her little sister.

  Sona rolled under some questionable-looking bushes and was a few feet away from the kitchen door. The blonde girl was behind her by seconds.

  Ash immediately threw open the back door. “Get in here!” she hissed.

  For once, Sona didn’t argue and ran for the door and slammed it behind her. She threw her back against the closed back door. A smile broke across her face.

  “What?” Ash was confused. She was pretty sure she’d just seen Sona get chased by a bully. A really clumsy, not-very-big bully at that.

  “That girl’s been bothering me for weeks.”

  Ash had an aha moment and was about to make an all-knowing statement.

  “She put superglue in my hair on the bus.”

  “Sona, we need to tell Mom. She can’t just—”

  “I just led her through a bunch of poison ivy.” Sona couldn’t stop smiling. “I don’t think she’s going to mess with me again.”

  Ash’s mouth dropped open.

  “You, you... Evil little... How?”

  “I told you. I’m a pacifist. But I’m not a pushover.”

  Nine

  “Hey.” Sebastian dropped into a seat next to Ash at lunch. She pulled off the headphones she’d been sharing with Armstrong, who was sitting on the other side of her.

  They were previewing the music his friend was going to be debuting prom night. Well, Armstrong had been previewing with a serious face. To Ash, all of the tracks pretty much sounded the same. Apparently Armstrong’s friend had played his stuff at Neighbours, the popular club in the neighborhood that had eighteen-and-over night on Fridays. Ash had pretended she’d been there the past Halloween eve and had appreciated the DJ’s awesomeness, though the thought of being out at a club till 4:00 a.m. on a Friday was laughable. Laila would murder her for even asking.

  “Hi.” Frankly, Ash was surprised to see Sebastian. They had barely spoken for days outside of their drafting assignment. She’d chalked it up to his secret love affair with Lyra. “What’s going on?”

  Before Sebastian could answer, Armstrong noticed the latest addition.

  “Hey, we don’t know each other. I’m Armstrong,” he said loudly, leaning over Ash to shake Sebastian’s hand, not having removed his headphones. “You’re James, right?”

  “Sebastian Diaz actually,” Seb replied back just as loudly. “You’ve known me for twelve years.”

  Ash gave Seb a look. Armstrong was just trying to be polite—what was Seb’s problem?

  Seb returned her look with a hurt one and averted his eyes.

  Armstrong went back to his music.

  “What’s wrong?” Ash asked quietly, so she wouldn’t disturb Armstrong’s music selection. He was painstakingly marking the tracks he liked the most.

  Seb actually looked quite distressed. She wasn’t used to seeing him anything less than totally on top of things. The meltdowns and tantrums were usually her department.

  Sebastian shook his head and stole a few of her curly fries.

  “Tell me.”

  “Just class stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

  Ash reached up and brushed a fleck of salt off his chin. “You don’t think I’m smart enough to share it with?” She was teasing. He had no problems talking about his computer stuff with her, though she usually had no idea what he was talking about.

  “No!” Seb looked horrified. “I just got into it with Dave and Richard.”

  “About?” Ash had a hard time imagining the three of them fighting about anything.

  “Just...stuff. It’s dumb.”

  Ash doubted it. Seb never got upset over dumb stuff.

  “Will you come over after school today?” she asked even more quietly. She didn’t want Armstrong to hear it and think it was something it wasn’t.

  Sebastian hesitated and glanced over at Armstrong as if knowing what Ash had been thinking.

  “You sure?” He shifted his focus back to her, looking into her eyes. His eyes were bright hazel that day, the color they got when he was especially troubled.

  “I’ve missed you.” It was hard for Ash to admit, knowing that he’d probably been with Lyra instead of her the past week. “Come over and we can go out somewhere. Let’s go check out the window displays at Pretty Parlor and play with that cat. We can get Malaysian fried rice after.” The vintage store was a favorite of Ash’s, and Sebastian liked to sit on the fluffy white couch and play with a frisky gray tabby who liked to hunt human fingers while Ash tried on ’50s-style dresses.

  “I have stuff to do.” Sebastian looked past Ash and suddenly got up. “I’ll text you in the evening. Sorry for being a pain.”

  And he was gone.

  Ash turned around and wondered what he’d seen. She spotted his two friends, Dave and Richard, leaving the lunch line with their trays.

  “I’ll be back,” Ash said to Armstrong, who didn’t appear to notice.

  * * *

  Ash intercepted Dave and Richard as they were leaving the cafeteria.

  “Can I talk to you guys for a second?”

  They looked at her warily. Sebastian had introduced them many times, but neither guy had been interested in talking to her for more than a few seconds. She knew Dave a little bit from their calculus class, but not Richard. He just always looked surly.

  “Seb’s really upset by something.”

  “Well, he should be!” Dave burst out. Ash was taken aback. The blond Harry Potter look-alike always was very polite, serious and quiet, even when he knew all the answers during calculus. If Ash had known half what he did, her hand would perpetually be in the air.

  “He’s such a jackass,” Richard added. Ash was not surprised to hear this. She’d never heard Richard say anything that didn’t involve the word jackass.

  “Can you believe this shit?” Dave continued to surprise Ash. He knew how to swear? “Did he tell you what he did?”

  Ash held up her hands. “Wow. Okay.” She hadn’t expected them to actually tell her
. She’d assumed they’d go away, find Seb and handle whatever software emergency they were having on their own. “What did he do?”

  Dave crossed his arms and stewed. Richard stared at his feet. Oh, the guy code. If she didn’t know, they weren’t going to tell her. Great.

  “Come on you guys. You can tell me,” Ash cajoled. “I won’t tell him we talked.”

  Richard glanced at Dave and broke. “We were building a phone app for our AP Computer Science class. It’s really cool. A really important local company wanted to buy it. We already had all the paperwork ready to go based on the prototype. We can’t tell you what it is, it’s a secret.”

  Ash resisted an eye roll. This had to be that picture categorizing app thing Seb had been talking about with her dad. The one BlueDog company that was based in downtown Seattle wanted to buy.

  “We’ve planned to do this together since we were freshmen,” Dave added. “It was Sebastian’s idea to use this app for our careers as legit app developers. He’s our main developer.”

  Ash was slowly starting to recall. “Your app is like the Chewbaccas or something?”

  Richard looked more surly than before. “He told you? Why doesn’t he just post it on the internet? God.”

  “Hey!” Ash started to protest.

  Dave raised an eyebrow. “Then you know he backed out, right? Just yesterday. Told us he’s doing his own thing. He’s going to build—”

  “A website,” Ash finished. She knew something was wrong with Seb’s offer to Lyra.

  “You know about that?”

  Ash nodded, the dread inside her stomach growing by the second.

  “Why did he do it?”

  “I don’t know,” Ash said honestly.

  Both Dave and Richard stared at her, finally seeming to believe her.

  “I just don’t get it. He’s acting so weird.” Dave shook his head in disgust. “It’s been his dream to build this app and he’s the one who convinced us to start the project. We’ve worked so hard to come up with the business plan for how we’ll make money off of this so we can all pay for college. The app was due in a month—there’s no way we’ll get it done now. That company will never buy anything from us again after this fiasco.”

  “Because the jackass just ditched us!” Richard spat out, completely in character.

  Ash stared up at the ceiling. This was her fault.

  “Ash, can you talk to him?” Dave asked. “Figure out why some store’s website is more important than BlueDog? They’re going to find someone else to do the app as soon as we tell them we won’t do it, and we’ll lose out. And we can’t do this without Sebastian.”

  Ash nodded. “I’ll fix this.”

  Richard stopped ranting. “Can you?”

  Ash nodded and turned her back before she started crying in front of those two. She had to duck into the bathroom when her eyes got too watery to see what was in front of her. How had she not realized the kinds of sacrifices Sebastian had made for her? How did she not know this start-up was his dream? How could she not only have not helped, but actually hindered his goal?

  Why was he doing this? He didn’t need to build the website for Some Like It Haute. He didn’t need to keep helping her. Not for some prom dress.

  But he did. He kept helping her. Over and over again. Because that was how much he cared about her.

  Ash slid down the wall of the bathroom—barely noticing how dirty the floor was—and wondered how she had never realized this. And what that said about her as a friend.

  Ten

  “Should I come with you?” Laila twisted her hands and asked for the fifth time.

  “Mom, you’ll just be judgmental.” Ash grabbed a mirror out of her purse and checked her makeup to make sure her lipstick was still fresh and sharp. She was not going to see Lyra looking like a slob. It was dress pick-up day and Ash didn’t know if she or Laila was more nervous.

  “I will not! I’m never judgmental,” Laila continued to argue.

  “That’s kind of your job, hon,” Ash’s dad reassured his wife gently, swinging an arm around her shoulders.

  Laila gave him a dirty look.

  “...and now I know where our daughter gets it. Ash, please take her with you.”

  “Seb’s here.” Ash ignored them both and ran out the front door.

  It was the first time she’d seen him outside of class all week. Every day after school, he’d made an excuse for why he was busy. She was almost relieved. She didn’t know what to do with the revelation she’d had the other day about the sacrifices he’d made for her. She’d wanted to talk him into doing the app with his friends, but she knew he would never back out of the commitment he’d made to Lyra and her website.

  “Drive! Drive!” she practically yelled as she slid into the passenger side of the Mazda6.

  “Did we rob a bank?” Sebastian obliged and stepped on the accelerator.

  “Mom wanted to come.”

  “Aw.” Alarmingly, Sebastian slowed down. “She should!”

  “Why? Why would you say this? Stop saying crazy things. Drive!”

  “But...”

  “No. No but! Drive!”

  “Ash, it’s her dress. I think she’s terrified we’ve destroyed it. Let’s just give her the peace of mind.”

  Ash sighed. He was right, of course, but she didn’t want Laila’s two cents on everything for once.

  “Oh, come on, it’s already done. She can’t exactly have that much to say about it,” Sebastian said, as if counterarguing Ash’s thoughts.

  * * *

  “This is where you brought my dress?” Laila looked more and more concerned as Sebastian parallel parked the Mazda outside Some Like It Haute for the third time. “Are you sure this is a professional establishment? Where are the alterations done? Inside the shop? I expected something like the Nordstrom’s workroom.”

  Ash shot pointy looks at Sebastian. From her angle, it looked as though Laila had plenty to add.

  “Mrs. M. Just trust us. Lyra and her mom know what they’re doing. You talked to her on the phone, right? Let’s go in. And please...let’s be a little quiet, so Lyra’s feelings aren’t hurt.”

  That quieted Laila down.

  Lyra glanced up as the door ting’ed a greeting. “Hey, you guys!” She was wearing a gorgeous champagne-colored silk dress with bugle beading at the bottom. She looked like she was headed out to a speakeasy or some other glitzy spot. Again, Ash envied her sewing ability. The power to just make whatever beautiful thing she wanted must have been amazing.

  They exchanged pleasantries and Ash introduced Laila. “This is my mom.”

  “Oh, my God, so nice to finally meet you!” Lyra abandoned the bolt of fabric she was rolling and came out from behind the counter. “Wow, you guys look exactly alike!”

  As Laila and Lyra talked, Ash glanced back at Sebastian, who was busily examining a rack of zippers by the door. She didn’t miss the surreptitious glances Lyra shot in his direction, almost as if she was waiting for him to get closer to her.

  She really liked him.

  “I have the dressing room all set up for Ash. Do you want to try it on and show us?” Lyra beamed her brilliant smile again. “I’m so excited.”

  Ash took a deep breath. And she was so nervous. This was it. If this didn’t work, prom was officially off for her. Not to mention, Laila would kill her. She found herself not caring as much as she had in weeks prior. So much had happened.

  She pulled closed the curtain of the tiny dressing room and admired the turquoise beaded dress hanging from the mirror. She snapped a quick picture of it with her phone.

  “Your dress is stunning.” Ash heard Lyra say to her mother. “My mom and I enjoyed working on it so much. She apologized she couldn’t be here. She wanted me to ask where you got
it.”

  “North India. It was part of the bridal trousseau when I was married to Josh. My grandmother gave it to me. She lived in India her whole life.”

  “It looks hand-embroidered.”

  “It is. By our family tailor.”

  Lyra sighed. “How romantic. Family tailors just aren’t a thing anymore. No one seems to wear handmade anything anymore.”

  “That’s even more the reason I wanted to pass on this beautiful thing to my daughter.”

  “Or maybe to me if she doesn’t want it,” Lyra said.

  That drew a laugh from Laila.

  Ash listened to the conversation as she slipped the heavy skirt over her hips. No chance, Lyra. If the dress looked halfway as good on as it did on the hanger, Ash was planning to wear it out of the shop.

  So far, it was looking good. The fit was perfect around the hips.

  “Sebastian did a phenomenal job with the sketch and the 3-D sculpture. The alternations were really easy to understand. I still can’t believe how cool that little sculpture you made with the 3-D printer is!”

  Ash heard Lyra shuffling some things around.

  “Thank you. I hope you’ll like the website I make for you as much.”

  Ash strained to hear as she slipped the halter top over her head.

  “The prototype you sent me was so awesome. Where did you get the graphics?”

  “I made them.”

  “Amazing. Laila, you have to see.”

  Ash could practically hear him blush. He didn’t do well with compliments.

  Ash heard the clicking of the keyboard, presuming it was Lyra bringing up the website prototype.

  “Wow.” Ash heard a sharp intake of breath from Laila. “Sebastian, you are so talented. I wish my husband was in a place to find a good summer job for you. I wish there was something I could do.”

  “I’ll be all right.” Sebastian was his usual independent self, though Ash knew the truth. The two people he’d been planning his software dreams with were no longer speaking to him. She had to fix this somehow. “Right now I just want to make sure the website is what you expect. You’re my first retail client.”