AVERY: I politely informed Bizzy just exactly where she could stick her offer to oust me from power.
BIZZY: I was shocked by her refusal of an offer I’d made out of the goodness of my heart—and, quite frankly, appalled by Avery’s use of language.
AVERY: I could have said worse. Way worse.
BIZZY: If we’re being completely honest, I should have been head of the Prom Committee to begin with. After all, I did secure the venue. And isn’t the venue the most important part of prom?
AVERY: Secured the venue???? Please. The only thing Bizzy did to secure that venue was to be born. Yes, technically, Bizzy did get us the top-floor event space at the B of A building because her dad works at B of A. But she didn’t do anything! She just got the venue because of who her dad is. Like, no one congratulates Prince William on getting the British throne just because of who his dad is. Prince William didn’t do anything! He deserves no praise! If we’re going to praise anyone, let’s praise Kate Middleton. She worked hard for her title. She persevered through the time they were “on a break” and dealt with the queen constantly throwing her shade. Also, one time at Nordstrom, I tried on those L.K. Bennett sledge heels she always wears, and they hurt my feet so bad I couldn’t walk in them at all. She’s done a lot, Kate Middleton.
BIZZY: I told Avery that I just didn’t want her to embarrass herself. I was looking out for the poor, pathetic, dateless thing. Can you imagine how mortifying that would be? To be the only single person walking into the prom alone? And it just didn’t look right for the head of the Prom Committee to not have a date. It was, quite frankly, borderline inappropriate.
COCO: Avery stared down Bizzy from behind her shades. It was a total power move. It was like we were all witnesses to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Avery was John F. Kennedy.
Editor’s Note: Just call her Bizzy Khrushchev. See, Ms. Segerson? I take great notes.
BIZZY: She went totally psycho. Avery started ranting something about single ladies and Taylor Swift and the new millennium. Honestly, I stopped paying attention.
COCO: It was a completely inspirational speech. Then Avery banged her fist on the table and shouted, “To hell with your heteronormative prom industrial complex!”
BIZZY: Naturally, I asked her if that meant she was resigning as head of the Prom Committee.
AVERY: I screamed, “IN YOUR DREAMS, BIZZY!” In hindsight, I could have come up with a more articulate comeback, but that’s the problem with comebacks—you can never think up a good one right in the moment.
COCO: Avery informed everyone that she would 110 percent be at prom, date or no date, because she could rock prom just fine on her own, thank you very much. Avery was totally right, and I agreed. She’d go by herself and have the best time. And really, who even needed boys at all!
AVERY: What was so great about a prom date? Bizzy’s boyfriend was her prom date, and he doesn’t even have a neck!
BIZZY: Sean has a neck! It’s just very thick because he is so muscular.
AVERY: He legit has no neck.
BIZZY: But since I am a magnanimous person, I simply ignored that insult, took the high road, and wished Avery good luck. Because she was gonna need it. I didn’t buy her pathetic “all the single ladies” posturing for one minute. Not have a prom date? Please. That was too tragic, even for a Dennis. No reputable member of Prom Committee would go alone. I knew she’d be desperate to find someone, but there was no way she could. It was way too late. There wasn’t an acceptable single man for miles. There was no way Avery was going to find a prom date. And I couldn’t wait to see the sad little look on her normally smug, stupid face when she walked into prom totally and completely alone.
AVERY: See? I told you. Bizzy Stanhope was officially the worst.
AVERY: On the outside, I appeared confident as always. But on the inside, I was in complete and total crisis mode.
COCO: As Kennedy said, “The Chinese use two brushstrokes to write the word crisis. One brushstroke stands for danger, the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognize the opportunity.”
Editor’s Note: Kennedy really said this, but when you google it, all the results are about this idea being a myth.
AVERY: For once, a Kennedy quote was actually applicable to the situation. I was freaking out … but not about prom. Basically, I had two options: Accept defeat, or get creative. And a Dennis never accepts defeat.
COCO: Wasn’t your mom defeated in the state comptroller election?
AVERY: She insisted on three recounts.
COCO: The apple did not fall far from the tree.
AVERY: Stop asking questions! This is my oral history. You’re messing with the format!
COCO: The format? The format was to interview your grandma or whatever.
Editor’s Note: Nowhere in the assignment did it say “interview your grandma.”
AVERY: I knew I had to do something. I was going to be like a Kennedy looking at brushstrokes to find the opportunity in this completely heinous crisis. There had to be an opportunity to learn here, somewhere, right? A reason why the universe had forced me to undergo this horrible trial? I just didn’t realize what the opportunity was until I was in American history class the next day, and Ms. Segerson started talking about oral history.
MS. SEGERSON: I was talking about the oral history final project—to interview several people about an event in American history they had experienced. I doubted that Avery had even started hers.
AVERY: There was no time for homework! My entire reputation was at stake!
MS. SEGERSON: Time for homework? There is always time for homework. There were only two weeks of classes left. Why couldn’t the seniors just hold it together?
AVERY: If oral histories could help us understand why certain events had happened, then my opportunity was obvious: I needed to conduct my very own oral history. I had been in a lot of relationships—that was incontrovertible fact. But all of those relationships had ended. And yes, I had been the one who ended all of them—except one—but that doesn’t change the fact that they ended. Why had that happened, time and time again? Was I driven by some sort of destructive force that was dooming me to be forever alone?! There was totally an opportunity here for enlightenment and self-actualization and all those empowering terms on Coco’s INSPO Pinterest board. Maybe if I interviewed all of my old boyfriends, the reason why I had ended up single right before the most important “date night” of my life so far would reveal itself to me. Maybe the reason why I always ended up single would finally be clear. But most importantly, I hoped these interviews would reveal something about me. This would be an epic project, a history on a grand scale, and I would call it … “It’s Not Me, It’s You: An Oral History of Boys.”
COCO: When Avery told me she wanted to interview all of her old boyfriends, I thought she had lost it. No, I knew she had lost it. Avery had never been single. Ever. She’d had like four hundred boyfriends!
Editor’s Note: Genius is rarely appreciated in its own time.
AVERY: Coco, although not usually prone to exaggeration, was totally exaggerating. I have not had that many boyfriends! But at least she wouldn’t have to worry about adding any new ones to the mix. I was one hundred percent completely done with dating until I had my answer. Finished. Over it. I’d spent so much time being someone’s girlfriend, I was starting to worry I didn’t know how to just be me, which was obviously unacceptable. So, no more boyfriends. And no prom date. Because contrary to what Bizzy Stanhope might have you believe, you can absolutely function on your own at a social event. Coco’s a better dancer than Luke Murphy anyway.
COCO: I was glad Avery was so chill about going to prom on her own, but she was way too relaxed about the immense undertaking ahead of us! How were we supposed to interview all of Avery’s exes before prom? It was barely two weeks away—it was impossible!
AVERY: Impossible? Audrey Hepburn once said, “Nothing is impossible; the word it
self says ‘I’m possible!’ ” Tell JFK to stick that in his pipe and smoke it!
COCO: JFK liked to smoke cigars, but he didn’t want to be photographed smoking them.
Editor’s Note: All appearances to the contrary, this is actually not an oral history of the Kennedys.
AVERY: I had finally figured it out. When we study the past, we learn more about the present—and more importantly, our future!
MS. SEGERSON: Avery had a very liberal interpretation of the definition of history and its utility. I had recommended several times that she read E. H. Carr’s What Is History?, but I feared my wishes were falling on deaf ears.
AVERY: I knew the reason why my relationships had never worked would be found somewhere in the past. This is the lesson of Back to the Future!
COCO: I didn’t understand why she couldn’t just ask Luke why he ended things.
AVERY: Luke Murphy dumped me. Dumped. Me. He obviously knew nothing. So now I was done with dating. Sorry, boys, you can all blame Luke!
COCO: This sounded crazy—even for Avery. Maybe the Luke breakup sent her into a spin and she was just doing this to find a prom date, like in What’s Your Number? I’ve seen that film multiple times, because Chris Evans is very frequently shirtless. And the lesson I learned was this: If you’ve dumped someone once before, chances are, you probably won’t want to date them again.
AVERY: I didn’t want to date them again! I just wanted to, like, understand my life and the events that had led me to become the person I am today! I’m not doing this to find a prom date. It is for science. Prom will be great because I planned a great prom. End of story.
COCO: After Avery yelled, “THIS IS NOT WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER? HOW DARE YOU!” I finally understood that she really didn’t care that she had a prom date and that she was “done with dating and am focusing on my career”—her words. Although I’m not totally sure what Avery’s career is.
Editor’s Note: Obviously, my career is head of the Prom Committee slash student slash future leader of America, thank you very much.
MS. SEGERSON: While I appreciated Avery’s enthusiasm for oral history, I felt her energies would be better directed elsewhere. In the grand scheme of things, senior prom really doesn’t matter very much.
AVERY: I had the sneaking suspicion Ms. Segerson hadn’t even been to her own senior prom.
MS. SEGERSON: I didn’t go to prom at my high school. And I turned out fine.
Editor’s Note: Did she, though? … Did she turn out fine?
COCO: When I finally understood what Avery was going for with her oral history project, I was impressed. It was downright noble! If interviewing all her ex-boyfriends was what Avery needed to be her best self, I would be right there with her to help, every step of the way. Just like I’d helped when she somehow got that ship in her dad’s office out of its bottle. We would get Avery’s relationships back in the bottle. Wait … This metaphor doesn’t really work, does it?
AVERY: I couldn’t do this alone, though. It wasn’t impossible—but as Coco had pointed out, it was a big job. I needed help. And as my dad always says, when you want something done right, you get the best people to do it for you.
AVERY: Hutch was the greatest scientific mind San Anselmo had ever produced. After four years of winning state and regional science fairs, he’d just won a crazy buttload of scholarship money in a national science competition. Most importantly, on the very first day of freshman biology, a stunningly gorgeous but uninterested girl sat next to a new kid known as James “Hutch” Hutcherson, and the two of them became lab partners. That girl … was me.
JAMES “HUTCH” HUTCHERSON, great scientific mind: That girl was Avery Dennis?! I’m shocked. Nobody saw that coming.
CRESSIDA SCHROBENHAUSER-CLONAN, totally bitter AP bio student: Yeah, I remember the first day of freshman bio. Hutch was sitting at the lab table closest to the door. Avery Dennis slid in just as the bell was ringing and into the closest available seat—the one next to Hutch.
AVERY: But Hutch actually showed me that science was cool. I was as surprised as you probably are right now reading this. And thanks to the classic San Anselmo Prep insistence on student self-advocacy, we have been lab partners every year since. Hutch turned that uninterested freshman girl into a bona fide science whiz who is very much holding her own in AP bio, thank you very much.
CRESSIDA: Every year, every single year, I watched as Hutch and Avery lab-partnered again and again. I couldn’t understand it. Was I jealous? Yes. I was beyond jealous. Year after year, I was stuck with a deadweight of a lab partner, dragging me down. This year was the absolute worst. Tripp Gomez-Parker? His brain is protozoan. I have no idea how he made it into AP.
TRIPP GOMEZ-PARKER: Yeah, Hutch is like a guaranteed three-point bump to your GPA. He’s a genius, man.
AVERY: Even I wondered sometimes why Hutch was still my lab partner. And once I had to go to counseling for having high self-esteem.
HUTCH: I was still Avery’s lab partner because, all appearances to the contrary, Avery Dennis doesn’t play. She gets it done.
CRESSIDA: We all knew why Hutch was still Avery’s lab partner. Because she’s pretty. That was it, right? That was literally all Avery Dennis brought to the table. Even the smartest boys were dumb about some things.
Editor’s Note: Ouch.
HUTCH: Anybody who wonders why I’d lab-partner AD has never seen her dissect a frog. Steadiest hands I’ve ever seen. Minimal, beautiful incisions. Speed and accuracy. She can get the spleen out of anything—mammal or amphibian—in less time than it takes a normal person to tie their shoes.
AVERY: We don’t dissect things nearly often enough for that to be a huge advantage, but it’s always nice to be appreciated for your skills. And speaking of skills, Hutch had the exact skill set I needed to complete my oral history project. He was the master of deductive reasoning. If anyone was going to discern a pattern here, it was Hutch. He could sift through mountains of data and find exactly what he needed to prove any hypothesis.
HUTCH: When AD first approached me, I thought she’d forgotten a pencil. Like she does. Every. Single. Day.
AVERY: Despite his brilliant mind, he was also, unfortunately, a known slanderer.
HUTCH: This was supposed to be an objective study. A history. I was trying to stick to the facts. As with everything in life, if the data is inaccurate, the results will be inconclusive.
AVERY: He was also almost always right. It was one of his best and most annoying characteristics.
HUTCH: Yeah, I am always right. This is exactly why we scientists are a lonely breed.
AVERY: Hutch was an impartial observer, which I felt made him a great objective source for my history. Prom can make people really emotional. It is the single biggest day of our entire lives so far. It is going to be the most magical evening we have literally ever experienced.
TRIPP: I heard Coco’s dress is totally backless. This night is gonna be magical.
Editor’s Note: Gross. Tripp Gomez-Parker was going to keep his hands where I could see them the entire evening, or he would face the wrath of Avery.
COCO: Avery and I spent weeks picking out the right dresses. Mine is magical.
AVERY: When I think about taking pictures with Coco, riding in a limousine, and walking into the venue I’ll have transformed with my own two hands … Sure, I get excited about it. But the thing is, when you join the Prom Committee, you’re agreeing to throw the best party you can for everyone. It’s not just about you, it’s about the school. Most people won’t thank you for it. The thanks you get are when everyone is out on the dance floor having the time of their lives, possibly for the last time together … ugh, I’m getting choked up already. It’s going to be amazing. See? Emotional. But I knew Hutch wouldn’t get emotional. For one thing, scientists remain impartial. And more importantly, Hutch couldn’t get emotional. Because he wasn’t going to the prom.
HUTCH: Are you kidding me? No, of course I wasn’t g
oing to the prom. Why would I spend seventy-five dollars on a ticket to an event I had absolutely no interest in attending? For seventy-five dollars, I could buy multiple expansion packs for Ticket to Ride. I’d had my eye on that Southeast Asian expansion pack for quite some time. I was not about to blow the graduation money from my grandma on a prom ticket. Not to mention the tux and any other hidden expenses prom might incur.
Editor’s Note: Ticket to Ride is a board game in which you build train tracks? Unclear.
CRESSIDA: I knew Hutch wasn’t going to prom. Lucky him. So now I had absolutely no reason whatsoever to go. Not that Hutch is a reason for me to go to the prom; it would just be nice to have one person there with whom one could have an intelligent conversation, besides the chaperones.
HUTCH: Besides, prom is stupid. I don’t dress up on Halloween, and I don’t dress up for dances. Also, I don’t dance.
Editor’s Note: WHY DIDN’T HE WEAR HALLOWEEN COSTUMES?! WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HIM?! This was something that needed to be addressed at a later date, clearly.
AVERY: Hutch didn’t seem to understand. The senior prom is literally a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’ll never happen again. It’s not like prom is a trip to In-N-Out. Animal fries are forever, but prom is one night only.
Editor’s Note: For the uninitiated, animal fries are cheesy fries smothered in In-N-Out Burger’s secret sauce and sautéed onions. They are nature’s perfect food.
HUTCH: Whether or not prom was stupid was a moot point. I didn’t have a prom ticket. I wasn’t going to prom. More importantly, I had alternate plans.
AVERY: I was surprised Hutch had alternate prom night plans. Until I found out what they were. And then I wasn’t surprised at all.
HUTCH: We start the evening off with a game of my own devising, Settlers of Ca-Tots. It’s basically Catan, except the only viable trade resource is tater tots.
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