Lana's Ex Prom Date

by Amy Sparling

  Only of course, she knows exactly what I’m thinking because we have that life-long best friend connection.

  “Can you believe the stupid prom theme?” she says, rolling her eyes as we step around a guy and girl arguing in the hallway.

  “What is it?” I say. “I hadn’t noticed the actual theme around all of the glitter.”

  Ashlyn makes air quotes as she says, “Happily ever after. Gag me. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t all want to grow up and be princesses.”

  “Ugh, tell me about it.”

  And not that I feel like talking about it now, because I do think that theme is stupid, at least it works with my dress options. See, I know there’s no extra money to buy some fluffy, sequined, stupid gown to wear for one stupid night. I wouldn’t even dream of asking my mom for such a huge favor because I’m not a shitty kid. I work part time at my aunt’s bookshop, but there’s no way the little amount I get paid from there would ever buy a dress either, especially since I use most of my money to help out with the bills. Instead, I asked Mom if I could dig through her closet to find something that could pass as a prom dress. She gave me something better—free reign over her old dress stash in the attack.

  When I was a kid, my mom scoured thrift stores for old formal dresses that she could cut up and turn into various crafts. The pretty fabric always looked good no matter what she sewed it into, and the extra income from it helped us get by while she was struggling as a hair stylist. I’d totally forgotten about her stash until she brought it up, and there’s at least five boxes of old dresses up there. At one point, she’d gotten so busy with her day job that she ran out of time to sell crafts on the side and all her supplies went up in the attic. Now they’re my saving grace.

  With any luck, I’ll be able to transform one of them into a decent looking prom dress.

  So that’s why this lame theme doesn’t bother me. I was hoping it wouldn’t be a theme that’s specific to some era like the 20s, or costumed or something stupid that wouldn’t work with my options. So far, I’m in the clear. Happily ever after could mean anything.

  But that’s not why there’s a bubble of anxiety in my chest right now. Of course, the bell is about to ring and I’m so not about to get into that with my best friend seconds before we have to hurry off to class. This is more of a discussion best saved for having over ice cream.

  Toby doesn’t text me for the first half of the day. I mean, not that I’d expected him to since we’re in school but… I guess I kind of thought he might.

  When lunch rolls around, I head to my usual table that I share with Bennet and Ashlyn, but I can’t stop gazing around the cafeteria to see if I can find Toby. I check all the places where the popular people sit, but I don’t find him. Oh, well. It was one date, I remind myself. It’s not like it meant anything. It certainly wasn’t a marriage proposal. I’m not exactly a dating guru, so I have no idea what happens next.

  Bennet walks with me to class after lunch, like usual. He’s not very talkative, but neither am I. Still, something feels a little off as we walk, but I can’t place it. “Have fun,” Bennet says sarcastically when we reach my next class. He says that every day, with exactly the same level of sarcasm, so I’m guessing things are fine.

  “You too,” I say, waving as I slip into the classroom.

  When it’s finally time for homeroom, my heart pounds as I make my way toward the classroom. Toby is already there, sitting on top of his desk while he chats with two other guys. I slip into my desk in the last row and pull out my homework so it looks like I’m not some pathetic loser dying for his attention. But I do sneak a few glances at him until the bell rings and Mr. Robertson tells everyone to settle down.

  Toby slips off his desktop and slides into his chair. Then he glances back, his eyes locking on mine. He smiles when he sees me, and it’s not just a normal smile. It’s a knowing smile; one you would give a friend, or someone you share a secret with. He’s going out of his way to smile at me.

  Once again, I’m floating.

  Just like last Thursday when he asked me out, Toby walks me to my athletics class after homeroom. He talks about his science lab project where his partner, Bobby White, broke a thermometer and played with the mercury in his palm before alerting the teacher.

  “Isn’t that stuff poisonous?” I ask.

  Toby nods. “Bobby is kind of an idiot.”

  He walks me all the way to the gym. “I guess this is where I leave you,” Toby says with a sigh. “I am so not ready to go to class. School is boring.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So I’ll see you later?”

  I nod, and then he leaves, and I’m left standing there feeling ten kinds of emotions. He didn’t just say he’ll see me later in the way that everyone says it. It wasn’t just some silly goodbye phrase. It was a question. I’ll see you later? As in, he wanted my answer. He wanted to know we’d hang out later.

  After I had detailed the entire date to Ashlyn, she had insisted that he would ask me out again. I told her I wasn’t so sure, but deep down, I’m hoping he does. And now this totally non-casual question he just asked me confirms it. He wants to see me again!

  Ashlyn finds me after eighth period and we walk out to the parking lot like always. She’s in the middle of talking about some new dating app she’s considering trying in the hopes that she might one day find a girlfriend who isn’t some loser from Hockley, when I hear my name.

  I turn around and there he is. Toby, jogging toward me, looking gorgeous.

  “Hey,” he says, his eyes all bright and excited. I wonder if they look that way because of me. I can’t believe this is happening. Ashlyn slows down.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Toby, this is Ashlyn,” I say even though it feels like cotton balls are in my mouth. “She’s my best friend.”

  “And you’re the guy who stole my best friend Friday night!” she says, in what is definitely the most embarrassing thing she’s ever said.

  Toby just laughs. “Yeah, sorry about that. I hope you didn’t have to cancel plans on my account.”

  “Nah, I’m just messing with you,” she says. Then, because she really is a good friend who knows I’ll want some alone time to talk to Toby, she gestures up ahead to where Bennet is climbing into his car and says, “We’ll wait for you, okay?”

  “Actually, I was going to offer you a ride home,” Toby says. He runs a hand through his hair and he can’t possibly be nervous because he’s so cool and collected all the time, but it almost looks like he might be. “Is that okay?”

  I look at Ashlyn and she gives me this grin that says I should definitely take him up on his offer.

  “Sure,” I say, lifting one shoulder. “Sounds like fun.”

  “Cool, I’m parked over here,” Toby says, turning right. Ashlyn waves goodbye and I follow him only to realize what a huge stupid idiot I am for agreeing to this.

  He can’t see my house!

  “Um, Toby, actually uh, you don’t want to drive all the way to my house. I should just go back with my friends.”

  He stops and peers at me, a shadow over his face when he looks down. “You don’t want to hang out with me?”

  “No, it’s not that…” I take a deep breath and I realize lying isn’t really something I can keep up with for the long term. Not that I see us as long term or anything, but still. I’m not a good liar and I don’t like doing it.

  “Honestly, Toby.” I look down at my shoes. “I’m kind of embarrassed by where I live. It’s just me and my mom and we’re not very rich.”

  Toby tilts his head. “Why would I judge you for that?”

  Heat rises up in my stomach. Toby is a definitely good guy. “You don’t care?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No, I like you for you, not the place you live in.”

  I almost trip over my own feet when he says that. I grin and head over to the passenger side of his car where he opens the door for me. He says something before closing it, but I don’t
hear a word. I’m too busy focusing on the fact that he just admitted he liked me.

  Chapter 7

  After Toby drops me off at home, I eat a quick dinner of cereal and ride my bike to The Book Attic to work a few hours with my Aunt Shawna. I can’t stop thinking about how cool he was about my house. He didn’t gawk at it or seem judgmental at all. It was amazing.

  The Book Attic is a used bookstore my aunt has had in the family for basically her whole life. The store is actually an old Victorian house near Main Street. Decades ago, the street was residential and all the homes were lived in by real families, my aunt’s parents being one of them. But over the years, Main Street became the shopping center of town and the old homes were either torn down and replaced with stores, or in some cases, they became stores.

  My Aunt Shawna is actually my Mom’s aunt, but calling her Great Aunt Shawna is just a mouthful, so I’ve always called her Aunt Shawna. She inherited her childhood home after her parents died and she decided to live on the second floor and turn the first floor into a bookstore.

  It’s actually really cool. The white house has had a fresh coat of paint recently, with navy blue shutters on the windows. There’s a wraparound porch and the front yard has been turned into a parking lot.

  Inside is where my aunt got really creative. The living room is divided up into different sections for historical books, thrillers, mysteries, and stuff like that. The kitchen still looks like a real kitchen although there’s no food in there. Instead, she’s filled the counters and cabinets with cook books and books about food or diets. The foyer contains Christian books, and one of the bedrooms used to be painted a pale pink as a nursery. Half the room is for children’s books, and teen books are on the other half. That’s my favorite section of the store, and Aunt Shawna let me put in some bean bags last summer so teens can hang out and read through books while they’re here.

  There’s a sunroom off the back of the house and that’s where the outdoors and nonfiction books are kept. The place is so cool it’s actually a little bit of a tourist destination. Not that people ever visit Hockley for touristy reasons, but when the local residents have family vising or something, they always bring them by The Book Attic.

  I only get paid six dollars an hour here, but I love my job. My aunt is also very cool for an old lady. She’s in her early seventies and has long white hair that she refuses to cut into what she calls an “old lady haircut”. She always smells like coffee, and so does the front desk because she keeps a pot of coffee brewed at all times for our customers, and she absolutely loves books.

  I don’t have much extended family, but Aunt Shawna and I are pretty close. So close, that she immediately knows something is going on when I get to work today.

  She watches me from behind the counter where we still have a hand operated cash register because she doesn’t know how to use those “fancy electronic ones,” as she puts it.

  “What’s up with you?” Aunt Shawna asks, eyeing me like I’ve just stolen a rare painting and am hiding it under my bed.

  “Nothing,” I say, even though my cheeks betray me by heating up and probably turning red.

  She puts a hand on her hip. “You’re giddy about something.”

  Yeah, Toby Fitzgerald likes me.

  I shrug. “Just in a good mood. Glad school is almost over.”

  “Did you pick a college yet?” she asks.

  I pretend to gag. “Next subject!”

  She rolls her eyes and turns around, reaching for some more coffee. “Fine, don’t tell me. That means it’s probably about a boy.”

  Okay, now my cheeks are definitely red. I slip behind the counter and punch in on the time clock, which isn’t a time clock at all. It’s just an index card that I write on when I arrive and when I leave. Aunt Shawna pays me in cash, what she calls under the table, which makes it sound illegal and seedy, which makes me feel kind of cool.

  You know, in a dorky way.

  Since this is a used bookstore, we buy people’s used books from them and resell them. There’s also a policy where you can trade in your book for credit toward another book in the store. The credit amount is twice of what the cash payment amount is if you just want to sell your books. Because of this, most people just trade out books all the time, and it makes me wonder how Aunt Shawna even makes any money off this place. She calls it her passion project, so I guess the financial part of it doesn’t worry her.

  Not wanting to talk about boys, I get to work shelving new books that were traded in today and putting them there they go. I’m only here an hour when the bells on the door jingle and Ashlyn walks in, a stack of trashy romance novels in her hands.

  “There’s my two favorite booksellers,” she says, winking at me as she walks up to Aunt Shawna at the front desk.

  “It’s only Monday,” I tell her as I finish shelving a few cookbooks. “You usually come on Thursdays.”

  She shrugs and unloads the books on the counter. “What can I say? I’ve had major insomnia all week. I read a lot.”

  Ashlyn is a major romance junkie. It’s kind of endearing and a little weird. She loves romance of all kinds; the epic, the bodice-ripping Victorian, even Viking romances or ones with shape shifting werewolves.

  Besides men who turn into animals, my aunt shares her same love of romance novels, so for the past few years she lets Ashlyn use the bookstore as her personal library. Every week Ashlyn takes a few books home with her to read and then she returns them, usually on Thursdays.

  Aunt Shawna ducks under the counter and retrieves three paperback books. “I picked these out for you, dear. I adored them, so I think you’ll like them too.”

  “Sweet!” Ashlyn says, scooping up the books and looking at the covers.

  I wipe my hands off on my jeans and join them at the counter. It’s pretty slow right now and the only customer is a regular named Mark who hangs out in the historical thriller section for hours at a time.

  Aunt Shawna leans in, her eyes flickering conspiratorially. “So, Ashlyn…” she begins, and my heart seizes up. I immediately know what she’s doing and there’s not enough time to stop it. “What’s got Lana in such a great mood?”

  “We are so not talking about this!” I say, eyes wide.

  Ashlyn laughs. “Oh, it’s a boy.”

  “I knew it!” Aunt Shawna claps her hands together once. “Is he cute?”

  “Very cute,” Ashlyn says. I punch her in the arm.

  “I don’t want to talk about this!” I say.

  “Why not, Lana?” Aunt Shawna asks. “Are you still deciding if you like him or not?”

  I shake my head. “No, I do like him. I just don’t want to jinx anything.”

  Ashlyn tosses her hair with her hand even though it’s not quite long enough to put behind her shoulders. “Bennet and I were talking about him a little while ago. He seems to think we should cancel our prom plans since you’ll be going with Toby.”

  “Toby?” Aunt Shawna says with a nod. “That’s a good name. Cute.”

  I ignore her. “What? I’m not going to prom with Toby.”

  Ashlyn tilts her head like I’m stupid. “You probably will, Lana babe. I mean, he likes you and he drove you home and all. He’ll probably ask you.”

  “No, he won’t. Tell Bennet he’s stupid and that we’re still going to the prom as friends.”

  “But what if he asks you?” she says, and I realize she’s being totally serious, not joking with me at all.

  “He won’t.”

  Mark approaches with a few books in his hands. Saved by the book guy, I think as we step out of the way so Aunt Shawna can ring him up. Mark doesn’t like trading books because he prefers to have a big collection at home, so he always buys them.

  When he leaves, I try to change the subject by mentioning the lemon cookies and how delicious they are, but Aunt Shawna and Ashlyn aren’t having it.

  “Why don’t you think he’ll ask you to prom?” my aunt says. The wrinkles around her mouth deepen as she stud
ies me like she’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.

  I shrug. “We went on one date and that’s it.”

  “He’s been texting you like crazy,” Ashlyn adds.

  I glare at her. “He won’t ask me. He’s too popular. I’m going with you and Bennet, just like we planned.”

  Ashlyn and my aunt exchange a look. “If you say so,” Ashlyn says. “But if he asks you, you should totally say yes. You can meet me and Bennet there.”

  I’m not really in the mood to argue about how a guy like Toby is so not going to ask me to prom, so I just nod and drop the subject.

  But as hours go by, I realize I can drop the subject vocally but not internally. Now it’s all I’m thinking about. Prom was supposed to be a fun outing with my two best friends, but what if Toby does ask me?

  No, he won’t.

  He totally won’t. I nod to myself as I reorganize the teen books by genre. It’s not like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend or anything. We went on one stupid date. I’ll go to the prom with my friends and maybe I’ll see him there. Maybe I won’t. Who cares.

  Chapter 8

  My life is so surreal and weird now. Toby actually texts me a few times, always random and friendly. Like Monday night when I was getting ready for bed, he texted me: omg my brother just made a joke while I was brushing my teeth and I choked on the toothpaste and swallowed most of it and it was so gross.

  I wrote back that I was also brushing my teeth, and we laughed about that. Then he didn’t say anything else until the next morning.

  Want a ride to school?

  I wrote back: No, but thanks. I’m already headed to school with my neighbor Bennet.

  Cool beans, he replied.

  And then nothing.

  Until lunch time.

  I set my tray down next to Ashlyn and fumble with my backpack, trying to set it on the floor between our feet. “Oh sweet, you got fries,” Ashlyn says, stabbing her salad fork into one of my fries and then popping it in her mouth.