Wanna hear you say
‘Affirm-a-tory’
Is comin’ my way.”
Rapping is definitely not Gary’s superpower.
He finishes by throwing the balls across the cafeteria, where one lands in someone’s mac and cheese, and another knocks over a carton of milk. The third hits Mr. Severo from the facilities staff in the head, and the last sinks perfectly in a garbage can, earning applause and cheers from everyone sitting nearby.
BethAnn’s looking down at the floor as if willing it to swallow her whole. Her arms hug her waist protectively.
Gary’s got two friends of his taking footage with their cells for the inevitable YouTube video. Phil Dobens is up in BethAnn’s face to get her reaction. Valerie Chen waves him away.
People start chanting “AFFIRM-A-TORY! AFFIRM-A-TORY!” and Gary stands there looking pleased with himself. He’s got the crowd on his side. BethAnn will come off like a jerk if she says no, even though it’s pretty clear she doesn’t want to go with him.
BethAnn looks like an animal cornered by hunters. While this is going on, I glance over at Jamie Moss, who is sitting three tables away. Of course I know where he’s sitting because in our cafeteria there’s a seating hierarchy so rigid it’s almost assigned seating, and even if there weren’t, I’d always be conscious of where he is, because his presence is one of which I am always conscious. I imagine that our eyes will meet across the crowded, noisy cafeteria, and everything will become quiet—his lips will part as he smiles, revealing those white, perfect teeth, and we will have a moment, and he will nod, meaningfully, telling me that my promposal is coming.
Except that he’s so busy laughing at BethAnn’s awkward situation with his lacrosse teammates that he isn’t looking in my direction. At all.
I think about last night’s decision trees. Maybe I need to adjust my probabilities to make them a little more realistic. It is a universally acknowledged truth that if a guy doesn’t even look at you, there isn’t a high probability he’ll ask you to prom.
But on the other hand, maybe Jamie’s like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Maybe he sends smoldering glances in my direction when I’m not looking because he’s too proud to do it when I am.
I decide to leave the probabilities where they are.
BethAnn has apparently whispered a quiet, mortified “Affirm-a-tory,” and the entire cafeteria starts whooping and hollering. The entire cafeteria except BethAnn and her friends and me. As I watch Gary get on his unicycle and do a victory lap around the cafeteria, pumping his fists in the air and crowing, “All right!” and “Who’s the man?!” with Jeremiah and Phil continuing to document every move, including the impending arrival of Mr. Walsh, the assistant principal, who has apparently been informed about the assault of one of the janitorial staff with a juggling ball, I can’t help thinking this has been more about him than about BethAnn.
“Well, that was fun,” Margo says.
“For us, maybe,” I say.
“Yeah, it was pretty awkward,” Rosa agrees. “You couldn’t pay me to be BethAnn Jackson right about now.”
“Do you think she’ll tell him no later?” I wonder.
“That’s not fair,” Margo says. “After she said yes in front of the entire cafeteria.”
“But what else could she say?” I argue. “He made it impossible for her to say no without looking ungrateful and … I don’t know … mean. Like she was trying to publicly humiliate him, when really she just didn’t want to go to prom with him.”
“So what—are you saying you wouldn’t want a promposal?” Margo asks, her eyebrow raised skeptically.
She’s got me there. I’ve spent far too many hours dreaming of the elaborate and adorable ways that Jamie Moss will ask me to prom.
“No … I guess the difference is if you want to go with the guy who asks you,” I reply.
“But how is he supposed to know until he asks you?” Rosa says.
“Exactly,” Margo says. “So if you want a promposal, you can’t blame the guy for trying, right?”
“I guess not,” I admit.
Still, as I watch BethAnn rush out of the cafeteria with a friend on either side acting like bodyguards, I wonder, deep down, if I can.
“So what are you wearing to the concert?” Margo asks me.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say. “My mom has this sweater that I’m thinking of borrowing.”
Of course, I can’t ask to borrow it for a concert I’m not supposed to be going to in the first place. But my mom has so many clothes, she won’t notice it’s missing for one night.
“Seriously?” Margo looks dumbfounded. “There’s not a single thing in my mom’s closet I’d be caught dead wearing. She is the height of unfashionable.”
“I borrow stuff from my mom,” Rosa says. “I just have to make sure I ask or else she goes ballistic.”
Mom can’t find out I borrowed her sweater, because trust me, if she does, she’ll go ballistic, too.
My dad makes it home for dinner for the first time all week. He looks tired but smiles when I walk into the kitchen.
“I’ve missed seeing my Sammy,” he says, getting up from the table and enfolding me in a big Dad hug.
His familiar citrusy aftershave mingles with the smell of coffee and sweat.
“I missed you, too,” I mumble into his shoulder.
He releases me and holds me at arm’s length, his hands on my shoulders. “I think you’ve grown another inch in the last week,” he says.
I shrug, so his hands fall off my shoulders. “It’s just your imagination,” I say. “I’m still the same.”
Dad sits back down, the smile erased from his face.
“Maybe it is just my imagination,” he says. “Because when I have weeks like this, when I leave for work before you get up and get back after you’re asleep, it feels like you’re growing up without me.”
He sounds angry, and I wonder if he’s mad at me, which would be totally unfair because it’s not like I can help growing up.
“Well, you’re home tonight,” I say. “Does that mean you got rid of the protesters?”
Dad gives a grim chuckle. “I wish I could just get rid of them. But we live in a democracy, and apparently they’re entitled to their First Amendment right of free speech, even if it’s disrupting the livelihoods of all the businesses in the vicinity.”
“I thought the mayor was going to—” my mom starts to say.
“Let’s not talk about that tonight,” Dad says to cut Mom off. “Not when I’m finally home with the kids.”
My phone buzzes with a text. I look down and see it’s from Rosa in the concert group chat, but Dad’s talking to me.
“So how’s it going with the driving?”
“Great,” I say.
“Are you ready for the test?” Dad asks.
“Definitely.”
“I’m not so sure,” Mom says.
No. Way.
“Are you serious, Mom?” I explode. “I’m a really good driver!”
“What about your AP exams?” Dad interjects, trying to head off World War III. “Do you feel prepared?”
Dad doesn’t want to talk about work when he comes home after a long week. Doesn’t he get that the last thing I feel like talking about are all the Very Important Tests I have to take in the next few weeks?
“Well, I’m not prepared yet,” I tell him. “I’ve still got a month to study.”
I’m saved from further interrogation about my exam readiness by my brother, whose entrance not only takes the heat off me but allows me to read the text from Rosa.
only 8 more days till einstein’s encounter! followed by about twenty different emoticons that express excitement and happiness.
i know! i’m excited, too, but not quite as emoticrazy!
Rosa responds with five more lines of emoticons.
“Sammy, no devices at the table,” Mom reminds me as she puts the casserole on the table. “You know the rules.”
“But we haven’t started eating yet!” I protest.
“Just put it away, Samantha,” Dad says. “I’m finally home in time for dinner. Let’s enjoy it together, without distractions.”
Just then, his phone buzzes with a text and he reaches into his pocket to look at it.
“You said without distractions, Dad.”
He opens his mouth as if he’s about to tell me it’s work and important, but RJ says, “Busted!”
Dad grins sheepishly. “I guess I am, aren’t I?” he says, ruffling RJ’s hair. “C’mon, let’s eat. I want to hear about everything I’ve missed.”
I can’t talk about the stuff that’s really on my mind: how Mom is so annoying, how I’m worried about the probability of Jamie Moss asking me to prom, how bad I feel for BethAnn Jackson because she was pressured into saying yes to going to prom with Gary Harvey because he asked her in front of the entire cafeteria, and how I’m scared because what if that happens to me.
Instead, I just talk to him about the things I want to forget but that he always wants to talk about constantly—all the upcoming tests that matter so much to my future.
April 5
I’m starting to I wonder if my parents are right about something. They’ve always been so annoying about promposals. Like, “Back in the Jurassic Age when we were in high school, a guy just went up to a girl and said, ‘Do you want to go to the prom?’ Simple as that. No fuss, no big production, just a simple yes or no answer. Done.” Or “What is it with young people today that they have to make a public spectacle out of every single minute of their lives? Some things are best done with a little intimacy.” *Cue sidelong glance at each other accompanied by vomit-inducing smirk, which makes me leave the room, because seriously, Helene and Dick, I really don’t want to think about you guys doing that. EVER.
But cringe-worthy parental innuendo aside, after the Gary Harvey/BethAnn Jackson promposal fiasco, I think the Fossils might have a point. Two days after the scene in the cafeteria—but after Gary edited his footage and posted it to YouTube and it started making the rounds on social media as “Awesome Cafeteria Promposal”—BethAnn called him and told him that she wasn’t going to go with him after all. Depending on who you listen to, she: “felt pressured into saying yes because he asked her in front of the whole cafeteria and everyone was chanting.” That’s the story according to BethAnn and her friends. But according to the second video Gary made and posted on YouTube, which is getting much wider distribution (unfortunately for BethAnn), she’s an ungrateful skank who went back on her word after all the wonderful things he did for her.
It’s a five-minute video that cuts footage of the promposal with close-ups of Gary’s irate face in full-on rant. You can actually see spit coming out of his mouth a few times. It’s gross.
But like I said, his version of events is the one that’s spreading far and wide, especially after the website TechBrotainment front-paged both the videos the day before yesterday. As of ten minutes ago, Gary’s rant has over 538,439 views and the number is growing hourly.
BethAnn didn’t come to school today. After reading the comments on TechBrotainment, I don’t think I’d want to show my face in public ever again.
The people who are judging BethAnn and finding her guilty of all kinds of crimes against Gary weren’t there. They only saw the parts that Gary showed them. But that doesn’t stop them from being convinced they know the truth about what happened.
I felt bad for BethAnn at the time, but now I feel even worse for her. And mad, too. Prom is supposed to be fun. No one should be obligated to go just because someone asked them. It’s supposed to be a choice, isn’t it?
As much as I thought I wanted a big adorable promposal from Jamie Moss that the whole world could see, now I think I’d be happy if he just asked me the old-school way. Quietly. Privately. No video. Save the fireworks for the prom.
Who am I kidding? I’ll be happy if Jamie asks me, period.
The afternoon of the Einstein’s Encounter concert, I have Dad drop me off at the library in keeping with my AP Gov study-group fiction. He’s on the way into the city for some important hush-hush meeting with city officials. I only know about it because I overheard him telling Mom when I was scoping their location so I could go into their room and borrow Mom’s sweater. Rosa’s mom is picking me up from the library and driving us to Margo’s.
“Study hard,” Dad says.
“Don’t I always?”
He leans over to kiss the side of my face, where the hair meets my temple. “I like that shampoo,” he says. “It smells like the vacation I could really use right now.”
It’s times like this I wonder how my father ever managed to get a date, much less get married, reproduce, and become the CEO of a major financial institution.
“My hair smells like a vacation?”
Dad laughs with a rueful smile. “I never was much of a … what do you call it these days … a player?”
“Oh my god, Dad. Don’t. Ever. Say. That. Again.”
“What I meant was that your hair smells like coconut, which reminds me of suntan lotion, which reminds me of taking a vacation,” Dad explains.
My father’s brain is a very strange place.
“That almost makes sense, in a bizarre random way. But don’t ever say it in public.”
“Never mind,” he says. “Have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I wave good-bye to Dad as he drives away, and I feel a twinge of guilt about the fact that I’m lying to him, but it’s gone by the time I reach the library steps. Because in a matter of hours, I’m going to be in the presence of super-hot Davy Linklater, lead singer of Einstein’s Encounter.
I definitely need to change first.
i’m at the library, I text Rosa.
kk. we’ll be there in about five minutes.
I brought my AP Gov book as cover, but I’m too excited about the concert to actually take it out and study. Since it’s sunny, I sit on the front steps of the library, close my eyes, and soak up some rays.
Davy Linklater is smiling at me from the stage and we are having a serious moment when “Hey, Sammy, are you here for the gov study group?” yanks me from my daydream.
Kate Pierce is standing over me, blocking out the sun.
There’s a gov study group tonight? For reals? I thought I made that up.
Then I remember some post in the AP Gov Facebook group, which I must have seen enough to give me the idea to use Kate’s name but then forgotten about.
“Oh … I … actually, I came earlier to study,” I tell her. “I’ve got plans tonight.”
“Too bad,” she says. “Well, next time.”
“Definitely,” I tell her as she heads inside.
I’m thumbing through my phone when a voice says, “You look way too bored for such a sunny day.”
I glance up and see Noah Woods. He’s wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Winston Churchill with one of his quotes: “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
The afternoon sun glints off his dark curls like a reddish-gold halo, bringing out the amber at the center of his hazel eyes. Noah has really nice eyes, I’ve noticed.
“Oh, hey, Noah. Love your T-shirt.”
“Cool, isn’t it? I got it in SoHo.”
“My dad would go crazy for it. He’s a Churchill freak.”
“So’s my grandpa,” Noah says. “He’s coming over and bringing the DVD of the movie Gallipoli this weekend. Watching historically themed movies is this thing we do.”
“That’s … unusual,” I say.
He’s wary, suddenly. “Unusual as in … ?”
“That came out wrong,” I say, my face flushing. “I mean, unusual as in that it’s really cool that you and your grandpa share something like that.”
“Oh,” he says, clearly relieved. He sits down next to me. “So, are you here to check out the new book club book or to study?”
I hesitate, trying to figure out which lie to tell him, but then I see
Mrs. Jiménez’s car turning into the parking lot, so I decide to tell him the truth.
“Actually, I’m heading into the city for a concert,” I admit. “Einstein’s Encounter at the Bowery Ballroom.”
“Seriously? I love Einstein’s Encounter.” He sings the opening lines of “Whispering Courage,” my absolute favorite song.
Turns out, Noah has a decent singing voice, and hearing him sing the words that mean so much to me is pretty hot. Who knew?
“Rosa’s here to get me,” I tell him reluctantly as Mrs. Jiménez pulls up to the curb. Rosa rolls down the window and gestures for me to hurry up.
“Have fun,” Noah says with a lazy grin. “I expect a full report and set list on Monday.”
I grin back at him.
Margo’s room looks like a beach town in the aftermath of a Category 5 hurricane when Rosa and I get there. The only reason there are any clothes left in her closet is because she has so many.
“I don’t have anything to wear!” she wails.
Rosa gives me the She’s loco look.
“I’m pretty sure you do,” I tell Margo. “The problem is finding anything in this … this …”
“Disaster area?” Rosa fills in the blank.
“It’s a mess because I can’t find anything to wear,” Margo complains. “What do you think about this?”
She holds up a black minidress and a pair of matching tights.
“Perfect,” Rosa and I say in unison, anxious to start getting dressed ourselves.
Rosa’s wearing jeans and a lace shirt with a tank top underneath and, as always, heels because she is so worried about being short. I’m not exactly tall, but I’m grateful for the few extra inches that let me get away with wearing lower heels. I hate having sore feet.
“Love that sweater!” Rosa exclaims as I pull Mom’s sweater out of my bag.
“It’s my mom’s,” I admit. “She doesn’t know I borrowed it. If anything happens to it, I’m dead.” I pull out the rest of my outfit, tight black jeans and my vintage motorcycle ankle boots.
Margo stops dressing and stares at me. “You took your Mom’s sweater without asking?” she says. She reaches over and looks at the label. “That thing’s designer.”
In Case You Missed It Page 3