Everyone groaned, putting up their hands to block the view.
We pulled up to our pre-prom stop at just before five. Perfect timing. We all got out, each guy helping their date. Morgan even stopped to pluck a piece of lint from Luke’s date’s dress – Ava quietly reminded me her name was Maggie.
We walked two by two through the front door of Sunset Estates.
Gabe was just returning to the host stand when we rounded the corner, laughing. We had been stopped no fewer than seven times on the hundred-foot walk from the front door to the dining room. Gabe clapped his hands over his mouth and let out a squeal I hadneverheard from him.
‘You all look so great!’ he said.
The door behind him burst open, and George stuck his head out, his jaw firmly unhinged. ‘Oh my God. Look at all of you. Oh, I’m going to make an announcement. Wait here. Gabe, bring them in when you hear me.’ He closed the door and ran into the kitchen, then out to the casual dining room to grab the microphone that tied into the sound system.
Gabe looked me up and down, and I gave him theexcuseme, friendeyebrow. He shrugged, but his face reddened.
George’s voice boomed over the microphone as he began his announcement.
As we walked into the formal dining room, the faces of even the most cynical residents lit up. Ava and I visited tables of residents we knew, and Luke went around to his own favorites, introducing Maggie. Everyone gushed and complimented Ava over and over, then threw me a nice compliment as well.
‘But tonight is more about her, anyway,’ said Judge Fredericks – back in the formal dining room since I still wasn’t back serving. I nodded, thoughIwould be the one begging Ava to dance with me. Ava nudged me, probably thinking the same thing.
Ava and I said goodbye to Judge Fredericks before saying hi to a few other tables and making our way into the casual dining room.
She pulled me to her favorites, the ones she called the Golden Girls, only there were six of them. While she talked about the dress and how she’d found it and added some of her own embellishments, I scanned the room, looking for Al and Willa. I spotted Willa first.
Her hands were clasped over her mouth, and her eyes were red. Al was beaming. I excused myself from the Golden Girls and made my way over to them, stopping only six times along the way to respond politely to compliments.
Willa jumped up and hugged me. ‘Oh, you look so handsome.’ Her hug was strong, and I almost felt like I was going to cry.
This was the main reason I had pressed for us to stop by on our way to prom, but I hadn’t realized it until that very moment. Al and Willa were like my queer grandparents. My fairy grandfather and badass lesbian grandmother. I wanted to share this with them, because I saw them more than I did my own family. When Willa let me go, Al pulled me into a hug, and even his eyes were red.
Al gasped as Ava came over. ‘Ava, you look fabulous.’
‘This old thing?’ Ava twirled for them as another table across the room was trying to get her attention. She waved and held up a finger. ‘Would you both excuse me? I’ve got to say hello to Nan Webber and Rita Fossett.’
They nodded and told her to have fun at prom, and she left.
‘Oh, here.’ Al reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. I held up my hand.
‘Al, you’ve got to stop. I really appreciated it, but my get-well card was way too much.’
‘Hey, half of that was me,’ Willa said.
‘See? So I still have a few hundred more.’ Al shoved the white envelope into my jacket pocket and shooed me away. ‘Now get out of here before one of these old vampires comes to suck the youth out of you.’
I heard a gasp from the salad bar and turned to see George once again clasping his hands in front of him.
Al pointed. ‘Exactly like that. Run, kid.’
By the time we were back in the limo and on the way to prom – a little later than we thought – everyone felt high with excitement. Even Luke was grinning. Luke’s date had come around and said how cute all the residents had been. She called them ‘old people’, but she was new, so we let it slide.
We still weren’t the last to arrive when we pulled up to the Crier’s Inn. We made the slow procession past the teacher chaperones, stopping to say hi to our friends and getting in line for pictures.
Ava and I got our pictures, choosing to take two weird poses and one serious one, before heading into the inn’s ballroom and finding our table. We were at the same table as James and Morgan, but Luke and Maggie had agreed to sit with Maggie’s friends. Our table was rounded out by one of James’s friends from ice hockey and his date, Jodie Barnes – a friend of Ava’s and mine who didn’t work at Sunset Estates – and Lara Guthrie and Helen Fink, the co-photography editors of the yearbook, who had started secretly dating in sixth grade and had been together ever since.
‘Lara, Helen, you both look stunning,’ Ava said. ‘Those dresses are amazing.’
‘Thanks, Helen made them!’ Lara stood and shoved her hands in the sides of her turquoise gown. ‘And look, it’s got pockets!’
Helen stood and showed her pocketed gown as well. That reminded me about Al’s card. I opened it up, hiding the two hundred dollars in the inside tux pocket, and read the message.
