The five of them all perk up at that.
“I wouldn’t know... for sure... about him being boring,” I add. “But I haven’t exactly had good experiences with him in the past.”
Will leans her head against the windowpane and takes a long sip of her root beer float.
“Is she okay?” I ask the other girls.
“I’m fine,” Will says.
“Anyone who says they’re fine isn’t fine,” I tell her.
Ellen touches a hand to Will’s leg.
Behind the counter a tall cute white guy with shaggy honey-colored hair reaches for the intercom. “Uh.” He clears his throat and all the girls except Hannah squeal. “This is... my name is Bo and this is for my girlfriend, Willowdean.”
Now he’s got the attention of the entire restaurant.
Ellen gasps and pokes at a frowning Will. “Oh, Will, look!”
“Who cares about prom?” Will mutters.
“He’s trying,” Ellen says, and pushes Will out of the booth until she’s standing. “Give him a chance.”
Will huffs a sigh and crosses her arms.
Bo flips through something on his phone and then puts it down on top of the intercom buttons so that it acts as amakeshift speaker as the opening notes to a song I remember Grammy humming along to when I was a kid begins to play.
Ellen clutches her hand to her chest. “It’s Dolly! Awww! He’s speaking her love language.” She leans across the table and whispers, “He’s been sort of MIA lately.”
“Oh,” Hannah says with a hint of suspicion in her voice.
In a key I didn’t even know existed, Bo begins to sing, “Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown, I set out to get you with a fine-tooth comb....”
Bo steps toward her and takes her limp hand. He pulls her to him and wraps his arms around her, placing his chin on top of her head, and she looks a little bit like a rag doll, but you can see her whole body soften as she slowly warms to him. After two more verses, the chorus hits, and half the restaurant is singing, “Islands in the stream, that is what we are, no one in between...”
Bo and Willowdean dance, and we’re all captivated, honestly. Forget matching bow ties. This is the kind of promposal dreams are made of. Cheeseburgers and Dolly Parton and the kind of love that feels lived in and complicated.
The song ends and every single one of us erupts into applause. “Prom! Prom! Prom!” a few people even chant before getting hushed.
“Willowdean,” says Bo, swooping down on one knee.
Wow. He’s really going all in, isn’t he?
“Will you go to prom with me?” he asks.
“Ho-ly shit,” Hannah says far too loudly. “Now that’s a promposal.”
Willowdean’s faces shuffles through various reactions before she asks him something in a voice too low for any of us to detect.
Bo stands and shakes his head.
Ellen hisses painfully. “Oh, this is not good. Abort, abort, abort, abort.”
Willowdean’s brow furrows and her lips sink into a frown again as she pulls her wrist free and walks out the door.
“And that’s my cue,” says Ellen as she scoots out of the booth.
“And that’s our ride,” says Amanda.
