CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ella practically tackled me when I walked in the front door. “Come see! Come see!”

She was wearing her “new” prom dress, created from two of her old gowns. And while I hadn’t been able to picture it when she’d first described it to me, now I was blown away by how pretty it was. “Your dress is amazing!” I told her.

With a wave of her hand, she dismissed her dress, as if it didn’t matter. She grabbed me by the wrist and led me into her room.

My dress was hanging on her closet door. “That’s the kimono?” I asked, my mouth hanging open.

“The silk was much easier to work with than I thought it would be. So soft, but still really strong.”

Ella had altered the bodice of the dress to be sleeveless and brought in the sides. She had also given it a bit of a plunging neckline, something a little more daring than I might normally wear. I didn’t know what she had done to the skirt, but now it hung down like a bell, as if it would move and flow when I walked or danced. Ella lifted it down from the closet door and handed it to me.

The bottom embroidery was still intact, beautiful silver renderings of a Japanese garden with birds taking flight. I noticed that the back had a deep V as well, even more than the front. It was a very grown-up dress.

It was absolutely perfect.

“Try it on!”

Without hesitation, I kicked off my shoes and tore off my pants and shirt. Ella helped me slide the dress on over my head, and it made that silk-whispering sound against my skin, feeling as smooth as water. I saw that she’d cut the bow down by half. I looked at my reflection and watched her tying it in the back for me.

“I didn’t realize this at the beginning, but there was so much material with this thing. I guess it’s a lot of padding and tucking to make it fit right when you wear it traditionally, but that also meant I had a lot to work with.” She stepped back to take a look at me, even making me spin around. “Sometimes I even impress myself.”

“You should be impressed,” I told her as I shifted my weight from side to side, making my skirt sway softly. “You are so talented. Are you sure you don’t want to go into fashion design?”

“I’m just copying someone else’s work. I didn’t come up with the idea for either dress on my own.” She went over to her jewelry box and started sorting through it. “I think silver earrings will work best with your dress, and I have the perfect pair of dangling ones—here.” She came back over and held one of them up to my ear so that I could see it in the mirror. “I also have a matching necklace.”

“You know I’m not this kind of person, but you were forewarned. Thank you.” Then I grabbed her and hugged her. I seemed to be doing a lot of hugging lately. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I always thought it was.

But Ella deserved a hug for saving the prom for us. Now we had really unique and beautiful dresses.

When I let go of her, she smiled at me and asked, “So what are your plans for the rest of the night?”

I had already filled her in on my conversation with Jake in the hospital. “I was going to go put on something nice and wait in my room for a phone call or invitation to go somewhere to get my promposal. But I’ve decided that’s pathetic, and you and I should do something together.”

And if a phone call came or Jake showed up, well, I was sure Ella wouldn’t mind if I bailed a tad bit early from our plans.

“Let’s binge watch something,” she suggested.

I agreed. Lately we’d been really into watching British period dramas together. Our boyfriends (or ex-boyfriend, in Ella’s case) weren’t very good company for it. It was definitely a girls-only thing.

Ella helped me out of my dress and hung it up. I put my clothes back on while she changed from formal wear to yoga pants and an oversize shirt. We sat on her bed, and she pulled up our Amazon account on her laptop. She clicked on North & South, which we’d recently started.

I looked at her comfy clothes and wondered if I should go change, too.

But I left my jeans on. I wanted to be prepared. Just in case.

There was nothing wrong with having a little hope, right?

Except for when your hopes get dashed and your boyfriend does not come over to ask you to the prom.

My restless night turned into an early morning, and prom was now less than ten hours away.

Still no promposal.

Whatever Jake had planned, he was cutting things awfully close.

Ella and I had created an itinerary for the day. We were in the middle of doing mud masks with cucumbers on our eyes when my phone rang. I removed the vegetable from my eye to see who was calling me.

To my surprise, it was Kenyetta.

Obviously I’d given her my number just in case, but this was the first time she’d ever called me.

“Hey, Kenyetta. What’s going on?” This kid was taking me up pretty quickly on the whole “I’m only a phone call away” thing.

“There was an emergency at the hospital with one of my dad’s patients. He can’t come to my recital today.” I could hear the wobble in her voice.

“I’ll come.” The words just burst out of me, with no thought behind them. I had so much to do, like, decorate an actual prom, but in that moment, none of it mattered.

Because I had been in her shoes. I grew up with a single father who often missed important events in my life because of his work. At least in Dr. Drummond’s case he was saving lives, which probably made it a tad easier to deal with. My dad just usually forgot.

I wasn’t going to let her feel completely alone and forgotten.

“Really?”

“Of course. Text me when and where, and I’ll stand up and yell the loudest for you.”

“It’s a ballet recital,” she said with a sad laugh. “Not a concert.”

“Don’t care. I’ll be the one in the middle shouting, ‘Kenny-the-Pooh!’ and holding up my phone with the flashlight app on.”

This time I got a real giggle. “You are dumb. I’ll send you the information.”

I hung up my phone, and her text arrived. The recital was from one o’clock to three thirty. And it was an hour away. Realization struck me, hard. “What did I just do?”

“What’s going on?” Ella asked, removing the cucumbers from her eyes, too.

“Kenyetta’s dad had to cancel on her recital today. I told her I would come, but it’s right when we’re supposed to be decorating for prom.”

Ella’s eyes lit up, as if this was exciting. “That’s great! I mean, that’s not great. For Kenyetta. But great that you can be there for her. Support her. You should definitely go.”

She was acting really strange. But since I’d jumped to such a wrong conclusion with Jake I wasn’t eager to go there again. I chalked it up to prom stress.

“But what about decorating? What about us getting ready together?”

“Don’t worry about setting up. Because you’ve made everybody so excited about having a dance that was just for us we have a massive group of decorating volunteers. There’s so many people signed up that it will go really quickly. And you should be home by four thirty or five, and that’s still plenty of time for us to get ready and head over.”

That relieved most of my guilt. Especially since I knew that Ella would do such a phenomenal job of telling everybody else what to do.

“I’ll have to take the car. How are you going to get over to Victor’s house?”

“Oh.” Was that a blush I saw on Ella’s cheeks? “Deacon volunteered to help out, too. He was planning on coming by to pick me up.”

“Just you, huh?” I teased. “Isn’t it bad luck for him to see you before the prom?”

She blinked rapidly, as if she’d misspoken. “Obviously he would have taken both of us. But now I guess he’ll just be taking me. And that luck thing is for weddings. Not dances.”

I knew the thing with Trent still hurt, but I was glad to see that she could be excited about someone new. I guessed what she said was true. That she spent a long time getting over him so that when the actual ending came, it didn’t hurt quite as much.

“I better get ready,” I said. I went into my bathroom and washed the mask off my face and didn’t bother with any makeup. I grabbed some lunch to go (half a bag of Lay’s sour cream and onion chips) and got on the road.

As predicted, about an hour later, I pulled up to a small theater. I wondered what other kind of productions they held as I went in and bought a ticket and took a program.

I grabbed an empty seat in the middle of the theater. I skimmed the program for Kenyetta’s name and saw that she was performing four different times, one of them as a soloist.

The lights over the audience went down, and the stage lights came on. There was an introduction from the ballet instructor talking about the kids and their progress. She finished her speech, and the curtain raised to begin the show. The first group contained a bunch of three-year-olds in pink tutus and pigtails, and it was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.

Then things took a turn for the boring. It was probably different if you were the parent and it was your child, but I was slowly losing the will to live.

Finally, it was Kenyetta’s turn. She danced with three other girls in some complicated routine where they held hands and did really fancy footwork. I’d seen her dance around plenty of times in tutoring, but I had no idea she was this good.

Not just good. Phenomenal.

It made me sad that her dad couldn’t be here to see her.

About twenty minutes later, Kenyetta walked onto the stage for her solo. She wore a red leotard and a matching gauzy thigh-length skirt. She struck a pose, and the music started. And it took all my willpower not to stand up in my chair and chant her name. She flew from one end of the stage to the other. There was so much elegance, power, and grace in her movements. Such beauty. Artistry.

I knew that someday I’d be watching this girl performing professionally.

When her dance ended, I did jump to my feet and yell “Brava! Brava!” as loudly as I could. And I wasn’t the only one in the audience who did. She curtsied gracefully and waved to the crowd with a huge smile. I wondered if she could see me, but I figured she couldn’t because of the lights.

She had her two other numbers, where she was every bit as good as she already had been. The show finished, and all the ballerinas came onstage to take their final bows and soak up all the applause. My voice felt a little hoarse from all the cheering I was doing.

People approached the stage and handed the girls bouquets of flowers. I groaned. I didn’t know about the flowers thing, or I would have stopped and picked some up for her on the way.

Guess I had to hope me being here would be good enough.

I made my way into the aisle and watched Kenyetta as she exited the stage. I waved both of my hands over my head and called her name. She ran up the aisle toward me, throwing her arms around my waist.

“You were so good! Seriously, so, so good. And you know I’d tell you if you were terrible. But you are gifted. So talented. You are going to be an amazing ballerina someday. And you’re right. You totally shouldn’t worry about math. Just keep dancing!”

I probably shouldn’t have said the math thing, but I was so excited for her and how amazing she was at ballet.

“Yes, you were very, very good.” A woman’s voice sounded behind Kenyetta, and I looked up to see Bahati.

And I was much happier seeing her here than the last time I’d seen her. While she was hugging my boyfriend.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming!” I said with a smile, but from the grumpy expression on Kenyetta’s face, it looked like she didn’t know either and wasn’t happy about it.

“Your father told me he wouldn’t be able to make it, and he was so disappointed. I would have driven you, but he said you were getting a ride from one of your friends. So I came down early to get a seat in the front row so that I could film the whole thing for him. I was hoping that later tonight the three of us could watch it together.”

“That would be okay,” Kenyetta said, shrugging.

Bahati grinned and then handed her a bouquet of pink roses. I was so glad somebody got the memo.

“Did you know that I used to dance ballet?”

“You did?” Kenyetta’s eyes got bigger.

Bahati nodded. “I dislocated my knee when I was fourteen, and the doctors said I couldn’t dance any longer. That was when I decided to go into medicine. So that I could help other people.”

There probably wasn’t anything better she could have said. It was as if I could see the ice surrounding Kenyetta begin to melt.

“I was also wondering if you might like to get some ice cream?” Bahati asked as Kenyetta nodded eagerly. “You’re welcome to join us, Mattie.”

“Oh, I can’t. I have to go home and get ready for my prom. But you two go and have a great time!”

Kenyetta gestured toward the stage. “I just need to go grab my stuff and tell Averie’s mom that I won’t need a ride home.”

“I’ll wait here for you,” Bahati said. She had so much hope in her eyes that I wished for Kenyetta to keep being responsive and accepting. And that she would give this poor woman, who was trying so hard, a chance.

“Her favorite is rocky road,” I said, attempting to give her a leg up. Bahati nodded and thanked me.

Kenyetta returned, carrying a large bag over her shoulder.

That was my cue to leave. “I have to get going. You two have fun.”

“You have fun tonight, too! At your dance! And thank you for coming,” she told me, giving me one last hug. Which I allowed. I waved to them both as I left the theater.

And they were smiling. At each other.

I took that as an excellent sign.

Admittedly, I was just as sad about leaving Kenyetta as she was about me going. It did my heart good to know that she’d be in such excellent hands after I left for school in the fall.

But right now . . . I had a prom to get ready for.