CHAPTER TWO

“He really didn’t ask you?” Ella sounded totally surprised. “When he said he wanted to show you something, I just thought . . .” Her voice trailed off as we walked across the school parking lot. Jake had texted that he couldn’t pick me up that morning, so Ella and I had driven in together.

“He really didn’t.” In any other school, it would be understood that Jake and I would go to prom together. But not at Malibu Prep. Those elaborate promposals all over the internet? Where guys would go to expensive and creative extremes to ask a girl to prom? That style of asking had started at our school decades ago. They caught on when social media allowed us to share them with the world. While some high schools had begun to ban them for being too distracting, ours went all in on the crazy and let kids take asking to dizzying levels.

And it was highly competitive to see who pulled off the best promposal, the one that would go viral and give the guy bragging rights for the rest of the year. Which meant that some boys asked early, hitting it hard out of the gate. Wanting to be first in case someone else had a similar kind of promposal planned. Others didn’t much care, putting in minimal effort and resorting to asking on the lid of various baked goods (“It’d be SWEET if you went to prom with me” or “Be a SMART COOKIE and go with me to prom!” or “DONUT miss the chance to be my prom date!”).

Then there were the ones who waited until almost the last minute, watching their competition closely, hoping their creative, over-the-top ask would blow up any that had come before. Sometimes it reminded me of a 1980s arm race.

My hope was that Jake was waiting because he instinctively understood how important this was to me and wanted to get it just right. That he got that our prom would be the pinnacle of my student body presidential career and the highlight of my high school experience (if my John Hughes movies were to be believed). That he would make a big, showy gesture guaranteed to melt my heart, and then we would have the most incredible night together at the dance.

“Has Trent asked you yet?” Things didn’t seem to be too great between my friend and my sister. Ella hadn’t talked very much about it, but it was just the feeling I got from her whenever I brought him up.

“Don’t you think I would have told you every detail if he had?”

True. Ella would probably tell the whole school over the morning announcements. Or hire one of those skywriters to announce it to the entire town.

Much like the noisy airplane currently overhead that had just written out, Vanessa? Prom?

Distracted, I wasn’t watching where I was going and nearly tripped over Randall Hayworth. He was covered in some kind of blood and lying on the asphalt surrounded by a white chalk outline. He had a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand and a sign in the other that read, “Allison, I am dying to go to prom with you!”

“You’re going to get run over and actually need that chalk outline!” I told him, but he didn’t even acknowledge me as I stepped over his body. “Does he really think that’s romantic? No little girl dreams of the day a boy asks her to prom utilizing pig’s blood.” In fact, based on the horror movies Ella forced me to watch, pig’s blood and proms did not go well together.

Ella shrugged. “It’s not even original. Don’t you remember when his older brother did the same thing a couple of years ago? Only he staged it in his bedroom along with fake cops, crime scene tape, blood everywhere, and his mom sobbing. He nearly gave his girlfriend a heart attack.”

Jeez. No wonder other schools had started banning these things.

I heard Allison and Vanessa shrieking and squealing somewhere behind us as they accepted their promposals, all while being filmed.

“Listen to them,” Ella said with a sigh. “We won’t be that lame, will we?”

“Oh, please. Of course we will be. If we were horses, they would have to shoot us.” We would both be giddy and just as squealy and excited.

If it ever happened.

I caught our reflection in the front door. Ella and I looked like total opposites. Where she was petite, blonde, blue-eyed, and perfect looking, I was tall, curvy, green-eyed (literally, that was not a metaphorical statement), and currently sporting blue-purple hair. I claimed it was inspired by a specific pop star in her music video, but the truth was that the prom colors were purple and silver, and I wanted to match.

See? Super lame. Somebody would have to put me out of my misery.

“You know, it is the twenty-first century. You could just ask Jake,” Ella told me, causing me to almost trip over my own feet. Sexist as it might have seemed, girls did not do promposals at Malibu Prep. There had been a few who asked a guy to go, but then he still had to do something elaborate in front of everyone if he accepted. It was viewed as, like, a kind of consolation prize. There was no way I could ask Jake and still maintain some level of dignity.

“I’ll get on that as soon as you ask Trent.”

She gave me a look. “Be serious.”

Ha. “Hey, pot, the kettle wanted me to remind you what color you are.”

I heard a strange sound, like someone had just poured a huge bag of M&M’s into a giant bowl. I turned to see Ximena Veracruz surrounded by hundreds of Ping-Pong balls bouncing up and down. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide. She still had her hand on her locker door, as if she’d just opened it and been attacked by a Ping-Pong avalanche. A sign hung from the locker that said, “We’ll have a BALL at prom together!”

Ella sighed longingly, and I tried to downplay the gesture. “Attempting to clean all that up in the fifteen minutes before class starts kind of takes away from the romance of it all.”

Because while our headmistress, Ms. Rathbone, let the promposals take place, what she would not tolerate was a mess. I was trying to figure out whether Porter really wanted to take Ximena to prom or if he was trying to land them both in detention and banned from the dance. It was kind of ingenious, really. This way he got the credit for asking but might not have to actually go.

My sister tugged on my arm. “Come on. We’ll be late.”

Ella was my vice president, along with being captain of the cheerleading squad and spending more hours volunteering for various causes than any teen girl should. She had even gotten me involved with a tutoring program for elementary-age kids. Ella was the kind of girl who seemed like she got help cleaning our house from birds and chipmunks, and she was so often a pushover because she wanted to be kind. But when Ella wanted something, she did not mess around.

She’d volunteered to head up the prom committee in addition to all her other obligations. Which meant she did all the hard work, day-to-day stuff while I was the visionary whose plan she executed because I’m super generous like that. But it also meant that when she decided to have a prom check-in meeting, we all had to show up.

Outside of the student government room stood Parminda (Mindi) Kandhari and Victor Kim, my treasurer and junior class rep. Sucking face like it was the only way to get oxygen into their lungs. They were the weirdest couple. Victor was a straight A student, in all AP classes, and participated in the academic decathlon. He was always serious; in fact, I couldn’t remember a single time I’d ever seen him smile. Mindi, on the other hand, was all about having a good time. Well, as much of a good time as her very strict parents would allow her to have. She loved to laugh, dance, be as frivolous as possible, and was barely passing her classes.

As if she could read my thoughts, Ella said, “I still don’t get what those two have in common.”

“At the moment? A deep-seated interest in cleaning each other’s tonsils.”

“Ew.”

Ms. Rathbone walked by just then, and I wondered if Ximena was about to get yelled at. Without breaking her stride, the headmistress said, “Mr. Kim, Ms. Kandhari, unless one of you is in need of CPR, please desist with the public displays of affection. Thank you!”

Our headmistress’s words finally got them to stop. I kind of expected there to be some sort of seal-breaking suction sound when they pulled apart.

“Oh, hey.” Mindi gave us a little wave as she followed us into the classroom. Ella took out her phone and called the meeting to order right away. She ran through her list, making sure that everyone had done their assigned roles and that we were still on track.

I realized that neither Jake nor Trent had showed up, and they should have. Mostly because it was their responsibility as part of the student government, but also because they so obviously needed the reminder of their sacred duty to ask their girlfriends to the freaking dance.

Organizing this prom had been the biggest win for my presidency. As per my campaign promises, I’d also gotten us senior parking and casual Fridays. The board had refused to budge on the “healthy lunch” initiative, which made it so that we weren’t allowed to bring our own food from home and tried to force us to eat whatever garbage they were serving in the cafeteria. Which I still counted as a sort of win considering that it had led to a thriving black market of Twinkies and Snickers contraband.

I was determined to have my way for the prom, though. Because every single dance was a fund-raiser for Malibu Prep. Alumni would always attend. The dance was never just for the high schoolers to enjoy and let loose. Not to mention that it would be kind of hard to have a magical prom with your dad and his girlfriend (no matter how much you liked her) chaperoning.

I’d convinced the board to let this prom be strictly for the students. By teenagers, for teenagers. All we’d had to do was a million extra fund-raisers to make up for the lost funds.

So worth it.

I reached out for the dog-eared prom catalog on the table. I turned to my favorite page again. The theme of our dance was “Dream Come True,” which was so on the nose for how almost perfect my life had become. Since we didn’t have to worry about impressing adults, we could order all the cheesy decorations we wanted. A giant pumpkin-shaped carriage. A large clock about to strike twelve. A castle mural to put up on one wall. A cake shaped to match the mural castle. Centerpieces that would consist of calla lilies spray-painted silver in purple vases with castle confetti. Purple orchids hanging from live potted plants placed around the room. Actual paper streamers and balloon arches. I couldn’t wait to see it all come together.

Her list completed, Ella turned her phone off and thanked everyone for coming. But not everyone had come. It was unlike Jake to miss a meeting. But I knew I shouldn’t have been all that surprised that Trent hadn’t bothered to show up. Ever since he’d told us about his parents getting divorced, he’d basically cut off all contact with us. I hadn’t spoken to him in months, in part because he almost never came to school. Ella had some sporadic conversations with him that made her hold out hope because she couldn’t ever give up on anybody. I kept wishing he’d go back to being himself and stop ignoring my sister.

They hadn’t actually broken up, but sometimes it sort of felt like they had.

“Boys just do this,” Ella had said to me once. “When something scary like this happens in their life, they just kind of shut down emotionally. He’ll come around.”

It hadn’t happened yet.

One of the committee members had a question for my sister.

“Go on,” Ella told me. “I’ll catch up.”

As soon as I went out into the hallway, I felt an arm going through mine. I let out a sigh. I’d been trying to be a nicer person, like Ella. Less snarktastic. Which meant that Mindi now thought we were friends. Ish.

And my attempts at being kind were backfiring spectacularly.

Against me.

This was what I got for trying to improve myself. The saying was true. No good deed did go unpunished.

“Did I tell you what I figured out last night about Victor, my boyfriend?”

Since I was going for a kinder, gentler Mattie Lowe, I didn’t say what I wanted to. Which was, “Oh, Victor’s your boyfriend? I forgot because you hadn’t mentioned it in the last thirty seconds.” Instead I settled on, “What?”

“I realized what one of the best things about marrying Victor, my boyfriend, will be.”

No lie, when I had first met Victor, I seriously thought his name was Victor Myboyfriend. Because that was how Mindi always referred to him.

“You think you’re going to marry Victor?” I had to bite my tongue to keep from adding “my boyfriend” at the end of my sentence.

She nodded. “Definitely. And after Victor, my boyfriend, and I get married in a beautiful sunset beach ceremony, I’ll get to keep my initials.” At my blank expression, she continued, “Because both our last names start with a K.”

Taking my silence as consent to continue the conversation, she smiled at me. “He and I are going to have the cutest KorIndian babies.”

I was worried about getting a date to prom, and she was planning out her future wedding. We were not in the same headspace, and my brain filled up with unspoken insults. But I managed to keep all my sarcastic retorts to myself. Mindi wouldn’t get them, anyway. I’d be snarking up the wrong tree.

“I’m going this way!” she said. “Bye-ee!”

Must. Not. Mock.

A minute later, Ella arrived.

“The cavalry’s supposed to show up much earlier,” I told her.

She gave me a confused look and then held up her phone. “Now that I know the committee’s on track, the seamstress texted to let me know the alterations were going well.”

That made me smile. I had found the most perfect silver prom dress. The one I had known from a previous life. (Possibly. I was still fuzzy on the whole reincarnation thing and whether or not it existed.) My dress was like something out a movie, a big, full, fluffy skirt with a tight heart-shaped bodice covered in tiny crystals and sequins. And it was silver.

Yes, to match the dance.

“And I’ve confirmed our updos and mani-pedis.”

I blinked at her. “Was that English?”

“Can you please be a girl for five minutes?”

I twisted my lips together so I wouldn’t laugh. Thanks to having Ella in my life, I knew exactly what she meant. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get my hair done, though. Last time I’d gone to a salon with her they’d given me extensions, which I’d had to pull out myself. In part because they annoyed me, and the other part was because Jake liked running his fingers through my hair while he kissed me.

I was a very big fan of this.

“Five minutes? I guess I can be a girl for five minutes,” I said in an exaggerated tone. “I mean, if we even go to the prom.”

She nudged my shoulder. “Of course we’re going. The boys will come through.”

I made a quick wish that her optimism and faith in Trent wasn’t misplaced. That he would ask.

And that Jake would, too.