Fifteen The Girls’ Bathroom

I don’t know what time it is, only that it’s wicked-early and I’d rather still be asleep than almost anything else in the world. But I’m also freezing, and I have to pee, and there’s no way I’m dropping trou out here on B’Rad’s pontoon boat. Unlike Stella, I have not mastered the art of peeing standing up.

B’Rad rolls onto his side and throws one arm over my waist. He’s not exactly snoring in my ear, just breathing slow and deep, like maybe he hasn’t slept this well in a while.

Sounds of his granddad shuffling around float toward us from inside the house: a slamming door, the TV coming on. It’s How I Killed Your Mother—I recognize the theme music instantly. Joanna binged that show for two whole weeks last winter when she was stuck at home with strep throat.

The narrator’s voice drifts into the yard, and B’Rad mumbles, “Man, I really hate that morbid shit first thing in the morning.”

“What time is it?” Stella asks through a yawn.

“Six thirty,” he says, sucking in his sleep drool. “The train to Phoenix just cut through town.”

I look to see if Joanna checked up on me last night, but my battery’s completely dead. I have no idea how much trouble I’m in, but I’m guessing it’s a lot. I’m guessing I’ll know for sure as soon as I get my phone juiced again.

“Anyone have a charger?” I ask.

“Yeah, how do you power your shit out here, Be Weird?” Stella asks, sniffing her armpits. “I don’t hear a generator running.”

“I just charge my phone in the bathroom at school,” he says, taking Stella’s cue and checking his armpits as well.

“What about for other stuff?” she presses. “You must need electricity for something?”

“I siphon it off from the old man when I really have to. There’s always an extension cord lying around.”

“Cool, cool,” Stella says, nodding. “So, how do you make breakfast without a burner, or, like... a microwave?”

Even under interrogation, B’Rad is as cool as a roll of Mentos.

“I have food,” he tells her. “I just avoid keeping things on the boat that need to be cooked or refrigerated.”

“Yeah, I bet shit goes bad fast out here.”

“That, plus wild creatures.”

“Ah. Good point.”

I clear my throat.

“If you guys are hungry, I know where we can eat for free,” I say, wiping my sweaty palms on the sides of my pants.

“I’m in. Let’s go.” Stella grabs her bag without asking for details, even though—as B’Rad likes to say—details matter.

He goes, “Hold up. No such thing as a free meal. Where is this glory hole of food, Daya?”

I swing between them a few times, long enough for the curtain to flutter and give Stella a glimpse at the reality behind it.

“Oh no,” she says, holding up her hands. “No, I take it back. No way in hell.”

“I knew it,” he says.

“She’s trying to rope us into going to that indoctrination meeting with her. The answer is no, Daya. It always was no. It will always be no. I’m not selling my soul for a maple bar.”

I turn to B’Rad—all my hopes are pinned on him now.

“Sorry, Daya. You know Morales gives me the leftovers without making me sit through all that in Jesus’s name stuff first.”

“You guys suck,” I tell them, but shame is still not enough to persuade either of them to change their minds.

For a second, he does look like he feels sorry for me.

He goes, “I’ll save you one.”

“It’s not the same,” I tell him as we roll up the sleeping bags.

Stella folds the aluminum foil blanket and hands it to him.

He says, “Don’t be bitter, Daya. I’m still going to their prom thing with you. If that’s not a sacrifice in the name of friendship—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stella says. She holds a flat-palmed hand in front of him but aims her question at me. “You guys are going to Conversion Prom together?”

I flash a look of panic at B’Rad, silently begging him not to spill our tea. Namely, that I’m going to Pure Prom so I can stroke my fantasy of being at prom with Beckett, and he’s taking me because he wants a fun prom experience on the cheap.

“It’s complicated,” I say, as B’Rad adds, “I’m broke as fuck, but I really want to go.”

Stella swings on me. “Please tell me you’re not one of them now.”

“Uh, never,” I tell her. “This is nothing more than a good old-fashioned prom experience on a very lean budget. And, seriously, you could go with us—”

“My dudes, don’t you get it? They want to indoctrinate you,” Stella says. “Both of you. But mostly you,” she adds, tipping her chin in my direction.

“I’m not that gullible. Besides, think about it like this. We could actually infiltrate Pure Prom, you know? Like moving the canned vegetables around at Fool City, only... better.”

“Not on the coldest day in hell,” she says as we head to the car. “Besides, I’ll be at the impure prom, down at the country club, with Valentina.”

“Wait, I thought you couldn’t afford it.”

“I couldn’t,” she says, climbing into the back seat, while I slide in up front. “But Valentina can.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, Daya. Maybe she got a GoFundMe. The point is, when the hottest girl at school tells you to just show up looking fly and not worry about a thing... what’s a bitch supposed to do?”

I don’t stand a chance in hell against whatever’s burning between Stella and Valentina Orozco these days.

As we head to school, Stella pulls out her phone and goes, “Let’s check out this whole Grace Redeemer situation. Y-O-U-T-U-B-E...”

“You’re not going to find anything—” I start to say.

But Stella goes, “Are you serious right now—there’s a paywall? You can’t even watch their videos for free? Since when did finding God become pay-to-play?”

“Grace Redeemer will set you free,” B’Rad says. “But it’ll cost ya.”

Stella laughs.

“I get it,” I tell them. “You’re both hilarious.”

“I don’t think you do,” Stella says. “Here, wait—I’m in.”

She flips the video she found so we can both see it and turns up the volume. It’s from summer camp last year. From the announcements at church on Sunday, camp is basically a two-week-long, nonstop concert with all the faith-based extras.

“That’s fresh,” B’Rad says. “Is that BTS?”

“Not unless BTS is singing about salvation these days,” Stella tells him. “Look at all those hands in the air, Daya. Jazz hands for Jesus.”

“It’s called praise hands,” I say.

“Man.” She shakes her head. “This is some high-production-value brainwashing.”

“I’d totally be their target audience based on the music alone,” B’Rad says. “You couldn’t tell me this was religious music, it’s that subliminal.”

“Come on, man,” Stella huffs, mashing buttons on her phone. “Their stupid server keeps dropping me. What if I was having a deeply emotional religious experience, and I kept getting dropped?”

“Yeah,” B’Rad says. “What message does that send?”

“Okay,” I say. “I get the point.”

“This is such a joke, Daya. Seriously, why don’t you just go to prom with us? You can spend the night in style. Dinner at the boathouse. Dancing at the golf club. Chilling with the life of the party—moi. Definitely not gonna be boring.”

“Yeah, well... not everyone has a sugar mama.”

The parking lot at school is pretty much empty when we get there. B’Rad takes the closest spot, sets the brake, and cuts the engine. He throws his arm over the back of the seat and turns.

“Hey, so... that matches game we played last night?” he says. “Let’s just keep all that between us, if you don’t mind.”

Stella looks over at him, and says, “Sure, man. What happens on the boat stays on the boat.”

He turns to me.

“You know I’m down,” I say.

“Thanks.”

“So,” Stella says. “What’s the hot Conversion Prom fashion trend this year?”

The question hits me like a blast of nitro. I look at B’Rad and he looks at me, and I go, “Shit, am I gonna need a dress?”

B’Rad pops the side of his head with his open palm as Stella spurts, “A what?”

“You guys. I don’t have threads for something like this.”

“What you need is a personal shopper,” B’Rad says, and the three of us exchange glances like a trio of comic book villains.

Stella drama-shakes her head. “Nope. Not me. I am not that person.”

I swing to B’Rad.

“I’ll be real with you, Daya. I’m probably not your best option either.”

“Please, B’Rad. I’m literally begging you.”

“It’s not a good look for her,” Stella adds.

“It’s Thursday already, I need help.”

“Okay,” he says. “No stress. We’ll figure something out.”

“Be Weird’s picking you out a prom dress,” Stella snickers as we hit campus. “Man, I can’t wait to see those pictures.”

It’s still pretty early—just us and the custodians at school. I don’t see them, but I know they’re here because the bathrooms are already unlocked.

We say goodbye to B’Rad just before the 300 wing and duck into the girls’ room to charge our phones and clean up a bit.

Stella pulls out a super-short cable and a splitter and plugs us in.

“How do you just happen to have a splitter?” I ask her, wetting some paper towel and wiping down as much of myself as I can.

“You’d be surprised how often girls’ phones go dead, and no one ever has a charger.” She throws me an emoji-smile.

“And the extra-short cable keeps someone you’re interested in just close enough to get sweet on you?”

“There you go, Daya. Now you’re thinking like a fuck-boi!”

“Okay, fuck-boi,” I say, throwing my paper towels away. “Spill the tea about prom. How did this all happen?”

I hand her a few damp paper towels, drop my bag on the floor, and slide down the wall until I’m on top of it.

“It’s no big deal. Me and Valentina were hanging out, and she was basically like, Come to prom with me. So. That’s it. We’re going to prom.”

“I don’t know, Stells. It’s not your cousin Yoli’s quincea?era, y’know? No one cared if we danced together that night because we were, like, eleven. And we had dresses on.”

“Valentina will have a dress on. For a while.”

I pull my hoodie up so I can tip my head back against the grungy wall without actually touching it.

“Prommin’ for Jesus,” Stella says with a snicker.

“Please stop,” I say.

She goes, “Man, I’m serious, just go to prom with us.”

“I really can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” she says. “You can always choose other. Man, if my mom said I had to go to something like that, I’d tell her to snort it.”

“Your mom would never tell you to do something like that, because your mom doesn’t think you’re broken. Besides...” This is probably a huge mistake, but I’ve got to come clean with her, at least about this part. “Joanna’s not making me go.”

Stella’s mouth jacks open. “You volunteered for Conversion Prom? Girl, did you hit your head or something?”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” I tell her.

“Well, good, ’cause I don’t, and I never will.”

“Fine. We don’t always have to agree on everything.”

“Praise the goddess,” Stella says with a laugh.

“But you don’t have to be all like that about it.”

Stella takes a slow breath through her nose, then closes her eyes. When she opens them again, there’s not even a nano-hint of a joke in them.

“Can I tell you how close I came to being forced into a summer camp for ‘reprogramming’? By my asshole stepdad? Who went to Grace Redeemer?”

I stare at her with my mouth open, and she stares back with the weight of a newly told secret in her eyes.

“Why...” I try to corral my scattered thoughts. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shakes her head, her mouth twisting up like she’s fighting not to cry. “If a tree falls in the woods, and you pretend it never happened... did it?”

“Well, fuck,” I whisper, laying my head on her shoulder just as my phone powers on. I check my charge to see how much juice I have now—it’s enough to hold me till lunch, if I’m super careful. But there’s nothing from Joanna. No voicemail. No text. That’s not a good sign, considering I took off after a fight last night, never came home, and never told her where I was.

The bathroom door swings open and Lucy Davis strolls in. She stops hard when she sees me and Stella, looks down at us sitting on the bathroom floor. With a laugh and a shake of her head, she swings into the handicapped stall at the far end.

Stella bounces forward like she’s about to jump Lucy right inside that stall, but I grab her by the arm and shake my head no. Neither of us needs to borrow that kind of trouble right now, not this close to prom. And besides, Lucy Davis isn’t worth getting in trouble over.

Instead, I whisper, “Let’s go.”

She pops her charger out of the wall and we scramble to our feet.

On the way out, Stella kick-bangs the bathroom door open. The sound is definitely loud enough to startle someone’s pee stream if they weren’t expecting it.

She wanders off to wait for Valentina while I head toward room 333. It’s weird showing up at Great Wait this early. No one’s here yet, not even Nestor or Alexa. No Beckett. No buffer at all against the likelihood that Lucy Davis will be the next person to walk through the door, since I know she’s already at school. I take a seat in the back, keep my eyes open and my attention sharp.

To my surprise, Beckett shows up first. Her smile breaks loose when she sees me. She slides in next to me, leans in close.

“Hi,” she whispers.

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Good. I mean, fine.” Not really. But she doesn’t need to know the real answer is complicated. I don’t want to muddy the memory of how it felt in my room yesterday. When we kissed. When I kissed Beckett Wild.

When shekissed me.

She drops the volume another click and goes, “So, can we talk about what happened yesterday?”

Shit.

Shitshitshit.

I brace against what I know is coming. How she regrets kissing me. How she has second thoughts and wants to recommit to her purity. How her parents found out, and she’s grounded for life, and she can’t even go to prom now thanks to me. Wouldn’t that be some shit? Me, going to Pure Prom and Beckett not even being there?

“I don’t mean any disrespect,” she whispers. “But your mom was a total bitch.”

I hit pause on my own thoughts so they can catch up with what she just said.

“No wonder you started calling her by her first name,” Beckett adds.

I’m reeling. I thought... when she said can we talk... it would be about the part where we kind of broke her purity promise.

She shakes her head again like she still doesn’t get it, so I just go, “I’m not supposed to have people in my room when she’s not home. I’m not supposed have... girls in my room. It makes her uncomfortable.”

“So how much trouble are you in?”

“I don’t know yet, honestly.”

I leave out the part where, on top of getting caught with Beckett in my room, I also split, then spent the night with B’Rad and Stella. I have no idea what the fallout from all that is going to look like.

“But you’re here,” she says. “So does this finally mean...”

Her lips twitch like they’re fighting a smile, the corners of her mouth lifting just so much. She kissed me the same way yesterday—smiling into it. Into me.

God... why does everything have to be so complicated?

“Does this mean you’re actually coming on Saturday?” she whispers.

“Is it cool with you if I do?”

Her eyes lock on to my mouth, then drift away. But she’s still smiling.

“Maybe I can show you around. There’s this top-secret room where they keep—”

The door flings open, and more people start showing up now. Nestor. His VP, Alexa. A few others I sort-of recognize, even if I don’t know their names. Beckett watches, smiling, as they file past. Only it’s not a real smile anymore. It’s a fake smile for a fake audience. For an invisible camera hidden somewhere that she’s been conditioned to fake happy for.

Lucy pops up for the second time this morning, like an unwanted clown at a kid’s birthday party. Just “there” enough to be terrifying.

“Hey, girl.” She leans in and gives Beckett a peck on the cheek, which Beckett returns.

Then Lucy leans in close to me. So close I can tell what flavor toothpaste she uses.

She goes, “I don’t see your friend here. Should we add her to our prayer list?”

Beckett toggles between me and Lucy a couple times before asking, “What friend?”

But I just go, “She doesn’t need any prayers.”

“Oh. Because it looked like she did when I saw you guys on the bathroom floor earlier.”

Beckett watches us like she’s trying to work out a math problem.

“Yeah,” Lucy adds. “The last time I saw someone on the bathroom floor, it was Andrea Randall and she’d just OD’d, so. We prayed for her.”

I kind of want to slap her right now.

By the time the band starts playing and Nestor comes forward to ask us to bow our heads in prayer, I’m all the way over playing nice with Lucy Davis.

“Lord, we pray that You help us honor our commitment to humility and purity, Father.”

I can’t do it. I can’t sit here praying for humility after getting bathroom-checked by some bitchy girl who talks shit out of one side of her mouth and quotes the Bible out of the other. And I can’t pray for purity with the echo of Beckett’s lips against mine still pulsing all around us. Kissing her was the purest thing I’ve ever known.

As Nestor and Alexa go through the updates committee by committee, Cason and Javi whisper the play-by-play of their soccer game last night, and every few minutes Lucy tells them to shut up.

I can’t keep my attention on any of the committee reports—not with Beckett sitting next to me, a modest hole near the knee of her jeans, the tease of skin just peeking through it. Clusters of freckles on her forearm that look like constellations. The fluid way she moves, like she’s underwater. Not everyone moves easy that way. Some people go through the world like they’re walking against a hurricane, but not Beckett. That’s all I care about right now. Not whether Games and Activities went fifty dollars over budget.

And I really don’t care if Lucy Davis wants to pray for Stella, much less if she feels threatened by me because she has some weird hetero-crush on her best friend.

I decide to skip the donut part of the meeting since B’Rad already said he’d share with me later. I do want to ask Beckett about getting together to work on our project, but definitely not with Lucy standing right there.

I slip away as everyone else pushes toward the piano, and text B’Rad, asking him to meet me right after homeroom.

The next forty-five minutes pass agonizingly slow, but luckily B’Rad is standing right outside the door after homeroom with the donut box already open. I take two.

“I was about to cut someone, I’m so hungry.”

“Didn’t you eat anything at the meeting?” he asks.

“Short answer? No.” I go full Jaws on a maple bar, adding, “Dude, you’re still glazed.”

“Shit.” He wipes sugar flakes off the corner of his mouth.

“So, are we on for dress shopping after school?” he asks.

I groan. “I mean... yeah? Just don’t ask me where to go because I’ve never had to buy a dress before.”

“Let’s start with, where do you usually shop?”

“Savers. Or Value Village.”

“So, you’re looking for something vintage?” he asks.

“Dude, no. I’m literally looking for the cheapest dress possible, because I’m planning to ritually burn it the second it comes off. I don’t even care what it looks like, honestly.”

B’Rad snorts, and the tardy bell screeches from right above us.

“I’m having thoughts,” he says as we scatter off to class. “Meet me in the parking lot at three.”

I want the same forty-five-minute crawl of homeroom to last the rest of the day. Because the longer it takes for three o’clock to roll around, the longer I can put off spending the afternoon shopping for some hideous Daya-in-drag version of a dress.

But I can’t.

Prom is in two days.

I’m literally out of time.