Nineteen Stella’s, On Prom Night

When I get to Stella’s around five on Saturday, her mom is in the kitchen making lasagna and looking fly as hell in a pair of jeans and a nice kind of top. Mr. Zapata is kicked back on the couch with a can of soda in one hand and the TV remote in the other, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to be here.

Like all of this is some version of... normal.

“Hey, Daya,” he says. “Nice to see you.”

He does seem more genuinely happy to see me than he ever was in geometry last year. Mostly he never seemed to notice I was there.

I lift a hand and go, “Uh. Hey, Mr. Zapata.” It’s all I can think to say back to my math teacher, when he’s also the person getting busy with my best friend’s mom on the regular. That’s a mental image you can never erase.

“We’re just about to watch a movie,” he says. “Why don’t you girls join us?”

“Oh... cool,” I say, snagging a soda from the fridge. “I think we’re good, though.”

“It’s prom night, Mark,” Ms. Avila tells him sweetly.

“Oh. Right.” He shoots me a wink, adding, “I knew that.”

As I head back to Stella’s room, Mr. Zapata quietly adds, “They’re going to prom?” The note of surprise in his question follows me all the way down the hall.

Stella’s on her bed when I bust in.

“Hey,” she says, tapping away on her phone. “Gimme a sec. I’m working out the deets for tonight.”

My stomach twitches at the word deets. Her deets for the night will be very different from my deets.

Stella throws her phone down when she’s finished.

“You’re here! Show me the dress!”

“It’s not that exciting, I promise.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she says, stretching out on her bed. “Come on, Daya. I want to know what a lesbian going to Conversion Prom looks like.”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“I dunno. I mean, enjoy is such a strong word.”

She props herself up on her elbows and watches as I pull the dress out of my bag. I strip out of my jeans and T-shirt and slip it over my head as quickly as I can. It falls around me all cool and sensual—as if I needed any help feeling that way when all I have to do is think about spending the whole night near Beckett. Maybe sneaking off to the secret room she started to tell me about the other day.

“Dude!” Stella shrieks, sitting up again. “You look epic!”

“God, no, don’t say epic,” I tell her as she hops off the bed, grabs me by the wrist, pulls me out the door and down the hallway.

“Mamá! Look at Daya!”

Ms. Avila pulls off her oven mitts for some reason and comes around the kitchen counter to get a closer look. Mr. Zapata comes over too.

“Oh my goodness, Daya,” Stella’s mom says. “Don’t you look lovely!”

“Dude, I’m serious,” Stella says. “You. In this dress.”

Mr. Zapata clears his throat.

“You really do look nice, Daya,” he says. “But I understand how hard it can be to step outside your comfort zone.”

He smiles and winks, then goes back into the living room. Stella’s mom gives me a little squeeze and follows him. I mouth what the fuck to Stella, because I have no idea what kind of Nickelodeon-TV-family moment just happened here. Unless Stella’s house is the magic portal to an actual alternate, Nickelodeon-TV-family universe.

Back in her room, she gets pulled into a last-minute text flurry.

“I thought you worked it all out already,” I say.

“We did. My girl’s just showing me what her prom dress woulda looked like if we were going. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

She holds the phone out to me, shows me the selfie she just got. Valentina is smoking in some vampy, Jessica Rabbit–looking thing.

I go, “Damn.”

Stella pulls her phone back. “Like I said.”

She’s still drooling over that photo when B’Rad texts me to let me know that he’s getting off work.

just need to shower so I don’t smell like a wiener. I should be at Stella’s pretty quick.

don’t ever say “smell like a wiener” to me, ever again, I text back with a wink emoji. I do it just to bug him. Unlike me and Stella, B’Rad hates the emoji-verse.

“Tell Be Weird I said hey,” Stella says.

I stare at her like she’s lost her lesbian mind.

“Why you sweatin’ me about B’Rad?” I say. “Damn, woman, go get ready or something.”

The joke is that getting ready takes each of us less than five minutes. I already have my dress on—don’t need hair or makeup, no change of shoes since my dress is long enough to cover my sneaks. Stella just needs to change from her T-shirt to a button-down and throw a necktie around the collar.

“It isn’t too late to change your mind,” she says, fluffing up her hair in the mirror. “Girl, you know someone’s gonna want to nail you in that dress, and it ain’t gonna be Sister Mary Margaret. Maybe... Natasha?”

Not likely. Besides, maybe-Naomi is the last person I want anything from tonight.

“There’s room in the car,” she says, dangling the offer in my face like it’s the keys to a Lamborghini. “It’s not a sin to change your mind, Daya. And unlike prom, this party’s free.”

“My prom is free.”

“No, it ain’t,” she says, shaking her head like she thinks I’m an idiot.

Her phone pings a message.

“Valentina’s on her way. What about B’Rad?”

“Any minute,” I say.

She hooks her arm through mine.

“Even though I’m a sinner, and you’re going to the Good Place,” she says, “I still love you.”

“You’re a jerk.” I laugh. “But I love you too.”

Right on cue, B’Rad texts to say he’s out front, and Stella follows me out to meet him. On our way through the living room, Ms. Avila hops off the couch and gives us each a hug because this night is determined to be as awkward as fucking possible.

“You both look fantastic,” Mr. Zapata says. “I hope you save me a picture.”

Stella and I kick each other a look of confusion.

“Oh, no, Mark, they’re not going together,” Ms. Avila tells him.

Stella laughs out loud.

She goes, “Yeah, they wouldn’t let me take a girl as my date, so I’m going to a lesbian anti-prom party instead. Daya’s going to church prom, so she can tell her mom she found Jesus tonight.”

I elbow Stella in the ribs, and she yelps in pain, but I don’t care. She totally deserves it.

Mr. Zapata looks like he isn’t sure how to respond, so he just says, “Try and have a good time,” and Stella’s mom gives each of us an air kiss as she scoots us out the door.

B’Rad is waiting in the car, but the minute the front door clicks shut behind us, Stella yells out to him. “Dude. Get over here and work your strut!”

He steps out, comes around to the passenger side, and spreads his arms like a freaking condor, rocking the funkiest plaid suit I’ve ever seen. It’s... shiny.

“Damn, Be Weird!” Stella says, nodding her approval. “You look like you got hit-and-run by Christmas. I mean that in a good way.”

I reach over, rub the lapel between two fingers.

“Not too shabby,” I tell him.

“Man,” she says. “Who’d you ice this suit off of?”

“Ignore her,” I say.

“It’s raw silk.” He proudly pulls the front open to reveal a tag inside that means nothing to someone like me. “Check out the name on this label. It would have cost me a mint, too, even secondhand, except—” He holds his arms straight out in front of him, and now I can see that one of the sleeves is visibly shorter than the other. Not just by a little, but by several inches. B’Rad points toward his feet. “The pants are the same way. Lucian couldn’t move the damn thing, so he gave it to me for a song, including this shirt and these shoes.”

“You look dapper as fuck,” I say.

“Just lean to the left and no one will be able to tell.” Stella gives us both a nudge and adds, “Okay, well, you kids have fun tonight. But not too much fun, cuz you’re at church prom, so.” She starts to walk away, but then spins back. “Wait. Lemme snap a pic.”

B’Rad throws two thumbs-up and a huge smile at Stella. The best I can do is pained half-smile.

“I love what you’re wearing, Daya!” she calls out like she’s paparazzi.

“Enjoy it,” I tell her as I get in the car. “You’ll never see me in a dress again.”

As we pull away from Stella’s, B’Rad goes, “What’d I tell you? You look amazing.”

“So do you,” I say. “Sincerely.”

He turns the radio on and blasts the volume. We sing along to old-school hair-metal bands as we drive, head banging to Ozzy Osbourne until we’re almost there. Nothing but Christian radio comes in clear this far into Greenville, but Ozzy keeps trying.

A click or two from the soaring steeples of Grace Redeemer, B’Rad suddenly reaches out and turns the radio off. “It just feels weird, y’know... the whole Satan-worship thing. Here,” he adds, as if he needs to clarify.

“That’s really thoughtful of you,” I say.

We weave through the parking lot crowded with cars and prom goers, all dressed up fancy and walking toward the balloon-arched entrance. Two limos sit parked out front—one white, one black. I wonder who arrived in those.

B’Rad finally finds a spot, sets the brake, and cuts the engine.

“Don’t move,” he says, swinging his door open. “I’ll help you out.”

“Wait.” I grab his sleeve so he can’t move, and he slides back inside, closing the creaky door behind him.

He blinks at me. “What’s wrong?”

I take a long look around the parking lot, swarmed by real Great Wait kids, kids who faithfully go to Grace Redeemer or churches like it. Who believe everything they’re told here, not just the parts that feel right. Kids who think Pure Prom is the greatest thing since the Redemption Baptism Experience or whatever. I know I don’t fit in here. I know I don’t belong the way they belong, no matter what it says on Joanna’s coffee mug.

“Tell me it’s going to be okay,” I say. “Tell me I don’t have to be...” A cluster of Pure Prommers passes in front of the car. “... that. And I still get to have fun here tonight. Tell me no one’s going to laugh at me for wearing a dress—”

“Look,” he says. “I clicked the QR code on the ticket you sent me. You only have to wear the dress until midnight, okay? The dance part will be over then, and we’ll get to change. Like Cinderella. Except here, it’s nothing but fun and games till morning. And in the meantime? You get, like, all the free snacks your heart desires. And... you have... the sexiest prom date in the entire state of Arizona, in fact. And before you know it, it’ll be over, and you won’t ever have to do this again if you don’t want to. It’s gonna be fine.”

I take a breath.

“I’m right here,” he says. “I’ll be right by your side the whole time. Leaning to the left.”

That makes me laugh.

He grabs our bags from the back, then comes around and opens my door. I almost kill myself tripping over the hem of my dress getting out, but I guess a night that starts with a near-death experience can only get better from there, right? No need to take it as an omen.

I reach out, slide his arm through mine the way all these other guys do as they walk their dates across the parking lot. B’Rad squeezes my hand, and I suck in one more sweet breath of freedom before we cross under the balloon arch to go inside.