She squealed into the microphone, making everyone wince from the reverb.
“If I call your name, you should come down here and take a Royal Rose!”
“Dear God,” Toby whispered. “It’s like being at a reality television taping.”
I laughed.
Cassidy shushed us, enthralled.
“The nominees for queen.” Tiffany went on, naming Jill Nakamura; Charlotte Hyde; Sara Sumner, who ran that obnoxious clique of Charity League girls who pretended they lived in beachfront mansions in Back Bay; and Anamica Patel.
I winced when she called Anamica; it was one of those cruel games Charlotte liked to play, telling everyone to nominate someone as a joke, and Anamica was undoubtedly that year’s target. Anamica was a bit too focused on earning straight As, but she didn’t deserve to have her name hooted laughingly by the assholes sitting in the back of the senior section.
“That’s awful,” Cassidy whispered as Anamica accepted her Royal Rose, her face bright red.
“And now, the nominees for king,” Tiffany continued, once the hooting had died down. “Evan McMillan.”
Evan sauntered up there and hoisted the rose over his head like it was a prize.
“Jimmy Fuller.”
Jimmy fist pumped.
“Luke Sheppard.”
Luke tried to act as though he was too cool for it, although you could see the triumph on his face.
“And Ezra Faulkner.”
I froze. The gym seemed to go silent, and all I could think was, Oh God, I’m Anamica Patel. I’m the joke vote.
I have no idea how I got from my seat to the center of the gym, but suddenly there was a rose in my hand and the whole school was rising up around me like I was some doomed gladiator.
When I sat back down, Toby was laughing.
“Good thing you already own a suit,” he said.
“Shut up,” I whispered wretchedly, wishing that everyone would stop staring.
BY THE TIME lunch rolled around, I was thoroughly confused by what had happened: whether it was a joke, or residual pity, or something else entirely. Whatever it was, nearly half of my math class congratulated me as though the nomination was something to be proud of, rather than embarrassed about.
It felt strange, like all of those party invitations I’d turned down had been genuine, as though it didn’t matter that I could barely handle stairs and was dating a girl on the debate team and spent my weekends studying for AP classes with Toby Ellicott.
“Congrats,” I told Anamica after math class, since it seemed like the thing to do, the both of us sitting there with roses wilting on our desks.
“Not you, too.” Anamica glared at me, like she suspected I was making fun of her.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“I get it, Faulkner. Your evil popular crowd voted for me as a joke. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“My evil popular crowd?” I wondered if she’d somehow missed the memo that the throne had been usurped months ago. I’d thought we were in the same situation, Anamica and me, awkwardly navigating through a day that had showered us both with unwanted and embarrassing attention. But clearly she didn’t see it that way.
“Just leave me alone,” she warned, tossing her rose into the trash.
THERE WAS A strange but unmistakable tension at our lunch table that afternoon. I’d never been in direct competition with Luke before, and I had the distinct sense that he didn’t like it, that he felt as though we were adversaries who had finally been pitted against each other.
Toby was oblivious to the tension as he gleefully explained our school dances to Cassidy: the way we all had to pose for a photographer who set up his backdrop in the weight-training room, how our teachers stood awkwardly against the walls of the gym, appalled at the music and the dancing.
“It’s hilarious,” Toby assured her. “All of the girls wear tacky satin dresses covered in rhinestones, and all of the guys come up behind them and freak dance.”
“Freak dance?” Cassidy raised an eyebrow.
“You know, rub their junk on them trunks?” Toby explained in an attempt to be gangster that made me choke on my iced tea.
“Can we please do that?” Cassidy asked me. “And you have to take me out to dinner somewhere awful, with unlimited breadsticks or a soda machine.”
“I think the guy’s supposed to ask the girl to the dance,” I told her.
“Oh.” Cassidy’s face fell as she considered this. “Well, don’t worry, I’ll act surprised when you ask me.”
I laughed.
“It’s a plan,” I promised.
“Ugh, hide!” Toby muttered, and it took me a moment, but then I saw what he was talking about. Charlotte Hyde was heading straight for our table—alone. Her ponytail was golden in the sun, and she smiled like she knew everyone was watching.
“Ezra,” she purred. “Come over to the table for a sec.”
The table. As though there was only one in the entire quad.
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
Charlotte examined the end of her ponytail, annoyed.
“It’s a homecoming thing. We need you.”
I sighed and got up, figuring it was best to get it over with quickly. Luke stood as well, presuming the invitation had included him. Charlotte raised an eyebrow.
“Not you,” she told him, grabbing my arm and steering me away.
Charlotte popped her gum and smirked up at me, stroking my sleeve. She smelled the way she always did—a combination of scented lotion and lip-gloss and fruity gum that gave the overwhelming impression of artificial strawberries.
“Your jacket’s cute,” she said as we walked toward my old lunch table. “I can hardly keep my hands off it.”
“Cassidy picked it out.”
Charlotte abruptly took her hand away.
“You’re taking her to the dance, aren’t you?”
“She’s my girlfriend, Charlotte.”
We arrived at the table then, everyone looking up.
“Dude,” Evan said, grinning. “The badass trio on the homecoming court. We’re fuckin’ kings.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the point of a homecoming court was that there would only be one king. So I smiled and said, “Yeah, totally.”
“Oh my God.” Jill rolled her eyes. “I lol’ed so hard when they called Anamica. And then Luke, what a joke.”
“I know.” Charlotte giggled. “He still has braces.”
I stood there uncomfortably, wondering if anyone would dare to admit that I’d only been nominated out of pity, until Evan pulled me aside and explained that they were all getting a hotel suite after the dance. There would be Beer Pong, and afterward, a party in the hot tub. He wanted to know if I was in.
“For what?” I asked, figuring he couldn’t really mean that they were inviting me—and my date—to get plastered with them at the Four Seasons.
“A couple hundred bucks. Maybe more if we get a Hummer limo.”
Evidently, he really did mean it. Evan actually thought I wanted to pay for the prestige of co-hosting what would no doubt be a hot-tub mess of a party.
Somehow, I managed to make my excuses and extract myself from their lunch table.
“Hey,” I said sheepishly when I sat back down with my friends.
“What did they want?” Luke asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Nothing. Limo share.”
But I could tell that he didn’t believe me.
I ASKED CASSIDY to the dance while we were studying with Toby in the Barnes and Noble café the next afternoon. I had the barista write it on her coffee.
When Cassidy saw it, she grinned.
“Why, deary me,” she drawled in an overwrought southern accent, “a gentleman caller wantin’ to escort me to the dance.”
“We’ll have dinner at Fiesta Palace,” I promised. “You can order chips in a sombrero and there’s a guy who comes around and makes balloon hats with the mariachi band.”
“Why, Mr. Faulkner,” she said, still using that ridiculous accent, “that sounds positively delightful.”
And then Toby acted disgusted when we kissed.
Cassidy’s phone rang with some secretary confirming an appointment (“The dentist’s office,” she whispered, making a face), and when she went outside to deal with it, I asked Toby whom he was taking to the dance.