Instead he watched the stars come out. It felt silly, a bit too much like someone having an end-of-high-school epiphany, some big life lesson washing over him. Except it wasn’t really like that. He looked at the stars with a simple delight, the same way he looked out at everyone on the dance floor, or at the people standing along its perimeter: couples holding hands, friends getting emotional or behaving like they would any other night.
He spotted Julia walking out onto the field. She wasn’t in prom attire at all, just jeans and a T-shirt, her hair a brighter shade of pink than he remembered it. No shoes. He hadn’t expected her to come at all. She scanned the crowd a little, probably looking for some source of amusement. Dave imagined that if he was nearby, she’d crack some joke, funnier than anything he could come up with. He watched her cross the crowd toward the drink table, read her lips as she mouthed, Where the hell are the real drinks? He felt a momentary pang of longing to be at her side, but then it passed. Gretchen was chatting with Vince, but Dave could tell she’d noticed Julia coming in, too. She’d tensed up a little, the way she did when Julia said hi at school, those handful of times when they stood by making small talk. Gretchen had admitted to jealousy, but she’d insisted that she didn’t want Dave and Julia to stop being friends because of her. If it hadn’t been for Julia, the two of them might not be together at all.
Dave looked back up at the sky again and at the floodlights pointed down at the football field, casting everyone in an unflattering pale glow, blocking out all but the brightest stars. Music filled the night, coupled with the sound of hundreds of people talking and laughing, living their young lives in tired, unoriginal, and completely unimaginable ways.
o o o
Dave tapped Julia on the shoulder. “May I have this dance?”
Julia turned around, her brow furrowed. Then she saw who it was and relaxed into her usual deadpan. “Dude, I am about to throw up on you.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
Julia shrugged. “Figured I’d stop by and check it out. Skipping prom because it’s lame is kind of a high school cliché.”
Dave smiled at her. “Would a hug be weird?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, stepping close and pulling him in. They squeezed each other tightly and briefly, letting go at the same time. “By the way, have you seen Marroney around? It’s embarrassing to be here without my date.”
“I think he went to go make the hotel reservations.”
“I hope he’s getting the honeymoon suite like I asked.”
Dave laughed and picked at the label on his water bottle. “I never thanked you for talking to Gretchen.”
Julia bit her lip and looked away. He could see her toes digging into the carpet. The band finished a song and awkwardly transitioned into the next one, false-starting a few times before the drummer counted up to four and got them going on a slower cut, one where the electric violinist could finally be heard over the other instruments. “You’re welcome,” Julia finally said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “You would have done the same for me.” She quarter-turned to face the stage so Dave could barely see her profile. “If Marroney had seen us, that is.”
He thought he saw tears welling up in Julia’s eyes, but then she turned away, grabbing a bottle of water from the table. She opened it, then held it up in the air between them, as if she were toasting a glass of champagne. “To the fire in our hearts,” she said with a smile.
They watched the rest of the song play out, Dave turning every now and then to look at Gretchen, to reassure her with a smile and a wave. Then Leslie Winters, the class president, came onstage. She was wearing a baby-blue tuxedo, her hair molded into a fauxhawk and dyed to match her outfit. Dave and Julia exchanged a look and shook their heads in silent recognition of the fiasco in Julia’s bathroom. Julia’s hair was in a simple ponytail, with those two strands looped around her ears the way they always were. “Did you dye your hair again?”
Julia actually blushed. “Shit, you noticed.”