“You know, I do like being little spoon and he seems like a great big spoon. But that’s a whole other conversation. Are you gonna help me?”
Julia popped her trunk and they both tossed their bags inside. “Help you? I barely know you.” She reached for her sunglasses in the car’s cup holder, slipping them on even though it was grayer than usual today. Prom was supposed to be the last item crossed off the list, never date your best friend, and maybe it was dumb, but Julia hadn’t really thought about how Gretchen would affect that.
“Come on. I’ll buy you pizza if you help me scheme.”
“You think I’m going to whore out my brain for a few slices of pizza?”
“I absolutely do.”
“I hate how well you know me,” Julia said. Then she smiled at him, not even forcing it. That much. “Fine. Let’s plan ourselves a promposal.”
o o o
Julia and Dave sat side by side at a booth at Fratelli’s, a sheet of paper in front of them. It looked a little like the Nevers list, the same generic ruled notebook paper, both of their handwriting filling up the page, not necessarily sticking to the lines. The last slice of pizza sat uneaten on its tray, the cheese congealing to the stainless steel surface. The restaurant was starting to fill up, and a group by the door was eyeing the four-person booth they had been taking up for over an hour.
“I really don’t think I can afford that many rose petals,” Dave said.
“Fine. Then we buy however many you can afford and we stick them in a paper shredder.”
“That sounds like an awful idea.”
“How is rose-petal confetti an awful idea?”
“When you put it that way, it actually doesn’t sound bad.”
Julia loved this so much that she’d managed to ignore the fact that everything they were planning was for Gretchen. She got to be with Dave, sit with him, laugh, touch his wrist like she meant nothing by it. Moments like these could carry her until it was no longer necessary.
“What else can we do? This seems a little too low-key.”
Julia looked at their plan. “We’ve got the scavenger-hunt-esque buildup, the perfect location, the rose-petal confetti. I’m assuming if I try to suggest explosions you’re just gonna shoot me down again?”
“You know me so well.”
“What about music? No cheesy moment is complete without the swelling of an orchestra.”
Dave thought for a while. “I mean, Brett’s got a pretty solid set of speakers I could borrow.”
“You bring Brett’s crappy Best Buy speakers to this beautiful promposal I’ve planned out and I’ll never speak to you again. That’d be like bringing nail clippers to a gun fight.”
“Fine, what do you suggest, then? It’s not like I’m personally acquainted with an orchestra.”
They both turned to look at each other at the same time. She could love him just like this. It was enough for her, to be this close.
“Are we really?” Dave said, but his eyes weren’t wide with surprise. They were smiling, like he already knew the answer.
“We absolutely are,” Julia said.
“How?”
“What do you mean, how? You’re Dave the tree house builder, boyfriend of cute soccer girl with the blond waves. People at the school would give up their firstborns for you.” Julia took her phone out of her pocket for effect. “Oh, look, there’s a text from Christa Howards, renowned flutist and teen mom. She says she’s in and please don’t change her baby’s name.”
Dave laughed and looked off into the distance, his mind clearly on Gretchen, on how the night he was planning for her would play out. Julia grabbed the pen they’d been using and squeezed in the word orchestra in between two lines, then drew an arrow to show when the music would start to play, right after Gretchen saw Julia’s car, right before the kiss. Never pine silently, she thought to herself and smiled, because she was doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing. Not doing. Sometimes doing.