“Yeah, Ross asked me last night,” one girl said. “It was super sweet. He asked for help on our math homework, and under the final question, he wrote ‘Will you go to formal with me?’”
“Good for you, Ross,” my mom murmured, smiling. Her students didn’t just talk to her about grammar and The Great Gatsby. She had a way with them, a way that encouraged them to truly open up to her. Insisting they call her by her first name instead of “Ms. Hopper” was always an effective first step. She was a beyond-tough grader, but they adored her.
The freshmen soon noticed us. “Leda, guess what?!” they shrieked, and while she got all the exciting details, I pretended to listen along but really thought back to my own freshman formal. He’d called me, introduced himself as if we weren’t already acquainted, and then asked if I wanted to go with him in a nervous rush of words. “Yes, that would be nice,” I’d replied, and several weeks later, my gold dress had been splashed with salt water and sand by the end of the night. While walking me home, he’d raced me barefoot along the beach and I’d kissed him as soon as he’d caught me up in his arms. His lips had been warm despite the wind. “Tag,” I remembered whispering afterward, my smile so wide. Both of us were breathless.
“You’re it,” he finished for me, then laughed before I kissed him again and took off into the darkness, hoping he would follow.
I wish we could go back, I thought, the words a murmur in my mind. I wish we could go back to the very first night…
“Lily?” I blinked to see my mom looking at me. The freshmen were gone; they must’ve migrated toward the dining hall, but we hadn’t strayed from our route to the historic Hubbard Hall. My mom held the door open and ruffled my hair as I walked through it.
With soaring white columns, distinguished brick chimneys, and innumerable windows, Hubbard Hall looked like a mansion that once belonged to the last great American dynasty. It had a rooftop balcony and housed the Alumni Relations, Financial Aid, and College Counseling departments on the upper floors, but Ames’s student center ruled the ground floor. Leather couches and wing-backed armchairs and an array of Persian rugs created a lounge-like lobby, and every time you looked at the cream walls, you noticed something new. There was a rotating gallery of student artwork and Ames memorabilia from the library’s archives: old newspaper articles, photographs, and even antique school flags.
Beyond the lounge, the hall’s huge limestone fireplace was flanked by built-in bookcases and study nooks. To the left were the newspaper and yearbook offices and the mail room, and to the right was what everyone simply called “the Hub.” The little restaurant was the student center's main attraction. Vintage nautical lanterns hung over each booth, and the white beadboard walls held an impressive collection of black-and-white photos featuring generations of fishermen showing off their catches.
Oh, and the mouthwatering diner food. Everyone was always trying to squeeze in a quick bite between classes or during their free periods.
But only seniors and faculty were allowed to eat breakfast here. We pushed through the door to find the place packed. “Well, it’s a good thing I made special arrangements,” my mom said, leading me to a table in the back. I’d wager it was only empty because of a folded piece of paper that read, RESERVED!
My mother plucked it off the warm wooden table and slipped it in her tote bag, but the Hub’s head honcho was on us the second we got comfortable in our teak chairs. “Reservations are not allowed,” Josh said, all deadpan with a pencil tucked behind his ear.
“I will have cinnamon roll pancakes,” my mother replied brightly. “Please do not skimp on the vanilla frosting.”
Josh gave her a look. “Leda.”
She tilted her head and smiled. “Josh.”
I glanced around the Hub, not interested in listening to my mother and her boyfriend flirt today. It would sound like bickering to anyone else, but Leda was the ray of sunshine to Josh’s seriousness. Any true romantic would agree that they were a perfect match.
Half the boys’ lacrosse team had jammed themselves into a booth and were rehashing their recent playoff loss, cradling invisible balls in their invisible sticks. At the next table over, Zoe Wright caught my eye and threw up her arms. You lost! she mouthed. Get over it!
I smiled and shook my head, then spotted Tag Swell and Alex Nguyen sitting together at the counter. Alex was talking a mile a minute and taking colossal bites of his waffles while Tag strategically squirted ketchup all over his scrambled eggs.
Gross, I thought but continued to watch him with a pang in my stomach. He liked putting ketchup on everything.
“But like, are you sure?” Alex said. “Because…”
I rolled my eyes. They were most likely talking about Tag’s latest breakup. He and Blair Greenberg had gotten together last year, and their relationship had been a feast for the hypothetical tabloids. One second, they were stupidly in love, and the next, they were a hot mess, shouting at each other during Saturday night dances. The student body had been pretty much over the whole song and dance until Tag broke things off with Blair yesterday. “Who cares anymore?” we’d mumbled to ourselves, but the truth was, everyone cared. We all wanted to know what went down between them. Would this be the last time? The final time they went their separate ways? Or would they get back together in a couple days?
Because again, it was the tail end of Ames’s “senior spring.” With less than two weeks left in the term, we upperclassmen cared about approximately three things.
The prom was one of them.
And Tag Swell had dumped his girlfriend right beforehand, with no apparent rhyme or reason. “Yes, I’m sure,” he told Alex now. “I want to go with someone else.”
Who? I wondered at the same time as Alex said, “Who?”
Tag finally put down the ketchup bottle. “Well, isn’t it obvious?” He smirked at his best friend. “You, Alexander.”
Alex didn’t miss a beat; he raised his water glass in a toast. “It’d be my pleasure, Taggart. How do you feel about matching boutonnieres?”
A small lump formed in my throat. Tag and Alex’s bromance was one for the books; they were so close that sometimes they seemed like the same person. “We met in freshman algebra and just knew,” Alex once told me. “Whoever marries him is marrying me too.”
I’d punched him in the arm. “And she shall be the unluckiest of ladies!”
God, that had been ages ago.
Soon, I heard Josh sigh in defeat. My mom had worn him down for the morning. “Okay, Lily,” he said to me. “What would you like for breakfast? Your mom”—he looked at her with revulsion—“is having cinnamon roll pancakes.”
“I’ll take an orange juice, please,” I said as I unzipped my backpack and began digging around inside. “With a spoon on the side.” I emerged victorious with my jar of overnight oats. “I brought my own today.”
“Yes!” Josh snapped his fingers. It was ironic he ran the Hub because he was really a health nut. “This is what I’m talking about, Lil. I love to see it.” He faced my mom. “You should try eating something off your daughter’s menu.”
My mom folded her hands on the table. “For your information, she made a lovely chicken stir-fry last night. I helped with the prep work.”