Will Work for Prom Dress by Aimee Ferris Page B

foot-high letters PROM, QUIGLEY? not adorned the bottom of the shot.
    A sinking feeling hit me as I turned to see David, standing at his table and pulling the identical roses out of his backpack.
    “Well?” he asked with a cocky grin that let everyone in the room know he already knew my response would be yes. Before I could open my mouth, the class burst into applause and laughter. David took a little bow with a hand flourish. One of the guys got up to slap David on the back in congratulations. Even Mrs. Albertt smiled and offered David a little golf clap for his cleverness.
    I felt a sudden rush of sisterhood with every woman in the world who has ever cluelessly attended a major sporting event, only to be surprised during halftime or the seventh-inning stretch by an unwelcome and very public scoreboard proposal. And like so many of my sisters, I caved to the peer pressure of what seemed like a thousand expectant faces and plastered on a fake smile while tightroping around how to pass without destroying the asker and ruining the enthusiasm of everyone involved.
    If anyone had the strength to outright refuse the offer while surrounded by so many witnesses, well, it wasn’t me. Instead of verbally accepting, which would have been too much like lying, I walked over and gave David a little half hug and took the flowers, setting off a chorus of “Woooooooo”s until Mrs. Albertt admonished the class to bring our attention back to photography.
    How had I spaced this? It had long been a tradition for seniors to compete in outdoing the rest of the class by coming up with crazy schemes to ask their crushes to prom. Just that morning, the letters on the backlit school sign at the parking lot entrance had been rearranged by a hopeful prom-goer asking her boyfriend to the dance. I never expected something like this from David so soon.
    I kicked myself for not calling Anne and filling her in on the Zander developments immediately; she could have stopped this mess for me. I’d been so swept into the romance and thrill of Zander’s kiss and declared interest, I wanted to protect the feeling and savor it untarnished before risking my best friend “Anne-alyzing” it. Big mistake. As it was, she’d probably encouraged David through T-Shirt, thinking she was doing me a favor.
    I practically flew out the door when the bell rang.
    “Quigley, wait up,” David said.
    “English exam,” I called over my shoulder and kept moving.
    It was a good thing David didn’t know me better, or he’d never have bought my eagerness to get to class. As it turned out, neither did Mrs. Desmond.
    “Quigley? What a surprise, you’re early. This is good, I needed to have a word with you in private.”
    I walked in the classroom and slumped into a desk in front of her podium, stuffing the roses under my seat.
    “Look, you’re a good kid. You come on time and never miss an assignment. But you’ve got to start pulling your academic weight in this class. If you don’t do well on the final, you’ll be dangerously close to failing the course. I don’t know what school you have in your sights, but it is not unheard of for universities to uninvite already accepted students.”
    “Yes, Mrs. Desmond.” I decided not to point out that being uninvited wasn’t a worry in my case. I wasn’t exactly the queen of prefixes, but I knew enough to see it was hard to get uninvited when you were never invited in the first place.
    “I normally don’t do this, but I want to give you a break. Would you be interested in some extra-credit work?”
    I stifled a groan. “Sure, thank you.”
    “Don’t look so worried. This is actually more creative than the technical work we’ve been doing lately. I’ve heard you have quite the talent for art, so maybe this will appeal to your right-brain mind-set.”
    She handed me a little booklet.
    “Every year, the local Rotary Club invites each school in the state to submit one motivational speech from a student.” She pointed