“And what do you love?” Grant asked. I looked up at him in surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you know, what’s your passion?” He held his fist out in front of me as if he was offering me a microphone. “Sasha Lawson—what do you want to be when you grow up?”
I leaned forward as if speaking into it. “Not sure yet.”
“Not sure, huh? I would’ve thought you had your entire future planned out by now.”
“Why’s that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re really focused. Killer grades, tons of extracurriculars. You just seem like the kind of girl who knows what she’s doing.”
“Then my master plan is working,” I said with a smile. “But no. I don’t.” It killed Granddad that I didn’t have a major picked out yet, much less a college. He claimed he decided to be a physicist when he was six years old, but that always sounded like an exaggeration to me. “What about you?”
“I’m enrolled at Loyola for the fall,” Grant said, naming a university only a few miles from where we lived. I was surprised he wasn’t venturing farther away from home. “But I’ve got no idea what I’m going to do there.”
We paused at the corner of Fifty-Fourth Street and South Kenwood. “Are you sure you want to walk me all the way home?” I asked.
“Sasha, it’s only a couple more blocks. I think I’ll live.” He squinted at me, as if he was trying to bring me into focus. “Are you trying to get rid of me or something?”
“No, no, it’s not that, it’s just …” I trailed off as we passed Ridgewood.
“Yes?” He drew the word out slowly.
“I’m confused,” I said. “You have literally never spoken to me before. Then today you show up out of nowhere and offer to walk me home? Was there something you wanted?”
He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “No, not exactly. But I …” He stopped and turned to look at me. I stared back, trying to read his mind, but it turns out that’s pretty difficult when you don’t really know a person. He seemed sincere, but guarded, too. He took a deep, bracing breath. “I graduate in like a month, and it’s making me think about all the things I wish I’d done differently.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” he confessed, averting his gaze.
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know!” He seemed to be retreating further and further into himself with every passing second. I’d never seen Grant look embarrassed or uncomfortable; this was a whole new side to him, a stark difference from his big man on campus persona. The moment was strange and intimate; I was starting to feel bad for giving him such a hard time. “You seem smart and cool, and you’re clearly pretty. I mean, you know you’re pretty, right?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He shuffled his feet. “Anyway, I just wanted to spend some time with you. Get to know you a little better.” He held up his palms in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not going to try anything funny, I swear.”
I laughed, and he relaxed visibly. “I believe you, I believe you. I’m sorry for making this so awkward. I just didn’t get it.”
Grant smiled, and my stomach did a dramatic flip-flop. We lapsed into silence, and as we continued walking the weirdness between us began to dissipate. I kept turning his words over in my head: I’ve been thinking about you. You seem smart and cool, and you’re clearly pretty. I wanted to barrage him with questions, get some more definitive answers, but even my admittedly limited experience with boys told me that wasn’t a very good idea.
When we were only a few yards from my house, Grant stopped again.
“Can I ask you something?” I nodded. “Have you thought about prom at all?”
What a ridiculous question—of course I’d thought about prom. It was all most girls in my class could talk about, now that it was only about a week away. But I hadn’t expected anybody to ask me and, sure enough, nobody had. I wasn’t terribly disappointed—there wasn’t even anyone in particular I wanted to go with—but I couldn’t deny that there was a part of me that wanted to go, if only to see what all the fuss was about.
“In what way?” I asked. Maybe that response was dense, but this whole experience was so odd; I knew that when I walked through the door of my house I would have a hard time believing it had even happened.
“Do you, maybe, want to, I don’t know, go with me?” He held my gaze so tightly that it was impossible for me to look away. His face was full of anticipation and dread, which baffled me. I couldn’t believe that Grant, of all the guys I’d ever known, was standing in front of me now, worrying about whether or not I would say yes.
“Really?”
“Or whatever. You’re probably going with someone else, or already have plans that night or something. You can say no, it’s okay.” He smiled as if to reassure me. “I promise to only be a little crushed.”
“That’s not fair!” I cried in mock-outrage. “You’re trying to guilt me into saying yes.”
“Is it working?”
“No,” I said. He took this as a rejection, and shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, but I knew it did. I rushed to clarify, not wanting the opportunity to slip out of my hands. “I don’t need to be guilted. I’d love to go to prom with you.” Overcome by another wave of awkwardness, I added a stilted, “Thank you for asking me.”
“My pleasure.” He grinned. “It’s going to be fun, I promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I told him, with a grin of my own. “Now I really have to go in.” Granddad was going to be so annoyed if I was late, and the last thing I wanted after this strange but happy afternoon was to be lectured on the merits of punctuality.
“Okay,” he said, handing me my bag. He started toward me as if he meant to hug me or something, then backed off just as quickly. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said. “See you.”
I turned and walked toward the house, pausing at the top of the porch steps to look back at him. He was still standing there, hands in his pockets, the wind ruffling his hair. He waved at me, and I waved back before disappearing over the threshold into the dark foyer beyond.
TWO
When it came to prom, one week was not an ideal amount of notice. First, there was the immediate obstacle of securing my grandfather’s permission. I’d never attended a school dance before, or even been on a date, so it was hard to predict how he’d react.
Granddad was at the kitchen table when I came down the next morning, hard at work on the daily crossword, a pair of rimless bifocals perched on the tip of his nose. Instead of greeting me like a normal person, he called out, “Eleven-letter word for ‘button seller.’ ”
“Hmmm. Try ‘haberdasher,’ ” I suggested, pouring myself a bowl of sugary cereal. I wasn’t a crossword whiz or anything, but I’d encountered the word recently in a book and had to look it up. This was a thing of Granddad’s. He liked to challenge me.
“Excellent,” he said, pleased.
“That’s a bit easy, don’t you think?” I teased, taking the seat across from him at the table.
“Well, it is only Tuesday,” Granddad muttered. He looked up, finally, and regarded me with mild suspicion. “It’s seven o’clock and you’re awake. Why do you look so cheerful?”
“Can’t I just be in a good mood?” The rosy haze of yesterday afternoon hadn’t yet completely faded. For once, I’d had a peaceful night’s sleep and woken up feeling happy and well rested. Of course I was in a good mood.