My Wonderful Disgrace

AMY'S JOURNAL—MONDAY
So. The ball is five days away, which is either a long time or no time at all, depending on how ready you are. And you know me. I prepare. Spent most of today workshopping hair; have chosen a half-up-half-down with a bit of braiding and sooo many hairpins but it totally works and honestly, six hours later it’s still holding up. Dress is in the closet and every so often I open the door and just touch it because PRETTY. I also practiced shoe-wearing today, identified where they bite so I know where to stick the gel Band-Aids (basically everywhere). Went to the mall, purchased gel Band-Aids. Also purchased a new highlighter sparkle stick just like Bianca’s, even though she said I could borrow it and I can’t really afford one. (This is not summer camp. Germs.) Appetizers are sorted, limo is booked, presentation speech is ready to go. So truly, Everything Is Awesome.
Except.
I have no date. Which is totally not awesome and is completely and categorically effed up. Nobody asked me. No one. Not even Bevan! Yes I’ve ignored/rejected him for six years, but we’re still friends, and it would have been so adorably sweet for him to ask me to the ball. Lucky he didn’t, to be honest; in my current state I may have actually said yes. Because you don’t dream about your school ball for your entire life and then turn up without a date. School ball is fantasy fulfillment. It’s about the dress, it’s about the hair, it’s about crossing that threshold into adult life, your first ride in a limo, and, of course, THE BOY. And I say that as an empowered feminist. I am strong, I am powerful, and I want to go to the ball with a boy I like. In that way. He’s tall, he’s fun, we get each other, we have the best time ever, and sometime during this amazing evening he totally realizes he’s in love with me and he’s ALWAYS been in love with me. We kiss in a cloud of twinkles and bursting love hearts and this is the beginning of the best love story ever.
Can you guess? Of course you can.
I would write his name down but I’m too scared because he hasn’t asked me, he’s never going to ask me, I’m going to be a loser girl supporting other people having a terrible time with their dates. And I don’t know what to do about it.
Pray for me.

AMY'S JOURNAL—MONDAY
Okay. Bianca and Kate and Gabby sat me down at recess today and gave me a right good old talking-to. Here is what we all established together:
1. We don’t need boys to have a good time. We are not like Crystal and her gang. We are invincible, incredible, amazing women with amazing lives and our happiness does not depend on attention from anyone of the male persuasion. F that S.
2. If we do happen to want a boy just as an accessory—as a kind of perfect handbag to the outfit that is already perfect—then we are permitted to go and find one ourselves. We do not need to sit back and wait to be offered what we want. We go out and take what we want because we deserve it and we can.
3. If you’re friends with someone, and they happen to identify as male, and you are mature and they are mature, then asking them out for a special occasion should totally not be a big deal and will in no way threaten your friendship or the possibility that maybe one day there might conceivably be something more than friendship on the horizon, if we’re lucky, not that I’m even thinking about that because goodness I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now anyway.
4. Boys are not very good at thinking ahead or deeply about anything. It is quite possible that a particular boy who actually wants to go to the ball with a particular girl might not have applied the right amount of brain power to such a thing yet, even though it’s only four sleeps away and it’s kind of slipped his mind that he still has to ask her.
5. I’m going to ask him tomorrow.
(6. Yes I’m quietly terrified, no girl should ever have to go through this so close to the ball, but feminism.)
(7. Also, I am categorically, genuinely, absolutely, most definitely not in love with Leo Prince. However, I do really really really like him. And now that I’ve written his name in my journal, I am the absolute definition of ridiculous. I’m going to smarten myself up and read some Virginia Woolf before bed.)