A Formal Affair Read Free Page A

Jamie whispered as she held the snowflake Save the Date card up to the sky. “We’ve got to go to this winter formal for no other reason than for you guys to see real snow.”
    Alicia put her arm around her friends. “It’ll be fun. And you know what the best part of this whole winter shindig is?”
    She and Jamie spoke in unison. “It’s a party that we don’t have to plan!”
    Jamie held up her hand for a high five, and Alicia gave it a resounding slap. “True that,” she exclaimed. Jamie and Alicia were so over the moon about going to winter formal that they neglected to notice that through their entire exchange, the usually superenthusiastic and always positive third member of their trio had remained completely silent.
    While almost every morning, Alicia, Jamie, and Carmen began their day by meeting on the front steps of C. G. High, they didn’t always get to end the day together as their schedules weren’t always in sync. But this semester, they all had AP history as the last class of the day. It was challenging, but at least taking it together made it a bit more fun. Their teacher, Ms. Ingber, was a supermellow young woman who looked more like the teacher of a yoga class than of a tough academic one.
    As Carmen and her two best friends walked into Ms. Ingber’s classroom, Jamie and Alicia were still chatting about winter formal.
    â€œI think I’ve forgotten how to be a guest,” Jamie joked. “I’m so used to being one of the planners.”
    Alicia smiled. “It’s easy. You pick a great dress. You put it on. You do your hair and makeup. You show up at the party and you have as much fun as humanly possible.”
    â€œSounds pretty simple,” Jamie replied as she slid into her seat. “I guess I can handle that.”
    Since Ms. Ingber was busy writing on the board, Jamie turned to Carmen, who was sitting right behind her, and half whispered, “Will you make my dress for the formal?”
    Carmen nodded. She had perked up a bit on their way to class but was still rather subdued. Jamie and Alicia still hadn’t picked up on it. “The dance is on December fifth,” she said, doing the sewing calculations in her head. “That’s almost two months away. No problem.”
    She was saved from further conversation as the bell rang and Ms. Ingber began lecturing the class on the Moorish influence in southern Spain.
    Carmen was paying rapt attention to their teacher when a note came sailing across the room from Alicia, who sat two rows over from her. Alicia had folded a piece of paper into a tiny sliver so it looked like a wrapped piece of gum. Carmen unfolded it quietly and slowly so that Ms. Ingber wouldn’t notice and confiscate it. When she finally got it open, she saw that Alicia had scrawled a message: Make my dress too?
    Carmen looked over at her friend and mouthed, Yes .
    But apparently, Carmen’s skills at subterfuge did not extend to the spylike ability to stay under the radar. Ms. Ingber had seen enough of the exchange to inquire, “Is there anything you’d like to share with the class, Miss Ramirez-Ruben?”
    Carmen shook her head.
    Ms. Ingber smiled. “I’ll let this one slide, but let’s talk after class anyway. There’s something I want to discuss with you.”
    Carmen gulped. Was she really in trouble just for passing a note? One little teeny tiny note? She never got in trouble. What if Ms. Ingber said something to her mom? Maybe it was because she was a teacher herself, but Carmen’s mom, Sophia, flipped over the most unlikely things. If you got a low grade on a test, it was her assumption that you had tried your best but were just struggling with the material. But if you were late for a class, or got into trouble for being disruptive, Carmen’s mom would completely lose her cool. Rudeness in the classroom was a cardinal sin.
    Great, Carmen thought, convinced