Through Mrs. Somboon-Fox’s open door, I see I’m the last to arrive. (One must never be last last, only fashionably late.) I’m on Prom Council because I’m Student Body President. It’s kind of a drag because I love people and I love parties, but I hate meetings. But you can’t be President without attending a few along the way, so I make them more fun for the other officers by doing a group chat with everyone calling from their own rooms. Half of Prom Council, unfortunately, is composed of our Senior Class Co-Presidents Yasmin and Bryce; they’re both believers in conducting business by Robert’s Rules of Order, and neither would join a group chat unless it offered SAT prep. Yasmin, as always, is dressed like a forty-year-old real estate agent and has her day planner in hand; Bryce, as always, is wearing a blue checked shirt, khakis, and loafers and looks grim because prom is his least favorite duty: no one ever got into Yale by planning prom. Thank god for Shreya. The only elected Prom Council member, an election Shreya won by a landslide, she is also the Chair. The Beyoncé of ASA, she has a smile to die for and a magnetism that makes people do her bidding. She leaps up to give me a hug, occasioning a frown from Yasmin, who is not a hugger, and a wistful look from Bryce, who really needs one himself.

Once we’re all assembled, Mrs. Somboon-Fox beams. “Look at this team! Aren’t you just the FUTURE!” Mrs. Somboon-Fox is a big fan of diversity, and this room oversells by miles how diverse ASA is. There are definitely more kids of color here than there used to be. Still, it tells you something that me and Shreya and Yasmin have all been featured in campus ads, calendars, and handbooks every single year since we were freshmen, and three out of four times, Ms. Silverthorn was casually placed in the background. Ms. Somboon-Fox is Thai American married to a lefty white dude and says “inclusion” is her passion, which somehow means announcing it every time more than one of us is in a room together.