The bell rings, and we clear our trays, Chaz and Tawny heading off together. Leeza and I head to the shop building to work our campus jobs—my first day!—and she leads the way. She tugs at my sleeve as we walk. “Nice jacket.” (So Ms. Silverthorn was right—the jacket draws attention. I hate it when other people are right.)

“Ms. Silverthorn thinks it’s too much.”

“You call her Ms. Silverthorn?”

Dammit, I keep forgetting she’s my aunt. “Only on campus. She says it makes me like any other student.”

“I don’t think you’re ‘like any other’ here.”

“Um, thanks?”

“That’s a compliment. I stick out too. Do you want to stick out together at prom?”

I hesitate a second, and she’s on it. “Just a friend thing. Trust me. No need to freak out.”

“No—that’s—great. I’d love to.” Oh my god, it’s so het. “But I have to find a suit first.”

“I expect something cool, you know! My dress is turquoise and sleeveless with an asymmetrical waistline that ends in a bow on my hip. Then there’s like a black net under the skirt to make it fan out—street length cause I’m not some cutesy Little Bo Peep. So you can’t be a sheep in a band suit. Do the blazer and skinny tie thing. Or go all Miami Vice.” She knows I’m about to protest that I have neither. “Just ask Chaz. He has a closet full.” Wait—is that code? Is she trying to tell me something? My heart pounds, but she doesn’t linger on it. “He’s way ahead of the rest of the school.”

“I’ll figure it out. Thanks for asking me.” I smile, but we’re at the shop building and have to part ways. She works in the broom factory, and I have to go to the cutlery room. She gives me a hug, and it feels so good to have someone here that I over-hug back, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

The shop building is where concrete goes to die. I mean, please. Someone was paid to design this thing? Two floors of square cold rooms painted gray and off-gray, with these awful fluorescent lights the length of a surfboard. Upstairs are cutlery, direct mail, and buttons, while downstairs is entirely broom shop. The roof is flat, like dead flat, which is why it will collapse from the weight of snow and ice during an especially bad winter ten or fifteen years before I am born.