“ ‘Over the Moon’ actually,” she replies. “But close. Our photos are going to be taken on a moon-shaped swing that Buckman and Mr. A have been working on, and there will be all these blacklights to make everything all glow.” I like this a little better, but blacklight is a rookie mistake. I mean, the space will look amazing, but the prom pics are going to look like X-rays.

She hands me a bucket of “moon rocks,” reflective white pebbles to fill the vases. “Fifteen in each vase exactly, or we’ll run out.”

I do as I’m told. “Aren’t we going to be late for first period?”

“I’ll get a note from Frohmy. Prom is the biggest event of the year next to graduation, so he only gives me so much grief about using class time.” She holds up a vase critically. “Are you sure that’s only fifteen?” I shake my head, and she counts them out—sixteen. Amazing eye. She’s the one you want counting the milligrams of your meds, for sure.

Happily, she doesn’t linger on my lazy handiwork. “So you’re going with Leez?” I nod. “And … are you just going as friends?”

Ha. “I mean, I’ve only been here four days!”

“Sometimes, a spark is instant!” She eyes my vases but doesn’t count.

I can hear Leeza’s voice telling me not to talk about this. But since when do I listen? “I don’t think … uh, that’s not what sparks me.”

Ma Elena looks at me, eyes puzzled, and I hold the look, willing her to understand. For a moment, everything is weirdly intense. She’s Mom and my classmate and it’s the 1980s and the 2020s all at once—I see the unsettling electricity of the connection affect her too. And then it passes, and her eyes change. “Ohhhhh …” she whispers, even though there’s no one to hear.

“Does that … uh … bother you?” I have to know.

Setting aside the vases, she looks me straight in the eye. “My whole life, I’ve been taught it’s a sin. My dad says a maricon isn’t a real man. And it’s the punch line for all the jokes the boys tell. But I kind of know someone now and …” She doesn’t want to say Chaz, but I’m sure that’s what she means. Is she protecting him? And if she is, is the danger her boyfriend or me? She sighs. “I don’t know. My friend … he’s so sweet and so funny, and it seems wrong that God wouldn’t love him as much as me. It made me think about all the divorced people in church and how nobody chases them away. I don’t want to doubt God, and I don’t want to hurt people, so …”