Will has to forcibly drag me past the coat check and into the gym. The dimly lit Cavern of Athletic Suffering is loaded to the brim with silver and gold balloons tied to every stationary object, and tables along the side are draped with shimmery tablecloths. Fake candles glow inside vases dipped in gold glitter, and strings of tiny white lights are hung all around in a scalloped pattern. The atmosphere is magical — at least I assume it is for people who aren’t bothered by the thumping bass of the DJ, the sound of three thousand half-shouted conversations at once, and pervasive clouds of the popular perfume du jour, which to me smells exactly like the nostril-violating flea powder we had to use on a litter of kittens Dad rescued when I was eight.

People stare as Will and I make our way through the crowd. He looks dashing in the three-piece suit he borrowed from his dad, who could probably dress the entire theater department with his vast costume collection. On the other hand, I look like a drunken furniture upholsterer swathed me in a bedazzled trash bag, because apparently that’s what dresses looked like in the 1920s, and this unfortunate black-and-gold frock was the closest approximation I could find at the thrift store at the last minute.

But the biggest problem is that Will and I are apparently the only clueless idiots who took the Gatsby theme to heart enough to come in costume. Pointed fingers and snickers follow us everywhere we walk, and the burn of all those eyes is enough to fry my circuitry in less than ten seconds. I want to slam my hands over my ears and back up all the way to the coat check and disappear into the muffling layers of all that fabric and wait there until it’s time to leave. But Will has me by the arm, and his height means that his earholes are up in a layer of the atmosphere that my voice is unlikely to reach without the help of a rocket launcher. So I stare at the far wall and try to pretend I’m a queen whose subjects are parting before her instead of a numbskull who can’t even do something as simple as wear the right thing to a school dance.

James and Will greet each other with a hand gesture that falls somewhere between fist bump and Trekkie salutation. Caroline lurks behind James, looking only marginally more delighted than I am to be in attendance, and keeps nervously adjusting her glasses every five seconds. As for Kitty, I don’t need telepathy to tell what she’s thinking. She bites her lip hopefully and bounces on her toes as Will approaches. She’s supposed to be there with Carlos, but the dude is so far lost in some puzzle game on his phone that he might as well be on a date with it.