The three of us lean forward. It’s the cash app account-balance. It says $400. Nevaeh accepted the friend requests only fifteen minutes ago.

“That’s—” I stop, and then look around. The common room is crowded, and the other chairs are close. That’s our first four ticket sales, so fast, the sudden tension in my shoulders says.

“Yes,” Taylor says triumphantly.

“That means—” Nevaeh says, very intently. Her eyes say, that means the invites worked, and Katherine grabs her hand, pulls her close.

“So people are—” Katherine says. She waves her other arm around in a signal that we all know means people are buying tickets already, holy crap!

“And this is—” I say. My flapping hands say, and this is going to work!

“Yes, yes, yes!” Taylor says, punctuating each shout with a pound of his fists on the coffee table. The next group of chairs, full of soccer players, all turn around. “I love yogurt so much!” Taylor says. “Yes!” He grabs the cherry yogurt container off the coffee table and cuddles it passionately.

They give us dirty looks, shake their heads as they turn back around to whisper about how weird we are.

Katherine throws her arms around Nevaeh’s neck and smacks a kiss on the corner of her mouth, and they are smiling delightedly at each other.

“Does Jack know?” I ask Taylor when it occurs to me, and he shrugs. I text him, and he sends a string of firework emojis, which is exactly right.

All day Sunday the ticket count keeps racking up, one ticket and then a flurry. I smile to see the names: three dancers from my improv class, the treasurer and two others from Nevaeh’s BIPOCSpeaks club, a senior from my English class—all names I recognize. Another flurry of people we like, and then another flurry, and then we call it. We’re sold out. That’s $2,000. Rehearsals start this week, because we’ve got a show coming up fast.

It’s hard to keep the smile off my face, so I don’t try, bouncing out of classes all week, slinging my bag over my shoulder, practicing my burlesque routine in my head. My fingertips are sore because I keep pricking myself with needles, making hemming my bustier slow going, and I still can’t pull the slipknot and fling off my skirt in any kind of graceful way—sometimes it lands at my feet and I get tangled in it, and sometimes it lands on my head, and none of my friends can help laughing at that. Katherine keeps dropping her hoop, and Nevaeh had to tear apart her suit pants yet again and remake them because they won’t slide off properly, and she doesn’t want to talk about how she keeps stumbling on her hat.