Crepe paper streamers — silver, blue, white — hang limp from the gym entrance in the windless air. A banner above the doors reads WINTER SNOWBALL in letters that drip glitter like frost.

Girls in spray-stiff hair climb out of station wagons with their skirts held so the hems don't touch the ground. A couple of freshmen hover by the doors with their corsage boxes, too nervous to go in yet.

Nancy is already at the ticket table just inside the doors, hair in soft waves, a clipboard tucked against her chest. She says something to the teacher beside her, then turns to scan the parking lot over the heads of the arriving students, looking for a familiar face.

Fifty feet back, along the edge of the darkened parking lot, a maroon BMW sits with its engine idling.

Steve's hand moves on the gearshift. He's about to put it in reverse.

Then his eyes catch on the ticket table again.

A second figure steps in from the left side of the entrance, holding two cups of punch, and sets one down beside Nancy's clipboard. A dress the exact shade of cornflowers. Hair curled and pinned so it holds the outdoor lights like a halo.

You lean in to hear something Nancy's saying, and the laugh comes loose and easy, carrying clear across the lot even over the bass line thudding through the gym walls.

Steve's hand drops off the gearshift. He sits very still, thumb pressed against the worn leather of the wheel, staring through the windshield like he's been caught doing something wrong.

Nancy says something else and glances past you — past you, out at the lot, over the rows of cars — and for half a second Steve thinks she's looking at him. She isn't. She turns back to the line of students, and you turn back to your punch, oblivious.

Inside the car, Steve chews the inside of his cheek until it hurts.

The engine keeps idling. The parking lot keeps filling up. He hasn't backed out.