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Saturday, September 23, 909 PD Feast of Saint Padre Pio “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” -Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) From: Melissa To: Gabriela Hi Gabriela I guess the first thing we need to do is coordinate what we’re wearing? Were you planning on wearing your royal dress or did you have something else in mind? Melissa had taken her assignment seriously. Well, that implied she didn’t take all her assignments seriously, but this one she took especially so, almost to the detriment of her schoolwork. During class, she’d try and follow along taking notes, but she’d always end up taking out a second sheet of paper which she’d fill with, well, with everything she thought might be important. What to wear, what to bring, what to say, what time they should meet, how long they’d be out… If she thought of it, it got written down. When she studied, she would sit down with some snacks and go over both her homework and her outlines simultaneously. She’d solve a math problem on the right before going over a dance problem on the left. Then she’d take a potato chip, eat it, and start the process all over again. “Figure out x and y” and “Figure out what happens if, say, student council president Ashley Rendleman deigns to even look in your direction” were equivalent problems in her mind. From: Gabriela To: Melissa Of course! My clothes are far more elegant than anything else I could find. Occasionally, Melissa would spot Gabriela going around campus, but she tried to keep the communication at a phones-only level where it was more manageable. Text messages really were Melissa’s domain. Her biggest barrier to talking with other people, especially new people, was how long it could take her to form something worth saying. When there was a social time limit, she ended up stumbling through sentences, never really arriving at any sort of point. But on her phone, the time limit was longer, and she could write and rewrite messages until she was satisfied. From: Melissa To: Gabriela Okay. I’m pretty sure I remember what that looks like. I was thinking we’d meet up at your dorm, say, forty-five minutes to an hour beforehand, get dinner, and then head over to the dance. How does that sound? Oh, if only she could sound as confident as she did once the words had been punched into her phone and launched into the aether. It was already the day of, Melissa still had so much to do, and all she was doing instead was hiding in her room going through old text messages for the tenth or eleventh time. The items on her agenda weren’t difficult, per se -- she had to what, go to the florists for the corsages, do the actual “getting ready” of makeup and changing into her dress? Nothing else, right? -- she just had to go and do them. From: Gabriela To: Melissa Dinner? Yes of course. That would be acceptable. Alright, that was enough of that, Melissa decided. She took a few deep breaths, as if that would help her in some way get through the day, and lurched herself out of bed. One could either walk or take a bus to the floral shop. The bus was air-conditioned, a luxury in the late days of summer, but she had so, so much time to kill before the dance, taking the long way was probably for the best. Melissa had also heard through the grapevine that this was going to be one of the last “good Saturdays, so get outside while you still can,” and it was for those reasons that she set out on foot. The “grapevine” had been the community service group chat, freshly unmuted after Connor had texted her asking her opinion on some incident that had happened the day before. As far as Melissa could tell, the joking insults had escalated into some more… violent language and Connor had asked the more senior members of the club what they thought he should do. It was something Melissa was split on. She didn’t like the language anyone had used, but she also thought, well, if anyone involved was going to improve themselves, wouldn’t it be by serving their community? As much as she’d become disillusioned with the club since the start of her second year, she did still have fond memories of her first one. And those had to be worth something, right? Connor had asked “last year’s group” as he called it to help keep a closer eye on things, and Melissa had obliged him. So every so often her phone would buzz and she’d read a message like: Did u guys know that if you screamed for 8 years 7 months 6 days youd have screamed enough to make one cup of coffee and she would sigh and put her phone back in her pocket. But she was trying, and Connor was trying, and that was, well, that was as much as anybody could hope for, wasn’t it? Melissa reached the floral shop a bit sweatier than she had intended but she had been planning on showering at some point before the dance so she didn’t mind too much. It was a quaint little place, not much bigger than many of Melissa’s classrooms with a little back room Melissa assumed was where all the managerial stuff was kept. It had muzak speakers playing something Melissa didn’t recognize, a distorted yet oddly calming song with the words “It’s your move” repeating over and over. Was that the title? It didn’t matter, in any case. What did matter was the left wall, half-stocked with preprepared corsages and boutonnières and a big sign above it all that said: “Have A Great Kickoff Festival, Blue Yonder!” But even only partially stocked, there were still so many options! Melissa had indeed remembered what Gabriela’s royal outfit looked like, and she knew what her own dress was going to look like, but she wanted everything to be perfect. For Gabriela’s sake, at the very least. And yet, even in such a small store, even only partially stocked, even ignoring all the items that looked like they were for lapels rather than wrists, there were enough differences, enough options, that Melissa just… She just froze. She couldn’t fathom it all, and that drive for perfection only made things worse. She wasn’t shaking, quivering, whatever (at least, she hoped she wasn’t!) but it was all she could do to stand there and try -- just try -- and find the right corsages for her and her date. But if this was just what buying flowers was like, Melissa was definitely not looking forward to the night ahead.