boutonnières and corsages shipped four hundred miles at considerable expense tuxedos sized and rented, deposits paid hand delivered on the evening jet a month’s salary from evenings after school at the grocery store gone in a single night “a night to remember” or whatever the canned theme on frosted flutes so much pomp when circumstances couldn’t be formal high heals sticking in the mud rubber boots and raincoats for our photos at the dance the three of us posed like Hollywood action stars guns and a samurai sword kids dressed up like rich adults pretending to be something we would never know