Your Plantation Prom Is Not Okay by Kelly McWilliams

Author:Kelly McWilliams [McWilliams, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

LET’S GET OUT of here,” Layla mutters.

“Worst date ever,” Dawn whispers in my ear.

“Not a date,” I snap—but if it were (WHICH IT’S NOT), he’d be absolutely right. All night long, we’ve been Black, bored, and insulted from the get.

Layla offers to call an Uber Lux, but Dawn’s happy to drive us in his old Pontiac.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” Layla says. “I think we should go… to whatever the opposite of this whole situation is.”

“Black Burger King,” Dawn suggests.

I laugh. He’s thinking of the ratty one a half mile from home. I’ve only ever seen Black folks in there. The white Burger King, on the other hand, is catty-corner to the Black one. It’s nicer looking, but there’s no hot sauce on the tables. No vibe.

“There’s a Black Burger King?”

“Oh yeah,” Dawn deadpans. “They’ve got a secret menu and everything.”

“Seriously?”

“Naw, I’m just messing with you.”

In fact, they do have a secret menu. You can get canned oyster dunked in the fryer, if you’re so inclined.

In the parking lot, night has fully fallen. Layla sprawls across the back seat while I sit in the passenger bucket. My brain wants to go over what happened with Sunny, running through every painful second again and again. But Dawn’s cologne is scrambling the few brain cells I have left. Eventually, I give up.

“Where’d you get the tux?”

“It was my dad’s. He got married in it.”

“You miss him.”

“Hardly knew him. But yeah. And I know you miss your mom.”

My mood plummets. “Mom always knew… exactly how to handle things. She’d have made Sunny listen to her. Unlike me.”

As he navigates the Quarter, the lights of New Orleans flicker over Dawn’s face. Every now and then, he risks a glance my way. “You can’t know that.”

I finger the velvet sleeve of my dress. “It was her superpower, making people listen. Helping them understand.”

“She was a lot older than you.”

I shake my head, knowing there was more to it than that.

“You were brave to confront Sunny,” Dawn says. “Even if it didn’t go how you wanted. When I saw you step up to her, I thought, Yeah. That’s the girl I knew. Courageous as hell.”

His words touch something old inside me. Something deep.

At a stoplight, I lean toward him. He leans toward me, too… and though I can’t be 100 percent sure, I think he plants a kiss in my hair.

Then the light turns green.

Memories cascade around me, a waterfall. I see Mom, bent over the kidney bowl, as mad as I’ve ever seen her. Snarling her lost, last words to me. The hospice scene plays on an eternal loop. Over and over again, I let her down.

“Harrietta.” Dawn jostles me. “You’re snoring. Also, we’re here.”

I tumble onto the sidewalk. My legs are stiff, and my velvet dress is still cursed. I tap on the back-seat window to wake Layla. Together, we file into Burger King.

The medicinal lights of the fast-food place revive me, as does the relief of finally being out of the convention hall.

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