You Should See Me in a Crown

by Leah Johnson

“Is it just me, or was your section particularly out of tune today?”

Question? Answer doesn't appear until a page later. NOPE

promposal

More stuff for the wedding industry sell.

where Emme has disappeared to since last Friday

mystery

“You know what? Don’t answer that.

LATE ANSWER

I don’t really want anyone to know that the music we’ll be ending our spring concert with is a piece that I arranged myself.

Putting yourself all out there.

Like this thing that I do on my own to stay sane doesn’t belong completely to me anymore or something.

or letting your baby go

We regret to inform you

Everything after that she couldn't bear to read.

Tightened like it was threatening to force out everything I’d consumed that day.

good description

take a gap year and work

new plan?

We succeed in spite of, or maybe even because of, the odds against us. That’s just the Lighty Way.

Great fighting spirit

I was going to attend my mom’s alma mater, Pennington College, and take the premed track while playing for the

Penguins orchestra. I

The PLAN

was going to become a hematologist and work with sickle-cell patients like my mom and my little brother, and it was all going to be possible because I grinded hard, kept my head down, and survived growing up poor and black in Campbell County—a place that’s anything but. Because that’s the Lighty Way too.

What s succeeding without privilege looks like

part of that spectacle happens to be the massive scholarships they give to the prom king and queen, for what they like to call the “outstanding service and community engagement” the winners must display.

wow

All that money just for playing dress-up and picking up trash on the playground. All that money going to another Campbell County rich kid with too much time on their hands and no fear of the spotlight. It isn’t fair. None of it is fair.

privilege at it's silliest

I think for a second about what it would be like to have my likeness plastered next to Eden Chandler’s, Emme’s older sister, the crown nestled into my tight black curls, my hair all defiance where hers is tradition.

Discounting oneself because of traditions that make you feel less than.

“Look. The odds have never been stacked in our favor, but that’s never stopped us before.”

The odds are stacked

Don’t count yourself out.”

Feeling defeated before you start

I don’t want anyone but Gabi seeing where I live.

Being embarrassed by where you live, which may be out of your control.

I have a plan.”

Those with privilege don't always have to have a plan.

High school friend groups are something like an ensemble in that way. My friends are certified oddballs, the inkblots on an otherwise pure white page, and it’s why we work together so well.

birds of a feather

I can forget that I don’t fit in anywhere else in this town.

Not fitting in

Gabi plops her highlighter-yellow Chloé bag next to the register and pulls her phone out of it.

Stone running the data from mentions on Campbell Confidential and the point-collection system, and my powers of strategy or—shall we say—shrewd deduction, we’ll know where you stand in the polls at all

Liz”—she looks me up and down—“we’ll need to revamp your look soon. The grunge aesthetic does not a prom queen make.”

Gabi

Fashion is her everything.

Gabbi is Fairy God Mother and the others are the mice for Cinderella

she’s already such a talented designer that she got accepted early into the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York for the fall.

When G knows what she wants, nothing keeps h...

“Call me tonight, okay? If you go into the prom court kickoff meeting tomorrow without me prepping you on what to expect, it’ll be like seasoning yourself and stepping directly into a lion’s mouth.”

All of Campbell’s elite, Jordan Jennings among them, are scattered throughout the first few rows. And there’s Rachel Collins, our class president and the PomBots’ fearless leader next to her boyfriend and varsity basketball captain, Derek Lawson,

The usual suspects

Girls will run for queen, and boys will run for king—there’s definitely no accounting for people who might not identify as either. And the hardest for me to ignore, same-sex couples aren’t allowed to attend together. They can dance with each other once they get there, maybe, if no chaperones care enough to stop them, but they can’t officially go as dates.

even 30 years ago this was bogus

if your gender identity doesn’t explicitly align with the one you were assigned at birth, you can’t come dressed the way you might want. Girls wear dresses, and boys wear tuxes. And that’s the end of it.

No

point system, determined by your attendance at a combination of both mandatory and volunteer community service events and public appearances, and your class rank.”

affirmative action aspect, perhaps?”

racist

I never let terrible people get away with doing terrible things. And two, if something is wrong, I say something about it. Always.”

admirable rules

Good people mess up too, but that doesn’t mean we should let it slide.”

true

since the day you beat her out for line leader in the second grade.”

so cute

don’t believe in fairy tales and love at first sight and all that, but for just a second, I think this girl and those eyes and the way her freckles dot the entire expanse of her face are cute enough to make a believer out of me.

awww a complication

After all, Lightys don’t get fairy tales.

figuratively or literary

Jordan and his perfection. I almost want to ask him how things are going with his perfect girlfriend,

Is this the problem?

Outside of what happened with me and him,

What?

But by the time school started again, I missed my friend. I missed laughing with him and cracking stupid jokes in rehearsals and dancing down the hallways like no one was watching, even if they were.

Friends once

“You’re crazy man; I don’t like her!” Jordan laughed. It was nervous but bitter. “I don’t even know her. I wouldn’t hang out with her.”

He denied her

Switched from bright colors to quieter tones so no one would spot me coming. No one was going to make me feel that way again.

Hiding

Until my counselor came up with a trick. I would place two fingers on my wrist and try to feel my pulse, and if I could, count how many beats were occurring per minute. I kept time with my foot as I went along, just like I did when trying out a new piece’s rhythm in band. It was supposed to ground me, help me find my center—and it worked. I still do it even now.

grounding

He smiles, bright and brilliant and every bit the Jordan Jennings who I used to know.

Jordan

But also, when you’re hot enough to’ve been a Riverdale cast member in another life, and your dad played for the Colts for eight years, you can kind of do whatever you want.

Jordan

Just because you’re free to be one person in private doesn’t mean anything when it comes to the person you are in public.

The mask

The House Party movies