HUTCH: I realized from the very beginning my plan was kind of a Hail Mary. But I had one thing going for me: time. Not a lot of time, but enough. Bizzy Stanhope, in a classic Bond villain move, had told AD her entire evil plan before it unfolded. Logically, this made no sense. If Bizzy hadn’t said anything about the prom, everyone would have shown up at the B of A building, discovered there was no prom, and chaos would have ensued. That would have been way more diabolical.
AVERY: Hutch didn’t know Bizzy well enough to know that logic never comes into play. Besides, I knew she didn’t really want prom to be canceled, because then how could she be Prom Queen? She just wanted it moved somewhere stupid that would make me look bad. So she gave me just enough time to fix it, but poorly. Holy cow. That’s actually super diabolical. Maybe Bizzy Stanhope is a Bond villain.
HUTCH: AD said the original venue was a no-go, but I felt like I had no choice but to get someone from B of A on the phone and plead my case. It was worth a shot. I was banking on the hypothesis that Bizzy Stanhope was well known in her dad’s office, and that whomever I spoke with would understand immediately why I needed to save the prom, and they’d hopefully be able to work some scheduling magic. My hypothesis was proven to be one hundred percent accurate.
KAREN NAKAYAMA, Event Space Coordinator for the San Francisco branch of the Bank of America: It took James several tries to get me on the phone—my assistant is terrific at weeding out unknown callers—but he was relentless. But once we finally spoke and he explained the situation, I understood immediately. All of Ted’s children are famous here—especially Bizzy. This juvenile prom stunt sounds like a classic move from the Bizzy Stanhope playbook. One time she threw a burrito at one of our junior analysts.
Editor’s Note: I always forget that Hutch’s name is really James. It took me way too long to figure out who she was talking about.
CRAIG LEAMAN, junior analyst: There was no burrito. Yes, the day after the alleged burrito incident, I departed for two weeks’ paid vacation. Completely unrelated. Why do you ask?
KAREN: I had hoped I could help James out from the beginning—he was remarkably polite and articulate—and I had a feeling this was about that Avery girl he kept talking about. Now that really tugged at my heartstrings. Can you imagine? The only thing my high school boyfriend ever did for me was my Spanish homework.
HUTCH: I just told Ms. Nakayama that, uh, I needed a favor because the, uh, senior class had worked really hard this year, and, uh, prom was important to our experience. As a senior class. I wasn’t doing this for a girl. Well, I was obviously doing it for AD, I just wasn’t doing it because, well, because I thought anything would happen. She was done with guys, and when AD says she’s done with something, she’s done. I knew I had no shot. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was saving the prom, because prom is important to AD. And AD is important to me.
KAREN: Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing I could do. The space was booked, and as much as I wanted to help James out, I couldn’t.
AVERY: On the one hand, I was sort of surprised when I pulled up in front of the California Academy of Sciences, but on the other hand, I wasn’t surprised at all. Of course Hutch would solve any problem with science. But what kind of prom venue opportunities could a science academy possibly provide? I trusted Hutch, but I’m not gonna lie, I was nervous.
JUSTIN CASTILLEJO, Director of Special Events and Volunteer Services at the California Academy of Sciences: Hutch has been volunteering at the academy since he was in middle school. He’s more valuable than half our employees. I speak for everyone on the staff when I say there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for Hutch. We would move heaven and earth if he asked. And when he asked, luckily, heaven—well, space—just happened to be free.
AVERY: Hutch was waiting for me outside, looking sort of un-Hutch-like in surprisingly cool sunglasses. I could tell he was nervous. He wiped his hands on his khakis a couple times as he led me through the building, stopping, eventually, in front of the doors to the Morrison Planetarium.
HUTCH: I was freaking out. I thought the room looked pretty good—really good—but AD’s standards are crazy high in everything, and I knew her expectations would be off the charts for prom. I think I had a small cardiac episode as I pushed open the door to the planetarium.
AVERY: The first thing I saw was the night sky, a deep ink blue dotted with glittering stars. The whole ceiling of the planetarium was lit up so beautifully I could barely take my eyes off it—it felt like the stars were all around us. But that wasn’t all. There were lampposts with glowing lights ringing the room and strings of twinkling lights hanging between them. There were paintings of shadowy café scenes and Paris at night propped up against the walls. Deep blue curtains covered the tables where refreshments would be, and Hutch had somehow made an illuminated Eiffel Tower, taller than me, for taking pictures in front of. The floor had been cleared of seats, so there was space for dancing, and there was a giant clock painted on the dance floor, hands set permanently at twelve o’clock. It was Midnight in Paris, the prom theme I’d been dreaming of since I was a freshman, come to life. It was more beautiful than I’d ever imagined it could be. And Hutch had done it for me.
HUTCH: She didn’t say anything. For like seven minutes, she just didn’t say anything. Not a single word. It was the longest I’d heard AD be silent on a day that didn’t involve standardized testing. And then she said, in this quiet little voice that didn’t sound anything like her, “Oh, Hutch.”
AVERY: “Do you like it?” he asked, and he sounded so nervous, he almost didn’t sound like the confident Hutch I knew at all.
HUTCH: “It’s perfect,” she said, and the way she looked at me, I felt like … I felt like … Well, I felt like I finally knew how Michael Faraday must have felt when he first produced an electric current by moving a wire through a magnetic field.
AVERY: How did he do it? How was it possible? I didn’t understand. It was a miracle.
LIAM PADALECKI: I’ve pretty much run the San Anselmo Prep theater department’s tech crew single-handedly for the past four years.
MICHAEL FEELEY: Liam said what? Single-handedly?! Oh, please! Everyone knows the theater lives or dies on the success of its light plot! Liam just fannies about with a paintbrush!
Editor’s Note: I could not believe he used the phrase “fannies about.”
HUTCH: It kind of was a miracle, honestly. It was a miracle that the planetarium was free, and that they were generous enough to donate their space to the San Anselmo Prep senior class for five hours on a Saturday night. And the theater department at school did Gigi last year, so we were insanely lucky that a lot of this stuff was buried in the prop room, ready to be stolen for the greater good of the San Anselmo Prep senior class. Michael hung the lights and wired the lamps. I did any necessary construction, and then Liam painted the art scattered around the walls. Oh, and Alex sewed all of the tablecloths.
ALEX MANEVITZ: I didn’t sew anything, okay? I don’t sew!
Editor’s Note: He was lying. If Hutch said Alex sewed the tablecloth, then Alex sewed the tablecloth. Also I turned down a hallway at school once and saw him sewing ruffles on a dress the week before Hello, Dolly! opened. So that boy for sure sews.
AVERY: If Hutch had done all of this … for the prom … for me, maybe … then I had to ask. And maybe there were reasons that necessitated breaking a “no-boys ban.” Like when someone gives you a room full of stars. That seemed like a pretty good reason to me. Because I was realizing that maybe what mattered wasn’t whether you were in a relationship or not. What mattered was that you could still be yourself in that relationship. And I knew I could always be myself with Hutch, because Hutch knew who I really was. I could feel hope inflating in my chest like the beautiful midnight-blue balloons I would have ordered if I hadn’t put Tamsin Brewer in charge of decorations.
HUTCH: She had been standing next to me the whole time, looking up at the stars. All of a sudden, I felt her hand reaching for mine. I took it, and our hands fit together perfectly, like we should have been holding hands for the past four years.
AVERY: Hutch has really nice hands. I’ve often admired them while he was dissecting a fetal pig or igniting the flame on the Bunsen burner. But he’s even better at holding hands than he is at dissecting fetal pigs.
HUTCH: “Hey, Hutch?” she said.
AVERY: He said, “Yes, Avery?” Avery. Not AD.
HUTCH: She said, “Do you think you might go to prom?”
AVERY: And he said, “You know what? I think I just might.”
HUTCH: Why did I change my mind? Because I wanted to go with Avery. I wanted to spend the last big night of high school with the person who was part of so many of my best memories of high school. Now that San Anselmo Prep was almost in my rearview mirror, I was surprised to find that I wanted one last big night to celebrate it and all the people who had made it what it was. Besides, only an idiot would turn down an opportunity to spend time at a planetarium after hours.
AVERY: The prom looked perfect. But I knew it could only be perfect if Hutch was there. And all of his friends. And even Cressida Schrobenhauser-Clonan and Bizzy Stanhope, God help us all. Because they were all part of our senior class, and they all should be part of our prom. Because I knew prom was going to be an experience, and I wanted it to be an experience I fell in love with—and I knew that would only be possible if Hutch was there. And now he was going, and I was pretty sure I could trick him into dancing. And yes, I had given up guys, but Hutch wasn’t just a guy. He was Hutch. And that meant something.
Editor’s Note: So I kissed him. ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺