"Three hundred dollars a prom ticket?" Ed's dad set his reading glasses onto his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose. "What are they going to be feeding you? Kobe beef?"

"It's gonna be held at this fancy ski resort in the Poconos. That was the student council's decision," Ed pulled on each finger of his left hand in nervous succession, "it was either that or the party cruise out of Philadelphia. But it's not like you can't afford it."

"It doesn't matter whether I could afford it," Ed's dad said, "it's the principle of the thing."

"The principle of what thing?" Ed stared at the checkbook resting beside his dad's glasses.

"Was this your idea?" Ed's dad lifted an eyebrow at Ed's slept-in t-shirt.

"Nah," Ed shook his head, "Phil's graduating so Emily's going, and she's been trying to convince everyone else to attend and-"

"I knew I sniffed the scheming of Emily Horvath," one corner of Ed's dad's thin lips tugged upward. "Has she won anyone over?"

"Katie and Brian, but they would go anyway," Ed said, "Katie being a cheerleader and all. Gina's not going because 'Che wouldn't go to prom."

A small smile now spread across Ed's dad's face.

"But do you want to go?"

"Not really." Ed started to pull on each finger of his right hand.

"You know, you could always tell Emily no," Ed's dad suggested, half-serious, "I understand she doesn't hear that very often but-"

"See," Ed interrupted, "I'm planning on going with a girl."

"Oh," Ed's dad shifted his gaze toward his study's vaulted ceiling. "So you'll need two tickets, dress shoes, a tux that won't clash with her dress, and a decent corsage. Altogether that'll cost well over six-hundred dollars."

"Probably," Ed looked again at his dad's checkbook, "thanks, Dad."

"I imagine you'll expect a duplicate of this next year because you'll be graduating."

"This prom isn't really for me, though," Ed said, "It's more for my date."

"More for your date?" Ed's dad repeated. It seemed like Ed's dad was about to cross-examine him. Ed prayed that his dad wouldn't cross-examine him.

"Audra, the foreign exchange student," Ed explained. "She wants to have an American prom."

"You've asked her already, then?" Ed's dad rose from his desk and walked to his liquor cabinet.

"Not exactly." Ed watched his dad take a keyring from his pocket, isolate a small silver key, and slip it into the cabinet's lock, "But we had this conversation today about balloons and-"

"Have you two been an a date before?" Ed's dad took a bottle of bourbon and a crystal tumbler from the cabinet, and returned to his desk.

"We've hung out in groups," Ed equivocated, "I think you could safely call us friends."

"You think so," Ed's dad poured himself some bourbon. "Has she expressed any interest in you to your mutual friends?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but-"

"Has she expressed any interest in prom in general?" Ed's dad lifted his tumbler to his lips, but stopped short of taking a sip.

"No." Ed knew his dad was now definitely in the midst of cross-examining him. Ed began to doubt the existence of God.

"So how do you know, exactly, that she wants an American prom?" Ed's dad set down his bourbon and leaned forward in his chair.

"What girl doesn't want to go to prom?" Ed chuckled nervously, "It's the peak American high school experience."

"What about Gina?" Ed's dad rubbed the space between his eyebrows with his thumb.

"Gina?" Ed couldn't quiet the suspicion that he had somehow already lost the argument, "what about her?"

"She doesn't want to go to prom, because, what was it-" Ed's dad snapped his fingers three times, "oh, right, she wouldn't do anything Che wouldn't do. That's a girl who not only doesn't want to go to prom, but would sooner lead a garrison of Molotov-cocktail-wielding peasants on Santa Clara."

"Where?" Ed stared at his dad's mouth, "Cuba?"

"Right," Ed's dad sighed, "so isn't it a possibility that this Audra girl you've got your eye on might not even care that you- no- I will spend close to a thousand dollars on making this prom the peak American high school experience for her?"

"But you see she's from France," Ed decided to be valiant and assemble a counter-argument even if it were ultimately useless, "and she's here, so obviously she has an interest in American culture-"

"You're making an assumption."

On the word "assumption," Ed's stomach dropped. Well, this friendly repartee was over. It was apparent to Ed that his rhetorical skills were subpar, but he didn't need another lecture on 'assumptions.' Ed's dad opened his mouth. Ed braced himself. Oh Lord, he thought, here we go again.

"First you're assuming that Audra has an 'interest in American culture' on the basis that she's part of an exchange program," Ed's dad counted off each point on his long fingers. "The fact she ended up here might have more to do with which language classes are available at her school than a potential 'interest in American culture.' Hell, the reason she's here instead of Timbuktu might be only a missed deadline."

"I know, Dad," Ed slouched so hard it seemed as if he attempted to sink down through his chair and seep beneath the study's mahogany floorboards, "don't make assumptions unless you have evidence to stand on-"

"Secondly, let's say she has an interest in 'American culture.' Is prom included in her definition of American culture? Maybe she came to America because she loves baseball and only wanted to see Dodger stadium."

"Okay. I'm sorry," Ed realized that he couldn't sink through his chair, no matter how hard he slouched. This made chemical sense, of course, as the chair and Ed were both impermeable solids. Ed silently cursed his AP Chemistry textbook.

"Sorry for what?" Ed's dad ran a finger along the rim of his tumbler.

"I don't know," Ed exhaled, "Could you just stop lawyering for a minute?"

"I'm trying to teach you logical reasoning."

"I get it," Ed mumbled, "would you please write me the check?"

Ed's dad set down his bourbon and rested his elbows on his desk. He placed his chin onto his hands, and gave Ed an appraising, owl-like stare.

"I'm not going to do that, Ed."

"But you don't understand-" Ed gaped. THANKS DAD, he felt like saying, Out of all times to make a point about rhetoric, you choose now? When the very fate of my first love- possibly my true, forever love- rests squarely on your checkbook?

"Your problem is that you never think anything through." Ed's dad moved his hands up against his temples so that his eyebrows seemed to slant in diagonals on his forehead.

"Because I don't have a date?"

"Because you're being irrational," Ed's dad's voice rose a decibel and his hands slipped to his side. "You want me to spend six-hundred dollars on tickets for a prom that you just said you don't really want to attend, for the sole reason that you can ask a girl who might not even say yes. Because you haven't figured out what she actually likes and wants to do."

"She likes balloons! We're genuinely friends!"

"I read the form here," Ed's dad grabbed the school's prom flier from his desk and held it up for Ed to see, "it says sales final. We order tickets, and that's it. You have to go, there's no refund."

"But I want to go!" Ed insisted.

"You want me to spend six hundred dollars on a girl you barely know."

"I love her!"

Oh no. Ed hadn't meant to say that. Oh please no. Ed could feel his spleen gurgling. He was pretty sure that was his spleen anyway. Ed briefly wondered where in the human body the spleen was located.

Ed's dad smirked.

"You love her."

"That's what I said."

"You always get some crazy notion, and fall headlong into it before you discover whatever it is wasn't what you thought it would be," Ed's dad lectured, "Remember the guitar lessons when you were twelve? Remember all the guitars I bought you?"

"I'm talking about a girl, not a guitar!" Ed was baffled.

"She'll inevitably fall from that tremendous pedestal you've built for her and the consequences will be far worse than wasted money on guitar lessons," Ed's dad then added an imperative that Ed would find especially condescending:

"Don't let your hormones trick you into believing that you love her."

"You're the real expert on love, now, huh?" Ed said, more pointedly than he had intended, "After two failed marriages you should be."

Oh God, Ed felt like screaming, why did I say that? He could see his dad recoil. That was a recoil, right? That flicker of pain across his face, the cringe, the downward curl of his lips. Ed pressed a hand to his forehead. He knew that his mom had totally blindsided his dad with the divorce. She served him with papers the day before she took off for her summer sabbatical in Norway last year. She just "wasn't in love" with his dad anymore. He worked too much, she had said. It maybe also had something to do with the brilliant new Scandinavian professor at the local university where she taught environmental engineering. The one she started dating about a month ago. Ed felt like shit.

"I'm sorry." He rubbed the back of his neck, "I didn't mean that."

"I know you didn't." Ed's dad put back on his reading glasses. "Like I said, you never think. Not before you speak, not before you do anything."

Ed's dad seemed less mad than Ed had expected he would be after a mean dig like that. Was this a good sign?

"So," Ed's eyes fell again onto his dad's checkbook. "Are you going to buy me the tickets, then?"

"Of course not. I told you that," Ed's dad chortled.

"But I need to-"

"You'll need to finance it yourself," Ed's dad cut him off, "What did you do with your birthday money?"

"My birthday was a month ago!"

"Right. What did you do with it?"

"I spent it." Ed thought he might cry. He didn't mean to go to Qdoba as often as he did, but he couldn't help it. He was growing. If his spleen wasn't rupturing, then his stomach was rumbling.

"All of it?" Ed's dad peeked over his glasses.

"It wasn't that hard." Ed said in a tone most people would probably consider bratty. "You only gave me fifty dollars." On top of that measly sum, Ed's mom hadn't given him any money at all. Only a couple sweaters, and a new pair of Vans. He couldn't even pawn any of that.

"That's fifty more dollars than most of the world's seventeen year olds get." Ed's dad picked up the court papers he had been reading.

"But that wouldn't cover a third of what the tickets cost!"

"That wouldn't cover ten percent of what the tickets cost," Ed's dad clarified.

"I can't afford that!"

"Fine then," Ed's dad murmured over his reading, "Sounds like you'll need to get yourself a job."

"A job?" Ed parroted.

"If this dance means all that much to you, you'll work for it."

***