Cool Girl

17: Homecoming Committee

After school I find Sebastian waiting for me by the car in the parking while the driver stands some distance away.

"Seb!" I call out and he looks up from his phone.

"There you are." He looks relieved, "I have two tests tomorrow. I need to get home and start studying."

"I'm sorry I held you up. I just found out that there's a Homecoming Committee meeting and they need all members to stay back. And I'm a senior so there's no chance that I can miss it. Is it okay if you go home and then send the car back for me?"

"Sure." Seb nods and I say goodbye before starting towards the administration block.

A big office in this building is dedicated to holding meetings like these and by the time I get there, the two other senior members have already begun the meeting. One of them is Angelina and the other is Claire. Claire was also elected to be the head cheerleader a few days back.

"Are the ballots for the color vote?" I ask Angelina as I join her at the front of the room.

"Yup!" She nods.

We have twenty other people on the committee from different years of high school. They're given two minutes to vote on the color they think should be the theme for Homecoming. Once the ballots are returned, I volunteer to count the votes while Angelina and Claire and brief them on their duties for the actual day.

I sit down in a chair and begin counting. Twelve of the twenty members put down purple so I announce the theme and Claire instantly gets worked up about flower arrangements and backdrops.

I let Angelina work on calming her down while I pull out my laptop and begin designing the official invitation to Homecoming with the purple theme color specified. When I'm done, I share the design in the committee's WhatsApp group. Upon everyone's approval I post the invitation to Rushmore Academy's Homecoming Instagram and Facebook page and then set down my laptop.

"Hazel is in charge of social media and conveying our work on to the school administration. I'll be overlooking arrangements and Angelina is in charge of keeping tabs with the caterers and decorators to make sure things run through smoothly."

We divide up the team, Claire gets ten people after she dramatically claims that she won't be able to handle so much work on her own. When it's really Angelina who'll need the most help since she'll have to hop all over town. Angelina and I look at each other and shake our heads.

I set up my work space near the room's door and ask the five people who'll be working with me to pull up chairs. I hand them printouts of the budget that the school is providing us and we get to work creating a rough outline of how much money we can spare to various expenses.

About an hour into the meeting Ben strolls in, "How's Homecoming looking?"

"Painful." I grimace looking at Claire's blonde hair and the people working with me snicker in agreement.

Before Ben can form a response, Claire catches sight of Ben and struts over.

"Ben! It's so nice of you to join us." She clasps her hands together.

"I'm actually here to check on Hazel." Ben tells her and I try to control my laughter.

"But its homecoming and I don't have a date yet..." Claire starts and Ben immediately gets her line of thought as he fakes horror and steps away with his hands raised, "No. We broke up for a good reason and I'm never committing myself to a relationship with you ever again."

Unable to control myself anymore I hurry out of the room and burst out laughing.

"What?" Ben asks when he sees me sitting on the floor, holding my stomach from laughing.

"Claire desperately needed a reality check." I say as Ben comes to sit down next to me.

"Glad to have provided that." Ben smiles.

We sit in silence until I ask, "Do you even have a date?"

"Liam." He turns to look at me.

"Liam has a date who is not you." I remind Ben.

"I'm better off alone than with someone like Claire." He reassures me.

"Okay, I'm going to go back inside now." I say as he stands up and then holds out a hand to help me up.

"Good luck with Goldilocks!" He calls out when I open the door and I bite my tongue as Claire turns to glare at us before returning her attention back to her phone while her minions do her share of the Homecoming work for her.