The dads who’d come with their own daughters had stopped staring and started smiling.
Some went over to thank the bikers. Some just nodded from across the floor, eyes glassy.
A teacher next to me dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.
“The PTA is going to have a field day with this,” she said, voice wobbling. “And I mean that in the best possible way.”
Toward the end of the night, when the girls were flushed and sugared up and the bikers looked like they could sleep for a week, Robert clapped his hands.
“Ladies,” he called out, in that voice that had probably started and stopped more than one bar fight. “Can I have your attention for a second?”
Forty-seven little heads turned.
Fifty-three men shifted, forming a rough circle around the girls.
Sita tugged at his sleeve.
“Speech time?” she whispered.
“Just a little one,” he murmured back.
He cleared his throat.
“I know tonight wasn’t what this school originally had planned,” he said. “Some of you came here feeling…less than. Like you didn’t belong because the person who was supposed to be here with you isn’t.”
Silence.
Even the DJ turned the volume down.