I didn’t want to go to my prom.  At the time, it seemed a celebration of football players, cheerleaders, and people who were popular because of their straight teeth.

But on the eve of the prom itself, I felt a strange overwhelming urge to go.  I didn’t, of course, not having a ticket, or a tux, or a date, or a limo.  So, I stayed home and dreamed prom dreams.

The prom dream was always the same.  Lights faded, music slowed, and my prom date, a woman with dark hair and flashing eyes, danced close to me.  I’d hold her tight and we’d murmur our secret wishes to each other.

I forgot about the prom dream for a long time.  Life went on.  Decades passed.  The world changed and so did I.  Sometimes, the dream would come back, and I’d laugh at my own nostalgia for something that had never happened.

And then, a week ago, I found an envelope pushed under my front door.  It contained an invitation for the year my prom should have been and the words “period semi-formal dress required.”  I thought it was some kind of joke, but stuck it to the refrigerator anyway.

My mind drifted back to that invitation over the next few days.  I teased myself with the thought of going.  No.  I couldn’t.  That’s ridiculous.  Besides, I don’t even have a tux.

On my lunch hour, I found a large formal shop in the Mission that had, of all things, blue polyester tuxedos.  I tried one on and looked appropriately ridiculous, so I rented it.

The night of the event arrived.  I put on my blue tux and drove downtown to the hotel where the event was to take place.  It was an old landmark and had seemed cobwebby and dank.  I had never had a reason to enter it before.

People, like me, milled about inside a large ballroom.  Men and women, some young, some old, all wistful, circulated shyly beneath paper streamer decorations.

I drank a glass of punch, the band played a long lost song, and the room turned in an indigo haze.

Someone grabbed my hand.  It was my date.

We moved across the dance floor.  I held her close and looked down at her dark hair and flashing eyes.  She tipped her head back and asked, “Is this the prom you’ve always wanted?”

“Yes,” I said.  “It’s even more than I could have ever imagined.”

“Do you want to get a hotel room?”

“That’s okay, Sweetie,” I said to my wife of ten years.  “Going home with you is enough.  Thank you for doing this.”

She grinned up at me and we swayed together for the rest of the evening.