Georgia admitted she’d refused to deliberately mistreat me because she considered her father’s plan unfair. She still wanted to attend prom, but she believed I deserved to know what was happening. Once we were inside, she introduced me to her best friend Madison, who already knew about the experiment and thought the entire situation was hilarious. Soon Georgia began jokingly making ridiculous requests. She asked me to persuade the DJ to play a song by a band that didn’t exist, complained that her punch wasn’t cold enough, and demanded a chair facing exactly northwest. I told her I could provide north or west but that the budget didn’t cover both. Madison nearly dropped her cupcake laughing. Even Georgia’s aunt Evelyn, one of the dance chaperones, approached to tell me Sheldon frequently praised my ability to handle pressure. By that point, I suspected something important was happening at the company, but Georgia refused to explain further. Then Sheldon texted asking whether everything was running smoothly. I jokingly reported that his daughter required a northwest-facing chair and that negotiations were continuing. He immediately asked how I was handling the situation. When I told him I’d offered a chair facing north and a complimentary napkin, he congratulated me on my problem-solving. Georgia grabbed my phone and sent another message claiming she’d demanded I obtain the moon. Her father eventually replied that I should use my judgment. We laughed so hard the photographer had to retake our picture. By the end of the night, we were dancing badly, eating cupcakes, and enjoying ourselves. I even attempted a ridiculous dance Georgia taught me, making my arms swing as though I were fighting invisible bees. When prom ended, she finally revealed that Sheldon had signed a lease on a second warehouse in Westfield, scheduled to open in six months. He needed a manager and had been observing several employees, but I was the candidate he seemed most interested in. The questions he’d asked at work and the strange prom arrangement were his unconventional attempts to assess whether I could handle difficult people. Georgia also admitted that her original date hadn’t canceled at all; Sheldon had persuaded him to attend with other friends so I could accompany her. Before we left, she showed me a message she’d sent her father, telling him I’d failed his ridiculous test because I couldn’t obtain the moon and danced like a broken washing machine. His response was short: “Understood. We need to talk.” Then Uncle Frank’s Buick refused to start. With midnight approaching, I remembered his warning about the loose battery cable, opened the hood, and managed to restore the connection. Georgia helped with the flashlight, and we both burst out laughing when the engine started and the radio suddenly blasted music. I got her home four minutes after midnight and went home to tell my mother what had happened. She cried when I explained the possibility of a promotion. But on Monday morning, Sheldon called me into his office, closed the door, and handed me a folder describing the new warehouse. He explained that I’d need six months of training with operations manager Marcus before interviewing for the position. Then he slid a second sheet of paper across his desk. It showed the proposed salary. I read the number once, then again, struggling to believe what I was seeing. It was almost three times what I currently earned. Sheldon watched my reaction, then picked up a photograph of his daughter and said there was another reason he’d chosen me for prom, something he hadn’t even told Georgia. I looked at him as he began—
