Prom and Prejudice

(Book 4 in the bestselling Snark and Circumstance Series)

Stephanie Wardrop

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.

Copyright © 2014 by Stephanie Wardrop

PROM AND PREJUDICE by Stephanie Wardrop

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Swoon Romance. Swoon Romance and its related logo are registered trademarks of Georgia McBride Media Group, LLC.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Published by Swoon Romance

Cover designed by Su Kopil

Cover copyright © 2014

To my super editors, Mandy and Annie, my family, and everyone who liked the first three. Vegan cupcakes all around!

(Book 4 in the bestselling Snark and Circumstance Series)

Stephanie Wardrop

1 Hester Prynne Throws Down

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I say it’s really sucky to have lost someone you have just started to love—or, at least, to really like.

That’s what happened to me last week with Michael Endicott.

When he first walked into my homeroom on the first day of our junior year here at Longbourne High School, I thought he was an insufferable snob (“asswaffle” was the exact label I gave him, if I recall). He had actually demanded that I get out of my seat because it was where he “always” sits. (Like I should know that, somehow.) Then we were stuck together as lab partners in bio class, and when I explained to him that I am an ethical vegan and therefore would not be participating in any of the dissections, I thought he was going to take the scalpel to my throat. (Like homicide would just be another attention-grabbing extracurricular activity to wow some Ivy League admissions officer.) And when we were stuck together again in English class for a series of projects, he told me I better not plan on exploring the exploitation of female characters in every text we tackled or he would join another group. (Like I didn’t want him to join another group, or maybe the Foreign Legion, anything that would get him out of my life.)

But the weird thing is, the more we had to work together, the more we got to know one another. He started dropping by my house and even let me teach him how to make vegan stuffed shells one Saturday, despite the fact that he finds my diet to be equal parts bizarre and hilarious. He’s spent so much time, in fact, sneering at most of the choices I make—not to mention my less-than-perfect-preppie family—that I was stunned when he asked me out one day. So stunned I threw him out of my house. But the weirdest thing is that once I saw that maybe he liked me—and I use “like” in the traditional seventh-grade definition of attraction—I started to like him back. But it was too late. I’d pushed him too far and lost him just when I had realized he was a nice thing to have found.

But last week, when my mom dragged me to a historic homes tour that included Michael’s house, I found a copy of Jonathan Safran Foer’s
Eating Animals
in his kitchen. It had one of my doodles stuck in it as a bookmark, so I knew it was Michael who borrowed it from the library and not one of his parents. And right before that I’d found out why he’d been kicked out of the Pemberley School—not because he cheated on a test, but because he was covering for another kid who had cheated and couldn’t afford to lose his scholarship. I found out that not only is Michael Endicott a more open-minded guy than he lets on, he’s a quiet crusader for justice. And I am the only one who knows this, because he never told anybody why he had to leave Pemberley. Even when people spread stupid rumors about why he was expelled, he still didn’t say anything.

As soon as I can figure out the right way to do it, I will tell him that
I
know and that I think he is wonderful for doing that.

But first, I have to deal with another series of rumors that hits closer to home. They involve my sister, Cassie, who admittedly made an astronomically bad choice in sending X-rated selfies to a senior who’d hooked up with her and then never spoken to her again. Still, she doesn’t deserve what happened to her when we got to school on Monday.

On my way to homeroom, because I’m preoccupied with figuring Michael out, it takes me a while to notice that there are grainy printouts of some of Cassie’s sexted photos plastered all over the hallways. When I do, I race to the freshman hallway to find that someone has written SLUT in big red letters on her locker again, and someone says that she ran out of the school when she saw it. I probably should run after her, but I’m compelled to see what else is happening; even if I can’t do anything to prevent it, I can at least glower at the perpetrators. And I do so much glowering that day my brows hurt by the end of it. Meanwhile the rumors, the tweets, and the Facebook posts have increased in frequency and absurdity. By the time I leave the building after school, Cassie is widely known to have performed exotic sexual acts on half of the football team and starred in a series of internet pornos, all while maintaining a highly paid position as a prostitute soliciting clients through the Netherfield
Shoppers’ Gazette
. Her ad was supposed to be right there between the coupons for free queso dip at Mama Taco’s and an offer for estimates on aluminum siding.

It makes me half-mad with disgust to see these sexist, stupid hypocrites attack Cassie for something they themselves have done (or wish they’d done). So when I get home that day, jet propelled by my righteous anger, I storm into Cassie’s room with a proposition: Cassie should wear a big, scarlet A on her shirt every day until everyone shuts up about her mistake.

“That sounds...a little crazy,” she balks. But I explain that everyone in school had to read
The Scarlet Letter
as freshmen, therefore everyone will recognize that like Hester Prynne, Cassie has been wrongly and hypocritically forced to wear an emblem of sorts by our own puritanical community.

“Everyone in the school will recognize that they were just as wrong, just as hypocritical, as the people in the book,” I assure her.

Cassie hugs a stuffed unicorn to her chest, and asks as she sits on the edge of her bed, chewing the gloss off her bottom lip, “What will it be made out of? The A?”

“I don’t know—felt, or something. Whatever we can find. You can even bling it up with sequins or something, use parts of your old tap dance costumes. It’ll be like
Project Runway
!”

“What if what I’m wearing tomorrow doesn’t go with red?” Cassie continues. “I wear pastels, mostly—they’re better for my coloring.”

“That’s not the point!” I screech before collecting myself. “This isn’t a
fashion
statement, it’s a po
lit
ical statement.”

“Well, I don’t even get what I’m supposed to be stating!” Cassie wails. “And how is this going to make people
stop
making fun of me and saying mean things?”

I take a breath and try again. “You will be showing that, like Hester Prynne, you will bear up under their prejudice and scorn of the community. That you won’t be broken. And that
they
are all hypocritical jackwads.”

Cassie flops over on her stomach and picks at the edge of her pink, checked pillowcase.

“I hated
The Scarlet Letter
. I didn’t even finish it,” she says. “But I
do
want all of this to stop.”

“It
will
stop when you show them how ridiculous they’re being,” I assure her.

“What does Tori say? Did you tell her your brilliant plan?” Cassie asks me.

I’m pissed that she thinks we should clear everything with our oldest sister even though she’s never around anymore and is always with her boyfriend Trey. But I force myself to remain calm.

“Just remember that it’s a statement,” I say, then, inspired, add, “You know, like Lady Gaga’s meat dress. Plus, it’ll be like that movie
Easy A
.”

Cassie sits up straight then. “Oh my God, Emma Stone was
gor
geous in that movie.”

“Right? And she gets Penn Badgeley in the end of it,” I remind her, and in minutes we are wading through the hall closet, storming the collection of old dance costumes. We find one with a red, sequined, Minnie Mouse kind of skirt and cut it into the shape of an A, then pin it onto her cheerleading sweater. The next morning, Cassie throws herself into the spirit of protest by wearing the reddest lipstick she can find; she’s ready to burst into the halls of Longbourne High like an atom bomb. But during our entire walk to school, Leigh begs her to change her shirt and Tori suggests that she doesn’t have to go through with it. But I have to pat myself on the back a bit for my powers of persuasion, because when we part ways at Cassie’s freshly scrubbed locker, she rips off her coat like Clark Kent ready to turn into Superman, revealing her super, sparkly scarlet letter.

Since my classes aren’t in the freshman hallway, I don’t know exactly what happens for a while after that, but she walks into the caf during my lunch period, clutching her coat lapels over her chest and announcing, “I want to take it off.
Now
.”