Prom and Prejudice (4 page)

“So what did you plan to do after college?” I ask her when she returns to the bed and opens a heart-shaped chocolate.

“I had absolutely no clue, Georgia.”

I ask the question I’ve always wanted to: “Did you get married, and have us, because you didn’t know what else to do?”

“Of course not! Well, maybe a
little
. I loved your father. And we wanted to have a family, eventually, I suppose.”

She holds out the basket to me and I grudgingly take an Almond Roca.

“Do you know what
you
want to do after you graduate from high school?” she asks me.

“Go to college.”

“But to do what?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Maybe you’re not so unlike me,” Mom says and touches the side of my face for a moment. Her hand is soft and it smells like rose petals.

I feel like I am going to cry now, but I say, “I like writing for the paper.”

“I know. I liked your article about factory farming and land consumption.”

I sit up now. A lot of things have utterly baffled me, lately, but this one might blow my boat completely out of the water.

“You
read
it? How?”

She laughs. “Is that so surprising? Someone left a copy of
The Alt
on the breakfast table so I read it. And I have eaten and cooked much less red meat since then—not that you’ve noticed,” she sniffs.

“Really? Hmmm.” She eats another piece of chocolate and I dip into the basket myself before asking, “So why didn’t you get a job or do something with your degree after Cassie and Leigh were in school?”

“Well, we moved around so much. And, honestly, I still couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do. Or anything that I could
imagine
myself doing.” She purses her pale lips and sort of winks at me. “The world is not beating down the door offering jobs to people with art history degrees, Georgia. Especially when they have never really worked a job outside of part-time school employment.” She frowns and fishes in the basket for another chocolate. “It’s nice to be in a town like Longbourne where so many of the other women are stay-at-home moms. Besides, it’s not like your father has ever even
suggested
that I do anything else. He
likes
having all the house stuff and the shopping and the cleaning magically take care of itself.”

I look at her as she pops a chocolate into her mouth.

“What?” she asks self-consciously, wiping the side of her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I just never thought about it like that,” I admit. “But that makes sense. If you weren’t around so much, especially when we were younger, Dad might actually have had to leave his computer and pick us up at school.”

“Or gymnastics. Or dance class. Or piano lessons. Or play dates,” Mom adds, nodding as she roots out the last heart-shaped candy. Then she looks at me. “I know my staying home has always been...a disappointment for you.”

“I just wondered why you didn’t do something else. I mean, it’s not like you couldn’t do anything else. You’re smart, presentable—”

Mom laughs. “I am going to take that as a compliment and cling to it.”

“It
is
a compliment.” I sigh and close my eyes. “I just can’t seem to say anything right any more, or
see
anything right any more.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself, sweetie.”

She puts her arm around my shoulders and we sit like this for a while. I can’t remember the last time this happened. We just sit there, and I think about her, and I think about Michael and his interest in Darien, and I open my mouth to tell my mom about it, but what’s the use? What could she possibly say? Because Michael was right a couple of weeks ago, during that awful scene in my kitchen, when he said that I like irony, and my finally being ready to admit my feelings for him at the exact moment that he’s fallen for Darien Drake is a textbook case of it. I am now even more convinced that one day the coroner will rule my passing as “Death by Irony.”

I’m starting to see things for what they are—and people for who they are, like Leigh and Cassie and Shondra and Dave and Gary, even my mom, but most importantly, Michael. It’s like I had always looked at him through really dirty glasses, or lenses that I thought were fine but were actually blurring my vision.

And now that I can finally see clearly, it’s too late.

So let the coroner rule. Death by irony, as predicted.

3 Pounce!

One Thursday in late May, Leigh and I are in the kitchen making desserts to sell at the intermission of
Guys and Dolls
on Saturday night. Some of the drama people had heard about my baked goods stand at Gary and Dave’s punk rock show and offered to finance the baking supplies for half of the profits. I felt honored enough to do it and I swear I don’t even consider how many people I could convert until Leigh asks me, “You’re okay with me making this batch with eggs and butter?”

“Of course,” I answer as I measure out the vanilla for the vegan snickerdoodles. “It’s not like I’m interested in converting people. I’m not
Alistair
.”

Leigh rolls her eyes and pulls at her ponytail to examine it with distaste.

“I am totally cutting this all off after the show,” she says. “But I have to keep it long for when Sarah has her hair in a bun.” Leigh’s the lead actress in the spring musical, the first freshman in Longbourne High School history to get a lead role.

“And for those flowy curls for the Cuban nightclub scene,” I agree. She nods as she starts on the Toll House cookies. “So what’s going on with you and Alistair anyway?”

“Not much.” She sighs and creams the butter in a big yellow bowl with a metal spoon. “But I found out why he doesn’t like that I’m in the show.”

“Oh? Because of the gangsters? The drinking? The gambling? The making fun of missionaries?” I’m laughing until Leigh’s look silences me.

“Because Spencer is gay.”

“
What
?”

She doesn’t say anything, so I try, “He should be
relieved
that your leading man is gay. Spencer Haywood is gorgeous! And you’ve gotten to kiss him, like, dozens of times by now, onstage. Alistair should be on his hands and knees thanking God that He made Spencer gay.”

Leigh sighs and begins beating the butter and sugar with the kind of fury that her minister might use to stamp out sin.

“The church believes that homosexuality is an abomination and so does Alistair,” she informs me.

I sit down to start wrapping some of the cooled brownies in wax paper and ask, “And what do
you
think?”

She shrugs and stops pounding the ingredients for a second to say, “I
like
Spencer...I don’t know...Alistair thought I should quit the show.”

“And you didn’t.”

“Right.”

“So did you guys break up?”

“Not really. I just don’t call him that often, and he doesn’t call me. We see each other at church and that’s about it now.”

“I’m so sorry, Leigh,” I say and I mean it, because I know how happy he made her.

She smirks and puts some extra muscle into smooshing the eggs into the creamed sugar and butter, snapping, “You never liked him.”

“No, but
you
did.” I sigh as I watch her pour the dry stuff into the wet stuff, and then the chocolate chips. “Those cookies will be good.”

“But not vegan.”

“I’m not a fanatic.”

“You mean like Alistair?” she says, and then she laughs.

“You said it, not me.” I laugh back, relieved that she’s not angry with me for being a jerk when she is trying to figure out something complicated.

***

The next night I go to the show with Mom and Dad and Trey and Tori and Leigh is even more fabulous onstage than I had imagined. On Saturday, Cassie comes with me, and helps me set up my little bakeshop on some folding tables next to the drinks table sponsored by the Key Club. She even offers to man the bakery table with me during intermission and I am so grateful to her for even thinking of helping me after my stupid scarlet letter idea. We sit in the auditorium and watch the show together until we have to go get ready for hungry customers during intermission.

As she counts out some change and bills into an old tackle box I found in the basement, Cassie chirps, “Leigh is
awesome
!” and even adds, grudgingly, “I cannot be
lieve
how hot she is in that one dance number.”

“I know,” I agree, and then we’re surrounded by hungry people buying my stuff. I almost laugh every time Cassie goes into a hard sell routine about how the food is delicious
and
healthy because it has no cholesterol. I don’t know what possesses her, but she sells a lot of brownies. And not just to boys.

“Hey, Georgia.”

I look up from my box of cupcakes and see Michael there, with Darien, and not an inch between them. He seems unusually happy.

“Those look good,” he says, pointing to the brownies and looking like the happiest boy in the world.

“They are,” I assure him.

“Is there, um, like, tofu or bean sprouts or...
something
in them?” Darien asks, and her tiny bunny nose wrinkles at the thought. She has on a sheath of a black dress and her hair looks like it’s been polished. She is poised and beautiful, if inarticulate.

“Not in these,” I assure her. “There are eggs and butter in the Toll House cookies, if that makes you more comfortable.”

Michael grins and says he’ll take a cupcake. Darien doesn’t order anything.

“Your sister is great,” Michael tells me after I count out the change into his hand. He pulls away from Darien for a second and seems engrossed in the tray of cookies. People are pushing past him to get their food before the lights go down again but he doesn’t move. “You should start a bakery,” he says finally, looking at me expectantly.

“I guess,” I say as I hand some cookies over someone else’s head.

Darien steps up then and puts two long fingers on Michael’s arm.

“I’m going over to talk to Veronica and Tatum,” she says to him. “Are you coming?”

He looks at me and opens his mouth for a second, closes it, and says, “Well, you look busy. I’ll see ya later.”

“I guess so?” I say as they disappear into the crowd and I am left wondering for about the millionth time since September what Michael Endicott is all about. I guess some things really never change, despite all that’s happened.

“You are
rich
!” Cassie squeals as the last of the crowd heads back into the auditorium.

“Well, I have to give a lot back to the Drama Club. But yeah, we did great! And thanks for your help. Really.” I pause, and then give her a hug, which she wriggles out of after a few seconds. “At least cleanup will be easier. There’s almost nothing left!”

Cassie looks at the clock at the end of the hallway. “I’ve gotta meet Carrie and Amber in ten minutes, out front.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

She grabs her bag and is almost halfway down the hall when she comes running back and asks, “Do you want to come along?”

I smile as tears spring to my eyes; I silently take back every awful thing I ever said or thought about my little sister and say, “No, thanks. I’ll clean up and watch the rest of the show again. Maybe I’ll go to the cast party after.”

“Oh, good. Okay. See ya!”

But I decide to just go home after the show, feeling as empty as the plastic containers that had held my wares, all because Michael Endicott came to the play with Darien Drake. All because Michael Endicott is “with” Darien Drake. That’s obvious now. Publicly confirmed. Why else would Michael have gone to a high school musical? He’s not exactly all about school functions and I doubt that he has a passion for amateur theater. He’s never been a fan of Cassie and I doubt he thinks much of her twin, Leigh, either—certainly not enough to go see her Longbourne theatrical debut.

I’m brooding in my room when Leigh comes in hours later and asks why I didn’t go to the cast party. As she tells me all about it, I should be much happier for her than I feel and my pettiness makes me feel even smaller and duller than I do already.

When Tori finally comes into our room that night, I try to sound casual as I tell her from my bed, “So Michael’s dad was right—Michael’s totally into Darien now.”

She pauses as she’s brushing out her hair.

“I don’t believe it,” she declares. “He doesn’t like her. At all.”

I lie on my bed and gently nudge Teeny out of the way, who responds by nipping my ankle, hard.

“Well, they were at the show together.”

“He likes
you
, George.
Like
likes you.” Tori laughs.

“Maybe he
used
to like me,” I concede.

“Yes. He did. He told you so.”

“But not any more.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“But what he said about Cassie that time in the kitchen,” I say as I shake the psycho cat loose. “And he
has
to think our family is even less acceptable now, with Mom flirting outrageously with his dad that night in Boston...”

“Did Dr. Endicott mind?” She laughs.

“No. I don’t think he even noticed.”

She climbs into bed under the familiar faded comforter with its enormous happy-looking purple flowers and sighs with uncharacteristic exasperation. “Michael likes you and it sounds like you actually like him—if you’ll just admit it. So you like him, he likes you. It seems pretty simple to me.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Because you won’t let it be?” she suggests.

“No,” I say, wounded, hugging my Ice-Bat Uglydoll to my chest now that Teeny has jumped off in search of other prey. “Because Michael
must
be into Darien now. According to his dad they talk on the phone all the time. I have never known Michael to use the phone to call
any
body.”

Tori rolls her eyes but not in amusement. I can see in the set of her mouth that she is pretty fed up with me, for once.

“You think about things too much, George,” she says. “If you are interested in Michael, you should let him know.”