Prom and Prejudice Page 5

  As I walk home by myself, I wonder why Michael would be avoiding me, if that’s why he blew off class and homeroom. Why would he be avoiding me, when I am the one who made a total ass of myself?

  I can only conclude that it is because I am so loathsome.

  But if I am so loathsome, why did he put a little smiley face in his text after the news that I had kissed him? Because it’s so hilarious? As I cross the street, I reach the undeniable conclusion that Michael is too noble a person to text back and forth with another guy about some stupid deluded girl who had the nerve to kiss him. He just wouldn’t make fun of anyone like that, even me. In fact, Michael Endicott may be kind of snotty—I’m not entirely wrong about that—but he doesn’t make fun of people. Not like I do. Not like I made fun of him.

  I stop in my tracks on the other side of the fence where my neighbors’ twin West Highland terriers are bouncing and climbing on each other with impatience for me to pet them because it hit me:

  Oh my God. I’m the asswaffle.

  I sink to my knees and let the grateful little white terriers lick away all of my sins. I wish they were tall enough to lick away the tears.

  So the next morning, I march into homeroom with my head held high, ready to face anything because I deserve, after all of my asswafflery, to have to face just about anything Michael can do to me. But he isn’t there. I sit there like a rock during the morning announcements, and look out at the budding trees and turn to a familiar mental game.

  We’ve moved so many times for my dad’s job that sometimes, when I’m in a place that has slowly become familiar, I can get an involuntary flash of what it looked like the first time I saw it. Driving down a road, sitting on my bed reading, looking out a window into a yard—I’ll see it, suddenly, as I saw it for the first time, I’ll feel it as I felt it then, and I try to keep that feeling of unfamiliarity going for as long as possible.

  And it happens this morning in homeroom. All at once, I don’t see the trees newly green with popping leaves. I see them ready to turn color as they were in September, and I work to try to see everything around me through September eyes, to see what it looked like back then for as long as I can.

  I see the whiteboards with layers of faded equations and assignments that never fully erase; I see Mr. Mullin with his bald head like Mr. Clean; I see all of my classmates as if I don’t know them (which is still true, for most of them). And I remember Michael, his dark head bent over a book. He’s only bowed slightly; nothing compromises Michael’s posture. I smile a little when I remember how stiff and ludicrously formal he had seemed on that first day, correcting Mr. Mullin that he was “Michael” and not “Mike,” and our stupid tussle over which seat was his. I remember liking his hair, though, with its wild twists, and thinking that it looked like John Mayer’s on his first CD cover.

  And then I remember that it had been his first day at Longbourne, too, after leaving Pemberley.

  Maybe he had been just as nervous as I was, just like Tori had suggested that day when I’d complained about him. I’d dismissed that idea because he had seemed so sure of himself, then, so disdainful of everybody else, but maybe he had felt awkward, inside, even if it didn’t show on the outside. Maybe he had told Mr. Mullin that he was Michael and not Mike, not to be superior and to let us know it, but because he wanted us to know who he is. Because he is a Michael. Thoroughly. So not a Mike.

  Even if he thinks I’m an idiot, I need to tell him that I get it now, that I get all of it, finally. That I get him.

  He’s in English class today but we have an essay exam, so I miss any chance of saying anything to him then. I have a hard time focusing on the test and not looking at the curls on the back of Michael’s neck three rows away. We have to write about William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations on Immortality” which is all about looking back at your childhood and all that you leave behind and the ways that you can hold on to it as an adult. I wonder why adults always think youth is such a wonderful time, “the days of splendor in the grass.” They probably just don’t remember what it was really like. My pen moves in fits and starts for the whole period, and Michael finishes early and leaves the classroom.

  In bio class we have another exam, and desperate as I am to speak to him, if Miss Grogan caught anyone whispering or looking at anything other than the exam papers, she would have them pinned to one of the dissection trays and flayed. So after school I hang around awhile near his locker, but I have just missed him, so I just shuffle on home, where the only subject of conversation is the prom, again. Cassie and Tori have already bought their dresses, and while I am making everyone some veggie chili for dinner, Leigh comes into the kitchen and tells me sort of sheepishly that’s she’s going with Alistair.

  “Leigh, I think that’s great!” I say, even though it was easier to handle when I wasn’t the only dateless dork in the family.

  She scoops a spoonful of the chili and tastes it, nodding approvingly.

  “I called him a couple days ago and asked him,” she says when she takes a seat at the little table and clears Cassie’s book bag and socks and magazines out of the way. She shrugs and smiles self-consciously. “I figured that if I asked him to the prom and he said ‘No,’ then I’d at least know where we stand...I guess I couldn’t take not knowing how he felt, even if I wasn’t sure how I felt.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I say, and she looks surprised for a moment. “So how do you feel?”

  “Well, I’m glad we’re going, and I’m glad that he was glad I called. We disagree on some serious stuff, but we also agree on a lot of things, important things. So...I don’t know.”

  “It’s probably always like that when you’re with someone. Not that I’d know.”

  “Oh, George,” Leigh says, and her eyes are so round and full of sympathy that I feel like I am going to cry. “I know you thought we would hang out together on prom night, go to a movie or something—”

  “Please!” I practically shout, waving my hands at her to prevent her from hugging me or starting a telethon for the chronically unlovable. “Don’t even think about it. Go with Alistair and have a good time and bring home embarrassing stories about people I don’t like. Like ‘Willow Harper falls into a punch bowl and reveals that all of that hair has been a wig all along.’ Or ‘Darien Drake catches on fire somehow’—I would love to hear that.”

  Leigh laughs and doesn’t even look guilty about it.

  Mom comes in and smiles at us, saying to Leigh, “So where are we going dress shopping tonight?”

  “I don’t care. The mall, I guess.”

  Then mom turns to her Cinderella at the stove and sighs audibly.

  “I’ve always been the black sheep of the family,” I moan melodramatically, back of my hand to my forehead, and Leigh grins.

  “You do have the darkest hair,” she says, but Mom will have none of this. She puts her arm around me and insists, “Georgia is just a...late bloomer.”

  This is too much.

  “If you people don’t stop pitying me I am going to spit in your chili,” I warn, just as the oven dings for the cornbread to go in.

  ***

  On Wednesday, everybody at school is talking about prom. It’s really getting irritating, even pull-my-fingernails-out-slowly-with-pliers painful. There are plenty of other, bigger things happening in the world—wars, famine, various and sundry natural disasters—but all anyone wants to talk about is flowers and where to get their shoes dyed.

  “I can’t believe everyone is making such a big deal about this,” Dave says at lunch when Shondra has gone to another table to chat and Gary is back in line for his fourth chocolate milk.

  “I know. I don’t get it,” I agree.

  He pushes his glasses up his nose and says, “You’re not going, are you?”

  “I am not prom material,” I say as I dig in my bag for my pita chips.

  “You’re just above such things,” Dave corrects me. I pause for a second in my search for my chips because I have t
he nagging feeling that I am not above it, not at all, that if someone I really liked had asked me, if Michael had asked me, I would have said yes and been at the mall with my mom and my sisters trying on dresses I would never wear again and would probably look ridiculous in. “But, ya know, if you wanted to go...I’m supposed to spend the weekend with my brother at MIT, but...”

  “Oh, Dave,” I say, too sweetly, because he drops his head for a second in embarrassment. “That’s really nice of you. But proms aren’t really my thing, either.”

  “You know the music will suck,” he says with great assurance.

  “No doubt. Bad Coldplay covers.”

  “Or worse—a DJ.” He shudders visibly.

  “But thank you,” I say, as Michael suddenly plops into Shondra’s empty seat and I almost choke on my chip. I’d lost the nerve to say anything to him in homeroom and English class again. I was hoping instead that somewhere I would find the courage by bio class.

  “Hey, Dave, that last issue of The Alt was great,” Michael says. “There’s some really good writing in it.” He turns to me and smirks, one eyebrow raised. “Nothing on veganism, though. Are you off your crusade?”

  “It’s not a crusade,” I respond.

  “Well, that cupcake from the school show was awesome,” he says, and I am torn between surprise at Michael’s using a word like “awesome” and his sudden shift from snarky to complimentary.

  He and Dave talk politics for a while as I watch Michael warily, wondering what he thinks about my kissing him, if he ever thinks about my kissing him. Then I wonder what he will look like all dressed up for the prom, standing next to Darien for that stupid photo under some fake grape arbor. I am certain that he will look really handsome in a tuxedo. Like he belongs in one, even.

  When the bell is about to ring, Michael leans over and says to me in a quieter tone, “I’ll talk to you later, Georgia, okay?”

  I just nod as he walks away and Gary comes back tossing his milk carton between his hands like a very insecure juggler.

  I have to admit I replay this one line of conversation—“I’ll talk to you later”—more than once that afternoon and evening, wondering when that will be and what he will say and when he will say it. Because he doesn’t say anything in bio class. And believe me, I was waiting.

  My sisters put on a fashion show of their prom attire that night and I pretend to be one of the judges on America’s Next Top Model because it’s the only way I can get through it. Besides, ANTM may be the one thing we have in common. Even Leigh watches it and Tori allows herself to get really catty about the contestants she doesn’t like (the mean girls). I watch it with an ironic eye but get kind of caught up in the drama and the excitement of the makeovers anyway.

  I command as Tori struts down the second floor hallway in an ice-blue, satin sheath dress and high silver heels, “Victoria, darling, smile! Smile with your eyes!”

  When Leigh totters on her heels and bumps an elbow into the wall I urge, “Aurora Leigh, I need fierce. Find your model, girl,” then, “Now, Cassandra, I see you doing this”—I squint my eyes—“when I want to see this”—I bug my eyes out and purse my lips ridiculously.

  “Oh. My. God,” Cassie laughs as she pretends to be on camera, “I can’t believe I am actually here with TYRA BANKS.”

  As me again, I tell them, “You guys look really great. For reals. And I am sure Mom will take more pictures than ‘noted fashion photographer Nigel Barker’ has taken in his whole life and send them to everyone she has ever met.”

  Tori sits down on the floor next to me, carefully, because it’s hard to do in her slim dress and dangles her shoes in her hands. “So you remember when Dad made her stop sending out those embarrassing Christmas letters?” she asks.

  “Oh my God, those stupid updates!” Cassie howls. “‘Tori continues to excel in piano lessons and at four Cassie is already breaking hearts on the playground.’”

  “They were the worst,” Leigh agrees. “She wrote about my falling off the jungle gym and breaking my wrist.”

  “She wrote about my getting fleas from that stray cat I was feeding!” I said, and we all laughed.

  I have to admit that it feels good that even if I am a social reject in the world of romance, I am at least getting along with my sisters very well lately.

  After Cassie and Leigh go back to their rooms, Tori puts her hand on my shoulder to hoist herself up.

  “Have you talked to Michael lately?” she asks.

  “For about thirty seconds at lunch today.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “He’s taking his time.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know,” Tori admits. “But he must be thinking about it, about you. Guys don’t have girls run up to them in the woods and kiss them every day, you know.”

  “Oh, God, don’t remind me.”

  “Maybe he’s planning his move carefully.”

  I doubt it. But I like the idea.

  ***

  It finally happens after school on Thursday, on my way into Mr. Mullin’s room for the Alt meeting. Michael stops me in the hall in front of a bank of lockers by grabbing my arm. I am so startled I drop all of my books out of my bag.

  He helps me pick them up, and when Shondra pauses by us on her way into the room, Michael says, “She’ll be in in a minute.”

  She looks amused and smiles at me, giving us a little wave with her fingers before sashaying off to meet Dave and Gary and some new kids who want to join for next year.

  “I’m sorry I surprised you like that,” he says as he hands me my history book.

  “Well, yeah...what, did you jump out of a locker or something? I didn’t even see you come up.”

  “I heard you skipped homeroom and English on Monday, too,” he said.

  “Yeah. I had a dentist appointment...and a migraine.” I sound defensive even to myself.

  “Oh.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a while, which is long enough for me to start feeling like I should just climb into my locker and shut the door.

  I remind him, finally, “I have a meeting now. I should go in.”

  “Okay. I have just one question.”

  “Shoot,” I say as cavalierly as possible.

  He looks me right in the eye and I try to hold his gaze as long as I can but I end up focusing on my scuffed Chuck Taylors instead.

  “On Saturday, behind my house, you said you aren’t ‘the kind of girl who kisses other girls’ boyfriends,’ right?”

  I can feel myself turning red and it is suddenly about 125 degrees in the hallway. All I want to do is run out of the building as fast as I can.

  “Right,” I kind of squeak.

  When I look up from my feet I see he has a funny kind of almost-smile on his face now.

  “Well, I was just wondering...who is this other girl?” he asks. “I mean, I should know, right?”

  “What do you mean?” I snap, because I am sure he is making fun of me now. Or he’s just enjoying torturing me. I brush past him and hurry into the classroom but before I can disappear inside I hear his voice.

  “There is no other girl, Georgia.”

  I turn around to see him standing there, looking at me without a trace of a smile on his face, and his eyes are dark and sort of sad looking.

  “I have to go to track now. I’m already late,” he almost pleads. “Can I call you later?”

  “Yeah,” I say, and it comes out as a long-held exhale.

  He waves slightly and bounds down the hallway toward the gym and the locker rooms.

  “What was that all about?” Shondra asks as I slide into a seat next to her.

  “I don’t know,” I admit.

  No. Other. Girl.

  So I wait for the call all night, but it doesn’t come.

  I consider, again, transferring schools. Or defecting to North Korea.

  ***

  On Friday, Mom insists on everyone gathering at the table
for a “real family dinner” since we’re all usually running in five different directions, and the conversation still consists of Cassie and my mom talking about the prom and who’s wearing what and everything my mom thinks she can ask about Cassie’s new boyfriend Rob without making her angry.

  Tori looks at me with pity as she pointedly tries to change the subject.

  “Trey’s family is opening up the pool this weekend, and we’re all invited, any time. It’s heated, so it will be nice and warm in the water.”

  “That’s so thoughtful of them,” Mom says.

  Cassie begins telling us about the bikinis she saw at the mall when the house phone rings and she leaps out of her seat so fast her chair falls over.

  “Let the machine pick up!” Dad orders. “It’s ‘family dinner time.’”

  “But it could be Rob, asking for the exact color of my dress so he can pick out the right corsage for me,” Cassie whines, running to the phone before someone can tackle her.

  She returns thirty seconds later, looking as if someone had called to announce the death of someone she loves.

  “It’s for you,” she says, holding the phone out to me.

  I stand, say, “I’ll be quick,” and take the phone into the den.

  “Hello?”

  I hear a lot of buzzing and cracking and some traffic noises.

  “Georgia? It’s Michael? Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, kind of. Hi.” A really loud car horn blasts my ears and I think I’ve lost him.

  “Listen, this connection sucks, but I want to talk to you. I have stuff to do tonight and I have to be at the Y in Netherfield all day tomorrow, but can I talk to you tomorrow? I mean, you’re not going to the prom tomorrow night, are you?”

  Like he doesn’t know that.

  “No,” I say, but he can’t hear me over the static.

  “What?”

  “No!” I am forced to yell. “No, I AM NOT GOING TO THE PROM.”

  “Okay, so I’ll call you? Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say as distinctly as I can, and then we are cut off.

  I walk back into the dining room and everyone but Dad is looking at me.