Snark and Circumstance (Novella)

by Stephanie Wardrop

  “Yep. Why waste your time thinking about all those pesky, insignificant women when you can talk about abbots and bishops and friars? Fascinating.”

  He opens his mouth to respond but the bell cuts him off. He is out of his chair and on his way out the door faster than Wile E. Coyote in an ejection seat.

  Later, in the cafeteria, I’m sitting alone because Gary and Dave are skipping lunch to get concert tickets or something. I feel pretty conspicuous by myself, but Shondra comes up to me soon and I feel myself smiling really hard.

  “Dave’s not here?” she asks.

  “Not today. But you can sit if you want.”

  She hesitates and looks over at the table where the other kids from Netherfield usually sit.

  “I was going to talk to him about the alternative paper. The Alt, I guess it’s called.”

  “Yeah, Dave says they can’t think of a better name that doesn’t sound like they’re trying too hard. You should. Talk to him, I mean. He’s gotten me to write for it, too,” I say, and Shondra sets down her tray.

  After biting into a pear with a sense of accomplishment that has nothing to do with fruit, I ask, “So what did you think of our first English group meeting?”

  She just shrugs.

  “I gotta warn you,” I say as I open my hemp lunch bag and pull out some chips, “Each time I see Michael Endicott he gets even snottier.”

  She twirls her spaghetti on her spork—no mean feat—and grins.

  “So he’ll fit right in here,” she says. “He’s new right?”

  “Oh, to the school, yes. But his ancestors built the town. Didn’t you know that? He seemed to think I should.” I grin back at her as Maggie Parker, who is also in Ms. Ehrman’s class, sits down, eager to gossip about something. Maybe she heard who we were discussing because she leans forward as she shakes up her carton of orange juice and says, “Do you guys know Michael Endicott was kicked out of the Pemberley School?”

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “I mean, he looks like the poster boy for Obnoxious Prep School Douchebag. I’m sure he fit in there perfectly.” Shondra laughs.

  “Really. I’ve heard a lot of stories about it,” Maggie assures us. I don’t know Maggie well, but she strikes me as someone a little too eager to pass along information about someone she couldn’t possibly know. She counts off the rumors on her fingers as she relays them. “I heard he got caught dealing drugs, or violating some kind of honor code, and/or sexting the Pemberley headmaster’s daughter.”

  Shondra’s eyes grow big with skepticism at the last conjecture and I have to agree.

  “No way,” I say. “Michael Endicott might be creepy enough to want to ‘sext’ somebody, but he’s too uptight to actually do it. I doubt he’s been naked since the day he was born.”

  Maggie smiles slyly. “Wow, you really don’t like him, do you, Georgia?” she asks me.

  “It was loathe at first sight,” I tell her.

  “Well, you know what they say! Think of all the books and movies where a girl meets a guy and hates him—and then they realize they are perfect for each other and fall madly in love,” Maggie rhapsodizes.

  I know these movies. And they never explain how the obnoxious guy magically turns into such a great person—we’re just supposed to assume it happens while we watch him go about his business as the soundtrack plays a bouncy pop song. But it’s insulting, really, to expect people to believe this can actually happen. Screenwriters obviously spend very little time in the real world.

  “Well, whoever ‘they’ are, ‘they’ don’t know what ‘they’re’ talking about,” I tell her. “Besides, this is real life.”

  Still, as we walk out of the cafeteria to our next classes, I see Michael at the recycling bins where a group of girls seem to find his disposal of an empty water bottle to be the most fascinating thing they’ve seen in years. Maggie slows down and I practically bump into her, then I plow past her and out the door.

  After school, I take Shondra to Mr. Mullin’s room for the Alt meeting. Dave’s excited to see us and Gary immediately scavenges my lunch bag for leftover peanut butter cookies since he missed the chance at lunch today. I tell them about my tentative plans for the Ethics of Eating articles and how to get people interested in eating vegan. I mention issues like sustainable agriculture and how much farmland is wasted feeding cattle that could be used for growing soybeans and other vegetables and their eyes sort of glaze over.

  Gary nods impatiently, saying through the crumbs in his mouth, “Isn’t that chick from Black Swan a vegan?”

  “Yeah,” Shondra says. “If you mention vegan celebrities, you’ll get more people around here interested.”

  Dave looks for another cookie and says, “There’s your angle. Start with the stars thing but then say something about how vegan eating is not just some fad Hollywood diet, or something. You know, it’s . . . whatever it is.”

  “A responsible ethical choice—better for the animals and the planet,” I tell him.

  “So go with that, but if you want to really bring people along with you . . . I mean, you’ll get more people to listen to your ideas if you, you know . . . dialed it down a bit? I mean, I was with you on the dissection argument in this issue, but comparing the experiments on animals to the Nazis in concentrations camps . . .? It was a little extreme for some people.”

  I look up from a draft of the article to see that he’s got a worried look on his face. Shondra and Gary are watching him, too, as if I might leap across the table to strangle him and they may need to restrain me. So I smile and nod, and Dave smiles with relief.

  “You can be really funny, Georgia,” he says. “Maybe you can bring some of that into the article.”

  I nod again, feeling really embarrassed. I mean, I’m not trying to beat everyone over the head with a blunt instrument. I just really believe in the cause.

  After the meeting, I’m walking out the doors to the sidewalk when Willow scurries up behind me and grabs my arm playfully, as if we’d agreed to run off to the mall together or something after school.

  “Soooo, your sister, Tori, and Trey are, like a couple now? Adorbs! Really.”

  I just look at her and start walking down the stairs.

  “And what do you think about Michael Endicott?”

  I stop then, because I have no idea why she would ask me this question. I’m sure I stare at her like I left my brain in my locker.

  “You should be careful with him, Georgia,” she tells me in the sober tones of a Sunday school teacher. “I mean, don’t you wonder why he got kicked out of Pemberley?”

  “No, I can honestly say that I don’t.” Which isn’t true, exactly, but still. She doesn’t need to know this.

  She smiles, but her blue-grey eyes narrow slightly.

  “It was a violation of the Honor Code. He cheated on a history test.”

  I say nothing. I just stand there trying to figure out why Willow has bothered to find me to impart this warning. It makes no sense. If Willow is dealing with the loss of Trey as a potential boyfriend by taunting me—why? And if she has set her sights on Michael instead of Trey, why warn me away from her man? It’s not like I am interested in him, or like I would be any competition for her if I was. It seems to me she should sharpen her claws on Darien Drake instead.

  “I just thought that something like that would matter to someone like you,” she continues. “You know, since your dad’s a college professor.”

  “Well, thanks,” I say as I reach the sidewalk and turn toward home. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  With that, Willow turns on her sharp boot heel—she is the only person I have ever actually seen perform this maneuver—and walks away.

  At home, when I should be doing my homework or working on my article, I log on to Facebook and look at the inevitable suggestions for People I Might Know, which include Willow and Darien and Trey and Michael Endicott. I click on Michael’s name and see that his Friends List is disturbingly small. Either everyone else finds him equally r
epellant or he is really choosy about even virtual friends. Shondra’s name comes up, too, and I send her a Friend Request, then send them to Dave and Gary, too, and a message to Allison, whose profile picture is now a penguin in a ski hat. She used to joke that I was the only person in the state of Colorado who didn’t ski. I tell her all about Willow’s party and how annoying Michael is before I have to go down to dinner.

  It’s one of those nights where we’re actually all home at dinner time, so Mom makes a big deal of our all sitting down at the table together. I know she read somewhere that this helps children to learn the fine art of conversation, but she is oblivious to the fact that Cassie always monopolizes the discussion with her tedious exploits as Longbourne’s prima JV cheerleader. And tonight she adds a new strain to the ongoing monologue with a dissertation on the phenomenal physique of her new favorite football player, Rick “Brick” Brickwell, who she is pretty sure is going to ask her out after the Big Away Game this weekend. Mom is super thrilled. I feel like I am going to gag on my tofu pad thai.

  Then Leigh says that she will miss the game Saturday—as if she would go anyway—because she is going to sing at the church coffeehouse with this boy, the minister’s son, who plays guitar. She’s so excited about it that’s she’s actually willing to wrestle Cassie for talk time, and that makes me happy enough to be generous.

  “That sounds really great, Leigh,” I tell her.

  “His name—the guitar player—is Alistair,” she says as her cheeks turn pink. “He’s from England and his parents were missionaries in China when he was a little kid. There’s a Youth Group Mixer at the church next Saturday, and I think he might ask me to go with him.”

  Mom literally claps her hands with glee and pats Leigh’s shoulder. As revolting as a youth group mixer sounds, I feel a stab of envy. All of my sisters are finding romance of a sort, and, even if they are finding it in odious forms, I can’t help but feel it would be nice to have someone think I am pretty awesome, too.

  “Did you hear that, Dick?” she asks my dad, as if he were in another country and not at the other end of the table. “Isn’t it wonderful seeing the girls so happy?”

  I swallow my bite of noodles and put down my fork. I no longer feel like eating. It is taking all of my energy and concentration to not think that one of their girls (namely, me) is not that happy. To not think about how my sisters’ sudden romantic flowering leaves me as the only boyless wonder in the family. To not think about how I will be spending my Saturday nights with Dad and the cats, unless Dad is forced at gunpoint to go to any more of Mom’s Longbourne Newcomers’ Club events with her. If he does, then it will be just me and Teeny and Rufus and Clover, a bowl of popcorn, and a movie.

  I clear the plates, as that is my job for the night, and then go back up to my room. Instead of working on my Spanish or my calculus, I log onto Facebook again to see if Allison wrote back, and then remember that she is just getting home from school out in the Mountain Time Zone. I get stuck at number five—out of twenty-five—in my calc homework, and I look across the room to Tori’s empty bed. She’s with Trey and some other people, doing her own homework, and can’t save me from mine. Last year when we moved, we had agreed to share a room since we figured we would always be in each other’s room anyway. Now it seems all I see of her is a tousled blonde head sticking out of her comforter at night. I really miss her even if she’s still here, technically, at least until she goes away to college next year. I’m glad she’s found her perfect match in Trey, I really am, but I miss talking to her every day, and especially every night before we go to sleep. And I am never going to pass calculus without her.

  ***

  The next night, Mom has Ladies’ Gourmet Night at someone else’s house, Dad has an evening class, Leigh is at her church youth group meeting, Tori and Trey are at his house, and I am home alone after dinner.

  Or so I think.

  I walk into Cassie’s room to look for that rare pencil in the Barrett house that actually has a point on it, and find her on her bed with Brick, engaged in a heavy lip-lock and I don’t know what else.

  “Oh, God! Sorry!” I say as I back out, averting my eyes.

  Brick just grins at me and kind of salutes. He seems awfully comfortable for a guy in this compromising situation, more like he is posing for a Calvin Klein underwear campaign than someone caught molesting someone’s sister.

  Cassie readjusts her shirt over her bra and smiles, her face quite flushed. When she says, “We’re just doing our homework,” she sounds breathless, as if she has just climbed ten flights of stairs without a pause between them.

  There are no books in sight, except those lined up on her white bookshelves, and none of those are schoolbooks. For about half a second I consider pointing this out, then realize I would sound like someone’s mom—though not my own.

  “Dad’s gonna be home soon,” I warn her and she nods. “You don’t want to be caught by him. Or Leigh.”

  She smirks and they both laugh.

  “Yeah, my twin sister will send out the God Squad on us!” Cassie giggles, punching Brick on his substantial arm. He grabs her around the waist and she shrieks with delight and they begin wrestling.

  I flee.

  Ten minutes later, I am in the living room trying to erase that image from my brain, when they both come down.

  “Hey, Georgia, right?” he asks as he thumps himself down onto the cushions on the couch next to me, as if he has known me and sat on this couch with me all of our lives.

  “Right . . .”

  Cassie drapes herself over the edge of the red-and-white pinstriped loveseat. She manages to look both concerned and gloating somehow.

  “You know Michael Endicott, right?” Brick asks me.

  “Right. . .” I repeat.

  Brick dips his large, bullet-shaped blond head for a moment, as if unable to speak the words he has been charged with, so Cassie picks up the conversation.

  “Brick knows him, too, George, and he just thought we should warn you.”

  “Warn me?” I almost laugh.

  “Yeah,” Cassie says sagely. “He knows why Michael got kicked out of Pemberley, and, um . . . it’s still a problem, I guess.”

  I pick up a copy of The Atlantic from the coffee table and start riffling through it. “Oh yeah? And what is it?” I hope I sound unconcerned, or at least less interested than I really am.

  “Drug dealing,” Brick informs me, like a bad imitation of a TV cop. “Prescription drugs. Gets them from his dad, the doctor, I guess.”

  “You mean that Dr. Endicott supplies his son with prescription drugs so he can pass them out to his classmates like Halloween candy?” I ask incredulously.

  “No,” he tells me patiently, “He uses his dad’s prescription pads and forges the signature.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  Brick shrugs.

  “Everybody knows it.” He looks at Cassie and she nods approval and dismissal. He gets up and they walk to the front door and kiss for a few nauseating minutes before he can finally get out the door.

  “Congratulations,” I say when she walks back into the room, pie-eyed.

  “On what?”

  “On getting the Brick.”

  “He’s not ‘the Brick’, he’s just ‘Brick.’ Rick Brickwell,” she sighs happily.

  “And thank him for me for the tip about Michael Endicott—or should I call him `Dr. Feelgood?’”

  “We just thought you should know,” she says tartly.

  I frown, but I don’t say anything. I am pretty sure I don’t believe them, but I don’t want to make a big deal about it. Cassie has had a way-too-superior look on her face lately, now that she has seduced the town’s football hero. And if she thinks she has insight into Longbourne’s seamy underbelly as well, she’ll be insufferable.

  “Do you or Brick actually know anybody who buys drugs from Michael?”

  “No way! Brick is in training. He’s real into health,” she protests. “He wouldn’t
mess with that stuff. And neither would I.”

  It looks to me like Brick knows a thing or two about steroids but I check myself before I say it.

  “So you don’t exactly have solid evidence,” I say instead.

  Cassie sits down on the loveseat and picks up the remote. The TV comes to life with a snap.

  “Why are you defending him?” she demands. “Do you like him or something?”

  I can feel my face grow hot as I consider this for a second. This is the second person who has decided to warn me about Michael Endicott. Granted, Willow and Cassie seem about as perceptive as steamed clams, but still, it’s unnerving to think that people think I care about him. So I sort of rush to say, “I just think people shouldn’t go around saying things if they have no evidence. It’s a huge accusation. And it doesn’t seem like your boyfriend and Michael travel in the same circles anyway, so how would he know?”

  “God, you don’t have to get all snotty on me, George.”

  “I’m not!” I object, then sigh. “I’m just saying.”

  She ignores me and flips through the channels until she gets a rerun of The Hills. I go upstairs to struggle with the night’s calc homework, and give up until Tori comes home.

  I have to admit Cassie was right about one thing—I did sort of flip out on her in Michael’s defense, which is truly weird. Maybe it’s because this rumor is so obviously wrong, and not just because it’s being perpetrated by Brick the neckless wonder. It’s just wrong. Michael Endicott may be annoying, but he’s no drug dealer. He’s too straight and too worried about his grades for that. Which means the rumor is not just false but also plain mean. I wonder if he knows about it. Maybe that’s why he comes across as Mr. Glacier sometimes. He’s hard to take at times, but he’s not a bad person, even if Michael and I do come from different solar systems. Whole other galaxies. But sometimes, galaxies collide.

  Hard.

  Chapter 5: Is That a D-bag I See Before Me?