Prom and Prejudice

by Stephanie Wardrop

  “Cassie’s twin is one of them,” I say dully, adding, “except Leigh’s former missionary boyfriend once gave her a hickey the size of a grapefruit,” and everyone laughs.

  “Are hickeys allowed if you have one of those purity pledge rings?” Dave asks me.

  Gary nods wisely and says, “My sister’s roommate at Bowdoin is Catholic and she and her boyfriend are all about this purity shit but they do everything but. My sister accidentally walked into their shower room one day when this girl and some guy—not her boyfriend—are there. She’s, um, performing an act on him that begins with an ‘F’ in Latin.”

  “In a public shower?” Shondra says with a shudder. “That’s not right.”

  “Where else are you supposed to do it when you have a roommate?” Gary reasons, and Shondra and I practically yell at the same time, “Not in the hall shower!”

  “It’s totally wrong that your sister is being treated like some kind of monster and Jeremy Wrentham is like, this major porn star king to everyone,” Dave says.

  “Yeah,” Gary agrees. “He’s the asshole who posts his adventures online, not your sister.”

  “What?” I explode.

  “Not with your sister!” Gary insists. “He’s never posted anything online with her in it! But Jeremy’s posted...plenty of other stuff.”

  Now I am shaking and gritting my teeth; soon tears are going to come flying out of the sides of my eyes like poison darts.

  “You didn’t know,” Dave marvels. “It’s why Jeremy got kicked out of Pemberley. Apparently one of his videos features the headmaster’s daughter.”

  I close my eyes and fight back the tears with all the strength in my suddenly enfeebled body. I can hear Michael’s voice in my head, can hear what he said back in my kitchen that day: Jeremy is kind of evil, Georgia. You don’t know. And I wouldn’t listen. I’d even made out with Jeremy on New Year’s Eve, until Michael had taken me home before I could do anything stupid and end up like my sister.

  “Hey, look you guys!” Dave calls, and he’s waving at his laptop. “You have to read this awesome letter that just came in to The Alt’s email. It’s this defense of Cassie and a really good argument against everyone else’s hypocrisy. I wish I had written it.”

  Gary and Shondra rush to read over Dave’s shoulder, but I can’t bear it.

  As I pick up my bag and my coat, I tell them, “I have to go home and see how much damage I’ve done to my sister.”

  “I’ll forward you this letter,” Dave promises as Shondra wraps me in a big hug and says, “Tell her to stay strong. You, too.”

  When I get home and force myself to go up to Cassie’s room to check on her I see her lying on her bed, and Leigh is there, too, with her arms around her twin. Cassie is crying softly and Leigh is saying something, and I back out of the room because there is nothing I can do that will be half as good as this. Jesus Freak Leigh, who I’d have guessed would be burning her sinner sister at the stake, is being more helpful—and loving—than I have ever been, despite all my good intentions.

  When I check my email and read the open letter that Dave forwarded I’m ready to join a special witness protection program for the exceptionally dense and embarrassing. Because I realize that I will never write anything as smart and thoughtful and convincing as this. It is brilliant and beautifully written and says everything I wanted to. I should just be glad that someone succeeded where I had failed so dazzlingly, but it hurts too much.

  And I can see its immediate effects when The Alt comes out the next day. There’s much less whispering and no open taunting. There is no new graffiti and I don’t see anyone passing their phones or pictures around. By the end of the week, it’s over. Just like that.

  Someday, whenever I get over my own role in this public shaming, I will find the anonymous writer and get down on my knees and pledge eternal devotion to their spirit and eloquence. But right now, I just feel moronic.

  2 Beantown Bust

  I keep a low profile at school until Spring Break arrives weeks later, and I am no longer contemplating how to tell Michael that I know why he got expelled and what he did for Los, Shondra’s friend, to save him from the same fate. After seeing the look in Michael’s eyes when he’d recognized that I was the author of Cassie’s greatest humiliation, I know there is no way he could ever feel anything but contempt or pity for me ever again. Why compound that by declaring myself?

  So by the time Spring Break arrives, I am so eager to get away from Longbourne and everyone in it I’m actually thrilled to accompany my mom and Tori as they visit colleges. Our last stop is Boston, and when Tori confides that BU is her safety school, I suggest she blow off the overnight orientation and stay at the hotel with me and Mom. I have to admit my motives are somewhat selfish. Our grandmother booked a really nice room on Copley Square because she planned to join us here, but she got the flu a few days ago. And even though Mom and Tori and I could easily drive back to Longbourne from Boston, Mom still wants to stay in the luxury hotel—especially since her mom is paying for it. But a night alone in a hotel, however swank it is, with just Mom for company does not appeal so much to me. We hadn’t talked much in the motel room we had shared while Tori stayed over in the dorms at Middlebury, and that was okay with me. Mom has no idea of anything that is going on with Cassie—or my role in it—and I plan to keep it that way. But Tori decides that she’ll hang out in the BU dorm just for the experience and I marvel once again at how comfortable she is with most human beings, even ones she doesn’t know. She doesn’t worry as much as I do about having something in common with people or what to say to them.

  When we check in to the hotel without her, Mom and I stand for what seems like an eternity as the clerk struggles to understand that my mother did not make the reservation but is taking it from her sick mother and that this is a perfectly acceptable familial transfer. I try to tune out their miscommunication—and the fact that I really have to pee—and look around at all the potted plants and leatherback club chairs and people from all over the world moving quickly in and out and on and off the elevators.

  And then I see him.

  Michael Endicott and his dad are at the other end of the crowded front desk, checking in, and before I can make my legs duck and run, Michael turns around and sees me. He looks surprised, of course, but he smiles and walks over to us to say hello.

  “What are you doing in Boston this week?” he asks.

  “Tori’s been visiting the schools she got into but hasn’t actually visited yet—she’s staying at BU tonight, even though she doesn’t want to go there. And I’m tagging along.”

  “I am a tagalong, too. My dad’s speaking at Mass General tomorrow and I’m just going to go to a museum or something.”

  Dr. Endicott appears behind his son, smiling and extending his hand to Mom, who reveals some positively girlish dimples for him.

  “If you two ladies are in town tonight we should meet for dinner,” he suggests as he adjusts the leather suitcase in his hand.

  “That would be lovely!” Mom twitters. “Here, in the hotel dining room?”

  Dr. Endicott smiles and looks at Michael.

  “Michael usually insists on Legal Seafood when we’re in town. We could meet you there at 6:00?”

  “Lovely!”

  “They have veggie pasta,” Michael says to me quietly as he picks up his own duffle bag. I smile at this unexpected support of my dietary habits and he kind of smirks as he hoists his bag over his shoulder and follows his dad to the elevators.

  Minutes later we’re finally checked in and Mom is about to explode with admiration of the gilt and mirrors and opulence. You’d think we lived in a shack by the river the way she was acting—like a displaced princess come home at last.

  Mom says as we ride up to our room, “I hope you don’t attack Dr. Endicott if he orders a lobster. It was kind of him to invite us.”

  “I think I can restrain myself,” I sigh.

  Mom takes a long bath and I watch TV and spend
more time than I would like to admit figuring out which of the three shirts I brought with me to wear to dinner. When the hands on the clock have finally moved sufficiently, we walk down the street to the restaurant, where Michael and his dad wave from a table. After we order, Dr. Endicott tells us a little about his work and the conference at the hospital and Mom talks about volunteering with the Newcomers Club at one of the hospitals back home.

  “So, which museums are you going to?” I ask Michael as the parents compare notes on hospitals—as if my mom has any notes to share. Her first glass of white wine went down pretty quickly, and I am wary of what she’ll say, as it appears that Cassie’s genius at flirtation is genetic—and not paternally transmitted.

  “Fine Arts, maybe.” He sips his water and looks at me for a moment, then allows a sheepish smile. “Actually, I was planning on going to the New England Aquarium. I used to go there when I was a kid. I like penguins, and they have a lot of them.”

  “Me, too! Do they have those touch tanks there, where you can pet rays and stuff? I went to Mystic Aquarium a long time ago, when we were east visiting my grandparents, and they took us there. I loved that tank! The rays are so smooth, and they look like ghosts gliding just below the surface of the water.”

  “Yeah?” Michael seems surprised but a little relieved for some reason. Maybe he was afraid I would make fun of him for wanting to spend the day with some flightless birds. “So Tori’s ruled out BU?”

  I nod as I bite into my salad.

  “So where’s she going instead?”

  “Middlebury. Or Williams.”

  “Trey’s already accepted his admission to Amherst. That’s close to Williams.”

  “I know.” Suddenly, I don’t want to talk about schools or rays or penguins, really. I want to tell him I know what he did for Los and how much I admire him for that, but whenever I get close to saying it, my mom manages to interrupt. She’s joined the college discussion now, with Michael’s dad talking about his Harvard days and where Michael might go, and my mom talks about meeting my dad at school. We’re well into dinner before they finally get lost enough in the good old days to ignore us again.

  I take a gulp of my iced tea to clear my throat—ever since I saw Michael at the hotel lobby I’ve felt like there’s a softball lodged in it—and venture, “I think it is really great what you did for Los last year.”

  He seems startled and looks around the room for a second, as if someone might have overheard me.

  “I mean, Shondra told me how you took the fall for the cheating,” I continue, though I can feel my face growing hot as I sense I’ve just said something really wrong while I intended to say something really right. This happens to me way too often, especially with Michael.

  Michael concentrates on his clams for a moment, pulling them delicately from the shells and dipping them in the melted butter. He does this with enough grace to impress this dedicated non-bivalve eater.

  “I just thought,” he says finally, “that it would be worse for Los to be kicked out than me. I knew I’d be able to get into a good school someplace else, while he’d go back to Netherfield and probably lose any chance at a college scholarship...” He stops and looks at me for a few seconds, and his dark eyes are open and soft, not at all hard and hawk-like as usual. I feel my heart melting, dripping in my chest like honey from a teaspoon.

  “And I found out why Jeremy was kicked out, too,” I continue. “I know now what you were trying to tell me, to warn me about, back in my kitchen. And at the country club dance.”

  “It took you long enough,’” he laughs, but his eyes are still on me intently.

  “What you did for Los...It was pretty amazing,” I breathe. Or I try to breathe. I feel like there is no air in the room all of a sudden and it’s making me dizzy.

  Mom cuts through the moment like a turtle snapping a stick in half, asking, “What is amazing?”

  Michael clears his throat and tells his dad, “Georgia is the one who brought Carlos over, so she knows about how I got expelled.”

  My mom splutters a bit at that last word. I try to be grateful that no chardonnay shot through her nostrils.

  Dr. Endicott laughs, looking at Michael with fond bemusement.

  “My noble son let a scholarship student at Pemberley, a boy from inner city Netherfield, copy some answers off an exam, and when they got caught and were going to be expelled, he said he was solely to blame,” Dr. Endicott tells my mom.

  Michael looks profoundly embarrassed now, and my mom just looks confused, but says brightly, “I have a cousin who went to Pemberley. Class of...?” She frowns as she tries to place the year.

  “I was the Class of 1976,” Dr. Endicott says, and then the two of them try to determine how many mutual acquaintances they may have through Pemberley and other means. My mom is being a little too flirty and I want to throw a blanket over her but Dr. Endicott doesn’t seem to mind. Besides, I’m finally, finally talking to Michael. This is my chance, the one I’ve been waiting weeks for.

  Still, all I can think to say is “I’m glad I know...”

  Nothing I can think to say after that seems right and we just look at each other for a little while and poke at the food on our plates with our forks.

  “Michael tells me that Tori is among the top of her class,” Dr. Endicott says.

  Mom beams and informs him, “And, of course, she will be going to the Senior Prom with Trey Billingsley. Oh!” She begins waving one hand with excitement at her sudden idea and tells me, “We should go dress shopping while we’re here in the city.”

  And then Dr. Endicott says, “I suspect that Michael could have a prom date if he chose to.”

  Michael groans audibly and puts down his napkin as if he is going to leave the table.

  I look up to see his dad winking as he confides to my mom, “He’s known Darien Drake since preschool, but they seem to be talking on the phone a lot lately.”

  Darien Drake. Willow Harper’s henchman. The girl with the raven hair like a mermaid’s tail, sleek and dark and glamorous.

  Mom laughs knowingly as I gape at Michael, feeling helpless all of a sudden, like everyone at the table is simultaneously crowding in on me and spinning away across the room. I wish I could run, and this desire reaches critical mass when my mom says, “I remember my senior prom,” and laughs. Luckily she doesn’t point out that her socially challenged daughter—that would be me—will no doubt be home on prom night. If she had, I would have burst into tears. Or flames.

  Because it’s all over. Again. Before it began. Again.

  Now it’s really too late.

  I don’t say much after that and neither does Michael, and when we walk back to our hotel, I’m a little ahead of everyone and don’t look directly at Michael when we say goodnight in the lobby. Oblivious as always, as we ride the elevator and open up our room, Mom chatters about how lovely Dr. Endicott is and how fine Michael seems and she doesn’t stop talking as she flops herself on her bed in a way that reminds me of Cassie.

  “That was fun!” she declares with the emphasis of someone planting a flag and staking a claim for queen and country. “I can’t believe I thought about my senior prom for the first time in—what—twenty-five years?” She groans then at the sound of the number. “I wonder if Leigh will go with Alistair. I’m sure Cassie will have someone, too...”

  “I’m sure to be the only disappointment,” I sigh.

  “You’re not a disappointment, Georgie, you know that.” She lies with her arms behind her head, blinking at the ceiling, and her eyes seem very blue against the stark white backdrop of the pillowcase. I can see, in her unlined cheeks and those eyes and her still-gold curls, how absolutely gorgeous my mom must have been when she met my dad. He’d never stood a chance. “You’re just...different.”

  “Different from my sisters?”

  “No, different from me. I don’t always know what to do or to say with you.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re probably like your dad
was at your age. Of course, I didn’t know him in high school. And if I did, I probably would not have paid him a lot of attention.” She comes closer to a giggle at this than a middle-aged woman should. Kicking off her shoes, she turns to me, propping her head up on her hand, smoothing out the bedspread with her other ringed hand. “But when I met him in college, my senior year...I had an instant crush on him.”

  “Really?” I find this hard to imagine. And, frankly, the ideas of both (1) my parents hooking up and (2) a student and a teaching assistant hooking up seem pretty gross to me. Potentially distracting, but gross.

  “He was so smart, and so funny, and so passionate about what he was teaching. As a TA he mostly just read exams for the instructor and kept office hours, which I went to even if I didn’t need to.” She smiles then, lazily, and closes her eyes for a moment. “Your dad had so many ideas. He wasn’t like anyone else I had ever met.”

  “Aren’t there—I don’t know—rules about students and teachers...?” I venture before she gets carried away.

  “We didn’t start dating until the course was over. And I asked him out, because it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to.” It’s not hard to imagine Dad’s inability to act.

  I ask, “Did you have to ask him to marry you, too?”

  “No. He did that. Because of Tori.”

  I blink at her for a few seconds, wondering what Tori could possibly have had to do with anything, while my mom looks freakishly impish at the moment. I finally put it all together and gasp, “You mean you got married because you were pregnant?”

  “We would have gotten married anyway, but, yes.”

  “Wow. But why? I mean, you didn’t have to get married, or be married, to have a baby back then. It’s not like it was the 1950s or something.”

  “Because we wanted to, and the medical insurance stuff and legal stuff was all easier if we were married.” She sits up and looks at me fish-eyed for a moment. “Do you mean we shouldn’t have had the baby?”