“Yes.”
“Is it another one of your save-the-world-one-cow-at-a-time experiments? Because I am so over that,” she says and Michael laughs, which makes her smile at finding an unlikely ally. “You should taste some of the stuff she’s come up with. The braised Satan? Gag.”
“First of all, it’s seitan, a protein, not the lord of darkness, you ditz. Second, it’s not an ‘experiment’. It’s an ethical choice.” Then I catch the last words and roll my eyes to show him that I get it: my vegan evangelism could be construed as a little snotty, I guess.
“It’s an excuse for me to go back out to McDonalds, that’s what it is,” Cassie declares.
“Cassie, did you come in just to annoy me with your ignorance?”
“No,” she says happily, grabbing a soda and setting it on the table by Michael. “I was going to tell you that there is a party tonight at Jeremy Wrentham’s. He just found out he got into Yale and he’s celebrating.”
“He got into Yale?” I ask, calculating that his expulsion from Pemberley didn’t have anything to do with grades, at least.
“He’s a legacy,” Michael says tersely, and then explains to Cassie, “His dad and his brother went there.”
“Whatevs,” Cassie says, completely uninterested in this information. “Are you going?” she asks me.
“Not a chance.” I say, giving a quick look at Michael that reveals he is smiling now.
“Really? It’s going to be sick.”
“Just don’t drink anything Jeremy mixes up himself,” I call after her, then mutter, “Well, she’s off to plan her strategy.”
Michael laughs. “I think that whatever conquest she’s planning isn’t going to take much strategy. She just needs to show up.”
“What does that mean?” I demand. Things had been going so well. Michael had seemed so human all afternoon, making fun of movies and helping with dinner, but now I couldn’t tell if he was calling my sister a slut—or belittling my having raised Jeremy’s fleeting interest. Or both. Either one was pretty insulting.
“I mean that Jeremy is not very discerning, that’s all,” Michael explains.
“I’m so flattered.”
“I didn’t mean you.”
“So you meant my sister?” He just looks at me blankly as all the blood in my body seems to rush to my face, and not because the oven’s been on for a while. “You have to mean either my sister is a dumb slut or I am for having gotten mixed up with Jeremy on New Year’s Eve? Which is it?
Michael shakes his head and sighs. “I’ll leave you to your soy shells,” he says as he walks out, and within a minute I hear Trey saying a somewhat bewildered goodbye and following Michael out the door.
“Wow. I’ve always said your tofu really drives people away, George. But I was joking,” Dad laughs from the doorway, and I turn on him and growl. He just walks away, laughing, and I wonder why males are so often such idiots and when my dad became one of them.
Despite his occasional idiocy, my dad has discovered an ingenious way to get out of shoveling the snow. The morning after Michael and I had that second chat in the kitchen—and about the tenth day of snowfall in a row—my mom informs me over breakfast that it is my turn to shovel. Even if I had just driven Leigh to church.
“We are a modern egalitarian household,” she reminds me, using Dad’s phrase, “which means we all need to shovel.” She pauses, and then adds “Though, as a man, your father is the one most likely to have a heart attack. Until I hit menopause …”
“Ewwww!” Cassie groans, as if Mom has just dropped a dead spider into her oatmeal.
“Can’t you get Brick to do it?” I ask Cassie. “It’ll be good for his biceps or his lats or something.”
Cassie sighs airily and muses, “I don’t think I want to be asking Brick for anything right now.”
Mom sits down at the table, looking concerned, and not about the small mountain of brown sugar Cassie is stirring into her oatmeal.
“I’m getting tired of him,” Cassie admits. “He’s always calling, always checking in on me …”
“So you feel smothered?” I say, nodding in understanding.
“No. I’m just tired of him. I mean, I know him, I’ve been with him … there are plenty of other cute, interesting guys out there.”
I actually feel sorry for the Brick then. I mean, he’s so totally dull I can’t see how Cassie or anyone could spend all of five minutes with him, but still … poor guy.
“You’re still young, you should have fun and explore,” Mom encourages her and I just shake my head.
“I’ll see if Trey can get his Dad’s snow blower again,” Tori offers from the doorway.
“Thanks.”
Cassie pours milk into her bowl with a splash and turns to me, asking in a singsong, “So, you’re really not interested in Jeremy?”
“Not in the least,” I inform her.
“Really? After that big kiss-humping session on New Year’s?”
I look up from my own oatmeal in horror at this phrase and see that while Mom is obviously interested, she bites her lip and turns back to the boiling kettle on the stove, knowing I won’t tolerate her curiosity.
“Jeremy and I are not involved,” I say.
“So you guys aren’t going out?” she asks, in an exaggeration of shock. “Why?”
I do not want to tell her what happened any more than I would want to walk down Longbourne Street in my underwear. It is too humiliating and Cassie has been too assured of her status as a femme fatale lately.
“I’m just not that into him, I guess.”
Tori looks at me with sympathy but says nothing.
“You’re crazy,” Cassie tells me. “He is absolutely gorgeous and funny and really nice.”
“I guess …”
“If I had the chance …” Her voice trails off and she stirs her oatmeal with a rhapsodic smile on her face, kind of the way Leigh does when she thinks seriously about Jesus.
Tori and I look at each other, suspecting that Cassie is up to something.
A few days later I get a sense of what that is when she dumps the Brick and remains deaf to his pleading texts and calls. She even returns the phone he gave her for Christmas, feeling it wouldn’t be right to keep it. Knowing how much she coveted that smart phone, I’m impressed with this rare display of personal integrity, but still worried.
I get my first clue about what I should be worrying about on one of those early February days that make you think last year’s spring was just some really vivid, really wonderful dream. I’m eating lunch with Shondra and Dave and Gary, as usual, when Tori comes by to borrow a dollar from me and ends up listening to Gary explain the brilliance of the Ramones. He nods his head so that the spikes bob and wave like a spinosaurus dancing. I can see that Dave is also paying attention to Tori, sneaking shy looks in her direction. But when he sees Willow Harper headed our way, he stands up and grabs his tray, saying, “I, uh, gotta …”
“Yeah,” Gary agrees, and soon they are both up and ready to walk. “So check out that track, Georgia. I’ll see you guys later.”
I sit still, dumbfounded that Willow Harper could strike fear into the hearts of two guys who do their best to dress and act like some approximation of Sid Vicious every day, but I am not exactly thrilled to see her either. Only Tori smiles when Willow takes Dave’s seat with a swing of her golden hair.
“Georgia, Tori, I thought I should let you know something,” Willow announces.
Shondra raises her eyebrows and smirks but doesn’t say anything. Willow didn’t even seem to notice that she was there.
“Okay, Willow . . ?” I prompt because she seems to be waiting for our permission, or an opening of some kind.
“I just thought you should know that people are talking about your sister, Cassie.”
Tori and I look at each other for a fraction of a second with fear but I’m determined not to show it to Willow any more than I would to a pit bull as I estimate the length of his chain.
Willow’s lips twist in a malicious smile.
“Oh, I don’t think she’ll like this. She’s been going to a lot of senior parties lately.” Willow pauses here to look at Tori for a moment as if to remind her that she never goes to these major social events either and is the lesser for it. “And she’s been making herself look totally ridiculous. Everyone is talking about the way she hangs on Jeremy.”
Tori lets a little gasp escape but I work to remain unfazed.
“Hmmmm. Well, I haven’t heard anything,” I say.
“Of course not.” Willow sneers. “But I thought you should know so that you could say something to her. She thinks she’s making awesome new senior friends but she’s just making herself look slutty and desperate.”
“Well, it’s kind of you to let us know,” I say, and Shondra starts to laugh.
Willow stands and places her palms on the table, fingers outspread, the sapphire ring some college guy allegedly gave her flashing in the fluorescent light.
“I’m totally serious. But if you don’t care what people think of her —or the rest of your family—”
“I’ll talk to her,” Tori promises hurriedly and Willow smiles benignly at her.
“I think that’s a good idea. People around here talk.”
“You more than anyone?” I guess and she scowls and stalks away, having done her good deed for the day.
“Is she for real?” Shondra laughs. “I feel like an extra on the set of Pretty Little Liars.”
“She has no idea she’s a cultural cliché,” I agree, but I can see that Tori is frowning and looking up at the big window overlooking the snowy soccer fields.
“Ever since she dumped Brick, Cassie has been going to a lot of parties,” she says, “with her friend Jenny from cheerleading, right?”
“And you’re thinking she’s likely to be doing exactly what Willow said,” I finish. “And you’re right.”
“Should we tell her about Jeremy?”
“What about him?”
“What he did to you!”
I shake my head.
“Jeremy didn’t do anything to me. We were drunk and fooling around and when I left he found another girl to fill his bed. That’s all. It’s not like we had anything going on, right?”
“Still … it’s not cool. It’s cold,” Shondra points out.
“It’s insulting. And shady,” Tori agrees.
“There’s nothing to tell Cassie about—and she wouldn’t listen to us anyway even if we did.”
Tori stands, realizing that she is really late for class, and hurries away. She smiles when she says goodbye but I know she’s as worried as I am.
Dave and Gary finally slink back and want to know what the queen bee was up to.
“Willow has graciously warned us that the rumor mill is about to start working overtime on Cassie, and that we had better prepare ourselves for it.”
Gary scarfs down a stolen brownie chunk and says through the crumbs, “She ought to know. She’s the foreman of the rumor mill.”
“What’s the rumor?” Dave asks, reaching for the last of the brownie chunks.
Shondra and I look at each other. “Actually, that’s not clear,” she admits, and I realize that’s true. Who knew that Willow could so convincingly play the menacing super-villain, like Darth Vader in a designer miniskirt?
Dave shakes his head sadly as he presses his fingers down to pick up the last crumbs.
“Oh, you’ll know soon enough,” he says, and Gary nods his purple spikes.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he reasons. “Most people don’t get a warning before the slander starts.”
“Lucky us,” I sigh. But I don’t feel particularly lucky.
The next day in homeroom I notice that people are passing around phones underneath their desks. They look at a picture posted on Instagram or somewhere, whisper to someone or pass it on it, before each new viewer gasps or guffaws and then looks over at me for a second.
“Can you believe she would do this?” I hear.
“It’s too pathetic,” someone else says.
“God. Like that’s going to get you a man,” a female voice derides; then a male voice says, “I don’t know. I’d tap that,” and I hear the sound of palms slapping together in a high five.
When I turn around, everyone looks down at their desk, and some girls smother a giggle. I turn to Michael, Monsieur Oblivious, who looks up from his French book and asks, “You’re going to lab today, right?”
“Yeah. Right,” I assure him, but I’m still scanning for beneath-the-desk activity and trying to figure out what these people are looking at and what it has to do with me. The fact that the obvious answer to the last question is “Cassie” does not make me feel better.
When I get to English class, there’s more chatter than usual and people are giving me weird looks, some like I’ve just emerged from living in the sewers and others like I am wearing a bright red clown nose.
“What is going on?” I hiss to Shondra as Ms. Ehrman starts writing on the board.
She sighs as she opens her copy of Emma. “You know that warning from Willow last week? Well … the storm’s hit the shore.” She looks over a few rows to where one boy in a Minutemen basketball jersey is handing his phone to another boy.
“Oh, God, what?” I groan.
Shondra swallows and I can tell by the look on her face that she is really unhappy to be the one to bear the bad news. “Apparently your sister Cassie hooked up with Jeremy Wrentham a few days ago and has been sexting him ever since. You know … sending selfies.‘Lingerie’ selfies?”
“What?” I gasp so loud that everyone stares at me and snickers, and Ms. Ehrman turns from the whiteboard.
“Georgia, are you all right?” she asks.
“I just feel sort of …sick,” I manage.
“Do you need to see the nurse?”
I nod dumbly and grab my things and scurry up the aisle. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me and I know some are laughing quietly.
I walk down the hall to the girls’ room and go right for the sinks to splash some cold water on my face. I look up at the mirror and try to wipe my face as gently as possible with the paper towel that seems to be ninety-five percent un-milled wood pulp and then see it between the mirrors: Cassie Barrett=SLUT. I rub furiously at the fat blue letters with my paper towel but someone had the wisdom to use a Sharpie so they don’t budge. They don’t even fade. I grab my bag and march down to the principal’s office and start yelling at the secretary before she gets off the phone.
“I want to report some really disgusting graffiti in the girls’ bathroom in the west wing!”
She fills one of those pink “While You Were Out” phone pads, tells me she will contact the janitor, and then shoos me on my way with a flap of her plump ringed hands.
When I get to lunch, everybody can see that I am so cartoon-style mad I practically have smoke billowing out of my ears. Dave and Gary admit that they heard about the photos a few days ago but didn’t want to say anything.
“God!” I fume as I rip open my hemp lunch bag.
“I saw the photos,” Gary admits.
“And?”
“She is not naked,” he assures me and makes no move for my lunch bag for once. I guess he’s afraid he’ll lose a finger.
“Where did you see them?”
“I got an email. Which I immediately deleted!”
I sink into my chair. No way can I eat my leftover vegan potpies; no matter how great they were last night, they are about as appetizing as a bag of cement right now.
“I don’t know who I’m more disgusted with,” I admit. “Cassie for being such a colossal moron, or the idiots who pass along the photos.”
Dave opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it. Shondra puts a hand on mine and says, “This can’t last forever. You’re getting the graffiti to
come down, right? And you know how these things work. In a few days everyone will move on to a new story, a new victim.”
“She’s right,” Dave says.
“Maybe I’m just mad because Willow Harper was right for once,” I sigh. “We should have warned Cassie.”
“There’s a first time for everything, my grandma says,” Gary agrees. And then he steers the conversation to which cookies and cupcakes I’m planning to sell at the Pigs show in a few weeks. I go along with this and try to tune out the lunch crowd because there is nothing I can do for or about my sister right now.
***
All week long, I am grateful for having Shondra and Dave and Gary to keep me relatively sane. And whatever he may think about Cassie and her reputation, Michael doesn’t say anything about her all week, despite her being the focus of most conversations, and I don’t say anything to him about it. If he is about as far out of the loop as Leigh is, I don’t need to bring him in. Friday doesn’t come soon enough and when Shondra calls me Saturday morning I’m ready to go out and forget school and all its traumas.
She announces, “Los is home from school and I want you to meet him.”
“‘Los’? Home from school?”
“Yeah, he goes to Pemberley on scholarship—you know, Michael’s old school—and he’s really chill and funny. You’ll like him. His name’s Carlos but everyone calls him just ‘Los.’ So what do you think? Do you want to meet us at that coffee shop in Park Hill? The Blue Rooster?”
“Yes! Give me an hour, okay?”
I’m on my way upstairs to find Mom or Dad to make sure I can get the car when I hear the unmistakable sound of retching coming from the bathroom I share with my sisters. I knock on the door softly.
“Hey, are you okay?”
There’s no answer, so I try the knob. It gives way and I see Cassie sitting in a ball next to the toilet, holding her stomach.
“Are you okay?” I repeat.
“Obviously,” she snaps.
“Are you sick?” I ask despite the evidence in front of me.
“Yes,” she breathes.
“Really? Can you get up?”
She shakes her head and slumps against the side of the bathtub.
Pride and Prep School Page 2
