He stands, takes his tea bag over to the trashcan, and disposes it. He admits, “I was going to talk to you about her and Jeremy, yeah, but that’s not the main reason I came.”
I frown and dip my teabag up and down in my cup. “So you had another reason besides lecturing me and my sister on the use of prophylactics and insulting us?”
He leans against the counter and sighs. “How, exactly, am I insulting you? All I’ve said is that I feel I know you well enough to know that you’re not like your sister, to know that you were not really going to do anything with Jeremy, no matter how messed up you were that night. You’re still, basically, a rational person—despite how you’re acting right now.”
“Okay, so I’m not a skank like my sister. I’m a rational creature. What a relief that I remain in your good graces!”
Michael’s jaw tightens and his brow darkens. “Georgia, you don’t belong with a guy like Jeremy.”
“Tell me, O wise one. What sort of guy do I belong with, since I’m smarter than my slut sister Cassie, who did fall for the wicked Jeremy Wrentham?”
“Jeremy is wicked, Georgia. You don’t know. And I never called your sister that name.”
“No, maybe not. But you called her stupid.”
His eyes are huge with shock and fury now as he moves back over to the table.
“When? When did I say that?”
“You said that she was among the few who are too dumb to benefit from Sex Ed class. And that she is attracted to Jeremy because she’s that stupid. But Michael, I was attracted to Jeremy, too, so what does that say about me, in your estimation?” We glower at each other for a moment and I can practically see frustration radiating like waves off of his body. But as usual, my mouth is at least three seconds behind my brain and it goes off again. “Jeremy Wrentham is a human sewer pipe. I get that. But at least he is funny. And fun. He’s not smug and stiff and so rational all the time. So I guess if you think Cassie is stupid and beneath you for feeling that way, then I am, too.”
He drops a palm on the wobbly table so hard that tea spills out of both of our cups, staining the placemats. He looks down at me with one eyebrow cocked and a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. As he pulls his tan barn jacket off the back of his chair and looks at me under furrowed brows, he says, “It seems this time you’ve rescued me from making a fool of myself. So I guess we’re even.”
“Rescued you from what? I don’t understand.” I’ve never seen him look like this, not angry or superior, but … sad. Crushed, even.
“I don’t understand either. That’s what makes this really funny.” He looks down at a loose thread on the cuff of his jacket sleeve and pulls at it gently. “I haven’t understood one word of our conversation today, and that’s what’s really funny, actually, because I came here to tell you … I came here because I wanted to talk to you so much …” He looks at me for a second with a sorrowful smile on his face. “I was going to ask you out, Georgia. I was irrational enough to think that I am the kind of guy you should go out with. Me. Not Jeremy.”
“Really?” I am so stunned, I just say lamely, “You come in here, insult me, insult my sister—”
“Again, how have I insulted you?” he demands. “I’m suggesting that you are an attractive and smart and you deserve better than to sleep with Jeremy and have him ignore you in the cafeteria the next day. Unless that’s what you want..”
I stand up and place my fists on the table as I struggle for control.
“You insulted me by insulting my family! By saying, basically, that my sister Cassie is a pathetic, dimwitted little skank who got what she deserved when she became the school’s favorite topic of conversation, the town pariah. Was I supposed to be flattered by that? I know we’re no match for the illustrious Endicotts of Longbourne—”
“Oh, don’t start with that,” he groans as he wraps his Burberry scarf around his neck, twisting so tight that I’m afraid he’ll strangle himself. “I never said your sister was a skank and I never said my family was better than yours.”
“You don’t have to say it!” I cry. “It’s so freaking obvious by the way you carry yourself.”
He picks up his leather gloves and holds them between his hands for a second like he’s meditating or seeking divine intervention.
“At least we both enjoy irony, right? And this whole afternoon has been nothing if not ironic. I actually wanted to be with you. ” He chuckles a bit and his eyes are calm again now, with no more dark flashes of anger and irritation. I feel my whole body grow very cold suddenly. “Well. I’m sure you’ll make it hilarious in the retelling.”
He takes a few steps toward the back door and I say, still stunned, “I’m not going to tell anybody anything.”
He stops and turns. “Just tell me one thing,” he says. “Where did your sister and Jeremy … Where were they when they, you know …” He actually blushes slightly.
“When they did the nasty?” I snort. “How would I know? I don’t have a prurient interest in her sex life like you and everyone else.”
He looks at me impatiently. “Really, Georgia? You think that’s what all this has been about? Look, do you think they were here? At your house?”
“I’m pretty sure I would have noticed that, Michael.”
He sighs. “So they were most likely at Jeremy’s?”
I sigh, too, frustrated enough to throw the sugar bowl at the wall but I keep my voice as calm as I can.
“Yeah, I guess so. Unless Jeremy has a volcano lair somewhere, like all good super-villains.”
He smirks and says, “Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know, really.”
“Well, now you know! Your work here is done. But why—”
But Michael is out the door. It’s hard to imagine that he wants to know where Cassie and Jeremy did it for perverse reasons, like he wants to imagine my sister and Jeremy’s sexploits in as much realistic detail as possible.
Though, obviously, I don’t know him at all, really.
When I sit back down to my cup of tea, I feel like I did last summer at the beach at Gloucester when a huge wave knocked me down, pulled me under, and spat me back up, sputtering and scared and confused about what happened because it had happened so fast.
Michael Endicott, my one-time classroom nemesis, preppy and perfect Michael Endicott, had come over to ask me out. Michael Endicott “wanted to be with” me.
Me.
All through dinner and afterward, I feel like the earth has been shaken off of its axis. I can’t concentrate on my homework. I give up and log on to Facebook and find a direct message there from Michael. I hold my breath and click on it.
Hope you forgive me for my stumbling today
and want to assure you that it won’t happen
again. I was mistaken, obviously, in thinking
we had developed some kind of understanding and
you have made my misjudgment abundantly
clear. I was wrong, but I can assure you I never
make the same mistake twice.
I feel tears spring to my eyes again, and the crazy thing is I can’t even tell for sure if they are tears of anger or sadness. The message, like most things about Michael Endicott, is insufferably snotty, and that makes me angry. But he had actually come over to declare a romantic interest in me, and, if I were honest with myself, I had been looking at him with different eyes lately, too. Maybe being with Michael wasn’t the craziest idea since vegan haggis in a can. I usually enjoy talking to him, even if we are squabbling at the time, like in English class. And he can be pretty patient and understanding, like on New Year’s Eve. And he is actually pretty funny when you get to know him.
But these things hardly matter now.
I had never entertained the possibility of being with Michael Endicott until he came over to suggest it. That would have been like imagining marrying Prince Harry and being declared Queen of England just because the UK decided I am awesome enough to get that honor. And I had most definitely blown any
chances of making it happen, this thing that I had never imagined until now: being with Michael.
And now, as I prepare to go to bed, I can’t stop thinking about it.
“What’s wrong?” Tori asks from her perch on her bed. Damn her uncanny ability to sense what someone is feeling, even when their back is turned.
“Want to read this message from Michael?” I offer.
She smiles, almost claps her hands like Mom, and skips over to read. Her eyes run across the lines of text and then she sort of gasps, “Ouch.” She sits on the edge of my bed and shakes her head. “What did you do, George?”
I start to protest her jumping to the conclusion that I’m the one who did something wrong but say instead, “It was probably the most twisted conversation I have ever had in my life. Really. It was like driving down a really winding road in the dark with only one headlight.”
She pats the open spot on the bed next to her and I take it. She puts her arm around me and says, “Tell me what happened.”
“Michael came over to tell me that he knew that I wasn’t at the CVS buying a pregnancy test kit for myself,” I begin. I had already told Tori last night about Cassie’s scare and her weird reaction to it and how Michael practically screamed and ran for the hills when he saw me holding a box full of sticks to pee on. “But that’s kind of insulting, isn’t it?”
“Why? I mean, I would think that anybody from our school who would run into you and Cassie at the drugstore would be able to correctly identify who needed the pregnancy test,” she says ruefully.
“Well that’s just it! Why? Why wouldn’t I need a pregnancy test?” I wail even as I realize how stupid this sounds and flop onto my stomach to shut out reality.
She presses her hand against the top of mine for an instant, like Mom used to when we were little and we’d had a nightmare and she would come sit on our bed. “It’s not that you wouldn’t need one. It’s that everyone knows what Cassie has been up to.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “But he was really insulting about her, saying that she’s basically a stupid slut who got what she deserves for skanking it up around town.”
I’m pretty sure Tori’s frowning but I can’t see her face. “Wellll … if he really said that, I can understand why you got upset,” she concedes after a full minute.
“He did! Basically. And then he wanted to know where Cassie and Jeremy were when they did it! How pervy is that?”
“That’s odd,” she admits.
“Wait. It gets odder. Because the whole reason he came over, after insulting me and our family, was to ask me out.”
“I knew he liked you!”
“You are missing the whole point!”
“Okay.” She pulls away and looks at me sadly. “So, what? Now you two are mortal enemies?”
“No.” I punch my pillow in an effort to fluff it up and make myself feel better. Neither work. “Michael Endicott and I live on different planets. Always have. I mean, how snotty was that message to me?” I say, nodding with my chin toward the laptop.
“He was hurt, George.”
“I think he was relieved to have dodged the bullet. Liking me enough to go out with me must have been temporary insanity. God, they’d kick him off the Social Register.” I sit up and kick at a sneaker sticking out from under my bed. “I need something good to happen for a change. With all the Cassie stuff and this …”
“Okay.” When I turn to Tori, she’s smiling. “Well, Leigh got the lead in the musical, of course,” she says, and that’s good news because freshmen never get the lead part, even when they’re as good as Leigh. “And today I found out I got into Williams.”
“What?” I almost scream and throw my arms around her. “Why didn’t you tell me? That’s wonderful! Not that I’m surprised.”
“There’s so much going on right now,” she sighs. “Plus, I wasn’t sure how you would feel about it. I know you know Williams is Trey’s first choice.”
“So?”
“So if I go there you will think about me the same way you think about Mom, like I’m just following some man through my life.”
“No I won’t,” I say sullenly, but neither of us is convinced.
After some more silence, I say, “You know, I am sloooowly starting to realize exactly what a judgmental ass I can be, and I promise to work on it.” I guess I haven’t even wondered about what was going on with Tori’s college applications because I was so sure she’d get in everywhere. But she must have been at least a little nervous about them. I put my arm around her waist. “Anywhere you go, anything you want to do, is okay with me. And Williams is especially okay with me, because it’s not so far away, and I can still see you, if you’ll want to see me.”
“Of course I will want to!” she laughs and pulls me into a hug that reminds me how much I have missed having her around—and how much I will miss her next year, wherever she is.
“It’s a really good school, too,” I say. “It would be completely ridiculous to not go just because your boyfriend is going and you want to be independent. Or because your idiot sister wants you to be.”
“You’re not an idiot, George,” she says, pulling my hair into a stubby little ponytail and releasing it. “You just act like one sometimes,” she laughs.
Tori also has an uncanny knack for getting at the truth sometimes.
At school on the Monday before Winter Break, Cassie remains the main topic of conversation. She says everyone stares at her when she walks into class and down the hall; boys say rude things; girls eye her and cackle. At least she’ll get a break from all of that over break. That’s the only solace I can think of for her right now.
After school that day, I arrive at the front of our house just as Trey is dropping off Tori. He rolls down her car window, motions for me to come over, and says, “Hey, Georgia,” when I lean in to see them. “Want to come to Aruba for break with us? My family has a condo there and some other people are coming. My cousins are off from Princeton and Wesleyan at the same time we are.”
“That is really nice of you,” I say, and I am suddenly elated by his generosity.
“And Michael’s coming.”
My elation nosedives onto a rocky surface. I say, “Thank you, then, but no. I don’t think Michael will want me there.”
“Huh?” Trey looks confused by this and turns to Tori, who shakes her head subtly. “Are you sure?” he asks me. “Sun, surf, sand, far away from all this snow … it’ll be fun.”
“No, you two go—if Mom and Dad let you.”
“They’ve already said yes!” Tori cheers. “Isn’t it great?”
“It is,” I agree with a conscious squelching of the jealousy bubbling up from inside of me. “You guys go and send me back the cheesiest, tackiest, stupidest postcard you can find. Please.”
Trey laughs and assures me that he can do that. Then he leans across Tori to open her door for her. They kiss briefly and Trey says, “Love you,” as Tori slides out of the car while I stand there marveling at the sweet simplicity of their connection.
As she walks into the house in front of me, I also realize that I will probably never, ever have that. And I feel the loss of that much more than the chance to spend Winter Break somewhere warm and sunny and exotic.
***
It’s a pretty lonely Winter Break week with Leigh spending most of her time with her church group collecting donations for a school in the Honduras, and Cassie hanging out again with a couple cheerleader friends who remain loyal to her. I’m not entirely sure she’s given up her dream of recapturing Jeremy, but at least she’s not calling him anymore. In fact, she never even mentions boys at all.
On Wednesday, I receive the special honor of being able to work with my dad in his study while he’s reading student papers. He doesn’t usually let anyone in his office. He must have thought I’ve seemed pretty mopey lately so he extended me the privilege of working with him.
“I fear for the future under your generation, George, I truly do,” he says as he wipes h
is eyes behind the glasses perched on the end of his nose.
“What is it this time?”
“This one”—he waves some stapled pages at me—“argues that ‘Robert Browning Jr. jurastically changed the way we look at poetry.’”
I have to laugh at that one.
“Do they mean Robert Downey Jr.? Or Robert Browning? Still, I like the idea of change that’s so big it’s Jurassic. Like a T-Rex, I guess.”
“And this one,” he says as he pats the top of a stack of papers. “Well, this boy somehow misspelled his own name.”
“I’m sure it was a typo.”
“One can only hope so.” He sighs and leans back in his chair, rubbing his jaw as if he had a bushy beard, which he does not. Not even a sparse one, though there is a little stubble on his chin, mostly gray. “What are you working on?”
“A paper for history class on a figure from the French Revolution. I chose Charlotte Corday.”
“Ha! Leave it to George to pick a woman who stabbed a man in his own bathtub,” Dad laughs.
“Marat was a pretty bad man.”
“All men are, perhaps, given the power and the opportunity,” he says absently, and I have no idea how to respond to this, but it doesn’t matter, as he has no interest in pursuing this conversation and shifts gears abruptly on me. “So how is school going? I drove by the high school the other day and the parking lot looked like a Lexus dealership, except for the teachers’ section. Come to think of it, that’s how the lots at Meryton look, too.”
“There were people in Boulder with just as much money,” I observe, “but it was different there, somehow.”
“That’s because this is old money,” Dad tells me. “And the occasional parvenu, like Billingsley.”
“That doesn’t seem to bother Tori in the least.”
“No, she seems quite happy. But then Tori is content no matter where she goes. She has a sort of serenity about her … I have no idea where she gets that,” he sighs.
Pride and Prep School Page 4
