Charm and Consequence (4 page)

“Michael?” she asks.

He swallows and chooses his words carefully.

“I think what Georgia says makes a lot of sense, especially considering the time when Shakespeare was writing. But I
also
think that Hamlet is under some constraints himself because of where and how
he
grew up. He keeps debating whether to kill Claudius not because he’s a coward, but because he doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t want to kill anybody.” He looks at me with a faint smile. “The guy Ophelia loves and looks up to isn’t a killer. He’s a thinker. But he knows that as a young man and as a prince –as his dad keeps coming back from the dead to remind him –he has an obligation to avenge his father’s death. That’s what a guy is
supposed
to do.”

“Yeah, quit your male-bashing, Georgia,” Callam from the lacrosse team laughs, and Michael rolls his eyes and looks at me almost apologetically.

“Another fine point,” Ms. Ehrman tells Michael. “Your group is on fire today!”

Then Rod, who smokes a lot of pot in a van in the school parking lot, goes off on this idea that there is no ghost in the play, really, that it’s just a figment of Hamlet’s imagination and Hamlet is a schizo lunatic from the beginning. But I don’t really listen to him. My heart is pounding too hard, like it’s trying to break out of my ribcage. I feel excited and foolish and vulnerable and exhilarated all at once. Maybe all of my dad’s dinner table debates have paid off at last. I mean, I’m used to discussions of literary analysis-I’m just not used to anyone listening that carefully to what
I
have to say in these discussions.

When I glance at Michael, he just looks thoughtful.

As class ends, Shondra gives me a fist bump and Michael stops by my desk for a second on his way out, but he doesn’t say anything, so Shondra and I walk out together after handing in our papers. I wish he’d said something, though, anything, really, just one more thing … As embarrassing as our impromptu in-class debate had been, it had also been kind of exciting. Like a verbal version of fencing – and I had actually managed to knock the foil out of his hand there for a minute. I have to admit there was something sort of fun about that. And I had a feeling that he felt that way, too.

“I think we got our As,” she says. Before we split at the end of the hall for our separate classes, she says, “Hey, do you want to go an all-ages show for Gary and Dave’s band next Saturday? They said they’re playing somewhere in Netherfield?”

“Yes!” I cry, then feel the immediate letdown of realization. “Wait, I can’t. I have to do this thing with my family. At the country club.”

Her eyebrows climb up into her braids for a second but she just shrugs and says she’ll see me later at the
Alt
meeting.

Now I want to go to the Harvest Ball even less.

I didn’t think that was possible.

Belle of the Ball

Still, when the dreaded night of the Harvest Ball arrives, I have to admit it is sort of nice to dress up. Tori wriggles into this amazing sapphire velvet sheath, then she twists my hair into a loose bun at the nape of my neck and my mom lends me a string of pearls. I suppose I look acceptable, the black (haired) sheep among the Barrett blondes. At least, my dad looks kind of surprised when he sees me come down the stairs and then he smiles and sort of stammers out that I look “nice.”

The country club lives up to my mother’s expectations, looking beautiful in its faux colonial finery. The dark paneled dining room is filled with a series of large tables covered in white damask tablecloths and candles in hurricane holders with bright little fake leaves scattered about, and in that room and the ballroom there are fake candles glowing above in pewter chandeliers. As we sit with Trey’s mom and dad, I try not to feel completely out of place in a room populated by people with names like Bunny Billingsley. The grownups are busy talking with each other, and while Trey and Tori include me in their conversation about some school stuff, I still feel like the table’s appendix, an unnecessary appendage. When the waiters bring dinner, I get the same plate of midget chicken (squab) that everyone else does. It’s so sad looking, like a little sparrow fell out of a tree and into a broiler somehow, and now it’s just perched there on my plate with its little legs spread. I just eat the pureed squash and salad and the crusty roll, dry, and wish I were somewhere else.

When the uniformed and silent waiters start clearing the plates, I notice that Michael Endicott is sitting a few tables away with two people who must be his parents, a tall, good looking man with steel grey hair and a really beautiful woman who has Michael’s dark eyes and hair with these really dramatic wisps of pure white running through it. Michael sort of waves at me and I wave back. I don’t know why I am surprised to see him. Of
course
he is here. His great- great- grandparents were probably the first people to blackball potential members way back when. He is in his element here in a way that I will never be, no matter what I am wearing or whom I am sitting with.

After dinner, punch and cookies are served by buffet and dancing begins in the ballroom, where a string quintet plays waltzes and swing music and other dance standards and couples actually do something besides hold onto each others’ waists and shoulders and sway somewhat to the rhythm. They have actual dance moves, which is kind of impressive. Even my parents do; I had no idea. Mom beams as she and Dad twirl among the couples, and my dad is smiling, too. In fact, he seems to be a pretty good dancer. Trey asks me if I would mind if he took Tori out on the floor and I laugh. Even though the thought of being stuck at the table alone is almost as terrifying as waltzing, I say, “Of course! Show us how it’s done.” Tori and Trey look great even if they don’t know what they are doing exactly. They are laughing softly and reasonably rhythmical and they don’t crash into anybody.

“Do you want to give it a try?”

I look up to find Michael behind my chair. He’s wearing a dark jacket and a loose teal blue tie over a spotless white shirt, open at the neck, and I notice for the first time how long and languid his neck is. It may actually be the first time I have ever noticed anyone’s neck, really. And it is a fine neck, long and not too thick or too thin. It suddenly strikes me as an elegant and beautiful limb.

“Aren’t you afraid a rabid feminist like me will stab you with this butter knife?” I ask. “Or, worse, try to lead?”

He smirks and extends a hand.

“You may be rabid, but you’re not foaming at the mouth, at least,” he says, and I don’t know what else to do but take his hand, which feels warm and strong and not at all sweaty.

I say as he leads me onto the floor, “I doubt that they would allow mouth-foaming here at the Longbourne Country Club. What’s the motto? ‘Keeping out the undesirables since 1749’?”

He looks at me with the grim amusement of an older brother or uncle who suffers a girl’s sad excuse for humor because he has to. Then the music starts, and he hesitates for just a second before he takes one of my hands and puts it on his hip and the other he rests on his shoulder.

And we’re off.

I feel so awkward I can hardly breathe. But Michael seems as assured about this as he does about anything else and guides us across the floor without incident. My mom sees us and points us out to my dad. She looks like a five-year-old who has just come downstairs to see that Santa has indeed brought a bike, and not just any bike, but one with a bell and tassels and bright shiny pink paint.

After a few moments of silence that threaten to make me run screaming from the room, I say, “Isn’t this the part where we are supposed to make polite conversation? At least, that’s what dancers do in all those movie adaptations of Jane Austen novels. My mom has seen
Pride and Prejudice
, like, 5,000 times.”

“All right, then,” Michael says. “What’s my line?”

“Well,
you
comment on the warmth of the evening or the unusually fine weather we’re having, and I say something about how lovely everyone looks in their semi-holiday finery.”

Michael doesn’t say anything for a moment, probably because no one likes to be told what to say. I know how much I hate it when
he
tries to tell me what to do. I’m nervous, but that doesn’t mean I have to be mean, and I kind of was.

“We could talk about books, maybe?” I suggest. “Or music.” I brave a look at his face and his eyebrows have perked up in interest.

“Do you think we have similar tastes?” he asks.

“I have no idea,” I admit. “I can’t figure you out.”

Michael laughs then and asks, “What’s to figure out?”

“Just … everything.”

“You’re not exactly an open book either, Georgia.”

I don’t know what to say to that so we just keep moving. That’s the nice thing about dancing, I guess. If you don’t know what to say, you can just keep dancing and stay together. And I am not hating being together, actually. For one thing, Michael smells really nice. It’s a mixture of some warm spice and a basic soap. Whatever it is, it’s a good smell to breathe in as he holds me. I wonder what he’s thinking and why he asked me to dance and if it was because he had found our in-class sparring as weirdly enjoyable as I did. And I actually do want to know, all of a sudden, what music he listens to and what books he reads.

Michael breaks the silence after a few moments, asking “Where are your other sisters tonight?”

I think, “
This
is what he was thinking? He’s wondering about my
sisters
?” but I say, “Cassie is out with
the
Brick
,” Michael laughs at this, “and Leigh’s Christian folk group is playing tonight.”

“She’s serious about her faith, then?”

“Dead serious. Utterly without humor about it.”

I expect him to say something sarcastic about her, but he doesn’t. Instead, Michael nods as if this makes sense to him. No one else has ever reacted that way before.

“Leigh’s passionate about Jesus,” I go on. “But I
can
not explain her twin’s passion for the Brick.”

He laughs a little at that. He has a nice laugh. It’s like water running over rocks somehow. Naturally melodic, I guess.

“Really? You can’t imagine it?” he asks. “Isn’t the cheerleader dating the football star the oldest high school cliché in the world?”

And that brings me back to earth. This is the Michael Endicott I know, looking down his considerably long nose at everybody who doesn’t have a Mayflower pedigree.

“Well, that’s my family,” I snap back. “The Clichéd Barretts of Longbourne. The religious zealot and her evil twin, the ditzy slutty cheerleader; the absent-minded professor and his would-be-preppy wife”

“And where do
you
fit in?” he asks me sharply.

I know that I was pretty harsh with him and I can only imagine how much he regrets having gotten himself stuck on the dance floor with me in all my shrewish glory. But I can’t think of the right thing to say now. So I just shake my head and grit my teeth and we dance in silence again for awhile, a heavy, thoughtful silence, and when I’m finally about to say something, anything, a voice behind me says, “May I cut in?”

I turn to see Jeremy Wrentham tapping Michael on the shoulder and my face gets really warm all of a sudden, as if my brain had turned up the thermostat from the neck up.

Michael steps back. He doesn’t say anything, but looks at me questioningly for a few seconds, then indicates with the gracious sweep of his hand that he is relinquishing me -and probably without any regret. He walks away before I can say anything and Jeremy laughs and catches both of my hands in his. He swoops me off with a lurch, saying “I have always wanted to do that. Cut in on somebody. It’s so
suave
.”

“It’s like something out of an old movie,” I agree. “Very Cary Grant.” I look up at Jeremy’s face and he gives me that smile; I laugh and feel how warm and solid his back was. In his moss green crewneck sweater and faded jeans, he looks a little more disheveled than usual and hopelessly underdressed for this event, but he’s still easily the most beautiful thing in the room. I sigh.

“So Michael got the stick out of his ass long enough to dance, huh?” he cracks.

“That is not polite waltzing conversation, Mr. Wrentham,” I chide, and he responds by dipping me recklessly. He looks at me, waggling his eyebrows under his gold blonde hair and I look up at his eyes and feel all the breath go out of my body. Dancing with Jeremy is easy. It’s fun. I’m not wondering what he’s thinking or how he feels about my family. I’m just moving with him to the music, and I don’t even care that I probably suck at it. It just feels good.

“I’ve always wanted to do that, too,” he laughs.

People are noticing this disruption of dance floor decorum, so I straighten up immediately and smooth out my skirt.

“So,” Jeremy says as we resume more staid dancing, “how did you get a name like Georgiana anyway?”

“My dad is a British Lit professor at Meryton College, so my parents named me and my sisters for famous 19th century women. I was named for the Duchess of Devonshire.”

“Duchess, huh? It suits you.”

I don’t know what to say to that, but it sounds flattering, though implausible. I try to focus on the music for a moment instead of wondering what Jeremy is up to dancing with me and where Michael has disappeared to. I feel the scratchy nap of Jeremy’s sweater against my cheek and breathe him in for a moment. As he turns his head closer to me, I catch the scent of alcohol on his breath. It isn’t beer. Maybe whiskey? He seems pretty steady on his feet, though, and I can’t tell if this ability to hold his alcohol is impressive or kind of disturbing.

“So is your family here tonight?” I ask.

“No. My parents are in Ireland this week,” he replies and I think he smells the top of my head. I hope it smells good –or at least clean.

“So you just sort of wandered in here?” I laugh.

“Exactly,” he laughs, a rumble deep in his throat. “Sometimes I play cards with some of the guys who work here. I had no idea this big soiree was going on.”