Prom and Prejudice (5 page)

“But how can I?” I sit up straight. “After all the things I’ve said to him! And what he said about Cassie, back when everyone was saying stuff about her and Jeremy—” I sound like I am making excuses, but I need her to understand me. “He thinks we’re all
beneath
him.”

Tori sighs again, very wearily, and says, “It’s so late, George. Go to sleep and maybe it will all make sense in the morning.”

But it doesn’t, and after school on Tuesday Tori decides to take matters into her own hands.

She and Trey and I are hanging out on our porch after school, and we’re talking about what we might do later, if Tori will go to Trey’s game tomorrow, and whether Trey should stay for dinner or not, depending on what Mom is making. As they debate this, I notice Tori looking at me very carefully, as if she were deciding something. When she notices me looking at her, she smiles and loops her arm through Trey’s.

“You know that Michael came over a couple months ago and asked George out, right?” she says to him, but her eyes are on me in case I suddenly implode at this breach of the Implicit Sisterly Nondisclosure Clause.

Trey nods and laughs. “Yeah, Michael admitted that to me a while ago. I got the impression he wasn’t too smooth about it.”

“Well,” Tori admits, “he did say some awful things about Cassie.”

Trey laughs sadly and looks up at me with his light guileless eyes as he pokes at a rhododendron blossom with a dried piece of clipped grass. He says, “Do you remember when I told you, Georgia, that Michael means well but is socially retarded? Well, that was
classic
Michael Endicott that day.”

“Right?” Tori laughs hopefully, looking at me and then back at Trey. “So, naturally, when it happened, Georgia was insulted and angry and blew him off. And then Michael sent her an IM on Facebook that basically told her he was an idiot to like her in the first place.”

“He said that?” Trey asks me, open-mouthed.

I let out my breath enough to say, “Not exactly.”

“Well, okay...?” Trey’s squint reveals that he is not really sure where any of this is going or what we might want him to do.

“The thing is, Georgia’s gotten to know him a bit more since then,” Tori continues. “Like, she knows why he got kicked out of Pemberley—”

“Yeah?” Trey’s sandy eyebrows are up in his hair now. “Michael keeps a pretty tight lid on that. He’s as private a person as you are, Georgia. He must trust you a lot.”

“I found out sort of by accident,” I admit. “The guy he helped back at Pemberley is a friend of Shondra. He asked me to help him find Michael, to thank him.”

“So she knows him better now,” Tori says, smiling at me, “and she
likes
him now, I think.”

I nod clumsily.

Trey beams and says, “Well, that’s great! Let me call him!”

“Georgia thinks he’s with Darien now,” Tori says before I can jump on Trey and wrestle the iPhone from him. “Is he?”

“I don’t know.” Trey shrugs as if this has no bearing on anything whatsoever. “I haven’t talked to him in a while. He’s got track team stuff and I have baseball...” Trey frowns now, shrugs cartoonishly, palms up, and asks, “So do you want me to say something to him or not?”

“No!” I yelp, and Tori grabs my elbow before I can run away.

“For what it’s worth, I can’t see Michael with Darien,” Trey laughs. “But if you want me to casually say something to him...”

“No,” I say, more quietly this time, but firmly. “No, thank you.” I sigh bravely. “We just got the timing all wrong, I guess. Or he decided that I am no better than my ditzy slutty sister, Cassie, after all, so he’s going with someone who’s more his type.”

Trey gives me a funny look for a moment.

“Michael doesn’t think Cassie is some stupid skank, you know. If he did, he never would have gotten Jeremy to give him those files. I mean, he
hates
Jeremy! He wouldn’t go to Jeremy’s house for Cassie if he really thought she was just some slut.”

Because it was said so casually, it takes a second for this information to sink in. When it does, I demand, “What do you mean? What files?”

Trey looks really nervous now and sighs.

“Okay. I’m not supposed to tell you this. But Michael and I went over to Jeremy’s house the day you two had that fight because Michael knew that Jeremy likes to, uh, post his
encounters
online. He has a camera rigged up in his room and got some footage of him and Cassie, which Michael demanded—and got—before it ever made it online.”

I shake my head, trying to absorb the idea of Michael and Trey pulling up to Jeremy’s house, leaping out of the car like two thugs in a bad mob movie, and threatening Jeremy until he agreed to hand over a sex tape he made with my sister—because every single part of that scenario is so wrong. I feel like I might start vomiting and never stop, but, somehow, out of the fog, two things become clear:

(1) Michael wouldn’t threaten or persuade Jeremy on Cassie’s behalf if he thought that she and the rest of my family were hopelessly unredeemable. Which means he must have still had feelings for me then, even after I had kicked him out of my house. Which means he might even still like me at least a little?

(2) I have made a colossal misjudgment of Michael again.

“How did he get Jeremy to hand over the, um, sex tape?” I ask.

Trey grins and punches a fist into his palm, making him look like a cross between a Ralph Lauren ad and the Incredible Hulk. “We were very convincing,” he says in a muy macho voice, which he ruins by giggling at the end of it. “Seriously. Michael told him that his dad knows some important people at Yale. (So does mine.) He convinced Jeremy that if the cops wouldn’t take action, we would make sure his admission to Yale was revoked.”

“George, are you okay?” Tori asks as I sink onto the front step. She leans down to look at me.

“I’m fine,” I stammer. “I’m just...surprised.”

“Me, too,” Tori admits, looking at Trey with a loving smile. “I had no idea that you guys were Cassie’s knights in shining armor.”

“It was Michael’s idea. When he told me he was going over to Jeremy’s to talk to him I told him I was coming, too. I figured Jeremy would be much less likely to pound on Michael if he had backup.”

I gasp, “
Did
he pound on Michael?”

Trey laughs. “No, believe me, there was no violence involved. It wasn’t necessary. Jeremy is a weasel, but an ambitious one. It wasn’t worth wrecking his future over one of a
lot
of sex tapes.”

I sit for a few more seconds, not moving, not thinking. Tori said that I think too much, and she’s right. But I’m through with that.

I stand up, somewhat blindly, and announce, “I have to find Michael. I have to thank him.”

“Well,” Trey drawls uncertainly, “he made me promise not to tell you about this.”

“It’s too late for that,” I say. “Besides, if he hadn’t stepped in, if that video had come out, I don’t know what would have happened to Cass...” I look at Trey with wild eyes. “Can I borrow your car?”

“Um, yeah, sure, I guess.” He looks at Tori uncertainly.

“What are you doing?” Tori asks me as I take the keys from Trey.

“I have to find Michael,” I tell her.

She smiles, does a little hoppy dance for a second, then pulls me into a hug before I practically fall down the steps in my hurry.

“Go, George! Go!” she cheers.

“Is she okay to drive?” Trey asks her as I throw open the door of the vintage Mercedes, but I miss the answer as I take off for Summer Street.

I have no plan whatsoever when I park in front of Michael’s picture perfect historical house. I pause on the front step to catch my breath. When I ring the bell Michael’s mom answers. She looks so formidable in a brightly colored, vaguely African-print shawl over a black shirt, long black skirt, and black leggings, so elegant and exotic, that I almost back off the step.

“Hi, Georgiana, is it?” she asks politely.

“Yes, is Michael around?”

“He’s out running now, but he should be back soon.” She indicates the woods behind the house, where Michael runs on the trails that wind around their property. “Would you like to wait here, to come inside?”

“No, thank you. I’m going to find him,” I tell her, and I don’t know how she reacts to this because I am off for the woods like the Flash.

I find the path past the lagoon of a swimming pool, and just start running, even though I usually make it a point to never run unless there is a velociraptor or something chasing me, which, thankfully, hasn’t happened yet. I still have no idea if I’m on the right path or what I will say if and when I see him but I am propelled by a force greater than my own insecurities for once.

After a few minutes of stumbling over tree roots and small shrubs, my lungs are burning inside my chest and I think I might throw up, so I slow down and follow the path that winds along a creek. The sound of the water running over rocks fills my ears. Then I stop and double over.

Suddenly, Harry, Michael’s dog, is there, sniffing me and wagging his tail and then licking my face when I crouch down to him.

“Harry! Harry—where are ya?” Michael’s voice is calling in the distance, and Harry barks a happy response while I fight to catch my breath. My lungs feel as if I have accidentally ingested metal shavings.

Soon Michael is standing there, all long thin athletic legs and eyes filled with wild astonishment.

“Georgia? What are you doing—”

“I had—I had to talk to you,” I pant.

He grins lopsidedly. “Were you r
unning
?” he laughs.

“I had...to...catch you...To...thank...you.”

“Thank me? Here, slow down.” He guides me over to a fallen log and I sit and catch my breath. He sits next to me, very close, eying me with concern, but saying nothing. Best to deal with a crazy person carefully. Harry stands before us, wagging and panting just like me. I can only hope I am drooling less.

Finally, Michael asks, “Thank me for what?”

I turn and look at him; I’m sure my eyes are full of everything I feel and for once I don’t care.

“For what you did for Cassie,” I say, much less breathlessly now. “For getting Jeremy to give you the video.”

“Oh.” He sniffs, as if he has just smelled a pile of something Harry left on the trail. “That.”

“Yes,
that
.” I reach out for his arm but I hesitate and my hand drops like a pebble in a lake. “You
saved
her, you know. I don’t know what we would have done—”

He waves away my gratitude with an impatient hand.

“Look, it was no big deal. Jeremy’s been allowed to treat girls like blowup dolls for too long. It had to end...That’s all.”

“It
was
a big deal!” I object. “It was a big deal for Cassie, even if she doesn’t know about it. And for me.”

I don’t know what else to say so I look at him, helplessly, and the birds chattering overhead sound like they are laughing at me. Michael is looking at me, too, unsure, so we just sit on the bumpy log under the newly sprouted leaves on the trees and look at each other. Everything around us is green and fresh and new, and birds are singing overhead, and Harry is throwing a stick up in the air with his mouth and catching it. Everything feels so alive, suddenly, like my world has gone from black and white to Technicolor in a moment.

I remember that I’m not supposed to be thinking and put my hand on Michael’s shoulder. I lean over and I kiss him, lightly at first, and then I find the kiss deepening, and his lips feel warm and soft and strong, and I hear him make a kind of “ungh” noise. And soon he is kissing me back.

Until I remember.

I pull away.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper and stand up quickly.

Michael looks up at me, dazed.

“Sorry?” he repeats, obviously confused.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” I flail. “Really, I...I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have...I’m not the kind of girl who kisses other girls’ boyfriends...I’m...really sorry.”

The tears are ready to spring out of my eyes like silver bullets and I am still just rational enough to know I don’t want him to see that, so I stumble my way back toward his house. By then the tears are falling onto the ground that seems to rush beneath me. Michael calls after me but I don’t listen.

If I had my mom’s car and not Trey’s, I would just kept driving, out of Longbourne, out of Western Massachusetts, just onward, forever, anywhere, even though you can’t outrun—or outdrive—yourself. But I come home and give Trey his keys as I walk past him and Tori on the porch and go up to my room.

They both have the good sense not to ask me any questions. Any idiot could see I had made a fool of myself. Again.

4 America’s Next Top Moron

At least I have the weekend to recover from my stupid bust of a move, but it’s not like I forget about it. Plus I’m afraid that, unless he receives some sort of accidental lobotomy before Monday morning, Michael won’t forget it either. So when my friend Allison IMs me on Sunday morning to catch me up on all the news back in Boulder, where I lived until we moved two years ago, I spill it all.

SkiBunnyAlli:
Hey, Georgia, r u there?

GeeBee:
‘Sup, Al?

SkiBunnyAlli:
prom last night. i went w/justin springer & a bunch of us went out b4 to that noodle place u love. it was fun. u should have been there. did u go to longbourne prom?

GeeBee:
Not a chance. i’m glad u had fun. say hey to everyone 4 me.

SkiBunnyAlli
: and how is michael of the lovely long neck? ;)

GeeBee:
I just kissed him.

SkiBunnyAlli:
WTF???!!!