Prom and Prejudice (7 page)

Then mom turns to her Cinderella at the stove and sighs audibly.

“I’ve always been the black sheep of the family,” I moan melodramatically, back of my hand to my forehead, and Leigh grins.

“You
do
have the darkest hair,” she says, but Mom will have none of this. She puts her arm around me and insists, “Georgia is just a...late bloomer.”

This is too much.

“If you people don’t stop pitying me I am going to spit in your chili,” I warn, just as the oven dings for the cornbread to go in.

***

On Wednesday, everybody at school is talking about prom. It’s really getting irritating, even pull-my-fingernails-out-slowly-with-pliers painful. There are plenty of other, bigger things happening in the world—wars, famine, various and sundry natural disasters—but all anyone wants to talk about is flowers and where to get their shoes dyed.

“I can’t believe everyone is making such a big deal about this,” Dave says at lunch when Shondra has gone to another table to chat and Gary is back in line for his fourth chocolate milk.

“I know. I don’t get it,” I agree.

He pushes his glasses up his nose and says, “You’re not going, are you?”

“I am not prom material,” I say as I dig in my bag for my pita chips.

“You’re just
above
such things,” Dave corrects me. I pause for a second in my search for my chips because I have the nagging feeling that I am not above it, not at all, that if someone I really liked had asked me, if
Michael
had asked me, I would have said yes and been at the mall with my mom and my sisters trying on dresses I would never wear again and would probably look ridiculous in. “But, ya know, if you
wanted
to go...I’m supposed to spend the weekend with my brother at MIT, but...”

“Oh, Dave,” I say, too sweetly, because he drops his head for a second in embarrassment. “That’s really nice of you. But proms aren’t really my thing, either.”

“You know the music will suck,” he says with great assurance.

“No doubt. Bad Coldplay covers.”

“Or worse—a DJ.” He shudders visibly.

“But thank you,” I say, as Michael suddenly plops into Shondra’s empty seat and I almost choke on my chip. I’d lost the nerve to say anything to him in homeroom and English class again. I was hoping instead that somewhere I would find the courage by bio class.

“Hey, Dave, that last issue of
The Alt
was great,” Michael says. “There’s some really good writing in it.” He turns to me and smirks, one eyebrow raised. “Nothing on veganism, though. Are you off your crusade?”

“It’s not a
crusade
,” I respond.

“Well, that cupcake from the school show was awesome,” he says, and I am torn between surprise at Michael’s using a word like “awesome” and his sudden shift from snarky to complimentary.

He and Dave talk politics for a while as I watch Michael warily, wondering what he thinks about my kissing him,
if
he ever thinks about my kissing him. Then I wonder what he will look like all dressed up for the prom, standing next to Darien for that stupid photo under some fake grape arbor. I am certain that he will look really handsome in a tuxedo. Like he belongs in one, even.

When the bell is about to ring, Michael leans over and says to me in a quieter tone, “I’ll talk to you later, Georgia, okay?”

I just nod as he walks away and Gary comes back tossing his milk carton between his hands like a very insecure juggler.

I have to admit I replay this one line of conversation—“I’ll talk to you later”—more than once that afternoon and evening, wondering when that will be and what he will say and when he will say it. Because he doesn’t say anything in bio class. And believe me, I was waiting.

My sisters put on a fashion show of their prom attire that night and I pretend to be one of the judges on
America’s Next Top Model
because it’s the only way I can get through it. Besides,
ANTM
may be the one thing we have in common. Even Leigh watches it and Tori allows herself to get really catty about the contestants she doesn’t like (the mean girls). I watch it with an ironic eye but get kind of caught up in the drama and the excitement of the makeovers anyway.

I command as Tori struts down the second floor hallway in an ice-blue, satin sheath dress and high silver heels, “Victoria, darling,
smile
! Smile with your eyes!”

When Leigh totters on her heels and bumps an elbow into the wall I urge, “Aurora Leigh, I need
fierce
. Find your model, girl,” then, “Now, Cassandra, I see you doing this”—I squint my eyes—“when I want to see
this
”—I bug my eyes out and purse my lips ridiculously.

“Oh. My. God,” Cassie laughs as she pretends to be on camera, “I can’t believe I am actually here with TYRA BANKS.”

As me again, I tell them, “You guys look really great
.
For reals. And I am sure Mom will take more pictures than ‘noted fashion photographer Nigel Barker’ has taken in his whole life and send them to everyone she has ever met.”

Tori sits down on the floor next to me, carefully, because it’s hard to do in her slim dress and dangles her shoes in her hands. “So you remember when Dad made her stop sending out those embarrassing Christmas letters?” she asks.

“Oh my God, those stupid
updates
!” Cassie howls. “‘Tori continues to excel in piano lessons and at four Cassie is already breaking hearts on the playground.’”

“They were the worst,” Leigh agrees. “She wrote about my falling off the jungle gym and breaking my wrist.”

“She wrote about my getting fleas from that stray cat I was feeding!” I said, and we all laughed.

I have to admit that it feels good that even if I am a social reject in the world of romance, I am at least getting along with my sisters very well lately.

After Cassie and Leigh go back to their rooms, Tori puts her hand on my shoulder to hoist herself up.

“Have you talked to Michael lately?” she asks.

“For about thirty seconds at lunch today.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“He’s taking his time.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” Tori admits. “But he must be thinking about it, about you. Guys don’t have girls run up to them in the woods and kiss them every day, you know.”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me.”

“Maybe he’s planning
his
move carefully.”

I doubt it. But I like the idea.

***

It finally happens after school on Thursday, on my way into Mr. Mullin’s room for the
Alt
meeting. Michael stops me in the hall in front of a bank of lockers by grabbing my arm. I am so startled I drop all of my books out of my bag.

He helps me pick them up, and when Shondra pauses by us on her way into the room, Michael says, “She’ll be in in a minute.”

She looks amused and smiles at me, giving us a little wave with her fingers before sashaying off to meet Dave and Gary and some new kids who want to join for next year.

“I’m sorry I surprised you like that,” he says as he hands me my history book.

“Well, yeah...what, did you jump out of a locker or something? I didn’t even see you come up.”

“I heard you skipped homeroom and English on Monday, too,” he said.

“Yeah. I had a dentist appointment...and a migraine.” I sound defensive even to myself.

“Oh.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, which is long enough for me to start feeling like I should just climb into my locker and shut the door.

I remind him, finally, “I have a meeting now. I should go in.”

“Okay. I have just one question.”

“Shoot,” I say as cavalierly as possible.

He looks me right in the eye and I try to hold his gaze as long as I can but I end up focusing on my scuffed Chuck Taylors instead.

“On Saturday, behind my house, you said you aren’t ‘the kind of girl who kisses other girls’ boyfriends,’ right?”

I can feel myself turning red and it is suddenly about 125 degrees in the hallway. All I want to do is run out of the building as fast as I can.

“Right,” I kind of squeak.

When I look up from my feet I see he has a funny kind of almost-smile on his face now.

“Well, I was just wondering...who
is
this other girl?” he asks. “I mean, I should know, right?”

“What do you mean?” I snap, because I am sure he is making fun of me now. Or he’s just enjoying torturing me. I brush past him and hurry into the classroom but before I can disappear inside I hear his voice.

“There is no other girl, Georgia.”

I turn around to see him standing there, looking at me without a trace of a smile on his face, and his eyes are dark and sort of sad looking.

“I have to go to track now. I’m already late,” he almost pleads. “Can I call you later?”

“Yeah,” I say, and it comes out as a long-held exhale.

He waves slightly and bounds down the hallway toward the gym and the locker rooms.

“What was
that
all about?” Shondra asks as I slide into a seat next to her.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

No. Other. Girl.

So I wait for the call all night, but it doesn’t come.

I consider, again, transferring schools. Or defecting to North Korea.

***

On Friday, Mom insists on everyone gathering at the table for a “real family dinner” since we’re all usually running in five different directions, and the conversation
still
consists of Cassie and my mom talking about the prom and who’s wearing what and everything my mom thinks she can ask about Cassie’s new boyfriend Rob without making her angry.

Tori looks at me with pity as she pointedly tries to change the subject.

“Trey’s family is opening up the pool this weekend, and we’re all invited, any time. It’s heated, so it will be nice and warm in the water.”

“That’s so thoughtful of them,” Mom says.

Cassie begins telling us about the bikinis she saw at the mall when the house phone rings and she leaps out of her seat so fast her chair falls over.

“Let the machine pick up!” Dad orders. “It’s ‘family dinner time.’”

“But it could be Rob, asking for the exact color of my dress so he can pick out the right corsage for me,” Cassie whines, running to the phone before someone can tackle her.

She returns thirty seconds later, looking as if someone had called to announce the death of someone she loves.

“It’s for you,” she says, holding the phone out to me.

I stand, say, “I’ll be quick,” and take the phone into the den.

“Hello?”

I hear a lot of buzzing and cracking and some traffic noises.

“Georgia? It’s Michael? Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, kind of. Hi.” A really loud car horn blasts my ears and I think I’ve lost him.

“Listen, this connection sucks, but I want to talk to you. I have stuff to do tonight and I have to be at the Y in Netherfield all day tomorrow, but can I talk to you tomorrow? I mean, you’re not going to the prom tomorrow night, are you?”

Like he doesn’t know that.

“No,” I say, but he can’t hear me over the static.

“What?”

“No!” I am forced to yell. “No, I AM NOT GOING TO THE PROM.”

“Okay, so I’ll call you? Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, okay,” I say as distinctly as I can, and then we are cut off.

I walk back into the dining room and everyone but Dad is looking at me.

“Who was that?” Cassie asks. “They need a better phone plan, because I could barely hear them.”

“It was Michael. Endicott.”

Tori beams at me, Leigh smiles, and Mom flushes a bit.

“He’s going to call me tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Tori says, and her smile fades for a second before she can wrestle it back into place.

After dinner, while she is loading the dishwasher and I am feeding the cats, she says with great certainty, “Michael is planning something. I know it. He’s going to make a move
at last
.” And she actually giggles at this idea, but I am not sure if it’s because the idea of Michael making a move of any kind is so absurd, or because the phrase “make a move” is.

“You know this for a fact?” I ask as Teeny tries to push Clover out of the way of the food bowl. Clover is big and slow, but nothing gets between her and a can of Ocean Whitefish Surprise.

“No, but I can tell.”

“Well, I’ve been wrong about everything Michael-related so far,” I sigh.

Tori’s smile would be insufferably smug on anyone else. “That’s right,” she says. “
You
have. But not me.”

“So, what? You’re psychic now?”

“Wait and see, George. Wait and see.”

Well, really, what else
can
I do?

5 Wrong in all the Right Ways

Mom watches as I take a tray of cupcakes out of the oven, carefully slide the knife around them, and put them on the cooling racks. They’re coconut lime cupcakes, which means I have officially baked my way through all of
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
. Almost—I’ve skipped the ones with lychee nuts or rosewater because I am not sure where to get those things and if I will like them if I do. I don’t know why my mom feels the need to monitor my every move. Maybe she’s bored and lonely, with Dad at his office and my sisters at a salon getting mani/pedis and fancy updos for tonight. Maybe she thinks my exclusion from the prom will drive me to stick my head in the oven with the next batch of cupcakes.

“What?” I ask her, finally.

“Your dad and I can cancel our plans for tonight, so you don’t have to be here by yourself,” she says.

“Mom, not going to prom isn’t a fatal disease. It’s not going to kill me. But hanging out at home with my parents on prom night—
that
might
.
”

“If you’re sure...”

“I am
pos
itive.”

She finally takes a seat and inhales deeply. “They smell good. Are you sure I can take all of them to the potluck?”