Confederates Don't Wear Couture (2 page)

“Fine, boyfriend, pen pal, whatevs.” Dev held up his hands in surrender. “It all boils down to this: Do you want to go to the Civil War, yes or no?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Then your cerebral swain will understand, I promise you. If I know geek boy, he'll start spouting off about intellectual opportunities and chasing the dream or something.”

“Well . . .” I hemmed and hawed. “I have to at least talk to him about it.”

“Thought you might say that.” Dev nimbly swiped my computer, turned it to face him, and banged on the keyboard until my laptop started emitting a shrill ring.

“You can
not
use a phone in here!” I whisper-screamed, horrified.

“This place has
so
many rules,” Dev complained. “And it's not a phone.”

Before we got kicked out of the library, I managed to hustle Dev and my ringing computer into the relative safety of the adjacent computer lab. It was empty except for a group of guys clustered in the corner playing World of Warcraft. As soon as Dev slid the computer onto an empty table, the screen filled with the face of my boyfriend, Garrett McCaffrey.

He looked just like he did almost a year ago when he'd pulled me out of an apple barrel: unruly dark hair, thick plastic-framed Clark Kent glasses, and an adorkable comic-book T-shirt. I still couldn't believe it had taken me an entire summer to realize that he was the Mr. Darcy to my Elizabeth Bennet. How could I
ever
have thought he wasn't totally cute and the only boy for me? I must have had a fit of temporary insanity. It may have taken a ghost,
Northanger Abbey,
and a nineteenth-century whaling vessel to bring us together, but at least I'd come to my senses eventually.

“Libby!” Garrett said happily, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “This is a surprise. Good timing. Just got back from soc class.” His look changed to confusion as Dev pushed his way into the frame. “Uh . . . hi, Dev.”

“Do you think I need cheek implants?” Dev stared into the tiny camera, massaging his face. “I think this camera makes my cheeks look weird.”

“Your cheeks are fine.” I resumed my place in front of the camera as Dev started ensuring that his gelled hair was perfectly spiked. “And, Garrett, your cheeks are perfect.”

Garrett laughed and leaned back in his chair, stretching his long arms. I could see a sliver of dorm room in the frame behind him, just as messy as it had been the couple of times I'd visited him at Tufts.

“‘Mutant and Proud,'” Dev read off Garrett's
X-Men
T-shirt. “Oh, Garrett.” He sighed. “Didn't you get that Marc Jacobs gift card I sent you for your birthday?”

“Yeah!” Garrett nodded happily. “I got some great socks.”

I stifled a giggle as Dev's face fell.

“Listen, I'm glad you called. I mean, face-chatted,” Garrett said seriously, straightening his glasses.

“Libby needs to talk to you about the summer!” Dev shrieked before I swatted him away.

“Uh, before you say anything about the summer”—Garrett started rustling around in his desk drawer—“I want to show you something.” He produced a stack of papers and brochures.

“Does that say ‘the Paul Revere House'?” I asked, squinting.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “The thing is, I got that internship at the
Boston Globe
—”

“YOU GOT IT?!” I screamed happily.

“Shhhhh!”
the World of Warcraft guys admonished me. Dev stuck his tongue out at them.

“Garrett! You got it!” I continued, more quietly. “Oh my God, I'm so happy for you!”

“Thanks.” He blushed and looked even more adorable. “I know we were going to spend the summer together in Maine. And I want to spend the summer with you. But—”

“But you have to take it,” I interrupted him. “Garrett, you have to! This is your dream internship. Your churning butter in a hoop skirt, if you will.”

“Well, I probably won't describe it like that, but, yeah, it is,” he said, laughing. “Which is why I got you these!” He held up his stack of papers triumphantly. “The Paul Revere House, the Commonwealth Museum, the Gibson House Museum. All in Boston; all still accepting internship applications!”

“If you love something, let it go,” Dev whispered. “Let it go to Alabama.”

“Alabama?” Garrett asked, his brow furrowing. He may have had terrible eyesight, but he had excellent hearing.

“The thing is—” I started to say.

“The thing is I've found an opportunity for Libby to follow her dreams,” Dev interrupted. “To follow them all the way to a Civil War reenactment. The Olympics of living history.”

“Dev wants me to sell ball gowns with him at Civil War reenactments. Down south,” I explained.

“Oh,” Garrett said, and I could see him deflate a little bit. “That sounds pretty cool. I mean, these Boston museums are good too . . . but they're not living history. You'd probably have to help out in the gift shop or something . . .”

“But we could be together!” Obviously, I would much rather spend my summer wearing a hoop skirt in a Civil War camp than working in a gift shop, but I'd really been looking forward to being with Garrett all summer.
I'd visited him a couple of times at Tufts, and he'd come out to St. Paul on one of his breaks and had another trip planned out here for prom, but it really wasn't the same as being together for three whole months, all day, every day. But to live in Civil War reenactments for the summer . . . The hoop skirts were swishing and swirling in front of my eyes . . . and . . . and . . .

“Garrett, let me speak to you, mano a mano,” Dev sniffed, and smooshed his head against mine. “I need her. For just a few itty-bitty months. And then I'll deliver her safe and sound to the great state of Massachusetts, where you can spend the entire academic year, slash the rest of your lives, together.”

I elbowed him in the ribs.

“I think you should go,” Garrett said decisively, folding up the brochures. “This reenactment thing sounds like something you'd really love. Plus the costume opportunities will be way better.” He smiled, and I did too. “Besides, the Paul Revere House will be here next year.”

“You're sure?”

“Sure,” he said softly. “I love you, Libby.”

“I love you too,” I answered.

“VOMIT!” Dev shrieked, and closed the laptop.

“Shhh!”
the WoW nerds in the corner chorused. Dev rolled his eyes yet again.

“That was rude! I didn't get to say goodbye!”

“It's good to keep 'em on their toes.” Dev shrugged. “We-ell?” he asked leadingly.

“I'll do it,” I said decisively. “I'll do it.”

“Yee-haw!” Dev let out a bloodcurdling Rebel yell.

“Shhh!”
the WoW nerds exploded. Dev shot them his fiercest glare.

“But, um, a question,” I asked. “Why are we Confederates? We're from Minnesota. That's about as north as you can get. Not only geographically, but also historically Northern. As in fought for the Union. Minnesota became a state right before the war, in 1858, and sent troops to Bull Run, Gettysburg, Antietam . . . all the major battles. Besides, the South
lost.
Why would we want to be on the losing side? And we haven't even addressed the fact that their ideology was inherently corrupt!”

“Duh, better outfits,” he countered. “Yankee girls were plain, plain,
plain!
I want
giant
hoop skirts and ribbons and lace! And statistically, for whatever reason, Confederate reenactors spend more on their gear. Plus there are more of them. All that ‘Lost Cause' business really makes you shell out, apparently. Buy back the glory of Dixie!”

“Okay. But not to sound racist,” I started hesitantly.

“Libs, we're talking Confederacy. A little bit racist is kind of a given.”

“Okay, okay,” I agreed. “Will it be awkward to be a Confederate and, um—”

“Sexy like milk chocolate?” he interrupted.

“I was gonna go with ‘not white.'”

“Sexy like a Twix bar?”

“Or ‘Indian.'”

“Sexy like a Kit Kat bar? Break me off a piece of that! Ow!” he yelped, as I smacked his arm.

“Yes, yes, sexy like any number of milk chocolate–flavored confections,” I said, attempting to stop him before he could go through the entire contents of the vending machine.

“Clark Gable was, like, super tan. I'm not worried. Margaret Mitchell herself wrote that Rhett Butler was, quote, ‘swarthy as a pirate,' unquote, and who is more pirate swarthy than me?” he finished.

“Wow, you actually researched something. I'm impressed. And, quite frankly, astonished.” I decided not to harp on the fact that
Gone with the Wind
was not exactly the epitome of historical accuracy, presenting, as it did, the mid-nineteenth century through a twentieth-century Technicolor lens.

“There are greenbacks to be made, Miss Libby. We go to the South to worship at the altar of King Cotton! And King Taffeta! And King Silk Moiré!”

“So basically you want to be carpetbaggers.”

“Not just any carpetbaggers,” he corrected me. “We are Prada carpetbaggers. And don't you forget it.”

 

I didn't forget. And almost before I knew it, senior year had fled by, my faux Prada carpetbags were packed, and I was at the last event of high school, before heading off to the Civil War and then on to college.

“So this is prom.” Garrett looked around, taking in the foil stars hanging from the ceiling and the crinkly crepe paper bedecking the walls. “I thought I'd escaped it, but it got me in the end.”

“You mean you're not feeling the ‘Enchantment Under the Stars'?” I asked, poking him in the ribs as I quoted our prom theme.

“I wouldn't say that.” He smiled. “The stars may leave a little something to be desired, but ‘enchanting' doesn't even begin to describe the way you look tonight.”

I blushed, turning a darker shade than the pale pink prom dress Dev had made for me. It felt almost like Garrett and I were the only two people in the world, or at the least all alone in our own magical corner of the St. Paul Crowne Plaza Hotel Event Room. In actuality, we were just one small island in a sea of partying St. Paul Academy Pioneers. And we were sharing our island with Dev and his date, whose name I couldn't pronounce to save my life, as well as two of my fellow sopranos from chorus, plus their dates. My chorus friends were busy trying to harmonize to “Firework,” with moderately successful results, as their dates were heavily invested in a game of paper football featuring a cocktail napkin in the pivotal role.

“Explain to me how you made it to your advanced age without experiencing
the
quintessential high school experience,” Dev asked from across the table, as he poked his rubbery piece of chicken.

“Why doesn't someone explain to
me
why they bother with plated dinner service at this bourgeois fest of mundaniness? Or how they have the audacity to pass off this reconstituted meat byproduct as dinner?” Dev's date complained loudly.

“Why doesn't someone explain to
him
that ‘mundaniness' is not a word?” Garrett whispered.

Stifling a laugh, I choked on my Diet Coke, giving the chicken a wayward glance. “It is pretty bad,” I agreed. “Fee—Fy—Uh, how do you pronounce your name again?”

“It's Fyodr,” he drawled. “And this is inedible.”

“He's vegan,” Dev whispered proudly. “Garrett? Advanced age? Paucity of social experience?”

“I think the real mystery is why anyone would
want
to go to prom,” Garrett grumbled good-naturedly. “But before now, there wasn't anyone worth enduring this for.”

“Whatever Libby wants,” Dev sang off-key, “Libby gets.”

“Oh, come on!” I lobbed a piece of dinner roll across the table. It bounced off Dev's nose, and he stopped butchering
Damn Yankees.
“It's not like I
forced
him. I didn't force you, right?”

“Of course not.” Garrett chuckled as he poked at a limp green bean. “You're five foot three. I don't think you could force anyone to do anything.”

“Don't make me use this.” I brandished my remaining dinner roll at him.

“Seriously, Libby, of course you didn't force me. I wanted to come. Because even if I don't completely understand why it's important to you, it is. So it's important to me.”

“Adorable,” Dev said drily. “Fyodr, why don't you regale us all with your eyebrow-grooming regime again.”

“Come on, you must get it at least a little. Why it's important, I mean,” I clarified for Garrett. “It's such an iconic cultural touchstone! Didn't you ever watch
Pretty in Pink
?
Never Been Kissed
?
Footloose
?
She's All That
?”

“You never wanted your very own Laney Boggs moment?” Dev asked.

“Is that a disease?” Garrett asked.

“Ignore him. And, you, focus on your vegan,” I reprimanded Dev.

“Regardless, none of those movies make me want to go to prom. They just make me break out in a cold sweat at the thought of all that dancing.”

“Har-har.” I crumbled my remaining dinner roll in my mouth and chewed its cottony substance.

“And now that we've completed this journey through cinematic prom classics, Libby,” Garrett said, as he pushed out his chair and stood up from the table, pulling up to his full height, a dangling silver star threatening to tangle itself in his messy brown hair, “may I have this dance? As long as you don't mind the cold sweat.”

“Bring it on,” I said, smiling as I stood.

“Just try not to trip on the dress!” Dev called, as we crossed to the dance floor. “That's dupioni silk!”

I rolled my eyes as Garrett pulled me close to him.