Pride and Prep School (2 page)

“Yeah, kind of,” he admits.

“Why?” I ask as I get up to stir the marinara sauce I had put on the stove earlier.

“I don’t know … because it seems so domestic, I guess.”

I nod knowingly, saying, “And rabid feminists are not domestic.”

He laughs, and it’s a good sound, like water tumbling over rocks. Especially since he is laughing at himself for once and not at me.

“So how are the virtual dissections going?” he asks as I hand him the bag of shredded mozzarella soy cheese to open and pour the sauce over the shells. Michael and I had met at the beginning of the school year when he’d just started at LHS and we’d been paired as lab partners in biology. He’d been livid when I’d told him I was taking a principled stance against the animal dissections, and I ended up getting to do virtual ones on an iPad with a sophomore genius who was deathly allergic to formaldehyde. But I still help with the labs in class since Michael can’t even draw the simplest parts of a plant that would be recognizable to anyone who’s ever actually seen a real live specimen of flora.

“It’s not bad,” I tell him. “I do the virtual dissections in the library during study period. I was sort of worried that Miss Grogan would report back that it isn’t working, since she seems so dead set against it, but Barry says she has to go along with it if she doesn’t want to deal with a lawsuit. His uncle is some major Boston litigator, I guess.”

Michael smiles and seems to enjoy raining shredded cheese over our whole concoction. “Well, thanks for sticking around for the labs. I know it’s really disgusting to you, but your drawings really help.”

I unroll some aluminum foil over the pan and then pop it in the oven, saying, “The formaldehyde is disgusting. That smell — I can feel my nose hairs curling up and dying every time you open the dissection tray. The dead animal is heartbreaking.”

Dad comes in then and registers his surprise at seeing me in male company. He says hello to Michael who answers, “Hi, Dr. Barrett.” I know the use of his title pleases my dad no end.

“Is my daughter trying to convert you to a tasteless but conscience-free diet, too?” he asks as he sniffs the pot with the marinara sauce.

“I’m here voluntarily,” Michael assures him.

Dad raises his bushy eyebrows into his graying hair and says simply, “Huh,” before leaving the room again.

Michael sits down at the breakfast table and begins, “So …vampires? Tell me why women love those books so much.
Grown
women. And tell me why a girl would want a vampire.”

“I don’t know. Because they’re tormented and mysterious and, occasionally, sparkly?”

“
Really
?” He wears skepticism the way some women in Longbourne wear Chanel.

I shrug. “It’s not really my kind of thing,” I admit. “But Trey seems to like it enough.”

Michael grins crookedly.

“Trey is more than willing to like anything that Tori likes. Even if it’s a girl’s idea of a hottie vampire.”

I give him a sly look. Maybe this is my chance to get him to reveal why he got kicked out of the Pemberley School last year and ended up in a public high school with the rest of us plebes. He is, after all, being unusually chummy today, so I say, “I don’t know, Michael. Most girls can’t resist a guy with a secret, or a
mysterious past.
”

But he just scowls. And I don’t pursue it, because it’s really none of my business, no matter how much I want to know.

“Do you read those vampire books
?
”

“I read some of them a couple summers ago. They’re pretty fast reads and Tori had a bunch of them.”

He accepts the glass of lemonade I offer and says, “I’m surprised you’d read books like that.”

I frown. “Why? They’re not ‘fine literature’?”

“Because your dad’s an English professor and the books seem a little … lame.”

“
I’m
not a book snob. Or any other kind of snob.”

Michael’s jaw tightens for a second, but then he says lightly, “Don’t be so sure, Ms. Healthier-Than-Thou,” as he shakes the canister of vegan Parmesan cheese at me.

Cassie bounces in, does a double take at seeing Michael there, wrinkles her nose and asks, “
You’re
making dinner tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Is it another one of your save-the-world-one-cow-at-a-time experiments? Because I am
so
over that,” she says and Michael laughs, which makes her smile at finding an unlikely ally. “You should taste some of the stuff she’s come up with. The braised Satan?
Gag
.”

“First of all, it’s seitan, a protein, not the lord of darkness, you ditz. Second, it’s not an ‘experiment’. It’s an
ethical choice
.” Then I catch the last words and roll my eyes to show him that I get it: my vegan evangelism
could
be construed as a little snotty, I guess.

“It’s an excuse for me to go back out to McDonalds, that’s what it is,” Cassie declares.

“Cassie, did you come in just to annoy me with your ignorance?”

“No,” she says happily, grabbing a soda and setting it on the table by Michael. “I
was
going to tell you that there is a party tonight at Jeremy Wrentham’s. He just found out he got into Yale and he’s celebrating.”

“He got into Yale?” I ask, calculating that
his
expulsion from Pemberley didn’t have anything to do with grades, at least.

“He’s a legacy,” Michael says tersely, and then explains to Cassie, “His dad and his brother went there.”

“Whatevs,” Cassie says, completely uninterested in this information. “Are you going?” she asks me.

“Not a chance.” I say, giving a quick look at Michael that reveals he is smiling now.

“Really? It’s going to be sick.”

“Just don’t drink anything Jeremy mixes up himself,” I call after her, then mutter, “Well, she’s off to plan her strategy.”

Michael laughs. “I think that whatever conquest she’s planning isn’t going to take much strategy. She just needs to show up.”

“What does that mean?” I demand. Things had been going so well. Michael had seemed so human all afternoon, making fun of movies and helping with dinner, but now I couldn’t tell if he was calling my sister a slut—or belittling my having raised Jeremy’s fleeting interest. Or both. Either one was pretty insulting.

“I mean that Jeremy is not very discerning, that’s all,” Michael explains.

“I’m so flattered.”

“I didn’t mean you.”

“So you meant my sister?” He just looks at me blankly as all the blood in my body seems to rush to my face, and not because the oven’s been on for a while. “You have to mean either my sister is a dumb slut or
I
am for having gotten mixed up with Jeremy on New Year’s Eve? Which is it?

Michael shakes his head and sighs. “I’ll leave you to your soy shells,” he says as he walks out, and within a minute I hear Trey saying a somewhat bewildered goodbye and following Michael out the door.

“Wow. I’ve always said your tofu really drives people away, George. But I was
joking
,” Dad laughs from the doorway, and I turn on him and growl. He just walks away, laughing, and I wonder why males are so often such idiots and when my dad became one of them.

Despite his occasional idiocy, my dad
has
discovered an ingenious way to get out of shoveling the snow. The morning after Michael and I had that second chat in the kitchen—and about the tenth day of snowfall in a row—my mom informs me over breakfast that it is my turn to shovel. Even if I had just driven Leigh to church.

“We are a modern egalitarian household,” she reminds me, using Dad’s phrase, “which means we all need to shovel.” She pauses, and then adds “Though, as a man, your father is the one most likely to have a heart attack. Until I hit menopause …”

“Ewwww!” Cassie groans, as if Mom has just dropped a dead spider into her oatmeal.

“Can’t you get Brick to do it?” I ask Cassie. “It’ll be good for his biceps or his lats or something.”

Cassie sighs airily and muses, “I don’t think I want to be asking Brick for anything right now.”

Mom sits down at the table, looking concerned, and not about the small mountain of brown sugar Cassie is stirring into her oatmeal.

“I’m getting tired of him,” Cassie admits. “He’s always calling, always checking in on me …”

“So you feel smothered?” I say, nodding in understanding.

“No. I’m just
tired
of him. I mean, I
know
him, I’ve
been
with him … there are plenty of other cute, interesting guys out there.”

I actually feel sorry for the Brick then. I mean, he’s so totally dull I can’t see how Cassie or anyone could spend all of five minutes with him, but still … poor guy.

“You’re still young, you
should
have fun and explore,” Mom encourages her and I just shake my head.

“I’ll see if Trey can get his Dad’s snow blower again,” Tori offers from the doorway.

“Thanks.”

Cassie pours milk into her bowl with a splash and turns to me, asking in a singsong, “So, you’re really not interested in Jeremy?”

“Not in the least,” I inform her.

“Really? After that big kiss-humping session on New Year’s?”

I look up from my own oatmeal in horror at this phrase and see that while Mom is obviously interested, she bites her lip and turns back to the boiling kettle on the stove, knowing I won’t tolerate her curiosity.

“Jeremy and I are not involved,” I say.

“So you guys aren’t going out?” she asks, in an exaggeration of shock. “Why?”

I do not want to tell her what happened any more than I would want to walk down Longbourne Street in my underwear. It is too humiliating and Cassie has been too assured of her status as a femme fatale lately.

“I’m just not that into him, I guess.”

Tori looks at me with sympathy but says nothing.

“You’re
crazy
,” Cassie tells me.
“He is absolutely gorgeous and funny and really nice.”

“I guess …”

“If I had the chance …” Her voice trails off and she stirs her oatmeal with a rhapsodic smile on her face, kind of the way Leigh does when she thinks seriously about Jesus.

Tori and I look at each other, suspecting that Cassie is up to something.

A few days later I get a sense of what that is when she dumps the Brick and remains deaf to his pleading texts and calls. She even returns the phone he gave her for Christmas, feeling it wouldn’t be right to keep it. Knowing how much she coveted that smart phone, I’m impressed with this rare display of personal integrity, but still worried.

I get my first clue about what I should be worrying about on one of those early February days that make you think last year’s spring was just some really vivid, really wonderful dream. I’m eating lunch with Shondra and Dave and Gary, as usual, when Tori comes by to borrow a dollar from me and ends up listening to Gary explain the brilliance of the Ramones. He nods his head so that the spikes bob and wave like a spinosaurus dancing. I can see that Dave is also paying attention to Tori, sneaking shy looks in her direction. But when he sees Willow Harper headed our way, he stands up and grabs his tray, saying, “I, uh, gotta …”

“Yeah,” Gary agrees, and soon they are both up and ready to walk. “So check out that track, Georgia. I’ll see you guys later.”

I sit still, dumbfounded that Willow Harper could strike fear into the hearts of two guys who do their best to dress and act like some approximation of Sid Vicious every day, but I am not exactly thrilled to see her either. Only Tori smiles when Willow takes Dave’s seat with a swing of her golden hair.

“Georgia, Tori, I thought I should let you know something,” Willow announces.

Shondra raises her eyebrows and smirks but doesn’t say anything. Willow didn’t even seem to notice that she was there.

“O
kay
, Willow . . ?” I prompt because she seems to be waiting for our permission, or an opening of some kind.

“I just thought you should know that people are talking about your sister, Cassie.”

Tori and I look at each other for a fraction of a second with fear but I’m determined not to show it to Willow any more than I would to a pit bull as I estimate the length of his chain.

“Really?” I ask lightly and take a carefree bite of my apple. “She probably loves it, knowing her.”

Willow’s lips twist in a malicious smile.

“Oh, I don’t think she’ll like
this
. She’s been going to a lot of senior parties lately.” Willow pauses here to look at Tori for a moment as if to remind her that she never goes to these major social events either and is the lesser for it. “And she’s been making herself look totally ridiculous. Everyone is talking about the way she hangs on Jeremy.”

Tori lets a little gasp escape but I work to remain unfazed.

“Hmmmm. Well, I haven’t heard anything,” I say.

“Of course not.” Willow sneers. “But I thought you should know so that you could say something to her. She thinks she’s making
awe
some new senior friends but she’s just making herself look slutty and desperate.”

“Well, it’s kind of you to let us know,” I say, and Shondra starts to laugh.

Willow stands and places her palms on the table, fingers outspread, the sapphire ring some college guy allegedly gave her flashing in the fluorescent light.

“I’m totally serious. But if you don’t care what people think of her —or the rest of your family—”

“I’ll talk to her,” Tori promises hurriedly and Willow smiles benignly at her.

“I think that’s a good idea. People around here
talk
.”

“You more than anyone?” I guess and she scowls and stalks away, having done her good deed for the day.

“Is she for real?” Shondra laughs. “I feel like an extra on the set of
Pretty Little Liars
.”

“She has no idea she’s a cultural cliché,” I agree, but I can see that Tori is frowning and looking up at the big window overlooking the snowy soccer fields.

“Ever since she dumped Brick, Cassie
has
been going to a lot of parties,” she says, “with her friend Jenny from cheerleading, right?”

“And you’re thinking she’s likely to be doing exactly what Willow said,” I finish. “And you’re right.”

“Should we tell her about Jeremy?”

“What about him?”

“What he did to you!”

I shake my head.

“Jeremy didn’t
do
anything to me. We were drunk and fooling around and when I left he found another girl to fill his bed. That’s all. It’s not like we had anything going on, right?”

“Still … it’s not cool. It’s
cold
,” Shondra points out.

“It’s insulting. And shady,” Tori agrees.

“There’s nothing to tell Cassie about—and she wouldn’t listen to us anyway even if we did.”

Tori stands, realizing that she is really late for class, and hurries away. She smiles when she says goodbye but I know she’s as worried as I am.

Dave and Gary finally slink back and want to know what the queen bee was up to.

“Willow has graciously warned us that the rumor mill is about to start working overtime on Cassie, and that we had better prepare ourselves for it.”

Gary scarfs down a stolen brownie chunk and says through the crumbs, “She ought to know. She’s the foreman of the rumor mill.”

“What’s the rumor?” Dave asks, reaching for the last of the brownie chunks.

Shondra and I look at each other. “Actually, that’s not clear,” she admits, and I realize that’s true. Who knew that Willow could so convincingly play the menacing super-villain, like Darth Vader in a designer miniskirt?

Dave shakes his head sadly as he presses his fingers down to pick up the last crumbs.

“Oh, you’ll know soon enough,” he says, and Gary nods his purple spikes.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he reasons. “Most people don’t get a warning before the slander starts.”

“Lucky us,” I sigh. But I don’t feel particularly lucky.