Prom and Prejudice Read Online Free

hotel lobby I’ve felt like there’s a softball lodged in it—and venture, “I think it is really great what you did for Los last year.”
    He seems startled and looks around the room for a second, as if someone might have overheard me.
    “I mean, Shondra told me how you took the fall for the cheating,” I continue, though I can feel my face growing hot as I sense I’ve just said something really wrong while I intended to say something really right. This happens to me way too often, especially with Michael.
    Michael concentrates on his clams for a moment, pulling them delicately from the shells and dipping them in the melted butter. He does this with enough grace to impress this dedicated non-bivalve eater.
    “I just thought,” he says finally, “that it would be worse for Los to be kicked out than me. I knew I’d be able to get into a good school someplace else, while he’d go back to Netherfield and probably lose any chance at a college scholarship...” He stops and looks at me for a few seconds, and his dark eyes are open and soft, not at all hard and hawk-like as usual. I feel my heart melting, dripping in my chest like honey from a teaspoon.
    “And I found out why Jeremy was kicked out, too,” I continue. “I know now what you were trying to tell me, to warn me about, back in my kitchen. And at the country club dance.”
    “It took you long enough,’” he laughs, but his eyes are still on me intently.
    “What you did for Los...It was pretty amazing,” I breathe. Or I try to breathe. I feel like there is no air in the room all of a sudden and it’s making me dizzy.
    Mom cuts through the moment like a turtle snapping a stick in half, asking, “ What is amazing?”
    Michael clears his throat and tells his dad, “Georgia is the one who brought Carlos over, so she knows about how I got expelled.”
    My mom splutters a bit at that last word. I try to be grateful that no chardonnay shot through her nostrils.
    Dr. Endicott laughs, looking at Michael with fond bemusement.
    “My noble son let a scholarship student at Pemberley, a boy from inner city Netherfield, copy some answers off an exam, and when they got caught and were going to be expelled, he said he was solely to blame,” Dr. Endicott tells my mom.
    Michael looks profoundly embarrassed now, and my mom just looks confused, but says brightly, “I have a cousin who went to Pemberley. Class of...?” She frowns as she tries to place the year.
    “I was the Class of 1976,” Dr. Endicott says, and then the two of them try to determine how many mutual acquaintances they may have through Pemberley and other means. My mom is being a little too flirty and I want to throw a blanket over her but Dr. Endicott doesn’t seem to mind. Besides, I’m finally, finally talking to Michael. This is my chance, the one I’ve been waiting weeks for.
    Still, all I can think to say is “I’m glad I know...”
    Nothing I can think to say after that seems right and we just look at each other for a little while and poke at the food on our plates with our forks.
    “Michael tells me that Tori is among the top of her class,” Dr. Endicott says.
    Mom beams and informs him, “And, of course, she will be going to the Senior Prom with Trey Billingsley. Oh!” She begins waving one hand with excitement at her sudden idea and tells me, “We should go dress shopping while we’re here in the city.”
    And then Dr. Endicott says, “I suspect that Michael could have a prom date if he chose to.”
    Michael groans audibly and puts down his napkin as if he is going to leave the table.
    I look up to see his dad winking as he confides to my mom, “He’s known Darien Drake since preschool, but they seem to be talking on the phone a lot lately.”
    Darien Drake. Willow Harper’s henchman. The girl with the raven hair like a mermaid’s tail, sleek and dark and glamorous.
    Mom laughs knowingly as I gape at Michael, feeling helpless all of a sudden, like everyone at the table is