Charm and Consequence (Novella) - By Stephanie Wardrop Page 0,8
homeroom, or giving me the fish eye in English class.
Not that I care.
***
My mom gets so excited I fear for her mental health when Tori mentions that Trey’s dad, a dean at the college where my father teaches, is planning to invite us to the Harvest Ball at the Longbourne Country Club. She warbles all through dinner about gowns versus tea-length dresses and what the décor of the club will be like and whether someone she met recently at a Ladies’ Aid meeting will be there. Personally, I think the concept of a country club is pretty loathsome. Any group of people requiring membership, anything that is set up to exclude other people from taking part, is not something I ever want to sign on to. Besides, the idea of a semi-formal dance at a country club just seems like fate’s cruel way of pointing out to me yet again that I will not have a date for it.
And then I realize that I can use this as my excuse.
“Can’t go,” I say, palms up as if my boyfriend has slipped out of my hands. “No escort.”
“Well, I don’t think any of us are bringing escorts, dear,” Mom says, with a pointed look at Cassie meant to convey that her football hero beau, Rick the Brick, will not be invited to join us. “We can’t take advantage of the Billingsleys’ generosity by bringing along guests of our own, sweetie.”
“Or risk making the wrong impression,” I mumble as I realize my lack of a dance partner is not going to cut it as an excuse.
“Well, if Brick’s not coming, I’m not coming,” Cassie declares as she stabs a mushy potato.
“All right, then,” Mom agrees pleasantly.
“I have to sing at church that night,” Leigh says. I can hear the relief in her voice.
“Well, Pam, that’s two fewer ball gowns we’ll have to purchase,” Dad says as he looks up from the draft of a conference paper he is reading as we finish eating. He sounds even more relieved than Leigh did.
“So Tori and Georgia and I will go shopping then, just the three of us. Or just the two of you, if you prefer that.”
“Who says I’m going to this thing in the first place?” I demand.
“You have no reason not to go,” Mom points out.
I groan.
“It will be fun,” Tori reassures me. “And you’ll get to observe the cultural elite of the Longbourne Country Club firsthand.”
But I think I’ve had about enough of Longbourne’s elite already.
***
I get another taste of it in the form of Lord Michael of Endicott on our second AP English presentation day. Shondra talks about Lady Macbeth, so I guess Michael approves of her part of the presentation, at least. She explains that a woman of Macbeth's time could only have access to power and position through her husband, so that’s why she had to goad Macbeth into killing the real heir to the throne to grab it for himself. Shondra sounds confident, but when she sits down next to me, she exhales as if she had been underwater and just burst to the surface.
“You were great,” I assure her.
Michael goes next, showing no signs of ever having had a moment of panic in his life. He’s chosen Hamlet, of course, and cites all sorts of evidence from the play that Hamlet was a genius, a man of the people, an ethical person forced into a terrible position what with that whole having to kill his uncle thing, blah blah blah. It’s very smart and very impressive and based on Aristotle’s definition of the tragic hero and will no doubt earn our group an “A” again, but something about the way Michael makes his case bothers me. He’s not just self-possessed. He’s downright smug, and it makes me want to throw my copy of the book at him.
“Hamlet’s more complicated than the average tragic hero,” Michael explains, “because his undoing is not just because of some tragic flaw, his hubris or something. But like Oedipus or other classic tragic heroes, Hamlet’s essentially a noble figure.”
Unfortunately, the snort I make at this is audible to Ms. Ehrman. She twists on the edge of her desk toward me and says, “Georgiana, would you like to say something about that?”
“I don’t see what’s so noble about Hamlet,” I say, albeit reluctantly. “I mean, he kills-what? three? four?- people. What’s so noble about murder?”
“Those people were trying to kill him,” Michael points out.
“Not all of them! Not Polonius- Hamlet kills him