Snark and Circumstance (Novella) - By Stephanie Wardrop Page 0,15

wonder in the family. To not think about how I will be spending my Saturday nights with Dad and the cats, unless Dad is forced at gunpoint to go to any more of Mom’s Longbourne Newcomers’ Club events with her. If he does, then it will be just me and Teeny and Rufus and Clover, a bowl of popcorn, and a movie.

I clear the plates, as that is my job for the night, and then go back up to my room. Instead of working on my Spanish or my calculus, I log onto Facebook again to see if Allison wrote back, and then remember that she is just getting home from school out in the Mountain Time Zone. I get stuck at number five—out of twenty-five—in my calc homework, and I look across the room to Tori’s empty bed. She’s with Trey and some other people, doing her own homework, and can’t save me from mine. Last year when we moved, we had agreed to share a room since we figured we would always be in each other’s room anyway. Now it seems all I see of her is a tousled blonde head sticking out of her comforter at night. I really miss her even if she’s still here, technically, at least until she goes away to college next year. I’m glad she’s found her perfect match in Trey, I really am, but I miss talking to her every day, and especially every night before we go to sleep. And I am never going to pass calculus without her.

***

The next night, Mom has Ladies’ Gourmet Night at someone else’s house, Dad has an evening class, Leigh is at her church youth group meeting, Tori and Trey are at his house, and I am home alone after dinner.

Or so I think.

I walk into Cassie’s room to look for that rare pencil in the Barrett house that actually has a point on it, and find her on her bed with Brick, engaged in a heavy lip-lock and I don’t know what else.

“Oh, God! Sorry!” I say as I back out, averting my eyes.

Brick just grins at me and kind of salutes. He seems awfully comfortable for a guy in this compromising situation, more like he is posing for a Calvin Klein underwear campaign than someone caught molesting someone’s sister.

Cassie readjusts her shirt over her bra and smiles, her face quite flushed. When she says, “We’re just doing our homework,” she sounds breathless, as if she has just climbed ten flights of stairs without a pause between them.

There are no books in sight, except those lined up on her white bookshelves, and none of those are schoolbooks. For about half a second I consider pointing this out, then realize I would sound like someone’s mom—though not my own.

“Dad’s gonna be home soon,” I warn her and she nods. “You don’t want to be caught by him. Or Leigh.”

She smirks and they both laugh.

“Yeah, my twin sister will send out the God Squad on us!” Cassie giggles, punching Brick on his substantial arm. He grabs her around the waist and she shrieks with delight and they begin wrestling.

I flee.

Ten minutes later, I am in the living room trying to erase that image from my brain, when they both come down.

“Hey, Georgia, right?” he asks as he thumps himself down onto the cushions on the couch next to me, as if he has known me and sat on this couch with me all of our lives.

“Right . . .”

Cassie drapes herself over the edge of the red-and-white pinstriped loveseat. She manages to look both concerned and gloating somehow.

“You know Michael Endicott, right?” Brick asks me.

“Right. . .” I repeat.

Brick dips his large, bullet-shaped blond head for a moment, as if unable to speak the words he has been charged with, so Cassie picks up the conversation.

“Brick knows him, too, George, and he just thought we should warn you.”

“Warn me?” I almost laugh.

“Yeah,” Cassie says sagely. “He knows why Michael got kicked out of Pemberley, and, um . . . it’s still a problem, I guess.”

I pick up a copy of The Atlantic from the coffee table and start riffling through it. “Oh yeah? And what is it?” I hope I sound unconcerned, or at least less interested than I really am.

“Drug dealing,” Brick informs me, like a bad imitation of a TV cop. “Prescription drugs. Gets them from his dad, the doctor, I guess.”

“You mean that Dr. Endicott supplies his son with prescription drugs so