Read Online Prom and Prejudice by Stephanie Wardrop - Free Book Online

telling us about the bikinis she saw at the mall when the house phone rings and she leaps out of her seat so fast her chair falls over.
    “Let the machine pick up!” Dad orders. “It’s ‘family dinner time.’”
    “But it could be Rob, asking for the exact color of my dress so he can pick out the right corsage for me,” Cassie whines, running to the phone before someone can tackle her.
    She returns thirty seconds later, looking as if someone had called to announce the death of someone she loves.
    “It’s for you,” she says, holding the phone out to me.
    I stand, say, “I’ll be quick,” and take the phone into the den.
    “Hello?”
    I hear a lot of buzzing and cracking and some traffic noises.
    “Georgia? It’s Michael? Can you hear me?”
    “Yeah, kind of. Hi.” A really loud car horn blasts my ears and I think I’ve lost him.
    “Listen, this connection sucks, but I want to talk to you. I have stuff to do tonight and I have to be at the Y in Netherfield all day tomorrow, but can I talk to you tomorrow? I mean, you’re not going to the prom tomorrow night, are you?”
    Like he doesn’t know that.
    “No,” I say, but he can’t hear me over the static.
    “What?”
    “No!” I am forced to yell. “No, I AM NOT GOING TO THE PROM.”
    “Okay, so I’ll call you? Tomorrow?”
    “Yeah, okay,” I say as distinctly as I can, and then we are cut off.
    I walk back into the dining room and everyone but Dad is looking at me.
    “Who was that?” Cassie asks. “They need a better phone plan, because I could barely hear them.”
    “It was Michael. Endicott.”
    Tori beams at me, Leigh smiles, and Mom flushes a bit.
    “He’s going to call me tomorrow.”
    “Oh,” Tori says, and her smile fades for a second before she can wrestle it back into place.
    After dinner, while she is loading the dishwasher and I am feeding the cats, she says with great certainty, “Michael is planning something. I know it. He’s going to make a move at last .” And she actually giggles at this idea, but I am not sure if it’s because the idea of Michael making a move of any kind is so absurd, or because the phrase “make a move” is.
    “You know this for a fact?” I ask as Teeny tries to push Clover out of the way of the food bowl. Clover is big and slow, but nothing gets between her and a can of Ocean Whitefish Surprise.
    “No, but I can tell.”
    “Well, I’ve been wrong about everything Michael-related so far,” I sigh.
    Tori’s smile would be insufferably smug on anyone else. “That’s right,” she says. “ You have. But not me.”
    “So, what? You’re psychic now?”
    “Wait and see, George. Wait and see.”
    Well, really, what else can I do?
     

 
    5 Wrong in all the Right Ways
     
    Mom watches as I take a tray of cupcakes out of the oven, carefully slide the knife around them, and put them on the cooling racks. They’re coconut lime cupcakes, which means I have officially baked my way through all of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World . Almost—I’ve skipped the ones with lychee nuts or rosewater because I am not sure where to get those things and if I will like them if I do. I don’t know why my mom feels the need to monitor my every move. Maybe she’s bored and lonely, with Dad at his office and my sisters at a salon getting mani/pedis and fancy updos for tonight. Maybe she thinks my exclusion from the prom will drive me to stick my head in the oven with the next batch of cupcakes.
    “What?” I ask her, finally.
    “Your dad and I can cancel our plans for tonight, so you don’t have to be here by yourself,” she says.
    “Mom, not going to prom isn’t a fatal disease. It’s not going to kill me. But hanging out at home with my parents on prom night— that might . ”
    “If you’re sure...”
    “I am pos itive.”
    She finally takes a seat and inhales deeply. “They smell good. Are you sure I can take all of them to the potluck?”
    “Sure. But maybe you should try one before you