Prom and Prejudice
Page 6

I nodded. I didn't have the energy to tell her about Darcy. Plus, I was positive Jane's evening had been the opposite of mine. Her face was glowing.
"I'll be much better once you tell me all about what happened between you and Charles," I said.
The glow turned into a blaze. "It was amazing! We spent the entire evening together. He wanted to hear every detail about my holidays. He didn't even shy away about what happened with my dad. And ... he really wants us all to meet up soon."
"Us all?"
"Lizzie, I really want you to get to know Charles."
"I will admit, he seems like a good guy."
"He really is. Plus, Darcy is considered to be quite the catch...."
A laugh escaped my throat. "Darcy? I know you only see the good in people, but seriously, Jane. That guy is so full of himself. Plus, I overheard him telling Charles that he basically went away to London to get away from scholarship kids."
"Oh, Lizzie, stop it!"
"I'm telling the truth."
Jane patted my knee. "I'm sure you misunderstood whatever you heard."
"How can I misunderstand 'I went away because I'm a pompous jerk who can't be in the presence of anybody who doesn't have a trust fund'?"
Jane laughed. "Well, if he said that."
"Okay, I might be paraphrasing a little. I promise you this -- I am more than willing to go out and get to know Charles. In fact, I look forward to it. But I make no promises when it comes to Will Darcy. Unless someone can promise me that I never have to see him again."
5.
I FOUND CHARLOTTE BEHIND A STACK OF TEXTBOOKS IN our common room the following morning.
"Whatever happened to no commoner left behind?" I threw my backpack down in the seat next to her.
Charlotte looked up from her book. "I'm so sorry. I had every intention of going, but the thought of a quiet evening in my room was just too irresistible." She surveyed the books around her. "I wanted to get a jump start on the reading for this semester, because ... well, you know ..."
I did know. Both Charlotte and I were on permanent probation. Charlotte was on an academic scholarship, so she couldn't get below a B average. And since I was on a music and academic scholarship, I wasn't allowed below a B-minus average. And I had to rehearse with Mrs. Gardiner every day, which was the only thing I looked forward to.
While we'd only had one concert so far, I was starting to get a reputation as one of the top music students in the school. Since Longbourn was a finishing school, it prided itself on its arts program: music, painting, dancing. Longbourn was a place where accomplished musicians could retire to Connecticut and make a luxurious salary teaching overprivileged girls. Mrs. Gardiner seemed to relish the fact that she finally had a student who wanted a challenge and could tackle difficult sonatas. But it also meant that, on top of studying, practicing, and working, there was little time left for anything else.
"Well, believe me," I assured Charlotte, "you didn't miss much." I conveyed the evening's events. "But," I concluded, "at least Jane's happy. They both seem smitten."
Charlotte smiled. "That's so great. What were people saying about prom?"
"Nobody said anything to me about prom. Of course, nobody said anything to me about anything else, either."
"Right. Well, I hope Jane gets asked to prom soon. Can you imagine anything more awful than wasting a semester on a guy and then having him not ask you to prom?"
"Charlotte, we're scholarship students. We've had way worse things happen to us. In the big scheme of things, going to prom for us is about as important as food stamps are to a Pemberley boy."
"Lizzie! Don't you want to go to prom?"
It seemed like such an easy question. But to me, it wasn't. Did I want to go to prom? Of course. I used to tear pictures of dresses out of Seventeen's prom issue when I was a little girl, imagining that I was simply one gown away from a fairy-tale evening. But that wasn't going to happen here. Because in my prom fantasy, I not only had a gorgeous dress, I had the perfect guy.
I looked at Charlotte, my partner in poverty. "I wish it were that simple," I told her.
I wished a lot of things were simple. But that wasn't my reality. In real life, I was a scholarship girl who was going to be late for her barely paying job if she didn't start moving.
Sunday afternoons at the Java Junction were always busy. Students from both Pemberley and Longbourn needed a caffeinated fix to cram in the studying they should've been doing all week. I wasn't sure what to expect on the first weekend back from break. But when I arrived, I found myself walking into a madhouse of students. I quickly tied my red apron around my waist and jumped behind the counter.
"Just in time." My coworker Tara looked flustered. "I'm surrounded by your kind."
Tara Hill was a student at the local high school, and constantly teased me for being one of them -- in this case, the them being the elitists in line. I assured her that if I were truly one of them, I would hardly have been on the same side of the counter as her. And that would've been a loss. Because while I didn't really like having to serve the students from my school and from Pemberley, I enjoyed hanging out with Tara and the other "normal" people I worked with.
Not that we always had time to talk. I spent the next half hour steaming lattes, icing mochas, and trying to keep up.
"Can I help you?" I asked the next customer, who had turned around to stare out the window.