Page 6 of Enemies to Prom Dates
The minute people learned the family money was gone, then hanging with the Havenots wasn’t an option. It’s where I would be placed. I would be a Havenot instead of choosing to hang with Havenots.
Maybe I was more my mother’s daughter than I realized because I wasn’t willing to give up that illusion. Not yet.
Oh and yes, there was a name for us, too. Snobs. Pretty unoriginal actually, but there it was. The school was mostly divided between Snobs and Havenots. I’m sure there were some who sat squarely in the middle, but not a significant majority. If you lived in Haddonfield, you were either rich or part of the low-income housing crowd.
I made my way to the back row where Janie and Reen sat whispering to each other.
“Hey, guys,” I announced and they both looked at me with gleeful smiles. “What’s up?”
“Rumor has it there is a new exchange student starting today,” Janie said. “He’s from London.”
Reen fanned herself. “You know what that means. Accent. You know how I love an accent!”
“Only because it comes attached to the Hemsworth brothers,” I pointed out. “Please don’t tell me you two are developing some elaborate picture of a hot guy with a British accent you haven’t even met yet.”
“Guilty.” Janie smiled.
“I just want to be prepared in case he turns out to be someone I might chose to conquer,” Reen said.
I laughed because it was absolutely the right word choice. Reen didn’t date guys. Sheconqueredthem. She was, in a word…sexy. Abandoned as a child, she had some type of mixed heritage that wasn’t easily defined, but it all worked for her. Thick, long, dark hair that naturally fell in waves down her back. Full pouty lips, large brown eyes. She’d worn a bra before any of us had because she needed one.
Reen was also on the cheerleading squad and what people didn’t realize, she kept two skirts in her locker at all times. One of regulation length, the other half an inch shorter. She would swap them out between classes and relished the attention she got when she walked down the hall in her micro skirt.
Reen wasn’t a slut. She just played one in high school purely to her own advantage. If guys wanted to buy her snacks from the vending machine or a soda here and there because theythoughtshe might put out, that was their problem.
Which was really amazing considering she was friends with Janie, who was Reen’s opposite in every respect. Like me, Janie kept things pretty basic. However, instead of designer blouses and Doc Martens, she wore generic T-shirts, jeans that weren’t professionally torn, but actually worn through with age, and knock-off Keds.
Still, Janie was pretty in a soft way that you had to look very closely to see. Soft brown hair, soft hazel eyes. Small, thin, and almost completely unnoticeable until you got to know her. When you began to realize that her internal will was a force of nature.
Her stubbornness to make things right, a veritable superpower.
Yes, I was jealous of Reen’s natural sex appeal. I didn’t know a girl who wasn’t. But I was in awe of Janie’s quiet power.
“Okay class, let’s get settled so I can take attendance.”
I turned in my desk toward the front of the class at the request of the teacher. She was new and I didn’t recognize her. I wondered if it was possible she was replacing Miss Havisham.
Looking at Janie and Reen, I’m sure my expression was hopeful. “Hey, did Miss Havisham finally retire?”
“You wish,” Janie snorted. “No. Mr. Grant moved because his wife took a job in New York. That’s Ms. Hardgrove. Rumor is she’s only twenty-two and some of the seniors are already taking bets on who can get her into bed.”
Ms. Hardgrove was dressed primely and respectably. She had a nice face and calm manner. Which would serve her well amongst the entitled Snobs.
There was a knock on the classroom door then it opened. The school’s vice principal walked in with a student following behind.
Dressed in all black, tall and lanky with long dark hair and pale white skin, which looked even paler against his dark clothes, I presumed we were about to meet the new kid. He looked bored and unaffected as he stood in front of the class. But not as if he was trying to look that way so as not to reveal any nervousness.
No. He truly looked bored and unaffected.
“Class,” the VP announced. “This is Locke Holmes. Locke, the class. Say hello, everyone.”
“Hello, Locke,” we said in unison. His lips curled at the uniform sarcasm of our greeting.
“Hullo, class,” he said in return. Behind me I could hear Reen sigh.
“Accents,” she whispered into my ear, “are my jam.”
Hardgrove gestured for Locke to take a seat and he took the only empty one available, which was right in front of mine. I smiled politely as he walked toward me, but he didn’t acknowledge it. Just sat down, slumped down really, and said nothing.
