Page 2 of A Scandal in Homeroom
“Youwon’t be?”
She huffed. “No. I’m what they refer to in this town as a Have-not.”
But she appeared tohaveeverything.
“Okay, men, hands on her waist. Like this,” Mr. McSully announced.
He was standing in the center of the gymnasium with a woman I recognized from the administration office. A middle-aged woman wearing a plain dress that fell past her knees and dance shoes that had seen a number of years.
“That’s Mrs. Andrews,” Reen explained to me. “Mr. McSully used to just use a student to demonstrate. Then it became athingwith teachers touching students, so Mrs. Andrews fills in now.”
“Hmm.” I placed my hand on Reen’s trim waist.
“And, ladies, your hand on his shoulder,” Mr. McSully called out.
Reen placed her hand on my shoulder. I was considered taller than most at six-one, but we were well matched.
“Now it’s all about the count. One, two, three. One, two, three.”
I watched my gym teacher take Mrs. Andrews in hand and waltz her about in a circle in the center of the gymnasium.
“Now, everyone try,” he encouraged the class.
Music suddenly filled the gym, and I recognized a waltz by Strauss. I clasped Reen’s hand, tightened my hold about her waist and started moving her to the beat of the music. I took a moment’s pleasure in watching the surprise on her face.
“You know what you’re doing,” she announced, even as she tried to keep up with me.
“Yes, well, you know. The whole English thing.”
It was a stretch. I had no idea how many English teens knew how to waltz. But Croft, who had basically raised me in the face of my parents’ indifference, insisted on a classical renaissance education.
I knew how to waltz, fence, horseback ride and box.
I also played a fair violin.
“This is nice,” she smiled. “I mean, I know it must seem silly to you, but I’m imagining I’m in a grand ball, with very rich, very classy people, as everyone watches us scandalously dance the waltz.”
“You have a vivid imagination.”
Her lips quirked. “Sometimes imagination is all you can have.”
“You’re certain you won’t be invited to the ball, as it were?”
“The Cotillion,” she corrected me. “And no.”
“But surely someone will ask you as a date. I’m relatively new here, but your appearance is not lost on me. Neither was your popularity a few minutes ago.”
I spun her, then, in a tighter loop as the music picked upthepace. A natural dancer, she easily kept up with me.
I had no illusions we were at a ball, though. All I could smell was gymnasium. Mild teenage sweat and hormones mixed with a hint of rubber basketballs.
“Maybe,” she answered. “Probably. It’s not the same thing as receiving your own invitation. It’s not like I would ever go as some guy’s date.”
I frowned. Again, this did not compute. “Why not? You play for the other team, then?”
She smiled. “No. I like boys just fine.”
I wouldn’t admit it to myself, but I let out a small sigh of relief.
