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I slammed my pencil down in my book and turned around to face her. “I wouldn’t date Theo Martin if we were the last two humans on Earth and it was up to us to repopulate.”
It would be the end of human civilization.
Avery held her hands in the air in surrender. “Okay, okay. Suit yourself. More for me.”
She went back to her magazine and I went back to my history book, exhaling deeply and counting down the days until the end of the school year.
One week left.
It wasn’t the studying or the schoolwork that I minded, I actually enjoyed those parts thoroughly. It was the people and their personalities that clouded my days.
We were silent for a moment until I heard a faint knock on my door. My mother entered, her own auburn hair pinned up tightly and a string of pearls around her neck.
“Violet? Dear?” She was hurried in her movements, a signature of my mother. She was always busy even if she had nothing to do.
“Yeah?” I didn’t look up from my books.
“Violet, how many times do I have to tell you not to respond to someone in that manner? Hello, Avery.”
Avery plopped a pillow over the Cosmo magazine and sat up a little straighter.
“Hello, Mrs. Carlton. It’s lovely to see you.”
My mother’s hands came forward in front of her and she tilted her head. “See, Violet?Thatis how it should be done. You would be fit to take a note from Avery here on how to properly greet someone.”
I sighed. Avery may not have been a star student, but she would’ve passed a drama class with flying colors. She was an actress worthy of an Emmy.
My mother continued, “Your etiquette class is having brunch after church on Sunday. Make sure you are on your best behavior, both of you, because the committee members for the debutante ball will be there, and, well, you know how important it is to make a good impression.”
That was my mother’s favorite phrase,“Make a good impression.”
“Yes, Mother,” I replied with a fake smile.
“Good. I’ll have Julia get your dress ready. And please pin back your hair. It looks so sloppy down and in your face like that.”
She walked out the door before I could respond.
Avery relaxed from her poised position and sank back onto her stomach, her feet kicking back and forth behind her. “Do you think Julia will ever get married? Or do you think she just lives her life to wait on you hand and foot? Isn’t she like forty or something?”
Julia had been my nanny since I was born. She’d taken the job straight out of high school at eighteen, and she had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. As I’d gotten older, my mother kept her on as a personal assistant and had her do all of the motherly duties my mother couldn’t be bothered with. Julia lived in our guesthouse, and she was the only person in this entire town I actually liked, save for Avery on occasions.
What Avery didn’t know was that Julia had a long-term girlfriend but that the two of them preferred to live separately. Avery asked, but she didn’t actually care. She just wanted something to gossip about. That was Avery. She wasn’t interested in Julia’s life because, much like our parents, she believed hers to be much more important. I felt like I was the opposite.
And I was tired of being someone I wasn’t.
I’m tired of pretending I fit in with people who don’t even know me.
Avery pulled the magazine back out from under the pillow and licked her finger before flipping the page. “What do you mean?”
Apparently, I’d said that out loud.
I turned around, exasperated, hoping that maybe my best friend secretly felt the same way as I did. Maybe she, too, felt confined in this world and wanted to break free. Maybe we were connected by more than just our wealthy last names and social statuses.
“The parties, the properness, the dresses. Don’t you ever get sick of it all? Doesn’t it ever make your skin crawl and make you just want to disappear? Don’t you want to wear a pair of jean overalls?”
Avery’s eyebrows furrowed, and she touched her finger to her tongue and back down onto the magazine page in slow motion. “Jean overalls? Violet, are you okay? Why on Earth would you want to wear jean overalls?”
Then again, maybe not.
