Off Limits(3)

"Shawnie," I answered. Before Brittany could object, I started in on my defense. “She's really doing well, and her grades are good. We both graduate this year, and she's looking at going to grad school far away. So this may be one of the last chances the two of us have to do a social event together. Besides, the exhibition is near the bus stop, and I know that I can . . .”

"No," Brittany said, cutting me off. "Not with that girl. And certainly not after sunset. Do you know what sort of places girls like that go to?"

For the first time, my feelings drifted from annoyance toward anger. Brittany had never given Shawnie a chance for quite a few reasons. First of all, Shawnie was from the wrong part of the country, an out-of-state girl from the Sand Hill section of South Carolina. She'd grown up not just blue collar, but no collar at all, raised by her grandmother in Section Eight housing after her mother had abandoned her and her father went to jail. Second of all, Shawnie was independent, and fiercely so. She'd earned a full ride scholarship to Georgia Tech and was majoring in aeronautical engineering. It was only because she still had to take some core classes that we'd met at all, first by chance in a freshman English class, where we'd clicked despite the differences in our backgrounds, and then this year by design in European history, a core course that we'd both put off for far too long.

"Brittany, Shawnie's a good girl," I repeated, doing my best to keep calm. At least being angry took the whine out of my voice. "She's never been in trouble, and she's as smart as can be. A lot smarter than some of the people in this room, in my opinion. Besides, this exhibition is at The High. It's a high-class sort of event, it's close to campus, and it's going to be attended by a lot of the influential people."

"I'm sure Shawnie is a fine girl," Daddy said, trying to prevent a public argument between his wife and his daughter, "but your mother is right, honey. It's already after dark, and The High is in Midtown, where a lot of unsavory types go. Georgia Tech is a great school, and I'm proud that you're going there, but you have to admit that Midtown gets a little rowdy after dark. I'm sure that Shawnie wouldn't try to get you in trouble, but trouble could just find you in that part of town. I'm sorry, but the answer's no. Maybe next time."

"I'm twenty-two years old," I said, trying not to raise my voice. "I have to grow and get out on my own sometime. And I'll be with a friend. It's not like I'm saying I want to go to a frat party at Morehouse or something," I added, looking pointedly at Brittany. "Not that I couldn't be safe there as well."

"My answer's no, Abigail," Daddy said, setting his fork down and looking at me evenly. "Now sit down, and I don't want to hear about this anymore. You can go with your friend to this exhibition over the weekend or something. During the day."

Daddy never used my full name unless he was putting his foot down, and I could count on one hand the number of times he'd had to use that tone with me over the past year. Most of the time, I was Honey or Sweetie or Abby. When he called me Abigail, however, I knew not to try and change his mind anymore. He was decided. In normal instances, I would have just picked up my knife and fork and started eating my steak, trying to not gnaw at it in frustration.

This time, something was different. Perhaps it was that I was a senior. Maybe it was because I knew that my best friend had invited me, knowing that this could be the last time the two of us really had one of the social events she liked to call "opening our eyes to new possibilities." Hell, maybe it was Greg DeKalb's speech, which was so much the antithesis of what I personally believed that I couldn't stand it. In the end, I didn't know what came over me, but suddenly, I was on my feet, my purse in my hand. "No, not this time, Daddy. Shawnie's a good friend, and I’m going. Don't worry, I'll be home by eleven."

I stormed away from the table, hoping that Brittany's society training and Daddy's desire to fit in with the one percent crowd would keep them from coming after me. After all, regardless of how angry I was at them, I didn't want to hurt either of them. Still, I was going, and it would take someone physically restraining me to stop me. I may not stand up to Daddy often, but I’d inherited his stubborn streak along with his ears. In fact, he was just about the only person who could make me back down.

As upset as I was, I didn't cry. I was proud of that fact, at least, as I left the club and walked down the street. Despite being called a fraternal club, the club didn't have much fraternity to it at all, and in fact, the nearest university was over two miles away, quite a feat in a city with over thirty campuses in the area. In another place, or if it had been founded later, it might have just been called a club or a society, but since it had been founded when that sort of term mattered, fraternal club it was, and fraternal club it remained, along with a separate women's auxiliary that did teas and raised funds for charities and sharpened the knives they stuck in each other's back when the other wasn't looking.

Why these people didn't just ditch the club for membership at a country club where they could at least do some drinking or horseback riding or something to go along with their schmoozing, I never understood. Then again, most of them already belonged to at least one country club, so I guess it was a moot point. I'm in school to get my degree in biology and hopefully become a research nutritionist, not psychology.