My mood sinks even further when I raise my knuckles to rap on Mrs.Vidar-Tett’s door at four o’clock, exactly when I’m expected.
A heavy creak, followed by a new face.
“Delaney,” she says. “Come in.”
She’s understatedly pretty, with deep olive skin and thick dark hair. I sidestep around her and enter the biology classroom. Plastic chairs with attached surface wings sit in tidy rows, and posters of plant and animal cells are pinned along the back wall. But it’s a plain sheet of computer paper taped to the back of the door that catches my attention.Stay Curious, it reads, the lettering thick and blocky.
Grounded feet. Open mind. Maintain curiosity.
My dad’s mantra comes back to me. It’s funny how we find remnants of people and memories in unexpected places.
Mrs.Vidar-Tett gestures for me to sit in the empty chair in front of her desk, which is scattered in lesson plans. She starts collecting and organizing them into piles to make room, long darkhair spilling over her shoulders as she shifts things around. She seems young, maybe somewhere in her thirties, and I wonder where she taught before accepting this position.
“It’s great to meet you,” she begins. “Headmistress Ellerby told me you were joining Ladies of Polite Society this year.”
My weight sinks into hard plastic. “Did she also tell you it’s against my will?”
Her mouth curves into an amused smile. “She did.” She pulls a binder from under a stack of paper and flips through it. “Why don’t you start by telling me why you don’t want to be here?”
This must be a trick. But she slips a fountain pen between her fingers and positions it on a blank sheet of paper, round brown eyes focused on me as she waits for my response.
“Um. Well,” I begin. “You’re asking a group to uniformly present themselves a certain way—the gloves, the gowns, the frivolities—on top of society already asking so much of us. It seems exhausting. And pointless. There are already so many unspoken rules—all these tiny boxes we’re bending over backward to fold ourselves into in order to be seen as good or worthy or enough.” I take a breath. “Figuring yourself out is hard without all the pomp and circumstance.”
Her pen scratches fervidly across her page. “Good” is all she says.
“Good?” I repeat.
She sets the pen down. “You have valid points,” she continues. “Can I tell you what I think?”
My shoulders inch upward in a short shrug.
“The name,” she says, “stinks.”
I smile. “Yeah. It does.”
She leans back in her chair. “I’m on a mission to revitalize what modern debutantes—if we even want to call them that—look like at Ivernia,” she tells me. “Instilling confidence, brandishing professional skill sets, developing character, engaging with your community, promoting artistic expression—all of this, I believe, is important to sending young people out into the world with confidence. Andthatis what I want to focus on presenting. That internal change you’ll carry into the next portion of your life.”
I hear what she’s saying. But at the end of the day, a presentation ball is still a spectacle.
She taps her pen on the paper in front of her. “Figuring yourself out,” she says, echoing my words. “What does that look like for you?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, because if I’m on a roll with honesty, why stop now?
A noise hums in the back of her throat. It seems to say,I expected this.I don’t like the way it gets under my skin.
She slides an itinerary my way. Lists of dates, bolded community events, and asterisks indicating required participation float in front of me.
“Showing up,” she says, “might be the first step to finding out.”
I fold the paper in half. “What are these meetings for?”
“Consider me your mentor throughout the program.”
My eyes tick back to her sign, and I think of my dad. Keeping an open mind isn’t the worst thing. Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought.
“The presentation ball will happen in December,” she continues. “I’m in the middle of figuring out logistics. There’s also a link to a self-discovery workbook on that itinerary. You’ll complete a chapter before each of our meetings.”
More homework on top of my already demanding class schedule. Perfect.
