Confederates Don't Wear Couture Read Free Page A

A little bit racist is kind of a given.”
    â€œOkay, okay,” I agreed. “Will it be awkward to be a Confederate and, um—”
    â€œSexy like milk chocolate?” he interrupted.
    â€œI was gonna go with ‘not white.’”
    â€œSexy like a Twix bar?”
    â€œOr ‘Indian.’”
    â€œSexy like a Kit Kat bar? Break me off a piece of that! Ow!” he yelped, as I smacked his arm.
    â€œYes, yes, sexy like any number of milk chocolate–flavored confections,” I said, attempting to stop him before he could go through the entire contents of the vending machine.
    â€œClark Gable was, like, super tan. I’m not worried. Margaret Mitchell herself wrote that Rhett Butler was, quote, ‘swarthy as a pirate,’ unquote, and who is more pirate swarthy than me?” he finished.
    â€œWow, you actually researched something. I’m impressed. And, quite frankly, astonished.” I decided not to harp on the fact that
Gone with the Wind
was not exactly the epitome of historical accuracy, presenting, as it did, the mid-nineteenth century through a twentieth-century Technicolor lens.
    â€œThere are greenbacks to be made, Miss Libby. We go to the South to worship at the altar of King Cotton! And King Taffeta! And King Silk Moiré!”
    â€œSo basically you want to be carpetbaggers.”
    â€œNot just any carpetbaggers,” he corrected me. “We are Prada carpetbaggers. And don’t you forget it.”
    Â 
    I didn’t forget. And almost before I knew it, senior year had fled by, my faux Prada carpetbags were packed, and I was at the last event of high school, before heading off to the Civil War and then on to college.
    â€œSo this is prom.” Garrett looked around, taking in the foil stars hanging from the ceiling and the crinkly crepe paper bedecking the walls. “I thought I’d escaped it, but it got me in the end.”
    â€œYou mean you’re not feeling the ‘Enchantment Under the Stars’?” I asked, poking him in the ribs as I quoted our prom theme.
    â€œI wouldn’t say that.” He smiled. “The stars may leave a little something to be desired, but ‘enchanting’ doesn’t even begin to describe the way you look tonight.”
    I blushed, turning a darker shade than the pale pink prom dress Dev had made for me. It felt almost like Garrett and I were the only two people in the world, or at the least all alone in our own magical corner of the St. Paul Crowne Plaza Hotel Event Room. In actuality, we were just one small island in a sea of partying St. Paul Academy Pioneers. And we were sharing our island with Dev and his date, whose name I couldn’t pronounce to save my life, as well as two of my fellow sopranos from chorus, plus their dates. My chorus friends were busy trying to harmonize to “Firework,” with moderately successful results, as their dates were heavily invested in a game of paper football featuring a cocktail napkin in the pivotal role.
    â€œExplain to me how you made it to your advanced age without experiencing
the
quintessential high school experience,” Dev asked from across the table, as he poked his rubbery piece of chicken.
    â€œWhy doesn’t someone explain to
me
why they bother with plated dinner service at this bourgeois fest of mundaniness? Or how they have the audacity to pass off this reconstituted meat byproduct as dinner?” Dev’s date complained loudly.
    â€œWhy doesn’t someone explain to
him
that ‘mundaniness’ is not a word?” Garrett whispered.
    Stifling a laugh, I choked on my Diet Coke, giving the chicken a wayward glance. “It is pretty bad,” I agreed. “Fee—Fy—Uh, how do you pronounce your name again?”
    â€œIt’s Fyodr,” he drawled. “And this is inedible.”
    â€œHe’s vegan,” Dev whispered proudly. “Garrett? Advanced age? Paucity of social