I Am Charlotte Simmons Read Free Page B

Simmons, who will deliver the valedictory address.”
    Tremendous ovation. As Charlotte stood up to head for the stairs to the stage, she became terribly aware of her body and how it moved. She lowered her head to indicate modesty. With another twinge of fear of being envied, she found herself looking down at the gold of her academic sash, which went around her neck and down to her waist on either side, showing the world or at least the county that she was a member of Beta, Alleghany High’s honor society. Then she realized she didn’t look so much modest as hunched over. So she straightened up, a motion that was just enough to make her mortarboard, which was a fraction of an inch too big, shift slightly on top of her head. What if it fell off? Not only would she look like a hopeless fool but she would also have to bend way over and pick it up and put it
back on her head—doing what to her hair? She steadied the board with one hand, but she was already at the stairs, and she had to use that hand to gather up her gown for fear of stepping on the hem as she ascended, since she held the text of her speech in the other hand. Now she was up on the stage, and the applause continued, but she was obsessed with the notion that the mortarboard might fall off, and she didn’t realize until too late that she should be smiling at Mr. Thoms, who was stepping toward her with a big smile and an outstretched hand. She shook his hand, and he put his other hand on top of hers, leaned toward her, and said in a low voice, “We love you, Charlotte, and we’re with you.” Then he half closed his eyes and nodded his head several times, as if to say, “Don’t worry, don’t be nervous, you’ll do fine,” which was her first realization that she looked nervous.
    Now she was at the podium, facing everybody sitting in folding chairs on the basketball court. They were still applauding. Right before her was the green rectangle formed by her classmates, the seniors in their caps and gowns. Regina was clapping, but slowly and mechanically and probably only because she was in the front row and didn’t want to make her true feelings entirely obvious, and she wasn’t smiling at all. Three rows back, Channing Reeves had his head cocked to one side and was smiling, but with one corner of his smile turned up, which made it look cool and sarcastic, and he wasn’t clapping at all. Laurie McDowell, who had a gold Beta sash, too, was clapping enthusiastically and looking her right in the face with a genuine smile, but then Laurie was her friend, her only close friend in the class. Brian Crouse, with his reddish blond bangs—oh dear, Brian!—Brian was applauding in a way that seemed genuine, but he was staring at her with his mouth slightly open, as if she weren’t a classmate, much less anything more than that, but some sort of … phenomenon. More applause, because all the adults were smiling and beaming at her and clapping for all they were worth. Over there was Mrs. Bryant who ran the Blue Ridge Crafts shop, Miss Moody who worked in Baer’s Variety Store, Clarence Dean the young postmaster, Mr. Robertson the richest man in Sparta, owner of the Robertson Christmas-tree farm, beaming and clapping wildly and she didn’t even know him, and over on that side in the second row Momma and Daddy and Buddy and Sam, Daddy in his old sport jacket it looked like somebody had wrestled him into, with the collar of his sport shirt pulled way out over the collar of the jacket, Momma in her short-sleeved navy dress with the white bows, both of them suddenly looking so young instead of like two people in their forties, clapping sedately so as not to seem possessed by the sin of pride,
but smiling and barely holding back their overflowing pride and joy, and, next to them, Buddy and Sam, wearing shirts with collars and staring at their sister like two little boys in a state of sheer wonder. In the same