Текст книги "If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? "

Автор книги: Melissa Kantor

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-seven

The CD Jessica had burned for me may have successfully drowned out the sounds of dinner

being served, but it couldn't do anything about the delicious smells wafting downstairs.

Chinese take-out.

I couldn't believe it. We never got Chinese food. Mention Chinese food in front of my

stepmother and she'd go on for hours about sodium content, fatty oils, MSG. When my dad and I

lived in San Francisco, we probably ate Chinese twice a week. Since moving to New York ten

months ago, we'd had it three times. Each time, Mara had been out for the evening.

I felt like a guerilla warrior hiding in the jungle. They could do what they wanted, but no way

were they going to smoke me out. The baby carrots I'd stashed in my room over the weekend

were all gone. I turned up the

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volume on my iPod. Who needs food when you have Janis Joplin? I sang a few lines out loud.

"Summertime, and the living is easy. Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high."

I definitely smelled orange chicken, my all-time favorite dish. In San Francisco, there was a

place that made it perfectly–crunchy skin outside, tender chicken inside, lots of caramelized

orange peel. Two of the three restaurants we'd tried on Long Island made it kind of chewy and

bland, but the third really knew what they were doing. My mouth filled with saliva, and I

swallowed. The song ended, and the prom song came on.

Prom. Connor. Sam. I snapped off the music and rolled over, burying my face in my pillow.

Why isn't there an off button for your brain?

I felt dizzy, whether from hunger or my thoughts I wasn't sure. Either way, I couldn't just stay

where I was. I decided that since Mara, Emma, and Amy were definitely eating in the dining

room, I'd go upstairs, serve myself some food, eat it alone in the kitchen, and then watch the

basketball game in the den. The only thing worse than eating and watching a game by yourself is

starving and not watching a game by yourself. I headed up.

When I pushed open the door, I was greeted by the single most shocking sight of my life. Not

only were Emma, Amy, and Mara eating around the kitchen table (something Mara says only

servants should do), but my dad was sitting there with them.

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"I thought we might be able to lure you up here," he said, nodding at the table piled high with

takeout containers.

I looked from one of them to the other, trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on. Emma

and Amy were sitting facing my dad and Mara, their backs to me.

This was not part of my plan. It was one thing to sneak some food out of a container while my

wicked stepmother and her evil daughters comparison shopped through Lucky in the dining

room. It was another to fill my plate up and sit at the counter by myself while everyone else sat

there watching me. My hand was still on the doorknob. Was it too late to turn around and head

back downstairs? I remembered a special report I heard on the news once that said it's important

to have a three-day supply of food and water on hand at all times. Why hadn't I taken that

broadcast more seriously?

My dad pointed at an unopened container with his chopsticks. "Orange chicken," he said.

Okay, this was completely unfair. I mean, I was starving.

"Why don't you come sit with us?" asked my dad. He pulled out the chair next to him and patted

the seat.

Without removing my hand from the doorknob, I considered my options. A) Turn around, go

back downstairs, potentially starve to death or B) Sit down, eat, watch basketball game.

But if I sat down and ate with them, would I be

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expected to talk to them? I looked at Emma's and Amy's backs, remembered their frantic phone

call, the rescue. Thank you, Lucy. We love you, Lucy. Lucy, you're the best.

Traitors.

I decided I'd sit and eat but not speak. I walked over to the chair my dad had pulled out and sat

down. Mara passed me the container of orange chicken. I unfolded the foil edges and took off the

plastic top. Everyone was looking at me as if I'd just had a miraculous recovery from a deadly

illness. I served myself some chicken and took a bite. It was hard to swallow with four sets of

eyes watching my every move. When I put my fork down, Emma reached across the table to

hand me a container.

"Rice?"

I nodded. A nod does not equal a spoken word. I spooned some rice onto my plate while

everyone else sat in silence. I took another bite.

"Emma and Amy have something they would like to say to you," said my dad.

I looked across the table at Emma and Amy, my mouth full of orange chicken. Their heads were

bent.

"Girls," said my dad.

Emma looked up. After a second, Amy did, too. "We're sorry, Lucy," they said in stereo.

I swallowed, but I didn't say anything. There was a silence, and then my dad prodded them again.

"Sorry for what?"

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"We're sorry we got you in trouble," said Emma, dropping her head down.

"We're sorry we made it sound like you knew we were at the party the whole time," said Amy,

whose head was now also down.

Suddenly Emma looked up. "Really, we're sorry," she said. "You were so nice, Lucy."

"Don't hate us, Lucy," said Amy.

I wasn't sure what to say. I mean, I didn't exactly hate them. But I didn't exactly trust them,

either. I looked around the table. My dad took a bite of his moo-shu pancake, and I thought I

caught a glance pass between him and Mara.

"Lucy, now it's my turn to apologize," said Mara. "I should have trusted you wouldn't have done something to endanger Emma and Amy."

Were we in an alternate universe? I nodded at her. She grabbed a paper napkin from the pile next

to her and handed it to me. "Here," she said. "For your lap."

So we were in the real world. "Thanks," I said, taking it.

Nobody said much for the rest of the meal. When we finished eating, my dad brought over the

big kitchen garbage can and we dumped all the paper plates and empty containers and disposable

chopsticks into it.

I was pretty sure it was the first time since San

Francisco that I hadn't been asked to clear the table.

***

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Later my dad came downstairs just as I was setting my alarm.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," I said. I checked the volume and made sure it was set to go off in the a.m., not the p.m.

"So I'm going to work out of the New York office for the next couple of weeks," he said, leaning over the banister. "Like I did today."

I put the clock back down on the floor next to my bed. "Sure," I said.

"That's the best I can do for now."

"Okay," I said.

He waited, like he wanted to say something else. Or maybe he was waiting for me to say

something else, I wasn't sure. But what was I supposed to say? I guess everything's okay now.

Emma and Amy said they're sorry, you temporarily relocated to New York, and Mara let us have

Chinese food and eat in the kitchen! Bibbitybobhityboo!–we're one big happy family.

As it was, my dad and I just ended up looking at each other in silence for a while.

"So I guess I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"Yeah," I said.

"Well," he said, "good night."

"Good night."

It took me forever to fall asleep.

What my dad had said made it impossible for me

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to stop thinking about how my life would change if he really was working in his firm's New

York office instead of flying out to the West Coast every Sunday. The idea of him opening the

front door each night when he got home from work made me so happy I almost started crying.

How easy would it be to sit through dinner with my step-monster and her offspring if my dad

was there, too; if afterward he and I watched a game together or went for ice cream like we used

to? If he was around, wasn't it possible my home life would actually become ... bearable?

Finally I made myself roll over and go to sleep. Because while my fantasy was certainly a nice

one, the reality wasn't so pretty. "Two weeks," I said into my pillow. "He said two weeks."

That's the problem with fairy tales. Every good thing happens for a limited time only.

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Chapter Twenty-eight

All week prom gossip flew fast and furious. In math, while Mr. Palmer droned on about graphing

parabolas, I taught Jessica what a point spread was, using the latest rumors about which couples

would make it to Saturday night and which wouldn't. Even though I was doing it while he was

talking about something else, I thought Mr. Palmer would have been proud to hear me explain,

when we got to Jane and Sam, that you can't solve an equation if you don't know whether

something (i.e., Jane's bitchiness) is a variable or a constant. I realized that despite my math

teacher's being clinically insane, I'd actually learned something in his class.

Having just been talking about him in math, I was surprised when Sam didn't show up to art, and

I was even more surprised when he wasn't there the next day, either. It wasn't until the end of the

week that

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I asked Ms. Daniels where he was, and while she was telling me all about the colleges he was

visiting and how she hoped he'd seriously consider RISD, I suddenly remembered the daydream

I'd had about us slow dancing at the prom. It made me feel really self-conscious. First I have a

weird vision of us dancing together and then I'm all concerned about why he isn't in school? Just

as I was starting to seriously regret having bothered to ask Ms. Daniels about Sam's whereabouts,

I saw Jessica and Madison standing in the open door of the studio. Jessica pointed at her watch

and I cut Ms. Daniels off, explaining that I had to run.

My worrying about why I was worrying about why Sam was absent didn't last very long. By the

time we were halfway down the hall and I'd heard Jessica's new-and-improved unofficial polling

data indicating that Connor and I were definitely going to be prom king and queen, I barely

remembered I'd been talking to Ms. Daniels, much less what we'd been talking about.

Meanwhile, having my dad at home was almost the sugar-coated fantasy I'd spun in my

imagination. Almost.

As I'd hoped, we watched a game together and we went for ice cream (well, gelato). And it

wasn't Mara interrupting the game so my dad could look at fabric samples for the chair in their

bedroom or Emma and Amy coming with us on our dessert run that made his

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being home less than perfect. It was the big red X's I kept drawing on my mental calendar.

Thirteen. Eleven. Ten.

Because even while I wanted to celebrate the fact that I'd gotten my father back, I couldn't help

measuring how happy I was now against how bad I was going to feel when he left again for San

Francisco.

The morning of the prom I woke up to my cell ringing. I could tell from the light managing to

fight its way through the tiny basement windows that it was going to be a beautiful sunny day.

"We're meeting at Madison's at four, right?" It was Jessica.

"Yeah, right," I said, yawning. "Four o'clock."

"I told Kathryn she should come over, too," said Jessica. "To get ready and everything."

Only half awake, I wondered if I'd heard Jessica right. "Kathryn? I thought she wasn't coming."

"Oh, yeah, well, she and her boyfriend had this mondo fight last night. She's coming stag."

Jessica laughed. "I said she could come in our limo. Isn't that cool?"

"Ah, yeah, it's pretty cool."

Is it still called going stag if your plan is to arrive alone but leave with someone else's date?

"So you'll be here at four, right?" Jessica asked.

"Right," I said. "I'll be there at four."

My dad and Mara were gone when I got upstairs.

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There was a note, gone antiquing. Of course. Of course. Hadn't I known it was only a matter of

time before we went back to business as usual? Probably they'd forgotten about the prom, too,

forgotten I needed to be at Madison's at four. Good thing I had the Glen Lake cab company on

speed dial.

At three o'clock, just as I was getting out of the shower, I heard my dad's car pull up in the

driveway. A few minutes later there was a knock on my door.

"Yeah?" I had an open bag on my bed full of stuff for the prom and the Hamptons.

"Lucy? Can we come down?"

"Fine."

The door opened and my dad and Mara came down. Or started coming down. It seemed to be

taking them forever. I looked over to the stairs and saw they were each carrying a heavy bundle

wrapped in brown paper. They must have been heading to the basement storage area to put away

whatever precious treasures they'd discovered along the Hudson River.

"Hey," said my dad when he got to the bottom step. He was panting slightly. Mara was standing

behind him, but thanks to her daily gym sessions, she wasn't out of breath.

"Hey," I said.

We stood there for another minute. "We were up in Lomax today," said my dad.

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"Oh." Just how many breakfronts does one household need?

My dad was smiling at me. "I remembered you'd admired this, so we wanted to get it for you."

I wasn't sure what he was talking about. "This?" I asked.

He pointed at the package Mara held balanced against her hip. "Open it."

I went over to Mara and took the package from her. Kneeling down in front of it, I pulled at the

brown paper, ripping off one layer after another. I wondered if it was going to turn out to be one

of those tiny little boxes that's inside a dozen bigger containers. God, she'd probably gotten me

some terrible piece of jewelry to wear for the prom. Lucy, the bad news is I haven't been able to

furnish your room. The good news is I've been able to furnish you! With this lovely rhinestone pendant featuring a Pilates instructor and her pupil.

Finally I hit something that wasn't brown paper, and all at once I knew what was underneath the

wrapping I'd been wrestling with.

"Oh my god," I said. I tore off a section of paper to reveal a leg of the wooden easel I'd seen so long ago. "Wow." I studied the claw-feet and traced my hand along the intricate woodwork. It

was even more beautiful than I'd remembered, or maybe it had just been polished. Even in the

dim light, the wood gleamed. "Thanks," I said, standing up.

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"We thought ... well, I thought." My dad cleared his throat, still struggling to find the right

pronoun. "It seemed possible you might like to put this on it." He walked toward me, awkwardly

balancing the large, square package he was holding. "I was supposed to save it for your

eighteenth birthday," he said, "but I thought you could use it now." He lay it at my feet and took a step back.

"Oh," I said. "What is it?"

My dad paused and swallowed. "It's a painting your mother did. She wanted you to have it."

The three of us stood there, not moving or saying anything, as if the brown rectangle at my feet

was ticking. After a minute my dad put his hand on Mara's shoulder. "Excuse me a second," she

said. Then she turned and went upstairs.

My dad gave a little cough. "Do you mind if I stay while you open it?"

My throat was tight, and I just shook my head to indicate I didn't mind. Then I untied the cord

and peeled back the wrapping.

I hadn't seen one of my mother's paintings in a long time–since we'd packed them up and put

them in storage when we moved–and I'd never seen this one before. The painting was of a city

wall covered in graffiti and posters, some of which were peeling off, some of which were partly

covered over by other posters. Each of the posters was a self-portrait of my mom, the same one

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repeated over and over in slightly different colors– greens and blues, browns and yellows, and

here and there the faint purple of shadow. Her eyes were wide, her hair wild and curly around her

small face, her smile mysterious as the Mona Lisa's. As my eyes studied the posters, I realized

they were grouped together in order to form a composite image. Once I figured that out, it only

took me a minute to see that it was of a woman holding a baby in her arms.

"She started this when she got sick," said my dad, his voice thick. "She made it for you." He lifted his hand to his face, and I realized he was crying. "She would have been so happy to know

you're becoming an artist."

I'd never seen my dad cry before, and it made me start to cry, too.

"I wish I had known her," I said. "I wish she had known me." And then I added, "I wish we could have been a family."

My dad put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulders. "I wish that, too," he said, taking a

deep breath and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "You know, Lucy goose, I can't make

everything perfect. I wish I could, but I can only do the best I can. And I–" He took a deep,

shuddering breath. "I'll always be your home. And you'll always be mine. And I hope that

someday this will feel like your home, too."

I knew if I tried to say something, I'd start bawling.

"So here's the deal, kiddo." He dug a handkerchief

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out of his pocket and blew his nose. "I'm going to be home for another week. Then I'm going

back to San Francisco for two more weeks. And after that, if I can't work on things from the New

York office, I told them they're going to have to finish up without me." He squeezed my

shoulders. "What do you say to that?"

I opened my mouth to answer him, and a really loud sob came out. I put my hand on my mouth

and shook my head.

"Is that a 'No' head shake or an 'Okay' head shake?" I shook my head again. "No?" said my dad. I shook my head again.

"Okay," he said. I could tell from his voice that he was smiling.

I nodded, and he handed me his handkerchief. "It's a bit worse for wear," he said.

I blew my nose, loud, and took a deep breath. Then we sat there, not saying anything, just

looking at the painting together.

Finally I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. "I guess I should get going," I said.

"I guess so," he said.

Just as I stood up, there was a pounding above our heads. Seconds later, Emma and Amy came

tumbling down the stairs. "We want to see Lucy in her dress. We want to see Lucy in her dress!"

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They stopped short when they saw me. "What are you wearing?" they demanded. "Where's your

dress?"

I pointed at the garment bag. "It's over there. I'm getting dressed at Madison's."

"What?" They looked at me like I'd just announced my intention to eat one of them for dinner.

"But you can't! You have to get dressed here!"

"Lucy, you have to let us help you."

"I don't really need help getting dressed."

Emma circled around the bed. "You know what we mean."

"I'd love to see you in the dress," said my dad. "Unless that would ruin your plans."

"Yeah, Lucy," said Emma. "You put it on now."

"Yeah," echoed Amy. "Put it on."

Emma, sensing my resolve was weakening, took advantage of her opportunity. "Okay, we're

going to go upstairs, and then we'll come back in five minutes, and you have the dress on." She

started herding everyone upstairs in front of her. "Come on" she said when my dad hesitated.

"Move it." Once she'd gotten everyone onto the staircase, Emma turned back to me. "Five

minutes," she said.

I listened to the door shut behind the three of them, and then I walked over to the dress. I took a

long time removing my jeans and my T-shirt, folding them perfectly and putting them "away"

onto their respective piles on

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the floor. Then I slipped out of my bra and slid the garment bag off the hanger, removing the

pins that, since there were no straps, were holding the dress in place. I'd barely had time to step

into it and reach around to zip the bottom half of the zipper before the door to the basement flew

open.

"We're coming down, Lucy," yelled Amy.

"Yeah, ready or not, here we come," yelled Emma. And in a second, they were standing next to

me. My dad and Mara followed more slowly, Mara coming all the way into the basement, my

dad sitting on the bottom step.

"Ooooh," said Emma.

"Mmmmm," said Amy.

"It's sooo pretty," said Emma. "I love it," said Amy.

They circled around me, evaluating the dress from different angles.

"It's really beautiful, Lucy," said my dad.

Mara walked over to me and put her hand on my back. "May I?"

"Sure," I said, letting go of the fabric so she could zip the zipper. For a second it felt like it was going to be too tight, but she coaxed it up until it closed all the way.

"It's lovely," she said, stepping back and surveying me.

"What shoes are you wearing?" asked Emma. "Yeah, what shoes?" asked Amy.

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"Those." I pointed at my bag. The toe of one of my black pumps was sticking out the top.

"What?" shrieked Amy. "Are you crazy?" This from Emma. "Girls!" said my dad sharply.

"Sorry," said Emma. "Yeah, sorry," said Amy.

"I don't have anything else," I explained. "Sorry."

Emma started jumping up and down, practically bursting with frustration. "You have to wear

strappy shoes," she said.

"You have to wear gold strappy shoes," said Amy, jumping up and down with her.

Emma stopped jumping and made a face of disgust at Amy. "She's not wearing gold shoes," she

said. "Do you live in a trailer or something? Silver. She has to wear silver sandals."

Before Amy could respond, I stepped in. "Well, guess what, ladies, I hate to break it to you, but

she's not wearing gold or silver. It's black pumps or barefoot." I found myself looking over at my dad for confirmation of my decision.

He shrugged. "Those shoes look nice to me." If my dad hadn't once paired a plaid sports jacket

with striped pants, his assessment of my footwear would have been much more comforting.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, just as I was wondering if maybe going barefoot wasn't the

solution

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to my whole problem, Mara said, "Did you want silver shoes to wear?"

"Yes!" Emma and Amy shouted.

I shrugged. "Why, do you have a magic wand?"

"Not exactly," she said. "But I do have a pair of silver shoes in my closet."

By the time we arrived at Madison's, her driveway was filled with cars, and cars lined the street

in front of the house. I tried just saying good-bye to my dad, Mara, Emma, and Amy, but once

Emma and Amy figured out that other people's families were staying for cocktails, they refused

to leave.

The party was being held in the backyard. I saw Connor across the lawn standing with Matt and

Dave. He looked really handsome in his tuxedo, so much so that I couldn't believe my mental

picture of prom had produced Sam instead of him. When he saw me, he gestured that I was to

stay where I was and then went into the house. A minute later he came over to where I was

standing.

"Yo, baby!" he said, taking in my dress and hair. "You're looking mighty fine." He slid a corsage of white gardenias over my wrist. "Here you go, Red," he said. The flowers smelled rich and

thick, and I put them up to my nose and inhaled deeply.

"Thanks," I said.

I'd planned on wearing a pearl necklace of my mom's, but Emma and Amy had convinced me it

was too

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Town and Country, so I had on a long necklace of crystal beads that wrapped tightly around my

neck like a choker, then fell halfway down my back.

"Look," Amy had said when I was finally outfitted to her satisfaction, "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

"That's a wedding, you freak," said Emma. "Not a prom."

Amy shrugged. "Whatev."

Emma and Amy had worked on my hair, helping me put it up in a high, complicated bun. They

wanted me to look just like a photo they'd seen in TeenVogue of the Princess of Liechtenstein

(though it may have been Romania–they were vague on the geographical details). Whether or

not I resembled European royalty, I must have looked pretty good because Connor kept winking

at me and smiling. He was winking and smiling at Madison and Jessica, too, telling them how

hot they looked and how lucky Matt and Dave were.

"Hi, kids!" Kathryn shouted, waving to everyone on the lawn from the deck. I don't know if she'd been drinking upstairs at Jessica's, but she was more than a little unsteady on her extremely high

heels. And while the rest of us were wearing long dresses, Kathryn's dress ("dress") was short.

Very short. It was so short that, when she stopped waving and started giggling, my first thought

was she was embarrassed because she'd come down without her skirt on.

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Connor didn't seem to mind, though. When Kathryn crossed the lawn to say hi to us, Connor

gave her the same smile he'd given me, Jessica, and Madison. When he told her how hot she

looked, Kathryn laughed.

"Stop," she said. "I'm blushing." Then she gave him a very unsisterly hug, and I wondered if Connor's compliment had encouraged in Kathryn the idea that I was the one going stag and she

was the one with the date.

The limos began to arrive at seven.

"Come on, guys," yelled Jessica. "Let's go."

Madison started maneuvering Matt toward the front. I walked over to where my dad and Mara

were talking to Connor's parents.

Mrs. Pearson extended her hand. "Hello, Lucy," she said. "It's so nice to finally meet you."

"It's nice to finally meet you, too," I said. They say nobody knows a guy like his mom, so I was tempted to ask Mrs. Pearson if she thought it was a little odd that Connor had spent most of the

cocktail party trying to get Kathryn in a headlock. But before I could put the question to her,

Jessica came over to me. "It's showtime," she said.

"Oh, right," I said. I turned to my dad and Mara. "Well, I guess I should get going."

My dad gave me a hug. "You look gorgeous."

"Thanks," I said. "And thanks again for the painting." I looked over his shoulder at Mara. "And 270

thanks for the easel," I said to her. "It's really beautiful."

"I'm glad you like it," she said.

"Here, let me get a picture," said Mr. Pearson. He came over to me and my dad and placed us

next to each other, putting my dad's hand on my shoulder and wrapping my arm around my dad's

waist. Mara was standing a few feet away, and I could tell from the way she was watching us

that she really wanted to be in the picture. I kept expecting my dad to call her over, but he didn't;

he just let Mr. Pearson pose us.

It was so tempting to let her stand there.

"Okay," said Mr. Pearson. He took a few steps and turned around, training his camera on us.

"One, two–"

"Wait!" I shouted.

Mr. Pearson moved the camera away from his face. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"I just need to ... hang on a second." I stepped from under my dad's arm and went over to Mara.

"Come be in the picture," I said.

"It's fine, Lucy," she said. "Why don't you just get a picture of you and your dad. I really don't mind."

She's telling you it's okay. Just take the picture without her.

I shook my head. "No, really," I said. "I'd like one of all of us." And as soon as I'd said it, I realized it wasn't even a total lie.

She and I looked at each other for a minute, and then she smiled at me. I smiled back. "Okay,

then," she said.

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She followed me over to where my dad was waiting, and we let Mr. Pearson arrange us so that

my dad was on one side of me and Mara was on the other. Just as Mr. Pearson was about to snap

the picture, there was a scream. I looked over in the direction it came from to see Emma and

Amy racing across the lawn to where we were standing. "Wait!" shouted Emma.

"We want to be in the picture," said Amy. They slid in on either side of me and put their arms

around my waist.

"We did her hair," Emma said to Mrs. Pearson, who was standing next to her husband.

"Well, it's lovely," she said absently.

"I did her hair," said Amy. "You did her makeup."

"That is such a lie," said Emma. "I totally did her hair!"

"Oh my god, what are you talking about?" Amy stamped her foot. "You didn't even touch her hair."

"Girls, girls," said my dad. He put a hand on each of their shoulders and nudged them to face Mr.

Pearson.

"Did so," muttered Emma.

"Did not," answered Amy.

"Let's focus here," said my dad, and I felt Emma's and Amy's arms tighten around my waist as I

smiled and Mara said, "Cheese."

"One, two, three," said Mr. Pearson. And for a second after the shutter clicked we all stayed just where we were. A family.

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