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

Автор книги: Melissa Kantor

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Chapter Thirteen

Connor called me during the South Carolina game on Sunday, and we "watched" the whole

second half together. Later he called again, and we stayed on the phone until the end of the pre-

game show, when he had to get off because he'd told his dad they'd watch the game together.

Monday right after first period, he came up behind me, put his hands over my eyes, and

whispered in my ear, "Guess who," and I felt my stomach drop with familiar excitement. I turned

to face him, wrapped my arms tightly around his waist, and we backed into a locker as some guy

I didn't know called out, "Get a room." I could feel Connor smiling, but he didn't stop kissing me until the warning bell rang.

"Catch you later," I said, pulling away and raising my eyebrow at him.

"Not if I catch you first," he said.

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It was weird, though–I seemed to be leading two separate lives. At school, I was never alone.

When I sat down in one of my classes, within seconds, two or three people were competing for

every desk in the vicinity of mine. At lunch, Madison, Jessica, and I sat squeezed together while

people who'd ignored me for two-thirds of the year clamored for a seat at our table. Sometimes

when we had classes in totally different parts of the building, Connor would call me on my cell

between periods, so I'd be talking on the phone to him and to whomever I was walking with.

There weren't enough hours in the school day for me to see and talk to everyone who wanted to

see and talk to me.

But my fairy godmother must have forgotten to sprinkle her magic dust over my house, because

whenever I happened to be home in the evening, Mara and my stepsisters were either out or they

completely ignored me. Not that I cared. I just couldn't help noticing.

The Friday after my sushi dinner with Connor, my dad got home while Mara was driving the

Princesses over to their dad's house. He walked in the door just as I was taking Connor's jacket

out of the closet in the entrance foyer.

"Hey, Goose," he said, dropping his garment bag and giving me a hug. "Hey," I said, hugging him back.

He looked me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a pale yellow T-shirt.

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"Now I may not know much about fashion, but I have to say I really prefer this to that red dress

of yours."

I shrugged as if I couldn't really see the difference.

He slipped his briefcase off his shoulder and grabbed a hanger out of the closet. "You want to

watch the game tomorrow afternoon?" he asked, hanging up his coat. "I could pick up a pizza. Or

we could pop some of that really disgusting buttery microwave popcorn."

Just then a cab pulled up in front of the house and honked. I could see Madison and Jessica

sitting in the backseat. "Can't," I said. "I'm watching the game over at Connor's."

My dad slid the closet door shut. "You know, I feel a little strange that we haven't even talked

about this new relationship," he said.

I folded my arms across my chest and tapped my foot. I mean, could he not see that my friends

were outside waiting for me? "What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know," he said. He scratched his head and smiled at me. "Are you okay? Mara says she practically never sees you during the week."

I snorted. That was a good one. Maybe he should have tried asking her why she never saw me

during the week. "I'm fine, Dad," I said.

He put his hand on my shoulder. "That's great," he said, giving me a squeeze. "We just haven't talked in a while, that's all."

The cab honked again. "I really gotta go," I said.

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"Yeah, sure," he said, but he didn't let go of my shoulder. I had to slip out from under his hand to get to the door.

"Well, maybe we'll watch together on Sunday."

"Yeah, maybe," I said, putting on Connor's jacket and pushing the glass door open.

But I knew I couldn't watch the game with my dad Sunday. I had a ton of work I needed to get

done.

I waved to Madison and Jessica, and hurried toward the cab.

I basically didn't see my dad before he left for San Francisco Sunday night. I didn't see much of

Mara or the Princesses in the days that followed either, which might explain why nobody gave

me a heads-up about the bed that magically appeared in my room sometime between when I left

for school Wednesday morning and when I returned home Wednesday afternoon. It wasn't

exactly my taste–really modern with white Formica drawers and a headboard with odd,

geometric storage spaces, like something you'd see in a futuristic movie from the 1970s–but

beggars can't be choosers, and anyone who's spent eight months sleeping on an air mattress is

definitely a beggar. I went back upstairs to thank Mara, but nobody was home.

The next night Mara and the Princesses and I actually ended up having dinner together. I couldn't

believe it–were there absolutely no movies they wanted to see?

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No stores they had to empty of merchandise? Not a restaurant open on the North Shore at which

they could dine without having to tolerate my presence?

But within seconds, it became clear why they didn't mind eating with me–it was because they

weren't, really. Mara's Vogue had arrived earlier in the day, as had the Princesses' TeenVogue.

This is something akin to a national holiday here at Casa Norton, and once it had been

established that my jeans were "the wrong brand," no one bothered to talk to me. I ate my pasta

thinking about a Picasso painting Ms. Daniels had shown me earlier in response to my latest (and

lamest) idea for a self-portrait. Called "Large Nude in a Red Armchair," it was a bizarre

rendering of a woman whose head and teeth made her look like an angry horse. Ms. Daniels's

point was that Picasso painted portraits that were simultaneously of people's exteriors and

interiors. "What does Lucy's interior self look like?" she kept asking.

Thinking about your interior self and eating pasta isn't exactly appetizing; as I twirled each

mouthful onto my fork, I imagined the strands of spaghetti were my intestines. I was getting into

the image in spite of its grossness, considering a self-portrait of me eating a plate of my own

organs, which may be why I missed my name being called.

"He– lo!" Princess One looked at me with exasperation. "Earth to Lucy, Earth to Lucy." She rolled her eyes at her sister.

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"Sorry," I said. "Were you talking to me?"

"No, Lucy, I was," said Mara. She reached over and patted my hand, like I was an untrainable

puppy she was saddled with.

"Sorry," I said again.

"My friend Gail is coming to New York on Saturday, and I've invited her to stay with us for the

week. I was hoping she could stay in your room, and you could stay in the den." She adjusted her

bangs and took a sip of wine.

"Wait," I said, and then because I couldn't formulate a thought, I just said, "What?"

Mara gave me her toothpaste-commercial smile, like we were great friends who often asked tiny

little favors of each other. "I said I was wondering if you'd be willing to let my friend Gail sleep

in your room when she comes on Saturday."

"Why can't Gail stay in the den?" I asked. It seemed pretty strange to me that Mara wasn't

housing her friend in our newly color-coordinated den, especially since during the months when

she was decorating it, I must have had to listen to her use the phrase "convertible sofa bed" ten thousand times.

"The thing is, she's got a back problem, and I hate to ask her to sleep on a sofa bed." Or an air mattress. Suddenly the appearance of my new bed wasn't quite so magical.

I knew I was supposed to feel bad about her friend's

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back, but considering she'd barely spoken to me in days, I wasn't exactly dying to do Mara a

favor.

"Well," I said, "I'm not sure. Can I think about it?"

Mara's high-wattage smile dimmed. "Of course, Lucy. It's your room."

"God, Lucy, you don't have to be so selfish," said Princess One.

"Yeah," said Princess Two. "Gail was in a car accident when she was a kid."

"And yet I don't see you offering up your bed," I snapped.

"Okay, Lucy, that's enough," said Mara, choosing to overlook the fact that her daughter had just called me selfish. "If you don't want to help, it's up to you."

"I didn't say I don't want to help," I said. "I just said I want to think about it."

"What's there to think about?" asked Princess Two. "Either you want to help or you don't."

"Some of us like to think," I said, glaring at her. "We don't all think it's a crime to actually use our brains."

Mara hit the table with her palm, making her wineglass jump. "Lucy, I will not have you speak

that way to your sister."

"What about how she's talking to me?!" Was Mara deaf? Or did she just choose not to hear what came out of her daughters' mouths?

"All I said is that you're being selfish," said Princess

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One. "It's not bad to say something if it's true." She turned to her mother. "Isn't that right?"

"I am so not selfish," I said. "And I don't exactly see you volunteering your bed for Gail to sleep in."

"I would totally volunteer my bed, but I happen to have a bad back, too," said Princess One.

"Oh, please," I said. "Just because Little Miss Thing likes to sleep in her own bed suddenly she's got back problems?"

Princess One turned to her mother. "Mom, Lucy's being mean to me."

"Talk about being able to dish it out but not take it," I said. "Don't go whining to Mommy, you little brat."

"That's enough, Lucy!" said Mara. "When I tell your father that–"

"Oh, sure, bring my father into this." I made my voice high-pitched and whiny. "Oh, Doug!

Doug, darling. Come home quickly. You'll never believe what Lucy's done this time. Let me get

you the phone, Mara. Let me get the phone so you can tell him all about his terrible daughter."

This was so typical. I knew she'd never tell him the Princesses had called me selfish and

unhelpful. She'd make it sound like they'd been all, Hey, Lucy, how was your day? and I'd

responded, None of your business, you selfish brats.

"I think your father has a right to know how his daughter behaves in his absence," Mara said. Her voice was threatening.

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Talk about unfair. I could feel myself starting to cry. I blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the

tears. "How about how they behave in his absence?" I pointed across the table.

"The way the girls behave is between them and me," said Mara. "I'll discipline them."

"Oh, please," I said. "If you look up discipline in the dictionary, it doesn't say, 'Take shopping for new clothes.'"

Mara threw her napkin down on the table. "I will not be spoken to like that in my house."

"Oh, so now it's your house." There was nothing I could do to stop the tears from running down

my cheeks. I pushed my chair back and stood up. "I knew all that stuff about it's being 'our'

house was a load of crap."

"How dare you!" hissed Mara, standing up, too. "You go to your room right this minute."

"You're not sending me to my room," I said, half sobbing and half yelling. "I'm choosing to go there because it's as far away from you as I can get!"

When I got to the basement I tried to slam the door shut, but since it opened out, that wasn't

really possible. I had to settle for pulling it closed behind me as hard as I could. I paced around

the room, seething. I had never hated anyone as much as I hated Mara. I wished I was the kind of

person who could commit a murder and make it look like an accident. I wished I was the kind of

person who could commit a murder and not make it

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look like an accident. What did I care if I went to jail? Could life in prison really be that much

worse than life with my stepmother?

Finally I collapsed on my bed and tried to calm myself by letting my eyes get lost in Matisse's

fluid shapes and colors. It didn't work, though. I just lay there, hating Mara and my stepsisters,

until suddenly it occurred to me that I didn't even know the name of my dad's hotel in San

Francisco. There was no way for me to call him unless I first went to Mara and got the number. It

scared me. What if I wanted to talk to him and she wouldn't let me? And even if I could get to

him, what if he wouldn't help me?

I put on my headphones and let whitechocolatespaceegg blast my thoughts out of my brain.

Sometime later, fully dressed and with the lights still on, I must have fallen asleep.

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Chapter Fourteen

I woke up before my alarm went off and lay in my bed for a while, watching the minutes

advance from forty-eight to fifty-five. Then I went upstairs to get some orange juice. On the

kitchen table was a note in Mara's spindly handwriting.

lucy, your father and I expect you home right after school.

I stood there, reading and rereading the note, like it was in some foreign language in which I

wasn't yet fluent.

At eight o'clock, the game that would determine whether or not we made it to the state

championship was going to start, and approximately two hours later, Connor and everyone else I

knew at Glen Lake would be celebrating at Darren Smith's house. Darren's party was going to be

huge. No, not huge. Gigantic. Mind blowing.

Earth shattering.

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I'd already missed the second-biggest party of the year because of Mara. No way was I missing

the biggest. What were the odds I'd come home from school, have a civilized conversation with

my dad and Mara about last night's fight, and then be allowed to go to Darren's party? My

parting shot at Mara floated before my eyes, as if the fight had been close-captioned for the

memory impaired, it's as far away from you as I can get!

No one but me was up yet. I went back downstairs, took a three-minute shower, got dressed,

"forgot" my cell phone on my bed and threw a mind-blowing, party-worthy outfit into my bag

before slipping out the back door. Rather than risk being cornered by Mara's Mercedes at the bus

stop, I walked the mile and a half to Glen Lake, arriving at school almost an hour early.

All morning I sat in my classes feeling like a fugitive. Twice someone knocked on the classroom

door, once in English and once in chemistry, and handed a note to the teacher. Each time I

expected her to look up, catch my eye, and read out loud from the slip of paper, Lucy Norton,

you are grounded for the rest of your life. Pack up your things; the police are waiting for you in

the principal's office. It took me until lunch to realize how stupid I was being. No one was

coming to get me, certainly not before three-thirty, when they could reasonably start expecting

me home. Once I stopped seeing myself as an escaped convict, the day stretching out before the

eight o'clock basketball game started to feel interminable.

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What was I going to do between two-fifty, when my last class was over, and game time?

"Hey, what are you doing after school?" I asked Madison.

"Doctor's appointment," she said, breaking off a piece of my chocolate-chip cookie and popping

it in her mouth.

Jessica wasn't allowed to go to the game unless she went straight home from school and worked

on a history paper. In the space of ten minutes, I went from having two viable after-school

options to having none. Though maybe hanging out at Jessica's or Madison's wouldn't have been

such a good idea anyway; that was the first place Mara would look for me once it became clear

I'd disobeyed her.

When last period ended, I stayed at my easel while everyone else packed up. Since I didn't have

anyplace else to go, I figured I might as well try putting the time to good use. The class slowly

filed out, leaving me alone with my sketches. The problem was I still didn't really understand

what Ms. Daniels wanted from us. Now I stood facing yet another blank sheet of paper and

chewing on my eraser, trying to decide if it was morally suspect to open other people's drawers

and steal their ideas. When the door to the studio opened, I looked up. Maybe it was Connor; I'd

called his cell from the pay phone by the gym to see if he wanted to go for a drive before the

game. By "go for a drive," I meant "make out," the only

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activity in the universe that could possibly have gotten my mind off my deeply troubled home

life.

It wasn't Connor, it was Andrea, this totally annoying girl who's in Ms. Daniels's figure-drawing

class. When no one's in the studio, she likes to come in here and talk on her cell. She looked at

me, decided I was no one, and reached into her bag. Then she went over to the sofa, threw

herself down, and dialed a number on her phone.

"Hel-lo! No, it's me.... Oh my god.... Really?"

Her piercing voice could have cut glass. "They did? ... But I told you.... No I told you that..." I packed my stuff up as fast as I could and stuffed it into my drawer. In a moment of perfect

symmetry, just as the studio door closed behind me, I heard Andrea say, "Get out!"

The hallway was deserted. Three twenty-five. Four hours and thirty-five minutes till game time.

Maybe I'd call a taxi and go to Barnes and Noble and do homework. I made my way to my

locker. Should I go to a movie? But who goes to a movie all by herself in the middle of the

afternoon? I wished I could just be cryogenically frozen for a few hours and then emerge, well-

rested, if slightly chilly, in time for the tip-off.

There was something on my locker. From a distance it looked like a newspaper clipping, but as I

got closer I realized it was a postcard. I studied the front of the card, which was a photo of a

painting, a portrait. Then I turned the card over, milton newman: new works, the margaret tanner

gallery. 525 west fourteenth

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street. new york city. opening reception march 31. five to seven.

March 31st–that was today. I looked around, totally freaked out. This was way too big a

coincidence. Who knew me well enough to know I A) liked art and B) had four hours to kill?

Connor? No, he probably hadn't even gotten my message. Madison? She was hardly a player on

the New York art scene. Jessica? Ditto. No. No. No. Was someone watching me? Had someone

overheard me asking Jessica and Madison if we could hang out after school? Did I have some

kind of freak stalker situation on my hands?

Just as I was starting to get totally weirded out about being all alone in the hallway with a

potential stalker, the answer came to me. Ms. Daniels. Of course. She must have stuck the card

on my locker. All the teachers have a list of student locker assignments, so if they get the urge

they can order a student's locker be searched for drugs or porn or credit card receipts from

termpaper.com.

But wouldn't Ms. Daniels have given me the postcard in class? Or told me about the opening like

she had the Clemente exhibit? The whole thing was really strange. Then again, my locker was

between the studio and the faculty parking lot. Maybe she'd meant to give it to me in class but

then forgotten. I could totally picture Ms. Daniels walking along the hall, reaching into her bag

for her car keys, and finding the card in her bag. She

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probably carried the locker numbers in her briefcase with her roll book or something. It made

total sense.

I'd never heard of Milton Newman before, but the portrait was fantastically cool, almost but not

quite photo-realistic. It reminded me a tiny bit of something I'd seen before, but I couldn't think

of what. I checked the hall clock. Three-thirty. It was only a five-minute taxi ride to the Glen

Lake train station. The opening was from five to eight. I could go into the city, see the paintings,

and be back on Long Island in plenty of time for the game.

I'd just been invited to my first New York art opening. For the second time this year, Ms. Daniels

had singled me out from the rest of the class as someone who would benefit from seeing an

exhibit she liked. Was I really going to say no?

Luckily the change of clothes I'd brought for the party could double as Manhattan gallery-

opening wear: chunky-heeled black boots, black low-rider pants, and a tiny, paper thin, pale blue

C and C T-shirt Madison had given me last week, since she said it looked really cute on me and

she never wore it anymore. I could change, go into the city, see the paintings, mix and mingle,

then hop on the train and be back in Glen Lake with plenty of time before the game started.

My afternoon had suddenly gone from sucky to stupendous.

I'd have to remember to tell Ms. Daniels she made an excellent fairy godmother.

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