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But no. Oh, no. I’m going back, in the stupid velvet party dress Sebastiano designed for me. I’m going back, with no date. I’m going back, and I will probably be ridiculed for being the dateless biological freak that I am.
I am, however, a princess, and apparently that means I am expected to take whatever is dished out at me, no matter how cruel, unfair, or undeserved it might be.
And regardless of what happens, I can always comfort myself with the knowledge of one thing:
Tomorrow, I will be thousands of miles away from all of this.
Oh, God. We’re here.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Saturday, December 20, Royal Genovian Jet
When I was about to turn six years old, all I wanted for my birthday was a cat.
I didn’t care what kind of cat. I just wanted one. I wanted a cat of my very own. We had been to visit my mom’s parents at their farm in Indiana, and they had a lot of cats. One of them had had kittens, little fluffy orange and white ones, which purred loudly when I held them under my chin, and liked to curl up inside the bib of my overalls and take naps. More than anything in the world, I wanted to keep one of those kittens.
I should mention that at the time, I had a thumb-sucking problem. My mother had tried everything to get me to stop sucking my thumb, including buying me a Barbie, in spite of her fundamental stand against Barbie and all that she stands for, as a sort of bribe. Nothing worked.
So when I started whining to her about wanting a kitten, my mom came up with a plan. She told me she would get me a kitten for my birthday if I quit sucking my thumb.
Which I did, immediately. I wanted a cat of my own that badly.
Yet, as my birthday rolled around, I had my doubts my mother would live up to her end of the bargain. For one thing, even at the age of six, I knew my mom wasn’t the most responsible person. Why else was our electricity always being turned off? And about half the time I would show up at school wearing a skirt AND pants, because my mother let me decide what to wear. So I wasn’t sure she’d remember about the kitten—or that, if she did remember, she’d know where to get one.
So as you can imagine, when the morning of my sixth birthday rolled around, I wasn’t holding out much hope.
But when my mother came into my bedroom holding this tiny ball of yellow and white fur, and plopped it into my chest, and I looked into Louie’s (he didn’t become Fat Louie until about twenty-something pounds later) great big blue eyes (this was before they turned green), I knew a joy such as I had never known before in my life, and never expected to feel again.
That is, until last night.
I am totally serious.
Last night was the best night of my ENTIRE life. After that whole fiasco with Sebastiano and the photos, I thought I would never ever feel anything like gratitude to Grandmère EVER again.
But she was SO RIGHT to make me go to that dance. I am SO GLAD I went back to Albert Einstein, the best, the loveliest school in the whole country, if not the whole world!!!!!!!
Okay, here’s what happened:
Lars and I pulled up in front of the school. There were twinkly white lights in all the windows, that I guess were supposed to represent icicles, or whatever.
I was sure I was going to throw up and I mentioned this to Lars. He said I couldn’t possibly throw up because to his certain knowledge I hadn’t eaten anything since the Entenmann’s cake way before lunch, and that was probably all digested by now. With that piece of encouraging information, he escorted me up the steps and into the school.
There were masses of people teeming around the coat check in the front entrance. Lars checked our coats while I stood there waiting for someone to come up and ask me what I was doing there without a date. All that happened, however, was that Lilly-and-Boris and Tina-and-Dave descended upon me and started acting all nice and said how happy they were that I’d come (Tina told me later that she’d already explained to everyone that Kenny and I had broken up, although she hadn’t told them why, THANK GOD).
So, fortified, by my friends, I went into the gym, which was decorated all wintry, with cut-out paper snowflakes, one of those disco balls, and fake snow everywhere, which I must say looked a lot whiter and cleaner than the snow that was starting to pile up on the ground outside.
There were tons of people there. I saw Lana and Josh (ugh), Justin Baxendale with his usual flock of adoring fans, and Shameeka and Ling Su and a bunch of other people. Even Kenny was there, though when he saw me, he turned bright red and turned around and started talking to this girl from our Bio class. Oh well.
Everyone was there, except the one person I’d been most dreading. Or hoping to see. I didn’t know which.
Then I saw Judith Gershner. She had changed out of her overalls and looked quite pretty in this red Laura Ashley-ish dress.
But she wasn’t dancing with Michael. She was dancing with some boy I’d never seen before.
So I looked around for Lilly, and finally spotted her using one of the pay phones. I went up to her and was like, “Where’s your brother?”
Lilly hung up the phone. “How should I know?” she demanded. “It’s not my turn to baby-sit him.”
