Royally Crushed (13 page)

I put the letter down, then flop into the wobbly chair. I can’t decide whether to open the gift or to peruse the Walmart circular while I clear my brain.

I feel tears coming, but I grind my fists against my eye sockets for a minute to force them back. I’m not sure if I’m mad or depressed or what. All I know is that my life is royally jacked, and there’s not a gift in the world short of a time machine that can fix it. And I’m not sure even that will help, since Mom seems to think she should have come out of the closet ten years ago. If I traveled back much farther than that to try to fix things, I wouldn’t even have been born.

It’s the kind of thing that only Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard would know how to fix. I don’t belong here. Mom doesn’t belong with Gabrielle, and she definitely shouldn’t be teaching a bunch of elementary school kids. She taught fifth grade before she married Dad, but she swore up and down she’d never do it again. She said it drove her insane.

She obviously thinks insanity is preferable to being married to Dad.

I reread the letter, trying to convince myself that Mom really does love me, and that on the inside she’s the same person who took me to the beauty salon before homecoming and picked out a cherry red nail polish for Christie and a deep purple for me. Finally I slide it back into the envelope and open the gift. I’m not expecting much, but because it’s the first really heartfelt gesture Mom’s made since moving out, I figure it’s worth a look.

And then I decide it’s not. I missed my guess with Dad and the Chicken Soup book. Instead it’s Mom with a book telling me not to sweat the small stuff.

She thinks my problems constitute
small stuff
? On which freakin’ planet, exactly, was she spawned?

Still, I open the book and flip to a random page in the back, which tells me I’m supposed to notice when my parents are doing things right. O-kay. Well, there’s Dad and the fact he wants me to eat healthy and to be happy. That’s good.

I turn toward the front of the book, because I can’t come up with anything about Mom. She says she wants me to be happy, but . . .

Maybe if I start closer to the beginning of the book I can work my way up to appreciating Mom.

As I go back to chapter 1, a page in the middle catches my eye. I stop and read about the importance of creating my own special space.

I look around the apartment. Ugly furniture and a bad view cannot possibly be the criteria needed for a special space.

Without thinking about it, I take the book and the envelope and head for the library.

MY SPECIAL PLACE TURNS OUT TO BE NOT-SO-SPECIAL.
Or at least, not special in the sense that I’m the only one who gets to hang out here. Because, wouldn’t you know, within ten minutes of me flopping in the chair and burrowing way down—mostly so Karl can’t see me from the hallway and decide to come in and offer me pretzels—Georg walks right up to the chair to see if I’m in it.

And he says he’s been looking for me.

He starts to sit in the chair beside me, clearly not taking the hint that I’m scrunched up all small into this honking big chair because I want to be alone. But then he sees my not-so-welcoming face and hesitates. My face is hot from
crying so I’m willing to bet it looks all blotchy and red—which is pretty scary.

“Hey, you’ve been crying.”

Duh. “Oh, no,” I lie. Why not, now that I’m getting in the habit? “It’s just allergies.”

“Of course. Everyone has bad allergy problems in January.” He frowns, then looks down at the letter in my hand. “So what’s that?”

I give him the Valerie Shrug. Okay, so I’ve been crying. I know I’m not a good liar. But I figure it might give him a clue. Apparently not.

“Look,” I tell him, “you know how you hate that people treat you differently because you’re a prince? They see the castle or your expensive clothes and make certain assumptions?” Or so he says—about hating the attention, that is. It’s totally obvious at school that people treat him differently.

“Yeah?”

“Well, people aren’t always what you see.”

“Meaning?”

“Just because I’ve been crying doesn’t mean I’m trying to get your attention. A lot of girls pull that crap, and if you want to know the truth, it pisses me off. So what you see isn’t what you think it is. You don’t need to hang out in here because you think I need some attention. I’m just fine all by myself.”

He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his Levi’s and leans forward so his chest is against the back of the empty chair. The expression on his face goes flat, then he looks right into my eyes, and I know before he says a word that I’ve gone too far.

“And just because I came in here to ask what happened doesn’t mean I think that you’re trying to get my attention. And if you want to know the truth”—his mouth curls up at the edges as he parrots my words—“I thought things sucked at lunch today, so I wanted to come down here and talk to you about what happened and apologize.”

“You didn’t bother trying to talk to me about it at school. You saw me standing by my locker after last period.” Not when all his friends were around. Why be nice to the new girl?

“You didn’t look like you wanted to be bothered. I assume this all has something to do with yesterday, when we were hanging out in the balcony, which is another reason I didn’t bring it up at school. It’s nobody else’s business.”

Okay, I’ll give him that. I did turn away from him and his snobby-looking clique to find my own bench when we were on the quad today, though he looked away from me first.

But the
real
truth is that my current runny-nose-scuzzy-crying-face isn’t even about him.

“Well, you’re right when you say school was rotten today.” I try not to sniffle, and I wish I’d been smart enough to tuck a tissue in my pocket. “But I’m dealing with some other stuff and that’s why I’m all whacked out right now. It’s nothing major or anything, I just have to get past being hyper about the small stuff.”

Okay, so I did start reading the book from Mom. And now I’m trying to convince myself that in the grand scheme of life, my parents getting a divorce
is
small stuff. I mean, look at Jules’s parents. They got divorced when we were all third graders—well, her mom got divorced a second time after that to remarry Jules’s dad—but it all seems like it happened eons ago. Jules is still the same Jules she was before. A little more sarcastic, maybe, but we all knew by the end of our first playdate as little kids that Jules was going to grow up with a major mouth. That’s just how she’s wired.

Third grade was exactly seven years ago. So I figure that by the time I’m legal drinking age, this won’t be a big deal. It’ll seem just as distant as Jules’s parents’ divorce. Small stuff, right?

I mean, I’m only in a library in a freakin’ royal palace thousands and thousands of miles from the three best friends I’ve ever had, I’ve lost out on possibly becoming the girlfriend of a guy I’ve been mad about from the moment I
first laid eyes on him in kindergarten when we were put in charge of feeding the class rabbit together, and my mother is living with a vegan blond weirdo who attributes her entire life philosophy to Weight Watchers.

Small stuff. Little itty bitty infinitesimal tiny stuff.

Georg comes around and sits in the chair beside mine, though he’s moving slowly, like he thinks I’ll fling myself at him in a jealous-over-Steffi rage at any moment for ignoring me at lunch. Or maybe he’s worried I’ll emotionally vomit all over him because I’m just having such a horrid day. (This is a no-no according to the very first page of the small stuff book. It says you shouldn’t vomit all over your friends by taking every ounce of your messed-up emotions and dumping them in your friends’ laps. I can relate, since I’m usually the one on the receiving end of such vomit.)

“Is the letter from your mom?”

I nod. I’m too worn out to dodge him. And you know, those intense billboard model–like gazes of his are getting to me.

“My dad told me your parents are in the middle of a divorce.” He shifts in his chair, and it’s obvious he’s not comfortable talking about this, but he’s making the effort.

“Did your dad tell you why?”

He nods.

“Well, then you know everything.”

“You mad at your mom?” He nods toward the letter again.

I am not going to commit emotional vomit. I’m not.

“A little,” I say. “I mean, I’m the teenager and she’s the adult. I’m the one who’s supposed to be figuring out what I want in life, not her. She had it all. And the whole thing just makes me mad at myself.”

Georg is kind enough not to agree. “At yourself? What’d you do?”

“I’m just being shallow about it, is all. I need to get over it. I’m just not getting over it as fast as I should, and that’s pissing me off.”

“I think it’d be hard for anyone to handle, so I don’t see how you’re being shallow.”

“Well, first, I’m not trusting my mom as much as I should. We’ve always been really tight, and it’s hard for me now.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Yeah, but it’s shallow. I should be more supportive, but I’m not. I just totally react against it. Like, how about this: Sometimes when I look at you, I think
Gay
-org, instead of
Georg
, and it automatically gives me the willies?”

He puffs out a breath in surprise. “Wow. That’s bad.”

“That’s what I mean. I’m being shallow about it, and it’s pissing me off that I’m acting this way.”

Okay, I cannot believe I just blurted out the whole Gay-org thing. Despite what I just said, it hasn’t occurred to me since the first day I met him. I’ve gotten used to Georg being Georg. His name doesn’t sound odd to me anymore.

It actually sounds kind of sexy and exotic. Of course, that could just be his accent affecting me.

Maybe I told him because I felt guilty.

“So take it one step at a time,” he says. “If Georg bugs you so much—which I totally get—you can just call me Jack. My middle name is Jacques, after my French grandfather.”

I’m stunned. I know I’m about as shallow as a person can be, but I didn’t want
him
to do anything about it. Like tell me to call him something else. This is my problem.

“I’m
not
going to call you Jack,” I tell him. “That’d just be wrong.”

He holds up his hands as if to say,
Whatever
.

“Look, I really appreciate it. But I’ll call you Georg. And I’ll eventually get over the whole thing. Honestly, Georg is a perfectly cool name. And I’m not really
that
shallow.” At least, I hope I’m not. I never thought so before.

“And I’m not either,” he says, his voice dead serious.

I set Mom’s letter facedown on the end table and frown. “You think I think you’re shallow?”

“Well, I was an ass today at school. I saw you leaving this morning and walked ahead. And then I tried not to look at you at lunch.”

“Why?”

He screws up his mouth in this way that’s totally cute, despite the fact I so
don’t
want to find him cute right now. “I don’t know. Maybe because I can’t help but spend all my time worrying about what everyone thinks. I don’t want to make anyone angry, and if I show the slightest interest in you, people will start with the gossip, and someone’s bound to get ticked off. It’s been this way since I was a little kid, and I’m not getting any better at it. I try to be nice to everyone, but because I’m a prince, people think they know me. And they all want something from me. If I don’t give it to them, then they do things like Steffi did today.”

“So you did hear her.” I mock Steffi’s drama queen fakey whisper as I say it.

“Who didn’t? Word of warning—” His eyes sharpen for a split second. “I can be honest here, right?”

“You can with me. I don’t want anything from you.” Well, maybe I do, if we’re being honest here. But I’d want it whether or not he was a prince.

“Steffi’s a bitch. Ulrike and Maya are all right, for the most part, but watch out for Steffi. It sounds like I’m on a
total ego trip to say so, but she kind of has a thing for me.”

Wow. Georg called someone a bitch and did it with perfect posture. He really is getting relaxed around me. And of course, this is driving me insane.

I mean, how do I get over it? He’s beyond out of my league. And he said flat out he wanted to be my friend. Nothing else.

“What she did to you today is typical,” Georg explains. “I was hoping that if I acted like you didn’t exist, she wouldn’t think we knew each other and wouldn’t pay any attention to you. As nasty as that sounds, trust me, with her it’s better not to exist.” He looks apologetic as he adds, “But I shouldn’t have ignored you. I mean, I might have deflected Steffi a little, but it was still wrong. I’m sorry.”

I manage to keep from grinning at his totally whacked pronunciation of
deflected
, and tell him apology accepted, but totally unnecessary.

Which is a lie, too, because I’m glad he apologized.

He kicks his foot out and toys with the leg of my chair. “Look, you’re worried about what people will think of you because of your mom. Which is why you never said anything to me about her, right?”

I swallow hard. Damn, but he just cuts to the guts of it. “I never even told my friends in Virginia. I only told them my parents were getting a divorce. No details.”

“What if I told you I understand because I do the same thing every single day?”

I just raise my eyebrows. I mean, come on. His parents are about as perfect as you get.

“Did you see the guy in the black leather jacket walking between you and me on the sidewalk this morning? He was carrying coffee, looked like he was headed to work?”

I think for a minute, then nod. “Blond guy.”

“He works for
Majesty
magazine.

He follows me at least once a week. Usually more.”

I can’t even respond. I mean, sheesh! No wonder Georg was acting all bizarre and looking over his shoulder while he walked. It didn’t have anything to do with me at all.

“I fake my way through school just so I can avoid dealing with people like Steffi, then I hide out at home,” he explains, looking more and more frustrated as he talks. “But when I’m home, I’m not completely happy either. I’ve got my dad on my case about my responsibility to get good grades and to be more mature than most kids my age, because otherwise no one will have faith in me as a leader. And my dad’s always showing me tabloid articles about him, or about my mom, and telling me how the slightest thing can get taken the wrong way, so I need to be on my guard all the time.”