Royally Crushed (25 page)

“Because I didn’t know. I mean, I had no clue. How could I not know my own mother is a lesbian?”

Geez, I hate how that word sounds coming out of my mouth, like I think being a lesbian is a horrid thing. In my gut, though, I don’t believe that. It is what it is, and I really do believe Mom when she says it’s just who she is, that this wasn’t a choice she made. But still.

“I just—I didn’t even see the divorce coming, Christie. I actually thought my mother was kidding at first. Who ends a twenty-year marriage on a Wednesday night over Kraft Mac and Cheese?”

“But she wasn’t kidding.”

“Nope.” I snorf into the tissue. I’m sure I look like hell, especially in this nasty robe and with my hair all wet, but whatever. “I’m pretty sure she’d already hooked up with Gabrielle when she made her little announcement, because they had an apartment lined up within days. And then it was so hard telling you guys that my parents were getting divorced that I couldn’t bring myself to tell you what was really going on, that it was so much more than that, and—”

“Val. Hey, Valerie.” Christie pegs me with a look, one that speaks volumes, letting me know she totally, completely gets it. She knows I’m dying inside, because my mother not only has this whole other existence I had no clue about and feelings toward other women I never could have predicted, but she also cheated on my dad. “It’s okay,” she
tells me. “I mean, it’s not okay, but I’m on your side here. I just wish you’d felt like you could tell me.”

“Me too.”

“Oh, man!” Christie’s eyes get huge. “Your mom must think that I already know. And Jules and Natalie, too. That’s why she invited us all over.”

I swallow really hard and try to wipe my face clean with the tissue. I so do not want Jules and Natalie to see me looking this way.

“I didn’t even think about Gabrielle being here until you asked about her just now. I’m having a major brain fart kind of day.” Then I get a panicky thought. “There’s no way I can tell Jules and Natalie. I just can’t.”

“Then don’t. At least not today. But you should, at some point. They’re your friends too. Give them a little credit, okay?” Christie glances out the window, then turns toward my dresser. “Sit. Dry your hair. I’ll get you some clothes.”

“Thanks. I swear, you’re the best friend in the world.”

“Keep that in mind next time your life falls apart.”

As she tosses me a pair of old jeans, then opens my closet to search for a top, I ask her how she thinks I should explain Gabrielle, since the freak’s not going anywhere before Nat and Jules come over.

“Well, maybe they won’t notice. They’ll think she’s just
a girlfriend or something.” She looks back at me, and the tiniest smile pulls at the edge of her mouth. We can’t help it. We both crack up.

“You’re awful, Christie. But in a really, really good way. Seriously, thanks for being cool with all of this.”

She does a little hip shake. “I’m always cool.”

“You two are awfully quiet. Is everything cool up there?” Mom hollers from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes!” we both answer, then crack up again.

“Natalie and Julia should be here any minute,” Mom calls up. “You should all come down and have something to eat. I even bought some Ho Hos for Julia!”

“Okay!” We both yell back.

“Well, that proves she’s still the same mom you had before,” Christie says as she picks out a black V-neck sweater from the closet. “She remembered Jules’s heart attack in a box.”

I let out a deep breath as I start to brush my hair out. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Look, if Jules or Natalie ask, you can just lie and tell them she’s from the PTA or something—well, as long as neither of them ask right in front of your mom or Gabrielle.”

I give Christie a look that says,
you
would lie? Christie is pretty much incapable of falsehood, and everyone knows it. She’s that disgustingly pure.

“Just for today,” she says. “And if they do ask in front of them, I’ll just mention Prince Georg or the
Washington Post
and that’ll solve the problem. They’ll forget all about Gabrielle.”

“Great.” I roll my eyes. “And about Georg, it’s a really long story—”

“I figured, and I haven’t forgiven you for not telling me. Plus, I’m still dying to know what in the world is going on. You’d better tell me soon, too, because whether you like it or not, you’re going out with me and Jeremy tonight. I already asked your mom if it’s okay.”

“I don’t want to be a third wheel. I’m here all week, so we can do it another night if—”

“You won’t be a third wheel.” Her blue eyes light up and I know what’s coming even before she says it. “David’s coming too. That’s why you have to fill me in on whatever you have or don’t have going on with His Royal Gorgeousness. Before we go.”

“Christie!” I can’t possibly go out with them. Not when the whole Georg thing is unresolved. And I’m going to need to explain the spin control concept to Christie ’cause I’m thinking this is a no-no, even if I wanted to go.

As if there weren’t enough other reasons to say
no way in hell
to a night out with David—reason number one being I’m David’s Armor Girl, not a potential princess.

“Are you going out with Georg? You can’t possibly be.” Her eyes lock with mine, and in that instant I know she knows. She’s been my best bud way too long not to read me. “Omigosh. Valerie, you are. You are!”

“Actually, it’s not really—”

“Have you guys been fooling around? Are you committed? Is it serious?!”

I tick off the answers to her questions on my fingers. “Yes, I don’t know, and I don’t know, but—”

“Then you’re coming out tonight. We’re going to dinner, and I have tickets for all four of us to a nine o’clock movie. You have to come. You have to give David a chance to talk to you. Please? For me?”

“Does David think this is a date?” I can’t go on a date—a real, official
date
—can I?

Even if I’ve dreamed about David Anderson asking me out since I was learning about two-plus-two and reading books like
Dick and Jane
and
A Duck Is a Duck
, it just feels like it’d be wrong.

But holy smokes. A date with David Anderson? The most gorgeous guy in the whole school? The guy who makes those red carpet actors look only sorta cute in comparison?

The guy whose yearbook picture I photocopied and then taped up next to my bed, where he stayed hidden behind
my pillows for over a year just so I could see him every night before I went to sleep?

Okay, I destroyed that photo in a moment of exceedingly good judgment before I went to Schwerinborg, deciding I’d been a total obsessive freak to copy his picture in the first place, but still . . .

No, no, no. It’s just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!

“It’s casual. Sort of,” Christie says as I pull on my jeans and the sweater. “Let’s just see what happens after you two talk.”

“This is a bad idea. Seriously.”

“Jules and Natalie are here,” she says, looking out the window. “Jules’s mom is already backing out of the driveway. And hey, Jules really did wear her combat boots!”

I’m thinking, for the first time, that this might actually be a good thing.

If Jules kicks me hard enough, I won’t have to go tonight.

On the other hand, a little tiny part of me wants to go, just to satisfy my curiosity.

“Shoot me now,” I tell Christie. “Just get it over with.”

“She’s not that mad at you,” Christie says, making a squished-up face (which is hard for her to do). “She’s always this way. I think she’s mostly interested in finding out what’s
up with Georg. A little jealous, but mostly just interested.”

“No, I meant shoot me before we have to go out tonight. I can’t believe you did this without talking to me first!”

Christie levels her worst stare at me. It’s not that threatening if you don’t know her, because she can’t look violent even if she tries. But I know she’s serious. “Like you not talking to me before you hook up with Prince Charming? Hell-o?”

At that moment, I hear Jules yelling up the stairs, and Mom introducing Gabrielle to Natalie.

Oh, crap.

I THINK I HAVE SAID ABOUT TEN EXTREMELY HEARTFELT
thank yous to God in the last hour that both Jules and Natalie are the type of people who become oblivious to everything but themselves when they’re ticked off.

While their occasional self-centeredness is usually an annoying trait, today it’s good.

Because I just saw my mother kiss another woman!

Okay, it was on the cheek. And it was when she thought none of us were looking—which I can understand, because we were all sitting in the eating area and she and Gabrielle were in the kitchen, which is nearby, but not in the direct line of vision from most of the table.

When it happened, Jules was tearing open the Hostess
box and Natalie was griping about how she’s only allowed out for two hours, and only because I’m home and her parents are granting her a “special break” from the maximum security block (a.k.a. her bedroom) because she’s still in trouble for the tongue piercing. And Christie chose the seat facing away from the kitchen, so she saw nothing. But still.

This is beyond bizarre. I mean, Mom and Gabrielle looked all cheery when we came downstairs and plunked down at the table. The two of them stood in the kitchen while Christie yakked about Natalie’s tongue piercing and Jules argued that it’s probably no worse for Natalie’s health than ignoring the trans-fat content of her own beloved Ho Hos, despite all of Dr. Monschroeder’s dire warnings about Natalie’s risk of breaking a molar or getting an infection.

Mom and Gabrielle were both sipping herbal tea and smiling in that parental sort of way that translates to
I’m so glad my kid is happy in life and has such wonderful friends.
Then Gabrielle turned and said something to Mom very quietly about the Ho Hos—probably agreeing with Jules’s transfat comment—and Mom’s smile got even bigger. Then Mom leaned over and kissed Gabrielle on the cheek—the exact same way she used to kiss Dad when they were having a happy-warm-fuzzy family moment.

For an instant, I just froze. I could not believe what I just witnessed.

It didn’t make me angry or anything. It wasn’t even that gross (which you’d
think
). It was just . . .
weird
.

But now I can’t focus on the conversation around me. I keep sneaking peeks into the kitchen to see if they’re going to do it again.

Or if they’ll do something else. I mean, what
do
they do in public? I haven’t been around to see. Do they hold hands when they go to the movies? Are they lovey-dovey in the grocery store?

I am not going to think about this!

It’s all just so wrong, them doing whatever it is they do, and even worse, my thinking about it so much.

“Valerie?” Mom sets down her teacup and leans on the counter to catch my attention. “Didn’t you have something to show your friends up in your room?”

I grunt an uh-huh, because I think she means the presents I brought from Schwerinborg. Dad, ever the protocol expert, bought some beautiful bracelets for everyone in a really pricey Freital jewelry shop. (And yes, I wanted to do it myself, out of principle, but I couldn’t leave the palace without the press following me. And I couldn’t have afforded what Dad spent, anyway, so who am I to gripe?)

But part of me also wonders if Mom is making her suggestion because she wants time alone with Gabrielle.
Though why, when they’ve had the last few weeks without anyone else around, is beyond me.

Maybe they feel like they’re on their honeymoon or something, now that Mom and Dad are separated and Mom’s officially filed for divorce.

“Yeah, let’s go upstairs so we can talk, Val!” Jules says after licking the last of the chocolate off a Ho Ho wrapper. She not-so-subtly punctuates the remark by bashing one of her boots into my instep. “We have a ton to catch up on!”

Natalie sticks out her tongue and bugs her eyes at me.

“Okay, that is beyond disgusting,” I tell her, even though Natalie just being Natalie makes me feel better, in a bass-ackward sort of way. “I mean, ouch.”

“Ouch is right,” Jules says under her breath, but as we all get up, Christie glares at her, making it clear that she not only heard Jules’s comment but that she wants Jules to lay off until she gets the whole story.

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, Christie.

“So, things haven’t changed one bit with you since the last time we were all in here,” Jules says in a totally fake but funny voice once we get into my room and the door’s shut. “You’re exactly the same old Val we all know and love. You’re open, honest—”

“I get it already.” I don’t even bother to sound apologetic. Although, with the honesty thing, I wonder whether
Jules is referring to Georg, my mom, or both. I’m not sure which topic sucks more to deal with, but since I know they know about Georg—at least as much as they read in the
Post
—I figure I should lead with that. “Look, I really didn’t mean to hide anything from you guys. But everything happened so fast.”

“You’re telling me.” Jules fiddles with my hairbrush, then sets it back down on top of my dresser. “I can’t believe your mom moved on already. I mean, the divorce can’t be final. It’s way too fast. Have they even filed yet?”

Natalie sprawled on my bed when we came in, but at Jules’s question, she sits up straight and stares at her. “What are you talking about?”

I hate that Jules is such an expert on the whole marriage-divorce thing. And not just because it sucked to be her as a kid, since her parents got divorced when we were all in third grade. Her mom remarried the next year, but that marriage blew up the summer before we started sixth grade. Her parents then remarried—each other, of all people—when we were in eighth grade.

On top of the whole why-won’t-my-parents-just-settle thing ruining her elementary school years, the experience made Jules way too perceptive about how adults handle relationships. Well, at least perceptive enough to tell that my mom and Gabrielle aren’t just friends.

I make myself face Jules’s stare-down. “It was obvious the minute you walked in the door, huh? I should have known you’d figure it out.”