Spin Control (7 page)

“Yep, you used it exactly the right way.” His English is awesome, but sometimes he’s not sure of certain phrases. It’s incredibly cute, especially because he gets all embarrassed by it.

I really wish I could just shove the newspaper to the bottom of the recycling bin, curl up on my bed with Georg, and lie there. Just to be, and to not have to think about school or Steffi or reporters or anything else other than the way Georg talks to me, the way he smells when he’s just taken a shower, or how much I love it when he wraps his arms around me and rubs my back.

And, for just a little while, I want to make him forget he’s a prince. I want to let him hang out in my cold bedroom with the cracked wall and be normal-maybe watch TV or listen to some new CDs or something-and not have to worry about how every little thing he does gets hyperanalyzed by his family, the palace staff, all our classmates, and even the media.

“Are you going to school today?” I ask as I stuff my homework into my backpack, just in case. “Dad hasn’t said whether he wants me to go yet or not, but if we both end up having to hide out inside the palace all day, our parents shouldn’t mind if we do it together.” Then at least one good thing could come out of all this crap.

“I don’t know yet.” He sounds a little cagey, and my alarms suddenly start going off. I get a really, really bad feeling. But instead of keeping quiet, I spout off and ask him if something else is wrong.

“It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing. Just tell me.” I know, bad, bad move. Guys don’t like being pushed to talk. Jules is always telling me that when a guy hedges with an answer, to let him hedge or you’re not going to like the answer when he finally gives you one. But now I know he’s not telling me something, and if I don’t find out what it is, I’ll go over the edge.

“My parents are worried about us, that’s all. I don’t think they were expecting things to get so exaggerated in the press.”

“I don’t think so either.” I tell him about my conversation with Dad last night (apparently Dad didn’t know about the possible newspaper article then, thank goodness) and about the one this morning. Georg tells me that his parents told him the same thing, basically: to lie low.

“So what did they say about us? Anything?”

He’s quiet for a second too long. “Not much. But I think it’d be best if we cool it for a while.”

“Cool it? What does that mean?”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

No, I really have no clue. I close my eyes and lean back in my chair. “All right, then.”

“Really? You’re okay with it?”

What can I say if he won’t tell me what he means by
it?
And I’m sure not going to ask him to clarify—
again
—since “cool it for a while” is certainly not going to work with my thought of hanging out together today, no matter what he means.

But what’s really freaking me out is that I can’t read whether he’s okay with it—whatever it is he’s proposing—from the way he asks.

And I can’t tell whether “cool it” is his idea, his parents’, or what. For all I know, it’s the press office’s, or the entire population of Schwerinborg’s.

“I think my dad’s back,” I say, even though it’s completely untrue. “Maybe we can talk later?”

“Definitely. I’ll call you.”

He sounds completely sincere, but I still wonder how many teenage angst movies I’ve seen where someone says, “I’ll call you.” It has to be a couple dozen. And in every single case, the guy never calls. It’s code for something else, something not good.

I’m not sure, but I might’ve just been dumped.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: You really are …

SMOKING CRACK!

Okay, you KNOW I’m kidding. I know you’d never do drugs of any sort. But People of Earth to Valerie Winslow? Come in, Valerie Winslow! What’s with you and the bathroom? And, let’s see … hmmmm … THE PRINCE OF SCHWERINBORG???

I assume that this e-mail will bounce, because if your e-mail is working, you would have told me about this. RIGHT?!

I’m also assuming you haven’t told Jules or Christie about this or they would have told me.

Or could it be you’re keeping the world’s
biggest secret because Jules is gonna kick your ass, since she has a thing for Georg? Or because Christie’s gonna be completely bummed because she wants you to hook up with David, who’s gorgeous AND totally into you, and what I saw makes it look like you’re HOOKING UP WITH A PRINCE INSTEAD?

Lemme tell you, either way makes you a chickenshit.

So if this e-mail DOES go through, and you really have been keeping this from all of us, then I must ask: What kind of crack are you smoking?!

Curious, Natalie

P.S.: In normal person news, if you haven’t heard, I’m grounded again. Bet you’re just stunned (Hah!). Mom and Dad found out I got my tongue pierced. (I told you I got it pierced, right??) As you can guess, this did not go over well with Dr. Monschroeder, DDS. He gave me a half-hour lecture on the risks of fracturing my molars with the stud (doesn’t “fracture my molar with a stud” sound vaguely kinky?), though he did stop short of reaching into my mouth to remove it. WHY does my father have to be a dentist? In any case, you can e-mail me
whenever, ’cause I’m not leaving my room for the remainder of the decade.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Subject:
Your Ass Kicking (Attachment: WashPost74692.jpg)

Oh, Val? Yeah, you. That ass kicking? It’s imminent.

I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU!!!! Have you saan this picture? IT WAS IN THE WASHINGTON FREAKING POST!!

I think you really ara doing drugs cvar there. That’s the only way to explain 1) this picture; and 2) the fact you have not said ONE WORD to any of us about this.

Putting on my combat boots (and you can guess why),

Jules

P.S.: You knew I got Schwarinborg right en tha Geography exam last semester, right? The one where given the map map of Europe and had to fill in the names of all the countries? I didn’t even write down “Smorgasbord.” So don’t even
THINK I can’t find your ass ana kick it. I know where you live.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: RE: Your Ass Kicking

Jules,

Okay, I have no idea why the
Washington Post
cares about any of this, but I’m telling you, it’s NOTHING. It’s just a picture they took of me outside school last week after I happened to walk to school with Georg-which is totally normal since we live in the same building, as you very well know because I TOLD YOU ABOUT IT.

And yes, I will now admit, there might have been a thing with Georg. Emphasis on MIGHT. And emphasis on HAVE BEEN.

And it just now happened. I haven’t had a chance to tell anyone. Christie told me she was going to call, so I figured it was much better as a tell-it-on-the-phone thing.

I’m going to e-mail Christie and tell her to CALL. Okay? Will that save my butt from your combat boots for twenty-four hours or so?? Trust me, even if you could afford the airline ticket, you don’t want to come to Schwerinborg.

Will explain everything as soon as possible, okay?

Love, Val

The Washington Post.

I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS!

I cannot even THINK about it. The picture Jules sent was apparently taken by the guy from
Majesty
, judging from the angle. It’s not the same photo they ran in the paper here. And thankfully, the
Washington Post
is not calling me corrupt. I did a Google search on the article, and it’s completely different than what was in the Schwerinborg paper. They just have three paragraphs saying that the prince of “tiny Schwerinborg” (and they also show it on the map, because of course no one in the States knows where Schwerinborg is except the twelve of us who actually got it correct on the Geography exam) might, MIGHT, be dating an American, and that we were seen sneaking into an empty restroom together.

It does mention that the press in Europe is speculating that Georg and I
might have been doing drugs, but that the palace adamantly denies it. And the Post article states flat out that there’s no evidence, in their words, that “either of these two teens, both of whom are honor roll students with spotless records, were dabbling in drugs.”

They actually write about it like its cool—the American-dates-European-prince-and-is-hounded-by-their-press angle, I suppose.

What’s really pissing me off, though, isn’t the newspapers, either here or in the States. It’s not Jules’s threat to put her boots to my butt, or Natalie (jokingly, I hope) telling me I must be smoking crack. It’s the whole Georg thing.

Because, as I told Jules, and as the
Post
so eloquently states, it MIGHT have been a thing.

As in past tense.

As in, over before it began.

As in I am a complete and total idiot to have thought it meant a
thing
.

When I hung up after talking to Georg, I had a solid two hours to sit alone in my room and ignore the phones constant ringing
before I got distracted by e-mail (since, for once, I thought it’d be wise for me to listen to Dad and not answer the phone, even if every time it rang I was hoping it’d be Georg).

But the whole ignoring-the-phone thing was made much easier by a simple realization that hit me a few minutes after I hung up.

Georg said
I think it’d be best if we cool it for a while
. Not his parents. Not the press office.

I.

To use his own word,
definitely
, he’s definitely not calling me again. This much I’ve figured out.

No wonder I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I clearly can’t keep one for even a week. And come on-if it was him trying to reach me on the phone when it kept ringing and ringing, and if he really wanted to talk to me, then he’d try e-mailing or IM’ing me, too. But so far, nada on that front. Just all my buds from Virginia wanting a piece of me when I’m already as beaten down as I can get.

There’s a light knock at my bedroom door. “Valerie?”

“Come on in, Dad.” I’m so numb, I don’t bother to move, even though I know I look completely lame. I’ve got one arm slung over my forehead, and I’m sprawled like one of those women who faints in Western movies after some guy dressed in black with really bad whiskey breath shoots the sheriff.

Except in my case, instead of having a totally hot cowboy crouching next to me, trying to loosen my corset so I can breathe, I’m just in jeans and an old sweater on my unmade bed, and I’m covered in Geometry homework.

As if on cue, my dad says, “I thought you finished your Geometry last night.”

“I’m so freaking pathetic, I’m working ahead so I don’t have to think about stuff.”

My dad walks to the edge of my bed and shakes my foot, which he loves to do whenever I’m vegging out. “Don’t use ‘freaking,’ Valerie. It sounds coarse.”

I move my arm far enough off my face to look at him. He’s clearly back to his old self. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad for me.

“You have a package from your mother.”

I push myself to a semi-sitting position, then look at the oversized, padded manila envelope with a horrible feeling of déjè vu. She warned me there’d be another self-help book, and this must be it. Dad can tell, too, because he’s holding the thing toward me as if it’s rat poison.

Kinda makes me wonder if he sort of blames Mom’s giant collection of selfhelp books for her coming out of the closet. We both know that’s not the case, obviously, but sometimes it sure feels that way. And there are days I think he wants to blame somebody, or something, for blindsiding him with the whole lesbian thing after nearly twenty years of marriage.

As bad as Mom’s decision makes me feel, I know he has it much, much worse.

I pull the string tab on the side of the package, then look at Dad and hold up the book.

It’s about cheese. No kidding. About who moved cheese. My mother is clearly getting back at me for making fun of her self-help book about moving cheese,
because this is apparently the teen version. Gag.

I flip it over and look at the back cover. It’s supposed to help me deal with change in my life. I don’t think moving cheese around and having your brand-spankin’-new relationship (if that’s what it was) dissected on the A.P. newswire are equivalent, but whatever.

At least, given the cheese angle, it might be more entertaining than the book she sent last week. That book tried to convince me that my problems were small stuff.

Hah.

I’m thinking no self-help book author ever had a mother come out of the closet and move in with a vegan. Or ever found herself forced to choose between living with her gay mom (and the vegan girlfriend) or moving to Schwerinborg, but that’s just a wild guess on my part.

“Write your mother a nice e-mail to thank her,” Dad says, though he looks like he’s just thankful the book didn’t come to him.

“I will,” I grumble as I stuff the book back into the envelope.

“And while you’re at it, you can tell her you’ll be coming home next week for Winter Break.”

Five

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: I really am …

1) NOT smoking crack, or anything elsenot even emergency cigarettes;

2) So not surprised you did the tonguestud thing;

3) Also not surprised about your being grounded (urn, DUH, Natalie-did you honestly think you wouldn’t be?); and

4) Sitting in my room in the ice palace at this very moment, printing off the confirmation for a Lufthansa airlines e-ticket to Virginia, courtesy of my father.

In other words, I will be there next week for Winter Break. Please hide Jules’s combat boots, if you can. I swear I will explain everything when I get there.

Love, Val