know," I said, "it's customary to acknowledge when someone directly addresses you. It's called
being polite."
He didn't move his eyes from his easel. "I wasn't exactly ready to have a public viewing."
The truth was Ms. Daniels always made kind of a big deal about not looking at other people's
artwork before they were ready to show it.
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"Oh," I said. "Well, sorry."
Sam nodded and looked back at his painting. Whatever. He probably hadn't even heard of Chuck
Close. And why did he have to act like I'd gone snooping through his drawer? Would it have
killed him to just say thank you? I mean, is that so much to ask for? Thank you.
I walked out of the room without saying good-bye, making it to the late bus just as the driver was
shutting the doors.
I could hear Avril Lavigne blasting from the Princesses' room as soon as I opened the front door.
Sometimes I think my stepsisters aren't actually people so much as the epicenter of some cultural
Venn diagram.
As if in response to my thinking about them, both Princesses stuck their heads out of their room
and, spying me in the entrance foyer, came racing down the stairs. They were wearing vaguely
nautical velvet dresses.
"You guys going sailing?" I asked, hanging Connor's jacket in the closet.
Their dresses--one blue, the other red--were a kind of horrible variation on a theme. The tight
velvet clung to their bodies, which lacked a crucial curve or two. Both girls wore heavy blue eye
shadow and sparkles on their cheekbones, and coming down the stairs, each teetered slightly in
her platform shoes. When they were just a few feet away, I saw their dresses still had the tags on
them.
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Princess Two was brushing Princess One's hair, which was growing increasingly frizzy with
each stroke.
"Mom's really pissed," Princess One informed me. Then she raised her eyebrows and sighed, cultivating a bored supermodel mid-photo-shoot look.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips in what I realized too late was the stance they usually took with me.
"Did you get that shirt at Marmara?" asked Princess One, distracted from the pleasure of bearing bad news by the pleasure of talking fashion.
"What?" I asked.
She rolled her eyes. "Marmara? It's only, like, the coolest store at the Miracle Mile." The Miracle Mile is a posh outdoor shopping mall a few minutes from our house. To the Princesses, it is a
holy site akin to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
"Yeah," said Princess Two, "their stuff is soo nice. There's this girl in our class and--"
"OUCH!" Princess One jerked her head away and whipped around to glare at Princess Two.
"You're hurting me."
"Well, sorry," Princess Two snarled. "But it's all knotted."
Princess One grabbed the brush from Princess Two. "It's not knotted. You're just a spaz. And it's
going to be straightened next Saturday anyway," she said. "We just got these," she informed me, gesturing
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at their dresses. "For Jason Goldberg's bar mitzvah."
"We're going on the QM Two next week," said Princess Two.
"The QM Two?" I asked. "I thought you just said you were going to a bar mitzvah."
"Hello! The Queen Mary Two. It's, like, a huge ocean liner.
"I know what it is. But I thought you were going--"
"It sails to Europe," Princess One explained. "You're sailing to Europe?"
"Duh. You can't sail to Europe and back in one night," said Princess Two. This from a girl who,
just two weeks ago, lost points on a geography quiz for not knowing England is an island.
"Yeah, duh," Princess One echoed. "We're just going on the boat. For Jason Goldberg's bar
mitzvah."
"It's on the QM Two?"
But they were tired of wowing me with their triumph on the bar mitzvah circuit.
"Mom said you didn't clean up your room and it's a federal disaster site," said Princess Two.
Despite being uttered by her daughter, the words were obviously Mara's.
"Gee, maybe that's because I lack something called furniture," I suggested.
They shrugged and turned away in unison, two slightly unsteady runway models. "Whatev," said
Princess One.
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"Yeah, whatev," said Princess Two.
I grabbed an Oreo from the kitchen and went downstairs to my room. Looking around I had to
admit it would not be winning the Good Housekeeping seal of approval anytime soon. But what
was I supposed to do about that? I had no drawers. I had no closet. Surely even vile Mara could see I was doing my best to keep some semblance of order in the chaos that was my unfurnished
life.
I lay on my air mattress wondering when my dad would be home and if the first thing I was
going to hear from him was a clean-up-your-room lecture. If I hadn't been leaving for the game
in less than an hour, I might have put together a counterargument, but given that getting
grounded would put a huge crimp in my plans, I decided I'd better just suck up his lecture and
agree to spend the next day doing something about the mess.
I thought about the post-game party, wondering if Connor and I would drive together or if he'd
come later, like he had to Piazzolla's. I imagined him getting to the party after I was already
there, how he'd find me in the crowd, come up and put his arms around me. Hey, Red, he'd say.
Hey, Connor, I'd say. And then while everybody stood there, pretending not to watch, he'd give
me one of his amazing kisses and I'd--
There was a knock at my door. "Lucy?" It was Mara.
This was an unexpected development. "Yeah?" I sat
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up quickly, hiding the Oreo I'd been nibbling under a pillow. Mara doesn't like it when we have
snacks outside of the kitchen.
She opened the door and called down. "May I speak to you for a moment?"
"Yeah, sure. Of course."
A minute later she appeared at the foot of the stairs, totally glam in stilettos and a tight black
dress with a slit up one side.
"I came down here earlier today, and I was extremely surprised to see what a mess this room is."
Her lips were pursed tightly together, and she had her hands folded in front of her, like
everything in the room was so filthy she was afraid to touch it.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I keep thinking I'll straighten everything up once I have, you
know, drawers and stuff to put my clothes in."
She nodded her head while I spoke but kept her eyebrows raised, as if commenting on the
ludicrousness of my alibi.
"Quite honestly, Lucy, I don't see how not having a few pieces of furniture is an excuse for what
a mess this room has become," she said after I'd finished.
"Well, I mean I'm not excusing it," I said. "But it would definitely be easier to put my clothes away if I had something to put them away w." I slid my hand out from under the pillow, leaving
the Oreo behind. Like a bird of prey, Mara followed the movement with her eyes.
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