Monday right after first period, he came up behind me, put his hands over my eyes, and
whispered in my ear, "Guess who," and I felt my stomach drop with familiar excitement. I turned
to face him, wrapped my arms tightly around his waist, and we backed into a locker as some guy
I didn't know called out, "Get a room." I could feel Connor smiling, but he didn't stop kissing me until the warning bell rang.
"Catch you later," I said, pulling away and raising my eyebrow at him.
"Not if I catch you first," he said.
131
It was weird, though--I seemed to be leading two separate lives. At school, I was never alone.
When I sat down in one of my classes, within seconds, two or three people were competing for
every desk in the vicinity of mine. At lunch, Madison, Jessica, and I sat squeezed together while
people who'd ignored me for two-thirds of the year clamored for a seat at our table. Sometimes
when we had classes in totally different parts of the building, Connor would call me on my cell
between periods, so I'd be talking on the phone to him and to whomever I was walking with.
There weren't enough hours in the school day for me to see and talk to everyone who wanted to
see and talk to me.
But my fairy godmother must have forgotten to sprinkle her magic dust over my house, because
whenever I happened to be home in the evening, Mara and my stepsisters were either out or they
completely ignored me. Not that I cared. I just couldn't help noticing.
The Friday after my sushi dinner with Connor, my dad got home while Mara was driving the
Princesses over to their dad's house. He walked in the door just as I was taking Connor's jacket
out of the closet in the entrance foyer.
"Hey, Goose," he said, dropping his garment bag and giving me a hug. "Hey," I said, hugging him back.
He looked me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a pale yellow T-shirt.
132
"Now I may not know much about fashion, but I have to say I really prefer this to that red dress
of yours."
I shrugged as if I couldn't really see the difference.
He slipped his briefcase off his shoulder and grabbed a hanger out of the closet. "You want to
watch the game tomorrow afternoon?" he asked, hanging up his coat. "I could pick up a pizza. Or
we could pop some of that really disgusting buttery microwave popcorn."
Just then a cab pulled up in front of the house and honked. I could see Madison and Jessica
sitting in the backseat. "Can't," I said. "I'm watching the game over at Connor's."
My dad slid the closet door shut. "You know, I feel a little strange that we haven't even talked
about this new relationship," he said.
I folded my arms across my chest and tapped my foot. I mean, could he not see that my friends
were outside waiting for me? "What do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know," he said. He scratched his head and smiled at me. "Are you okay? Mara says she practically never sees you during the week."
I snorted. That was a good one. Maybe he should have tried asking her why she never saw me
during the week. "I'm fine, Dad," I said.
He put his hand on my shoulder. "That's great," he said, giving me a squeeze. "We just haven't talked in a while, that's all."
The cab honked again. "I really gotta go," I said.
133
"Yeah, sure," he said, but he didn't let go of my shoulder. I had to slip out from under his hand to get to the door.
"Well, maybe we'll watch together on Sunday."
"Yeah, maybe," I said, putting on Connor's jacket and pushing the glass door open.
But I knew I couldn't watch the game with my dad Sunday. I had a ton of work I needed to get
done.
I waved to Madison and Jessica, and hurried toward the cab.
I basically didn't see my dad before he left for San Francisco Sunday night. I didn't see much of
Mara or the Princesses in the days that followed either, which might explain why nobody gave
me a heads-up about the bed that magically appeared in my room sometime between when I left
for school Wednesday morning and when I returned home Wednesday afternoon. It wasn't
exactly my taste--really modern with white Formica drawers and a headboard with odd,
geometric storage spaces, like something you'd see in a futuristic movie from the 1970s--but
beggars can't be choosers, and anyone who's spent eight months sleeping on an air mattress is
definitely a beggar. I went back upstairs to thank Mara, but nobody was home.
The next night Mara and the Princesses and I actually ended up having dinner together. I couldn't
believe it--were there absolutely no movies they wanted to see?
134
No stores they had to empty of merchandise? Not a restaurant open on the North Shore at which
they could dine without having to tolerate my presence?
But within seconds, it became clear why they didn't mind eating with me--it was because they
weren't, really. Mara's Vogue had arrived earlier in the day, as had the Princesses' TeenVogue.
This is something akin to a national holiday here at Casa Norton, and once it had been
established that my jeans were "the wrong brand," no one bothered to talk to me. I ate my pasta
thinking about a Picasso painting Ms. Daniels had shown me earlier in response to my latest (and
lamest) idea for a self-portrait. Called "Large Nude in a Red Armchair," it was a bizarre
rendering of a woman whose head and teeth made her look like an angry horse. Ms. Daniels's
point was that Picasso painted portraits that were simultaneously of people's exteriors and
interiors. "What does Lucy's interior self look like?" she kept asking.
Thinking about your interior self and eating pasta isn't exactly appetizing; as I twirled each
mouthful onto my fork, I imagined the strands of spaghetti were my intestines. I was getting into
the image in spite of its grossness, considering a self-portrait of me eating a plate of my own
organs, which may be why I missed my name being called.
"He- lo!" Princess One looked at me with exasperation. "Earth to Lucy, Earth to Lucy." She rolled her eyes at her sister.
135
"Sorry," I said. "Were you talking to me?"
"No, Lucy, I was," said Mara. She reached over and patted my hand, like I was an untrainable
puppy she was saddled with.
"Sorry," I said again.
"My friend Gail is coming to New York on Saturday, and I've invited her to stay with us for the
week. I was hoping she could stay in your room, and you could stay in the den." She adjusted her
bangs and took a sip of wine.
"Wait," I said, and then because I couldn't formulate a thought, I just said, "What?"
Mara gave me her toothpaste-commercial smile, like we were great friends who often asked tiny
little favors of each other. "I said I was wondering if you'd be willing to let my friend Gail sleep
in your room when she comes on Saturday."
"Why can't Gail stay in the den?" I asked. It seemed pretty strange to me that Mara wasn't
housing her friend in our newly color-coordinated den, especially since during the months when
she was decorating it, I must have had to listen to her use the phrase "convertible sofa bed" ten thousand times.
"The thing is, she's got a back problem, and I hate to ask her to sleep on a sofa bed." Or an air mattress. Suddenly the appearance of my new bed wasn't quite so magical.