Charmed, I'm Sure Page 10

  But Mom and Dad were all excited about a big new contract they’d signed with CynCorp for a new line of CharmingLifestyles.com mirrors, of all things. Tagline: See Your Best Self with the Fairest range of mirrors from CharmingLifestyles.com.

  “We just paid for your college tuition with today’s deal,” Mom says.

  Dad was really proud of Mom, because she’d negotiated the entire deal—and haggled with the CynCorp guys to get higher percentages for the use of the Charming name.

  “Your mom isn’t just a pretty face, Rosamunde,” he said, giving Mom a mushy look as he held hands with her across the table. “She’s a sharp businesswoman, too!”

  “I guess she’s learned from the mistakes she made in those business transactions with Stepgrandma,” I said.

  “Rosie! That was uncalled for,” Dad snapped.

  My mother just looked at me, her blue eyes wide, confused, and . . . hurt.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  But I wasn’t, really. I wanted to hurt her. Because she gave me that stupid jeweled compact, and that’s why I’m in this mess.

  I knew asking my mother for dating advice was a bad idea.

  After tossing and turning most of the night, I’m still angry. So mad that I wear my Converse with one of Phillipe’s outfits, as an act of protest, instead of the ballet flats that are supposed to go with it. Heads are probably exploding on Fifty-Ninth Street at this very moment because of my fashion sacrilege. But it makes me feel better to wear something from my life before the Mirror.

  A ray of morning sunlight filters through my bedroom window and catches the gems on the compact, which is lying on my bedside table, refracting a rainbow of colors around the room. It’s almost . . . magical. Telling myself that this has to be a sign of some kind, I pick up the compact and open it. Mirror Girl stares back it me. I should be totally used to her, but sometimes, even now, I look in the Mirror and have a hard time believing that she’s me.

  Mirror, Mirror, what should I do?

  People say to get rid of you.

  Since you have come into my life

  It has been filled with lots of strife.

  Okay, so asking the Mirror for advice about getting rid of itself probably isn’t the brightest idea I’ve ever had, but the Mirror tells me I’m the Fairest in the Land, not the Smartest.

  Spoiled Princess! How can you so inquire?

  Claiming I, the Mirror, have made your life dire?

  Because of me, you now have a date,

  So cease this complaining, you whiny ingrate!

  Usually the Mirror responds in a quatrain—or is it a quadruplet? Whatever, four lines of poetry. But now it’s so mad at me it’s doubling down. This time I get double the “fun.”

  And while we’re at it, oh please, girl, those shoes!

  Just looking at them gives this Mirror the Blues.

  Has my confidence in you, Rosie, been completely displaced?

  Are you letting your Fairest potential go to waste?

  I shut the compact, just in case the Mirror plans to keep nagging me. Like I don’t already feel bad enough about myself. Besides, it’s time to leave for school.

  From the window of the bus I can see Hunter standing with his soccer buddies in their usual spot. Shouldn’t my pulse start to beat a little faster at the sight of him? Katie was so excited about going to the dance with Quinn. He might be a total jerk, but he’s a jerk that she really likes. Shouldn’t I feel something other than wanting to run in the opposite direction as fast as my beat-up sneakers will take me?

  But there’s a dance on Saturday, and he’s my date, for better or for worse, and Mom says I have to ask him what color flower he wants for his lapel. Personally, I think the boutonniere thing is overkill, but Mom insists it isn’t. Katie was stressing out about flower colors back when we were still talking, so I’m going with the program.

  After getting off the bus, I try taking a deep calming breath before I approach Hunter, but end up inhaling bus fumes and coughing instead of calming. I cough so much, I have to dig a tissue out of my backpack to wipe tears out of my eyes, and as I do, I see Genny Krulinski sidle up to Hunter, smiling. He grins back at her, and by the time I’ve put the tissue in the garbage, they are chatting away.

  Hunter seems to have a whole lot more to say to her than he does to me, I think.

  Maybe it’s because she’s actually interested in the things that he says to her. Maybe it’s because she really likes him, and I . . . don’t.

  Hunter and I don’t have anything in common—the only things we’ve ever talked about are him and that poor girl at Starcups—and I feel bad about doing that.

  I don’t actually want to go to the dance with him, even if it means I don’t go at all, I realize all of a sudden. I’d rather just stay home and watch a movie. Or read a book.

  This decision is going to make the Mirror’s head explode—or it would, if the Mirror actually had a head. But I feel like I’ve just been told I don’t have to take a test I didn’t study for, the relief is so great. Except now I have to figure out how to break the news to Hunter.

  I stress about it all day in school, looking for the right opportunity. His soccer buddies always surround him, or Genny is right there. There’s no easy way to do this, I realize by the end of the day.

  So, I take a deep breath and go up to him as he’s standing by his locker with two guys from the team.

  “Hunter, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” he says.

  “I mean, alone.”

  “Oooooh, alone!” his teammate teases. “How romantic!”

  Hardly, I think.

  Hunter punches him on the arm and tells him to get lost—he’ll meet them out front in five minutes.

  Then he leans up against the locker and says, “So, what’s up?”

  I’ve been waiting to do this all day. But now that I’m looking Hunter in the face, it’s not so easy to do.

  “Hunter, I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “I can’t go to the dance with you.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Okay?

  It’s not like I wanted him to be upset, but I was expecting a little more than “Oh, okay.”

  “Anyway, I was thinking, maybe you should ask Genny Krulinski.”

  Hunter nods.

  “Good idea. Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “I gotta split,” he says. “Practice.”

  “Sure. Have fun.”

  He laughs.

  “‘Fun’ isn’t what I’d call it, but yeah.”

  Genny would know the right thing to say to him about practice instead of “Have fun.” I hope he does ask her. And I’m relieved that I don’t have to go to the dance and spend hours trying to figure out what to say to him.

  I decide to celebrate my decision—and console myself for once again being dateless, even if it is by choice—by treating myself to a large mocha at Starcups. On the way there, I pass the drugstore and catch sight of my reflection in the window. I stop to look, because even after a week, I still don’t think of the girl I see there as me. Maybe it’s time to change that.

  Mom’s not going to like my decision, but I go into the store and head to the hair color aisle. I pick up a box of temporary Purple Haze hair rinse, but decide that might be pushing it. Instead, I pick a color like my hair used to be, before Phillipe and Giacomo did their thing with it. By dinnertime tonight, I hope to feel like my old self.

  When I get to Starcups, I hit the ladies’ room before ordering, and as I wash my hands afterward, I smile at my reflection in the mirror over the sink. At least I know this mirror isn’t going to talk back to me. I’m tired of being berated by a piece of reflective glass.

  Maybe Shrimpy and Harold are right. Maybe I should get rid of the Mirror.

  I take the compact out of my backpack. It’s so beautiful, with its burnished gold casing and gemstones, which even under the dim bathroom lighting glow with an
inner fire. I trace the engraving of Mom’s family coat of arms with my finger and then grab a few paper towels from the dispenser. After wrapping the compact carefully, I take deep breath and throw it in the trash.

  I pick up my backpack and exit the restroom. But before the lady who is waiting with her cross-legged toddler can go in, I turn around and run back in, lock the door, and dig the compact out of the garbage can. Unwrapping it, I wipe it gently with a damp towel and then wash my hands before stowing it safely in the bottom of my backpack.

  It is a family heirloom, after all, given to me by my mother. As much as I hate the thing, I can’t just throw it in the garbage in a public restroom. It’s . . . undignified. Especially for something that old and valuable—even if it is annoying and potentially evil. When I get home, I’ll just give it back to Mom.

  Leaving the restroom, take two. The little toddler is crying that he is going to pee in his pants, and his mom gives me a dirty look as she hurries him into the bathroom.

  I hope he makes it. If he doesn’t, chalk up another misfortune to the Mirror.

  When I get in line to order, I realize the girl Hunter and I insulted is behind the counter taking orders. She’s got the same dark eye makeup she was wearing the other day—and her personality doesn’t seem any happier.

  “What can I get you today?” she asks, giving me the same pained half smile she bestowed on the man in front of me.

  Either the girl doesn’t remember my nasty remark or she didn’t like the guy in front of me too much either. But I remember what I said, and I still feel bad about it.

  “A large skinny mocha,” I say.

  “Name?”

  I open my mouth to give her a fake name, but stop. If I’m going to take back being the real Rosamunde White Charming, it has to start now.

  “Rosie.”

  She calls out my order while writing my name on the cup.

  “That’ll be five dollars and ninety cents,” she says.

  I hand over my money and say, “By the way . . . I’m sorry. For what I said the other day.”

  “What did you say?” she says without even looking up from the register.

  I’m embarrassed to have to repeat it. I don’t want to admit that I said those things.

  “Um . . . I asked Hunter if he would vote for you for Miss Teen America, and he laughed and he said you looked like a crow . . . Then I said something not nice. And . . . I’m sorry.”

  She finally looks at me, still holding my change in her hand.

  “Oh . . . yeah. You were with that tall sports bro, who normally comes in with his soccer crew and orders a big iced mocha.”

  I nod, slowly, my cheeks flushing with remorse.

  “Out of curiosity, what made you decide to apologize to someone you don’t even know?” she asks, dumping the change into my hand.

  “I just felt bad because it . . . wasn’t the real me,” I tell her.

  She looks behind me. The line has started to grow while I’ve been apologizing.

  “Apology accepted, real Rosie,” she says, shrugging, and for the first time a corner of her mouth turns up in what might be the start of the beginning of a smile. Then, turning to the next person in line, she asks, “What can I get you today?”

  I pick up my big skinny mocha, and luckily there’s an empty comfortable chair near the window.

  Looking out, I see an elderly couple walking past—well, more like shuffling, because they’re pretty ancient, and they’re taking tiny little old-people steps. But even though they have white hair and wrinkled faces, they are holding hands as they do their old folks shuffle, and they smile at each other with their eyes.

  That’s what true love looks like, I realize. That’s a real life tale.

  I watch as they cross the street and disappear around the corner, their liver-spotted hands still clasped, and remember the final lines of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 43”:

  I love thee with the breath,

  Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

  I shall but love thee better after death.

  It makes so much more sense to me than Romeo and Juliet killing themselves when they barely knew each other.

  I take out my Language Arts notebook to write down this insight for Mrs. Minnich.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning understood love better than Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe. I don’t think Juliet killed herself because she was so in love—at least not real, true love. She was confused. Everyone kept telling her she had to be beautiful and get married when she was still only a teenager. I mean, she still had a nurse! Then handsome Romeo comes along and starts complimenting her—in iambic pentameter, no less—and he becomes the convenient focus for all of her confusion and longing.

  As for Poe’s “Annabel Lee” narrator—he’s more in love with the idea of Annabel than the girl herself. She becomes the symbol of the joy and innocence of his childhood instead of a real person with thoughts and ideas of her own.

  I hope that’s not how all men think about women when they’re in love. I mean, it’s common (and deeply embarrassing) knowledge that Dad kissed Mom when she was passed out, because he was so overcome by her beauty, but I know for certain that he loves her for deeper reasons now. He always talks about how smart she is, and no one is more proud than Dad when Mom arranges a new deal for CharmingLifestyles.com.

  Even if Mom and Dad might have started off with Shakespeare or Poe love, it’s developed into Elizabeth Barrett Browning love. Mom doesn’t care that her Prince Charming wears readers. She says they make him look brainy and distinguished.

  I can totally see Mom and Dad taking tiny old-people steps off into the sunset, holding hands like the elderly couple I saw on the street. That’s the happily ever after I want.

  “That’s a very heavy sigh. Homework?”

  I look up and see Mystery Shakespeare Boy standing next to the empty chair opposite me, holding a large cup of something hot. He’s wearing a leather jacket and a T-shirt that says I’m Just a Poe Boy from a Poe Family.

  “Not exactly. Just some thoughts on . . .”—I don’t want to say “love”—“poetry.”

  “Huh. Mind if I join you?”

  “Oh, you recognized me this time?”

  A pale wash of pink floods his cheeks.

  “I guess I was a little harsh the other day, huh?”

  “A little. But maybe a little right, too.”

  He leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

  “So . . . at the risk of saying the wrong thing again . . . and possibly being un-PC . . . can I ask what prompted the radical change in appearance in the first place?”

  I don’t want to lie, because I’m trying to be the real me, but I’m not sure I want to tell him the truth either.

  “It’s . . . a long story,” I say, hoping that will be enough.

  “It’s okay. I like stories,” he says, settling back in his chair. “I’m ready when you are.”

  So, I tell him about the Fall Festive—how I didn’t have a date and against all my better judgment, I asked my mother, who runs a beauty and lifestyle website, for advice on how to get one. And she sent me to Phillipe, and I ended up looking like this.

  “It’s not like this is bad,” he says. “It’s just different.”

  “Everything is different now,” I sigh.

  I try to figure out how to explain the situation honestly, but without telling him everything. I don’t want to tell him who my parents are, because that either freaks people out or impresses them a little too much. I definitely don’t want to mention the talking mirror, because then he’ll think I’m completely all-out loco.

  “It’s just that it feels like Mom’s solution to the date problem ended up creating more problems. My two best friends aren’t talking to me, because Katie thinks I flirted with her boyfriend, Quinn, so he would ask me to the dance when he’d already asked her, but I didn’t, I swear,” I tell him, looking into his eyes, pleading for the belief t
hat Katie and Nicole didn’t give me. “Katie’s my best friend. You don’t do that to friends.”

  He shakes his head, and I grip the armrest and look down at my white knuckles. He doesn’t believe me either.

  “No, I can’t see the girl who thought Romeo was an ‘emo drama queen’ who fell in and out of love too easily doing that to her best friend,” he says.

  When I look up at him, he’s smiling at me, and as if to make it seem more like a tale of my own, the sun breaks through the clouds in the sky, sending one of its rays down through the canyon of the New York City buildings and into the window of Starcups to bathe us in its glow. I’m serious. I know it sounds like something corny out of a movie, but it’s true.

  The fact that he believes me gives me the confidence to tell him what’s really bothering me.

  “The worst part of all this is that I don’t like what I see when I look in the Mirror,” I confess. “Well, no . . . It’s not even that. It’s only been a week, but I keep being told I’m supposed to be and do all these different things in order to get a date, and . . . the thing is . . . I’m not sure I know who I am anymore.”

  “I don’t know who you are either,” he says with a wry grin. “You never told me your name.”

  “Oh . . . I’m Rosamunde,” I tell him. “But my friends call me Rosie.”

  “And I’m Benjamin, in case you were wondering,” he says. “But my friends call me Ben.”

  “I’ve been thinking of you as Mystery Shakespeare Boy,” I confess.

  Ben is in the middle of taking a sip of coffee and does a spit take out of his mouth and nose onto his jeans.

  “Nice,” I say, handing him a napkin.

  “Next time, give me a beverage alert if you’re going to say something like that while I’m drinking,” Ben says, cutely flustered as he blots the coffee from his pants.

  “Sorry,” I apologize, but I’m secretly happy to hear him say “next time.”