Fairest of Them All Read online

  “Oh, okay. Now I get it,” Matt says, obviously relieved. “That’s cool.”

  I go up to get poster board and scissors. Nina grabs a stack of magazines and glue for the both of us. Then we rummage through a plastic crate of fabric scraps that Ms. Amara has behind her desk. Dakota grabs a scrap of silk camo fabric that looks like trees in a wood.

  “You can take the boy out of the woods, but you can’t take the woods out of the boy,” Nina jokes.

  “Like you’re one to talk,” Dakota says, looking at the mossy-green velvet scrap she has in her hand.

  “Busted,” I say, smiling at both of them.

  “Dakota, this is Aria,” Nina says. “She says I’ll get used to the street noise eventually.”

  “I hope so,” Dakota says. “Nina keeps waking me up complaining that she can’t sleep,” he tells me. “I mean, what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “You’re my twin!” Nina says. “You’re supposed to sense my feelings and stuff.”

  “That’s hocus-pocus, not science,” Dakota says. “Just read a book or go get a drink of milk or something, and let me sleep, okay?”

  There are plenty of times I’ve wished I weren’t an only child. Now is not one of them.

  Dakota and Matt come to sit at the same table, and we have a great time comparing pictures we’re cutting out for our boards. I manage to wield a pair of sharp scissors without any damage to myself or anyone around me, which goes to show that my parents are way overprotective and need therapy to work out the trauma of their past before they mess me up, too.

  My mood board has pictures of famous people like Beyoncé, Natalie Portman, and Reese Witherspoon wearing purple dresses; pieces of purple, silver, and white fabric; and a scrap of turquoise lace I found at the bottom of Ms. Amara’s crate. I’ve also pasted a quote that’s attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

  “What’s with all the purple?” Dakota asks. “Do you have royal aspirations or something?”

  I hesitate, wondering if I should tell him that I don’t need to aspire—that I’m a Princess of the Blood Royal, something my parents and grandparents remind me of every time I don’t stand up straight or don’t dress well or use a bad word. But being Sleeping Beauty’s daughter comes with a lot of baggage—especially in a situation where there are sharp things everywhere.

  I decide to keep mum for now.

  “No, purple’s my favorite color, that’s all.”

  But then I wonder why it’s my favorite color. Is it in my royal DNA or something?

  My parents and grandparents always give me a hard time because I just want to be a normal kid. “Why try to pretend you aren’t a princess?” Dad asks constantly. “Be proud of who you are.”

  “Can’t I be a princess and normal at the same time?” I ask him.

  “Not if your mother is anything to go by” is his favorite quip.

  Rim shot.

  But even though he jokes about Mom, he couldn’t be more proud of the way she turned a bad experience into a positive, using Grandpa Thibault’s party-planning faux pas as a springboard to create a successful business.

  When we’ve finished our mood boards, Ms. Amara tells us to sketch some pieces that the board inspires.

  “Then next week we’ll create a pattern and start transforming your design into couture,” she says.

  As the sketch of a purple skirt takes shape under my pencil, excitement blossoms within me like the roses on the thorny briars surrounding the castle where Mom took her one-hundred-year nap.

  “I can’t wait till next week,” Nina says. “When we get to make the ideas we’ve drawn on paper come to life.”

  “I know,” I say. “But I’m even more excited for when we finally get to wear them!”

  Chapter Three

  “HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME of chess?” Dad asks me on Sunday morning. “Do you think Chess Club has prepared you to beat Prince Daddy-O yet?”

  I’ve been trying to force myself to do one chess tutorial a day, just in case of this eventuality, but there’s no way I’m ready to play Prince Daddy-O, much less beat him.

  “Um . . . not today,” I say. “I’ve got too much homework.”

  This isn’t any truer than me going to Chess Club. I mean, I do have homework, but not so much that I couldn’t spend an hour playing a game with my dad. If it were any other game than chess, I’d be fine with it: Scrabble, Monopoly, gin rummy. Anything but chess—because if we play that, he’ll see that I’m just as bad at it as I was before, and wonder why.

  So I end up piling on one lie to cover up the other. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” That’s what Sir Walter Scott says—or, more accurately, said. He’s one of those long-dead poets who summed things up well.

  But I can’t help noticing the disappointed look my tangled web of deception leaves on Dad’s face. He and Mom were out late working this fancy gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last night. It was one of Enchanted Soirées’ biggest parties of the year—they’ve been planning it practically since the day after the last one finished.

  Following a night of heavy prince duties, Dad likes his family time. So I slump onto the sofa next to him, careful not to disturb our fourteen-year-old corgi, Mozart.

  “How did it go last night?” I ask.

  “Without a hitch,” Dad says with a proud smile. “Your mom’s the best in the business.”

  “Did you bedazzle them with your princely splendor?”

  Dad laughs.

  “Oh yeah,” he says. “A royal uniform, a chest full of medals, and a ceremonial sword—nothing like it to set the hearts of Manhattan socialites aflutter.”

  “But you don’t want to set them aflutter, for reals?” I ask, stroking Mozart’s ear and carefully avoiding looking Dad in the eye. “You and Mom are always going to live happily ever after, right?”

  “Of course we are, Aria,” Dad says. I meet his eyes and he looks puzzled. “How could you think otherwise? You know the prince thing is just my party trick to help business. I do it because Enchanted Soirées is important to Rose, and you and Rose are the most important people in the world to me.”

  “Yeah. I know,” I mumble. Mozart raises his head and puts his graying muzzle on my knee.

  “So what’s all this about, then?” Dad asks.

  “Nothing really,” I say. “It’s just . . . we’ve got these new kids in school. Twins. They moved here from western Canada, some place in the boonies. They have to live with their aunt because their dad got remarried, and it’s hard ’cause they’re used to living in the woods.”

  “From the backwoods of Canada to the middle of Manhattan? I can see how that would be a pretty big culture shock,” Dad says. “It took your mom and me a while to get used to living here too. But Grandpa Thibault probably had the hardest adjustment of all.”

  “Why him?”

  Dad laughs.

  “Well . . . let’s just say that it took him a while to get used to the concept of democracy,” he says. “When you’re used to ruling your own kingdom and then a New York cabbie starts telling you where to go because you didn’t give him a big enough tip—”

  “Ohmigosh, I can’t imagine what Grandpa would do!”

  “I’ll tell you what happened,” Dad says. “First Grandma Althea hit the poor cabbie with her handbag while asking him if he knew he was addressing THE KING, then Grandpa Thibault threatened to have him flogged for insolence.”

  It’s totally wrong of me to laugh at the thought of my grandparents threatening violence to a New York cabbie, but it’s like a scene from a really bad comedy starring my relatives.

  “Oh no . . . they didn’t.”

  “Oh yes . . . they did,” Dad continues. “Then the cabbie called Grandpa a sicko and called the police. Mom and I had to bail the pair of them out of the Thirteenth Precinct.”

  “Wait. You had to bail Grandma and Grandpa out of jail?”
/>   “We did indeed. When Mom and I got there, Grandpa was shouting about how poor the conditions were, compared to the dungeons in his castle, and did they know who they were dealing with?”

  “What about Grandma?”

  “She was going on about how the mayor would hear about it and they would all lose their badges.”

  My grandparents, the ex-cons. Who knew?

  “You think Mom and I embarrass you, Aria? You’ve got it made in the shade compared to what we’ve had to put up with.”

  “Maybe. Just don’t ever say ‘made in the shade’ in public, okay?”

  “Okay. I will put it in the Uncool Folder,” Dad says, taking my hand. “Listen, sweetheart. Don’t ever worry about your mom and me. We plan to live out our fairy-tale ending, right to the very end, okay?” He gives my hand a reassuring squeeze and smiles. “Do you want some pancakes?”

  How can I say no to that? We end up watching The Princess Bride for what must be the three hundred eighty-seventh time. But I don’t care. It’s one of my favorite movies, and at least I get out of playing chess.

  On Tuesday after school, Nina and I head to Sew Many Options in the Garment District to buy fabric for our project. Ms. Amara helped us estimate roughly how much we’d need. Good thing I have some allowance saved up so I don’t have to ask Mom and Dad for money. Sophie tags along, even though she’s more into coding than couture.

  The store is long and narrow, and shelves go from floor to ceiling, holding bolts of fabric. I don’t even know how we’re supposed to see stuff, much less choose. An older lady, who is barely five feet tall, with white hair and cat-eye glasses perched on the top of her head, asks, “Do you young ladies need any help?”

  “We’re looking for fabric,” Nina says.

  The lady gestures to the wall-to-wall shelves of the stuff. “Looks like you came to the right place.”

  She says it with a wry smile, but Nina obviously isn’t used to dry humor. She starts flushing and looks upset, like she thinks the lady dissed her. I jump in to smooth things over.

  “We’re in the Couture Club at school. I’ve designed this skirt. . . .” I whip out my cell and show her a picture I took of my sketch.

  “Hold on, I need my glasses to look at that,” the lady says. “The perils of old age.”

  She goes back to the register desk and starts shuffling papers around.

  “Um . . . I think your glasses are on your head,” I remind her.

  She reaches her hand up and touches them.

  “Why, so they are! Thank you!”

  After placing the readers on the end of her nose, she comes back over and leans in close to look at my skirt.

  “I wanted to get purple fabric for the skirt, with a turquoise lining. What do you recommend?”

  “Interesting design,” she says. “And I love the contrast lining and lace detail. Bold choice of colors. You’ve got an eye, young lady.”

  I feel a warm flush of pride. “Thanks,” I mumble. She must see a lot of people come in here looking for fabric, so her compliment means a lot.

  “Let me see. . . . My suggestions would be a poly cotton or, if you want something more autumnal, a wool blend. And for the lining, maybe a silk charmeuse or a Bemberg rayon.”

  She leads me down the long row. “Poly cottons are up here on your right. Wool blends are on the lower two shelves on your left, on the next set of shelves. Silks are farther down on the right.”

  I start going through the wool blends while Nina explains that she’s making a shift dress and wants something green and natural that reminds her of trees, because she misses the forests of Canada where she grew up.

  “Chiffon for you,” the lady says. She tells us her name is Mrs. Wildvogel. “That means ‘wild bird’ in German, Miss Forest Girl. And let me tell you, I was a wild bird in my day.”

  “Hard to believe now,” Sophie whispers to me.

  But I disagree. She might have white hair and liver spots on her wrinkled hands, but her brown eyes dance in a way I bet she wishes her feet still could.

  I find purple-and-black jacquard wool that’s perfect for my skirt. I can see myself in it now, with a pair of black tights and cool boots. Then I search out the silk charmeuse. It’s more expensive, so I decide to go with the Bemberg rayon.

  “What do you think of this?” Nina calls out. She shows us green chiffon with a pattern of tiny leaves.

  “That’s so you,” Sophie says.

  “Definitely. It has Forest Girl written all over it,” I tell her.

  Mrs. Wildvogel approves of our choices and helps us with yardage and notions. She even gives us a student discount for showing our school IDs.

  “Come back to show me your finished garments,” she says.

  We promise to do that, and also to tell the rest of Couture Club about the student discount.

  Before taking the bus back to the East Side, we stop in at a nearby coffee shop for a snack. After we sit down, I start trying to stuff my fabric bag into my backpack.

  There’s no way it’ll all fit in the backpack with my books.

  “What am I going to do?” I ask Sophie. “Walking into the apartment with a bag from Sew Many Options would totally blow my cover.”

  Nina looks confused.

  “What do you mean, blow your cover?” she asks.

  “You don’t know about Aria’s parents?” Sophie says.

  “No,” Nina says. “What about them?”

  “Aria, I think you should take it from here,” Sophie says.

  So I have to tell Nina that I’m Sleeping Beauty’s daughter, and how because of that, my parents are . . . well, the way they are. So I’ve had to come up with a cover story to attend Couture Club.

  “And that’s why I can’t walk in with a bag from a fabric store. Because then they’ll know I lied.”

  “I can take your fabric home and bring it on Thursday,” Nina says. “That way, you don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “That would be awesome!”

  “No problem!” she says.

  “A problem shared is a problem solved,” Sophie says.

  She’s right. Maybe I should do it more often.

  It’s like a more fashionable version of show-and-tell at the beginning of Couture Club as we let everyone else see the fabrics we picked out for our projects. But Ms. Amara doesn’t let us sit around for too long.

  “We don’t have a lot of time to get these made, so start cutting. But don’t rush it. Be careful. Slow and steady wins the race.”

  It’s hard to be patient and do every step slowly, because I want to see my sketch as a real garment—and more importantly, wear it. But Ms. Amara keeps reminding us, “As you sew, so you shall rip.” She says that we have to take the time to get it right so that what we make lasts.

  I have other considerations: If I rush things, there’s a higher risk of pricking my finger. It’s not like I actually believe my parents’ mumbo jumbo about needle danger. I’m a Modern Twenty-First-Century Girl. I’m all about critical thinking and science, things that can be proven. Spells and enchantments? They’re the stuff of the old tales from Once Upon a Time. But still . . . better safe than sorry, right?

  I manage to pin the pattern to the fabric with oh-so-sharp pins and cut it with those super-dangerous scissors without doing myself any deathly injuries. I am woman, watch me slice and dice!

  Even when I use the sewing machine to sew seams of the lining and the skirt, it goes off without a hitch or a scratch. My future as a fashion designer is looking brighter by the minute.

  I’m sewing one of the fasteners on by hand when I accidentally prick myself with the needle.

  “Ow!” I exclaim, and look in horror as a dot of dark-red blood wells from the pad of my thumb. Some of it drips onto the purple-and-black fabric. “No!”

  “What’s the matter?” Nina asks.

  “I pricked my finger,” I tell her. “Okay, this is going to sound totally weird, but . . . if I suddenly fall as
leep, can you call my parents?”

  “Why would you suddenly— Oh,” Nina says, remembering our conversation from the other day and realizing why a thumb prick might equal sudden sleepiness.

  “I mean, I’m sure nothing will happen,” I say, hoping she doesn’t notice the wobble of uncertainty in my voice. “That stuff all happened Once Upon a Time. This is just a regular needle. Nothing enchanted about it.”

  I’m not sure if I’m trying to reassure Nina or myself.

  “Of course!” she agrees, but her brow is furrowed and I see her quickly glance at the wall clock and back at me, as if she’s counting down the seconds it might take for me to collapse into sleep for the next century.

  We both stare at the drop of blood on my thumb. I feel my heart beating faster than the second hand on the clock. What if my parents were right? Looking on the bright side, at least I’ll be asleep, so I won’t have to hear them say, “We told you so.”

  After a minute, Nina asks, “Are you feeling sleepy?”

  She sounds like Kaa from The Jungle Book.

  “No, so far so good.”

  After two minutes go by and I’m still wide awake, we look at each other and start laughing.

  “Not even a teensy-weensy bit tired?” Nina asks.

  “Nope. If anything, I’m hyper!”

  To prove it, I get up and dance over to the sink to wash the blood off my thumb.

  “What got into you?” Matt asks.

  “I’m just happy, that’s all,” I say. “And AWAKE!”

  Matt glances over at Dakota, who is sewing a seam on his urban-camouflage tuxedo vest.

  “Dakota, Aria says she’s happy because she’s awake at four thirty in the afternoon. Do we have an official ruling that girls are weird?”

  Ms. Amara, who overhears Matt as she walks back to her desk, lifts her travel mug of coffee. “If it weren’t for coffee, I’m not sure I’d be awake at four thirty in the afternoon,” she says, winking at me. “There’s nothing weird about that.”