Princess for Hire

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by Lindsey Leavitt


  Thanks to Celeste’s sabotage, I was a social bottom feeder. She made her life this big sob story, lied and told everyone I’m evil and a backstabber and who knows what else. And everyone believed her because she’s Celeste.

  And I’ve always been kind of different anyway. I don’t try to be, I just am. I listen to big band music instead of country, watch old movies instead of MTV. But even more, I’ve always felt like there was this…pulse, this bigness in me, like I’m permanently hyped up on caffeine or sugar. The buzzing grew and dimmed with my moods, but the feeling was always there.

  I guess that’s why I was anticipating this next year so much. It was a chance for a fresh start. But that would all be spoiled now that Celeste was probably texting everyone my new nickname, something epically unoriginal like Ditzy the Chipmunk Girl.

  A fish stared at me from inside its little fish cottage. Magic. I wanted to believe it, if only until my break ended and my groundhog head went back on, a weighty reminder of who I was.

  Or wasn’t.

  Because I was vapor. Can you get any more invisible than that? Well, I guess complete nothingness would trump vapor, because vapor is still a state of matter. But it’s a gas. It floats around, dispersing everywhere and nowhere. It’s not a solid.

  It makes no impact.

  “Impact,” I said in as solid a manner as I could muster. It was a modest enough desire—not a new pony or a million dollars. Just to be that girl that others wanted to be around. To be seen with. To know. “I wish I was the kind of person who made an impact. Like Grace Kelly. Minus the car wreck.”

  It was stupid, but I snuck a blue rock into the water and glanced at the closed door. All the old Hollywood starlets had it. You watch those movies even now, and their magnetism fills the screen. I mean, even a girl in Idaho decades later understands the last look Ingrid Bergman gave Bogie in Casablanca. So much in just a look.

  If that’s not impact, I don’t know what is.

  “Well?” I asked the fishes.

  In response, they kept on swimming. One snatched some lingering fish food from the surface.

  And nothing else happened. Obviously.

  I was still vapor.

  “Desi!” Drake called. “I think some of the cats are sick. Grab some paper towels and cleaner.”

  I glanced at the remaining rocks in my hand. “And if I don’t get the impact part, I could at least use a more glamorous job.”

  I gave the rest of the rocks one more squeeze and dropped them in. A fish smiled from the doorway of its sparkly, green castle. Can fish smile? Man, I was losing it. A flurry of green bubbles escaped from the castle tower, floating to the top until they pop, pop, popped.

  Chapter

  3

  What I love about my dad: when he picked me up from work that afternoon, he took one look at my still-puffy eyes, and without saying a thing, drove straight to Taco Bell and ordered me two burritos and a gordita with extra baja sauce.

  What I don’t love so much:

  “How was work? Did you listen to your boss? Prove yourself to be a model employee? Did I ever tell you I was Employee of the Region at the shoe store I worked at in high school?”

  “You’ve mentioned it once or twice.” Or every day. Why does my dad always have to go off on his values like that, especially when I’m obviously upset and the last thing want to discuss is my future employment goals? It made my burrito taste like shoes.

  “So?” Dad eased out of the drive-through, his hands at the ten and two position. He’s the only person I know who actually follows the school speed zones. When school is already out for the summer. Just in case.

  I shoved some gooey, beany goodness into my mouth and shrugged. “So what?”

  “Either you’re allergic to your groundhog suit, or you’ve been crying. Bad day?” Worry flashed across his face. “You didn’t get into any sort of trouble, did you?”

  “Work was fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “Well then, what’s wrong, Princess?”

  “Please don’t call me that, Dad.”

  “What? Princess? But you’ve always been my princess.” Dad stopped at a yellow light. The car behind us swerved and honked. He turned around and waved. “What is everyone’s hurry these days?”

  I squirted some hot sauce onto my gordita. “I’m not a princess, all right? More like the palace stable cleaner. I wear a groundhog suit and my forehead is big and Celeste Juniper is such a…Basically, I’m vapor—”

  “Vapor? Desi, what are you talking about? You don’t really think of yourself like that, do you?”

  “Sometimes,” I admitted.

  “First off, you are the most solid girl I know. And I’m sorry you’re experiencing fallout from that trial, but convicting Celeste’s very guilty dad was the right thing to do. It’s sad his choices negatively impacted his family, and, I guess, you too. But I didn’t have a choice. I had to do my job. I had to do what was right. You can understand that, can’t you?” The light turned green and Dad resumed his careful navigation of the only six-lane street in town.

  I did understand. But no one else seemed to. It reminded me of a poster my history teacher had hanging up in her classroom that said “What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.”

  You know what? I should design a new T-shirt tonight. BEING RIGHT IS OVERRATED.

  After we got home, I ran upstairs with the intent to veg. Like, go into a coma, although that wouldn’t be much different from my job, because standing around in a costume is like doing a zombie impersonation anyway. Mom had gone compulsive on my room. After digging my design sketches out of the trash, I unmade my bed and kicked at the carpet’s perfect vacuum lines, my small attempt to make my room look inhabited, because that is the point of a bedroom.

  After I arranged my pillows into a perfect heap, I switched on my favorite movie, Roman Holiday, about a princess who takes a day off. Amazing movie, except for the end, which makes me cry, so I always turn it off early and invent a better ending, usually with more kissing. Anyway, while Audrey Hepburn rode a Vespa through the streets of Rome (tough life, right?), I flipped through my new issue of Teen Vogue: The Royals Edition. There was a delicious picture of Prince Barrett of Fenmar in there, although it would be hard for him not to look delicious with his long and lean body, Scandinavian features, and selfassured smile. I cut it out and added it right next to an old shot of a shirtless Paul Newman on my Wall O’ Awesome Things. I liked to mix some new pics with old Life magazine covers I found online. It took up half my wall and drove my mom NUTS.

  When I’d had enough daydream therapy, I picked up the phone to invite my friend Kylee Malik to my whineand-cheese party (hold the cheese).

  “Desi! Oh my gosh. I’m so glad you called,” she said in one excited breath.

  “Hey to you too. Why are you so giddy?”

  “There’s a new boy! From New Zealand. In Sproutville. His name’s Reed, and he’s a year older. My mom talked to his mom at the farmers’ market. They’re here for some agricultural research thing. But, Desi. You have to see him.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Not yet. Actually, I only saw him from far away because I was at the tomato stand, but if his up-close matches his faraway, then there will be much call to rejoice. Like, hallelujah-angels-singing rejoice.”

  “Oh, well, congratulations.”

  “Congratulations? Okay, you aren’t excited enough. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Well, sort of. It’s…it’s Hayden.”

  “Oh. Hayden.”

  “I saw him today.” My voice cracked. “With Celeste. And Celeste took my head off and…and…” I choked back the tears. “And Hayden saw me in that stupid groundhog costume, and now I have no chance. Plus, Miss Teen Queen Idaho is going to totally blab about this and next year will be even worse than the last two. Seriously, I wish you could have seen his face when she de-headed me. I’m done.”

  “All right. Deep breaths. You can get
through this.”

  I tried to smile through the hysterics. Kylee and I had only started hanging out when she’d made a joke in English about West Side Story and no one laughed but me. She’d always intimidated me a little—she’s super witty and practically a master clarinetist. Plus, she lived in Seattle until last year, which automatically upped her coolness factor. Her parents are from India, and in a town as white as Wonder Bread, she’s too different for the high-maintenance girls (or HMs, as we call them). Unlike me, though, she’d rather eat Winston’s dog chow than hang out with them.

  Anyway, I kind of mentioned I liked Hayden one day, and once it was out and I actually had someone to talk to, I couldn’t stop. But she’d listen, so I hoped next year we’d break into that next level of friendship—where everyone refers to us as “KyleeandDesi,” and we can’t wait to tell each other about every life detail. It’d been forever—well, two years to be exact—since I’d had that.

  I hiccupped and waited for her pity.

  “First off, I want you to know that I think you’re a great, caring person. In fact, sometimes I think you care too much.”

  Dear sweet Kylee.

  “Second, I want a real answer, all right?”

  “Um…what?”

  “Okay, so I don’t want this to sound rude, and I hope we’re tight enough that I can say this without hurting you, but really—why do you even like Hayden? Is it just because he’s hot? I mean, yes, he’s very, very cute, but he’s not really a match for you, you know? He’s totally into sports and not really nice and, well, he seems kind of…stupid.”

  Stupid? What happened to dear sweet Kylee? “Hayden’s not stupid! He’s a word person like me. He plays Boggle. Boggle players have…depth. And he is nice, just a quiet kind of nice. Like he lets his friends cut him in the lunch line. And today, today he said he liked my T-shirt designs.”

  “But is that enough to keep a million-year crush going? To be honest, Des, this Hayden thing is a waste of my phone minutes, and it’s a waste of your life.”

  “This isn’t a thing with Hayden. It’s an…an investment. And I really, really like him.”

  I could almost hear Kylee roll her eyes over the phone.

  “Get real. You need a new guy. A guy like Hayden Garrison will never stop admiring himself long enough to notice you. You’re sweet, smart, and hilarious. You deserve better.”

  It was fine for me to say this, but way out of line for Kylee to dismiss my potential soul mate as a thing. “Sorry I said anything,” I said, clearly not sorry.

  “I’m just trying to help you,” Kylee said.

  “Just forget it, okay?”

  “Hey, I am! And if you can’t see that, then I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  I didn’t answer. The silence turned brutal. Months and months of delicate progress erased in two awkward minutes.

  “I have to go,” Kylee said.

  “Me too.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ll see you tomorr—”

  “Bye.” Click.

  Forget making an impact. Thanks to my big mouth, I was doomed to a solitary life of bottom-feeding dorkdom. I trudged to the bathroom, dumped half a bottle of bubble bath into the tub, and tried not to think about the day’s disasters. In a hot bath, surrounded by bubbles, I could almost picture myself at a spa with celebrity magazines—no, actual celebrities!—where my biggest problem would be picking a massage package, not strategizing ways to erase the Groundhog Debacle from my crush’s memory. Or wondering if I’d ever make a best friend again.

  I let the tub fill while I wandered downstairs to get the newspaper. I needed to find a new job and fast.

  In the kitchen, Mom held Gracie on her hip while she stirred a bowl of organic baby food. It freaked me out how much my mom and sister looked alike, especially because the only maternal physical trait I’d inherited was a double-jointed thumb. They both wore pink sundresses; Gracie’s auburn hair was pulled into pigtails and Mom’s was twisted up.

  No one bought me a matching sundress, not that I’d wear it, especially a pink one. Not my style. But it would’ve been nice if Mom had, you know, offered.

  The newspaper was on the kitchen counter, along with a letter from another pageant organization. Mom was Miss Idaho in college, and she also taught charm classes in our formal living room, a course I failed (“Watch the crumbs, dear. Pinkie up! Don’t frown, you’ll get wrinkles”) while whiz kid Celeste flew through to her first pageant win.

  “They want you to MC another one?” I nodded toward the letter.

  Mom smiled her perfect didn’t-even-need-braces-guessit-was-just-good-genes smile. “Yes, but I think I’ll have to decline. I need to strengthen my connection with Gracie, so we’re enrolling in a Mommy and Me sculpting class.”

  “You know Gracie isn’t even two yet, right?”

  “She’s a toddler. Much of who you become as a person is decided in those early years.”

  “What was I like as a toddler?” I stuck my finger into the baby food. Bananas.

  Mom slapped my hand. “Stubborn, but in a good way. When you were eight months, you decided you wanted to walk. It took you two months and lots of falling to get it, but you never quit. I always thought you’d change the world.”

  I swallowed. Thought. Past tense.

  “So what happened at work today?” Mom asked. “Dad said you were pretty upset.”

  “Oh, nothing. My boss believes his fish tank has mystical powers, and Celeste…came by the store.”

  “I hope you weren’t mean to her, honey. I feel so bad for everything she’s been through.”

  I collapsed against the counter. Everything she’d been through? Yes, being a nasty HM can be quite exhausting. “Mom, you don’t know what she’s like.”

  “Don’t slouch, honey.”

  I automatically rolled my shoulders back.

  She smoothed a hair out of my face. “Now, you’re not going to believe this, but I’ve been there too.”

  “Uh, sure you have.”

  My mom was voted best personality, had a boyfriend every year since she was twelve, and had probably never even gotten a zit. Her version of “there” wasn’t even in the same galaxy as mine.

  “It’s true. I was very close friends with this girl until sixth grade. Then I developed sooner and she started spreading cruel rumors about me. It’s just jealousy.”

  “This isn’t the same. You don’t see it. Like, there’s this boy—”

  “Ba!” Gracie said.

  “Oh my gosh!” Mom laughed.

  “What?”

  “Jeremy, get in here. Gracie stuck her hand in the baby food and called it ‘ba’! She knew it was a banana!”

  Dad zipped in with the video camera just in time to catch Gracie flicking a glob onto Mom’s dry-clean-only dress, and he and Mom squealed their encouragement.

  “She’s brilliant!” Dad kissed Gracie’s chubby cheek. “And the camera loves her already!”

  “She does have presence,” Mom added with pride.

  Gracie held out a pudgy, mush-covered hand to me.

  I stroked her cheek, glad someone was including me. My parents didn’t even notice when I snatched the newspaper and left them to plan my little sister’s future.

  When I got upstairs, the bathwater was close to overflowing. I turned off the faucet and stepped into the tub, making sure to keep my hands and newspaper dry.

  Heaven.

  Well, about ten seconds of heaven before I remembered why I needed to relax. I flipped to the personals first (hey, what did I have to lose at this point?), but all the self-titled Prince Charmings were divorced and fifty. Besides, I’d liked Hayden ever since he’d given up his swing for me in fourth grade. Saw my need and chivalrously left. Granted, he’d run over to the drinking fountain, then wanted the swing back, but that noble act had proven to me that he was Paul Newman and more. And, okay, his looks played a part. A tiny part.

  I flipped to the classifieds page. Ads looking for everything fr
om models to receptionists to library janitors. Maybe I’d find an advertisement for a ridiculously tall teenaged girl with mascot experience. Maybe I could pick apples or pull things off people’s shelves.

  On the next page, one ad popped out instantly. Among the tiny black-and-white posts, this one was written in green loopy cursive and took up half a page. In fact, it was so blinding, I almost dropped the paper in the tub. What kind of ink had they used? For a second, I swore the words shimmered.

  Princess for Hire

  Do you have what it takes to be royalty?

  Wanted: teenage girl to serve as substitute princess. Must be willing to travel.

  Please call Meredith.

  Perfect. The ad was far from specific, but I figured they wanted someone to dress up. Do some parties. Wave a wand and make little girls giggle. I could do that. A princess costume beats the heck out of rodent-wear. And a poofy dress would cover up my bird legs. Show off my waist. Ooh, maybe I’d get a tiara and a wig. A blond bob like Marilyn Monroe! Then I wouldn’t care if Hayden Garrison saw me at work. In fact, I’d be ecstatic for Hayden to see me in that getup.

  Plus, I’d always secretly had this thing for princesses. Think of it. Ordinary girls, like Cinderella, who have all these great qualities no one notices except the mice. Or Sleeping Beauty, who is fair and pure and doesn’t even know she’s a princess! Snow White—well, Snow White kind of confuses me, actually—but even ol’ Snow is able to escape from laundry duty. Sure, the stories aren’t exactly feminist battle cries, but still it’s sweet how the prince just knows she’s the one. And after that, everything changes, everything is wonderful, and the girl goes from a nobody to the biggest somebody in the kingdom.

 

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