Trying to Float

by Nicolaia Rips

  As the door closed, Smiley spun her chair, pinning Rapunzel against the wall.

  “Where’d you take my electricity?”

  “I don’t know,” cried Rapunzel. “I want to go home.”

  “Me too,” added Cinderella.

  “You all have nice homes,” barked Smiley. “No one sneaks in at night and steals your heat. You don’t have to sleep in a lawn chair at the front door to catch them.”

  Mulan looked mystified. “Who’s stealing your heat?”

  Smiley’s mouth twisted. “They don’t leave calling cards.”

  The people in the hotel understood that Smiley would accuse each of them, over the years, of stealing her paintings, along with her electricity, her jewelry, and her thoughts. Despite this, the people in the Chelsea liked her and she liked them.

  The elevator doors opened onto the sixth floor, and the princesses ran out.

  My mom and I had set a long table for dinner. There was an ironed lace tablecloth, which had been my grandmother’s, flowers, candles, music, and four courses, with plenty of cakes and pies, served by a waiter from El Quijote, the Spanish restaurant in the lobby. I had been inspired by the ball scene in Cinderella.

  The girls calmed down, and everything seemed back on track.

  My chair was at the head of the table, where Mom placed a pillow to give the effect of a throne. When the princesses took their seats, I knew the banquet was a success. The princesses would go to school the next day and tell their friends, and they would tell their friends. Girls would beg me for an invitation.

  Halfway through the dinner, there was a knock at the door. Mother opened it.

  “I apologize for the interruption, but is your husband at home? I could use a word or two.”

  El Capitan.

  But wasn’t the Capitan’s visit that evening the most brilliant luck? Who better to drop in on the Princess Banquet than a man in uniform with a foreign accent.

  “He’s visiting his mom in Omaha, but when he returns, I’ll tell him to find you.”

  The door began to close. But I was determined not to let the Capitan get away.

  “Capitan, there are some princesses I would like you to meet.”

  “I am certain that the Capitan has many things to do. And now is not a good time for him,” Mom insisted.

  “Princesses?” the Capitan responded from the door. “I have known a few in my day, so it would not surprise me if I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting one or two of your guests.”

  “But Capitan . . . ” my mother began.

  The Capitan entered the Princess Banquet.

  A gasp from the princesses.

  The Capitan was not in his uniform. The Capitan was not in anything—save his briefs.

  His black hair, usually combed tight against his scalp, was off in various directions; his monocle was cracked and dangling around his neck; and his right arm was red and swelling.

  “Good evening, Your Highnesses.”

  Rapunzel wheezed, “Please. I want to go home!”

  “And I would like to go home as well, my dear princess, but it has been desecrated. The Lady Hammersmith, my beloved, has not been right in the head, which is why I need to visit with the man of the house, my advisor. A magnificent example of pomposity!”

  “Lady Hammersmith or my father?” I asked, though I probably knew the answer.

  “Why, your father: an ass of the most excellent sort.”

  Mother, who was now setting a place for the Capitan, glanced at his arm.

  “The hospital?”

  “No. I am not seriously injured, though I might well have been. While Lady Hammersmith’s intentions were not clear, her first blow with the ax brought down the canopy of my bed, bruising my head and raising me from my sleep. But for this, I am not certain what would have happened.”

  “An ax?” I asked.

  “A francisca to be exact—acquired from an antiquarian in the south of France,” he reflected.

  “And the bed?” my mother called, now back in the kitchen.

  Mother had always admired that bed. Set in the middle of the Capitan’s apartment, it was over two hundred years old and, according to the Capitan, made of the finest wood in the Far East.

  “Kindling.”

  With that, Mother began slicing the cakes and pies for the princesses, though none of them seemed hungry.

  Minutes before, I’d imagined future dinners with my many new friends, also with flowers, cakes, pies, and ice cream. But that picture was toppling, shaken by what I knew the princesses would be saying the next day about me and the place where I lived.

  As the princesses left the apartment, the Capitan bowed to each, his mood improved by the cake.

  My mood, however, could not have been improved.

  I didn’t understand the girls’ reaction to my home. I’d lived at the Chelsea all my life. The bickering Crafties amused me. I was worried for Smiley, not scared. And as to the Capitan, he and Lady Hammersmith would make up over lobster and cocktails at El Quijote, as they always did.

  I discovered a new emotion that evening—embarrassment.

  I was embarrassed by Stormé and Smiley and the Crafties and everyone else who had been kind to me. The Chelsea Hotel was no longer a shining castle, it was a crumbling outpost of outcasts, outbursts, and failure. Those I loved weren’t captains, knights, and ladies, they were addicts and cripples and prostitutes. From that day on I dreaded becoming like them. I strived to distance myself and to fit in elsewhere.

  That day I learned I had to keep my Chelsea Hotel to myself. I was ashamed.

  MY FRIEND FAN

  “YOUR MOOD HAS changed, and I’m worried,” my mother greeted me as I came through the door.

  “Nonsense. Couldn’t be cheerier.”

  “You can’t fool me. You’re in a bad state.”

  “It could be the gout.”

  “Little girls don’t have gout.”

  “Dad had gout when he was a teenager.”

  “He is a man of singular achievements. What you need is someone you can talk to about your problems.”

  To be honest, I was still upset over the business with the princesses. And while I would normally share my troubles with the Crafties, I didn’t really want to see them. I avoided the lobby as much as possible.

  “I’ll find someone at school,” I said weakly.

  My mother became determined to find me a friend. If you had asked my parents why I didn’t have any, they would have said that because I had difficulty learning to read and write, I was treated as a “special” kid, spending most of my school time in individual instruction and not with my class. Given my reputation for being retarded, she knew it was going to take them awhile to find a friend for me.

  In the meantime, my parents bought me a few steps down from human interaction: a hamster. They knew I loved Hammie (Artie’s hamster) and thought I’d enjoy one of my own.

  The hamster I picked was white and fluffy and I named her Cream Puff. Appropriate to her appearance, she had a sweet personality. I kept her cage in my room and each day would feed her, change her water, and take her for walks.

  Taking her for “walks” was complicated. Cream Puff, being no more than a couple inches long, could easily disappear into crevices of the hotel and there encounter all sorts of dangerous things.

  The answer to this problem was the hamster ball. Unscrewing the top, I inserted Cream Puff into the translucent sphere and then screwed the top back on the ball. Placing it on the floor, Cream Puff would run in one direction or another, the ball rolling with her, protecting her from other animals and making certain that she did not crawl out a door or window or into the walls.

  I would take Cream Puff into the hallway and let her run around. Since the hallways in the Chelsea are long and wide, it proved great fun for Cream Puf
f. I imagined that from inside the ball, the world whirled by in spinning flashes of light and color—like rolling inside a kaleidoscope. Cream Puff became my happiness, and I could be found sitting in the hallway for hours watching her roll around and around.

  —

  To add to the riches, halfway through the year, my parents found a girl who would be my friend—Fan O’Malley.

  Fan was clever and sunny and, more important from my parents’ point of view, she showed unusual concern for other kids, always asking questions about what was going on in their lives and being helpful to them when needed. Unlike the other kids in the school, Fan was not all knotted up about where she was going to middle school. The reason for this, it seemed to me, was pretty straightforward: if you were born in rural China, lived in a Chinese orphanage, and then forced to adapt to life in New York City, middle schools don’t seem all that important.

  —

  Fan and I started hanging out together, and to my surprise, everything I had perceived about her was true: Fan was kind to others and was always there to listen and give good advice. On top of this, she had her own paper shredder. Shredding paper in Fan’s bedroom became a favorite pastime of mine.

  One day while Fan watched as I shredded paper, I asked her if she wanted to join me. She said no. She just felt happy that others were enjoying themselves, knowing that the shredder was there in case she ever needed it.

  That’s the kind of kid Fan was.

  THE TRAITOR REVEALED

  AS I MENTIONED, Rebecca was a stickler for the rules. Anyone who was late to class, as I was that day, risked being thrown out. I was late because my dad had decided to jump behind the counter and show the neighborhood barista how to make a proper espresso.

  Hurrying up the six flights of stairs to my classroom and mulling over the excuses I might offer, I decided to play it cool. Say nothing, I thought, and take your seat. Appear detached and bored. No need to apologize. Today, I was going to stand up to her.

  “It is not my fault I’m late!” I shouted out as soon as I entered the classroom.

  But when I glanced at Rebecca, I was surprised at what I saw: the always taut and tidy Rebecca held her face in her hands.

  I felt a bold tap on my shoulder; turning around, I came face to face with Beatrice Bendel, a Sri Lankan girl.

  She plopped in the chair next to me and started to whisper.

  I tried to brush her off, but Beatrice refused. And it was a good thing, for when I finally paid attention, I heard this:

  “. . . and then created a Gmail. And you know what else, the police think that it’s the parent of someone in our class! I think it’s David’s dad; he always hated Rebecca—especially when she called David a dope. What do you think?!”

  I told her that I’d need a few more details.

  Beatrice came through:

  Just after we’d all submitted our applications for middle school, Jessie’s mom, one of the parents who had been included in Rebecca’s secret circle, took Rebecca aside to thank her for her help. According to my father, their conversation went something like this:

  “Rebecca, I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you did for us.”

  “You’re welcome, but it’s what I try to do for all the kids . . .”

  “Rebecca, I am sure about that, but we would never have thought of sending our daughter to middle school in Staten Island without you.”

  “Staten Island?”

  Jessie’s mother had been around the block, and what she saw on Rebecca’s face was the look of a person who had just experienced something utterly repulsive. As if Jessie’s mom had dumped red wine all over Rebecca’s Chanel suit.

  But as horrible as this was for Rebecca, it was worse for Jessie’s mom, since it was now obvious to her that the person with whom she had been communicating about her daughter’s applications to middle school was not Rebecca. And if not, then who?

  Another teacher? A parent? Someone who hated her child?

  —

  The principal spent days attempting to find Fake Rebecca. But no luck.

  The principal appealed to Fake Rebecca to come forward through an announcement on the loudspeakers, but that didn’t work either.

  He called the police.

  The police seized computers and interrogated teachers, parents, and administrators. The police had profilers analyze Fake Rebecca.

  A couple weeks later, the police issued their report. What they discovered was that Fake Rebecca was not in touch with just a handful of parents, but with every parent in the class, proposing to each that they should send their children to generally obscure middle schools, often not in the borough of Manhattan and few being a school that anyone (especially Rebecca) would recommend.

  The police also reported that Fake Rebecca was most likely the parent of a student or former student of Rebecca’s—­someone who was irritated at how Rebecca had treated their child. Though it was a good theory, it didn’t narrow the suspects, given the number of parents whom Rebecca had irritated over the years.

  The e-mails from Fake Rebecca were so convincingly in the words and tone of Rebecca that it had to be an adult. Also, Fake Rebecca was having daily e-mail exchanges with large numbers of people; only an adult with time during the day could have pulled it off. Someone who was self-employed, a writer or freelance editor, for example.

  It occurred to me that it might be you-know-who. But I dismissed the thought: Fake Rebecca required too much energy for my father to sustain over anything more than a couple hours on a nice afternoon with a gin and tonic.

  However, the worst news for any parents that had actually taken Fake Rebecca’s direction had yet to arrive. It was too late to change the selections.

  While the parents were dealing with this shock, Sherry Wisenhower, a well-liked girl in my class, came forward to report that someone had created a fake e-mail address for her and was sending insulting messages to kids in the class. Those kids, assuming the e-mails were from Sherry, had turned on her.

  Sherry’s mom noticed what she believed to be similarities in the language used by the Sherry Impersonator and Fake Rebecca. From this, she concluded that they were one and the same.

  This led Sherry’s mom (Mrs. Wisenhower) to write this letter:

  Dear Rebecca,

  I believe Fan is the one who was pretending to be you. The reason I think it’s Fan is because Fan is a mean girl. She pretends like she’s not, but she is.

  Yours sincerely,

  Mrs. Amy Wisenhower

  For the Wisenhowers, Fan, who had started out as an itch in the third grade, had become a full-blown rash by fifth, with the Wisenhowers doing whatever they could to promote their daughter at Fan’s expense.

  A day or two later, Amy received Rebecca’s response:

  Dear Ms. Wisenhower,

  Though I appreciate your efforts to find the person who has been impersonating me, it troubles me that you should think it is Fan, who, as everyone knows, is extremely smart and seems to always have the best interests of her classmates in mind.

  If you should have any other ideas, please let me know. We are all concerned about getting to the bottom of this.

  Sincerely,

  Rebecca

  P.S. Please tell me why you think Fan is a “mean girl.” That is not a very nice thing to say about someone.

  The response was immediate.

  Dear Rebecca,

  Why is Fan a mean girl?! Well, when Sherry tells other kids about her grades (which you know are always very high), Fan gets angry and says that she has higher grades than Sherry and that Sherry’s parents have the money to pay for tutors. That is why I told Sherry to stop having anything to do with Fan.

  Yours,

  Mrs. Amy Wisenhower

  If anyone was ever curious about the intelligence of the Wisenhowers, they would not need t
o search much beyond Mrs. Wisenhower, who was actually sending the above e-mails to the Fake Rebecca. Mrs. Wisenhower caught wind of this only when the last e-mail bounced back. The e-mail account of the Fake Rebecca had been shut down.

  I could hear the sound of the paper shredder.

  —

  The police detective who interviewed Fan told the principal that he’d “interrogated Mafia capos who were harder to break.” But Fan eventually confessed. And with that confession came the explanation for what she’d done.

  Fan, who, unknown to anyone, wanted to attend a particular and very selective middle school, determined that, given the nature of the computer program that the city used in selecting middle schools, it would be to her advantage if the other students in our class listed middle schools outside of Manhattan as their first choice.

  The rest was easy: pick the teacher whom parents were most likely to trust on the question of middle schools (Rebecca); let these parents believe that they were the only ones whom Rebecca chose to assist; and then complete the deception by including in the e-mails the sort of demands that were typical of Rebecca—bring cupcakes to the school, return library books, spring off the toilet when necessary.

  When Fan was finally exposed, the reaction against her was so extreme (certain parents threatened to kill her) that Fan and her parents were placed in what was essentially an elementary school protection program. Their addresses, e-mails, and telephone numbers were changed, and Fan was relocated to a school in Chinatown, where the Caucasian parents would have trouble finding her.

  If I am being entirely honest here I must confess to having half-suspected that it was Fan all along, but what was I going to do? Snitch on one of my few real friends?

  Rebecca, disgusted with the whole affair and insulted that people would mistake her for anyone as devious as Fake Rebecca, left the school and quit teaching altogether.

  You may be wondering what happened to me. The answer is that when Fan went to contact my mother via e-mail, Fan misspelled her name.

  After Fan’s e-mail to my mother bounced back, Fan tried my father’s e-mail. That went through, but it made no difference, since he hadn’t checked his e-mail in years. So Fan was never able to reach my parents, and I put in my choices unaffected by Fake Rebecca.