Isabella for Real

by Margie Palatini

  “See . . . here’s the thing, Frankie . . . if it weren’t for those videos of me being me going viral, it wouldn’t really matter that I’d told a couple of little fibs to Emory, Oakleigh, and Anisha . . . right?

  “I mean . . . all I did was let them think what they were already thinking. What’s so wrong about that? I only wanted them to like me. And they did. They do. They really like that other Isabella. Frankie? . . . Excuse me, but yawning in my face is extremely rude. And stinky.”

  He rolls over, curls his toes, and stretches his back legs. He blinks, stands up, and jumps off the bed.

  “Hey, wait a minute, Tuna Fish Face,” I say, watching him head for the door. “Frankie? . . . Where are you going?”

  Things are not looking good when your own cat walks out on you.

  11:36 a.m.

  Scene 10/TAKE 1

  “Isabella! Wherever you’re hiding, listen up: Interview with Access Today this afternoon. It’s all set. Be at my house one o’clock.”

  Interview with me? Being me? As in the real me?

  Not happening. I can’t have one more picture of my face plastered somewhere else before I get a chance to explain to my friends why I did what I did.

  Of course, I haven’t thought of what a good explanation of that would be just yet.

  11:37 a.m.

  Scene 10/TAKE 2

  “One o’clock, Isabella! Be there or I’m coming to get you. And you know I’ll find you.”

  He’s not lying. I was never able to fool him when we played hide-and-seek. Of course, Vincent has eight years on me and back then I was only four. I would think by now I should be able to come up with a hiding place less obvious than under the kitchen table or rolled up in one of Aunt Rosalie’s afghans.

  I hope.

  “Did you hear me?”

  I’ve got to get out of here. And fast. I can’t do interviews. I have to figure out how to unfib six weeks of whoppers before school starts Monday morning and I come face-to-face-to-face with Emory, Oakleigh, and Anisha.

  11:39 a.m.

  Scene 11/TAKE 1

  I smell onions and peppers.

  I’m making a run for it.

  That aroma coming up the stairs means second helpings, which means it’s a no-brainer Vincent is in the basement stuffing an egg sandwich into his mouth, and nowhere near the bottom of the stairs. It’s my best chance to break out through the kitchen door.

  (I ruled out the window. A trellis is pretty much essential when you’re dropping from anywhere higher than the first floor, and I’m kind of iffy about shimmying down the drainpipe. Last year in gym class I aced rope climbing going up but was never quite A material on the way down.)

  The new plan is not only simpler and safe—it’s also totally foolproof. As Aunt Rosalie says when she boils water, “easy peasy.”

  In this house eating is a very noisy activity. If chewing were an Olympic sport, my family would win gold. Plus, fresh rolls from Manuchi’s Bakery are very, very crunchy. With all the chewing, crunching, and burping, not counting other emissions from Uncle Babe, no way any of them will be hearing me on the stairs, escaping out the back door, or heading across the driveway to hide out at Aunt Minnie and Auntie Ella’s house. Those two talk more than question, and only hear half the answers.

  Besides, I am starving, and nobody feeds you like Aunt Minnie.

  Don’t tell Nonni I said that.

  11:40 a.m.

  Scene 12/TAKE 1

  On the Stairs

  Halfway down the attic stairs, I put the brakes on the high-tops when I hear slippers shuffling and padding their way to the bathroom at the end of the second-floor hallway.

  It sounds like Uncle Babe made it past Velvet Elvis and stalled somewhere between Joe DiMaggio and Poppi Natale.

  I wait.

  Three more shuffle-slides and I hear the bathroom door open.

  Close.

  The lock clicks.

  No time to lose. Uncle Babe is the quick one in the family when it comes to spending time in that particular room. Depending how many cups of coffee he drank with his sandwich, I have one minute—two, tops—to make it downstairs and out the back door. I make a quick turn on the second-floor landing and race down to the first floor.

  The toilet flushes.

  The bathroom door opens.

  Slippers shuffle again down the hallway. I swing around the newel post, hurdle over the ottoman, fire the second booster on my Chucks through the dining room, and make it into the kitchen before the stairs start creaking under Uncle Babe’s feet. I tap the front burner of the Norge for good luck and reach for the knob on the back door.

  From the basement I hear Aunt KiKi doing a duet with dead Frank Sinatra. She’s trying her best to compete with Grandma and Grandpop, who are arguing about which one of them used the last drop of half-and-half, but is losing big-time. (My aunt can really belt out a song, but it’s Grandma who inherited Nonni’s lung power.) I push open the storm door, hoping my grandparents aren’t blaming Frankie for lapping up the cream.

  Yes, that would be the cat.

  A gust of wind and the faint aroma of chilidogs hits my face as I jump off the cement porch and land on the worn-down path of grass leading to the driveway. I dash to the corner of the house. I part a bunch of dried flowers hanging on the hydrangea bush and peek toward the street, making sure the coast is clear.

  I gulp.

  Walking down our driveway, heading straight in my direction—Frankie.

  That would not be the cat.

  11:44 a.m.

  Scene 13/TAKE 1

  The Backyard

  I know some choice words that for sure would have me eating soapsuds, but don’t have time to say them. Frankie’s swaggering stroll is picking up the pace, and I’ve got nowhere to hide.

  Standing behind the trunk of the maple is not going to do it, since the tree is skinnier than I am. Nonni’s lawn statue of the Virgin Mary is way too short, and I don’t think I can make it into the garage without Frankie seeing me. No room in there anyway; that’s where Aunt Rosalie stores her boxes of Christmas decorations. She has more than 350 Christmas villages piled up to the rafters. (My aunt is sort of QVC-obsessed. Which is why she’s on a first-name basis with the UPS driver.)

  The garbage can is only a few feet away, but trash diving is not a consideration. That would be more dangerous than dropping out the window without a trellis. Even three cans of spruce air-freshener wouldn’t do the job after hiding out with the clamshells from last night’s linguini.

  Out front, someone on the street calls Frankie’s name. He turns and I bolt for the Buick. Ducking behind the front grille and crouching close to the cracked macadam, I squeeze into the space between the garage door and right headlight. Since two years ago when Aunt Rosalie accidentally shifted into drive instead of reverse, she now leaves a little extra room between the car and the garage door. (I won’t describe what two front tires can do to a couple of carolers and three snow­men.)

  I peek over the hood ornament, careful Frankie doesn’t see me, and watch as he turns for the back door of the house. I scoot around to the passenger side of the car, yank open the door, belly flop onto the front bench seat, roll under the big blue dashboard, and cross my fingers that you-know-who isn’t smart enough to peek inside the LeSabre.

  11:44:12 a.m.

  Scene 14/TAKE 1

  Aunt Rosalie’s 1985 Metallic Blue Buick LeSabre

  He isn’t.

  (I knew that.)

  11:44:22 a.m.

  Scene 14/TAKE 2

  Under the Dashboard of the Buick

  My heart is thumping.

  My hands are sweating.

  I haven’t been this nervous since in the summer when I was getting ready to attend the Fortier Welcome Tea.

  That Fateful Hot Day in August

  “I look like Madeline,” I said, choking through the stiff tight collar of the blouse. (Nonni got carried with the spray starch). “I look better in plaid.”

&
nbsp; “Nonsense. You look mahhvelous, dahling!” Aunt KiKi insisted as she straightened my red necktie, while I sweated under the gray blazer. “This touch of color does wonders for you. Très chic.”

  “I don’t feel tray sheik,” I groaned as my stomach made another awful-sounding gurgle, and I reached across the kitchen counter for the bottle of Pepto Bismol.

  “Mark my words. This school will be a whole new adventure for you.”

  I unscrewed the cap and for the second time since breakfast and took a swig of the pink stuff. “I think I hate adventure,” I said with burp.

  “What are you talking about, dahling? You adored the trip down the Amazon.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Aunt KiKi, I was watching from the couch and that river was a set in a studio on Long Island.”

  “Well, those lights were hot enough for me to believe I was in a Brazilian jungle. Reality is nothing but perception, dahling. Remember that.”

  “My perception is your hair could use a good spritz from my can of Extra Hold,” interrupted Nonni, as she attacked me with a jumbo can of White Rain.

  “Spinach. Our girl needs a fortifying green vegetable,” said Uncle Babe, opening the refrigerator door.

  “Everyone relax. Isabella is fine,” Mom said, giving me a hug.

  “I’m the new girl, Mom. Being the new girl is never ‘fine.’”

  “Stop worrying, dahling. Everyone at Fortier will think you’re fabulous.”

  I sighed. “Aunt KiKi, I keep telling you, the only thing I come close to being ‘semi’ fabulous at is catching pop flies.”

  “My Swee’ Pea isn’t lying,” Uncle Babe said with a wide grin. “I taught her everything she knows. Now that Jeter is retired, the Yanks could use her as a shortstop.”

  Out on the driveway, Aunt Rosalie started honking the horn on the Buick. I took one last gulp of Pepto, trudged up the basement steps and gave the old stove a tap for good luck before heading out the back door.

  Mom and Aunt KiKi watched me climb into the back seat and buckle up just as the air conditioning kicked in and started blowing my hair in every direction. (So much for “extra hold.”)

  “Remember what Auntie told you, dahling—Stretch! Create! Be fabulous!”

  “Be you!” Mom called as the LeSabre eased out of the driveway.

  The ride to school felt like hours, not ten minutes. (My stomach agreed.) And when we chugged up the long drive of Fortier Academy, the muffler spitting smoke as we passed each lollipop-­shaped tree, I definitely knew I wasn’t in Belleville anymore. (And for sure Uncle Babe wasn’t doing the hedge trimming.)

  Before we made it up to the circular drive and entrance steps with gargoyles staring down at me from three stories above, I should have ducked behind the front seat and told Aunt Rosalie to floor the gas pedal, and keep going until we crossed back into Belleville.

  But I didn’t.

  “Bonjour!”

  I spun around and saw three girls with perfect hair, perfect teeth, and perfect unbitten nails.

  It was going to be harder for me to fit in than I thought. My stomach gurgled. I burped. (And it wasn’t only because of that cucumber sandwich I’d just swallowed.)

  “Oh . . . uh . . . sure. Wee! I mean bond. Boon. Bone?” I sighed in exasperation. “Ciao?”

  “Hear that?” said the shoulder-tapping girl to the one wearing red glasses.

  She stepped this way, the other two that way, and before I knew it I was surrounded by a trio of Madelines.

  “She said ciao. Told you it had to be her.” The girl with long blond hair turned to me and smiled, showing teeth that were as straight as Jeffrey’s since he got his braces removed. “I’m Emory Easton.”

  “Oakleigh” is how the girl in red glasses introduced herself. “Oakleigh Lawson-Ng.”

  “Anisha Patel,” said the third, with a slight British accent.

  Be friendly. Be polite. (Try not to think you look completely doofy wearing this red necktie, even if you do.)

  “You don’t mind if we talk to you, do you?” whispered Oakleigh, curling a short strand of dark hair around one ear.

  “Mind? Me? No. I was only talking to Sir Lancelot here.”

  “Hey, she’s funny! I like her!” said Anisha. “Tell us you play soccer. We so need a good defender!”

  “Soccer? I’m okay, I guess. Better at softball.”

  “Fabulous! We also need a shortstop who can field. Consider yourself on the team!”

  (Maybe fitting in wasn’t going to be as difficult as I thought.) I took a deep breath and smiled. “I guess you figured out I’m the ‘new girl’ here. I’m . . . uh . . . I’m actually pretty good at catching pop flies.”

  “Isabella, right?” said Emory.

  “You are, aren’t you?” said the girl.

  “Of course it’s her, Oakleigh,” Anisha said, flipping her long, dark French braid behind her shoulder. “It has to be her.”

  “Her?” I said. “I mean, me? She? . . . You know me?”

  Emory leaned closer and whispered, “We do. Your mom, too.”

  I blinked. “My mom?”

  (Did she mean from the hospital emergency room? None of these three girls looked like she had any recent broken bones or needed a blood transfusion.)

  “Sorry, Isabella,” Oakleigh quickly apologized as the other two nodded in synchronized agreement. “We know your mom gave the office strict instructions to keep both your identities secret.”

  “She did?”

  (I thought all Mom did was put her name on the admission papers Aunt KiKi brought her to sign.)

  Anisha finished a last bite of cucumber sandwich and crumpled the paper napkin into her fist. “Don’t fret, Isabella. You can trust us. We promise not to breathe a solitary word about what we know.”

  “Totally promise,” Emory said, crossing her heart.

  Granted, my brain and stomach weren’t exactly working in sync just now, but I was feeling something was not right here besides my gurgling gut.

  “Uhhhh . . . I think you have me mixed up with somebody else. I’m Isabella Anton—”

  “Antonelli. We know,” whispered Oakleigh, glancing over her shoulder and scanning the groups of girls nearby for eavesdroppers. “We’re lifers at Fortier,” she said, turning back to me.

  “Lifers?”

  “Been here since pre-K. We have sources.”

  “That’s how we know what we know,” said Anisha, in a voice I could barely hear.

  Never mind understanding French. I had no idea what these girls were saying in English. “What exactly do you know?” I whispered back.

  Emory raised an eyebrow to Oakleigh and Anisha. “She’s good.”

  “She’s very good,” agreed Oakleigh.

  “Isabella, you can relax. We know all about keeping things low-key. Fortier Academy is loaded with famous people—just like you.”

  I stepped back and bumped into Lancelot. “Did you say . . . like me?”

  “There are three girls in eighth, one in second, and two in third who have dads who are Giants and Devils—not the bean­stalk or horns-and-pitchfork types, but—”

  “Oakleigh means football and hockey players,” Anisha interrupted as Oakleigh rolled her eyes up toward the enormous beamed ceiling. “And Tanya Buchanan—she’s a junior in the upper school—her mother is a big-deal congresswoman. And of course, can’t forget Brittany Lockwood. Her dad is ‘Lock and Load,’ the Storage King. He owns more than one thousand franchises all across the country. But of course, he’s not real royalty like your mum.”

  “Royalty like my ‘mum’?” I almost coughed up that cucumber sandwich.

  “Are you all right, Isabella? Have a sip of Earl Grey,” Anisha said, offering her cup.

  Oakleigh whispered, “We’ve been wondering, what exactly do we call a daughter of a countess?”

  “What?” I said, dribbling tea down my necktie.

  “Not countess, Oakleigh,” Emory corrected. “Isabella’s mother is a contessa.”

  I
bumped back into Lancelot again. “Ow . . . Ouch . . . N-n-n-no!” I handed the teacup back to Anisha and held up both hands in front of me. “Whoa. There’s been some sort of mix-up here. My mother isn’t a contessa!”

  Anisha put her fingers to her lips. “We understand it, Isabella. We know all about how she wants her identity kept secret.”

  Emory glanced over one shoulder, checking for eavesdroppers, then put her hand on my arm and leaned close. “Our source heard from another source who was told by a certain excellent source who got it straight from the most impeccable source there is at Fortier. She heard it straight from Mrs. Bedermeyer in the Headmistress’s Office. Mrs. B. was there when . . . she toured the school. See?”

  Oh, I saw, all right. Like twenty-twenty. Somehow these girls thought my mom was Aunt KiKi and Aunt KiKi was a real contessa.

  “We heard that Mrs. B. wasn’t quite sure she recognized your mom, until the stairs gave her away.”

  “Our source said the contessa sang almost the entire aria from La Traviata right there on the grand staircase.”

  The cucumber sandwich started giving me signals it was on the move again—and I wasn’t sure which direction it was going. I crossed my fingers (and my legs) and hoped I was going to make it into one of those fifteen bathrooms at Fortier before something extremely embarrassing happened.

  “I’m telling you, I’m just plain Isabella. Really. Not kidding.”

  “Wow.” Oakleigh pushed her glasses up her nose. “That is so . . .”

  “Real,” Anisha said. “We didn’t expect you to be . . .”

  “Ordinary?”

  “Ordinary. That’s funny. I like you.”

  I was trying to smile, but the corners of my mouth had no plans turning in any direction but south.

  “Isabella, we totally get that your mom doesn’t want anyone here at school to know who you really are,” Emory said. “But now that we know you are you, and you know that we know—”