Who Made You a Princess?

by Shelley Adina

  “Let’s see that baby bump!”

  “Who’s your baby daddy, Hanna? The prince?”

  “No way. He dumped her ’cuz she was cheating on him with this guy.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Yeah, Shani. You two-timin’ Rashid with this fine brotha? That why he dumped you?”

  “I’m not your brother,” Danyel told DeLayne, his lip curling with disgust. “Get out of the way, trashmouth.”

  “You ain’t seen trash ’til you’ve seen this girl,” DeLayne told him smugly, flicking a hand at me. “You gonna show us that bump or not?”

  “I don’t have to show you anything. If you believe that old rumor, you’re just too stupid to live.”

  Danyel’s face had gone from surprise to disgust to still, cold anger. “Who’s saying she’s pregnant?” he demanded. “Who’s spreading this around?”

  “Why do you care?” some boy in the back jeered. “You in lo-o-ove?”

  “I care because she’s my friend,” Danyel snapped. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “Nahhh,” the boy said. “Maybe you care ’cuz it’s yours, huh? She doin’ both of you?”

  Danyel went for him, and I grabbed his arm and dragged him back.

  “Doesn’t matter who started it. Every rumor has some truth to it.” DeLayne stared me in the eye while I kept Danyel in the edge of my vision in case he tried to jump the other kid again. “So you gonna prove us wrong?”

  “You deaf? I don’t have to prove anything to you. But if you had eyes in your head you’d see I’m wearing size two jeans, and there’s no room for a baby.” I raked her up and down with a scornful look. “Unlike some of us, who could fit a whole other person in our jeans if we’d lose some weight.”

  “Shani,” Danyel said, one tone up from a whisper. “Don’t lose it. Don’t be like them.”

  Don’t lose it? Hadn’t he almost lost it? I had a lot more right to—I’d just been accused of doing the nasty with not one guy, but two!

  I hunched my shoulders. “Get out of my way, scovel,” I snapped, and pushed past DeLayne. The boy beside her was no match for me. I swung a hip at him and he stum-bled to the right, clearing enough room for Danyel to shove past him, right behind me.

  We cleared the mob and headed down the corridor, their jeers and catcalls following us like a cloud of wasps.

  “Who were those people?” Danyel demanded, jogging after me.

  I wasn’t quite sure where I was going. I turned right, then left. “Just scumballs.” The words were hard in my mouth. “Ignore them.”

  “It’s pretty hard to ignore that.”

  “I’ve been doing it for weeks. Somebody got jealous of me and Rashid and didn’t have enough imagination to do anything but start a rumor.”

  We were in the corridor behind the dining room. I pushed open the discreet, unmarked door to the rain tunnel, which stretched into the dim distance. A good place to hide until I got my peace back.

  Which could take until morning.

  “Shani, wait. Where you going so fast?”

  “I’ma show you the field house. It’s at the end of this tunnel.”

  “You don’t have to run away from them.”

  That stopped me. “I’m not running.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me with a funny little smile. “Then how come I’m puffing like a train?”

  “Because you’re out of shape?”

  But he wasn’t, and I was. Running, I mean. I stopped and leaned against the cool concrete wall, tilting my head up to inspect the boring beige ceiling.

  “My life stinks so bad they can smell it in Oakland.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see it.”

  “I’ve seen worse. I go to public school, remember?”

  Okay. Point taken. “Still.”

  He slid an arm around me and pulled me against his chest. “Don’t let them get to you. You did good, facing them down like that.”

  “I always thought DeLayne could have been a friend. We sort of were, in freshman year, and then she hooked up with Vanessa and turned into a—” What did Lissa call them? “A pod person.”

  “Her loss.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “Just be with me for a minute.”

  I don’t know how much time passed. It could have been a minute. It could have been ten, or thirty. At last Danyel stirred. “I know my timing is lousy, but…I have to go.”

  I nodded. It felt so good to be held. Especially by arms as strong as these. And his shoulder felt so good under my cheek. “I know, I know. Six hours’ drive.”

  “I’ll come back next weekend. Stay with my sister.”

  “Please tell me I’m not invited to breakfast.”

  He chuckled, and I heard it deep in his chest. “Malika’s not so bad. Hang around with her enough, you’ll get to like her.”

  “I’d rather hang around with you.”

  “That I’ll promise.”

  I stayed still, breathing in the scent of his clothes. “I remember another promise you made me.”

  He didn’t play dumb. “Yeah?”

  “You gonna keep it?”

  “I’m waiting for the right time.”

  I tilted my face up to look him in the eyes. “If ever there was a right time, it’s now.”

  For once, he didn’t have an answer. Instead, he just looked into my eyes and, oh so softly, took my chin in his hand and ran his thumb along my jaw.

  “You have the softest skin,” he said.

  And then he lowered his mouth to mine.

  MY MOTHER HAD DRESSED to impress in a royal blue—get it?—Vera Wang wool suit and Donald Pliner black-patent slingbacks. Any other time I’d have been filled with admiration that hey, this was my mom looking so fine, and my dad looking every inch the CEO in his Hugo Boss double-breasted suit.

  As the situation stood, I wouldn’t be parading around the school showing them off anytime soon. Especially with people popping their heads out of rooms and hissing “PG Princess!” until I wanted to scream and throw sharp objects.

  Danyel had only been gone two hours and already his absence felt like a big hole inside me. Next weekend seemed an eternity away—especially considering the hurdles I had to jump before I got there.

  At exactly seven o’clock, I pushed the door of the visitors’ study open with one hip and carried in a tray holding a plate of madeleines and three piping-hot lattes, courtesy of the barista still on duty in the dining room.

  “Hey Mom, Dad. Coffee?”

  Mom loves madeleines. Her head craned toward them, while the rest of her stayed aloof until she had a bead on whether or not my attitude had changed.

  Well, she could take them or leave them. I helped myself to a couple, took a latte, and folded myself onto the leather couch. “These are good,” I said around a bite. “You should try one.”

  Mom gave in and settled onto the couch with a latte and one of the little cookies. Dad was a different story.

  “I want to ask you to please not disappear like that again,” he said heavily. “You scared us both to death.”

  Disappear? Oh. Napa. “Ms. Curzon knew where we were,” I said. “Did you ask her?”

  “I don’t need to go through the principal to find out where my daughter is. I call her phone and expect her to answer. The first time.”

  “Do you have any idea what I went through?” Mom asked. “I had no idea if anyone was looking after you, where you were, if you’d had a relapse, who you were with. Honestly, Shani, you need to be more responsible and considerate of other people’s feelings.”

  “The way you considered mine?”

  I wasn’t angry, honest. I wanted to know. because now that I’d made my decision, I felt completely calm. Had it only been this morning that we’d gone to church with Mrs. Loyola (barely fitting in her Range Rover)? It seemed like years ago. Anyway, for the first time, I’d focused on what people were praying about, on the words of t
he songs, and on what the pastor said. No looking around at other people’s clothes, no scoping out cute guys, no slouching in boredom when the pastor got long-winded.

  Okay, maybe a little of that last one, because the guy really did take a long time to make his point.

  But still. I came out of there feeling…at peace. Finally. I’d made a decision, and Carly says that peace inside is the best way to tell if it’s the right one.

  And Danyel’s kiss had gone beyond that and confirmed it.

  “Shani, we have considered you, right from the beginning,” my father said. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t choose a life with Rashid. He’s a fine young man from a family that’s known in the Middle East for being ahead of the norm in human rights. You’ll have unlimited money, numerous homes, and, since I know this is important to you, couture houses courting you to wear their clothes.”

  “I don’t care about that, Dad.”

  “You certainly used to.”

  “I’ve changed.”

  “How?” my mother asked. “How have you changed? Help us understand you, and maybe we can help you understand our position.”

  Ha. That was about as likely as me going to Harvard. I looked at her more closely. She was way too calm, considering the situation. Had she been popping Valium?

  But…she wanted to listen, pharmaceuticals or not, and that didn’t happen often. “In the last year I’ve become a different person. I’ve learned to care about stuff. About people. I have friends I can count on, and I have a boyfriend”—Wow, had I really said that? And it was totally true!—“who cares about me and who I think is the greatest thing on two legs.”

  “Okay.” I could see What does this have to do with it? stamped all over my mother’s face.

  “The thing is, the girl I was last year might have gone along with it, you know? Because nothing mattered to me, and I didn’t matter to anyone. So anything would have been better than where I was, right?”

  “You matter deeply to us,” my dad said gruffly.

  “Dad, you say that, but face it, if I really did, you’d put me before PetroNova or the Sheikh or Rashid or the next outfit Mom buys. Okay? You’d put me before everything else, the way Carly’s dad thinks of her and her brother first before he makes decisions, or the way Mac’s mom flies halfway across the world so she can be with her when she testifies, even though it hurts her worse than anything to be in that courtroom. You see what I’m saying?”

  Clearly they had no idea what I was talking about, and I didn’t feel like bringing them up to date on what was happening in my friends’ lives.

  “Anyway, the point is, the person I am now has things to live for. Plans. People. Changes to make, starting with me. You want me to be a princess in the world’s eyes, but I already am in God’s eyes. And speaking of that, I don’t want to take World Religions. Gillian’s taking me to buy some Bible study books and I’ll read those instead.”

  Now they stared at me as if I’d sprouted another head. “What? Since when did you get religion?”

  “I haven’t ‘got’ religion. But it’s kinda the only thing in my life that’s making any sense, so I’ma go with it. See where it takes me.”

  “What does that mean?” my dad asked. He wasn’t looking so good. In fact, he looked as if he needed one of Mom’s pills.

  “It means I’m not going to marry Rashid,” I said quietly. “I’m not going to Yasir. I’m totally and completely sorry about the Sheikh pulling his stake in PetroNova, but Dad, you made that deal with him. Not me.”

  Silence.

  More silence.

  At last, through clenched teeth, my father said, “You realize what this is going to mean to your lifestyle?” He said the last word as if it tasted bad.

  I swallowed. “Yes. Is the rest of term paid for?” I wasn’t ready to go back to Chicago and start public school next week. If the term wasn’t paid for, I was coming up with Plan B ASAP.

  “Yes.” He had difficulty getting the word out. “You can stay here until Christmas break. You’re not getting away with this, Shani.”

  I gave him a long look. “You can’t force me, Dad. And Rashid wouldn’t take me under those circumstances, anyway.”

  “Have you asked him? Do you even care how he feels about this?” His voice began to rise.

  “I do care. And I’m going to ask him. But I felt you should know first.”

  His jaw was so tight he could hardly speak, and his hands shook. I slid my feet to the floor in case he tried something on, and did a fast calculation of the distance to the door. He’d never hit me before, but I’d never destroyed his life before, either.

  “Shani, I’m asking you one last time. If you refuse this, I swear I will take away everything you ever cared about. Not just this school or our house. You’ll never see these friends of yours again. There will be no money. No allowance. No phone or computer to replace the ones you have. All you’ll have will be the clothes on your back, because when we clear that house, I’m giving all your things to charity.”

  Everything I valued most—all the things I couldn’t live without—were upstairs in my room.

  “I understand that, Dad.”

  “I hope you do. Because I will never, ever forgive you for this.”

  I looked at him steadily. “That’s okay, Dad. Because someday, somehow, at least I’ll be able to forgive you.”

  SHanna Are you busy? I need to talk.

  RAmir I have a commitment.

  SHanna Tomorrow then? After school?

  RAmir Meet me in the library. The French section.

  SHanna I have Individual Voice 6th period but it always ends early. See you at 3pm.

  SHanna Thanks.

  Chapter 21

  I COULD SEE why Rashid had picked the French section. It was completely empty, and so far behind the stacks that Mrs. Lynn—or anyone else—wouldn’t be able to hear us.

  I’d only gotten through a couple of e-mail messages on my iPhone when he stepped around a bookcase and pulled out a chair next to me at the study table.

  With a smile, he said, “I am sorry to be late.”

  “It’s okay. This isn’t a conversation I wanted to rush into, anyway.” I slipped my phone into my bag and turned to face him.

  “That does not sound good.” He gave me the once-over. “Are you well? Have you recovered from your accident?”

  I nodded. “With all the painkillers, I can’t feel a thing. The bruises are big and ugly, but other than that, I’m good. Thanks for the flowers, by the way. I have the last of them in my room.”

  “It was the least I could do. When I called the hospital, they said only family were to be allowed in. And I am not…yet…your family.”

  Well, there was an opener if I ever heard one. “About that, Rashid.”

  “It is this you wish to talk about?”

  I nodded. “Have you met my parents?”

  He hesitated, as if he wanted to give a different answer. “Yes. They have been frequent visitors to Yasir over the last several years.”

  “Did you know they were here?”

  “Of course. They were kind enough to invite me to dinner while you were away.”

  I bet they were. “Did they tell you what they told me?”

  “They told me you were now aware of the agreement between our families. When I got your IM, I suspected this was to be the subject of our conversation.”

  “How do you feel about it? The agreement?”

  I knew what my parents thought he thought. But I wanted to know how invested he was in having me as his princess before I gave him the news that I wasn’t signing up for the job.

  “I have not been brought up in the American way,” he said slowly. “Like many sons of royal houses, I have always known I would marry for political reasons, or for family obligation. So when I came to America to meet you, I had only the memories of my childhood friend in Greece. I knew nothing of what you were like now except your appearance. I have seen your school pictures every
year, you see.”

  In spite of myself, I made a yucky face. “About ninth grade. I’m so sorry. That was a bad hair day.”

  He chuckled. “The picture from last year more than made up for it. I looked forward to meeting you again for months.”

  “I don’t regret it,” I told him softly. “Our meeting, I mean. I hope you know that. You’re one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known.”

  “I, too, enjoyed getting to know you.” Those deep brown eyes gazed into mine. “But I fear we are sounding like good-bye.”

  “I fear we are.” I took a deep breath. “I can’t go through with our fathers’ agreement. I can’t marry you, Rashid.”

  He straightened, and I could swear it was because a huge load had just been lifted from his shoulders. But he didn’t break his gaze. “Why not, Shani?”

  “Because we’re too young, for starters. And even if we waited until after we got out of college, I still couldn’t do it. I want more than political reasons and family obligation. I want love and happiness and everything that comes with spending your life with the one person you can’t live without.”

  “Am I not…lovable?”

  Of all the questions he could have asked me, this was one I hadn’t expected. A lump formed in my throat and I felt the hot tears welling in my eyes. “Of course you are, Rashid. You’re gorgeous and rich and sweet and a complete gentleman, and you kiss like nobody’s business. Someday, some girl is going to be lucky enough to fall for you, and she’ll be everything you deserve.” I wiped the stupid tear away. “I’m really sorry I’m not that girl. I wish I could have been, because it would make everyone happy. But I’m not.”

  “You are sure of this?”

  I nodded and touched his hand. “I’m sure.”

  With a sigh, he looked down at my hand with its stubby nails Lissa had tried to repair for me last night. “My father will blame me,” he said. “He will say I did not try hard enough.”

  “You tell your dad to call me. I’ll set him straight. You’re everything a girl could want in a handsome prince. It’s not your fault I fell for a surfer boy long before I ever met you.”

  “Ah. The one I met at Due that night?”