Princess in Pink (8 page)

and I'm going to end up sitting here all night with the twinkling Christmas lights and the stupid Queen Amidala streamers and

the Cheetos and the Coke and Michael's mix, BY MYSELF.

Oh God, the buzzer just went off. Someone is here. Please God give me the strength to get through this night. Give me the strength of Uli, Kari, Tracey, Marta, that dental patient lady, Mimi and that flight attendant. Please, that's all I ask of you. Thanks.

Sunday, May 4, 2 a,m.

Well. That's it. It's over. My life is over.

I would like to thank all of those who stood by me during the hard times - my mother, back before she became a one hundred and eighty pound quivering mass of bladderless hormones; Mr G, for attempting to salvage my GPA, and Fat Louie for just being, well, Fat Louie, even if he is totally useless when compared to the animals on Miracle Pets.

But nobody else. Because everybody else I know is obviously part of some nefarious plot to drive me to madness, just like Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre.

Take Tina, for example. Tina, who shows up at my party and, first thing, grabs me by the arm and drags me into my room, where everybody is supposed to be leaving their coats, and tells me, 'Ling Su and I have got it all worked out. Ling Su'll keep your mom and Mr G busy, and then I will announce the game of Seven Minutes in Heaven. When it's your turn, get Michael in the closet and start kissing him and when you've reached the height of passion, ask him about the prom.'

'Tina!' I was really annoyed. And not just because I thought her plan was totally weak, either. No, I was miffed because Tina was wearing body glitter. Really! She had it smeared all over her collarbones. How come I can't even seem to find body glitter in the store? And if I did, would I have the coolness to smear it on my collarbones? No. Because I am too boring.

'We are not playing Seven Minutes in Heaven at my birthday party' I informed her.

Tina looked crestfallen. 'Why not?'

'Because this is a nerd party! My God, Tina! We are nerds. We don't play Seven Minutes in Heaven. That is the
kind of thing people like Lana and Josh play at their parties. At nerd parties, we play things like Spoon, or possibly Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. But not kissing games!'

But Tina was totally adamant that nerds DO play kissing games.

'Because if they don't,' she pointed out, 'then how do you think little nerds get made?'

I suggested that little nerds get made in the privacy of nerd homes after nerds marry, but Tina wasn't even listening any more. She flounced out into the main room to greet Boris, who'd actually, it turned out, arrived a half-hour before, but since he hadn't wanted to be the first one at the party had stood in my vestibule for thirty minutes, reading all of the Chinese menus the delivery boys shove under the door.

'Where's Lilly?' I asked Boris, because I would have thought the two of them would arrive at the same time, seeing as how they are dating and all.

But Boris said he hadn't seen Lilly since the march on Les Hautes Manger that afternoon.

'She was at the front of the group,' he explained to me as he stood by the refreshment table (really our dining table) shoving Cheetos in his mouth. A surprising amount of orange powder got trapped between the spokes of his orthodontic brace. It was oddly fascinating to watch, in a completely gross way. 'You know, with her megaphone, leading the chants. That was the last I saw of her. I got hungry and stopped for a hot dog, and next thing I knew, they had all marched on without me.'

I told Boris that that is, actually, the point of a march . . . that people are supposed to march, not wait for members of the

group who'd stopped for hot dogs. Boris seemed kind of shocked to hear this, which I guess is not surprising, since he is from Russia, where marching of any kind was outlawed for many years, except marches for the glorification of Lenin, or whatever.

Anyway, Michael showed up next with the mix for the CD player. I'd thought about having his band play for my party, since they are always looking for gigs, but Mr. G said no way, as he gets in enough trouble with our downstairs neighbour Verl just for playing his drums. A whole band might send Verl over the edge. Verl goes to bed promptly every night at 9 p.m. so he can be up before dawn to record the activity of our neighbours across the way, whom he believes are aliens sent to this planet to observe us and report back to the mother ship in preparation for eventual interplanetary warfare. The people across the way don't look like aliens to me, but they are German, so you can see why Verl might have made such a mistake.

Michael, as usual, looked incredibly hot. WHY does he always have to look so handsome, every time I see him? I mean, you would think I would get used to how he looks, seeing as how I see him practically every day ... a couple of times a day, even.

But each and every time I see him, my heart gives this giant lurch. Like he's a present I'm just about to unwrap, or something. It's sick, this weakness I have for him. Sick, I tell you.

Anyway, Michael put the music on, and other people started to arrive, and everyone was milling around, talking about the march, and last night's Farscape marathon - everybody except for me, who hadn't taken part in either. Instead, I just ran around taking people's coats (because even though it was May it was still nippy out) and praying that everybody was having a good time and that no one would leave early or overhear my mother telling anyone who would listen about her Incredible Shrinking Bladder . . .

Then the doorbell rang and I went to answer it, and there was Lilly, standing with her arms around this dark-haired guy in a leather jacket.

'Hi!' Lilly said, looking all bubbly and excited. 'I don't think you two have met. Mia, this is Jangbu. Jangbu, this is Princess Amelia of Genovia. Or Mia, as we call her.'

I stared at Jangbu in shock. Not because, you know, Lilly had brought him to my party without asking first, or anything. But because, well, Lilly had her arm around his waist. She was practically hanging on him, for crying out loud. And her boyfriend Boris was right there, in the next room, trying to learn the electric slide from Shameeka . . .

'Mia,' Lilly said, stepping inside with a look of annoyance. 'Don't say hi, or anything.'

I said, 'Oh, sorry. Hi.'

Jangbu said hi back, and smiled. The truth was, Jangbu WAS incredibly good-looking, just like Lilly had said. In fact, he was way better looking than poor Boris. Well, I hate to admit it, but who isn't? Still, I never thought Lilly liked Boris for his looks, anyway. I mean, Boris is a musical genius and, as I happen to know, given the fact that I myself go out with one, they are not easy to find.

Fortunately Lilly had to let go of Jangbu long enough for him to take off his leather jacket when I offered to put it in the bedroom for him. So when Boris finally saw that she'd arrived and went over to say hello, he didn't notice anything amiss. I took Jangbu and Lilly's jackets and wandered, in a daze, back towards my bedroom. I ran into Michael along the way, who grinned at me and said, 'Having fun yet?'

I just shook my head. 'Did you see that?' I asked him. 'Your sister and Jangbu?'

Michael looked towards them. 'No. What?'

'Nothing,' I said. I didn't want to cause Michael to blow up at Lilly the way Colin Hanks did when he caught his little sister, Kirsten Dunst, kissing his best friend in the movie Get Over It. Because even though I have never really noticed Michael harbouring protective feelings towards Lilly, I am sure that is only because she has been dating Boris all this time, and Boris is one of Michael's friends and a mouth-breather, besides. I mean, you are not going to get too upset over your little sister going out with a mouth-breathing violinist. A hot, newly unemployed Sherpa, however . . . now that might be a different story.

And though you wouldn't know it to look at him, Michael is very quick-tempered. I once saw him glare quite formidably at some construction workers who whistled at me and Lilly down on Sixth Ave. when we were coming out of Charlie Mom's.

The last thing I needed at my party was for a fist fight to break out.

But Lilly managed to -keep her hands off Jangbu for the next half-hour, during which I attempted to put aside my depression and join in on the fun, especially when everyone started jumping around, doing the Macarena, which Michael had jokingly put in the mix he'd made.

It's too bad there aren't more dances, other than the Time Warp and the Macarena, that everybody knows. You know how in movies like She's All That and Footloose, everybody starts doing the same dance at the same time? It would be so cool if that would happen sometime in like the cafeteria. Principal Gupta could be on the sound system, reading off the announcements, and suddenly somebody puts on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or whatever and we all start dancing on the tables.

In olden times, everybody knew the same dances . . . like the minuet, and stuff. Too bad things can't be like olden times.

Except, of course, I wouldn't want to have wooden teeth or the pox.

Anyway, things were finally starting to look up, and I was actually having a pretty good time fooling around, when all of a sudden Tina was like, 'Mr G, we're out of Coke!' and Mr G was like, 'How can that be? I bought seven flats of it at the drive-through liquor store this morning.'

But Tina insisted all the Coke was gone. I found out later she'd hidden it in the baby's room. But whatever. At the time, Mr G honestly thought there was no more Coke.

'Well, I'll run down to Grand Union and buy more,' he said, putting on his coat and going out.

That's when Ling Su asked my mom if she could see her slides. Ling Su, being an artist herself, knew exactly the right thing to say to my mother, a fellow artist, even if since she's been pregnant she's had to give up oils and work only in egg tempera.

No sooner had my mom whisked Ling Su into her bedroom to break out her slides than Tina turned off the music and announced that we would now be playing Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Everybody looked pretty excited about this - we certainly had never played Seven Minutes in Heaven at the last party we'd all been to, which had been at Shameeka's house. But Mr Taylor, Shameeka's dad, wasn't the type to fall for the 'Out of Coke' or 'Can I see your slides?' thing. He is way strict. He keeps the baseball bat he once hit a home run with in one corner of the room as a 'reminder' to the boys Shameeka dates of just what, exactly, he's capable of, should they get fresh with his daughter.

So the Seven Minutes in Heaven thing had everybody way stoked. Everybody, that is, except for Michael. Michael is not a big fan of Public Displays of Affection, and it turns out he is even less of a fan of being locked in a closet with his girlfriend. Not, he informed me, after Tina had
gigglingly shut the closet door - closing the two of us in with Mom and Mr G's winter coats, the vacuum cleaner, the laundry cart and my wheelie suitcase - that he had anything against being in a dark enclosed space with

me. It was the fact that, outside the door, everybody was listening that bugged him.

'Nobody's listening,' I told him. 'See? They turned the music back on.' Which they had.

But I sort of had to agree with Michael. Seven Minutes in Heaven is a stupid game. I mean, it is one thing to make out with your boyfriend. It is quite another to do it in a closet, with everybody on the other side of the door knowing what you are doing. The ambiance is just not there.

It was dark in the closet - so dark I couldn't even see my own hand in front of my face, let alone Michael. Plus, it smelt funny. This, I knew, was on account of the vacuum cleaner. It had been a while since anybody - namely, me, since my mom never remembers, and Mr G doesn't understand our vacuum cleaner, on account of it being so old -had emptied the vacuum bag,

and it was filled to the brim with orange cat fur and the pieces of kitty litter Fat Louie is always tracking across the floor.

Since it was scented kitty litter, it smelled a little like pine. But not necessarily in a good way.

'So we really have to stay in here for seven minutes?' Michael wanted to know.

'I guess,' I said.

'What if Mr. G gets back and finds us in here?'

'He'll probably kill you,' I said.

'Well,' Michael said. 'Then I'd better give you something to remember me by.'

Then he took me in his arms and started kissing me.

I have to admit, after that, I kind of started thinking Seven Minutes in Heaven wasn't such a bad game after all. In fact, I sort

of began to like it. It was nice to be there in the dark, with Michael's body all pressed up to mine, and his tongue in my mouth, and all. I guess because I couldn't see anything, my sense of smell was that much stronger, or something, because I could smell Michael's neck really well. It smelt super nice - way better than the vacuum-cleaner bag. The smell sort of made me want to jump on him. I can't really explain it any other way. But I honestly wanted to jump on Michael.

Instead of jumping on him, which I didn't think he'd enjoy - nor would it be socially acceptable . . . plus, you know, all the

coats were sort of impeding our ability to move around a lot - I tore my lips from his, and said, not even thinking about Tina,

or Uli Derickson, or even what I was doing, but sort of lost in the heat of the moment, 'So, Michael, what is up with the prom? Are we going, or not?'

To which Michael replied, with a chuckle, as his lips nuzzled my own neck (though I highly doubt he was smelling it), 'The prom? Are you crazy? The prom's even stupider than this game.'

At which point, I sort of broke our embrace and took a step backwards, right on to Mr. G's hockey stick. Only I didn't care, because, you know, I was so shocked.

'What do you mean?' I demanded. If it hadn't been so dark, I so would have run my searching gaze across Michael's face, looking for some sign he was joking. As it was, however, I just had to listen really hard.

'Mia,' Michael said, reaching for me. For somebody who thought Seven Minutes in Heaven was such a stupid game, he seemed to be kind of into it. 'You've got to be kidding. I'm not exactly the prom type.'