Will the Real Prince Charming Please Stand Up (16 page)

There were a number of things I could look forward to each Thanksgiving. For the past few years, Talia and her mom arrived with a homemade pumpkin pie about an hour after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade finished, and then we watched a
Twilight Zone
marathon in the family room for a few hours until Brady and Tim kicked us out so they could watch either Dallas or Detroit play the second game of the day on the big screen TV.

But Mrs. Nicoletti brought an apple pie this year, and the
Twilight Zone
had been replaced by
Gilligan’s Island
, and Tim was off looking at colleges somewhere with his parents.

It was like the entire world was mocking me, taking away everything that was normal in my life. This wasn’t turning out to be a very happy Thanksgiving.

“She’s been like this all morning,” Brady whispered to Talia after she arrived.

“Could it be the concussion?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“She just looks really depressed.”

I sat up to peer over the back of the couch. “I can hear you, you know.”

She looked at my brother and shrugged.

Mom had decided I was well enough to go downstairs on Thanksgiving, provided I promised I wouldn’t move around too much and overexert myself. She’d even let me have my phone and said I could watch TV, but only for an hour at a time. I’d been too excited to leave my room and have my phone to argue with her. Two full days stuck in my bedroom without a lifeline to the outside world had been torture.

But listening to my brother and best friend talk about my mental state may have been worse.

I pulled my phone out from my pocket and checked it for what must have been the eight-hundredth time that day. I’d spent about thirty minutes that morning crafting the perfect text before finally sending it to Tim:
Happy Tday! Not same wo U.

And, of course, as soon as I’d sent it, I wanted to unsend it. The first part was fine, but then I wondered if he might get the wrong idea about the second part. I was trying not to sound clingy, telling him it wasn’t going to be the same without him here, but it wasn’t like I’d come out and said I missed him or anything, so I was sure I couldn’t have weirded him out too much.

I checked the time on my phone. I’d texted him almost two hours ago, and he still hadn’t responded. There was every possibility he hadn’t seen my text, of course, but if I resent it and he’d already gotten it the first time, he might get the wrong idea.

“What are you obsessing about?” Talia demanded as I frowned at my phone.

“Nothing,” I snapped, tossing it to the other side of the couch.

“You’re awfully cranky.” She sat at my feet. “I don’t like you when you’re cranky.”

I sighed, letting my frustration subside. “I’m sorry. I don’t like me when I’m cranky, either.” I pulled up my knees and hugged them. “Only two more weeks until your birthday,” I said, changing the subject. “Are you ready?”

“We’ll know soon enough.” She shrugged as if she didn’t care, but I knew she was excited. If all went well, Ally and I wouldn’t have to get rides from Brady or Finn’s mom anymore. We could go wherever we wanted with Talia.

“What will you know soon?” Brady asked. He bounded into the room with a giant bag of potato chips and a couple cans of soda and sat down on the floor in front of the couch.

“If Talia’s going to be my new chauffeur,” I said.

He nodded. “Dude, that’ll make my life a whole lot easier.” He looked up at her. “Sorry you’ll have to put up with her, though.”

I swiped the back of his head. “Jerk.”

He grinned at me and snatched the remote from my hands.

“Hey! Mom said you can’t watch TV until you’re done with your applications.”

He turned again, this time with a knowing smile. I scrunched up my nose and growled at him.

“Where did you apply?” Talia asked.

“It feels like everywhere, but it was only eight schools.”

“Why so many?”

He glanced back at her. “Why not?”

“Tim said he applied for early action to Stanford,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s one of the schools they’re looking at this weekend,” he said. “Did you know his dad went there?”

“He mentioned that,” I murmured.

“I think he said they were heading to Berkeley, too, and one or two others that he applied to in case Stanford rejects him, but I can’t remember.”

“Have you heard from him?”

“Who?”

“Tim.”

Brady glanced back at me with a curious expression. “No. Should I have?”

“I guess not,” I replied. “I was just thinking. You know, like, wondering how those schools look and if it’s been a good trip so far and all. Stuff like that.”

“We’re not dating, Bianca. And we’re not Ally. We don’t check in with each other every thirty minutes.”

I made a face at the back of his head and eyed my still-silent phone on the other side of where Talia sat.

“It’s kind of weird without him here, isn’t it?” Talia mused.

Brady lifted a shoulder. “I guess,” he replied around a mouthful of potato chips. “I don’t have anyone around to help me drown out your babble. Do you guys always talk this much?”

“It’ll be like this next year, too, though,” I told her, suddenly feeling very melancholy, “only worse because Brady won’t be here, either.”

He stopped chewing and turned to look at me. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

I wiped a stray tear from my cheek. “You’ll be away at school, and you’ll, like, hardly ever be around anymore.” I covered my face and started sobbing.

“Brady, what did you do to your sister?” our mother demanded.

He jumped up. “Nothing! I swear. She asked if I’d heard from Tim, Talia said it’s weird without him here, and then she totally freaked out that I’m not going to be here next Thanksgiving.”

Mom clucked sympathetically and sat beside me. She put her arm around me as I cried.

“Brady will be home for Thanksgiving every year,” she assured me. “He’s only going to college, sweetheart, and he’s probably not even going to leave the state, okay?”

I nodded, though I really didn’t feel better. “B-b-but Berkeley is st-st-still forever away!” I stammered between sobs.

“It’s only six or seven hours by car,” she said.

“And who even said anything about me going to Berkeley?” my brother asked. “I’m thinking more like UCLA.”

And then I really began to cry. I’d never considered that Brady and Tim might go to different schools, and especially not in different towns. At least if he was at Berkeley and Tim was at Stanford, they’d be kind of close together. But they’d probably drift apart, and then I’d never see him again. I was starting to feel an empty chasm growing inside my chest. The thought of it was too much.

“Talia, dear, would you mind going back upstairs with her for a while?” my mother asked. “Dr. Shapiro said to watch for mood swings. She may need to rest a bit more.”

I scrambled to my feet, pocketed my phone, and followed my best friend back to my room. Once I crawled back into bed, Talia closed the door and turned to me.

“What is going on with you?” she demanded. “And don’t even tell me these are mood swings. You were all mopey yesterday, too, and I refuse to believe it’s because you didn’t get into
Chicago.
”

I glared at her. Ally had been cast as Roxie Hart, and I hadn't even made it into the chorus.

She sighed. “Fine. Salt on the wounds. But are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to play Twenty Questions?”

I turned onto my side, facing away from her. “He hasn’t written back,” I mumbled. “I texted him, like, forever ago, and I think he’s ignoring me.”

“Who?”

I turned and looked at her with wide eyes. “Tim!”

“Well, then call him.”

“I can’t call him!” I insisted. “What would I say?”

“Um, I don’t know. Whatever you texted him?”

I sat upright, mortified. “No. No way.”

“What did you text him?”

I cowered under my covers. “Just that it wasn’t the same without him here.”

She stared at me for a few seconds before she started to laugh. “Oh, this is classic,” she said. “You can’t be serious.” She laughed even harder.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded.

“Hold on,” Talia replied, composing herself. She pulled out her phone, tapped on the screen, and held it up to her ear. “It’s me,” she said into the phone. “I’m at Bianca’s. Can you come over?” A pause. “No, not hyper-important. More of a funny.” Pause. “Well, remember that thing she told us to stop thinking, only we weren’t even thinking it until she told us not to?” Another pause. “Oh, yeah, she’s totally thinking it.”

I could hear Ally’s high-pitched scream through the receiver.

“I know, right? So can you?” Talia asked. Another pause, a little longer this time. “Oh, bummer. Well, have fun. I’ll call you later.” She tapped on her phone again and shoved it in her pocket. “Ally can’t come over,” she said. “She and Charlie are about to leave for the movies.”

“He’s in town? I thought he was at school,” I said, frowning. Ally’s brother had graduated last year and was attending the University of Connecticut on a basketball scholarship. He was the youngest of her three brothers and the only one not present for their annual Halloween party.

Talia fixed me with an irritated glare. “It’s Thanksgiving, Bianca. People do come home, you know.” She sat down at the foot of my bed. “So when did you finally figure it out?”

“Figure what out?”

“That you like Tim.”

“I’ve always liked Tim.”

“Okay, but when did you figure out that you
like him
like him?”

I froze. “Oh, no.
No
! Tim?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Oh. My mistake,” Talia said simply. “You must be overthinking that text you sent for no reason, then.” She stared at me, her eyebrows raised.

“Okay,” I said, lowering my gaze after a few seconds. “I might like him. Maybe.”

“You think?”

“But I can’t like him,” I whined. “There’s, like, fifteen reasons not to! He’s Brady’s best friend, and he’s a senior, and he’s going to Stanford or wherever next year. It would never work.”

“Not if you have that kind of attitude. And besides, who says this has to be forever?”

I sighed. Talia was adamant “happily ever after” was a myth. I still wanted to believe otherwise, but I said, “Brady would never let it happen.”

“Brady would be more than fine with it.”

I was still dubious. “Doubtful.”

She gave me the sideways glance that she reserved for the times she thought I was being ridiculous. “You cannot be this clueless,” she insisted.

I frowned. “Whatevs. It doesn’t matter if I like him, anyway.” I looked at my phone and sighed. “He’s clearly not into me.”

Talia looked skeptical. “I don’t think not responding to a single text means he doesn’t like you.”

“Maybe,” I said, leaning against my headboard and pulling the covers up to my waist. “We’ll see what happens Sunday.”

“What’s Sunday?”

“When he comes back from his trip. He said he’d stop by.” I grimaced. “Unless my text totally freaked him out.”

I spent most of Sunday morning obsessing about what to wear. I must have tried on a dozen outfits before I finally decided on a pair of black jeans and a new oversized sweater that Mom had picked up during her Black Friday shopathon. I struggled with my hair for about an hour and ultimately pulled it back into a low ponytail, and I debated on exactly how much makeup to wear. Too much, and Brady would be suspicious, but not enough, and Tim might think I looked pale.

And then I waited. Every time I heard a car door slam, I looked out the window to see if Tim had pulled into our driveway. The times I wasn’t near a window, I held my breath waiting for the doorbell to ring.

I checked my phone repeatedly. Tim hadn’t responded to my text on Thanksgiving, but there was always the chance that he might not have seen it then and could’ve responded to it later. Still, nothing.

My dad and brother were engrossed in watching football, so neither of them paid much attention to me, though Brady kept shooting me funny looks a few times during commercial breaks when I kept toying with my hair. Mom commented that I looked too skinny and needed to stop fidgeting. I tried to concentrate on my homework, and I studied for the tests I missed when I was out last week, but I was so nervous about seeing Tim that I couldn’t focus.

Only he never showed up, and by the time we sat down for dinner, I was feeling really stupid.

“It’s only about a month until the Winter Formal, isn’t it?” Mom asked at the table. “Isn’t it on the first Saturday of winter break?”

My brother grunted an incoherent reply, and I nodded.

“Wow, this year is going by fast,” she mused.

“Ally said the theme this year will be ‘Candy Cane Dreams,’” I said. “They’re giving everyone candy for favors.”

“That sounds like fun,” my dad said, trying to appear interested in dinnertime conversation while he watched the game over my mom’s shoulder.

“Are you going to take Kira?” my mom asked.

Brady shrugged. “I guess I will. I mean, if she wants to go.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Is Tim going to take Chelsea?”

It was an inopportune time to launch into a coughing fit. My entire family turned to look at me. “I’m fine,” I said, reaching for my water.

“Tim and Chelsea broke up, like, weeks ago,” Brady said, still looking at me.

“Oh, that’s a shame. Well, maybe he’ll go with someone else. He’s such a sweet boy. Surely he wouldn’t have trouble finding someone to go with him.”

“He’ll probably go if someone asks him. You know how he is, Mom,” he replied, his mouth full of green beans. “He won’t ask someone unless he knows she’ll say yes.” He shoveled more food into his mouth and added, “And this girl he’s really interested in doesn’t go to dances.”

I felt my stomach tighten as he said that. It shouldn’t have affected me this way, but the idea that Tim liked somebody was nauseating.

“Has he ever asked anyone?”

“No. I’m trying to convince him to ask her, but he’s a big chicken.”

My mother clucked. “Oh, that’s a shame.”

Brady looked at me as he picked up a forkful of mashed potatoes. “Well, maybe she’ll read that post Ally wrote and realize he’s a really good guy.”

“Talia said she’s turned him into Westgate’s latest Prince Charming,” I said, staring down at my barely touched plate to avoid my brother’s gaze. “He’s every girl’s dream guy now.”

“Then maybe you’re right, Brady,” Mom said with a nod. “I hope this girl he likes recognizes him for the gem he is before it’s too late and you all go your separate ways after graduation.”

“Fumble!” Dad screamed at the TV, making us all jump.

She glared at him. “Mike, if you can’t control your outbursts, I’m going to turn off that TV!”

Dad turned a light shade of pink and murmured an apology. Brady snorted as he tried to contain his laughter, and I pushed my plate away.

“May I please be excused?” I asked.

“Bianca, honey, you’ve hardly eaten anything.”

I looked at my plate and frowned. My stomach felt like it had shrunk to the size of a pea, but my lungs felt very heavy in my chest, as though each breath I took pushed hard against my ribcage.

“I guess I’m just not feeling so good,” I managed.

She studied me carefully, then nodded. “You probably pushed yourself too hard. Go on upstairs. Maybe you should go to bed early and get some rest for tomorrow.”

I made my way up the stairs to my room so I could call Talia and tell her about Tim’s absence and what Brady had said at dinner.

“Well, did he say who Tim likes?” she asked.

“No,” I said, not meaning to snap. “And I don’t think I want to know.” I flopped down onto my bed. “It’s too depressing to think about it.”

“But what if he likes you? I mean, it’s possible, right?”

I groaned. She may have been my best friend, but she really didn’t need to get my hopes up, especially when I needed her to ground me in reality. The rejection would hurt that much more. “Talia, he didn’t write back to me. And he didn’t come over like he said he would. I mean, if he liked me, you’d think he’d at least text me back, right?”

“I guess.”

“So, whatevs,” I said, feeling defeated.

“Have you told Brady? That you like Tim, I mean.”

“What? No!” I shrieked. “No way!”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you remember in sixth grade when I told him I thought Trent Silverman was cute and then Brady told him and he never talked to me again?”

“But didn’t Trent move to, like, Michigan or something?”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s so not the point. He’ll tell Tim, and it will be all awkward and weird and stuff between us, and I don’t think I can handle that.”

“Okay.” She sounded skeptical. “So what’s going to happen tomorrow? I mean, you’re going to see Tim at some point, right?”

“I know,” I said with a pout, my chest feeling heavy again. “I just don’t think I’m ready to face him.”