Who Made You a Princess? (13 page)

Okay, so maybe botulism was a little harsh. The applesauce probably only had a touch of salmonella. Which was completely survivable.

Danyel didn’t say anything until we were on 101 heading north and completely free of little blue signs pointing the way to
the BART station. “You okay?”

“Sure.”

“You just seem kinda tense, that’s all.”

“I’m fine.”

“My sister means well. She’s a nutritionist and the kitchen is kind of her lab. When we were kids she’d grind up all kinds
of seeds and pods and make me eat them. I used to envy the guys whose sisters made mud pies.”

My chilly frontal shield melted and I laughed. “At least Rose will be healthy.”

“She’ll turn thirteen and her big rebellion will be to blitz out on Fritos and Red Bull.”

“With a side of Twinkies and a bag of Gummi Worms.” It felt good to laugh with him. “Sorry, Danyel. Maybe I should send Malika
an e-mail saying I actually do like applesauce.”

He tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Next time you’ll feel more comfortable.”

“You want to inflict me on your family again?”

“Sure. Malika owes me for years of abuse.” He looked so happy about it.

“I always wondered what it would be like to have a sib.”

“You an only?”

I nodded. “An only that wasn’t in the plan.” He looked puzzled, his eyes on the freeway, so I went on. “I mean, my folks didn’t
mean to have kids. Oh, they took good care of me. Their house is in an upscale neighborhood, I’ve been to the best schools,
and have anything I want. But I only see them on layovers, it seems like. And if there’s some big school event, I have to
give them, like, a month’s notice.”

“I’ve heard of people’s dads having jobs like that, but your mom does, too?”

“She goes with him everywhere, when she’s not chairing charity events in Chicago. She sends me e-mail from places like Cairo
and Paris. The last one was from London. She saw a picture on the Web and was all squee about it.”

“What picture?”

I gave my guilty self a mental smack and waved a careless hand, as if it didn’t matter. “A bunch of us were out at TouTou’s
and the paparazzi were there. Mom must have a Google alert on Spencer or something. Keeps her up on what I’m doing.”

He snorted. “That’s cold.”

“Sometimes I think it’s easier for her to be my mom over e-mail than it is in person.” I shrugged. “Anyway, they expect Big
Things. Whether I buy into it or not.”

“What kind of big things?”

“I want to run my dad’s company some day. But I think it’s more than that. Mom’s all up in my social life right now. That’s
never happened before.” Probably because I’d never dated a prince before.

“Maybe she misses you. And like you say, this is her way to connect.”

“It’s a little late for that. I’ll be eighteen in October and then it’s hello, Stanford.”

“If you get in.”

“Right. Along with the Farm, I’m applying to Harvard Business School, plus Northwestern, Pepperdine, and Sarah Lawrence.”

“Wow. Ambitious much?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Maybe, but in a different way. I was thinking of taking a year off and going to Brazil or Africa to help our missions. And
then when I get back, I’ll apply to Stanford Law or Harvard Law.”

“You’re going to be a lawyer? How are you going to catch the waves when you’re holed up in the law library with glasses on
your head?”

He grinned and swung left on California Street. “That would be the advantage of Stanford. Santa Cruz is only an hour away.
And lots of environmental lawyers surf. It’s like a job requirement.”

“It is?”

“No, but I could start a trend.”

We laughed together at the visual, but at the same time, I had a lot to chew on. My dad’s company went exploring for oil.
He had a subsidiary that cleaned up the sites afterward, but you had to believe the birds and animals in the ecosystems weren’t
exactly beating a path back there. And Danyel would be dedicated to saving those ecosystems. Someday, in a far gray future,
would he and I be on opposite sides of some courtroom? Would we look at each other and remember we once sat on a sunset beach
and sang old songs around a fire? Or would we have forgotten each other’s names by then?

Man. Here I was, riding in a Jeep with one of the hottest and nicest boys I’d met in the past decade, and what was I doing?
Taking an E-ticket ride straight to the blues.

He jammed the Jeep into low gear to take the last hill, and before I could come up with some cheery conversation starter,
we were cruising through the school gates past two photographers hunched into their jackets, and pulling to a stop in front
of the steps.

“I wish I didn’t have to drive away.” Danyel set the emergency brake, even though the driveway was flat. “Seems like I’m always
having to say good-bye before I’m ready.”

“There’s still phone and e-mail. And you promised your sister you’d be back soon.”

He gave me a long look. “What did you think of their church?”

I picked up my bag and pretended to check that everything was in it. “It was good. Your pastor makes sense. Some of them don’t.
They’re so far above my head, they can’t see where I’m coming from. But this guy was okay.”

“Think you’d like to go again?”

“Danyel.” I closed my bag. “Stop pressuring me.”

“I’m not. I just hate to see anyone not enjoying the ride through life with my big bro Jesus, that’s all.”

“I’m enjoying the ride just fine.”

“You say that.”

“I mean it. What’s with you, anyway? Gillian and Lissa and Carly never bug me about it. They do stuff like prayer circle,
and I go and it’s all normal. They don’t ask me what did I think.”

“Maybe I’m more invested than they are.”

“What does that mean?”

He ran his hands over the steering wheel, making two halves of a circle. “Honestly?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“The Bible says we’re not supposed to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. But besides that, if I was going out with a girl,
it’s just easier if we both have the same expectations.”

“About what?”

He shrugged. “The physical side, for one thing.”

I flashed on Rashid’s kiss last night—er, early this morning. “Why, did you make a promise like Lissa did? Do guys do that,
too?”

“Sure. And yeah.”

“So I can live with that. I can wear white to a wedding, if you know what I mean.”

He chuckled. “TMI, but thanks for telling me.”

“So now that we have that cleared up, what else?”

“You sound like you’re negotiating.”

“I
feel
like I’m negotiating. So what you’re saying is we can’t date unless I go to church?”

“No way. What I’m saying is a relationship is…?more when you both believe. You can share more.”

“You had this with your other girlfriends?”

“One. I’ve done it both ways. That’s how I know.”

“What happened?”

He lifted a shoulder. “We were sophomores. We moved on. Mostly I just have friends now and don’t get too serious. Then I went
to this beach party at a friend’s and all that blew up.” His grin held all the promise a girl could want. It could make her
do something crazy, like go to church every Sunday because it was something she wanted and needed instead of just a thing
to do with her friends.

I gripped the door handle and steadied myself. If I did that, what was I going to do about Rashid? I mean, you have seven-grain
toast and surfboards on one hand, and front-row seating and stretch limousines on the other. Dark eyes and being treated like
a princess versus dark eyes and being treated like a…what? A friend with possibilities? A practice Christian?

Rashid thought I was amazing just the way I was. Danyel thought I could be amazing with a little work.

On the other hand, I was attracted to both of them, in different ways. With Danyel, I could show up in a headwrap and a layer
of moisturizer and he wouldn’t bat an eye—he’d just offer me something to eat, and talk. With Rashid, I could be the girl
my parents wanted me to be—the glittering socialite mixing with all the best crowds.

Which was me? What did I want?
Who
did I want?

Because this couldn’t go on forever, partying with Rashid Saturday night and going to church with Danyel Sunday morning. I
had to make up my mind before one of them found out about the other.

Which, knowing the grapevine at Spencer, was only a matter of time.

Celebrity Hangout Shuts Down

Pacific Heights hot spot TouTou’s is officially off the party circuit. According to charges filed this week, the restaurant
owners, members of a local corporation, face several counts of serving alcohol to minors.

One employee, a member of the waitstaff who refused to be named for this article, said that it was common practice for the
private rooms upstairs to be reserved for parties, where underage guests were freely served everything from beer to martinis.
“The management knew all about it,” he said in a telephone interview. “But those kids made it worth his while.”

While the employee declined to name names for fear of retaliatory lawsuits, it’s common knowledge among the party set that
students from Spencer Academy have been using TouTou’s as their personal venue from which to see and be seen. Whether they
were among those minors being served is unclear.

What is clear is that local celebs will have to find another place to go on their off nights. A sign has already been posted
on the restaurant’s door advising the public that it has been closed indefinitely.

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for early next week.

T
HE NEWS ABOUT
TouTou’s spread through the seniors like a grass fire. If I’d been Vanessa or Dani or DeLayne, I’d have been looking over
my shoulder waiting for the cops to arrive, but they went to classes looking cool and unruffled. The most anyone got out of
them was a bored, “We were tired of going there anyway. Have you heard about Cream? It’s opening on Nob Hill and you have
to be a member to get in.”

Of course they were already members.

Rashid was, too. The always resourceful Bashir never failed to amaze me—just on the off chance that the prince might want
to hang out with the rest of the A-list, he’d already gone down and intimidated the management into giving him a tier-one
pass. Not that it mattered to me. But someday, when I was running PetroNova, I was going to have an assistant with those kinds
of skills. Only he’d be cuter. And dress in something other than black suits.

“Are you getting into Cream?” I asked Carly on Tuesday morning on the way to Global Studies, which we had together. I was
still feeling a little ragged after my busy weekend, but it was nothing a little Mountain Dew couldn’t cure. “And do you have
any clue who squealed on TouTou’s?”

“No and no,” Carly said.

I stopped in the corridor and dragged her to the side, even though people seemed to be clearing a path for us. “What do you
mean, no? Everybody’s trying to get into Cream. It opens on Saturday. Rashid already has his pass.”

“Of course he does.” Carly shrugged. “Everybody can do what they want, but Brett and I discovered this totally cool gallery-slash-restaurant-slash-dance
floor that’s going to open in the Marina. His cousin owns it. It’s like Second Life, only alive.”

“Um, isn’t that the point of Second Life? To not be alive?”

“You should see it. It’s called Due.” She pronounced it the Italian way, “doo-ay.” “Every table has a flat screen embedded
in it, and it makes an avatar of you when you sign in and sit down. Then if you want to ask someone to dance, you send your
avatar over. If they turn you down, no harm, no foul. You can order and send drinks and food that way and everything.”

“Huh.” It did sound cool. “Do you have to be a member?”

“You swipe a card so they can activate your avatar, but it’s not like Cream. I mean, stuffy much?”

I laughed. “Good point.”

“It’s just fun, you know? And I can use some fun right now.”

“Why, what’s going on?” She looked just the same. She’d pulled her hair straight back in a cute retro hair band, so her curls
fell down her back, but that was about it.

“If you’d stick around for more than two seconds, you’d know. Mac and I got our subpoenas on Saturday.”

“Oh, my gosh.”

Carly began to walk down the corridor. In between smiles and people saying hey, she gave me the scoop. “David Nelson had his
preliminary hearing in the summer, right? So we knew this was coming because he pleaded
not guilty
, if you can believe it. Mac and I have to testify next week.”

“Are you scared?”

“Not really. Well, yeah, sort of. I never met the guy, just saw him from a distance. It’s Mac I’m worried about.”

“I can’t see her being scared of anything.”

“She is, though. Underneath. Her mom’s coming, but I don’t know how much that’ll help.”

“Wow. Good thing she has us.”

Carly nodded as we went into our classroom. “And it’s a good thing we have God.”

Okay. Some of us had God, at least.

Did she have to bring that up?