Who Made You a Princess? (17 page)

We made wicked fun of the stupid nimnul all the way into Cow Hollow in the cab, which meant my happy levels were nearly back
to normal by the time we flocked into the bamboo lobby of the Tea House.

After we’d chosen our colors (Rajah Ruby was going to go so well with the vintage Lanvin dress Gillian and I had scored in
New York over the summer) we all settled into the leather chairs. Gillian winced as the aesthetician began to work on her
cuticles. “I hate to bring up the creep again, but what made Rory ask you out? It’s not like we’re all kissy with that crowd
to start with. I haven’t heard word one about you being on his radar.”

“Please don’t let
that
rumor get started,” I groaned. “That’s even more disgusting than people thinking I’m sleeping with Rashid.”

“No kidding,” Gillian said. “I don’t know how Brett can stand him.”

“He can’t,” Carly said, her head back on the cushion and her eyes closed. “They were friends up until the exam-answer debacle
last year, and then it was over.”

Lissa snorted. “I was surprised to see him back here, personally. But then I noticed the new Media Communications Center.”

“The Lawrence Stapleton Bail-out and Guilt Center, you mean?” Gillian inquired. “With the brand-new, state-of-the-art workstations,
editing booth, and professional video cameras?”

“That would be the one.”

“Must be nice to have your dad bribe the headmistress to keep you in school.” I shook my head.

“He’d have come back somehow. This way, Curzon gets a shiny new media lab at no cost to her,” Lissa pointed out.

“At some cost to us, though,” Carly said. “We have to put up with him for another nine months.”

“I’m not putting up with him at all.” At the aesthetician’s prompting, I changed feet, sub-merging my left in the hot jets
of the tub. “I’d never tell Rashid what he said, but if he comes near me again, I’ll set Farrouk on him. That man carries
a girl’s best friend—a stun gun.”

“From what I hear, a girl’s best friend is locked in Curzon’s safe,” Lissa said. “I can’t believe you didn’t wait long enough
to show me and Gill the ice.”

“Too much exposure to all that compressed carbon can’t be good for you,” Gillian informed her. “It’s better off behind lead.”

“You’ll see it tomorrow,” I said.

“Everyone within a mile’s radius will see it,” Mac said. She’d been so quiet since we’d arrived that I wondered what was wrong.
Maybe tonight when we were getting ready for bed, Carly and I would pry it out of her. “And you’ll notice we’ve not said a
word about why a man would be giving you such a thing?”

“He isn’t giving it to me. I told you that yesterday, before we took it down to Curzon.”

“Did she faint?” Lissa wanted to know.

“I didn’t open the box. I just said it was a necklace and she put it away. The fewer people who know it’s here, the better,
right? Especially since it won’t be around for long. I’m giving it back to Rashid on Sunday and it’s going back to where it
came from.”

“So you guys aren’t, like, engaged or anything,” Gillian asked in her just-being-sure voice.

“Give me a break.” I rolled my eyes at her.

“Because, you know, a guy doesn’t drop a cool two million on just any
chica
in stilet-tos,” Carly said.

“I’m wearing it once, then back it goes,” I repeated firmly. “He’s a prince. For all I know, he gives diamond earrings to
his cleaning lady and sapphire bracelets to his teachers.”

“Tobin would be happy about that,” Carly said. “Hey, did you guys hear she and Mr. Milsom are getting married?”

“Ewww!” A chorus of noise made all our aestheticians look at us as though we’d lost our minds. “How do you know?”

“She has a quarter-carat diamond on her finger. I happened to be using a magnifying glass and noticed it.”

Mac snorted. “Clearly Mr. Milsom needs a few lessons from Shani’s prince.”

“He’s not mine, but you’re right.”

“She’s a lot happier with that quarter-carat than you are with your wreath,” Carly said quietly. “Give him credit for that,
at least.”

“I’ll be real happy Saturday night,” I told her. “You’ll see.”

I’m no dummy. That necklace was mine for one more day, and I was going to enjoy it just as much as if it really meant something.

HAVING THREE IN
a room built for two has its problems. Closet space, for one. Privacy. Clashing taste in music. But what it’s great for is
ganging up on somebody who isn’t spilling what’s bugging her.

I turned on the lamp next to my bed a few minutes after Tobin called lights-out and I’d heard the clop of her sensible heels
recede down the corridor. “All right, girlfriend,” I said to Mac, “how about you tell us what’s kept you so quiet all day?”

Mac rolled over to lie on her back while Carly and I propped ourselves up on our elbows like a pair of bookends. “It’s nothing.”

“Right,” Carly said. “Nothing bugs me all the time. Keeps me from feeling good after my mani/pedi, and it’s guaranteed to
keep me quiet when I’m having dinner with my friends.”

“Very funny.”

“The operative word being
friends
,” I said in a softer tone. “Talk to us.”

Mac’s chest rose and fell in a deep breath that could have been a sigh. “I’m terrified about testifying, that’s all. Everyone
staring at me. Having to see”—her voice hitched—“David again.”

“He can’t hurt you.” Carly’s tone was reassuring, but I’m not sure Mac believed her.

“Maybe not, but he can hurt my mum.”

“How? He can’t pack a pipe bomb into the courtroom.” I’d never been in one, but even I knew that.

“Not that way. She’ll see him and how he looks like my dad, and it will just be a mess.”

“He looks like your dad?” Carly had seen Mac’s half-brother the psycho a couple of times, but I never had. Not that I’m not
happy about that.

Mac nodded, her head moving slowly on her pillow. “Same eyes. Same jaw. He’s the reason my parents divorced, you know. When
mum found out, everything changed. Ended. Bang, it’s over.”

“Unlike my parents, who let it die a long, slow death,” Carly said. “So slow I didn’t even see it coming.”

“When does your mom land?” I asked.

“The trial starts next Tuesday. She arrives Monday night. She’s staying at the St. Francis.”

“Are you staying with her?”

Mac shook her head. “No mercy from Curzon there. When I’m not in court, I’m supposed to be in class. As if anyone could concentrate
on silly equations and essays while this is going on.”

“That’s pretty heartless,” Carly agreed. “But at least you won’t have to sit in the courtroom with him staring at you the
whole time. My dad says they’re keeping us in a separate room, and we go in by some other entrance than the one where the
media are.”

Mac looked at her. “So I can’t sit with my mum?”

“I don’t think so. But I bet they’d let her come in with us if you asked.”

Mac smiled an evil smile. “I’d like to see them try to prevent it. She can play the Countess to the hilt when she wants to.”

“Are we going to meet her?” I asked. “She sounds so scary, I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Mum isn’t scary, she’s lovely,” Mac retorted. “And yes, of course you can meet her. She’ll be coming up here to see me every
day when we’re not in court together.”

“So let’s see.” Carly held up a hand and began counting off fingers. “We’ll have a prince, a countess, and a princess-to-be
right here at little old Spencer. All we need now is a—”

“Princess-to-be?” I broke in. “Who’s that? Vanessa? Does she get to be
principessa
when her mom kicks off, or what?”

“Not her, silly,” Mac said. “You.”

I stared at both of them. “Oh, please.” And flopped onto my back. “Puh-flipping-lease.”

“I’m just sayin’,” Carly added. “I hope you weren’t planning to keep that necklace a secret, because it’s all over school
that he gave it to you.”

“How do you know this stuff?” I demanded. “Do you pay people for phone tips, like the rags?”

“’Course not. I just listen, that’s all. It’s the rowing team that’s Gossip Central. Those guys are worse than we are. Their
girlfriends tell them everything, and they pretend they don’t care and pass it on, and Brett tells me.”

“What else are they saying? And if it’s about my nonexistent sex life, I don’t want to hear it.”

Carly giggled and flopped back, too, so that all three of us admired the plaster medallions in the ceiling. “That’s the stupidest
rumor yet this term. No, you won’t believe me.”

“I’d believe you,” Mac said. “If there’s anything I’ve learned at this school, it’s that the stranger it sounds, the more
likely it is to be true.”

“This is getting pretty strange.”

“If you don’t spill, I’ll come over there and dump your bottle of water on you,” I warned her.

“Rumor has it there’s a new A-list in town.”