Who Made You a Princess? (21 page)

“Of course we do,” my dad snapped. “Why do you think we’ve been spending so much time in the Middle East over the last five
years? Rashid is a wonderful young man.”

“How wonderful can he be if he’s going along with this?”

“Shani, please—” Mom sounded as though she was going to cry.

That made two of us—and it still wouldn’t match the tsunami of tears I’d cried since I was little, wondering why no one loved
me and why my parents had more fun away from me than with me.

“I’m leaving. I have homework to do.” With exaggerated care, I put the vase on a table next to the door and stalked out of
the visitors’ study.

Then I slammed the door as hard as I could.

Inside, over my mother’s cry of distress, I heard the vase hit the floor and smash into a million pieces.

I
BURST INTO OUR ROOM
and Carly jerked her head out of the closet, where she’d been putting something away.

“Shani! What happened?”

I grabbed my purse and phone. “I’ma go away. Far as I can get.” Tears ran down my cheeks and dripped off my chin.

Stupid tears. Wasted on those people.

“Shani, wait!”

Carly grabbed her own purse and a jacket and dogged me to the rain tunnel. Panting along behind me, she finally grabbed my
hand and pulled me to a stop. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

I shook my head and sniffled. She handed me a Kleenex.

I used it and kept going. “Gotta go.”

Jogging beside me, she began to talk. And not to me. “Lord, this can’t be good. Need some help here.”

Okay, that got my attention. I pulled her through the glass doors of the field house and outside, where I hailed a cab. Once
we were safely in the backseat, I told the cabbie, “Palace of Fine Arts.” Then I turned to her.

Tears glimmered in her eyes.

For me.

My face crumpled again and I fell into her hug, sobbing like I’d never cried before in my life. Big, honking, hurtful sobs
that lasted all the way down the hill. When I finally came up for air and had used every Kleenex she had, I felt hollow and
empty.

All the rage had gone, leaving an acid trail of hurt. But I’d lived with that for a long time.

The cab dropped us at the Palace, but I turned my back on the depressing Rodin statues and headed for the misty coolness of
the park instead. Up here on the hill, I could see the waves breaking on the shore below. The trees combed the fog with their
branches, and it was quiet except for the
skreek
of the seagulls.

I could finally breathe.

And then I told Carly everything.

When I finished, I glanced sideways at her. Her face was so white in the pearly daylight that it was nearly green, and one
last tear tracked its way down her cheek.

I’d used all her tissues.

“Here.” With the cuff of my school blouse, I wiped the tear away. She shouldn’t have to cry for me. I had enough tears for
my own self.

“It can’t be real,” she said at last, like an instant replay of my own words. “They can’t be serious. Who does that in 2009?”

“It is and they do,” I replied somberly, and started on our second circuit of the park path. “But I don’t care, I’m not going
through with it. I’ve got nothing against Rashid. I like the guy, most of the time. But an arranged marriage? Are they insane?”

“It’s one thing to find out you’re a princess,” she said, “you know, like in
The Princess Diaries
. But it’s a whole other thing to have to marry a stranger to get there.”

“And they completely threw up on the idea of Danyel. I’m not allowed to see him, just when I need him the most.”

“If you’re not going to marry the prince, I can’t see that stopping you. Why should it mat-ter?” I blinked at her. Carly,
giving the rebel yell? Whoa. “Don’t give me that look,” she went on. “There’s a point in everyone’s life when you have to
stand up for who you are. If you’re not going to be the Princess of Yasir, this would be that point.”

“Girlfriend, you scare me.”

She snorted. “A little scary isn’t a bad thing. I learned that last term.”

Memory seeped through the wall of my misery, and I connected the dots between her past and the present. “Wait a second. Didn’t
the trial start this week?”

She nodded. “I had to testify today. Mac is supposed to go tomorrow.”

She hadn’t been in the room when I burst in. “Where is she?”

“Her mom took her back to the St. Francis for dinner. She’s a wreck.”

“Mac or her mom?”

“Both of them, I guess. The countess—Margaret, her name is, but she asked me to call her Meg—had never seen David before he
came into the courtroom. She didn’t look so good when she came back into the judge’s chambers to sit with us.”

“I guess not.” I tried to imagine it. “It’d be weird to see him, knowing your husband had cheated on you and he was the result.”

“He didn’t cheat on her, though. It all happened before they were married. He didn’t know David existed until a few years
ago. That’s when he and Meg split up, and David started stalking Mac.”

“Think Mac will last through the trial?”

Carly nodded, gazing out at the seagulls riding the updraft. “She’s every bit as tough as she looks. She cares more about
her mom’s feelings than anything. It kills her that Meg won’t forgive her dad.”

“I’m not going to forgive
my
dad,” I said grimly, returning to my own problems.

Carly turned to me, nibbling the inside of her lip. “I hope you do. Eventually.”

“How can I?” I threw my hands in the air, and two gulls banked sideways, screeching in alarm. “They set me up in an arranged
marriage! I’m not interested in making them feel all warm and fuzzy. I hope they—” I stopped myself from saying
shrivel up and die
. It would only upset her.

“I didn’t mean for them,” Carly said. “I meant for you.”

“Huh?”

“Forgiveness. It’s a two-way street, you know. They get forgiveness, you get peace.”

“Believe me, I can get peace without that.”

“You can try, I guess.”

I turned on her. “You can’t seriously think I’m going to forgive them for this. They can fly off into their self-centered
sunset and never bother me again, as far as I’m concerned. They gave up their right to expect anything from me when they cooked
up this stupid plan.”

“Maybe so, but you’re still responsible for what’s inside you.”

“You don’t want to know what’s inside me right now.”

“That’s why I’m praying, girlfriend.”

Somehow this slapped me the wrong way. “Well, don’t. I don’t need anybody’s help. I don’t need people messing in my life.
Not parents, not friends, not teachers, not anybody. Not even God. Where was He when the Sheikh was giving his high and holy
permission, huh?”

“But Shani—”

I began to run.

“Shani!”

I dodged through the trees. The street was only a few feet away. I’d flag a cab and go…somewhere. The airport. I had all my
credit cards in my bag. Maybe I’d catch a flight to Hawaii and spend a couple of days just lying on a beach until my brain
fried and I forgot what my parents had done.

I wouldn’t think about Mac and her problems. I wouldn’t think about Carly and her unreasonable expectations. I’d just think
about me.

It was all about me. And my survival.

Yeah.

Stupid tears, running down my face.

Stupid Carly, chasing me, shouting my name. Like I was going to stop.

Stupid blurry world and cars and—

I began to sob again, which was probably why I didn’t hear or see the little silver Prius roll silently through the stop sign
without even slowing down.

TEXT MESSAGE
_________________________

To: PhoneList All

From: SysAdmin

Check out the article in this month’s
Paris Match
(photo attached). And then check out Shani Hanna’s baby bump. What will come first? Graduation announcements or birth announcements?

To: DL_All_Students

From: [email protected]

Date: October 21, 2009

Re: Text message

Please delete the defamatory text message on your cell phones that was sent out on the school phone alert system. Its speculations
are, of course, completely false.

The Spencer phone and message server was hacked last night. The loophole in the OS that allowed this illegal entry has since
been fixed. If any student has knowledge of who may have done this, please inform a faculty member immediately.

Thank you,

Natalie Curzon, M.Ed., Ph.D.

Principal

“
DOCTOR VAN NESS
to Emergency, please. Doctor Van Ness.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Are you a member of the family?”

“I’m her mother. They told me she was in recovery. Is she all right? What happened? How badly is she hurt?”

“Let me page the doctor for you. Her sister is with her.”

“Her
what?
”

“
THAT GIRL HAS
to leave. Both of you. Please. Nurse!”

“I am Lady Lindsay MacPhail of Strathcairn. Take your hand off my arm at once!”

“Please let us stay, Mrs. Hanna. We’re her friends. We care about—”