Paige’s reflected image shakes her head at me sadly and runs her hand through her glossy golden hair. It does sort of look like Barbie’s.
“If you want to talk about getting in trouble or you want any advice, you have my number.”
“I’m grounded from the phone.”
“All right, Princess Parker. You know Mom will let you talk to me if you tell her you need to. Just call me, okay? And put a little more conditioner in your hair. It looks dull. Try some Paul Mitchell.”
She should totally start an advice column.
12
The Coming of the Ice Princess:
So, once upon a time there was this little girl who liked to be neat. She liked her clothes to match and to be clean and she liked her toys to be put away in the toy boxes. One of this little girl’s first memories is of her mother having a miscarriage.
She remembers her mother falling on the floor, holding her stomach, and she remembers that there was a lot of blood.
Mrs. Prescott (as we will call the mother) had one miscarriage after another in her quest to have a son. Then, when her little girls were five and nine years old, Mrs. Prescott had a pregnancy that lasted longer than the others. At thirty-three weeks she had her little boy, but he was so small that he had to stay in the hospital for months. The littlest Prescott girl was in kindergarten. Her father got her up each morning and helped her get dressed. Wearing neat, clean outfits that matched, particularly with matching hair ribbons in her dark hair, made her feel safe and secure, and close to her mother, who was often in the hospital with the miracle baby, as everyone called him.
At the age of ten, the girl’s sister got up on her mom’s desk in the middle of her office in front of all of her coworkers and did an entire song-and-dance number, complete with a flip at the end. Family legend states that it was not two weeks later that the girl’s mom got a fabulous promotion. I remember vaguely that someone asked if the little one sang and danced too. The little one ducked her head and held on to her mother’s skirt.
I guess I—er, I mean she didn’t change much when she got older.
Paige was the center of attention. Preston got over most of his initial health problems, but he has severe ADHD, which keeps Mom busy all the time. I never caused any trouble, not before this week.
There’s something about being the younger sister of the most popular girl in school that makes your fellow students, or at least those that I met my first day at Allenville High, think you are a colossal snob. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to jump up and yell, “Hey, everybody, I’m not a snob!” Especially when the reason they think you’re a snob is because you’re so quiet. It’s a dilemma.
Allenville is a magnet school. It gets two types of students. Well-to-do students from the surrounding middle-class neighborhoods who have decent-to-good grades, and really smart kids from everywhere else. Our house is in the Allenville school district, so I guess that makes me one of the well-to-do students. Which is pretty funny when you think about it. Ironic or something.
The ex-boyfriend wasn’t around my freshman and sophomore years because he was at a private prep school. An honest-to-goodness boarding school in New England. He got kicked out. There was speculation for weeks over what heinous crime had earned him the axe.
They put him in my advanced British literature course, where he settled in the back of the room kind of hunched in his seat with his legs crossed at the ankles. He was wearing a long black coat. He’d been in private preps for so long he didn’t realize that the trench coat went out with Columbine. It was ultimately hot on him.
All the girls were panting over him. I was hot for him too, but I didn’t know how to break out of the cool quiet calm façade that I had built around myself, so I just observed while every creature with breasts threw herself at his feet. Although some (Kandace Freemont) were aiming a bit higher than the feet. He was polite but sarcastic. He was quiet. He had a mysterious little smile that drove me crazy.
The rejected ones swore he was a homo, but he didn’t have that vibe. Being uninterested in some whorey girl doesn’t make you gay. It just makes you discerning, right?
So he was in my fifth-period class. When they moved him in, the rest of the boys dropped off my radar. Unfortunately, I didn’t drop off theirs.
Sometime, someplace, some genius realized that my pale skin holds a blush exceptionally well. Let the games begin. It became a challenge to see who could make me blush first. I think the thing that bothered me most about the constant torment of the guys who called themselves the Gruesome Twosome and their little psycho friend was that they initiated their torment in front of him. These guys had it in for me.
It really big-time sucked.
They didn’t torment me around Raye, and I never mentioned it to her. I mean, Raye and I met in middle school when she saved me from some kids who were teasing me. But that was a long time ago, and I didn’t want to tell my best friend that I was still such a loser that all the boys still wanted to embarrass me. Since we’d become best friends I liked to feel somewhat equal to her in coolness. So I didn’t tell anyone. I just tried to ignore it and hated every minute that Ms. White wasn’t hovering over me in advanced British lit, shielding me from oncoming humiliation. Until October 13.
I remember the date because it was Friday, therefore Friday the thirteenth. I didn’t have plans for either weekend night, but that didn’t mean I was interested in anything the Gruesome Twosome could think of to tempt me with. And the little weirdo they had picked up was even nastier than the original two. As soon as he caught sight of me coming into the room his beady eyes would light up, and I knew he was searching his tiny brain for the dirtiest and most perverted thing he could think of to say to me.
We had a sub in advanced British lit, and he was really interested in current events, so no hovering at all. In fact, I’m not sure he ever looked up from the Friday newspaper. Didn’t Ms. White know that I needed her to be there every day?
They had a theme going. You could call it creative, but it was probably because they weren’t so good at thinking stuff up. They needed a bit of inspiration. The subject for that day was tea bagging. If you don’t know what that is—and I didn’t before it became one of their topics—it’s, well . . . They were talking about . . . What they were doing was . . . speculating on how much I would enjoy having their balls in my mouth.
“So, Parker, would you just slide them into your mouth and suck on them?”
“Wouldn’t it feel gross? Squishy?”
“What happens when you get a little hair in your mouth, do you like that? Huh?”
I was staring at my notebook because there was nothing I could say to make them stop. On TV you could have a comeback so good it would stop everyone in their tracks. In real life you would be lucky to spit the words out, and even luckier if they heard you over their own laughter.
“I’ll bet she loves it.” The little one was standing right in front of my desk kind of gyrating toward me. I glanced up and several girls were watching, but they looked away, unwilling to help me. This is one of those awful classes where I don’t really know anyone. And no one has ever tried to get to know me. Probably because they don’t want to get picked on too.
“Is it the salty taste you like, Parker? You want that, huh? You love it?” Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t always say my name. Then it would be a little less personal, less like they were imagining me actually doing these things and, judging by the fast shallow breathing, getting into it. I wondered what kind of damage a sharpened pencil could do. I was so mortified I didn’t want to look up. Was afraid I’d glance toward them and see some telltale sign of how into it they were. Less than five minutes until the dismissal bell, I told myself.
The boys in the back row were listening. I could tell because several of them were leaning forward, laughing silently at me. The little evil one leaned down on my desk, so close I could smell something decaying on his breath. “So you like to put balls in your mouth, you like to suck on
them, do you? Would you like me to—”
“Back off.” At first I didn’t know who said it.
“What?” The little asshole almost died of shock. No one had ever said anything to him before. His Chihuahua eyes bulged with disbelief.
“I said back off. Get away from her, you little pissant.” Then I recognized his bored drawl and I could see the toes of his scuffed black boots even though I was still afraid to look up. What if he was going to say something perverted now? What if he was judging me over all those things they said to me and my inability to defend myself?
“What’s your problem, man?” Gruesome Twosome Guy Number One sounded irritated but also a little nervous, like a person who knew he had been doing something wrong and had been expecting to be called out on it.
He laughed. “You wanna pick a problem? I have several. How about you acting like Parker Prescott would give you the time of day, much less touch your shriveled, diseased, and probably microscopic balls? Is that a good enough problem for you?” His voice softened and I knew, even though I was still staring at my notebook, that he was saying this for me. “I know you guys get a rise out of trying to heat up the Ice Princess, but let me tell you dumb fucks something. Making a girl blush is nothing.” I risked looking up really fast. He wasn’t looking at me. He was standing in front of me, keeping them back. He was protecting me.
“Parker Prescott is beautiful, in a way that you three don’t understand.” His voice went low. “If anyone is going to thaw her, it’s going to be me.” I felt a flush of embarrassment. He knew about the Ice Princess thing. He knew what people said about me. And yet there he was protecting me, watching me with something like fascination. There was something dark in the way he said the thing about thawing me, something that made me forget to breathe, but there was also a certain softness in his voice that made me curious about what he saw when he looked at me, curious about the interest that I thought I detected in his eyes.
13
In my bedroom prison I glance at the right-hand corner of the hulking computer screen where it tells the time. It’s just Thursday morning. Who knew Christmas vacation could be so long? I’ve never been grounded like this, not during the holidays. I mean, this is the part that usually flies by. The first week you’re always looking forward to the big present stash, the second week you’re totally loving the break and totally dreading going back to school. But not this year.
“Do you want to play Tetris?” Preston asks.
“I guess so.”
We play Tetris for like half an hour. When he doesn’t get the blocks in the places he wants them, he gets agitated. Then, because he’s so jumpy and pacing back and forth, he misses where the other blocks should go. I beat him every time, even the last few times, when I’m really trying to let him win.
“Will you draw me a castle?” he asks.
“What?”
He asks me some crazy stuff sometimes.
My miracle brother trots into the kitchen and comes back with this big pink sheet of construction paper with the outline of a castle and, get this, pink cotton balls glued to the turrets.
“Why did you make it pink?”
“Kristi likes pink.”
I don’t ask him who Kristi is. Or if she was the reason he glued a row of Rice Chex above the purple door. Sometimes it’s better not to ask him things. My parents are always in his business, like, Who did you talk to today? And, Did you make any new friends? Did you remember to go to the bathroom?
I never ask him any questions. I find this a more restful way to interact with such a hyper kid, and I think he appreciates it.
“Wow, this door folds down.” I bend it down a couple of times. Pretty creative.
“That isn’t a door, it’s a drawbridge. I want to do a not-pink one. Will you help?”
“Yeah.” I mean, it isn’t like he asks for a lot. When he’s focused he’s easily pleased. I walk up the stairs, get my sharp pencil, and carefully ease a sheet of drawing paper from the pad I keep under my bed.
We get a couple of rulers and start designing a castle. Preston has an Elmer’s glitter glue stick. He keeps popping the cap off and then putting it back on.
“You aren’t going to start gluing stuff to this, are you?” Sometimes he makes garbage collages with all kinds of stuff that he glues to construction paper. They’re weird and occasionally gross. He smiles at me. Somehow it feels peaceful and nice working side by side with my little brother. Then he says,
“Draw the murder holes.”
“The what?”
“And the arrow slits.”
“What?”
“They gotta be angled so that you can shoot arrows out and not get shot by the people outside.” What are they teaching kids in school these days? I carefully sketch some narrow windows, hoping they look like arrow slits or whatever.
“Um, okay.” Here we go. “What’s that marshmallow for?”
“This isn’t a marshmallow. This is a vat of boiling oil. We’ll pour it on our enemies so that they can’t attack our castle. Are you gonna make me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch?”
“I guess.” With just those few references to medieval torture and violence, our loving sibling moment is over for now. I stand up and stretch and head for the kitchen. “Will you take this pencil up to my room?” I ask, half expecting him to say something like Why? because it’s just a normal pencil, my parents have them all over the place in case we get the urge to do math homework in any room in the house, but he nods and runs it upstairs. Sometimes I think that kid may know me better than anyone else in this family.
In the kitchen, as I put the cheese and bread together and turn on the stove, I find myself staring at the phone. If I were completely lame, I would say something out loud, like How come you never ring? I would start a conversation with it. But ice princesses don’t talk to phones about their problems, if they have any. Problems that is, not phones. Ice princesses need communication as much as anyone else.
Then, as if I made it happen with my amazing mental powers, the phone does ring. I stare at it stupidly. I look at the caller ID. It’s Raye. I shouldn’t pick it up, but I really want to talk to someone from the outside world. I hit the button and put the phone to my ear.
“You know I can’t have phone calls,” I tell her. I’m unreasonably annoyed because she isn’t the one I was hoping would call, and she’s wasting stolen moments that I could conceivably spend talking to him. If he would just call me.
“Are you home alone? Preston won’t tell on you.”
“Yes he will. If she asks him he’ll tell her the truth. And she will ask. She knew I talked to you yesterday.” Raye called yesterday to tell me all about her latest date with Josh. It’s good to know that even though the world passes you by when you’re grounded, your best friend will call and update you on things outside the house. But that doesn’t make me any less frustrated that she’s the only one who ever calls.
“Well, this is important, Parker. Have you talked to the world’s biggest asshole yet?” God, I hate it when she calls him that.
“You know I haven’t, I would’ve told you.” I would’ve e-mailed her or stolen a phone and called her. I would’ve been jumping up and down if I had heard from him.
“Well, guess what, Park. He’s talking about you.” Raye sounds pissed. I can almost see her shaking her bangs out of her face. “And Kandace Freemont is talking about him. You’re featured on Marion Henessy’s blog.”
“No.” I feel a stab of dread. This is Marion Henessy, enemy of the Prescotts. The one who mangles Barbies while pretending they’re me. I’m used to being discussed on her blog, but I always hate it, and I particularly hate the idea of us being talked about, me and him, and if Kandace is in there too, this cannot be good.
“Yes. With, looks like around thirty responses, and half of them are anonymous.”
“That’s bad.” My heart sinks even more. Anonymous posters always write the most hateful things, because they don’t have to worr
y about a counterattack. I balance the phone between my shoulder and the side of my face and listen to Raye while I put the grilled cheese on a plate and cut it in half from corner to corner. Two big triangles, his preferred grilled cheese shape. Preston slinks into the kitchen and sits down in front of the plate. I pour a glass of milk and try to smile at him since he’s watching me with big eyes. He can sometimes tell when I’m upset, but he returns my smile and takes a big bite.
As soon as I know he’s okay I run upstairs to turn on my computer, nervous. I have to know what they’re saying about me, even if afterward I wish I didn’t know.
“Being a feature on Marion’s blog sucks,” I say as I wait for her stupid site to load.
“Depends on how you look at it,” Raye says.
“Yeah.” I know what she means. There are losers who try all year, any lame stunt they can think of, to get on Marion Henessy’s blog. Any publicity is good publicity, you know? But I am not one of these people. It’s my bad luck that in the Allenville High School social scene, Marion is the voice of relentless gossip that she smears across the Web with no thought for anyone else’s feelings or privacy. She’s just a sophomore, and slightly fanatical, but she’s good at finding scummy stories to entertain her readers. I vote her most likely to grow up and work for a tabloid faking pictures of the devil seen in the clouds or Elvis working at Burger King. Marion is a big fat attention hog and a liar. She used to be my friend, but things changed, even before Paige had her brother taken to jail in a real police cruiser, in handcuffs. They didn’t keep him, of course. The way Marion carries on, you would think her darling brother was rotting away in prison.
The short and sweet version is that Kyle, who maintains her professional-grade Web site, used to stalk Paige. Night-vision goggles and everything. Scary shit. My parents filed a police report. Then, not two weeks later the police were driving by and found him in the tree next to our house with a pair of binoculars around his neck. The judge issued a restraining order, and here we are. I used to hang out with Marion when we were younger, but now I don’t even think we were friends back then. Just little kids who thought they should be because they lived next door to each other.
Handcuffs Page 6