Just Your Average Princess

by Kristina Springer

  I kick my boots at the block of concrete with the metal scraper sticking out of it, knocking loose dirt from the Patch, and then push open the old wooden front door with the ripped screen and walk into the house. Mom’s got both of Milan’s tiny hands in hers and she’s gushing all over her.

  “Oh, sweetie, oh look how much you’ve grown up! You’re a young woman now!” Mom says, a huge smile spread across her face. I notice Mom has set her hair and put on a little makeup. She’s wearing a pale yellow shirt with a long skirt. Not the usual dinner attire around here.

  Milan nods. “It’s nice to see you again, Aunt Julie.”

  Mom hugs Milan tightly and Milan twists up her face like she’s getting squished. “Oh, honey,” Mom says. “Oh, you’re much, much too skinny. Don’t your parents feed you? Well, we’ll fix that right up. I’m making a big dinner tonight. Chicken, potatoes, green beans, biscuits”—Mom ticks food off on her fingers—“creamed corn, and peach cobbler.”

  Yum. Mom is an awesome cook. I head for the sink to wash up.

  Milan looks alarmed. “Um, I’m sorry, Aunt Julie, but I don’t eat meat. Or carbs. Or sugar. And I’m not sure what creamed corn is, but I make it a general rule not to eat anything with the word ‘cream’ in it. And you know corn is a filler anyway, right? Do you have any tofu? Maybe a soy burger?”

  Mom looks at Milan for a long minute and her smile disappears. But she doesn’t say a word. Finally she turns around, walks to the pantry, pulls out two cans of creamed corn, and walks to the can opener.

  Creamed corn it is, then.

  * * *

  My mom’s chicken is so good. I mean, so, so good. She always debones it and cuts off the fat, because she knows that rubbery stuff grosses me out, and then she batters it in flour and egg and bread crumbs and fries it in some vegetable oil. Delish. I want to reach for a third piece. I worked hard today and I’m pretty hungry. But I don’t want to look like a total pig in front of Milan. All she has on her plate is a scoop of green beans, which she is ever so slowly nibbling on. And that is only after she brought them to the sink and washed each bean individually to get off the butter Mom had added to them. Oh man, I thought Mom’s head was going to explode when she did that.

  “What are your plans for tonight, Jamie?” Mom asks. She picks up her and my dad’s empty plates and turns for the kitchen.

  “The usual,” I say to her. “Hanging out with Sara.”

  Dad grunts and pushes back from the table. We watch him leave without saying a word. I’m sure he’s off to hole up in his office and watch TV. He’s not what you’d call the world’s best conversationalist. I’m pretty good at translating his grunts though. That one means “I wish you’d hang out with someone other than Sara every once in a while.” Not that he dislikes Sara or anything. I mean, he hired her to work at the Patch and gives her free rein to do her creative thing with the caramel apples. It’s only that she’s nineteen and out of high school and he’d probably be happier if my best friend was seventeen like me.

  And, well, he sorta thinks she’s a bad influence on me. Which she’s totally not. But it’s a small town and everyone knows everything about everyone else so when a rumor gets going it spreads through town fast. I know Dad wasn’t too happy when he heard that Sara got caught in a compromising position with a boy under the bleachers at the football field her senior year. But that was two whole years ago and it’s not like I followed suit or anything. I don’t even go to football games. I work on Saturdays.

  And truth be told, there was that one time when Sara first got her driver’s permit and we went joyriding in her dad’s new truck when we were supposed to be having a sleepover at her house. Nobody would ever have known if we hadn’t run out of gas about two miles out of town. We had to call her dad to come get us in her mom’s minivan, which he had previously sworn never to step foot in for as long as he lived. Guys are so weird about minivans around here.

  But aside from that extremely short list of typical teenage deviance, Sara and I are good people. It’s not like we’re getting drunk at parties or starting fires in empty parking lots. There are worse people I could associate with. Of course, I could bring Dilly Hanson around more. She’s my school best friend. But then Dad would find something wrong with her too, I’m sure. Dilly’s parents are a tad bizarre. Not bizarre in a bad way, I mean, they’re supernice people, have good jobs, and contribute to the community, and Mrs. Hanson is on the town board. But they do some odd things too, like their house is pink with orange shutters, they hang candy from the tree in the front yard every Halloween, and they named their three kids Dilly, Fraction, and Nero. In a town of only a thousand people, this kind of thing sticks out. I think of them as colorful while Dad says they’re freaks. That’s mostly why Dilly is my school friend; I don’t bring her home too often. I think Dad just doesn’t like me having fun.

  “Why don’t you take Milan with you guys, honey? Show her around Average.” Mom walks back into the room, slipping on her sea-foam-green apron with tiny blue flowers around the edges in preparation to do the dishes.

  I look at Milan. “Sure, that’d be great.” Spending some time together outside the house and away from my parents will loosen Milan up a bit and give us a chance to talk about old times.

  Milan looks like she ate a bad bean.

  “Um, that’s okay, Aunt Julie. I should probably unpack. Or something,” she says.

  “Plenty of time for unpacking tomorrow,” Mom replies, carrying the last of the chicken from the table.

  “Yeah, you should come. It’ll be fun,” I say once we’re alone. I start thinking about the places in town I want to show Milan.

  Milan pointedly looks from one of my pigtails to the other and I self-consciously reach up and touch one. What, is she worried about my hair? Is there still hay in it? I forgot to check it when I came in. Or is it my pigtails? It’s not like I won’t do my hair before we go out. All of the girls at the Patch put their hair up. Well, those doing physical labor do, that is. It’s sweaty work out there. You don’t want your hair sticking all over your face.

  Milan chews on another green bean and swallows. “What do you do on a Friday night around here anyway?” she asks, looking the teensiest bit intrigued.

  “Usually we cruise the strip. You know, the main drag through town. Everyone does it. You get to see lots of people.”

  “So, you just drive? Do you ever stop anywhere or is that all there is to it?” she asks.

  “Well, no. We mostly drive around. But sometimes when we’re really bored we’ll drive out to the cornfields and turn our headlights off. It’s so crazy.” I shake my head and chuckle. “There are no lights out there so you are literally driving in pitch-black.”

  “Crazy,” Milan says flatly.

  “Um, and sometimes, we’ll stop and gather a bunch of ears of corn and then drive back to the main drag and chuck the corn at people out on the sidewalks.” Milan gives me an alarmed look. “Not to hurt them of course,” I quickly add. “I mean, we don’t actually hit people, we just throw it sorta near them. You know, to scare them. To be funny…” I trail off.

  “You’re telling me,” Milan says slowly, “that you people throw produce at each other? For fun?” She pushes back from the table and heads for the guest room. “What freaking planet have I landed on?” I hear her mumble under her breath before she shuts the bedroom door behind her.

  I stamp the last of my potatoes on my plate with my fork. Sheesh. What’s with the “you people” stuff? It’s not like we’re throwing cucumbers and cabbage at each other. It’s only the corn. There’s loads of it around here. And it isn’t like we do it all the time. Just when we’re really bored. We don’t hurt anybody. It’s silly. And it’s usually Sara’s idea anyway. She’s the one who throws the corn. I’m always driving. Geez, this is sounding more and more stupid, even to me.

  * * *

  An hour later I pull up, alone, in front of Sara’s white two-bedroom house with the peacock-blue shutters and dove-gray
door, and tap on the horn three times, my signal to let her know I’m here. Sara’s mom peeks out from behind the living room curtain, her hair in pink foam rollers, and waves to me. I return the gesture. Mrs. Erickson is so dependable. Every night by 6:30 she’s got a head full of rollers and is sitting at the small table in the window reading Soap Opera Digest. While I do love my soaps, I don’t touch that magazine. I hate how they tell you what’s going to happen weeks out. Like, which one of these three Destined Days stars will survive a tornado that devastates the entire town only to find out she’s got terminal cancer? Spoilers much? I can’t see Mr. Erickson from the driveway but I’m 99.9 percent positive he’s watching reruns of old game shows from his recliner. It’s hard to believe they rerun that stuff but they do. I know Sara is dying to move out, but she doesn’t know where she wants to go or what she wants to do yet. She tried community college for one semester last year and absolutely hated it. She said she was never going back. She’s not the books-and-studying type.

  A few minutes later Sara comes bounding down her front steps, pausing briefly in front of the maroon and yellow mums that line both sides of her walkway. Yellow and maroon are the Average High School colors so I like to tease Sara that her landscaping is the equivalent to having dozens of cheerleaders with their pom-poms sending her off and welcoming her home each day. She pulls a couple of buds from one of the maroon mums and slides into my passenger seat. She pushes one flower behind her ear and hands me the other. But I’m not really in a flower-behind-the-ear mood just now.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Sara says, buckling her seat belt.

  “I don’t know,” I reply, staring straight ahead at my steering wheel.

  “Main drag?”

  “Nah.”

  “Chuck corn?”

  “No!” I say more adamantly, as I put the car in reverse and back out onto Sara’s street.

  “Okay, okay. What do you want to do?” she asks.

  I pull out onto the main road, thinking. “Want to get a custard?” I finally ask. Frozen custard always cheers me up. And the family-run frozen custard stand up the road has the seasonal pumpkin-pie custard right now—my favorite.

  “Yeah, I can go for custard. Let’s do it.”

  A few minutes later I park the car in the gravel lot near the stand. I pull on my navy wool hat and gloves since it’s a bit nippy outside tonight. Plus they look cute with my lightweight green sweater. The weather in central Illinois in September is odd—it can be warm during the day but chilly at night. Sara tosses her flower onto the dashboard, then takes her multicolored striped hat out of her pocket and pulls it on.

  The custard stand is hopping so we get in line first for our custard and then find a spot at the end of one of the long wooden picnic tables. There is a group of sophomore girls from school at the end of the table and a family with young kids a couple of seats down from us.

  Sara takes a big bite of her custard and points her spoon at me. “So spill. What’s with the mood? Is cousin-poo driving you nuts already?”

  I sigh. “No. Not exactly,” I say, and take a bite of my custard, relishing the creamy deliciousness of it.

  “Did you see Danny looking at her? Seriously, I was about to stick a bowl under his chin to catch the drool,” Sara says.

  “Sara! He wasn’t drooling over her.” I add, “Not really.”

  “Uh, okay. If you say so. Is that why you’re in a mood? You’ve had four years to ask him out.” She stabs at her custard with her spoon.

  I know Sara thinks I’m a wimp for not “going for it” with Danny. She has no problem walking up to a cute guy she likes and asking him to a movie or out for a burger. But that’s so not me. I’m not the forward type. I’m much more the sit back, smile pleasantly, and pray that he someday, somehow notices me type.

  “No, that’s not bothering me,” I say. “And Milan would never go for him anyway even if he did like her. Which he doesn’t. He’s one of us. He’s ‘you people.’”

  “Huh?” She raises one eyebrow at me.

  I quickly fill Sara in on how Milan’s been acting since she got here and how she basically thinks we’re a town full of a bunch of freaks or something.

  “I say ignore her,” Sara concludes when I’ve finished. “Act like she doesn’t even exist.” She gets up from the bench and tosses her empty custard cup into a nearby trash can.

  “I can’t ignore her,” I say. “She’s living in my house—at least for the next six weeks. It’s not that big a place, you know. Our rooms are across the hall. We’ll see each other all the time. Not to mention she’s going to be working at the Patch too.”

  Sara laughs, sitting back down again. “Yeah, right. Milan Woods is going to do physical labor? I’d love to see that.”

  “Well, you’ll get your chance. She starts tomorrow.” I crumple up my napkin and toss it into my empty cup.

  “What is Milan doing visiting right now anyway?” Sara asks. “Doesn’t she go to school?”

  “Mom says she’s on some kind of break,” I reply.

  “In mid-September? Who gets a break in mid-September?”

  I shrug. “It is kinda weird.” Especially during pumpkin season. I mean, we’re a pumpkin patch; this is our busiest time of the year. She could have come in winter or spring when we’re less busy. In the winter Dad hauls in fresh-cut Christmas trees from a tree farm to sell and Mom sews and teaches quilting classes. And they attend a lot of trade shows in the spring. It’s pretty quiet then. But come June, Dad starts planting the pumpkins and Mom is superbusy with all the marketing and getting the shops and stands ready. Then September hits and it’s nonstop pumpkinmania, seven days a week.

  “Listen,” Sara begins. “She’s still thinking she’s a Hollywood princess or whatever and that we all care who her mommy and daddy are. When she sees that nobody does and she’s no better than the rest of us, she’ll come down from her high horse. Wait and see.” Sara nods matter-of-factly, and I want to believe her.

  “I hope you’re right. I was sort of thinking that with Milan being here I’d get to see what it was like to have a sister,” I admit.

  “Hey!” Sara says, feigning insult. “You’ve got me.”

  “I know, I know. I mean a live-in sister. True, I haven’t seen Milan in years, but she was so much fun back then and I figured we could pick up where we left off. I guess that was a stupid thought,” I say, and rest my chin on my hand.

  “You haven’t talked to her at all since you were six? Haven’t you e-mailed? Written letters? Birthday cards? Facebook? Anything?” Sara asks.

  I twist my lips. “No … not really. I mean, Mom has written and called to talk to Aunt Annabelle and Uncle Jack and she’s told us about them over the years. But as for me and Milan specifically speaking? No. Though I did try to add her as a friend on Facebook once. She ignored the request.”

  Sara smirks. “Well, what was so fun about her back then?”

  I cross my arms. “I don’t know. Nothing. Everything. We got into a lot of trouble together actually. Like, when we were out in California visiting we went to the beach for the day. Aunt Annabelle was walking down the beach a ways and Milan and I were building this awesome sand castle near my parents. It had at least a dozen turrets. Anyway, Aunt Annabelle suddenly came running toward us with this thing in her hand. It looked like a clear, half-deflated water balloon. She was laughing so hard and yelling, ‘My plant fell out! My plant fell out!’ Well, Milan and I had no clue what the heck she was talking about, but the adults burst out laughing. So we did too. I mean, Aunt Annabelle looked so darn goofy hopping around that way. But then she screamed and we got spooked for a second. We figured it was still part of the joke though so Milan and I resumed laughing. Then Uncle Jack got up and peed on her hand! Right there in front of everyone! So we laughed even harder. And Milan got up and started jumping around yelling, ‘My plant! Ah! My plant! Ah!’ It was hysterical. The adults were not amused. We had a time-out on Milan’s beach towel for half an hour after that. T
urned out that thing Aunt Annabelle picked up was a jellyfish that had stung her and the pee was supposed to help relieve the pain. But how were we supposed to know that? I was a pretty good kid, you know, but I had five more time-outs with Milan over that vacation. She was so, so funny. I didn’t even mind getting in trouble.”

  “Aw, that’s a cute story. Kind of weird, but fun—aha!” Sara slaps the picnic table and chuckles. “Wait, I just got the joke!”

  “What?”

  “Your aunt’s joke! I bet she said ‘My implant fell out!’ You know those saline bags they use for boob jobs? I can see how one of those might look like a jellyfish.”

  I smile. “Hey, yeah, that is pretty funny. I wonder if Milan ever got her mom’s joke?” I stop smiling. “I’d tell her but she’d probably roll her eyes at me and call me ‘you people’ again.”

  Sara frowns. I can tell she feels bad for me.

  I shake my head. “No. You know what? We got off on the wrong foot. Stuff like this probably happens all the time when you haven’t seen someone in so long. You can’t always have an instant reconnection like on those mushy gushy find-your-lost-relative reality shows. It’ll just take us some time. I’ll get her to like me yet.” I nod, determined.

  “Well, whatever. But don’t stress over it.” Sara stands and tugs at my arm. “Come on, forget about her for now. I know what will cheer you up.”

  “What?”

  Sara grins. “Let’s talk about Pumpkin Princess and how you are a shoo-in for it at this year’s pumpkin festival!”

  3

  I still remember the first time I understood what a Pumpkin Princess was. I was sitting between Chester and Leroy, two of the goats in the petting zoo, brushing their coats and watching the Patch parade. The parade always starts at the far end of the Patch, taking a route through the Patch and onto the main drag in town. A big crowd had turned out, lining the way with their lawn chairs. There were people carrying orange and green balloons, local farmers driving big green John Deere tractors, the high school band dressed in costumes and playing fun songs, dancing scarecrows, and a giant float in the shape of an ear of corn, carrying people who threw candy corn to the parade watchers. The thing I couldn’t take my eyes off of though was the red hay wagon with the corn-husk throne and the Pumpkin Princess sitting atop it.