The Princesses of Iowa

by M. Molly Backes

  “Thanks, Dr. Coulter,” she said, with more authority than Lacey or I had ever had. She turned to the mic and cleared her throat. “Yesterday I killed three people,” she said. “And I’m really sorry.”

  “This is so fucked up,” Shanti said, and added for Aaron’s benefit, “She was in a car accident last spring, a drunk driving thing. Her car was totaled. And now she’s reenacting it in front of the whole school, to air her guilt.”

  “It wasn’t her fault,” I said. “She wasn’t the one driving.”

  “That makes it even weirder, then,” Shanti said.

  “What would you have her do?” I asked. “She’s making a positive effort for change, even if it is weird. Maybe it’s not what you would have done, but it’s something. Better to do something than run away and pretend nothing happened.”

  “You sound like Ethan,” Shanti said.

  I blushed. “Well?”

  Aaron chimed in. “I agree with Paige.”

  I grinned at him. “Thank you.”

  “So please, please don’t drink and drive. . . .” Nikki was finishing up, wiping under her eyes with her handcuff-free hand. Her voice was wobbly but firm. I wondered where Lacey was, whether she was watching Nikki with the same mixture of fondness and pride.

  “And now I’d like to invite Paige Sheridan up to say a few words,” Nikki said. Shanti shot me a questioning look, but I just smiled and pushed through the crowd to find my place beside Nikki onstage.

  From the stage, the gymnatorium was lovely. In addition to the tiny white lights on all sides, giant paper lanterns hung from each of the folded basketball backboards, glowing like round moons. I leaned into the microphone. “Hi. So I was supposed to write a eulogy for my sister, who ‘died’ in the crash yesterday.” Scanning the crowd, I found my sister’s face and grinned. “I was going to tell you about how awesome she was, and what a brat she could be. I was going to make jokes about her joining the legions of the undead.” Mirror rolled her eyes, but she looked pleased.

  “I started making a list of all the people who would be affected by her loss, and then I realized — everyone would be.” I thought of Shanti and her whole hierarchy of cool, the band kids and the theater kids and the tech kids. A tech kid was running the spotlight right now, and another tech kid was running the sound for us. “It’s like what Mr. Berna’s always saying, when he starts ranting about ‘global temperature change.’” I heard a few chuckles. “We all affect one another. We’re all connected.”

  Down on the gym floor, Mr. Berna started clapping enthusiastically, and the kids around him giggled. Ms. Hoeschen leaned over and grabbed his hands to silence him.

  “Nikki took the blame tonight for killing my sister, and my friends Elizabeth and Ethan. Just like she took the blame for the accident we were in last spring. And though obviously it was her fault yesterday — I mean, you were there, you saw —” I smiled, and the crowd kind of laughed. “But last spring it wasn’t her fault. I mean, we all made bad decisions that night, and when I think of what could have come of those decisions . . . when I think about losing people like Elizabeth Carr or Ethan James, or my — my little sister — I can’t believe we were that irresponsible.

  “I realize you probably don’t care about one stupid accident that happened months ago, and I’m not really asking you to. The point is, Nikki cared. She realized how lucky we were to have survived, and she saw that the mistakes we made weren’t incredibly unusual or strange. Anyone could have gotten behind the wheel that night.”

  The far doors finally opened, admitting a long sliver of yellow light from the hallway as a dark figure slipped into the dusky gym. I squinted through the darkness and the crowd, willing myself to see Ethan, staring a moment too long at the back of the room before regaining my place.

  “The rest of us tried to forget about it, but Nikki decided to try to keep other people from making the same mistakes. She spent the whole summer planning with local police, fire, and emergency services to stage yesterday’s crash. She went to every business in town to get funding, and she spent her own money to fly out to Maryland for a training session in late July.”

  Nikki’s eyes widened slightly, and I smiled at her. Thanks to Jeremy, who as editor in chief of the paper made it his business to know everything, I’d discovered that there was a lot I’d never thought to ask about.

  “She even got the director of the national mock-crash program to consult with her personally,” I said, and the crowd murmured. “She helped to write the script for yesterday’s accident and personally helped train each of the student actors.”

  Nikki blushed and tried to wave the comments aside, but I continued. “We all screw up, and it’s hard enough to take the blame and apologize to the people you hurt when you do. But Nik went one better: she worked to keep other people from making the same mistake.”

  I reached out my hand, and Lacey stepped out of the shadows and limped up to the mic. Nikki looked shocked, and I stretched out my other hand to pull her toward me, until it was the three of us standing center stage, together. Just as we’d always planned.

  Lacey smiled at the crowd. “In honor of Nikki’s hard work and contribution to our community, the student council has agreed to donate the proceeds of tonight’s dance to a local teen substance abuse counseling program.” She looked around, and her junior doppelgänger, Geneva, stepped forward with an overlarge check made out to Willow Grove House. “Nikki, on behalf of the student council, senior class, and student body, thank you.”

  Geneva stepped forward to hand her the check, and Nikki waved at her face so her mascara wouldn’t run. She looked at me and mouthed, “Thanks,” and I grinned and gave her two thumbs-up. Collecting herself, she turned to wrap things up with a final message about how Elizabeth, Ethan, and Mirror weren’t really dead, but they could have been, and that she hoped people would keep DIEDD’s message in mind after the dance tonight.

  Dr. Coulter reclaimed the mic from her, clearing his throat. “Very nice. Very nice. Thank you, everyone. Quiet down please. Quiet down.”

  And then I saw him. He was standing at the other end of the gym, dressed in a suit and looking ridiculously handsome. Our eyes locked and I lifted my hand to wave, but suddenly Jake was hopping onstage and picking me up in a strangling hug. “That was amazing, Paige!”

  He leaned in to kiss me but I pushed against him, struggling out of his arms. “Jake, no.” I looked past his shoulder to where I’d seen Ethan, planning to signal him somehow to wait for me —

  “It’s not too late, babe,” Jake said. “We could still be king and queen — just like you’ve always dreamed.”

  I looked into Jake’s eyes. He used to make me weak in the knees with one look. He used to be able to talk me into anything. But he no longer had that kind of power over me. “You know, I think I’d rather be a commoner,” I said.

  I turned back to find Ethan, but he turned away, and I couldn’t catch his eye. Was he leaving? Where was he going? I looked around, desperate, and inched toward the edge of the stage, wondering if I could jump in these heels.

  “Paige, wait.” Jake grabbed my hand. “I fucked up, I know that. But I can change — I can be the person you want me to be.”

  “The person I want you to be?” I asked. “Jake, I spent the last two years trying to be the person you wanted me to be — you, my mother, Lacey — and I was never good enough. And now? I feel like I hardly know who I am. So maybe you should focus on trying to figure that out — who you are, not who I or Lacey or your parents think you should be.” I held his hand, feeling the familiar weight of his fingers, rubbing my thumb along his rough skin. “You’re a good guy, Jake. Deep down. But you have to stop listening to everyone else.”

  He sighed. “So. This is really it, huh?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Jake looked resigned. “I guess I knew that already.” He hugged me again, hard, and then let me go.

  When I turned back to look for Ethan, he was gone.

  T
he rest of the princesses were onstage now. I edged forward, still thinking of jumping, but Nikki caught my hand and pulled me back. “Where are you going?” she whispered. “It’s time for the Rose Ceremony!”

  “I —” I looked at her, and for once I was the one who couldn’t keep a secret. “Fine,” I whispered. “I’m here.”

  Dr. Coulter finally got around to the traditional pomp of the homecoming ceremony, calling everyone’s names and handing each of the princesses a red rose, brilliant against the dark curtains at the back of the stage. The thorns had been carefully removed, probably by the mothers of the Bee Boosters club. I accepted my rose, smiled for the cameras, and then squeezed Nikki’s hand. “I hope you win!” I whispered.

  Dr. Coulter was clearing his throat into the mic, and I crept backward as smoothly as if my tottering heels were moccasins. Toe, heel, toe. Just like Sacagawea, but backward. As the boys made their way forward, my hands parted the curtains behind me and I was free, disappearing into the heavy black.

  I snuck through the hallways and back into the gym to find Ethan. Shanti and Aaron were standing approximately where I’d left them.

  Aaron saw me first and gave me a thumbs-up. “Awesome!” he whispered.

  “Nice speech,” Shanti said.

  “Really? I felt like it was so long.”

  “It was great.” She grinned. “Go, Space Dogs!”

  I felt a pang of regret that Mr. Tremont couldn’t be here. My speech wasn’t much, maybe, but I never would have been able to write even that without him. I should have been turning in my story to him next week. Technically, I still could; I did have his email address, after all. But I knew that I’d lost my chance to redeem myself to him, to show him that I could make myself vulnerable in front of my peers. At Northwestern — or wherever I decided to go — I resolved not to let fear stop me.

  An arm slid around my waist, and Jeremy’s voice spoke in my ear. “That was crazy, girl. Was that a eulogy, or a campaign speech?”

  “Shut up,” I said, and he laughed. I felt a sudden rush of affection for him. Thank God I hadn’t ruined things between us for good. “Listen, Jeremy, I just want to say again how sorry —”

  “I know.”

  “No, seriously,” I said. “You’ve been nothing but nice to me, even when I totally didn’t deserve it. And all the work you did for Nikki and for Mr. Tremont . . . You’re amazing, and if anyone says otherwise, I will kick their ass.” I grinned at Shanti, who was obviously eavesdropping. “I learned that from Shanti,” I told Jeremy.

  He nodded wisely. “Meeting Intolerance with Violence: The Shanti Kale Story.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar face. I turned, and Mirror smiled at me. Her gown was deep-red velvet and vaguely Victorian in style. She looked amazing. I beamed at her. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  “Hey, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Shanti said, tapping me on the shoulder, “but shouldn’t you be running after a certain Prince Charming right about now?”

  “What?”

  She pointed at the door. “He just left.”

  “Shit!” I said, and ran, weaving around clusters of my classmates until I reached the back of the gym, where I pushed through the heavy wooden doors — and flew.

  One thing the storybooks never make clear enough is the moment between the spell and its conclusion. Is it sharp, like the crack of ice on the spring equinox? Or does it fade slowly, almost imperceptibly, like night fading into morning? Was there a moment when Cinderella sat in her pumpkin carriage, surrounded by sticky innards and giant pumpkin seeds, when her beautiful glass slipper got caught in the sludgy orange goo?

  Outside, black clouds darted across the moon like schools of sleek fish, and a drizzly breeze pushed at my bare arms and pulled my hair out of its updo. The school yard was empty. I ran toward the student parking lot, searching for Ethan’s Jeep. My expensive high heels sank into the mud, and the hem of my dress collected rainwater as I ran, but I didn’t care. “Ethan!”

  Princesses don’t yell, my mother’s voice reminded me.

  “ETHAN!”

  At the far end of the parking lot, I saw a dark figure walking away, a black shadow under the orange lights. I gathered up my long, wet skirt in one hand and sprinted across the lot, darting between cars as the drizzle turned into a shower. By the time I reached the far end of the lot, my shoes were utterly useless. I kicked them off and hurried through the grass along the sidewalk. “Ethan!”

  It was him. I was close enough now to see for sure, and even from behind I recognized his long stride. The rain was pounding against the sidewalk, against the windshields and hoods of cars parked in the street, against the tin roof of the equipment shed out near the soccer field, but still I was fairly certain he could hear me. He kept walking.

  “Ethan, goddammit, I want to talk to you!”

  He spun around, pushing a hand through his wet hair. “Why? What more is there to say?”

  “Let’s see,” I said. “How about I’m sorry, for one?”

  “Are you asking or telling?”

  “Telling. I’m sorry. You’ve been so great to me, and I’ve been an asshole to you.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “I mean, you are great,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Really great,” I said, getting desperate. His eyes were dark.

  “Look,” he said, not unkindly. “I just don’t think we can be friends. We tried, it didn’t work, fine. Let’s cut our losses and move on.”

  I flinched, raising a hand to my cheek as if I’d been slapped. The rain poured down my face. I didn’t even want to think about what I looked like — my carefully applied mascara was probably running in rivers under my eyes, my hair a limp, wet version of Medusa’s snakes. Princess Paige would have left it there, would have gathered what poise she had remaining and made the most dignified exit she could.

  But I was no longer that girl. “Ethan,” I said, and then stopped. What could I possibly say to convince him? I didn’t realize — not until I thought you were dead. . . . I spent the last two days looking for you. Everything I thought sounded so trite, and yet I couldn’t stop running through every cliché I knew. You had me at hello. You complete me. Shit.

  “I missed you,” I finally said.

  “Look,” he said impatiently, “I saw you with Jake —”

  “On stage? That wasn’t — Ethan, listen to me.” I reached out a hand and grabbed him, and even through the freezing rain a spark of electricity jumped between us. “Listen. That wasn’t anything. We’re finished.”

  “Which explains why he was kissing you. . . .”

  “Which explains why I punched him in the junk and ran away.”

  He laughed unexpectedly. “Really?”

  A strand of wet hair flopped across his eye, and I had to restrain myself from brushing it back. My heart was shivery and nervous, but I tried to play cool. “No, but would I seriously be standing, barefoot, in the middle of a torrential rainstorm if I was still with Jake? I mean, logically, wouldn’t I still be inside, dancing and . . . um . . .” I looked around, desperate for inspiration.

  Ethan gave me a small smile. “And eating princess cake?”

  “Exactly. And floating on fairy castles. . . .”

  “Riding unicorns into the sunset. . . .”

  I laughed and shivered.

  “Look,” I said. “I have a lot of things I need to figure out. But with you, I feel like it’s okay that I don’t exactly know who I am. Because you don’t make any demands of me. You don’t expect me to be anyone but myself.” I sighed, frustrated that words were failing me when I needed them most. “Am I making any sense at all?”

  He grinned. “You mean, other than the part where you seem to think that being with me is better than riding unicorns?”

  “Other than that.”

  Ethan’s eyes locked with mine. “Absolutely.”

  We were built on words; the words we’d
written together, the things we’d told each other that we hadn’t said to anyone else. But there was also something between us that transcended words: the connection, the understanding, the times we had looked at each other and really seen — all those moments of silence were just as important. All this time I’d been holding myself back, keeping myself between the lines other people had drawn for me, because I couldn’t see myself as anything more than princess. But with Ethan, I had been more. I had been myself. And while I knew that I would continue to be myself with or without him, I wanted to be me with him. If he’d have me.

  He reached for my hand. I grinned, tears mingling with cold rain on my cheeks, and laced my fingers through his. I leaned against him and he leaned against me, and we walked until the rain stopped falling, the clouds evaporated, and one by one the stars appeared.

  This book was written in six years, five houses, four jobs, three cities, two states, and with the help of one incredible community. Because my gratitude is as vast as a continent, allow me to give my most geographic thanks.

  In Publishing Land: I am overwhelmingly thankful for Secret Agent Becca Stumpf, who in addition to being a visionary editor and a relentlessly cheerful champion is also an excellent dancer. I am equally thankful for my brilliant editor, Kaylan Adair, whose editorial wisdom has far surpassed my every expectation. I recently read that they don’t make editors like they used to; apparently Kaylan didn’t get that memo — and thank goodness, because I don’t know where I’d be without her keen eye and sharp green pencil. Hogs and kisses, Kaylan!

  In New Mexico: Lisa Aldon, in whose house this book began, Jennie Lee, Tony Forbes, Rory Cobb, Kelly Williams, and my students at Moriarty Middle School, who inspired and challenged me, with special thanks to fellow writers Elizabeth Carpio, Liz Spalding, and Anaztasia Borrego.

  In Chicago: StoryStudio has been the kind of writing community most writers only dream of, and I owe huge thanks to everyone, especially the members of the Advanced Fiction Workshop, who saw early drafts and asked all the right questions. I am particularly indebted to my mentor, teacher, and friend, Jill Pollack, without whom I would not be the writer I am today. Thanks also to the Ragdale Foundation and to my fellow residents for the champagne and daffodils.