“Yeah, I guess,” I say, not willing to admit that I’m both disturbed by Mirror Girl yet aware she has certain perks; or that I’ve started hearing the strange voice from the compact in my bag, which has now gone quiet again. “But I still don’t have a date. So, I need advice on how to find one. And you are the only guys I know that I can ask such an embarrassing question.”
They all smile. Uncle Shrimpy actually takes out a large white hanky from the pocket of his tiny red velvet shorts and starts dabbing his eyes, he’s so overcome by emotion.
“It’s my considered opinion that any young man who doesn’t want to go out with you needs his head examined at the earliest opportunity,” says Uncle Jem.
It’s really nice to hear him say that but . . .
“You have to say that because you’re my uncle,” I say.
“Well, technically I’m not really your uncle,” Jem points out. “It’s an honorific your mother bestowed on us when you were born.”
“Minor detail,” I say. “You’re still not about to come out and tell me that I’m the last girl on earth that any guy would want to ask to the Fall Festive.”
“You want some advice, Rosie? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Uncle Herb tells me. “Bring a nice pastrami sandwich on rye with mayo and mustard and maybe a little bit of lettuce—but not too much. Oh, and a sour deli pickle. That’ll do it.”
“Food’s okay, but music is the soul of love,” Uncle Bijou argues. “Find out what rocks his soul and walk by singing that song.”
“But I have the worst singing voice in the history of ever,” I say. “When we go to karaoke, nobody even wants me as a backup singer!”
“Minor detail,” Bijou says, waving away my concern.
“Hang out at the gym,” Rocco advises me. “Talk to a nice strong guy with good muscles. Someone who can protect you.”
The other uncles nod. They clearly think I’ve inherited Mom’s obliviousness to Stranger Danger. Hello, Uncles? This girl was born and raised in New York City!
“So, I should sing while bringing a pastrami sandwich to a nice muscular guy at the gym?”
“Not all three at the same time,” Uncle Yù advises, stroking his goatee. “That could get messy.”
“While you’re singing, you should dance,” Uncle Zafiro says. “Dancing reveals a woman’s soul fire.”
Um . . . what? I’m not exactly sure what my soul fire is, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want it revealed. At this point I’m starting to wonder if I want to go to this stupid dance at all.
You cannot stop your quest so grand
To be the Fairest in the Land.
Fear not, be ruthless, and yes, be strong
And do not leave the road you’re on.
I know that mirror is a precious ancient family heirloom, but at this point I’m starting to wish it came with a mute button. Why didn’t Mom warn me that it liked to chatter?
My uncles are still doling out the advice like it’s candy on Halloween.
“Don’t eat beans,” Uncle Jem says. “Flatulence isn’t flattering.”
“Okay, no beans,” I repeat.
“Or garlic,” Uncle Herb says, studiously ignoring Uncle Rocco, whose face immediately flushes red with fury.
No way am I going to let them start the Garlic War up again. Not when I’m getting important dating advice.
“Please, Uncs,” I plead. “Don’t fight. I really need your help.”
“That’s right, Herb,” Rocco says, all holier-than-thou. “Rosie needs us.”
Uncle Herb harrumphs and crosses his arms across his chest.
“I will examine the charts to determine the most auspicious day for Rosie’s dating quest,” Uncle Yù says, getting up and going over to his desk, which is cluttered with parchments and a seriously vintage quill pen.
“But, Uncle Yù, the dance is a week from Saturday,” I point out. “I don’t have time to wait for auspicious days. I already feel like a loser for not having a date yet. Especially because I’m You Know Who’s daughter.”
Snow White is fair, it’s true to say,
But your youth can beat her any day.
Did Mom’s mirror just diss her? Burn.
Still, I can’t help feeling a small thrill that there’s someone in this world—or rather something—that thinks I’m fairer than my mother, whose beauty is the stuff of legend.
“I am aware of the date,” Uncle Yù says, putting on his glasses and bending over one of his parchments. “Remember, Rosie: Patience, and the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.”
Uncle Yù is full of proverbs that sound totally profound, but I’m never really sure exactly what they mean.
My head is starting to spin from all my uncles telling me to do different things, and the Mirror’s mutterings. I close my eyes, wondering why I have to have a date for the dance anyway. Maybe I could just go by myself and then run away at midnight, leaving one of my shoes on the steps or something.
But that’s someone else’s tale.
The only uncle who hasn’t given me any advice is Shrimpy. He’s just been listening and watching, his big blue eyes taking everything in like they always do, as he paints his nails purple to match his hair.
“What about you, Shrimpy?” I ask. “Do you have any words of wisdom?”
He blows on the nails of his left hand and waves it gently to dry them.
“I think you should just be yourself,” he says. “Because Rosie Charming is the best thing you can be.”
Yeah. Like that’s worked so well to date.
As I take the crosstown bus home, I wonder if getting dating advice from my uncles, who to my knowledge haven’t done that much dating, was a good idea. But dateless Charmings can’t be choosy. I need all the help I can get.
Chapter Seven
I STOP AT THE GROCERY store on the way home, trying to figure out what I should make as date bait. Pastrami sandwiches are too smelly to carry around in school all day, and besides, I think you have to keep them cold. I haven’t read this in any of Mom’s CharmingLifestyles.com articles, but I’m pretty sure that giving a guy food poisoning would be major dating no-no.
There’s always the Shiny Red Apple trick, I muse as I walk through the produce section, but somehow I don’t see guys at a New York City school falling for that as easily as Mom did.
I figure cookies are my best bet. They’re small, portable, and don’t need to be refrigerated. Plus, they smell waaaaaay better than pastrami. Now the question is: If the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, would it be cheating to use a mix instead of baking them from scratch? The Need-a-Date clock is ticking.
If I were a CharmingLifestyles.com reader, I’d put on a cute little apron and whip up five different types of cookies, while weaving, then decorating the cute little baskets to present them in, all without chipping my nail polish or breaking a sweat. Or at least that’s what Mom’s breezy articles imply. She always looks cool as a cucumber in the how-to videos and pictures.
But I know what really happens at those photo shoots. Mom has one assistant doing the shopping, another doing prep, and a third doing most of the baking. She walks in to do a few stirs of the bowl and has the makeup artist blotting her face and applying powder so Mom is able to maintain a dewy, flawless complexion no matter how hot it gets in the kitchen.
I decide to go for the cookie mix, since I’m baking solo and have homework to do besides.
“Let me help you with the bag,” Victor says when I get to our building.
“Thanks, Victor,” I say, handing it to him gratefully. Being bombarded with dating advice has really taken it out of me.
“You look tuckered out,” he says, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a Tootsie Roll. “You need a prehomework treat.”
I’m reaching for the Tootsie Roll when I hear the Mirror’s voice from my backpack:
Think again before you eat
This aging servant’s common treat.
A momen
tary pleasure taste
Another inch grows on your waist.
Pulling my hand back to my side, I say, “No thanks, too fattening.”
Victor’s face falls. “Oh. Okay. I guess young ladies have to watch their figures,” he says.
The elevator opens and he hands me the shopping bag.
“You look terrific, as far as I’m concerned, Miss Rosie,” Victor calls out as the door closes.
But all I can hear in my head is the Mirror’s voice.
Mom is in the kitchen making a cup of rose hip and cinnamon tea (Great for the complexion! On sale now for $8.99 at CharmingLifestyles.com).
“How was your day, Rosie?” she asks.
“Okay, I guess. The uncs send their love.”
“Are Herb and Rocco still bickering?” Mom asks.
“‘Bickering’ would be an understatement. They were both covered in tomato sauce and the kitchen looked like a Law and Order crime scene.”
Mom laughs.
“That’s the real reason I took over the cooking. It was the only way to get any peace and quiet.”
“You mean it wasn’t really for room and board?”
“I did the cleaning and laundry for room and board. Herb and Rocco didn’t actually want to give up the cooking. They enjoy it.”
“Yeah, I think they like fighting, too.”
Mom nods and takes a sip of tea.
“The two of them are never as happy as when they’re throwing sauce at each other in the middle of an argument. I just got sick of having to wash all the extra dishrags. No such thing as paper towels in the woods beyond the Seven Mountains.”
“I know, and I don’t know how lucky I am to be growing up in New York City with so many modern conveniences,” I sigh. I’ve heard that speech so many times I could give it myself.
“Okay, SassyPants. I’m going back to work,” Mom says.
“Have fun making lives more Charming!” I tell her. But as she is about to leave the kitchen, I call out, “Wait. Mom?”
“What, dear?”
“You know the Mirror you gave me? The family heirloom thing?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“Did . . . I mean . . . Did you ever hear it say anything?”
“As in talk?”
I nod, hoping she doesn’t reach for the phone to call an ambulance to take me away.
But instead she laughs.
“Rosie dear, I think you’re getting much too stressed out about finding a date if you’re starting to hear things,” she says. “Let me make you a cup of soothing chamomile and lemon balm tea.”
“No, it’s okay,” I say. “I was probably just imagining it. You know, because I’ve heard The Tale so many times.”
Mom comes and cups my cheek with her long, white fingers.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” I say, shrugging. “I just have cookies to bake and homework to do—that’s all.”
She looks into my eyes, as if searching for the truth. I turn away, not wanting her to see that I’m lying. Because I’m not just imagining it—the Mirror definitely speaks.
“Okay. If you’re sure,” Mom says finally. “I’ve got another listicle to write before dinner.”
I make the cookies according to the instruction on the box. Once they’re cooling on the rack, I take out my books to do my homework. The compact slides out of my backpack onto the kitchen table with a heavy thunk. That thing really is solid gold. As sick as I am of hearing it talk to me all day, I can’t help myself from opening it and looking at my reflection.
Rosamunde Charming, Princess Fair
Or would be if she combed her hair.
I snap it shut and shove it to the bottom of my backpack. Algebra homework is more fun than being dissed by a piece of talking glass.
Damien Wolfe is sitting at his usual desk in the back of math class the next morning, drawing something in his notebook with a thin black pen. When I get closer, I see that it’s a comic strip.
“Hey, Damien,” I say, holding out the small Ziploc bag of cookies, which I’ve decorated with colored Sharpies. It’s not going to win me any prizes for presentation on the Food Channel, but I had homework to do. Getting a date for the dance is important, but so is making honor roll.
Damien looks startled, like a deer confronted by a predator in the woods. Meanwhile, I’m still holding the bag of cookies.
“These are for you,” I say, pointing out the obvious.
Apparently, what is obvious to me is not as obvious to Damien.
“Uh, why?” he asks.
I can’t tell the truth, which is that I’m trying to wangle my way into his heart with cookie goodness so he’ll ask me to the dance. So I lie. Figuring that every day is a made-up greeting card holiday of some kind, I create one of my own.
“Well . . . it’s Kookie Kindness Day,” I lie. It sounds pretty lame, even to me.
He looks dubious, but takes the cookies and says, “Thanks. I never heard of that before.”
“Yeah. It’s one of those paying it forward things,” I improvise. “You know, someone does something nice for you and then you do something nice for them.”
“So, like, I should do something nice for someone else now?” Damien asks. “Because you gave me the cookies?”
I swear, this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had, and it’s all based on me lying to him. But now that I’ve started this Kookie Kindness Day train, I can’t seem to put the brakes on it.
Smiling brightly, I nod. “That’s right. Pass it on. Pay it forward and all that.”
Damien smiles, leaning back in his chair. He’s really pretty cute when he smiles. He should do it more often.
“Cool,” he says. “Thanks, Rosie.”
One down, one to go.
“What was that all about?” Nicole whispers when I sit back at my desk.
I’m about to tell her that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and how this is part of my get a date to the dance strategy, but Mr. Kostek is starting class.
“I’ll tell you at lunch,” I whisper.
I have PE right after this, and I have to run to get to the gym and get changed for yoga. Since Hunter is in my class, he can fulfill Uncle Rocco’s find a man with muscles requirement.
Trying to figure out how to give Hunter a bag of cookies without embarrassing myself is totally messing with my mindfulness. The bag is stashed under my sweatshirt, which I’ve put under my towel next to my mat. When I’m supposed to be emptying my mind and concentrating on my “deep cleansing breaths,” all I can think about are various methods of cookie transmission. I’m in the tree pose, trying hard not to lose my balance, when it finally comes to me. I’ll just slide them to Hunter, who’s right behind me, when we do the downward dog. Keep it simple, right?
Wrong.
When I go into downward dog, I reach over to grab the bag of cookies from under the sweatshirt so I can slide it over to Hunter. But I lose my balance and face-plant, painfully, onto my nose, which starts erupting bright red blood all over the yoga mat.
“Casualty! Man down!” Hunter shouts.
Clearly, he’s been playing too many combat video games.
“I’m a girl, in case you didn’t dotice,” I manage to say from behind the towel I’ve bunged over my nose to try and contain the bleeding.
Genny Krulinski sniggers. No Kookie Kindness for her, that’s for sure.
“Okay, stand back, everyone!” Coach W shouts. “No touching any bodily fluids!”
Great—she’s acting like I have cooties or some highly contagious flesh-eating disease that’s going to contaminate everyone who comes into contact with my nose blood.
All calming breathing and meditation stops as Coach W goes to the first aid kit, dons plastic gloves and a face mask, and gets some paper towels and the spray bottle of industrial strength disinfectant that we use on the mats after class. She walks toward me, brandishing the disinfectant like she’s about to
spray me in the face, but at the last minute she barks: “Tip your head back and pinch your nose!” and sprays the mat down with enough liquid to kill any germs ten times over.
“What happened?” she asks.
“I uh . . . slipped.”
“Well, take it easy. I don’t want any injuries,” Coach W says, stepping back from the mat, right onto my sweatshirt and the bag of cookies.
Too late for no injuries. And there goes my awesome plan for asking Hunter. I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
“That was a pretty spectacular nosedive,” Aria says to me as I’m washing the blood from my face after class. “You look like you just came out of a boxing ring.”
“I feel like it too,” I say, touching my aching, tender nose. “And Coach W stepped on the cookies I was going to give to Hunter Farthington for Kookie Kindness Day.”
“What’s Kookie Kindness Day?”
I explain the whole paying it forward thing.
“Why’d you pick Hunter?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Aria says, playing with the end of her braid. “I mean, Kookie Kindness is great and all, but he doesn’t seem like your type.” She shrugs. “Is that the point of it though? To reach out to people you wouldn’t normally hang out with?”
“That’s exactly right.” Nodding my head hurts my nose. I hope it’s not broken, although it would probably serve me right for being such a Pinocchio. “It’s to try and make the world more friendly through cookies.”
“Cool,” Aria says as she heads to her locker to finish getting dressed. “I’m definitely going to do it.”
I messed up at giving Hunter the cookies, lied to Damien and now Aria. Not only that, I’ve ended up with a really sore nose. This whole day is definitely not going according to plan.
“You’ll never guess what happened!” Katie says when I meet her in the cafeteria. “Damien Wolfe gave Sophie McKee a black-and-white cookie in art. He said it was Kookie Kindness Day, and he was paying it forward. Have you ever heard of anything so weird?”
I try to smile, but I’m having problems turning the corners of my mouth up because my brain is in panic mode and my nose hurts.
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