Almost My Prince Read online

  Living with him? That would’ve been tantamount to an engagement announcement or confirmation to the world of the erroneous assumption that I was his mistress.

  No, thank you. Bella’s one bedroom next to the WD Sanitation & Disposal Co. did just fine.

  Besides, I had a mere five-mile trek, mostly down the lush hillside, to Diamond High School.

  But the border check just now had sliced an extra twenty minutes out of my schedule. My nerves kicked up. Part of being the “serious and professional” student Stanvard would want, as Lexi had advised, meant not being late.

  I peddled faster along the winding descent instead of coasting.

  The perfume-drenched air rushed against my face. I allowed the scent of gardenias, perhaps tuberose, the smell of fresh cut grass, something sweet drifting in the wind, and somehow the freshness of fallen rain to soothe my nerves. The aggregation smelled familiar to Mom’s Hideaway perfume.

  For a breath, I closed my eyes. I was that little girl curled up on Mom’s lap, and she was stroking my head the way Granny did. Around and around and around. And I would tumble toward a deep sleep.

  Tumbling and tumbling and tumbling… toward a deep ditch.

  Dear Lord, my bike wheel had careened off the side of a pesky, near boulder-sized rock, and I’d zigzagged between the road and embankment until my bike had bobbed down a slope, until I’d been tumbling and tumbling and tumbling, until the bike had fallen on its side and I’d landed flat on my butt.

  Before a fall, there’s that moment where reality blurs and time is out of sync between the body and mind. I called this “The Matrix moment,” as in the Keanu Reeves’ movie, or visual effects techies would call this “bullet time.”

  Call it whatever you wanted—I’d provide the sound track.

  Crickety-Clink-Clack…Crash!

  I pulled a sprig of something from my hair. Lilacs. Everywhere around me. I’d landed in a bed of lilacs. Granny’s favorite flower. Granny was always my soft place to fall—and I ached for her.

  And I ached in my elbows, my hands, my hips, and my right knee.

  I did a pat down across my body to check for broken bones and…

  Blood?!

  On my right knee. Drops, mind you, but enough to compel the Cullen clan of Twilight into salivating. I wiped the crimson rivulets onto my beige skirt, and the stains spotted the front beyond repair.

  Hells bells, I had no time to make it through the border check again to change. Hells bells, I was going to be late for my first day and the kids would be waiting on me and I might even get fired. Hells bells, my knee hurt and, even though I’d never hit it hard in the crash, so did my head.

  The world started spinning and spinning and spinning. Then all over again, in my mind, I was tumbling and tumbling and tumbling.

  My world colored from lilac to black…

  Through a haze of female chatter, I registered saying to two women that “I’m okay” and “thank you, thank you, thank you” and “yes, I could use a ride” and “yes, I’ll take my bike.”

  Soon we were bumping along the road in their truck, and the vinyl seat chafed against my butt. Not like Granny’s couch, because my butt already knew every crease and wrinkle there.

  This seat had a wide gash, exposing its jaundiced-colored innards.

  And don’t get a whiff of that smell. Worse than rotting flowers.

  Hells bells, don’t panic, but I was in the front seat of a garbage truck with a tatty woman named Jeanne Lowe, or so her faded shirt read, and a young buttercup blonde with a ponytail, perhaps nearing her late teens, sitting between us.

  “Mama, she’s the one I was telling you about,” the girl said to the leathery woman, a hard forty or so in age, driving the truck. “The new school teacher, Miss Wellborn.”

  Never imagined my first parent-teacher meeting would take place in a garbage truck. And how did the girl even know I was her teacher?

  “See, here you are.” She held up her cellphone, and the display carried a picture of my face.

  I thanked my lucky stars it wasn’t the picture of me in that Modern Comeback Veronique lingerie.

  “The school texted all the students pictures of the new people.” She then looked at me, really looked at me, and slanted her head. “You’re even prettier in person, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

  What was I supposed to say to that? The girl already wore glasses, so I couldn’t blame her eyesight. Didn’t she see that my eyes were too green, that I stood out in a crowd, that even my Mom was embarrassed of me? And let’s not get started on my father.

  Jeanne’s cellphone rang and she responded, “Yeah, running way behind… Get off my back.” She covered the phone briefly and said to us, “Gotta make a stop before dropping you off,” and then she was back on the phone.

  Hells bells, I could see the school a mile or so ahead. The bell hadn’t rung yet, and I could bike there within a few minutes after homeroom started. I’d be late, but I’d be there—and not on a garbage truck.

  I raised my voice to overtake her phone conversation, “You could just let me off—”

  She flipped a U-ie and backtracked us up the hill.

  Guessing that was a no.

  The image of the school, from the long side mirrors out the window, shrunk smaller and smaller, along with my earlier first-day excitement. I swallowed hard. Yesterday I’d met Ms. Krusher, the assistant principal with the pursed lips, and she didn’t give me the impression she’d find any of this humorous.

  Jeannie, now my garbage truck tour guide of the Maravista countryside, had hung up the phone, turned a classical music station on low, and pointed out various sightseeing spots along the winding road on the way to God knew where.

  The radio transitioned to a new symphony, and Jeanne asked her daughter, “What’s this one?”

  Da-da-da-DUM.

  Arguably the most famous symphony in history, but odds were next to zero that a teenager would know that.

  “Oh, that’s an easy one, Mama, Beethoven’s Fifth.”

  Hmm…

  “Yeah, and what’s so important about it?” her mama prompted.

  “The first measure has only four notes,” she said, “and they’re short-short-short-long, which spells out Churchill’s V in Morse code.”

  “What else?” her mama questioned further.

  The girl tilted her head. “Well, V stood for ‘Victory’ during World War II,” she said. “BBC radio used this as a theme to inspire people.”

  If this girl was any gauge, Maravista students weren’t anything like average high schoolers, who’d probably connect V with the movie V for Vendetta, not with Winston Churchill.

  Her mama quizzed her on more topics, and the girl hit a homerun on every one. This had to be a glimpse of hundreds of mornings they must’ve shared like this.

  This garbage truck, for this girl, was like Grandpa’s garage on weekends for me. Yes, Grandpa was a powerful Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, but he also tinkered in his garage on weekends and played AC/DC—all while cross-examining me on my homework answers.

  This garbage truck driver, with her classical music and pop quiz questions, was this girl’s Grandpa equivalent.

  Her mama asked her another question that stemmed from a WWII history lesson. After she answered, the girl said to me in a near whisper, “Did you know that since World War II, Maravista has been the secret spy capital of the world?”

  “No,” I responded in the same secretive tone, but I struggled to suppress my laugh. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, yet it sounded pretty far-fetched.

  Maravista as a capital for the rich? Yes.

  For spies? No.

  “If I did know,” I responded, “guess it wouldn’t be so secret, now would it?”

  Jeanne reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear and changed the subject. “Ya know, you’re one lucky dog we found you,” she said to me. “These are the service roads”—Dear Lord, she took her hands off
the jumbo steering wheel and made a wide sweeping motion with her arms to showcase the roads—“because they don’t want people like us to be seen by the”—yikes, hands still off the steering wheel over here, and she curled her fingers into those invisible quotes gestures—“‘Richies,’ all those rich folks here in Maravista.” She huffed and put her hands—finally—back on the wheel.

  Okay, check her off in the disgruntled worker column. But that still made me late.

  While I appreciated her cultural commentary, I had to get down to logistics. “Um, how much longer until we get back to the school?”

  Jeanne wrangled the whopping steering wheel along a tight curve going twice as fast as a racecar driver would have.

  Darn it, she even took one of her hands off the wheel and tapped a finger to her upper lip, I supposed, to think about an answer. “Ya know, not too far from these parts is where Princess Grace’s car went over a cliff.” Or perhaps not to think about answering my question. “God rest her soul. What a horrible death.”

  Yep, and I didn’t want to find out firsthand how horrible either.

  She and her daughter then crisscrossed their hands in the Sign of the Cross and kissed their thumbs. There was something beautiful in the way the mother and daughter performed the action in perfect unison.

  They entranced me.

  The two were so different, yet in perfect sync with their devotion.

  Maybe they did it for Princess Grace’s memory, but once we’d cleared that curve, I did it, too—and I’m not even Catholic.

  Although I sure was saying my own prayers about making it to school. “So how long—”

  “Oh yeah, right, it’s so hard not to think about Princess Grace”—faultlessly timed Signs of the Crosses by both again—“when I’m on these roads. God help us if something ever happened to our Princess Divina.” More mesmerizing Signs.

  I never would have pictured anyone regarding Princess Divina as a practical saint, especially a garbage truck driver with an antipathy toward “Richies.”

  Divina was my best friend—but, excuse me, had they seen how much she spent on shoes alone?

  She did have a heart of gold—but since gold wasn’t one of the rarest metals on earth, she’d probably demand I say platinum.

  “Gotta make a stop pronto at Diamond Corp.,” Jeanne eventually said. “That American trade delegation’s headed in from the airport, and those Richies don’t want their trash showing.”

  Mental note—the royals were revered and the Richies were disdained for being rich. But weren’t the royals rich, too? I’d yet to understand even a fraction of the idiosyncrasies I’d found so far in Maravista.

  But I didn’t need to understand. By the end of the semester, I’d hear back from Stanvard.

  “Oh, Mama, Diamond Corp.’s on the other side of town,” the young one commented. “I’ll miss homeroom.”

  Yep, so will I.

  “But this is so super!” The younger girl had a sudden burst of energy and swiveled her body towards me. “Now I can find out all about you before the other kids.”

  Yep, “super.”

  The blonde beside me beamed while she shared her straight-A GPA and all the bullet points from her resume as if she were on a job interview. Somewhere along the way of listening to all her accomplishments, I picked up that her name was Sally—and mentally I started calling this smart girl…

  Yep, you guessed it, “Smart Sally.” She deserved the name.

  “And I have you for two classes,” she said. “One’s that new doll fashion design. Mama almost didn’t let me take it until she realized it fulfilled my art requirement.”

  “Got that right,” Jeanne said. “No doll class is gonna get you a scholarship.”

  “This one might,” I countered. “There’s a four-year scholarship to the winner of a contest at the Diamond Doll Convention, and I’m entering the whole class.”

  I was going to announce that in class, but I couldn’t resist the look in Smart Sally’s eyes.

  “Really?” Her milk chocolate-colored eyes had warmed to a caramel shade. Those eyes reminded me so much of Granny’s.

  I nodded. “And the winners of the Young Designer’s Challenge don’t just get all four years of college paid by Princess Divina—she’s including spending money, too.”

  Yes, I’ll say it—Divina really did have a heart of platinum.

  “Oh, I hope I have a chance to win,” said Smart Sally.

  I gave her my own version of the Sign of the Cross in my head. She was a good kid.

  “Well, what d’ya know,” said Jeanne. “Playing with dolls could pay for school.” Then she took her eyes off the road and stared straight at Smart Sally. “But don’t you let it interfere with being a lawyer.”

  “I won’t, Mama. I promise,” she said, like a reverent prayer.

  Hadn’t I made a promise similar to that before with Grandpa and Granny?

  For Smart Sally’s sake, I never wanted her to know what it felt like to break that promise—and I was darn well going to do everything I could to make sure this girl kept hers to her mama.

  Her mama swirled the backs of her fingers along Smart Sally’s cheek and the girl leaned into her mama’s hand.

  I was intruding on a private mother and daughter moment, yet I couldn’t avert my eyes. What I witnessed eclipsed the few tender memories I had with my own mother.

  Only when we came upon another twist in the road did her mama reluctantly, yet thankfully, withdraw her hand to steer us through the bend.

  I could never be like Jeanne and take my hands off the wheel without impending disaster. Look what had happened only this morning when I’d taken my hands off my bike—I’d crashed.

  Sure, I loved the freedom of it, but I guess I didn’t know how to handle it. Maybe Jeanne was different because she had her daughter to ground her.

  Smart Sally focused back on me. “Guess what?” Her voice popped like a newly opened can of previously shaken soda. “I’m also your captain for the mock trial team. Isn’t that great?” The words spilled from her like they danced out on a million bubbles. “We’re going to have tons of fun, just you wait and see.”

  She chatted on about the team dynamics and past successes—all I had to do was sprinkle in nods where appropriate. “You were captain of your Harvard team, too?”

  I nodded.

  “Look,” she said, lining her ponytail against the length of my hair. “We have the same color hair! That’s so awesome.” And with a flip, she twirled her ponytail back into place behind her.

  I nodded.

  “Our coach Mr. Madson’s already been bragging about you,” she said. “I think he might have a bit of a crush because he keeps talking about you so much.” She giggled.

  No nodding here. Absolutely no nodding.

  Hells bells, I didn’t need more guy complications. Prince Michael was enough to handle.

  The garbage truck halted, but it didn’t like sitting still. The truck jiggled us in our seats, and the engine rumbled waiting for some action.

  Jeanne pressed a button to her right and pushed back a lever until the truck groaned and heaved trash from the bin, encased in its metal arms, directly into its mechanical stomach.

  Out my window, the gleaming Diamond Corp. building stood as a megalith to the wealth and power of Maravista. My eyes squinted from the sun shining off its glass panels.

  Someone walking nearby caught a halo effect, with hair kissed dark brown from the reflected sun.

  I squinted again. Or, maybe the aura originated from the man himself.

  Masculine—no doubt. Power emanated from his proud bearing, his exceeding height, his prowl along the sidewalk, some ten feet away. He was his own megalith of male virility.

  True, I didn’t need any more guy complications, but this was not a guy—he was a man.

  And I was only staring. Perhaps for too long because he turned and glanced in my direction. He shook his head briefly and headed to his car.

  Not five minu
tes later, on the road back to the school, the garbage truck lugged up beside that same man in his car—don’t ask me what kind. Upscale, yes. But all the cars were here in Maravista, barring my garbage truck.

  Yet this wasn’t an I’m-so-expensive-look-at-me car. It didn’t need to be—the man inside deserved all the attention.

  Smart Sally proclaimed, “Hey, look!” She pointed at the man. “It’s Princeton.” She waved frantically at him. “He must’ve been at Diamond Corp.” She said to me, “He always makes sure students at our school are the first to get hired there.” She flashed me an oh-isn’t-he-so-wonderful smile. “Mama, honk the horn! It’s Princeton!”

  “Princeton?” I asked. I attached the name to an Ivy League university, not to a man.

  “Yeah, ya know, Princeton, your principal.” Jeanne laid her hand on the horn.

  Principal?

  Warning bells blared in my head, or maybe those were Jeanne’s honk-honks.

  Principal… as in my boss?

  The principal had some sort of important conference yesterday, and we’d never met. But I needed an exceptional employment record for my Stanvard application, and I’d expected to impress him with the “POP” technique, which in teacher talk meant: Perfect lesson plans, organization, and promptness.

  Insert “almost” before that last word, promptness. Hadn’t I almost made it to school on time? Could that still count?

  I thought not.

  Well, wasn’t he late, too? Didn’t that count for something?

  I thought not either.

  Smart Sally asked me to roll down the window, and she leaned over me so that she could wave closer to him.

  Oh, no, this couldn’t be how I first met my principal. Me, in a garbage truck, with a student “popping” out of the window—not the sort of “POP” technique I had in mind.

  Dear Lord, don’t see us… don’t see us… don’t see us…

  And… he saw us.

  He rolled his window down.

  I ducked.

  Perhaps he hadn’t caught a full look at my face? I mean, Smart Sally was practically hanging out the window here.

  “Hi, Princeton!” Smart Sally said to him. “What luck to see you here!”