The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [43]
“You know,” I said slowly, “I had this theory about your brother, about high school.”
Kate looked intrigued now, excited. “What?”
I was excited too. I was going to tell Kate something I’d never told anyone. I leaned in conspiratorially. “That the school was like a kingdom, and that Jeremy was, like, Prince Charming, and everyone else—”
Kate cut me off. “Like in a fairy tale. Like the girls wanted to be Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty.”
“Exactly!” It was exciting—it was fun—confiding this to Kate. Maybe making all this stuff up in my head didn’t mean I was weird, or crazy.
“That makes perfect sense!” Kate said, almost shouting. “Jeremy is totally the prince at school. Like, at parties, girls want to spend time with him, just like Cinderella at the ball.”
“Oh my God, exactly! That’s totally what I thought too.” Kate and I grinned at each other.
A moment later, though, Kate leaned back on the couch, turning quiet. “Is he still the prince, even if he’s not there?”
I nodded solemnly. “Yes, he’s still the prince. Royalty is something you’re born with. Like when Sleeping Beauty was hidden in her castle, asleep, she was still a princess, even if she wasn’t going to balls and holding court.”
“That’s right.”
“Yeah.”
Kate smiled then, like she’d just figured something out. “That’s like me, then. Sleeping Beauty. ’Cause if Jeremy’s a prince, then I’m a princess, huh?”
I never thought anyone else would find sense—would find comfort—in my fairy-tale world.
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
“Yeah.” She nodded, and we both smiled, sitting close.
Tonight, the three of us are in the den: Kate is reading the book I gave her, Jeremy is taking a practice SAT, and I’m reading about the current situation in the Middle East for my Conflicts class. None of us is paying particularly close attention, though, because the TV is on in the background. Kate’s face is swollen from the chemotherapy; her cheeks are pudgy—grotesquely chubby, making a joke of what a healthy face is supposed to look like; not at all like cheeks that make you want to squeeze them. Jeremy makes a joke of it; calls her a chipmunk, storing nuts in her cheeks for the winter.
Jeremy’s phone rings and he picks it up, then gets up from his chair and goes into the other room. I put my reading down and turn to Kate.
“How are you liking the book?”
“The writing is better than the story.”
“I thought the same thing when I read it. But I loved the main character.”
“Yeah, me too.” She smiles at me. “I like the parts you underlined.”
“Thanks,” I say, because what she says sounds like a compliment.
Kate pauses, and then she says, “Did you read this in school, when you were in seventh grade?”
I shake my head. “I just read it for fun.”
“’cause I thought maybe the teachers might have asked you to bring me my homework or something, like, Oh, Connelly, we hear you’re spending time with the Coles. Bring this to Kate Cole so she can catch up. Like they don’t realize I might not come back—or anyway, not anytime soon.”
I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself: I giggle.
“What’s funny?”
“I’m sorry, I just never thought of your name as Kate Cole before. It just sounds—”
Kate interrupts me. “I know! Like the nursery rhyme! You’d think my parents would have thought of that before naming me. But they were thinking Katherine Cole; they didn’t stop to think about the nickname. So stupid.”
“Yeah.”
“And the worst is my middle name. Ann. Katherine Ann Cole. So boring.”
“My middle name is Jane; can’t get much more boring than that.”
“Yeah, but at least your first name is interesting.”
“Except I hate when people shorten it to Connie. It sounds like I should be wearing white tights and clogs when I hear that.”
“Jeremy calls you Connie.”
“Yeah, but he’s not people.”
Kate grins at me, and I blush. I think Kate likes to make me blush.
“Anyway,” she says, “I was just wondering if this was on some teacher’s reading list.