If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince?

herself down, and dialed a number on her phone.

"Hel-lo! No, it's me.... Oh my god.... Really?"

Her piercing voice could have cut glass. "They did? ... But I told you.... No I told you that..." I packed my stuff up as fast as I could and stuffed it into my drawer. In a moment of perfect

symmetry, just as the studio door closed behind me, I heard Andrea say, "Get out!"

The hallway was deserted. Three twenty-five. Four hours and thirty-five minutes till game time.

Maybe I'd call a taxi and go to Barnes and Noble and do homework. I made my way to my

locker. Should I go to a movie? But who goes to a movie all by herself in the middle of the

afternoon? I wished I could just be cryogenically frozen for a few hours and then emerge, well-

rested, if slightly chilly, in time for the tip-off.

There was something on my locker. From a distance it looked like a newspaper clipping, but as I

got closer I realized it was a postcard. I studied the front of the card, which was a photo of a

painting, a portrait. Then I turned the card over, milton newman: new works, the margaret ta

gallery. 525 west fourteenth

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street. new york city. opening reception march 31. five to seven.

March 31st--that was today. I looked around, totally freaked out. This was way too big a

coincidence. Who knew me well enough to know I A) liked art and B) had four hours to kill?

Co

the New York art scene. Jessica? Ditto. No. No. No. Was someone watching me? Had someone

overheard me asking Jessica and Madison if we could hang out after school? Did I have some

kind of freak stalker situation on my hands?

Just as I was starting to get totally weirded out about being all alone in the hallway with a

potential stalker, the answer came to me. Ms. Daniels. Of course. She must have stuck the card

on my locker. All the teachers have a list of student locker assignments, so if they get the urge

they can order a student's locker be searched for drugs or porn or credit card receipts from

termpaper.com.

But wouldn't Ms. Daniels have given me the postcard in class? Or told me about the opening like

she had the Clemente exhibit? The whole thing was really strange. Then again, my locker was

between the studio and the faculty parking lot. Maybe she'd meant to give it to me in class but

then forgotten. I could totally picture Ms. Daniels walking along the hall, reaching into her bag

for her car keys, and finding the card in her bag. She

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probably carried the locker numbers in her briefcase with her roll book or something. It made

total sense.

I'd never heard of Milton Newman before, but the portrait was fantastically cool, almost but not

quite photo-realistic. It reminded me a tiny bit of something I'd seen before, but I couldn't think

of what. I checked the hall clock. Three-thirty. It was only a five-minute taxi ride to the Glen

Lake train station. The opening was from five to eight. I could go into the city, see the paintings,

and be back on Long Island in plenty of time for the game.

I'd just been invited to my first New York art opening. For the second time this year, Ms. Daniels

had singled me out from the rest of the class as someone who would benefit from seeing an

exhibit she liked. Was I really going to say no?

Luckily the change of clothes I'd brought for the party could double as Manhattan gallery-

opening wear: chunky-heeled black boots, black low-rider pants, and a tiny, paper thin, pale blue

C and C T-shirt Madison had given me last week, since she said it looked really cute on me and

she never wore it anymore. I could change, go into the city, see the paintings, mix and mingle,

then hop on the train and be back in Glen Lake with plenty of time before the game started.

My afternoon had suddenly gone from sucky to stupendous.

I'd have to remember to tell Ms. Daniels she made an excellent fairy godmother.

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Chapter Fifteen

When my cab pulled up in front of the Margaret Ta

hanging low over the Hudson River, and the entire block exploded with light. The gallery sat on

a lawn of white gravel, slightly apart from the neighboring buildings, and there was a small

reflecting pool out front. A rough-hewn stone wall ran around the property.

The front of the gallery was all glass, and through it I could see the crowd and some of the

paintings: enormous, photo-realistic portraits. As I stood at the gate, looking across the gravel

lawn, a taxi pulled up and a couple emerged, chatting in Italian. The woman had short, spiky hair

and the man wore tiny, geometric glasses; they were both thin and chic, and as they walked past

the reflecting pool, they looked like something out of a Vogue photo spread.

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Clearly it was a very good thing I was wearing black pants.

Inside, the crowd was equally fabulous. The women, even the older ones, were ta

and a lot of them were wearing microminis. The men wore linen suits or expensive-looking shirt-

pant combinations that even someone as fashion impaired as the Princesses insist I am could tell

were extremely hip. The well-lit room buzzed, and the occasional pop of a flash camera only

added to the feeling that this was an important celebrity gathering.

The artist, whom I recognized from the postcard (apparently a self-portrait), was standing over in

one corner, surrounded by a mob of people. I headed for two of the paintings I hadn't seen from

the street. These were enormous landscapes, so rich and varied my eyes felt overwhelmed, and I

realized who Newman's work reminded me of--Chuck Close. I circled in front of one of the

paintings slowly, watching the swirls and lines seem to change color as I looked at them from

different angels. Painting was just so cool. How did people know how to do that, to put colors

and shapes next to each other in just the right pattern? I wondered if my mother could have

explained it to me, or if it was all intuitive, impossible to articulate.

I stepped back from the painting, looking around the room for Ms. Daniels. The truth was I

couldn't quite picture her in this crowd. Perhaps she transformed into super-hip, Manhattan-art-

scene woman as soon as

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school was out. I scrutinized a few of the microminied women more closely, ultimately

determining that the only way Ms. Daniels was in the room with me was if she'd chopped off her

long hair and dyed it platinum blond, cherry-red, or blue.

I figured I'd find her before I left; maybe she was one of those people who believed in arriving

fashionably late. Plus, I was starting to feel self-conscious standing in the corner looking around

the room for a familiar face. I turned back to look at a painting I'd been studying, but

unfortunately right then I did see a familiar face. Only it wasn't the familiar face I wanted to see.

It was someone else from my class whom Ms. Daniels must have invited.

Sam Wolff.

Ugh.

Sam was half turned away from me. He was wearing a sports jacket and a pair of charcoal

fla

back and laugh. I couldn't believe it. Why did my first New York opening have to include Sam

Wolff? And why did Sam have to be standing there, casually chatting with the artist like they