"You're doing a great job," said my dad when he came into the kitchen to get more ice. I was

standing by the stove watching to make sure the spinach in phyllo dough didn't burn. "This is

what I like to see." He came over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "This is the girl I always

knew you could be."

He always knew I could be a maid?

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I opened my mouth to tell him what I'd always known he could be, but then I got a picture of myself lying prone on my bed, carving lines in my Formica headboard to mark the months of my

imprisonment, while Connor slipped a corsage onto his new girlfriend's wrist and escorted her to

their waiting limo.

"I'm glad, Dad," I said, smiling weakly. "I'm really glad." I watched him leave the kitchen and turned back to the oven.

I'll never know if the Martins, the Aliens, or the Clurmans ever figured out who I was, or if they

just decided my dad and Mara were incredibly enlightened employers who allowed the help to sit

down and eat with them and their guests whenever she wasn't serving a new course. Since each

platter that had to be carried in from the kitchen was too heavy for the Princesses to manage, the

job was mine. It wasn't until dessert, when they exerted themselves so far as to circulate a tiny

plate of petits fours, that either of them did any serving at all; as they walked around the table,

the guests oohed and aahed over how helpful and gracious they were. I stood watching them help

themselves to as many pastries as they "served," brushing my now-matted hair out of my eyes

and seething with rage. By the time I carried the coats down from my dad and Mara's room and

distributed them among the guests, I wasn't even surprised that Mr. Martin complimented me for

doing such a great job and asked if I was available to help him and his wife with

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a party they were having the following weekend. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so I just

said I was grounded and handed him his coat.

"Lucy, you did a beautiful job tonight," said my dad. He'd shut the door on the last of the guests and put his arm around Mara. "You and the girls, I should say."

"Yes, thank you, Lucy," said Mara. "Good night."

"Good night," I said.

As Mara climbed the stairs, my dad yawned. "I guess I'll turn in, too," he said. "And you must be exhausted."

I didn't need a mirror to know that my hair was plastered to my forehead and my white shirt was

streaked with sweat. My feet ached. I looked up and saw Mara's skirt magically unwrinkled, her

hair shining in the overhead light.

"Yeah," I said, wondering where my fairy godmother had spent the night. "I'm a little tired."

"Well, good night, honey."

"Good night, dad," I said. He turned to go up the stairs, then turned back again. "Tonight it really felt like we were a family," he said, smiling at me.

Did that mean I wasn't grounded anymore?

"Um, Dad?"

"Yeah, Goose?"

Maybe this wasn't the best time to ask. "See you in the morning."

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He reached over and patted me on the head before turning and following Mara up the stairs. I

took off my apron and was about to open the door to the basement when I remembered I was

sleeping in the guest room for the week.

Did my dad seriously think that tonight we were a family?

If so, get me to an orphanage.

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Chapter Nineteen

Monday at lunch Jessica and Madison wanted me to hang out in the cafeteria so we could discuss

the newly announced prom theme (Now and Forever), but I begged off. If I didn't get started on

my self-portrait, I was going to fail the only class I was taking that I didn't hate.

When I got to the studio, Ms. Daniels was sitting at her desk going through Gardner's Art

Through the Ages with a pile of Post-its. She gave me a little wave.

"Feeling artistic?" she asked.

"Panicked," I corrected, going over to her desk. "This never happened to me before. I just can't figure out how to start."

"Well, what if you start by thinking about a painting that means a lot to you?"

"You mean rip something off?"

Ms. Daniels laughed. "I mean consider using it as a

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commentary on who you are." She took the heavy textbook in both hands and passed it over the

desk to me, grunting with the effort. "Here. I've got to get to a meeting. Why don't you look for

yourself."

Two-thirds of the way through the book, I still couldn't see the point of Ms. Daniels's exercise.

Did she really expect ten million pictures of Renaissance churches to inspire one twenty-first-

century portrait?

"Hey."

I looked up to see Sam standing by the end of the couch. I hadn't even heard him come in. "Hey,

yourself," I said.

"Thanks again for coming Friday night." He took off his glasses and rubbed one of the lenses

with his shirt-tail. "It was great having you there." He put his glasses back on and gave me a

really nice smile.

"It was great being there," I said. "Thanks for inviting me." With everything that had happened since I'd left Sam in the city, I'd almost forgotten how cool it had been to be at the gallery. I was

actually really glad to see him.

"Did you make it back in time for the 'big game'?" he asked, putting quotation marks around the

last two words.

"Ha, ha. As a matter of fact, I did."

"What a Renaissance woman you are," he said. "Art. Sports." He looked down at the book in my lap. "And you're even looking at pictures of the

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Renaissance." He shook his head in mock amazement. "Incredible."

"You're hilarious."

"It's a gift." He looked around the room. "Seen Ms. Daniels?"

"She's got a meeting."

He whistled softly to himself. "No worries," he said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

"Catch you later."

"Later," I said.

Sam's interruption seemed as good an excuse as any to give up on my self-imposed exile and go

find Jessica and Madison in the cafeteria. But then I flipped to the end of the book, and suddenly

I was staring at a reproduction of The Dancers. It was a little weird to come upon a painting I felt so possessive of there in Art Through the Ages for everybody to see. I looked at Matisse's

strange, fluid figures and touched my finger to the shiny page. Maybe I could--

"Hel- lo!"

"Okay, we can't live without you." It was Madison and Jessica.

"Hey, check this out." I turned the book toward them.

"Cool," said Madison, but she didn't really look at the painting.

"We have the sickest gossip for you," said Jessica. "Kathryn and her boyfriend broke up," said Madison.

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"No way," I said.

"Way!" said Madison. "She wanted to go to the prom with him, and he said he didn't want to

party with a bunch of high-school kids. He's, like, thirty years old or something."

"He's twenty," Jessica corrected her.

"Whatev," said Madison. "Isn't that crazy?"

"Totally," I said, closing the book. I'd deal with my self-portrait later. I stood up and grabbed Connor's jacket, dropping Art Through the Ages on Ms. Daniels's desk as I walked past.