“I don’t want to hear it! If you can’t listen to me, then you don’t need to be here. Come on, we’re going home.”
I sighed as I followed her out to the parking lot where her brand-new Mercedes was parked.
All I wanted was a princess castle.
Eleven Years Later
––––––––
“Emma! Are you ready to go?” my mother shouted through my door.
“I’ll be ready in a minute!” I shouted back as I applied eyeliner around my green eyes.
I needed complete concentration to get the smoky look that I was going for, and my mother yelling through the door wasn’t helping matters. I finished applying the liner and reached for the brush sitting in front of me. I ran it through my strawberry blonde hair until it looked perfect.
Today was the first day of my junior year in high school, and I wanted to look perfect. I needed to be perfect. I’d managed to snag a spot on the varsity cheerleading squad my freshman year, but this was the first year that I was cocaptain. I needed to set the standards for the rest of the girls on my squad. Anything less than perfection was unacceptable for the girls of Hamrick High School’s State Champion Cheer Squad.
I set down the brush and grabbed my bag on the way out of my room. As
I started down the stairs, my phone rang. I smiled as I listened to Ke$ha’s “Die Young” playing. I had that ringtone reserved for one person and one person alone—my dad.
My parents had divorced when I was eight. My dad, Alexander
Preston, traveled a lot with his rock band, Seducing Seductresses, so I rarely got to see him anymore, and I cherished every phone call that I would receive from him.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said as I held my phone up to my ear.
“Hey, baby girl. Are you ready for your first day?” he asked.
“Yep. I’m getting ready to walk out the door now.” “I wish I were there to see you off,” he said sadly.
I knew that he’d meant it, but like always, he was thousands of miles away from the home I shared with my mother in Santa Monica.
“Me, too. How’s England treating you?”
“It’s great. It’s far rainier than I remembered though,” he replied, sounding truly distraught about the weather.
I laughed. “You’re such a dweeb, Dad.”
“Did you just call your rock-god dad a dweeb?”
“I did. Listen, I need to go, or I’m going to be late. I’ll talk to you later?”
“Of course, baby girl. Enjoy your day.”
“Thanks, Daddy. I love you.”
I disconnected the call and walked into our kitchen to find something quick to eat for breakfast. Our chef, Razoule, was standing by the island, holding a granola bar and smiling.
“Thanks!” I said as I grabbed the bar from his hand.
“You are very welcome, Miss Emma,” he replied as he turned back to whatever he had been working on.
Razoule was one of the best chefs in the country, and my mother had managed to snag him a few years ago. After living off of his cooking for most of my life, I wasn’t sure if I could handle it if he ever left us.
I walked to the front door, but just as I put my hand on the knob to open it, I heard my mother calling my name.
“Emma! Don’t forget that I have a committee meeting tonight, so I won’t be home until late.”
“I know, Mom. You’ve only told me about it twenty times since last week.”
“Don’t use that tone with me. This is a very important meeting, and if all goes well, we will have a new and very well-known celebrity on our side.”
My mother was on every committee from here to San Francisco. Since she’d walked away with a huge chunk of my dad’s fortune when they divorced, she could afford not to work. Instead, she spent all her time climbing the social ladder around here, and she expected me to do the same. She only liked my friends if their parents were rich or famous or both. I loved my mom, but she was conceited and power hungry, not two things that you want to put together.
“Have a good day!” she called after me as I opened the door and walked out into the bright sunlight.
I slipped my sunglasses over my eyes and smiled as I walked to my car. I loved California. The weather was perfect, the beach was just a short drive away, and the entire place was beautiful. I’d traveled some with my dad over the years, but no place could ever come close to California.
I attended a private school, Hamrick High School, with most of Santa
Monica’s finest. Rather, I attended it with the demon spawn of Santa Monica’s finest. When mommy and daddy were gone most of the time and they supplied you with endless amounts of cash, the perfectness that surrounded our school and the students attending all but disappeared. Underneath were wild parties, drunken fights, and more than one crashed sports car. Lucky for me, I was at the heart of it all.
I played the perfect daughter and the perfect student by day, but when the parents disappeared and the alcohol flowed, I liked to party with the best of them. Chalk it up to my mommy and daddy issues, but I used the parties as an escape from reality. After all, who is really perfect when it comes right down to it?