Gingerbread Read Free

me to some kind of GI Jane school as punishment, or that they would not care.
    Leila, the housekeeper, was already up and about, pressing my half-sibs' school uniforms. Leila shook her head at me. "Naughty girl," she said, but I knew she wouldn't rat me out. My parents tweak her nerves as much as mine. My mom is always like "Leila this," "Leila that," "Thank you so much, Leila." It is such a phony act and Nancy only does it when Sid is around. When he's not, she'll be all, "I told you to fold the dinner napkins in a flower shape. Do I have to do everything , Leila?"
    Nancy is actually super scared of Leila, so every time she says something mean, then she'll air kiss Leila and give Leila the afternoon off. Then Nancy will complain about how no one helps her. Nancy thinks Leila is some kind of superior maid creature because Leila speaks French. Nancy
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    speaks French, pas . Nancy likes to act all hyper-chic Society Wife, but if you listen carefully, you can still hear the traces of a Minnesouda cornfield accent, eh?
    Nancy is so clueless about the staff's actual lives, I don't think she even knows that Fernando the driver's little grandson had leukemia but bless Dios now he's in remission, or that Leila is actually French-Canadian, not French-French. I would like to know if that discrepancy disqualifies Leila from wearing an actual French maid's uniform. When Nancy is not around, Leila and I make lasagna and cookies for Fernando's family.
    "Your mother will be up in five minutes," Leila said. She was brewing Nancy's chai tea. "I suggest you go mess up that bed of yours and make it look slept in."
    "They didn't notice?" I said.
    "Non," Leila said. She could not look me in the eyes.
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    Five
    I'm down with the 411 on my real dad. I read about him in Who's Who of Corporate America , in the library at my old school. His name is Frank. He is the boss of a big New York advertising firm. Nancy met Frank when she was a model. That's how she made a living when she lived in New York. She never got very far with her true dream of being a professional dancer.
    Frank real-dad has a daughter, Rhonda, and a son, Daniel. Rhonda is such a bad-girl name. She is about fifteen years older than me. I bet when she was in high school she smoked hash in the bathroom and skipped school to hang out in Greenwich Village. She probably wore thick liquid black eyeliner, green lipstick, and black tights with tear holes pinned together with safety pins, just to piss off Frank. If I were named Rhonda, that's what I would do.
    That would be so cool to call her up one day and just be like, "Yo Rhonda, this is your flave-flave half-sis Cyd Charisse. Let's hang together but utterly." She would want to brush my hair until it shimmered and then plait it into a dozen braids. She would give me advice about birth control and maybe sometimes, if we were feeling really giggly, she would pass on secret sexual techniques she learned from reading smutty books when she was my age.
    Daniel is ten years older than me. If he knew me, he would be really protective of me and call me "kid" all the time. He would muss my hair up, slap me on the back, and
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    always pick me first on his touch football team at Thanksgiving. He would give his friends the old "nuh-uh" when they checked me out. Daniel would have beat the crap out of Justin for getting me into trouble. He would have let me cry on his shoulder after I came back from the clinic, and he would have brought me Dunkin' Donuts in my room afterward and promised never to tell.
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    Six
    Shrimp, Sugar Pie , and I have decided to take Gingerbread on a field trip. Java the Hut has to work, of course, so he let us take his cool new VW beetle. Java's beetle is shiny red with black leather interior. It looks just like a ladybug.
    We are going to Santa Cruz. Shrimp is going to surf and Sugar Pie and I are going to take Gingerbread for a walk on the boardwalk.
    Nancy threw a freaknik when I said I was spending Sunday with Shrimp