Page 4 of A Princess for Christmas

All those dancing lessons might have been for naught, butsomeof her training had stuck.

Marie also remembered her mother hugging her, grabbing the remote control, and cuddling up next to her to watch some “deliciously dreadful American TV” after Grand-mère left.

She lifted her chin. “Gentleman. We are getting a taxi. There will be no further discussion.”

She missed Maman so very much.

“So, even though they started out at odds on the project, it’s interesting that the final plan was a combination of their visions. Now, I’m not sure how happy Niemeyer was about that. He may have just given up and let Le Corbusier have his way.”

“Superinteresting,” Gabby said.

Leo was executing a complicated U-turn to put them in the direction of home, so he couldn’t check her out in the mirror, but he couldhearthe eye roll in her tone. He decided to lean in, to further antagonize her in the hopes of getting her to laugh. “Theotherinteresting fact about the UN Headquarters is that the Secretariat Building—that’s the tall one—was the first skyscraper in North America to use a curtain wall. It was—”

“I got my period yesterday.”

Wait.What?

He was drowning. Plunged into dark, swirling, freezing water. His body might appear to be sitting placidly in the driver’s seat of his cab, but he, his real, inner self, was a block over, sinking like a stone in the East River.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints—what?

He started sweating—like, his body just started shoving perspiration out of his pores—and Max started yapping. Probably because he could sense Leo’s panic. Leo couldn’t think through all the racket. He was going to die, and the last thing he was going to hear would be that glorified rat.

But no. He couldn’t die. He was all Gabby had left.

Okay. Think. Gabby got her period. She was too young for that. Wasn’t she?

Well, obviously not, Einstein.

Also, his sister liked to give him shit, but he found it hard to imagine her joking about something like this.

So, he needed to acknowledge her news. To saysomething.

He cleared his throat. “You mean like your first one?”

“Yeah.”

Fuck.Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t known this was coming. But Gabby waseleven.

Oh god, maybe there was something wrong with her.

He rolled his neck to try to work out some knots that had taken up residence in it and made an effort to sound casual. “So I guess we should go to the doctor?”

The doctor for which the copay was four hundred dollars.

“I don’t need adoctor, Leo. I’m not sick.”

But what if you are? What if you have some terrible disease that causes little girls to—

“I just need some money to buy supplies.”

Right. Supplies.Right.

Oh,fuck, he wished Mom were here.

“Yeah, of course. No problem. We can stop on the way home.”

---