If a Prince Charming or a Prince Semi-Charming came up to my door and said, “Rosie Wilson, you are the most beautiful, individualistic fourteen-year-old in the universe,” I certainly wouldn’t slam the door in his face.
There’s something even more important to me than that, though. What I really want more than anything is to be part of a family, all living happily under one roof.
My parents divorced soon after I was born, a fact that I have tried not to take personally.
I used to beg my mother for a baby brother or sister.
She’d say, “Bite your tongue.”
For a long time, I thought that was how babies were made.
By the time I found out how babies were really born, I had permanent tooth marks on my tongue.
My mother—Mindy—and I get along really well, which is good because we live together in Woodstock, New York.
Until recently I used to ride a bus that is nicknamed the Divorce Express. Almost every weekend I would go down to Greenwich Village, this really great area of New York City, to see my father. Then he and his second wife and her two kids moved to California. Actually, I was glad that his wife and her two kids went. I’m just sorry that my father left with them.
So it’s not as if I’m an orphan or anything. I do have a family . . . just not one that’s living all together, in the same place.
It’s all changing now. I’m finally going to get my wish. In one week I’ll be part of a family. My mother and my best friend’s father have fallen in love and are going to live together. Mindy and Jim. Phoebe. Me.
Once before, Mindy and I lived with someone, Andy. It didn’t work out for them, for us.
This time I hope it does.
I want this to start out with “ . . . and they lived happily ever after” and get even better.