Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Ripley sounded like her brain was physically exploding with joy when Miss Roberts put her on the phone for me today, so I could tell her that Max would be picking her up and, yes, it’s okay to go with him. But hearing that from me and actually seeing her crush waltzing through the front door are two different things. I can only imagine her ecstatic reaction when she first laid eyes on him.
I also wish I could have overheard the conversation between the pair during the drive home. Conversation probably isn’t the right word, actually. Surely, my chatty, gleeful, excited baby girl unilaterally talked Max’s ear off the entire drive, as she’s prone to doing whenever she’s over the moon about something. Did she ever calm down and let Max get a word in edgewise? For Max’s sake, I hope so. Ripley is lovely to converse with when she calms down. I hope so badly Max eventually saw that relaxed version of her today. If not, hopefully, he’ll get that chance during our week together in Wyoming.
Why do you care if Max gets to know the real Ripley, Marnie, since you’re never going to see Max again after camp, except maybe at family events if Dad continues seeing Gigi? Now, knock it off and stop secretly hoping Max is feeling the same butterflies you started feeling around him last night.
Good talk.
My brain is absolutely right. I need to stop this shit right now.
I grab the extra food I made today out of my trunk and head into the house. Once inside, I immediately make out the faint sounds of Ripley’s happy, excited voice wafting from the living room. She’s talking nonstop, without stopping to breathe. Which means she’s especially enthusiastic about something.
I creep toward the living room without making a sound. And the minute I reach a spot where I can see what’s going on undetected, my heart feels like it’s exploding in my chest. Ripley is holding Max hostage in a chair while painstakingly beautifying him from head to toe. She’s already applied loads of colorful makeup to Max’s handsome, chiseled face—and not well, I might add. The poor man looks more like the clown from It than a beauty queen.
On his head, Max is wearing the plastic princess tiara Ripley picked out with glee during our recent trip to Disneyland. There’s also an enormous amount of glitter in his short blonde hair, some of which has drifted down to his neck and the T-shirt covering his broad shoulders.
But that’s not all. Max’s fit torso is decorated in reams of zigzagging toilet paper. He’s Ripley’s Christmas tree and the toilet paper a string of lights or garlands. She’s also wrapped Max’s feet in fluffy towels for some reason. Did she give him a foot massage and pedicure, the same way I always do for her during our Mommy and Me Spa Days in my bathroom, and then wrap his feet in hot towels? If so, I sure hope the carpet underneath those towels isn’t soaking wet. When I do it, I always do it over a tile surface.
Last but not least, Ripley’s holding Max’s hand while carefully painting his fingernails with a bottle of polish Max is holding for her in his free hand. Ripley knows full well she’s not allowed to touch Mommy’s nail polish without explicit permission and supervision. And yet, I don’t have the heart to feel anything but amusement about her rule breaking. Surely, she’s been so drunk on dopamine since the minute Max waltzed into her preschool classroom this afternoon, she’s utterly intoxicated at this point. Incapable of remembering rules even exist, let alone the specific one pertaining to Mommy’s nail polish.
“Oh, you’re going to have so much fun at da ball, Cinderella!” Ripley bellows in her little chirp of a voice.
“I can’t wait,” Max deadpans in his normal, deep voice.
Oh my god. Ripley’s convinced Max to play princesses with her, on top of convincing him to receive her head-to-toe makeover? Wonders never cease.
Ripley lets out a little giggle. “Dat’s not how Cinderella talks, Maxy-Milly! Like dis!” She raises her voice a full octave, turning her little squeak of a voice into something only barely audible to the human ear. “Ooooh, Fairy Godmother!” she gushes, demonstrating how he’s supposed to talk like a princess. “I can’t wait to be so pretty and smart and funny and such a good dancer at da ball!”
A laugh threatens, so I slap my palm over my mouth to keep it from coming out and exposing my hiding place. Ever since Ripley was a toddler, I’ve infused little bits of feminism, as needed, into every princess book. When the prince falls in love in my version of a fairytale, he does so not only because the princess is physically beautiful, but also because of her brains, heart, and talents, too. Also, if the princess needs saving, then, somehow, by God, I figure out a way for her to save herself, rather than waiting around for the prince to do it for her. If I can’t figure that plot twist out, then I come up with a way for the princess to at least save the prince in return. Hearing Ripley now, it’s clear she’s absorbed the lessons I’ve been teaching her through osmosis, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to get confirmation of that fact.