Nancy went into the bathroom, I think to have a good cry in private.
I sat down with Sid-dad and said, "What was I like as a little girl?"
He said, "Fun, and sweet, and rambunctious and naughty."
"Like Ash and Josh?" I said.
"Yes," he answered. "Just not so loud."
When Nancy had said she knew she would do whatever it took to make us a family, I realized she meant Sid-dad. I told him, "I musta really needed a dad."
Sid-dad gave me one of those looks like in those commercials where the dad sends his daughter off to college and the moment is like so proud and bittersweet at the same time. "You know," he said, "I needed a daughter just as much."
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Thirty-seven
On my last evening in New York, after Sid and Nancy had returned to San Francisco, the whole bio-fam Frank clan got together for dinner at a very fancy restaurant. I got to wear my special new-old, perfect-fit dress that belonged to lisBETH and Danny's Grandma Molly (mine too, I guess), and we got to see what we would be like as a real family.
Boring, is the first word that comes to mind.
Lots of, "So, Cyd, what's the first thing you'll do back in San Francisco?" and, 'Are you looking forward to going back to school?" You know, the usual deal: lame questions when people really have nothing to say to each other but don't really have anything against each other either, which I guess is something, for this family at least. Watching lisBETH try not to make eyes at Aaron was pretty trippy, and watching Frank try to be discreet checking out all the ladies in fancy dresses and Danny sneak knowing kicks at me under the table, well, it was all cute and good, but my mind was elsewhere: about three thousand miles away in the city where people leave their hearts.
I was busy thinking about my visit with Sid and Nancy, how we had spent a whole day together and not fought, but had talked about the future. Sid didn't get mad when I said I wasn't interested in college and that I wanted to be a barista, at least for a while, maybe own my own cafe some day, like Java and Danny. I told them really I wouldn't mind skipping out of my senior year of high school entirely
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and just have a job. Sid-dad said no way, no day, but we did work out a compromise. I will go to school for half a day on a work-study arrangement, and then I will spend three afternoons a week in the business office of his company cafeteria, learning about budgets and inventories, and the other two afternoons volunteering at Sugar Pie's nursing home. We all agreed that if I ended up at junior college, it would not be considered to be a tragedy by any of the relevant parties, but we would revisit the issue after Christmas. Nancy agreed that I can take the bus and not have a driver, but both Sid and Nancy said I cannot tease Fernando about Sugar Pie. Good help is hard to find, they said. Plus, they consider him to be a friend. I said I did too but please not to tell him that because we didn't want his broody head to get too big.
The most interesting part of our day had been when they told me about Shrimp. They said he had come to the house right after I left for New York. They said he'd known from Sugar Pie that I was in New York, and he had come to set the record straight with Sid and Nancy. He said he was sorry and that he accepted full responsibility and that he hoped they wouldn't hold the fact that we were young and stupid against us. Nancy tried not to laugh when she related that last part, and she actually called him "Shrimp" instead of that boy . I said does this mean Shrimp and I are off probation, and Nancy said "We'll see," but behind her back, Sid-dad nodded yes.
On the cab ride back from dinner with bio-fam, I asked Frank, could we please stop at Miss Loretta's House of Great Eats. He did not look uncomfortable and said, sure, why not. When we got there, I ran inside and found Miss
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Loretta. She pointed to the empty shelf. "You and Gingerbread ready to part ways?" she asked me.
I shook my head. I said, "Naw. Gingerbread is not just a childhood doll. She is as much a part of me as my arms, my legs, my heart. We just wanted to come by and say bye and, like, thanks for the legacy and all."
Miss Loretta twinkle-smiled. "I understand," she said. I think she really did. That is why Gingerbread and I so totally dug Miss Loretta.
Gingerbread and I promised everyone we would make another visit next summer. Danny was the most sad and he said, There'll always be a job here with us for you. Frank said, There will always be a place for you in New York, with us, when you want. I said, Thank you, nice people, and lisBETH said, She really does have good manners, you know?
But by then Gingerbread and I, in our minds, were already halfway home.
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Thirty-eight
I thought about it on the plane ride home to San Francisco, my new ultra fantastico tribute commune to all things ginger. Think about it. Sustenance, so long as we keep the ginger roots cultivated, will be easy. We'll live on ginger jerky, ginger chicken, and stirfried ginger veggies, we'll drink ginger ale and ginger beer, and for dessert, oatmeal ginger cookies or our favorite staple, gingerbread.
Ash and Josh will be happy-hyper, because we will put them to work constructing gingerbread houses. We won't care if they eat off the sprinkles and candy hearts that were meant to be decoration, so long as they're careful not to choke. Sid and Nancy will chill on the whole scene because we will serve them ginger tea laced with mellow vibes, and just the thought of all those gingerbread-house colors will keep Nancy occupied, coordinating peppermint-stick patterns and LifeSaver-stained glass windows, and will keep Sid-dad on his toes, worrying about cost overruns and labor laws.
Bio-fam will be invited on special holidays, like Labor Day and Columbus Day, those holidays not meant for intimate family occasions but for overall general ginger barbecue fun. Danny and Aaron will have special ginger-scented permits to come anytime they want, but that will be our secret.
Our slammin' girl Gingerbread will tell Leila RELAX! Gingerbread will run the whole joint. She will decide where
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the ghosts of Ginger Spice, Ginger Rogers, and Ginger from Gilligan's Island are seated at dinner, and she will make all those Gingers help with the cooking and cleaning even if they just did their nails. When Gingerbread is tired of all those Gingers' diva-like antics, Sugar Pie will mosey in to take over. Fernando will make all the ladies swoon with the ginger donuts he will make specially for them.
Once a year we will sponsor a ginger-java marathon run from the Golden Gate Bridge to Ocean Beach. Runners will start out under the red mystical spokes of the bridge with the fog whipping through their bodies, and they will end at the finish line at Java the Hut, where they will be rewarded with caffeine, ginger cookies, and more fog.
At the end of the rainbow in Cyd Charisse's Land of All Things Ginger, there will be a Shrimp.
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When I was six months old, I dropped from the sky--the lone survivor of a deadly Japanese plane crash. The newspapers named me Heaven. I was adopted by a wealthy family in Tokyo, pampered, and protected. For nineteen years, I thought I was lucky. I'm learning how wrong I was.
I've lost the person I love most. I've begun to uncover the truth about my family. Now I'm being hunted. I must fight back, or die. The old Heaven is gone.
I AM SAMURAI GIRL.
A new series from Simon Pulse
The Book of the Sword
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BY CARRIE ASAI
Available in bookstores now
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Author Bio
Rachel Cohn is a graduate of Barnard College and lives in Manhattan. Her first novel, Gingerbread , was named to the Best of 2002 lists for Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal , Barnes & Noble, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books , and was a Book Sense 76 pick. Rachel Cohn is also the author of the middle-grade novel The Steps , for which she was praised with a starred review in Publisher's Weekly for "once again creating a funny and fiesty narrator." Look out for Cohn's next teen novel, Pop Princess.
Rachel Cohn, Gingerbread
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