Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer: The Paris Journals

Hannah's Journal, Part 1

Hannah Norstedt is beautiful, smart, rich, and popular -- the most powerful and influential student at St. Margaret's Academy. Her father believes nothing is too good for his little girl, and Hannah agrees wholeheartedly. She can be charming and sweet, but she was brought up to question whether anyone or anything is deserving of her precious time and energy. 

HANNAH'S JOURNAL, PART 1

“How’s Paris?” my mother asked. I could picture her hopping around in one high-heeled shoe, trying to apply mascara without poking herself in the eye, the phone wedged between her cheek and her shoulder.

“Same as always,” I said. “Fine. Old. Boring. They’re trotting us around to all these tourist traps like we’re a bunch of grannies who’ve never left Kansas or something.”

I waited for her to say that she missed me, but her mind was apparently elsewhere. “Oh, that reminds me. Daddy and I are going to Switzerland in May.”

I leaned back against the overstuffed pillows on the king-size hotel bed.  “Can I come?” 

“Won’t you have finals?”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I can take them before I go. You know I'll pass.”

“We’ll check with your father,” Mom said. But if my mother were a Magic 8 Ball, we’ll check with your father would be the equivalent of outlook not so good.

Well, whatever. Like I even wanted to go to Switzerland. The hotel rooms there are tiny, and people look at you weird if you ask for ice in your Coke. 

“Were you just calling to say hi, or...” Mom’s voice was slightly more harried than usual, and I got the feeling she was trying to get off the phone. I told myself that it didn't matter and tried to ignore the little needle-like sting I felt at her lack of attention. 

“Maybe,” I said. “I just missed talking to you.” Which was a lie. But it was a nice lie. And if you’re trying to trap someone into feeling guilty, the least you can do is be nice about it.

“Oh, aren't you sweet? But I have a planning meeting for the Ladies‘ Club Easter Brunch that starts in twenty minutes, and I haven’t even picked out a dress yet.”

“The yellow one,” I said.

“Which yellow one?” She owned about thirty dresses of every color. Her closet was the size of most people's bedrooms.

“The Marc Jacobs.” It was a stab in the dark. I wasn’t sure if she owned a yellow Marc Jacobs dress, but I needed her to find an outfit quickly so she could focus on me for a few minutes.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “This one’s nice.”

“So listen. I have a question. I’ve been thinking about something.”

“Which shoes?” Mom asked.

“The nude Jimmy Choo wedges,” I said. “But listen, Mom, it's serious. I have to ask you --”

“Are pearl earrings too fussy?”

“Mom," I said. "I want to move to Paris.”

People always underestimate me because I’m blonde and pretty. I guess I forgot that I get my brains -- along with my blondeness -- from my mother, because she didn’t miss a beat. “You just said Paris is boring,” she said. “And now you want to move there?”

“Being a tourist in Paris is boring,” I said. “Being a person who lives here would be... educational.”

“Hannah, are you just joking around now? Because I told you I’m very busy.”

“No,” I said. “I looked online and there are some amazing boarding schools that take American students. Just think what a great chance it would be for me to improve my French. And it would look great on a college application.”

“You don’t need to worry about getting into college,” Mom said. “But it would look good...”

I ignored that. It was a source of ongoing conflict in our house that I wanted to go Ivy League but my mother wanted me to go to a big state school (“one of the good ones, Hannah, for heaven's sake, it's not like you're going to be a brain surgeon”) where I wouldn’t have to work quite so hard and would have more time to focus on the “important” things -- like getting into Zeta Zeta Zeta, the sorority she was in (the best one, naturally), and hopefully meeting a college man who was on his way to being rich and important enough to deserve to marry me someday.

So let her think this would bump up my social resume. Little did she know that I had no plans, once I moved to France, to go back to America. Ever. Because everything I ever wanted was right here in Paris.

And his name was Armand. 

“I certainly wouldn’t mind you having the chance to meet some friends with a little more... culture,” she said pointedly.

I rolled my eyes. Mom was forever harping on the fact that the best of the best (meaning, the richest of the rich) at St. Margaret’s consisted of me and Pilar Sanchez, who in my mother’s opinion needed to drop two dress sizes and miraculously grow four inches taller to be worthy of consideration as my BFF. And don’t even get her started on Colette Iselin, who was just... a special case, let's put it that way.

Then again... if Mom knew what I knew about Colette, she might not be so quick to judge.

Then I started to think that maybe Colette could move to Paris, too. We could go to the same boarding school. And after graduation, we would be on all the society pages together. The gossip sites would call us “Les Deux Americaines Glamours” (or however you say it in French).

After all, if everything went according to plan, Colette and I would be friends for our whole lives. Maybe even more than friends -- like family, even. In spite of her tendency to make these little sniffing noises and try to strike out on her own, like some kind of random-opinion activist, I knew that underneath it all, Colette was a genuinely nice person. And it didn't hurt that she had great taste and fashion sense.

“Well, I’m going to ask Dad about it,” I said. “Will you tell him you think it’s a good idea?”

I don't know. Did part of me want her to say Hannah! No way! I'd miss you too much, what would I do without you? 

Maybe.

Some loser part, I told myself. Now stay focused.

“Oh, Hannah, I don’t know. We’d need to do a lot of looking into it. How late do they accept applications for next year? You know I'm so busy these days --”

“Next year?” I repeated. “Mom, I don’t even want to come home from this trip. I’m sure Dad could pull some strings --”

Now she was actually laughing at me. I could feel my cheeks turning pink with anger. “Honey, your father knows a lot of people, but I doubt even he could talk some stuffy old boarding school into changing their admissions procedures for you.”

I hmmphed. I didn’t believe that at all. If there was one thing I’d been raised to believe, it was that money talks...

So we just had to teach our money to speak French, that’s all. 

To be continued... 

For more, be sure to check out MARIE ANTOINETTE, SERIAL KILLER, wherever books are sold (and read the excerpt here at Wattpad). Also follow Katie on Twitter: http://twitter.com/katiealender