Forever Princess (5 page)

Thursday, April 27, 7:30 p.m., the loft

J.P. wanted to know how prom dress shopping went. I lied to him, of course. I was like, “Great!”

Our conversation slipped into the Twilight Zone from there.

“Did you get anything?” he wanted to know.

I couldn't believe he was asking. I was truly shocked. You know, what with the whole
his having neglected to ask me to the prom
thing, and all. Silly me, to assume we weren't going.

I said, “No…”

My shock grew beyond all bounds when he then went on to say, “Well, when you do, you have to let me know what color it is, so I'll know what color corsage to get you.”

Hello?

“Wait,” I said. “So…we're
going
to the prom?” J.P. actually laughed. “Of course!” he said. “I've had the tickets for weeks now.”

!!!!!!!!!

Then, when I didn't laugh along with him, he stopped laughing, and said, “Wait. We
are
going, aren't we, Mia?”

I was so stunned, I didn't know what to say. I mean, I—

I love J.P. I do!

It's just that for some reason, I don't love the idea of going to the prom with J.P.

Only I wasn't quite sure how I was going to explain that to him without hurting his feelings. Telling him that I thought the prom was lame, like I'd said to Tina, didn't seem like it was going to cut it.

Especially since he'd just admitted he'd had the tickets for weeks. And those things aren't cheap.

Instead I heard myself muttering, “I don't know. You…you never asked.”

Which is
true
. I mean, I was telling the
truth
. Dr. K would have been proud of me.

But all J.P. said to this was, “Mia! We've been going out for almost two years. I didn't think I had to ask.”

I didn't think I had to ask?

I couldn't believe he said this. Even if it's true, well…a girl still wants to be asked! Right?

I don't think I'm the girliest girl in the world—I don't have fake nails (anymore) and I don't diet or anything, even though I'm far from the skinniest girl for my height in our class. I'm WAY less girlie than Lana. And I'm a
princess.

But still. If a guy wants to take a girl to the prom, he should
ask
her…

…even if they have been dating exclusively for almost two years.

Because she might not want to go.

Really, is it me? Am I asking too much? I don't think so.

But maybe I am. Maybe expecting to be asked to the prom, rather than just assuming I'm going, is too much.

I don't know. I don't know anything anymore, I guess. J.P. must have realized from my silence that he'd said the wrong thing. Because finally, he said, “Wait…Are you saying that I
do
have to ask?”

I said, “Um.” Because I didn't know what to say! A part of me was like,
Yeah! Yeah, you should have asked!
But another part of me was like,
You know what, Mia? Don't rock the boat.
You're graduating in ten days. TEN DAYS. Just let it go.

On the other hand, Dr. K told me to start telling the truth. I'd already not lied to Tina today. I figured I might as well stop lying to my boyfriend, too. So…

“It'd have been nice if you'd asked,” I heard myself say, to my own horror.

J.P. did the strangest thing then:

He laughed!

Really. Like he thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.

“Is
that
how it is?” he asked.

What was
that
supposed to mean?

I had no idea what he was talking about. He sounded a little bit crazy, which wasn't at all like J.P. I mean, true, he does make me sit through a lot of Sean Penn films, because Sean Penn is his new favorite actor/director.

I have nothing against Sean Penn. I don't even mind that he ended up divorcing Madonna. I mean, I still like Shia LaBeouf even though he chose to star in
Transformers,
which turned out to be a movie about robots from space.

That talk.

Which is just as bad as choosing to divorce Madonna, if you ask me.

Still. That doesn't mean J.P. is crazy. Even though he was laughing like that.

“I know you bought tickets,” I said, going on as if I didn't actually suspect him of a cognitive imbalance. “So I'll pay you back for mine. Unless you want to take someone else.”

“Mia!” J.P. stopped laughing all of a sudden. “I don't
want to take anyone but you! Who else would I want to take?”

“Well, I don't know,” I said. “I'm just saying. It's your senior prom, too. You should ask who you want.”

“I'm asking
you
,” J.P. said, sounding grumbly, which he used to do sometimes when he felt like going out, and I felt like staying in and writing. Only I couldn't tell him that's what I was doing, because of course he didn't know I was writing a real book, and not just a paper for my senior project.

“Are you?” I asked, a little surprised. “You're asking me right now?”

“Well, not right this minute,” J.P. said quickly. “I realize I may have fallen down in the romantic prom invitation department. I plan to do it right. So expect an invitation soon. A real invitation that you won't be able to resist.”

I have to admit, my heart kind of sped up when I heard this. And not in a happy, oh-he's-so-sweet kind of way, either. More in like a oh-no-what's-he-going-to-do sort of way. Because I honestly couldn't think of any way J.P. could ask me to the prom that could make dry chicken and bad music at the Waldorf at all appealing.

“Um,” I said. “You're not going to do something that's going to embarrass me in front of the whole school, are you?”

“No,” J.P. said, sounding taken aback. “What are you talking about?”

“Well,” I said. I knew I probably sounded insane, but I had to say it. So I said it fast, to get it out. “I saw this Lifetime movie once where to make a grand romantic ges
ture this guy wearing a full suit of armor rode up to this woman's office building to propose to her on a white horse. You know, because he wanted to be her knight in shining armor? You aren't going to ride up to Albert Einstein High wearing a suit of armor on a white horse and ask me to the prom, are you? Because that would truly be about nineteen levels of wrong. Oh, and the guy couldn't find a white horse so he painted a brown one white, which is cruelty to animals and also, the white paint rubbed off on the inside of his jeans, so when he got off the horse to kneel down to propose, he looked really dumb.”

“Mia,” J.P. said, sounding annoyed. Which, really, I guess I couldn't blame him. “I'm not going to ride up to Albert Einstein High in a suit of armor on a horse painted white to ask you to the prom. I think I can manage to think of something a little more romantic than
that
.”

For some reason this assertion didn't make me feel any better, though.

“You know, J.P.,” I said. “Prom is pretty lame. I mean, it's just dancing at the Waldorf. We can do that anytime.”

“Not with all our friends,” J.P. pointed out. “Right before we all graduate and go off to different colleges and possibly never see one another ever again.”

“But we're going to do that,” I reminded him, “at my birthday blowout on the Royal Genovian yacht Monday night.”

“True,” J.P. said. “But that won't be the same. All your relatives are going to be there. And it's not like we'll really get a chance to be alone afterward.”

What was he talking about?

Oh…right. The paparazzi.

Wow. J.P.
really
wants to go to the prom. And do all the after-prom stuff, it sounds like.

I guess I can't really blame him. It
is
the last event we'll ever attend as AEHS students, besides graduation, which the administration has cleverly scheduled for the next day, in order to avoid what happened last year, when a few seniors got so drunk at a downtown club they had to be admitted to St. Vincent's for alcohol poisoning, after spray painting “The WMDs were hidden in my vagina” all over Washington Square Park. Principal Gupta seems to feel that if people know they have graduation the next day, they won't let themselves get
quite
that intoxicated this year.

So I said, “Okay. Well, I look forward to the invitation.” Then I thought it might be better to change the subject, since we both seemed to be getting a little irritated with each other. “So. How did play rehearsal go?”

Then J.P. complained about Stacey Cheeseman's inability to remember her lines for about five minutes until I said I had to go because the pizzas had come. But that was a lie (Mia Thermopolis's Big Fat Lie Number Four), since the pizzas hadn't come.

The truth is, I'm scared. I know he's not going to ride up to the school in a full suit of armor on a horse painted white in order to ask me to the prom, because he said he wouldn't.

But he might do something equally embarrassing.

I love J.P.—I know I keep writing that, but it's because I do. I don't love him
the same way
I loved Michael, it's true, but I still love him. J.P. and I have so much in com
mon with the writing thing, and we're the same age, and Grandmère loves him and most of my friends (except Boris, for some reason) do too.

But sometimes I wish…God, I can't believe I'm even writing this—but sometimes…

Well. I worry that my mom might be right. She's the one who pointed out the fact that if I say I want to do something, J.P.
always
wants to do it, too. And if I say I don't want to do something, he
always
agrees he doesn't want to do it either.

The only time he hasn't agreed with me, in fact, was when I used to say I didn't want to hang out with him back when I was working on my book.

But that was just because he couldn't be with me. It was so romantic, really. All the girls said so. Especially Tina, who would know. I mean, what girl wouldn't want a boyfriend who wanted to be with her
all
the time, and always do whatever she wanted to do?

Mom was the only one who noticed this and asked me if it didn't drive me crazy. And when I asked her what she meant, she said, “Dating a chameleon. Does he even
have
his own personality, or is it all about accommodating yours?”

That's when we got into a huge argument about it. So huge we had to have an emergency therapy session with Dr. K.

She promised to keep her opinions about my love life to herself after that, since I pointed out I've never mentioned how I feel about hers. (Although, the truth is, I like Mr. G. Without him I wouldn't have Rocky.)

I've totally never brought up
the other thing
about J.P.,
though. Not to Dr. K, and certainly not to my mom.

For one thing, it would probably make my mom happy. And for another…well, no relationship is perfect, anyway. Look at Tina and Boris. He
still
tucks his sweaters into his pants, despite her repeated requests that he not do so. But they're happy together. And Mr. G snores, but Mom solved that by wearing earplugs and using a white-noise machine.

I can deal with the fact that my boyfriend likes all the same things that I do and always wants to do everything that I do all the time.

It's the
other thing
about him I'm not sure I can deal with….

And now the pizzas really
are
here so I have to go.

Friday, April 28, midnight, the loft

Okay. Deep breath. Calming down. It's going to be fine.

Just fine. I'm sure of it! More than sure. A hundred percent positive everything is going to be—

Oh, God. Who am I kidding? I'm a wreck!

So…the family meeting turned out to be about a little more than just the election and Dad nagging me about which college I'm going to go to—in other words: It was a disaster.

It started out with Dad trying to give me a deadline: Election day. I've got until ED (also known as the prom) to decide where I'm going to spend the next four years of my life.

Then I've got to make a decision.

You'd think Dad would have more important things to worry about, what with René breathing down his neck in the polls.

Grandmère conferenced herself in, of course, and was giving her two cents (she wants me to go to Sarah Lawrence. Because that's where she would have gone, back in the age of drawn-on pantyhose, if she'd gone to college instead of marrying Grandpère). We all tried to ignore her, just like in family therapy, but it's impossible with Rocky around, because for some reason he loves Grandmère, even the sound of her voice (question: WHY?), and ran over to the phone and kept yelling, “Gwanmare, Gwanmare, you come over soon? Give Wocky big kiss?”

Can you imagine
wanting
that big wonk looming over you? She's not even technically related to him (lucky kid).

Anyway, yeah. That's what the big meeting was about—or at least, what it
started off
being about. Me deciding where I was going to go to school in eight days.

Thanks, guys! No pressure!

Dad
says
he doesn't care where I go, so long as I'm happy. But he's made it more than clear that if I don't go to an Ivy or Sarah Lawrence or one of the Seven Sisters, I might as well be committing hari-kari.

“Why don't you go to Yale?” he kept saying. “Isn't that where J.P. wants to go? You could go with him.”

Of course Yale is where J.P. wants to go, because they have the fantastic drama department.

Except I can't go to Yale. It's too far from Manhattan. What if something were to happen to Rocky or Fat Louie—a freak flash fire or building collapse?—and I had to get back to the loft fast?

Besides, J.P. thinks I'm going to L'Université de Genovia, and has already applied and resigned himself to going there with me. Even though L'Université de Genovia has no drama department and I explained to him that by going there he's shooting all his own career aspirations in the foot. He said it didn't matter, so long as we can be together.

I guess it actually
doesn't
matter, since his dad will always be able to get his plays produced.

But anyway, none of that is what I'm freaking out about. It's what happened
afterward.

It was after Grandmère had harangued me some more about the invitation list to my party—and said to Mr. G, “Do your niece and nephew
have
to attend? Because you
know if I could scratch them off I could make room for the Beckhams”—and then finally hung up that Dad said, “I think you ought to show it to her now,” and Mom said, “Really, Phillipe, I think you're being just a tad dramatic, there's no need for you to stay on the phone, I'll give it to her later,” and Dad said, “I'm part of this family, too, and I want to be here to support her, even if I can't actually be there in the flesh,” and Mom said, “You're overreacting. But if you insist,” and she got up and went into her room.

And I went, starting to feel a bit nervous, “What's going on?”

And Mr. G said, “Oh, nothing. Your dad just e-mailed something he saw on international business CNN.”

“And I want you to see it, Mia,” Dad said, through the speakerphone, “before someone tells you about it at school.”

And my heart sank, because I figured it was some new scheme of René's to junk up Genovia in order to get more tourists to go there. Maybe he was going to put a Hard Rock Cafe in there, and try to get Clay Aiken to come and play at its grand opening.

Only it wasn't. When Mom came out of her bedroom with a printout of what Dad e-mailed her, I saw that it had nothing to do with René at all.

It was this:

!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. The ex-girlfriend is always the last to know.

But whatever. It's not like this changes anything.

I mean, so what? So Michael's genius is universally acknowledged, the way it always should have been. He deserves all the money and acclaim. He worked really hard for it. I knew he was going to save children's lives, and now he's doing it.

I just…I guess I just…

Well, I just can't believe he didn't tell me!

On the other hand, what was he going to say in his last e-mail, exactly? “Oh, by the way, my robotic surgical arm is a huge success, it's saving lives nationwide, and my company has the fastest-trading stock on Wall Street?”

Oh, no, that wouldn't be too braggy.

And anyway,
I'm
the one who freaked out and stopped
e-mailing him when he asked if he could read my senior project. For all I know, maybe he
was
going to mention that his CardioArm is selling for $1.5 million a pop and has a stronghold on the robotic-surgical-arm market.

Or, “I'm coming back to America and donating one of my robotic surgical arms to Columbia University Medical Center on Saturday, so maybe I'll see you.”

I just never gave him the chance, being the super rude one who never wrote back after the last time we corresponded.

And for all I know, Michael's been back to America a dozen times since we broke up, to visit his family and whatnot. Why would he mention it to me? It's not like we're going to get together for coffee or anything. We're broken up.

And hello, I already have a boyfriend.

It's just…in the article, it said, Michael Moscovitz, 21, of
Manhattan.
Not Tsukuba, Japan.

So. He's obviously living here now. He's
here
. He asked to read my senior project, and he's
here.

Panic attack.

I mean, before, when he was in Japan, and he asked to see my senior project, I could have been like, “Oh, I sent it to you, didn't you get it? No? That's so weird. Let me try sending it again.”

But now, if I see him, and he asks…

Oh my God. What am I going to do?????

Wait…Whatever. It's not like he's asked to see me! I mean, he's here, isn't he? And has he called? No.

E-mailed? No.

Of course…I'm the one who owes him an e-mail. He's politely observed e-mail etiquette and waited for me to e-mail him back. What must he think, since I totally stopped communicating when he asked to read my book? He must think I'm the biggest byotch, as Lana would say. Here he made the nicest offer—an offer my own boyfriend has never made, by the way—and I totally went missing in action….

God, remember that weird thing where I used to want to smell his neck all the time? It's like I couldn't feel calm or happy or something unless I smelled his neck. That was so…geek, as Lana would say.

Of course…if I remember correctly, Michael always
did
smell a lot better than J.P., who continues to smell like dry cleaning. I tried buying him some cologne for his birthday, like Lana suggested—

It didn't work. He wears it, but now he just smells like cologne. Over dry-cleaning fluid.

I just can't believe Michael's been back in town and I didn't even know it! I'm so glad Dad told me! I could have run into him at Bigelow's or Forbidden Planet and without having any advanced warning he was back, I might have done something incredibly stupid when I saw him. Such as pee myself. Or blurt out, “You look
incredible
!”

Providing he does look incredible, which I'm guessing he probably does. That would have been
awful
(although peeing myself would be worse).

No, actually, showing up at either place and bumping into him without any makeup on and my hair a big mess would be worse…except I have to say my hair is looking better than it ever has now that Paolo has layered it and it's grown out and I've got a real proper hairstyle that I can actually tuck behind my ears and give a sexy side part to and put up in a hair band and all. Even
teenSTYLE
agreed about
that
in their year-end fashion Hot and Not columns. (I was in the Hot columns for once instead of the Not. I so owe Lana.)

Which isn't why Dad told me about Michael coming back, of course (so I can make sure I look Hot at all times now, in case I run into my ex).

Dad says he told me so I wouldn't be caught off guard if the paparazzi asked me about it.

Which, now that there's been this press release, is bound to happen.

And there was no need to provide that quote for me from the Genovian press office—that I'm truly happy for Mr. Moscovitz and so glad to see that he's moved on, like I have. I can make up my own quotes for the press, thank you very much.

It's fine. He's back in Manhattan, and I'm totally okay with that. I'm
more
than okay with that. I'm happy for him. He's probably forgotten all about me, much less about asking to read my book. I mean, senior project. Now that he's a bazillionaire robot-arm inventor, I'm sure a silly e-mail exchange with a high school girl he used to date is the last thing Michael is thinking about.

Honestly, I don't care if I ever see him again. I have a boyfriend. A perfectly wonderful boyfriend who is, even now, planning a completely romantic way to ask me to the prom that won't involve painting a brown horse white. Probably.

I'm going to bed now, and I'm going to go to sleep right away, and NOT lie awake half the night thinking about Michael being back in Manhattan and having asked to read my book.

I'm
not.

Watch me.