Forever Princess (7 page)

Friday, April 28, French

Tina won't stop texting me, even though I'm not texting back. (I don't need a repeat performance of yesterday's debacle.)

She wants to know what I'm going to wear tomorrow when we go to see Michael donate a CardioArm to Columbia's Medical Center.

I wonder what it's like to live in Tinaville.

I get the feeling it's very shiny there.

Friday, April 28, Psychology

I finally texted Tina back that I'm not going tomorrow.

There has been radio silence ever since, so I'm just slightly suspicious about what's going on between her and the rest of the gang.

It's slightly restful, however, not to have my phone buzzing every five seconds.

Amelia—I still haven't had your answerrrrrrr. I need you to disinvite twenty-ffiveeeee people to your party. The captain is telling me we won't be able to set saillllllll with three hundred. Weeeeeeeeee need to cut it down to two seventy-five max. I think Nathan and Claire, Frank's niece and nephew, can go, obviously. What about your mother? You don't need her there, do you? She'll understandddddd. And Frank, tooooooo. I'll be waiting for your call. Clarisse, your grandmotherrrrrrr

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device

Oh my
God.

Major histocompatibility complex—MHC: Gene family found in most mammals. Believed to play an important role in mate selection through olfactory (scent) recognition. In studies, female college students asked to smell the unwashed T-shirts
worn by male college students invariably chose ones worn by males possessing MHC that was entirely dissimilar to their own. This is believed to be due to the fact these males would make the most genetically desirable mates (pairing opposite MHC genes would create offspring with the strongest immune systems). The more genetically
dissimilar
mates are to each other, the stronger the immune system of the offspring, a fact believed detected through the olfactory senses of the female of the species.

HOMEWORK

World History: Study for final

English Lit: Ditto

Trig: Ditto

G&T: Ugh, I'm so SICK of Chopin

French: Final

Psychology II: Final

Friday, April 28, Dr. Knutz's waiting room

Great, I walked in here today for my next-to-last session and who should be sitting here but none other than the dowager princess of Genovia herself.

I was like, “What the—” but fortunately managed to control myself at the last minute.

“Oh, Amelia, there you are,” she said, like we were meeting for tea at the Carlyle, or whatever. “Why haven't you phoned back?”

I just stared at her in horror. “Grandmère,” I said. “This is my
therapy session
.”

“Well, I know that, Amelia.” She smiled at the receptionist, as if to apologize for my idiocy. “I'm not slow, you know. But how else am I supposed to get you to communicate with me, when you won't return my calls and you refuse to write back to my e-mails, which is the method of communication I
thought
was all the rage with you young people today? Really, I had no choice but to hunt you down here.”

“Grandmère.” I was seriously about to bubble over with rage. “If this is about my party, I am NOT disinviting my own mother and stepfather to make room for your society friends. Disinvite Nathan and Claire if you want, I don't care. And can I just add, it is totally inappropriate of you to show up at therapy to talk to me about this. I realize we've had joint therapy sessions in the past, but those were scheduled beforehand. You can't just show up at therapy and expect me to—”

“Oh, that.” Grandmère made a little waving motion in
the air, the sapphire cocktail ring the Shah of Iran had given her sparkling as she did so. “Please. Vigo has straightened out the difficulties with the invitation list. And don't worry, your mother is safe. Though I wouldn't say the same for her parents. I hope they'll enjoy the view of the party from the steering deck. No, no, I'm here about
That Boy
.”

I couldn't figure out what she was talking about at first. “J.P.?” She never calls J.P.
That Boy
. Grandmère loves J.P. I mean seriously loves him. When the two of them get together, they talk about old Broadway shows I've never even heard of until I practically have to drag J.P. away. Grandmère is more than a little convinced she could have had a great career on the stage if she hadn't chosen to marry my grandfather and been the princess of a small European country instead of a huge Broadway star à la that girl who stars in
Legally Blonde
, the musical. Only, of course, in Grandmère's mind, she's better than her.

“Not John Paul,” Grandmère said, looking shocked at the very idea. “The other one. And this…thing he's invented.”

Michael?
Grandmère had invited herself to my therapy session to talk to me about
Michael
?

Also, great. Thanks, Vigo. Had he set her BlackBerry to receive Google alerts about me, too?

“Are you serious?” I swear at this point I had no idea what she was up to. I really hadn't put two and two together. I still thought she was worried about the party. “You want to invite Michael, now, too? Well, sorry, Grandmère, but no. Just because he's a famous millionaire
inventor now doesn't mean I want him at my party. If you invite him, I swear I'll—”

“No. Amelia.” Grandmère reached out and grabbed my hand. It wasn't one of her usual grasping, needy grabs, where she tries to force me to give her sciatica a massage. It was as if she was taking my hand to…well, to
hold
it.

I was so surprised, I actually sank down onto the leather couch and looked at her, like,
What? What's going on?

“The arm,” Grandmère said. Like a normal person, and not like she was telling me not to lift my pinky up when I drank my tea, or anything. “The robot arm he's made.”

I blinked at her.
“What?”

“We need one,” she said. “For the hospital. You have to get us one.”

I blinked even harder. I've suspected Grandmère might be losing her mind for…well, the entire time I've known her, actually.

But now it was clear she'd gone completely around the bend.

“Grandmère.” I discreetly felt for her pulse. “Have you been taking your heart medication?”

“Not a donation,” Grandmère hastened to explain, sounding more like her usual self. “Tell him we'll pay. But, Amelia, you do know if we had something like that in our hospital in Genovia, we'd…well, it would improve the state of care we're able to give our own citizens to such an incredible degree. They wouldn't have to go to Paris or Switzerland for heart surgery. Surely you see what a—”

I ripped my hand out from hers. Suddenly I saw that she wasn't crazy at all. Or suffering from a stroke or heart
attack. Her pulse had been strong and steady.

“Oh my God!” I cried.
“Grandmère!”

“What?” Grandmère looked bewildered by my outburst. “What is the matter? I'm asking you to ask Michael for one of his machines. Not donate it. I said we'd pay—”

“But you want me to use my relationship with him,” I cried, “so Dad can gain an edge over René in the election!”

Grandmère's drawn-on eyebrows furrowed.

“I never said a word about the election!” she declared, in her most imperious voice. “But I did think, Amelia, if you were to go to this event at Columbia tomorrow—”

“Grandmère!” I sprang up from the couch. “You're horrible! Do you really think the people of Genovia would be more likely to vote for Dad because he managed to buy them a CardioArm, as opposed to René, who's only managed to promise them an Applebee's?”

Grandmère looked at me blankly.

“Well,” she said. “Yes. Which would you rather have? Easy access to heart surgery, or a bloomin' onion?”

“That's Outback,” I informed her acidly. “And the point of a democracy is that no one's vote can be bought!”

“Oh, Amelia,” Grandmère said with a snort. “Don't be naïve. Everyone can be bought. And anyway, how would you feel if I told you at my recent visit to the royal physician, he told me my heart condition has gotten more serious, and that I might need bypass surgery?”

I hesitated. She looked totally sincere.

“D-do you?” I stammered.

“Well,” Grandmère said. “Not yet. But he did tell me I have to cut back to three Sidecars a week!”

I should have known.

“Grandmère,” I said. “Leave. Now.”

Grandmère frowned at me.

“You know, Amelia,” she said. “If your father loses this election, it will kill him. I know he'll still be prince of Genovia and all of that, but he won't rule it, and that, young lady, will be no one's fault but your own.”

I groaned in frustration and said, “GET OUT!”

Which she did, muttering very darkly to Lars and to the receptionist, both of whom had watched our entire exchange with a great deal of amusement.

But honestly, I don't see what's so funny about it.

I guess to Grandmère, using an ex-boyfriend to jump to the head of the waiting list (as if Michael would even consider such a thing) to get a million-dollar piece of medical equipment is just a normal day's work.

But though we may share the same gene pool, I am nothing like my grandmother.

NOTHING.

Friday, April 28, the limo home from
Dr. Knutz's office

Dr. K, as usual, was less than sympathetic to my problems. He seems to feel I've brought them all down upon myself.

Why can't I have a nice, normal therapist, who asks me, “And how do you feel about that?” and hands me anti-anxiety medication, like everyone else I go to school with?

Oh, no. I have to have the one therapist in all of Manhattan who doesn't believe in psychopharmaceuticals. And who thinks every crummy thing that happens to me (lately, anyway) is my own fault for not being emotionally honest with myself.

“How is my boyfriend not asking me to our senior prom my fault for not being honest with my emotions?” I asked him at one point.

“When he asks you,” Dr. Knutz said, countering my question with another question, in classic psychotherapist style, “are you going to say yes?”

“Well,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. (Yes! I am honest enough with myself to admit I felt uncomfortable at that question!) “I really don't want to go to the prom.”

“I think you've answered your own question,” he said, a self-satisfied gleam shining behind the lenses of his glasses.

What is that even supposed to
mean
? How does that help me?

I'll tell you: It doesn't.

And you know what else? I'm just going to say it:

Therapy doesn't help me anymore.

Oh, don't get me wrong. There was a time when it did,
when Dr. K's long rambling stories about the many horses he'd owned really helped me through my depression and what was going on with my dad and Genovia and the rumors about him and our family having known about Princess Amelie's declaration all along—not to mention getting me through the SATs and the college application process and losing Michael and Lilly and all of that.

Maybe since I'm not depressed anymore and the pressure's off (somewhat) and he's a child psychologist and I'm not really a kid anymore—or won't be after Monday—I'm just ready to cut the cord now. Which is why our last therapy session is next week.

Anyway.

I tried to ask him what I should do about choosing a college, and the thing Grandmère had brought up, about getting Michael to sell one of his CardioArms to Genovia in time for Dad's election, and if I should just tell people the truth about
Ransom My Heart
.

Instead of offering constructive advice, Dr. K started telling me this long story about a mare he'd once had named Sugar, this thoroughbred he'd bought from a dealer who everyone said was such a great horse, and he knew was a great horse, too.

On paper.

Even though
on paper
Sugar was this fantastic horse, Dr. Knutz could just never find his place in the saddle with her, and their rides were totally uncomfortable, and eventually he had to sell her, because it wasn't fair to Sugar, as he'd started avoiding her, and riding all his other horses instead.

Seriously. What does this story have to do with me?

Plus, I'm so sick of horse stories I could scream.

And I still don't know where I'm going to go to college, what I'm going to do about J.P. (or Michael), or how I'm going to stop lying to everyone.

Maybe I should just tell people I want to be a romance writer? I mean, I know everyone laughs at romance writers (until they actually read a romance). But what do I care? Everyone laughs at princesses, too. I'm pretty much used to it by now.

But…what if people read my book and think it's about…I don't know.

Me?

Because it's so not. I don't even know how to shoot a bow and arrow (despite the erroneous movies made of my life).

Who would even name a horse Sugar? That's a little bit cliché, right?

Friday, April 28, 7 p.m., the loft

Rejected again!

Seriously, is the entire publishing world on crack? How can no one want to publish my novel? I mean, I know it's not
War and Peace
, but I've seen way worse out there. My book is better than that! I mean, at least my book doesn't have spanking sex robots in it or anything.

Maybe if I'd put spanking sex robots in it, someone would want to publish it. But I can't put spanking sex robots in it now. It's too late, and besides, that wouldn't be historically accurate.

Anyway.

Things are insane here with preparations for arrivals for the birthday extravaganza. Mamaw and Papaw will be staying at the Tribeca Grand this time, and every effort is being undertaken to see that Mom and Mr. G have as little one-on-one time with them as possible. They're being sent on tours of Ellis Island, Liberty Island, Little Italy, Harlem,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Madame Tussaud's wax museum, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, and M&M's World (the last three at their request).

Of course, they want to visit with me and Rocky (mostly Rocky), but Mom keeps saying, “Oh, there'll be plenty of time for that.” They're only staying for three days. How there'll be time for visiting and all that touring, as well as the party, is a secret known only to Mom.

Uh-oh, an IM from Tina:

I
LUVROMANCE
: So we're meeting on Broadway and 168th Street tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. The dedication ceremony or whatever it is starts at 2 so that should give us plenty of time to get good seats so we can see Michael up close.

What is it going to take to get through to these girls that I am NOT going to this thing?

F
T
L
OUIE
: Sounds good!

“Sounds good” isn't a lie. I mean, what she said does
sound
good.

It'll be sad and all when they're standing on the corner of Broadway and 168th all by themselves. But no one said life was fair.

I
LUVROMANCE
: Wait…Mia, you
are
coming, right? Crud.

Whoa. How did she guess????

F
T
L
OUIE
: No. I told you I wasn't.

I
LUVROMANCE
: Mia, you HAVE to come! The whole thing is for nothing if you're not there! I mean, aren't you the least bit curious about how Michael looks after all this time? And whether or not—be serious, now—he cares? You know, in THAT way?

Oh, God. She
would
have to play the “If he still cares” card.

F
T
L
OUIE
: Tina, I already have a boyfriend who loves me and whom I love back. And anyway, how am I going to be able to tell if Michael still cares “in THAT way” just by seeing him at some public event?

I
LUVROMANCE
: You'll be able to tell. You just will. Your eyes will meet across the room and you'll
know
. So. What are you going to wear????

Fortunately I just got a call from J.P. He's done with rehearsal for the day and wants to grab some sushi at Blue Ribbon. Using his dad's producer connections, he's gotten a table for two (virtually impossible at a place like that on a Friday night). He wants to know if I can join him for some crispy salmon skin and dragon rolls.

My other choice for dinner is leftover pizza from last night, or two nights' old Number One Noodle Son cold sesame noodles.

Or I could shoot up to Grandmère's newly renovated condo at the Plaza and join her and Vigo for salads as they strategize for my party.

Hmmm, what to choose, what to choose? It's so
hard.

And, okay, J.P.
might
use the opportunity to ask me to the prom…like, maybe he'll slip a written invitation into an oyster shell or under a piece of unagi or something.

But I'm willing to risk it only if I can end this conversation.

F
T
L
OUIE
: Sorry, T, going out with J.P. I'll text you later!