Princess in the Spotlight (15 page)

“Your dress arrived,” Vigo informed me, his eyebrows waggling suggestively.

“My what?” I said.

Unfortunately Grandmère overheard me and clapped her hands so loudly she sent Rommel scurrying for cover, apparently thinking a nuclear missile or something had gone off.

“Do not ever let me hear you say
what
again,” Grandmère fire-breathed at me. “Say
, I beg your pardon
.”

I looked at Vigo, who was trying not to smile. Really! Vigo actually thinks it’s funny when Grandmère gets mad.

If there is a Genovian medal for valor, he should totally get it.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Vigo,” I said, politely.

“Please, please,” Vigo said, waving his hand. “Just Vigo, none of this mister business, Your Highness. Now tell me. What do you think of this?”

And suddenly, he pulled this dress from a box.

And the minute I saw it, I was lost.

Because it was the most beautiful dress I have ever seen. It looked just like Glinda the Good Witch’s dress from
The Wizard of Oz
—only not as sparkly. Still, it was pink, with this big poofy skirt, and it had little rosettes on the sleeves. I had never wanted a dress as much as I wanted that one the minute I laid eyes on it.

I had to try it on. I just had to.

Grandmère supervised the fitting, while Vigo hovered nearby, offering often to refresh her Sidecar. In addition to enjoying her favorite cocktail, Grandmère was smoking one of her long cigarettes, so she looked more officious than usual. She kept pointing with the cigarette and going, “No, not that way,” and “For God’s sake, stop slouching, Amelia.”

It was determined that the dress was too big in the bust (what else is new?) and would have to be taken in. The alterations would take until Friday, but Vigo assured us he’d see that they were done in time.

And that’s when I remembered what this dress was actually for.

God, what kind of daughter am I? I am terrible. I don’t want this wedding to happen. My mother doesn’t want this wedding to happen. So what am I doing, trying on a dress I’m supposed to be wearing at this event nobody but Grandmère wants to see happen, and which, if my dad succeeds, isn’t going to happen anyway?

Still, I thought my heart might break as I took off the dress and put it back on its satin hanger. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, let alone worn. If only, I couldn’t help thinking, Michael could see me in this dress.

Or even Jo-C-rox. He might overcome his shyness and be able to tell me to my face what he’d been able to tell me before only in writing . . . and if it turns out he isn’t that chili guy, maybe we could actually go out.

But there was only one appropriate place to wear a dress like this, and that was in a wedding. And no matter how much I wanted to wear that dress, I certainly didn’t want there to be a wedding. My mother was barely holding on to her sanity as it was. A wedding at which John Tesh was in attendance—and who knows, maybe even singing—might push her over the edge.

Still, I’ve never in my life felt as much like a princess as I did in that dress.

Too bad I’ll never get to wear it.

Okay, so I was just casually flipping through the channels, you know, taking a little study break and all from thinking up a profound moment to write about in my English journal, when all of a sudden I hit Channel 67, one of the public access channels, and there is an episode of Lilly’s show,
Lilly Tells It Like It Is
, that I have never seen before. Which was weird, because
Lilly Tells It Like It Is
is usually on Friday nights.

Then I figured since this Friday is Halloween, maybe Lilly’s show was being preempted for coverage of the parade in the Village or something.

So I’m sitting there, watching the show, and it turns out to be the slumber party episode. You know, the one we taped on Saturday, with all the other girls confessing their French-kissing exploits, and me dropping the eggplant out the window? Only Lilly had edited out any scene showing my face, so unless you knew Mia Thermopolis was the one in the pajamas with the strawberries all over them, you would never have known it was me.

All in all, pretty tame stuff. Maybe some really puritanical moms would get upset about the French-kissing, but there aren’t too many of those in the five boroughs, which is the extent of the broadcast region.

Then the camera did this funny skittering thing, and when the picture got clear again, there was this close-up of my face. That’s right. MY FACE. I was lying on the floor with this pillow under my head, talking in this sleepy way.

Then I remembered: At the slumber party, after everyone else had fallen asleep, Lilly and I had stayed awake, chatting.

And it turned out she’d been FILMING ME THE WHOLE TIME!

I was lying there going, “The thing I most want to do is start a place for stray and abandoned animals. Like I went to Rome once, and there were about eighty million cats there, roaming around the monuments. And they totally would have died if these nuns hadn’t fed them and stuff. So the first thing I think I’ll do is, I’ll start a place where all the stray animals in Genovia will be taken care of. You know? And I’d never have any of them put to sleep, unless they were really sick or something. And there’ll just be like all these dogs and cats, and maybe some dolphins and ocelots—”

Lilly’s voice, disembodied, went, “Are there ocelots in Genovia?”

I went, “I hope so. Maybe not, though. But whatever. Any animals that need a home, they can come live there. And maybe I’ll hire some Seeing Eye dog trainers, and they can come and train all the dogs to be Seeing Eye dogs. And then we can give them away free to blind people who need them. And then we can take the cats to hospitals and old people’s homes, and let the patients pet them, because that always makes people feel better—except people like my grandmère, who hates cats. We can take dogs for them. Or maybe one of the ocelots.”

Lilly’s voice: “And that’s going to be your first act when you become the ruler of Genovia?”

I said, sleepily, “Yeah, I think so. Maybe we could just turn the whole castle into an animal shelter, you know? And like all the strays in Europe can come live there. Even those cats in Rome.”

“Do you think your grandmère is going to like that? I mean, having all those stray cats around the castle?”

I said, “She’ll be dead by then, so who cares?”

Oh, my God! I hope they don’t have public access on the TVs up at the Plaza!

Lilly asked me, “What part of it do you hate the most? Being a princess, I mean.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Not being able to go to the deli to buy milk without having to call ahead and arrange for a bodyguard to escort me. Not being able just to come over and hang out with you without it being this big production. This whole thing with my fingernails. I mean, who cares how my fingernails look, right? Why does it even matter? That kind of stuff.”

Lilly went, “Are you nervous? About your formal introduction to the people of Genovia, in December?”

“Well, not really nervous, just . . . I don’t know. What if they don’t like me? Like the ladies-in-waiting and stuff? I mean, nobody at school likes me. So chances are, nobody in Genovia will like me, either.”

“People at school like you,” Lilly said.

Then, right in front of the camera, I drifted off to sleep. Good thing I didn’t drool, or worse, snore. I wouldn’t have been able to show my face at school tomorrow.

Then these words floated up over the screen:
Don’t Believe the Hype! This Is the
Real
Interview with the Princess of Genovia!

As soon as it was over, I called Lilly and asked her exactly what she thought she’d been doing.

She just went, in this infuriatingly superior voice, “I just want people to be able to see the real Mia Thermopolis.”

“No, you don’t,” I said. “You just want one of the networks to pick up on the interview, and pay you lots of money for it.”

“Mia,” Lilly said, sounding wounded. “How can you even think such a thing?”

She sounded so taken aback that I realized I must have been wrong about that one.

“Well,” I said, “you could have told me.”

“Would you have agreed to it?” Lilly wanted to know.

“Well,” I said. “No . . . probably not.”

“There you go,” Lilly said.

I guess I don’t come off as quite as much of a big-mouthed idiot in Lilly’s interview. I just come off as a whacko who has a thing for cats. I really don’t know which is worse.

But the truth is, I’m actually starting not to care. I wonder if this is what happens to celebrities. Like maybe at first, you really care what they say about you in the press, but after a while, you’re just like, Whatever.

I do wonder if Michael saw this, and if so, what he thought of my pajamas. They are quite nice ones.

Hank didn’t come to school with me today. He called first thing this morning and said he wasn’t feeling too well. I am not surprised. Last night Mamaw and Papaw called wanting to know where in Manhattan they could go for a New York strip. Since I do not generally frequent restaurants that serve meat, I asked Mr. Gianini for a suggestion, and he made a reservation at this semi-famous steak place.

And then, in spite of my mother’s strenuous objections, he insisted on taking Mamaw and Papaw and Hank and me out, so he could get to know his future in-laws better.

This was apparently too much for my mother. She actually got out of bed, put mascara and lipstick and a bra on, and went with us. I think it was mostly to guard against Mamaw driving Mr. G away with her many references to the number of family cars my mother accidentally rolled over in cornfields while she was learning to drive.

At the restaurant, I am horrified to report, in spite of the increased risk of heart disease and some cancers to which saturated fats and cholesterol have scientifically been linked, my future stepfather, my cousin, and my maternal grandparents—not to mention Lars, whom I had no idea was so fond of meat, and my mother, who attacked her steak like Rosemary attacked that raw chunk of ground round in
Rosemary’s Baby
(which I’ve never actually seen, but I heard about it)—ingested what had to have been the equivalent of an entire cow.

This distressed me very much and I wanted to point out to them how unnecessary and unhealthy it is to eat things that were once alive and walking around, but, remembering my princess training, I merely concentrated on my entree of grilled vegetables and said nothing.

Still, I am not at all surprised Hank doesn’t feel well. All that red meat is probably sitting, completely undigested, behind those washboard abs even as we speak. (I am only assuming Hank has washboard abs, since, thankfully, I have not actually seen them).

Interestingly, however, that was the one meal my mother has been able to keep down. This baby is no vegetarian, that’s for sure.

Anyway, the disappointment Hank’s absence has generated here at Albert Einstein is palpable. Miss Molina saw me in the hall and asked, sadly, “You don’t need another guest pass for your cousin today?”

Hank’s absence also apparently means that my special dispensation from the mean looks the cheerleaders have been giving me is revoked: This morning Lana reached out, snapped the back of my bra, and asked in her snottiest voice, “What are you wearing a bra for? You don’t need one.”

I long for a place where people treat each other with courtesy and respect. That, unfortunately, is not high school. Maybe in Genovia? Or possibly that space station the Russians built, the one that’s falling apart above our heads.

Anyway, the only person who seems happy about Hank’s misfortune is Boris Pelkowski. He was waiting for Lilly by the front doors to the school when we arrived this morning, and as soon as he saw us, he asked, “Where is Honk?” (Because of his thick Russian accent, that’s the way he pronounces Hank’s name.)

“Honk—I mean, Hank—is sick,” I informed him, and it would not be exaggerating to say that the look that spread across Boris’s uneven features was beatific. It was actually a little bit touching. Boris’s doglike devotion to Lilly can be annoying, but I know that I really only feel that way about it because I am envious.
I
want a boy I can tell all my deepest secrets to.
I
want a boy who will French-kiss me.
I
want a boy who will be jealous if I spend too much time with another guy, even a total bohunk like Hank.

But I guess we don’t always get what we want, do we? It looks like all I’m going to get is a baby brother or sister, and a stepfather who knows a lot about the quadratic formula and who is moving in tomorrow with his foozball table.

Oh, and the rule of the throne of a country, someday.

Big deal. I’d rather have a boyfriend.

THINGS TO DO BEFORE MR. G MOVES IN

I don’t believe this.

They’ve done it again.

Hank and Lilly have disappeared AGAIN!

I didn’t even know about the Hank part until Lars got a call on his cell phone from my mother. She was very annoyed, because her mother had called her at the studio, screaming hysterically because Hank was missing from his hotel room. Mom wanted to know if Hank had shown up at school.