Royal Wedding (16 page)

It was the part about my having a little sister that I couldn't believe . . . and the fact that my father had never told me about it. Not telling Grandmère I could understand. Though underneath her flamboyant exterior, she has a warm (well, warmish) heart. How else has she tolerated her horrible dog all these years?

But there is no doubt that she disapproves of nearly everything her only child (my father) does.

This is most likely why he'd fallen for the one woman in the world he couldn't have—my mother, his own mother's exact opposite (in complete defiance of Dr. Moscovitz's theory about him).

But I'd always thought my father and I were close.

Now I realized I knew nothing about him at all.

This stings a little. Actually, a lot.

I leaped to my feet. “Well, what are we waiting for?” I said to my grandmother. “Have your driver bring the car around, and let's go meet her.”

“Certainly not, Amelia,” my grandmother said. “According to Lazarres-Reynolds, that's the
worst
possible thing we could do. We can't risk exposing this story to the media, especially after all the trouble we went to today in order to provide the perfect distraction for them, in the form of your wedding.”

“What are you talking about? Who on earth is Lazarres-​Reynolds?”

“The crisis management firm I hired to handle this affair, of course. Why do you think I announced your engagement this morning?”

I sank back down onto the couch, stunned. “I thought you did that to distract the press from Dad's arrest.”

“Well, of course I did, Amelia. Have you seen his most recent numbers in the polls for prime minister? He's five points behind your cousin Ivan—who just today announced that, if elected, he'll make genetically modified fruit illegal
and
deny all humanitarian entry visas into Genovia. But if news of this latest debacle of your father's gets out—well, he'll be crushed in the election.
Crushed
.”

I shook my head. “Grandmère,” I said. “This little girl's existence isn't a political scandal you can hire a publicity firm to cover up. She's a human being. She's
family.
”

“I'm aware of that, Amelia. But Lazarres-Reynolds really is very good. Do you remember that incident last year with the son of the Sultan of Brunei and the monkey?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Do you know why you don't remember it? Two words: Lazarres-Reynolds.”

“But, Grandmère,” I said desperately, “do you really think if people found out Dad had another kid, they'd think badly enough of him to vote against him?”

“For keeping it a secret so long? Yes. No one likes a liar. Think about it, Amelia. How do
you
feel about your father right now?”

“I . . . I . . . I guess I feel a little confused.”

She snorted. “Nonsense. What you feel right now, Amelia, is
hurt
. Personally, I'd like to hack off his testicles—the one he has left, anyway—but that would only give Lazarres-Reynolds another crisis to manage. And they may have one anyway, because according to José, this uncle who's helping to raise her has accepted a lucrative contracting job overseas and is planning on moving the whole family—”

“What?”
I didn't care about Grandmère possibly cutting off my father's remaining testicle. I was more concerned about the welfare of my newly discovered sibling. “Why is the
uncle
helping to raise her? Where is her mother?”

“Her mother, Elizabeth Harrison, passed away ten years ago in a tragic Jet Ski accident—”

“What?”
I yelled. Every time my grandmother opened her mouth, it seemed, the news got more terrible.

“If you would allow me to finish, Amelia, instead of constantly interrupting, you'd understand. The girl's mother was a private charter jet pilot—that's how your father met her. You know how he is about hopping on a private plane every time the fancy strikes him, and he can't always be bothered to wait for the royal jet. Anyway, apparently they were quite hot and heavy for a time, but then it fizzled out and the woman died while on vacation. I never did agree with personal watercraft, so dangerous, I'm glad we had them banned from Genovian waters.”

I sat there, completely shocked. My father had been in love—in love enough to have a child with someone other than my mother? I was going to have to go back and reread every page of my diaries from that time period to see how I'd missed it. There must have been a clue, some indication of Elizabeth Harrison's existence. Otherwise, my father was the greatest actor who had ever lived.

Or I was a completely insensitive daughter.

“Like your mother,” Grandmère was going on, “Elizabeth preferred that her child be raised in ignorance of her birthright. She left her in the care of her sister, Catherine, who, by José's account, is perfectly acceptable, but has questionable taste in men, since she's married what I believe is commonly referred to today as a ‘bohunk' who owns a construction business that—”

I'd taken all I could take. “Grandmère, what is Dad
thinking
? I can understand wanting to keep this girl a secret from the media, but how could he keep her a secret from
us
?”

Grandmère sniffed and poured herself another drink. “And have your mother find out and think ill of him? Not likely!”

“But why would
Mom
care? She fell in love and had a kid with someone else, too.”

“That is the point, Amelia. Your father fancies your mother
would
care . . . as much as he did when she married that algebra teacher of yours. Not that she noticed, cruel woman that she is.”

“My mother isn't—”

“Here.” Grandmère handed me a dossier. She looked as self-satisfied as Fat Louie after he's managed to stick his head in my cereal bowl and lap up all the milk. “This is José's report, you can read all about it. There's quite a bit about the bohunk. It's extremely unsettling. He's a ginger.”

I frowned at her. One of the signs of dementia in older people is a loss of social inhibitions, and that's certainly true of my grandmother, who barely even bothers to hide her prejudices anymore, especially the one she has against red-haired men. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Grandmère believes that Ron Weasley, not Voldemort, is the villain of the Harry Potter series.

I would totally have ratted her out to Dr. Delgado for this, except that Prince Harry of England and A-list actresses with auburn tresses are completely exempt from her wrath. So she isn't prejudiced against
all
redheads, only those she considers socially inferior to herself.

I'm completely demanding an autopsy on my grandmother's brain when she's dead so I can see what I'm in for as I age.

“I'm sorry, Grandmère,” I said crisply as I flipped through the neatly typed pages, each stamped with the official seal of the Genovian Guard. “I can understand why it might be dangerous for the girl if the truth gets out—no one should have to grow up with bodyguards and press hounding her the way I did. But these are enlightened times. I really believe, if we handle it properly—even without the help of a crisis management team—neither the voters
nor
the press is going to make a big deal out of . . .”

My voice trailed off because I'd turned to the page with my sister's photo on it.

“Oh,” I said.
“Oh.”

Grandmère nodded knowingly. “Yes,” she said. “
Now
do you see the gravity of the problem, Amelia?”

“It isn't a
problem,
” I said. “Except maybe to some people, who might be surprised to see that she's . . . she's . . .”

“Black,”
Grandmère said.

Seriously, sometimes I can't even deal with her.

“African American,” I corrected her.

“She's not
African,
” Grandmère said. “She was born in New Jersey, and her father is Genovian.”

“Yes, Grandmère, but today people say—”

“That makes her
American Genovian,
” Grandmère went on, blithely ignoring me. “I suppose you'll argue that the proper term is biracial, but in Europe they'll call her black, just as they'd call her uncle a ginger.”

“No one but you would call her uncle that,” I said. “And hopefully in Europe they won't call her anything but Olivia Grace, which according to this is her name.”

“Do you really think that's what your cousin Ivan is going to say when he finds out?” Grandmère asked acidly. “I highly doubt it.”

It would be nice to think she's wrong, and that we live in a world where no one notices things like skin color (or hair color) and that prejudice and bigotry don't exist. Certainly many people claim they “don't see” these things, and that we live in a “post-racial society.”

But I don't need a crisis management team to tell me that this is untrue.

“Yeah,” I said. “Well, in Cousin Ivan's case, it might have been better if she were a redhead—”

“Bite your tongue!” Grandmère cried, horrified.

We didn't get to finish our talk, though, because at that moment we both heard loud male voices from the hallway outside Grandmère's penthouse condo. Curiously, they appeared to be singing a popular Genovian drinking song, which goes, roughly translated:

Oh, forgive me, Mother, for I am drunk again!

Forgive me, Mother, for I am drunk again!

Forgive me, Mother, for I am drunk,

Forgive me, Mother, for I am drunk,

Forgive me, Mother, for I am drunk again!

(Repeat)

It is possibly the most annoying song of all time (besides Boris's “A Million Stars”), but its annoying qualities multiply times infinity when you realize that it's being sung by your father, who you've just found out has been lying to you (by omission) about having another child, and who only a few weeks earlier got arrested for recklessly speeding his race car in Manhattan.

“What's
he
doing here?” I hissed, hurriedly closing the dossier.

“Oh, he's been downstairs in his own suite this entire time,” Grandmère said, “with your fiancé.”

“
What?
Michael?” Suddenly I recognized the second male voice. “When did
Michael
get here?”

“I believe he arrived while you were imprisoning Rommel's bride-to-be in the kitchen,” Grandmère said drily, “to try, as he put it, to straighten out this wedding nonsense. I sent him to speak to your father. It sounds like the two of them have been celebrating your impending nuptials. You can keep that.” She pointed to the dossier. “I have my own copy. But I wouldn't allow your father to see it.”

“Wait . . .
Dad doesn't know you know?
”

“Of course he doesn't. You know how sensitive he is. Ever since he was a little boy, he never liked me knowing his business. I remember when he was at school, he used to collect comic books—the one who dressed as a spider, what was his name? Well, whatever his name was, your father loved him, but he never wanted me to know about it. Why do you think your father would be so ashamed of loving a spider man?”

“I don't know, Grandmère,” I said, shoving the dossier into my bag, which was fortunately large enough to hold it since it was my carry-on. I hadn't yet had a chance to unpack from my trip, so I was still carrying around all my clothes and bottles of sunscreen. “Maybe because he secretly wanted to be Spider-Man. Anyway, we have to talk about this with him. He can't go on keeping his own daughter a secret.”

“Of course he can,” she said with a sniff. “At least until after the election. He's done it for twelve years, he can do it for three more months.”

“But he can't allow Olivia to be taken overseas!”

“Why not? The press will have a much more difficult time finding her there than in New Jersey. And this is the family she knows and, presumably, loves and feels comfortable with.”

“But it's not right,” I said. “We're her family, too. And we may never have a chance to see her again. Like in the 1991 docudrama starring Sally Field,
Not Without My Daughter,
based on the true story of the kidnapping of American citizen Betty Mahmoody's daughter by her own husband, who refused to return her from Iran after his two-week visitation.”

Grandmère frowned at me. “I said overseas, Amelia, not Iran. You do know that I only shared this information with you so you would understand how essential it is that you provide a distraction in your role as royal bride this summer, not so that you could turn it into the plot of some terrible movie only you have ever seen.”

“That movie wasn't terrible,” I said indignantly. “It was a moving portrayal of a brave woman who fought against a misogynistic regime for the return of her child.”

“May I remind you, Amelia, that this is a time of crisis, not a time for film reviews? Your father needs you. Your
country
needs you.”

“Well, I think my
sister
needs me, and I intend to do something about it.”

“You will
not
. You will do as I tell you. And stop twitching at me. It's extremely unbecoming.”

But by then the door to the penthouse had already burst open, and Dad had come staggering in, supported under one arm by Michael, so the conversation (princesses never argue) had come to an end. My grandmother shoved me—with surprising strength for such an elderly woman—toward them, crying, “Well, hello, gentlemen! How lovely to see you both. This happy news calls for a celebration, don't you think? What will you have?”

Dad is completely blotto—much too drunk to confront tonight—and I'm supposed to be in here making coffee (which obviously I haven't been, because instead I've been writing this all down. I ordered coffee from room service).