Royal Wedding (21 page)

Uh, she is evidently not very well acquainted with many nine-soon-to-be-ten-year-old boys. I love Rocky very much, but he is challenging. Most of our conversations revolve around farts (his favorite subject) and dinosaurs (his second favorite subject).

“How much did the dinosaurs fart when the giant asteroid that destroyed their habitat struck the earth?” is one of Rocky's favorite questions.

He guesses quite a lot, but I usually say probably not so much because they were so frightened.

Mom worries Rocky might be held back because of his obsession with flatulence, but Michael says it's quite normal for nine-year-old boys.

For his birthday, Rocky wants a dinosaur-themed cake, preferably one with “a giant asteroid splatting in the middle.” When my mother questioned Rocky as to whether or not this request was serious, he farted in response, and was sent to his room to “think about what he'd done.”

I think it might be quite nice to have a female sibling to talk to. Not that girls don't enjoy discussing flatulence and dinosaurs as well, but Olivia Grace looks adorable.

I could take her to the American Girl store and have tea. That is, if she likes dolls. The problem is, she's twelve. Twelve is too old for dolls, isn't it?

I didn't want to admit it in front of Michael, but I have no idea what twelve-year-old girls like to do these days. The ones I meet at the center are all pretty focused on their homework, their families, fingernail polish (obviously, I'm out), video games involving helping puppies find homes and reality stars pick out what to wear, and several boy bands and skimpily clad female singers I've never heard of who are popular, but they don't seem to me to be as talented as either Adele, Taylor, or of course my sweet, sad Britney.

•   
Note to self:
Ask Tina what her younger siblings enjoy, and why.

I have no memory of what I liked at age twelve. I'm spending this afternoon combing through my old journals, looking for a hint as to the existence of Elizabeth Harrison, but so far I haven't found a trace, and unfortunately I only started keeping my diaries at the age of fourteen.

Of course, the thing about diaries is that they're always about
you,
not other people. It's even worse if they're the diary of an adolescent. It's dreadful rereading them, because they seem so . . . egomaniacal. How could one person drone on so much about herself? Was I blind? The only thing I ever wrote about was:

1.   My grades.

2.   My boobs (or lack thereof).

3.   Grandmère.

4.   Lilly being incredibly annoying.

5.   Josh Richter (ACKKKKK).

6.   My then arch nemesis, Lana Weinberger.

7.   Michael.

My dad possibly conducting a secret love affair across the river is never mentioned anywhere.

Ugh! I am so depressed now.

And even though Marie Rose stocked my kitchen while I was gone, so my refrigerator is full of delicious things to eat—such as a tarragon chicken salad; wild-caught Alaskan salmon poached in a court bouillon with a cumin dill sauce; crisp prosciutto, rocket, and mozzarella paninis; black truffle macaroni and cheese; lobster-claw kebabs; meringue; and Genovian orange crème brûlée—all I feel like eating is the second Butterfinger I bought at the bodega. I am not following Dr. Delgado's advice at all!

But I have to admit, the Butterfinger is helping, as is the fact that there's an
I Found the Gown
marathon on TLC.

It would be so much simpler if I could just drive to a discount store like the girls on that show do and find the perfect gown (for $400)!

But I have a sneaking suspicion that after all the Butterfingers I've just eaten, there's no gown in existence (especially for only $400) cleverly enough designed to hide the food baby I've developed and the press seems to feel compelled to comment on.

CHAPTER 40

4:44 p.m., Tuesday, May 5

Third-Floor Apartment

Consulate General of Genovia

Rate the Royals Rating:
7!

Okay, I think I just did something really stupid.

It probably doesn't help that I've taken a couple of nips from the bottle of hundred-year-old Williams pear schnaps* that Michael and I were sent as an engagement gift from the chancellor of Austria (it was already open anyway, since the Royal Genovian Guard had to make sure it wasn't poisoned—not by the chancellor, obviously—​which they did by tasting it themselves).

*Austrian schnaps is completely different from what Americans call schnapps. For one thing, if it's prepared correctly, it actually tastes like something other than toothpaste.

I was just feeling so bummed out about everything after reading parts of
Love in the Time of Shadows
(radiation poisoning is
so
depressing! Why would anyone write about this? Unless it was a book about Hiroshima, of course) and all my own diaries that I was like, “Oh, whatever. It's five o'clock somewhere!
Skol!
” and helped myself to a sip. Or maybe two. I don't remember anyway.

And not just because my rank on Rate the Royals has sunk from number one (not that I care, since that website is a stupid blight on humanity and is best ignored) down to
seven
.

I am now even less popular than General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Faisal, the Crown Prince of Qalif!

And, apparently, the Sultan of Brunei (the one who did something with a monkey, though we'll never know what, thanks to Lazarres-Reynolds).

There is absolutely
no reason
for this to have happened other than my having kicked the founder of the website out of my community center for planting listening devices in the women's restroom (which I now regret not having him arrested for. Ling Su was right).

But
even worse than this,
there was a post from RoyalRabbleRouser, who was stalking me all last year. He disappeared for a while, most likely due to having joined a cult or a radical terror group, or possibly the cast of a reality show. Reality-show casting agents recruit the same kind of people as cults and terror groups do, ones who feel like there is something missing from their lives, very often romantic love.

And since the only way woman-haters like my stalker are going to get a date is if they kidnap one or one is assigned to them by a cult leader or central casting, often such people's decision to join up proves to be a good one . . . until they get blown up or kicked off the show.

It must have been the latter since RoyalRabbleRouser has shown up again—probably due to the news that I'm getting married, at least based on his message about being glad that “the princess slut” is finally letting “Mike” make “an honest woman of her.”

“It's about time, too,” writes RoyalRabbleRouser. “Maybe now she'll let him work while she stays home and squeezes out a few puppies, like a decent woman should. Hopefully she'll learn to cook, too. But probably she'll just keep on making her asinine speeches about how women should work, while letting her servants do the cooking.”

Um . . . yes. Yes, I will. Because that's the job for which I employ them, and if I didn't employ them, they would have no paycheck, and without a paycheck they would have no way to feed their families, and then they would starve. It's called
economics,
RoyalRabbleRouser. Look it up.

At the center we're trying hard to provide teens with the mentoring, education, and job training they need so that when they leave school they'll be invulnerable to the kind of thinking RoyalRabbleRouser supports, but sometimes I worry it's not enough. Obviously the Frank Gianini Community Center needs to expand globally.

I really have to start following Dominique's advice and stop reading this stuff.

But I can't stop reading texts from Lana Weinberger (whose birthday wishes I'd forgotten to return). She sent another, even more alarming than the last:

Now I have to figure out how to explain to Lana that I do not care for BJ shots, nor do I particularly want to know what a dicklicker is.

It's not just because I don't care to support businesses owned by Ivan. It's because it's almost one hundred percent guaranteed that someone is going to photograph me wearing penis party beads and then put the photograph on the Internet. I'll be raked over the coals . . . though of course it's horrible that public figures can't go out (or even stay in) and have a good time and be photographed doing it and not be judged for it.

It's one thing to say, “Oh, have a sense of humor about it,” but there's such a double standard. The populace does
not
have a sense of humor about it, especially if they feel you are somehow representing their country. Was Kate Middleton ever photographed wearing “penis party beads”? I think not.

Of course I get Lana's plea that “we all need to spend more time together because Best Friends Are Forever and high school was the best time in our lives” (okay, well, I don't get that part. High school may have been the best years of Lana's life, but it was definitely not mine. Except that AEHS is where I met Michael). Yes, it would be fun to take
one day off
from being politically correct, but that's much easier said than done, especially when there are cameras around, and I'm guessing there are cameras everywhere at Crazy Ivan's, considering you're required to take your top off as soon as you enter.