Royal Wedding (33 page)

Uh-oh. I guess National Public News does occasionally report things not necessarily of national or cultural importance.

“Mom,” I said, my eyelid beginning to throb uncontrollably. “Look. I can explain—”

“Oh, don't worry,” Mom said. “You're not the one I'm angry with. None of this is your fault.
He's
the one I'm going to kill for leaving that poor child parentless in New Jersey.”

“She wasn't parentless,” I said, even though of course I'd been thinking pretty much the same thing ever since I'd found out. “She has an aunt—”

“Mia,” Mom said, her mouth shrinking to the size of a dime, a sure sign she was about to blow. “You know what I mean.”

“Helen,” my dad said, suddenly appearing in the foyer. I guess he'd heard all the knocking and finally come to investigate. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you
think
I'm doing here?” Mom demanded, her eyes flashing wetly. “How
could
you, Phillipe? How
could
you?”

She shouted this with such explosive force that the door to the study flew open, and J.P. and his uncle, along with the Royal Genovian legal team, all stepped out into the foyer in alarm.

(Fortunately Grandmère and Olivia were too consumed by whatever they're doing in the library—probably training the poodles to do circus tricks—that they didn't seem to hear.)

My dad took it like a mensch. He held up a hand to stop the RGG agents from throwing my mother out on the spot and said, “No, no, gentlemen. I'll handle this.”

Then he took her by the arm and steered her out onto the balcony, where I suppose he thinks none of us can hear the massive argument they're currently having.

But of course we can.

(Well, probably not Grandmère, Olivia, and Rocky, who Dominique just shut up in the library as well.) But I can.

I know it's probably wrong of me to record what they're saying on my cell phone, but how else am I going to preserve it to play back for Tina later? She's going to want to know every detail, and they're talking too fast for me to write it all down.

Besides, I keep hearing my name mentioned. How can I
not
listen?

Mom:
“Phillipe, what could you have been thinking? I don't care what her mother said, of
course
you should have stayed in contact with her. She's your
child
.”

Dad:
“I did stay in touch with her. We write once a month. Helen, Mia told me about Rocky.”

Mom:
“Rocky? What
about
Rocky?”

Dad:
“That he's having trouble in school.”

Mom:
“What does
that
have to do with any of this? Phillipe, we're talking about you, not me. Writing once a month is not the same as being there for a child physically and emotionally. You're a grown man, how could you not know this?”

Dad:
“I was thinking that since you're coming to Genovia in July anyway for Mia's wedding, perhaps you could take a tour of the school I'm thinking of sending Olivia to—”

Mom:
“Sending Olivia to? I thought she lives with her aunt!”

Dad:
“But I'm working right now to get legal guardianship, because of course her place is with me. And this school has an excellent program for gifted children, just like Olivia and Rocky.”

Mom:
“Gifted? Rocky's not
gifted,
Phillipe. He's in trouble at school because of his obsession with farting, that's all. Farting and dinosaurs. I just caught him building something in his room today out of cardboard boxes that he claims is a spaceship powered by his own farts.”

Dad:
“Such a brilliant mind, just like his mother. You must be feeling overwhelmed raising such a clever child on your own.”

Mom:
“No, I'm not, Phillipe, because I already raised a child on my own. Your daughter Mia, remember?”

Dad:
“Yes, but you had summers off when she came to live with me.”

Mom:
“She came to live with you and your
mother
. Who you still live with.”

Dad:
“Yes, but not for long. Things are going to be different now. Did you know there are more than seventeen bedrooms in the summer palace?”

I'm
the one who told him that!

Mom:
“So what, Phillipe?”

Dad:
“So I'm saying a person could be perfectly happy living there year-round.”

Mom:
“Phillipe, you're not making any sense.”

Dad:
“The Genovian art scene needs someone like you, Helen, someone vital and real. Vulgar giclée prints of nude women riding dolphins into the sunset sell for tens of thousand of euros there. Won't you at least consider—?”

Mom:
“But, Phillipe, according to NPR, that little girl's uncle says—”

Dad:
“I swear all of that is going to be worked out, Helen. But first there's something I need to tell you, and it isn't only about Olivia. It's something I came to realize today while I was standing in court in front of that judge. The truth is, Helen, I—”

“Princess?”

It's Dominique. She's blocking my view of my parents. I can dimly make them out through the gauzy white curtains over the panes in the French doors to the balcony.

“Yes?”
I'm trying to see around her.

“Mr. Moscovitz is 'ere, but I'm sorry to say 'e's in the 'allway, beating Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy—”

CHAPTER 58

2:05 a.m., Thursday, May 7

Third-Floor Apartment

Consulate General of Genovia

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1

Any day that begins with trying on wedding dresses and ends with your fiancé beating up your ex-boyfriend is a good one, right?

Especially if, in between, you manage to introduce your long-lost little sister to her father, and no one ends up in jail.

Okay, well, maybe not. Maybe that's why I can't sleep.

Probably also because my foot is throbbing like crazy, no matter how many bags of frozen Chinese dumplings I keep on it.

And also Michael is still up, tap-tapping away at his keyboard in my bed (conspicuously shirtless).

He
doesn't think he did anything wrong, of course. His side of the story is:

“I walked into your grandmother's condo, completely minding my own business, and the next thing I know, out into the hall comes your ex-boyfriend, and he doesn't see me, but he's on his cell phone, and he's saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I can score you tickets to the royal wedding. I have a complete in. She's still into me. So how many do you want?' So I jumped him. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said. “Deal with it diplomatically,
like a prince
.”

“Ah,” he said, raising one of those thick dark eyebrows. “But I'm not a prince yet. So it seemed more logical to kick his ass.”

“Oh, yes, Michael, what you did was very logical. Very unemotional, just like Mr. Spock from
Star Trek
. The two of you have so much in common. Now, thanks to you, our own crisis management firm is suing us, and I have no idea how things turned out with my mom and dad. She took Rocky and left right after the RGG broke up your little fight. And I also don't know what's going on with Olivia, since Grandmère kicked us out, too. She says you behaved like a hooligan, and I should give back your ring and marry that nice ex-boyfriend of Taylor Swift's instead.”

“A hooligan!” Michael grinned. “No one's ever called me a hooligan before. I like it. But you might want to notice something.” He held out his jaw. “Not a scratch on me. Dude didn't even get close.”

“Wow,” I said sarcastically. “You're more physically intimidating than a guy who wrote a screenplay and a dystopian YA novel. You must be very proud.”

“Hey,” he protested. “He tried to bite me!”

“How upsetting for you. Do you have any idea, Michael, how hard I had to work on Grandmère to convince her to like you? And you ruined it all in one night. We might as well cancel the wedding. She's never going to approve.”

Michael closed his laptop and put it on the nightstand, then flipped back the comforter on my side of the bed. “Well, maybe now we can have the wedding we wanted. Why do you need her approval, anyway? Come over here and let's discuss it.”

He grinned and patted the clean white sheet beside him.

“Seriously, Michael,” I said. “Are you suggesting what I think you are? After a day like today?”

“I thought
I'm
supposed to be the alien visitor to this planet. But it looks like you're the one in need of gentle humanizing right now. So get over here.”

Well, I guess it's worth a try.

CHAPTER 59

2:35 a.m., Thursday, May 7

Third-Floor Apartment

Consulate General of Genovia

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1

I'm really feeling quite a bit better now. Even my foot hurts a bit less.

Wait . . . what was it I was worrying about again? I'm so sleepy I forgot . . .

Oh, well.

Three things I'm grateful for:

1.   Fat Louie (who is curled up beside me, purring).

2.   Little sisters.

3.   Michael. Michael. Michael.

CHAPTER 60

8:45 a.m., Thursday, May 7

Inside the HELV on the way

to the Doctor's Office

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When I got up and tried to walk this morning, I nearly fell down. The foot Olivia's aunt slammed in the door is twice its normal size.

Michael took one look and said, “That's it. We're taking you to the doctor for an X-ray,” even though I protested that I felt fine, really.

(I was trying to sound brave. I don't feel fine. I'm pretty sure my foot's not broken because I already checked on iTriage and I can put my weight on it—the nearly-falling-down thing aside—and that means it's probably only bruised. It's definitely turned a hideous blue and green in some areas. And it's so swollen my only shoes that fit are my UGGs, which is bad, because princesses can't wear UGGs in public. It isn't DONE. Except on ski slopes.)

So now we're in the HELV on the way to Dr. Delgado's office. I'd have made him come to the consulate, but we only have metal detectors, not X-ray technology.

In spite of my own pain—which isn't really that bad, but then again, I've taken a Tylenol—I can't help wondering how Olivia is doing. Dad texted that she spent last night at Grandmère's. After the news broke about her true parentage, it was deemed too unsafe to take her back to Cranbrook.

That's
all
he texted, though. Nothing about Mom, or whether or not she's forgiven him.

And of course all Mom had to say about the situation (in a voice mail she left in response to all my voice mails, probably while I was in the shower) was:

“Mia, please, stop worrying about me. I'm fine. Just a little embarrassed at the scene I made in front of everyone last night. I suppose I just never realized before how . . .
complex
a man your father is, deep down inside. Anyway, I'll call you later. Have a good day, sweetie.”

I forwarded this message to Tina, to whom I'd also forwarded the recording of my mom and dad's conversation the night before (although most of it turned out fairly muffled—I am not exactly Carrie from
Homeland,
though I like to pretend I'd be as good at her job at the CIA as she is—and I'd ended up having to transcribe a lot of it anyway).

Tina texted back promptly:

Yeah, right. All Dad ended up having to do to win my mom's admiration was alienate his own country's populace by hiding a love child for twelve years in a small town just off the New Jersey Turnpike. Easy!

He's screwed things for us so royally, the consulate even had to cancel our appearance on
Wake Up America
(not that I would have gone anyway) due to the “unprecedented amount of death threats” they'd received.

The RGG says not to worry, though, the death threats aren't serious (no more than usual, anyway). In addition to the usual antiroyalists, anarchists, misogynists, and general wackos, we've now acquired a few white supremacists and even some anti-Semites (Michael says he's very proud he was finally able to bring something to the family, even if it's only a hate group).

I instructed Dad that under no circumstances is he to leave Olivia alone with his mother for a period of more than two hours. There is no telling what that woman might do. I have a sneaking suspicion a makeover might be in the works. While this did not end up being the worst thing in the world for me, there is no reason to give Olivia one. She's only twelve, and besides which doesn't suffer from the many style maladies that plagued me at age fourteen (such as the “bad hair” Grandmère reminded me last night I inherited from Dad).

Meanwhile, the news from the tabloid press couldn't be worse. Of course they're making much of the “scandal” of a newly discovered illegitimate princess (though I fail to see how this is any big deal, since everyone's been there, done that with me), but some of the more sensationalist sites/networks are trying to suggest that my father took advantage of an innocent watercraft tour guide (since Olivia's mother died in a Jet Ski accident), not a sophisticated woman who actually piloted multimillion-dollar Learjets.