Party Princess (27 page)

One thing I KNOW has been decided is who gets Genovia. THAT was pretty obvious when J.P., looking totally red-cheeked and sheepish, was dragged over to where I was standing near Grandmère by a huge balding man, smoking a cigar.

“There she is!” the huge balding man—John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third, I quickly realized, J.P.’s dad—exclaimed. “The little lady I’ve been dying to meet, the princess of Genovia, the one responsible for bringing my boy here outta his shell! How’re ya, sweetheart?”

I thought J.P.’s dad must have been talking about Grandmère. You know, since she was the one who’d cast J.P. in her show, which I guess, could be considered “bringing
him out of his shell.”

But to my surprise, I saw that Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third was gazing down at ME, not Grandmère.

Grandmère, for her part, was looking as if she smelled something foul. Probably it was the cigar.

But all she said was, “John Paul. This is my granddaughter, Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo.” (Grandmère always reverses my last two names. It’s a thing between her and my mom.)

“How do you do, sir,” I said, sticking out my right hand….

Only to have it swallowed up in Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third’s big, meaty paw.

“Couldn’t be better,” he said, pumping my arm up and down, while J.P., standing next to his dad with his hands buried deep in his pockets, looked like he wanted to die. “Couldn’t be better. I’m pleased to make the acquaintance of the girl who—sorry,
princess
who—is the first person at that stuck-up school you kids go to ever to ask my boy to lunch!”

I just stood there, looking from J.P. to his dad and then back again. I sort of couldn’t believe it. I mean, that no one at AEHS had ever asked J.P. to join them for lunch before.

On the other hand, he
did
say he wasn’t much of a joiner. And he WAS always really weird about the corn-in-the-chili thing. And if you didn’t know the story behind why…well, you might think he was kind of odd. Until you got to know him better, I mean.

“And look what it’s done for him!” Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third went on. “One little lunch, and the kid’s got the lead in the school musical! And he’s even got friends now! College friends! What’s that one guy’s name, J.P.? The one you were talking to all last night on the phone? Mike?”

J.P. was looking steadfastly at the floor. I didn’t blame him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Michael.”

“Right, Mike,” Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third went on. “And the princess here.” He gave me a chuck under the chin. “Kid’s been eating lunch alone since he started at that snobby school. I was gonna make him transfer if it went on much longer. Now he’s eating lunch with a princess! It’s the damnedest thing. That is one fine granddaughter you’ve got there, Clarisse!”

“Thank you, John Paul,” Grandmère said graciously. “And may I say, your son is a very charming young man. I am sure he will go very far in life.”

“Damned right he will,” Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy said, and now it was J.P.’s turn to get a chuck under the chin. “Eating lunch with princesses. Well, just wanted to say thanks. Oh, and to let you know I withdrew my bid for that island—what’s it called? Oh, right! Genovia! ‘Together we will fight.’ Love that line, by the way. Anyway, right, it’s all yours, Clarisse, seeing the favor your little granddaughter did for me and my boy here.”

Grandmère’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. So did Rommel’s, on account of she was squeezing him so hard.

“Are you quite certain, John Paul?” Grandmère asked.

“One hundred percent,” Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third said. “It was a mistake for me to bid on it in the first place. I never wanted Genovia—though it took me seeing this play tonight to realize it. It’s that other one, the one with the car race—”

“Monaco,” Grandmère suggested coldly, looking like she smelled something even worse than cigar smoke. But then, she ALWAYS looks like that when she’s reminded of Genovia’s closest neighbor.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” J.P.’s dad looked grateful. “I gotta remember that. Buyin’ it for J.P.’s mom, you know, for an anniversary present. She loves that movie star, the one who was princess there, what’s her name?”

“Grace Kelly,” Grandmère said in an even colder voice.

“That’s the one.” Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third grabbed his son by the arm. “C’mon, kid,” he said. “Let’s go put a bid in, before one of these other, er,
people
”—he was full-on staring at Cher, who did have a pretty skimpy outfit on, but was still human, and all—“snap it up.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, I turned to Grandmère and said, “Okay, admit it. The reason you put on this play was NOT to entertain the masses who would come to donate money to the Genovian olive growers, but to ingratiate yourself to J.P.’s dad and get him to drop his bid on the faux island of Genovia, wasn’t it?”

“Perhaps initially,” Grandmère said. “Later, I will admit, I rather got into the spirit of the thing. Once bitten by the theater bug, it remains in the blood, you know,
Amelia. I will never be able to turn my back completely on the dramatic arts. Especially not now that my show”—she glanced in the direction of all the reporters and theater critics who were waiting for her to make a statement—“is such a hit.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Just answer one question for me. Why was it so important to you that J.P. and I kiss at the end? And tell me the truth for a change, not that bunk about the audience expecting a kiss at the end of a musical, or whatever.”

Grandmère had shifted Rommel in her arms so that she could examine her reflection in the diamond-encrusted compact she’d pulled from her bag. “Oh, good heavens, Amelia,” she said, checking that her makeup was perfect before she went to be interviewed. “You’re almost sixteen years old, and you’ve only kissed one boy in your entire life.”

I coughed. “Two, actually,” I said. “Remember Josh—”

“Pfuit!”
Grandmère said, closing her compact with a snap. “In any case, you’re much too young to be so serious about a boy. A princess needs to kiss a lot of frogs before she can say for certain she’s found her prince.”

“And you were hoping John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth would turn out to be my prince,” I said. “Because, unlike Michael, his dad is rich…and also happened to be bidding against you for the faux island of Genovia.”

“The thought did cross my mind,” Grandmère said vaguely. “But what are you complaining about? Here’s your money.”

And just like that, she handed me a check for exactly five
thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars.

“The money you need for your little financial problem,” Grandmère went on. “It’s just a small percentage of what we’ve actually raised so far tonight. The Genovian farmers will never know it’s missing.”

My head spun. “Grandmère! Are you serious?” I didn’t have to worry anymore about Amber Cheeseman sending my nasal cartilage crashing into my frontal lobe! It was like a dream come true.

“You see, Amelia,” Grandmère said smugly. “You helped me, and I helped you. That is the Renaldo way.”

This actually made me laugh.

“But
I
got you your island,” I said, feeling a bubble of triumph—yes,
triumph
—well up inside me. “I asked J.P. to eat lunch with me, and that’s what made his dad drop his bid. I didn’t have to stoop to any elaborate lies or blackmail schemes or strangulation—which appears to be the Renaldo way. But there’s another way, Grandmère. You might want to check it out. It’s called being
nice
to people.”

Grandmère blinked down at me.

“Where would Rosagunde have gotten, if she’d been
nice
to Lord Alboin? Niceness, Amelia,” she said, “gets you nowhere in life.”

“Au contraire, Grandmère,”
I said. “Niceness got you the faux island of Genovia, and me the money I needed….”

And
, I added silently to myself,
my boyfriend back
.

But Grandmère just rolled her eyes and went, “Does my hair look all right? I’m heading over to the photographers now.”

“You look great,” I told her.

Because what does it hurt to be nice?

As soon as Grandmère had been swallowed up by the press corps that had been waiting for her, J.P. appeared, holding out a glass of sparkling cider for me, which I took from him and gratefully gulped down. All that singing can make you thirsty.

“So,” J.P. said. “That was my dad.”

“He seems to really love you,” I said diplomatically. Because it wouldn’t have been nice to say
God, you were right! He IS super embarrassing!
“In spite of the corn thing.”

“Yeah,” J.P. said. “I guess. Anyway. Mad at me?”

“Mad at you?” I cried. “Why are you always asking if I’m mad at you? I think you’re the greatest guy I ever met!”

“Except Michael,” J.P. reminded me, glancing over to where Michael stood, having a heart-to-heart with Bob Dylan…not far, actually, from where Lana Weinberger and Trish Hayes were being ignored by Colin Farrell. And pouting because of it.

“Well, of course,” I said to J.P. “Seriously, that was SO SWEET, what you did for me…and for Michael. I honestly can’t thank you enough. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

“Oh,” J.P. said with a smile. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“I do have one question, though,” I said, finally getting the guts to ask him something that had been bothering me for a while. “If you hate corn so much, why do you even
GET the chili? I mean, in the caf.”

J.P. blinked at me. “Well, because I hate corn. But I love chili.”

“Oh. Okay. See you tomorrow,” I said, and gave him a little wave good-bye. Even though I didn’t understand at all.

But, you know, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I only understand about 15 percent of what people are saying to me anyway. Like what Amber Cheeseman said to me a little while ago, over by the caviar bar: “You know, Mia, you’re really fun in person. After all the stuff I’ve read about you, I expected you to be sort of a stick in the mud. But you’re a real party girl after all!”

So, I guess the definition of “party girl” sort of varies, depending on who, you know, is doing the talking.

A second later, Lilly sidled up to me. If I hadn’t known the truth—you know, about her parents—I might have been all, “Lilly! What are you doing, sidling up to people? You don’t sidle.”

But it was obvious from the sidle that she knew the truth about them now—so all I said was, “Hey.”

“Hey.” Lilly was gazing across the room at Boris, who was pumping Joshua Bell’s hand so hard, it was clear he might actually break it. Behind him stood two people who could only be Mr. and Mrs. Pelkowski, both beaming shyly at their son’s hero, while behind THEM, my mom and Mr. Gianini, and Lilly’s parents, were listening intently to something Leonard Nimoy was telling them. “How’s it going?”

“All right,” I said. “Did you get to talk to Benazir?”

“She didn’t show,” Lilly said. “I had a nice chat with Colin Farrell, though.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Lilly said. “He agrees with me that the IRA needed to disarm, but has some pretty radical ideas on how they ought to have gone about it. Oh, and then I had a long talk with Paris Hilton.”

“What did you and Paris
Hilton
talk about?”

“Mostly the peace process in the Middle East. Though she did say she thought my shoes were hot,” Lilly said.

And we both looked down at Lilly’s black Converse high-tops, the ones she’d drawn silver Stars of David all over, in order to celebrate her Jewish heritage, and which she’d donned especially for tonight’s occasion.

“They
are
nice,” I admitted. “Listen, Lilly. Thanks. For helping to straighten out things between me and Michael, I mean.”

“What are friends for?” Lilly asked with a shrug. “And don’t worry. I didn’t tell Michael about that kiss you gave J.P.”

“It didn’t mean anything!” I cried.

“Whatever,” Lilly said.

“It didn’t,” I insisted. And then, because it seemed like the right thing to do, I added, “Look. I’m really sorry about your parents.”

“I know,” Lilly said. “I should have—I mean, I’ve known for a while things weren’t going so well for them. Morty’s been moving away from the neopsychoanalytical school of psychiatry ever since he left grad school. He
and Ruth have been fighting over this for years, but it all came to a head with a recent article in
Psychoanalysis Today
, blasting the Jungians for essentialism. Ruth feels Morty’s attitude toward the neopsychoanalysis movement is merely a symptom of a midlife crisis, and that next thing you know, Morty’ll be buying a Ferrari and vacationing in the Hamptons. But Morty insists he’s on the verge of an important breakthrough. Neither of them will back off. So Ruth asked Morty to move out until he gets his priorities back in order. Or publishes. Whichever comes first.”

“Oh,” I said. Because I couldn’t figure out how else to respond. I mean, do couples really split up over things like this? I’ve heard about people getting divorced because one person keeps on losing the cap to the toothpaste.

But to break up over methodological differences?

Oh, well. At least that’s one I never have to worry about happening to Michael and me!

“Still, I shouldn’t have kept it all to myself,” Lilly went on. “I should have told you. At least it might have helped you understand—you know. Why I’ve been acting like such a freak lately.”

“At least,” I said gravely, “you have an excuse. For freakish behavior, and all. What’s mine?”

Lilly laughed, the way I’d meant her to.

“I’m sorry I wouldn’t pull your story,” she said. “You were totally right. It would have been mean to J.P. Not to mention completely insulting to your cat.”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing over to where J.P. was standing, not too far from Doo Pak, who was breathlessly telling something to Elton John. “J.P.’s a really nice guy. And you know…” Well, why not? The niceness thing hadn’t let me down yet. “…I think he really likes you.”