Princess in Waiting (12 page)

'I will tell you in the car,' Grandmere said to me, stiffly. 'Come along.'

'No, really,' I said, trailing after her, with Lars trailing after me. 'You can tell me now. I can take it, I

swear I can. Is Dad

all right?'

'Don't worry about your homework, Mia,' Principal Gupta called to us, as we left her office. 'You just

concentrate on

being there for your father.'

So it was true! Dad
was
sick!

'Is it the cancer again?' I asked Grandmere as we left the school and headed down to her limo, which

was parked out

front by the stone lion that guards the steps up to Albert Einstein High. 'Do the doctors think it's

treatable? Does he need

a bone-marrow transplant? Because, you know, we're probably a match, on account of my having his

hair. At least, what

his hair must have looked like, back when he had some.'

It wasn't until we were safely inside the limo that Grandmere gave me a very disgusted look and said,

'Really, Amelia. There

is nothing wrong with your father. There is, however, something wrong with that school of yours.

Imagine, not allowing their pupils any sort of absences except in the case of illness. Ridiculous!

Sometimes, you know, people need a day. A personal

day, I think they call it. Well, today, Amelia, is your personal day.'

I blinked at her from my side of the limo. I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing.

'Wait a minute,' I said. 'You mean . . . Dad isn't sick?'
'

Pfuit!'
Grandmere said, her drawn-on eyebrows raised way up. 'He certainly seemed healthy enough

when I spoke

to him this morning.'

'Then what. . . ?' I stared at her. 'Why did you tell Principal Gupta . . . ?'

'Because otherwise she would not have allowed you out of class,' Grandmere said, glancing at her gold

and diamond

watch. 'And we are late, as it is. Really, there is nothing worse than an overzealous educator. They think

they are helping,

when in reality, you know, there are many different varieties of learning. Not all of it takes place in a

classroom.'

Comprehension was beginning to dawn. Grandmere had not pulled me out of school in the middle of the

day because

anyone in my family was sick. No, Grandmere had pulled me out of school because she wanted to teach

me something.

'Grandmere,' I cried, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. 'You can't just drive over and yank me

out of school

whenever you want to. And you certainly can't tell Principal Gupta that my dad is sick when he isn't!

How could you

even
say
something like that? Don't you know anything about karma? I mean, if you go around lying

about stuff like

that all the time, it could actually come true.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Amelia,' Grandmere said. 'Your father is not going to have to go back to hospital

just because

I told a little white lie to an academic administrator.'

'I don't know how you can be so sure of that,' I said, angrily. 'And anyway, where do you think you're

taking me? I can't

afford to just be leaving school in the middle of the day, you know, Grandmere. I mean, I've got a lot of

catching up to do thanks to the fact that I went to bed so early last night

'Oh, I am sorry,' Grandmere said, very sarcastically. 'I know how much you enjoy your Algebra class. I

am sure it is a

very great deprivation to you, missing it today . . .'

I couldn't deny that she was right. At least partially. While I wasn't all that thrilled about the method by

which she'd

done it, the fact that Grandmere had extracted me fromAlgebra wasn't exactly something I was about to

cry over.

I mean, come on. Integers are not my best thing.

'Well, wherever we're going,' I said, severely, 'we better be back in time for lunch. Because Michael will

wonder where I am.'

'Not
that boy
again,' Grandmere said, lifting her gaze to the lirno's sun roof with a sigh.

'Yes,
that boy,"
I said. 'That boy I happen to love with all of my heart and soul..."

'Oh, we're here,' Grandmere said, with some relief, as her driver pulled over. 'At last. Get out, Amelia.'

I got out of the limo, then looked around to see where Grandmere had brought me. But all I saw was the

big Chanel store

on Fifty-Seventh Street. That couldn't be where we were headed. Could it?

But when Grandmere, untangling Rommel from his Louis Vuitton leash, put him on the ground and then

began striding purposefully towards those big glass doors, I saw that Chanel was exactly where we were

headed.

'Grandmere,' I cried, rushing after her. 'Chanel? You pulled me out of class to take me
shopping?'

'You need a gown,' Grandmere said with a sniff, 'for the black-and-white ball at the Contessa Trevanni's

this Friday.

This was the soonest I could get an appointment.'

'Black-and-white ball?' I echoed, as Lars escorted us into the hushed white interior of Chanel, the

world's most exclusive fashion boutique - the kind of store that, before I found out I was a princess, I

would have been too terrified ever even to

set foot in ... although I can't say the same for my friends, as Lilly had once filmed an entire episode of

her cable access show from inside a dressing room at Chanel. She'd barricaded herself in and was trying

on Karl Lagerfeld's latest creations, refusing to come out until security broke the door down and

escorted her to the sidewalk. It had been a show on how haute couture designers are, judging by the way

their clothes fit, really sadistic misogynists at heart. 'What black-and-white ball?'

'Surely your mother told you,' Grandmere said, as a tall, reed-thin woman approached us with cries of,

'Your Royal Highnesses! How delightful to see you.'

'My mother didn't tell me anything about a ball,' I said. 'When did you say it was?'

'Friday night,' Grandmere said to me. To the saleslady she said, 'Yes, I believe you've put aside some

gowns for my granddaughter. I specifically requested white ones.' Grandmere blinked owlishly at me.

'You are too young for black.

I don't want to hear any arguing about it.'

Argue about it? How could I argue about something I hadn't even begun to understand?

'Of course,' the saleslady was saying, with a big smile. 'Come with me, won't you, Your Highnesses?'

'Friday night?' I cried, that part, at least, of what was going on beginning to sink in. 'Friday night?

Grandmere,

I can't go to any ball on Friday night. I already made plans with—'

But Grandmere just put her hand in the centre of my back and pushed.

And then I was tripping after the saleslady, who didn't even blink an eye, as if princesses in combat boots

go tripping

after her all the time.

And now I am sitting in Grandmere's limo on my way back to school, and all I can think about is the

number of people

I would like to thank for my current predicament, foremost among which is my mother, for forgetting to

tell me that she

already gave Grandmere permission to drag me to thisthing; the Contessa Trevanni, for having a

black-and-white ball in

the first place; the salespeople at Chanel, who, although they are very nice, are really all just a bunch of

enablers, as they

have enabled my grandma to garb me in a white, diamante ball gown and drag me to something I have no

desire to attend

in the first place; my father, for setting his mother loose upon the hapless city of Manhattan without

anyone to supervise her;

and of course Grandmere herself, for completely ruining my life.

Because when I told her, as the Chanel people were throwing yards of fabric over me, that I cannot

possibly attend

Contessa Trevanni's black-and-white ball this Friday night, as that is the night Michael and I are

supposed to have our

first date, she responded by giving me a big lecture about how a princess's first duty is to her people. Her

heart,

Grandmere says, must always come second.

I tried to explain how this date could not be postponed or rescheduled, as
Star Wars
would only be

showing at the Screen Room that night, and that after that they would go back to showing
Moulin Rouge,

which I can't see because I heard

someone dies at the end.

But Grandmere refused to see that my date with Michael was anywhere near as important as Contessa

Trevanni's black-and-white ball. Apparently Contessa Trevanni is a very socially prominent member of

the Monaco royal family,

besides being some kind of distant cousin (who isn't?) of ours. My not attending her black-and-white ball

here in the city

with all the other debutantes would be a slight from which the royal house of Renaldo might never

recover.

I pointed out that my not attending
Star Wars
with Michael will be a slight from which my relationship

with my boyfriend

might never recover. But Grandmere said only that if Michael really loves me, he'll understand when I

have to cancel.

'And if he doesn't,' Grandmere said, exhaling a plume of grey smoke from the Gitanes she was sucking

down, 'then he

was never appropriate consort material to begin with.'

Which is very easy for Grandmere to say.
She
hasn't been in love with Michael since the first grade.
She

doesn't spend

hours and hours attempting to write poems befitting his greatness.
She
doesn't know what it is to love,

since the only

person Grandmere has ever been in love with in her entire life is herself.

Well, it's true.

And now we are pulling up to the school. It is lunchtime. In a minute I will have to go inside and explain

to Michael how I cannot make it to our first date, or it will cause an international incident from which the

country over which I will one day

rule may never recover.

Why couldn't Grandmere just have shot me instead?

Wednesday, January 20,

Gifted and Talented

I couldn't tell him.

I mean, how could I? Especially when he was being so nice to me during lunch. Everybody in the whole

school, it seemed, knew that Grandmere had come and taken me away during second period. In her

chinchilla cape, with those eyebrows,

and Rommel at her side, how could anyone have missed her? She is as conspicuous as Cher.

Everyone was all concerned, you know, about the supposed illness in my family. Michael especially. He

was all, 'Is there anything I can help with? Your Algebra homework, or something? I know it isn't much,

but it's the least I can do . . .'

How could I tell him the truth - that my father wasn't sick; that my grandmother had dragged me off in the

middle of school

to take me
shopping?
Shopping for a dress to wear at a ball to which he was not invited, and which was

to take place

during the exact time we were supposed to have been enjoying dinner and a space fantasy set in a galaxy

far far away?

I couldn't. I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell anyone. I just sat there at lunch being all quiet. People mistook

my lack of talkativeness for extreme mental duress. Which it was, actually, only not for the reasons they

thought. Basically all I was thinking as I sat there was I HATE MY GRANDMOTHER. I HATE MY

GRANDMOTHER. I HATE MY GRANDMOTHER. I HATE MY GRANDMOTHER.

I really, really do.

As soon as lunch was over, I sneaked off to one of the pay phones outside the auditorium doors and

called home. I knew

my mom would be there instead of at her studio because she is still working on the nursery walls. She'd

gotten to the third

wall, on which she was depicting a highly realistic painting of the fall of Saigon.

'Oh, God, Mia,' she said, when I asked her if there wasn't something she'd possibly forgotten to mention

to me. 'I am so

sorry. Your grandmother called during
Ab Fab.
You know how I get during
Ab Fab.''

'Mom,' I said, dirough gritted teeth. 'Why did you tell her it was OK for me to go to this stupid thing?

You told me I could

go out with Michael that night!'

'I did?' My mom sounded bewildered. And why shouldn't she? She clearly did not remember the

conversation she'd had

with me about my date with Michael . . . primarily of course because she'd been dead to the world during

it. Still, she didn't need to know that. What was important was that she was made to feel as guilty as

possible for the heinous crime she had committed. 'Oh, honey. I am so sorry. Well, you're just going to

have to cancel Michael. He'll understand.'

'Mom,' I cried. 'He will not! This was supposed to be our first date! You've got to do something!'

'Well,' my mom said, sounding kind of wry. 'I'm a little surprised to hear you're so unhappy about it,

sweetheart. You know, considering your whole thing about not wanting to chase Michael. Cancelling

your first date with him would definitely fall

under that category.'

'Very funny, Mom,' I said. 'But Jane wouldn't cancel her first date with Mr. Rochester. She just wouldn't

call him all the time beforehand, or let him get to second base during it.'

'Oh,' my mom said.

'Look,' I said. 'This is serious. You've got to get me out of this stupid ball!'

But all my mom said was that she'd talk to my dad about it. I knew what that meant, of course. No way

was I getting out

of this ball. My dad has never in his life forsaken duty for love.

So now I am sitting here (doing nothing, as usual, because I am neither gifted nor talented), knowing that

at some point or another I am going to have to tell Michael our date is cancelled. Only how? How am I

going to do it? And what if he's so

mad he never asks me out again?

Worse, what if he asks some other girl to see
Star Wars
with him? I mean, some girl who knows all the

lines you're suppose

to shout at the screen during the movie. Like when Ben Kenobi goes, 'Obi Wan. Now that's a name I

haven't heard in a long time,' you're supposed to shout, 'How long?' and then Ben goes, 'A very long

time.'

There must be a million girls besides me who know about this. Michael could ask any one of them

instead of me and have

a perfecdy wonderful time. Without me.

Lilly is bugging to find out what's wrong. She keeps passing me notes, because they are fumigating the

teachers' lounge, so

Mrs. Hill is in here today, pretending to grade papers from her fourth period computer class. But really

she is ordering

things from a Garnet Hill catalogue. I saw it beneath her gradebook.

Is your dad super-sick?
Lilly's latest note reads.
Are you going to have to fly back to Genovia?

No,
I wrote back.

Is it the cancer?
Lilly wants to know.
Did he have a recurrence?

No,
I wrote back.

Well, what is it, then?
Lilly's handwriting was getting spiky, a sure sign she was becoming impatient with

me.

Why won't you tell me?

Because,
I wanted to scrawl back, in big capital letters,
the truth will lead to the imminent demise of

my

romantic relationship with your brother, and I couldn't bear that! Don't you see I can't live

without him?

But I couldn't write that. Because I wasn't ready to give up yet. I mean, wasn't I a princess of the royal

house of Renaldo?

Do princesses of the royal house of Renaldo give up, just like that, when something they hold as dearly as

I hold Michael

is at stake?

No, they do not. Look at my ancestresses, Agnes and Rosagunde. Agnes jumped off a bridge in order to

get what she

wanted (not to be a nun). And Rosagunde strangled a guy with her own hair (in order not to have to

sleep with him).

Was I, Mia Thermopolis, going to let a little thing like the Contessa Trevanni's black-and-white ball get in

the way of my

having my first date with the man I love?

No, I was not.

Perhaps this, then, is my talent. The indomitability that I inherited from the Renaldo princesses before me.

Struck by this realization, I wrote a hasty note to Lilly:

Is my talent that I, like my ancestresses before me, am indomitable?

I waited breathlessly for her response. Aldiough it was not clear to me what I was going to do if she

replied in the positive. Because what kind of talent is being indomitable? I mean, you can't get paid for it,

the way you can if your talent is playing

the violin or songwriting or producing cable access television programmes.

Still, it would be good to know I'd figured out my talent on my own. You know, as far as climbing the

Jungian tree to self-actualization went.

But Lilly's response was way disappointing:

No, your talent is not that you're indomitable, dinkus. God, U R so dense sometimes. WHAT IS

WRONG

WITH YOUR DAD?????

Sighing, I realized I had no choice but to write back,

Nothing. Grandmere just wanted to take me to Chanel, so she made up the thing about my dad

being sick.

God,
Lilly wrote back.
No wonder you're looking like you ate a sock again. Your grandmother

sucks.

I
could not agree more. If only Lilly knew the full extent of just how much.

Wednesday, January 20,

Sixth Period, Third-floor Stairwell

Emergency meeting of the followers of the Jane Eyre technique of boyfriend-handling. We are, of course,

in peril of

discovery at any moment as we are skipping French in order to gather here in the stairwell leading to the

roof (the door

to which is locked: Lilly says in the movie of my life, the kids got to go on the roof of their school all the

time. Just another example of how art most certainly does not imitate life), so that we can lend succour to

one of our sisters in suffering.

That's right. It turns out that I am not the only one for whom the semester is off to an inauspicious

beginning. Not only did

Tina sprain her ankle on the ski slopes of Aspen -no, she also got a text message from Dave Farouq

El-Abar on her new mobile phone in fifth period. It said, U NEVER CALLED BACK. AM TAKING

JASMINE TO RANGERS GAME.

HAVE A NICE LIFE ;-)

I have never in my life seen anything so insensitive as that text message. I swear, my blood went cold as I

read it.

'Sexist pig,' Lilly said, when she saw it. 'Don't even worry about it, Tina. You'll find somebody better.'

'I d-don't want someone b-better,' Tina sobbed. 'I only want D-Dave!'

It breaks my heart to see her in such pain - not just her emotional pain, either, because it was no joke

trying to get up the third-floor staircase on her crutches. I have promised faithfully to sit with her while she

works through her anguish (Lilly is

taking her through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief: Denial - I can't believe he would do this to

me; Bargaining — Maybe if I tell him I'll call him faithfully every night, he'll take me back; Anger -Jasmine

is a cow who Frenches on the first

date; Depression - I'll never love another man again; Acceptance - Well, I guess he
was
kind of selfish).

Of course, being

here with Tina, instead of in French class, means I am risking possible suspension, which is the penalty

for skipping class

here at Albert Einstein.

But what is more important? My disciplinary record or my friend?

Besides, Lars is keeping lookout at the bottom of the stairs. If Mr Kreblutz, the chief custodian, comes

along Lars is going

to whistle the Genovian national anthem and we'll flatten ourselves against the wall by the old gym mats

(which are quite

smelly, by the way, and undoubtedly a fire hazard).

Although I am deeply saddened for her, I can't help feeling that Tina's situation has taught me a valuable

lesson: that the

Jane Eyre technique of boyfriend-handling is not necessarily the most reliable method by which to hang

on to your

boyfriend. I mean, the whole reason Dave dumped Tina is because she stopped calling him.

Except that, according to Grandmere, who did manage to hang onto a husband for forty years, the

quickest way to turn

a guy off is to chase after him.

And certainly Lilly, who has the longest-running relationship of any of us, does not chase after Boris.

Really, if anything,

he
is the one doing the chasing. But that is probably because Lilly is too busy with her various lawsuits

and projects to

pay much more than perfunctory attention to him.

Somewhere between the two of them - Grandmere and Lilly - must lie the truth to maintaining a

successful relationship

with a man. Somehow I have got to get the hang of this, because I will tell you one thing: if I ever get a

message from

Michael like the one Tina just got from Dave, I will fully be taking a swan dive off the Tappanzee Bridge.

And Ihighly

doubt any cute coastguard officer is going to come along and fish me out - at least, not in one piece. The

Tappanzee

Bridge is WAY higher than the Pont des Vierges.

Of course you know what this means - this whole thing with Tina and Dave, I mean. It means that I can't

cancel my date

with Michael. No way, no how. I don't care if Monaco starts lobbing SCUD missiles at the Genovian

House of Parliament:

I am not going to that black-and-white ball. Grandmere and the Contessa Trevanni are just going to have

to learn how to

live with disappointment.

Because when it comes to our men, we Renaldo women don't mess around. We play for keeps. And we

have the battle

scars to prove it.

Homework:

Algebra: probs at beginning of Ch 11, PLUS ??? Don't know, thanks to Grandmere

English: update journal (How I Spent My Winter Break -500 words) PLUS ??? Don't know, thanks to

Grandmere

Biology: Read Chapter 13, PLUS ??? Don't know, thanks to Grandmere

Health and Safety: Chapter 1: You and Your Environment PLUS ??? Don't know, thanks to Grandmere

G & T: Figure out secret talent

French: Chapitre Dix PLUS Don't know, due to skipping!!!!

World Civ.: Chapter 13: Brave New World; bring in current event illustrating how technology can cost

society

Wednesday, January 20,

limo on the Way Home from Grandmere's

I don't believe this.

Apparently it is not enough that Grandmere has to disrupt my entire school day with her

spur-of-the-moment illicit

shopping trips. Oh, no. Apparently she won't be satisfied until she has destroyed my love life, too.

That's right, DESTROYED my love life.

It is clear to me now that this has been her goal all along. The simple fact of the matter is, Grandmere

can't stand Michael.

Not, of course, because he's ever done anything to her. Never done anything to her except make her

granddaughter

superbly, sublimely happy.

No, Grandmere doesn't like Michael because Michael is not royal.

How do I know this? Well, it became pretty obvious when I walked into her suite for my princess lesson

today, and who should just be coming in from his tennis lesson at the New York Health and Racquet

Club, swinging his racquet and looking

all Andre Agassi-ish? Oh, only Prince Rene.

'What are YOU doing here?' I demanded, in a manner that Grandmere later reproved me for (she said

my question was unladylike in its accusatory tone, as if I suspected Rene of something underhanded,

which, of course, I did, as he has

never shown any marked interest in the plight of Genovia's sea turtles and dolphins, which will soon be

endangered, if

we don't stop jet-setters like Rene from recklessly polluting their habitat).

'Enjoying your beautiful city,' was how Rene replied. And then he excused himself to go shower, as he

was smelling a

bit ripe from the court.

'Really, Amelia,' Grandmere said, disapprovingly. 'Is that any way to greet your cousin?'

'Why isn't he back in school?' I wanted to know.

'For your information,' Grandmere said, 'he happens to be on a break.'

'Still?' This sounds pretty suspicious to me. I mean, what kind of business college - even a French one

has a Christmas

break that goes on practically into February?

'European schools,' was Grandmere's explanation for this, 'traditionally have a longer winter holiday than

American ones,

so that their pupils can make full use of the ski season.'

'I didn't see any skis on him,' I pointed out, craftily.

'Pfuit!'
was all Grandmere had to say about it, however. 'Rene has never been to Manhattan. Of course I

invited him along.

He wants to experience the city that never sleeps.'

Well, I guess I can see that. I mean, New York
is
the greatest city in the world, after all. Why, just the

other day, a construction worker down on Forty-Second Street found a twenty-pound rat! That's a rat

that's only five pounds lighter

than my cat! You won't be finding any twenty-pound rats in Paris or Hong Kong, that's for darn sure.

So, anyway, we were going along, doing the princess lesson thing - you know, Grandmere was

instructing me about all the personages I was going to meet at this black-and-white ball, including this