Princess in Waiting Read online

  Too bad that inside, I’m completely busted.

  I am trying not to show it, though. You know, because I want Grandmère to think I am having a good time. I mean, I am only doing this for her. Because she is an old lady and my grandmother and she campaigned against the Nazis and all of that, for which someone has to give her some props.

  I just hope someday she appreciates it. My supreme sacrifice, I mean. But I doubt she ever will. Seventy-something-year-old ladies—particularly dowager princesses—never seem to remember what it was like to be fourteen and in love.

  Well, I guess it is time to go. Grandmère has on this slinky black number with glitter all over it. She looks like Diana Ross. Only with no eyebrows. And old. And white.

  She says I look like a snowdrop. Hmmm, just what I always wanted, to look like a snowdrop.

  Maybe that’s my secret talent. I have the amazing ability to resemble a snowdrop.

  My parents must be so proud.

  Friday, January 23, 8 p.m., bathroom at the Contessa Trevanni’s Fifth Avenue mansion

  Yep. In the bathroom. In the bathroom once again, where I always seem to end up at dances. Why is that?

  The Contessa’s bathroom is a little bit overdone. It is nice and everything, but I don’t know if I’d have chosen flaming wall sconces as part of my bathroom decor. I mean, even at the palace, we don’t have any flaming wall sconces. Although it looks very romantic and Ivanhoe -y and all, it is actually a pretty serious fire hazard, besides being probably a health risk, considering the carcinogens they must be giving off.

  But whatever. That isn’t even the real question— why anyone would have flaming wall sconces in the bathroom. The real question, of course, is this: if I am supposedly descended from all these strong women— you know, Rosagunde, who strangled that warlord with her braid, and Agnes, who jumped off that bridge, not to mention Grandmère, who allegedly kept the Nazis from trashing Genovia by having Hitler and Mussolini over for tea—why is it that I am such a pushover?

  I mean, seriously. I totally fell for Grandmère’s whole riff about wanting to show up Elena Trevanni with her pretty and accomplished—yeah, and looking like a snowdrop—granddaughter. I actually felt sorry for her. I had empathy for Grandmère, not realizing then—as I do now—that Grandmère is completely devoid of human emotion, and that the whole thing was just a charade to trick me into coming so she could parade me around as PRINCE RENÉ’S NEW GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  To his credit, René seems to have known nothing about it. He looked as surprised as I was when Grandmère presented me to her supposed archrival, who, thanks to the skill of her plastic surgeon, looks about thirty years younger than Grandmère, though they are supposedly the same age.

  But I think the Contessa maybe went a little far with the surgery thing—it is so hard to know when to say when. I mean, look at poor Michael Jackson—because she really does, just like Grandmère said, resemble a walleyed bass a little bit. Like her eyes are sort of far apart on account of the skin around them being stretched so tight.

  When Grandmère introduced me—“Contessa, may I present to you my granddaughter, Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo” (she always leaves out the Thermopolis)—I thought everything was going to be all right. Well, not everything, of course, since directly after the ball, I knew I was going to go over to my best friend’s house and maybe–possibly–probably get dumped by her brother. But you know, everything at the ball.

  But then Grandmère added, “And of course you know Amelia’s beau, Prince Pierre René Grimaldi Alberto.”

  Beau? BEAU??? René and I exchanged quick glances. It was only then that I noticed that, standing right next to the Contessa, was a girl who had to have been her own granddaughter, the one who’d been kicked out of finishing school. She was kind of plain and sad-looking, though her slinky black dress was exactly the kind I’d have wanted to wear to the Prom— were I ever asked. Still, she wasn’t exactly wearing it with confidence.

  So while I was standing there getting totally red in the face, and probably not resembling a snowdrop as much as a candy cane, the Contessa cocked her head so she could look at me and went, “So that rascal René has finally been snatched up, and by your granddaughter, Clarisse. How satisfying that must be for you.”

  Then the Contessa shot her own granddaughter— whom she introduced to me as Bella—a look of pure malevolence that caused Bella to cringe.

  And I realized all at once what, exactly, was going on.

  Then Grandmère said, “Isn’t it, though, Elena?” And then to René and me she went, “Come along, children,” and we followed her, René looking amused, but me? I was seething !

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I cried, as soon as we were out of the Contessa’s earshot.

  “Did what, Amelia?” Grandmère asked, nodding to some guy in traditional African garb.

  “Told that woman that René and I are going out,” I said, “when we most certainly are not. I know you only did it to make me look better than poor Bella.”

  “René,” Grandmère said, sweetly. She can be very sweet when she wants to be. “Be an angel and see if you can find us some champagne, would you?”

  René, still looking cynically amused—the way Enrique always looks in Doritos commercials—moved off in search of libation.

  “Really, Amelia,” Grandmère said, when he was gone. “Must you be so rude to poor René? I am only trying to make your cousin feel welcome and at home.”

  “There is a difference,” I said, “between making my cousin feel welcome and wanted, and trying to pass him off as my boyfriend!”

  “Well, what’s so wrong with René, anyway?” Grandmère wanted to know. All around us, elegant people in tuxedos and evening gowns were heading to the dance floor, where a full orchestra was playing that song Audrey Hepburn sang in that movie about Tiffany’s. Everyone was dressed in either black or white or both. The Contessa’s ballroom bore a significant resemblance to the penguin enclosure at the Central Park Zoo, where I had once sobbed my eyes out after discovering the truth about my heritage.

  “He’s extremely charming,” Grandmère went on, “and quite cosmopolitan. Not to mention devilishly handsome. How can you possibly prefer a high school boy to a prince ?”

  “Because, Grandmère,” I said. “I love him.”

  “Love,” Grandmère said, looking toward the big glass ceiling overhead. “Pfuit!”

  “Yes, Grandmère,” I said. “I do. The way you loved Grandpère—and don’t try to deny it, because I know you did. Now you’ve got to stop harboring a secret desire to make Prince René your grandson-in-law, because it is not going to happen.”

  Grandmère looked blandly innocent. “I don’t know what you can mean,” she said, with a sniff.

  “Cut it out, Grandmère. You want me to go out with Prince René, for no other reason than that he is a royal, and it will make the Contessa feel bad. Well, it isn’t going to happen. Even if Michael and I were to break up—” which might possibly happen sooner than she thought “—I wouldn’t get together with René !”

  Grandmère finally began to look as if she might believe me. “Fine,” she said, without much grace. “I will stop calling René your beau. But you must dance with him. At least once.”

  “Grandmère.” The last thing in the world I felt like was dancing. “Please. Not tonight. You don’t know—”

  “Amelia,” Grandmère said, in a different tone of voice than she’d used thus far. “One dance. That is all I am asking for. I believe you owe it to me.”

  “I owe it to you ?” I couldn’t help bursting out laughing at that one. “How so?”

  “Oh, only because of a little something,” Grandmère said, all innocently, “that was recently found to be missing from the palace museum.”

  All of my Renaldo fighting spirit went right out the Contessa’s French doors to her backyard patio when I heard this. I felt as if someone had punched me in my snowdrop stomach. Had Grandmère really
said what I thought she’d said???

  Swallowing hard, I went, “Wh-what?”

  “Yes.” Grandmère looked at me meaningfully. “A priceless object—only one out of a group of several, almost identical items—that were given to me by my very dear friend, Mr. Richard Nixon, the deceased former American president, has been found to be missing. I realize the person who took it thought it would never be missed, because it wasn’t the only such item, and they all did look much alike. Still, it held great sentimental value for me. Dick was such a dear, sweet friend to Genovia while he was in office, for all his later troubles. But you wouldn’t happen to know anything about any of this, would you, Amelia? ”

  She had me! She had me, and she knew it. I don’t know how she knew—undoubtedly through the black arts, in which I suspect Grandmère of being well versed—but clearly, she knew. I was dead. I was so, so dead. I don’t know if, being a member of the royal family and all, I was above the law back in Genovia, but I for one did not want to find out.

  I should, I realize now, merely have dissembled. I should have been all, “Priceless object? What priceless object?”

  But I knew it was no good to lie. My nostrils would give me away. Instead, I went, in this squeaky, high-pitched voice I barely recognized as my own, “You know what, Grandmère? I’ll be happy to dance with René. No problem!”

  Grandmère looked extremely satisfied. She said, “Yes, I thought you would feel that way.” Then her drawn-on eyebrows went up. “Oh, look, here comes Prince René with our drinks. Sweet of him, don’t you think?”

  Anyway, that’s how it happened that I was forced to dance with Prince René—who is a good dancer, but whatever, he’s no Michael. I mean, he’s never even seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer and he thinks Windows is pretty swell.

  While we were dancing, though, this incredible thing happened. René went, “Could you believe that Bella Trevanni? Look at her, over there. She looks like a plant someone forgot to water.”

  I glanced around to see what he was talking about, and sure enough, there was poor sad Bella, dancing with some old guy who must have been a friend of her grandmother’s. She looked extremely pained, like the old guy was talking to her about his investment portfolio or something. Then again, with someone like the Contessa for a grandmother, maybe pained was an expression Bella wore all the time. And my heart swelled with sympathy for her, because I so know what it is like to be somewhere you don’t want to be, dancing with someone you don’t like….

  I looked up at René and said, “When this dance is over, ask her for the next one.”

  It was René’s turn to look pained. “Must I?”

  “Come on, René,” I said, severely. “Ask her to dance. It will be the thrill of her life to be asked to dance by a handsome prince.”

  “But not so much for you, eh?” René said, still wearing his cynical smile.

  “René,” I said. “No offense. But I already met my prince, long before I ever met you. The only problem is, if I don’t get out of here soon, I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be my prince, because I already missed the movie we were supposed to see together, and pretty soon it’s going to be too late even for me to stop by—”

  “Never fear, Your Highness,” René said, twirling me around. “If fleeing the ball is your desire, I will see to it that your wish is fulfilled.”

  I looked at him kind of dubiously. I mean, why was René being so nice to me all of a sudden? Maybe for the same reason I wanted him to dance with Bella? Because he felt sorry for me?

  “Um,” I said. “Okay.”

  And that’s how I ended up in this bathroom. René told me to hide, and that he’d get Lars to flag down a cab, and once he’d gotten one, and the coast was clear, René would knock three times, signaling that Grandmère was too otherwise occupied to notice my defection. Then, René promised, he’d tell her I must have eaten a bad truffle, since I’d looked queasy, and Lars had taken me home.

  It doesn’t matter, of course. Any of this, I mean. Because I am just going to end up at Michael’s in time for him to dump me. Maybe he’ll feel bad about it, you know, after I give him his birthday present. Then again, maybe he’ll just be glad to be rid of me. Who knows? I’ve given up trying to figure out men. They are a breed apart.

  Oops, there’s René’s knock. Gotta go.

  To meet my fate.

  Friday, January 23, 11 p.m., the Moscovitzes’ bathroom

  Now I know how Jane Eyre must have felt when she returned to Thornfield Hall to find it all burned to the ground and everyone telling her everybody inside of it was killed in the fire.

  Only then she finds out Mr. Rochester didn’t die, and Jane’s, like, super happy, because, you know, in spite of what he tried to do to her, she loves him.

  That’s how I feel right now. Super happy. Because I fully don’t think Michael is going to break up with me after all!!!!

  Not that I ever thought he was going to… well, not REALLY. Because he is NOT that kind of guy. But I was really, really scared he might when I was standing outside the Moscovitzes’ apartment, you know, with my finger on the buzzer. I was standing there going, Why am I even doing this? I am fully just walking into heartbreak. I should turn around and have Lars flag down another cab and just go back to the loft. I hadn’t even bothered changing out of my stupid ball gown, because what was the point? I was just going to be on my way home in a few minutes anyway, and I could change there.

  So I’m standing there in the hallway, and Lars is behind me going on about his stupid boar hunt in Belize, because that is all he talks about anymore, and I hear Pavlov, Michael’s dog, barking because someone is at the door, and I’m going, inside my head, Okay, when he breaks up with me, I am NOT going to cry. I am going to remember Rosagunde and Agnes, and I am going to be strong like they were strong….

  And then Michael opened the door. He looked kind of taken aback by my apparel, I could tell. I thought maybe it was because he hadn’t counted on having to break up with a snowdrop. But there was nothing I could do about that, though I did remember at the last minute that I was still wearing my tiara, which I suppose might intimidate, you know, some boys.

  So I took it off and went, “Well, I’m here,” which is a toolish thing to say, because, well, duh, I was standing there, wasn’t I?

  But Michael kind of seemed to recover himself. He went, “Oh, hey, come in, you look… you look really beautiful,” which of course is exactly the kind of thing a guy who is about to break up with you would say, you know to kind of bolster your ego before he grinds it beneath his heel.

  But whatever, I went in, and so did Lars, and Michael went, “Lars, my mom and dad are in the living room watching Dateline , if you want to join them,” which Lars totally did, because you could tell he didn’t want to hang around and listen to the Big Breakup.

  So then Michael and I were alone in the foyer. I was twirling my tiara around in my hands, trying to think of what to say. I’d been trying to think what to say the whole way down in the cab, but I hadn’t been very successful.

  Then Michael went, “Well, did you eat yet? Because I’ve got some veggie burgers….”

  I looked up from the parquet floor tiles, which I had been examining very closely, since it was easier than looking into Michael’s peat-bog eyes, which always suck me in until I feel like I can’t move anymore. They used to punish criminals in ancient Celtic societies by making them walk into a peat bog. If they sank, you know, they were guilty, and if not, they were innocent. Only you always sink when you walk into a peat bog. They uncovered a bunch of bodies from one in Ireland not too long ago, and they, like, still had all their teeth and hair and stuff. They were totally preserved. It was way gross.

  That’s how I feel when I look into Michael’s eyes. Not preserved and gross, but like I’m trapped in a peat bog. Only I don’t mind, because it’s warm and nice and cozy in there….

  And now he was asking me if I wanted a veggie burger. Do guys generally ask their girl
friends if they want a veggie burger right before they break up with them? I wasn’t very well versed in these matters, so the truth was, I didn’t know.

  But I didn’t think so.

  “Um,” I said, intelligently. “I don’t know.” I thought maybe it was a trick question. “If you’re having one, I guess.”

  So then Michael went, “Okay,” and gestured for me to follow him, and we went into the kitchen, where Lilly was sitting, using the granite countertop to lay out her storyboards for the episode of Lilly Tells It Like It Is she was filming the next day.

  “Jeez,” she said, when she saw me. “What happened to you? You look like you swapped outfits with the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

  “I was at a ball,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, yeah,” Lilly said. “Well, if you ask me, the Sugar Plum Fairy got the better deal. But I’m not supposed to be here. So don’t mind me.”

  “We won’t,” Michael assured her.

  And then he did the strangest thing. He started to cook.

  Seriously. He was cooking .

  Well, okay, not really cooking, more like reheating. Still, he fully got out these two veggie burgers he’d gotten from Balducci’s, and put them on some buns, and then put the buns on these two plates. And then he took some fries that had been in the oven on a tray and put them onto the two plates, as well. And then he got ketchup and mayo and mustard out of the fridge, along with two cans of Coke, and he put all that stuff on a tray, and then he walked out of the kitchen, and before I could ask Lilly what in the name of all that was holy was going on, he came back, picked up the two plates, and went, to me, “Come on.”

  What could I do, but follow him?

  I trailed after him into the TV room, where Lilly and I had viewed so many cinematic gems for the first time, such as Valley Girl and Bring It On and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Crossing Delancey.