Princess in Training pd-6 Read online

  I can hear Doo Pak out there whispering very urgently to Michael, who fortunately has stopped whispering his responses, so I can at least hear HIS part of the conversation.

  “Doo Pak, I TOLD you who she is,” he just said. “She’s my GIRLFRIEND. Nobody is trying to play a joke on you.”

  You know, their bathroom is actually quite clean, for boys. There’s nothing in here I’m actually afraid to touch. I see they’ve exchanged the institutional rubber shower curtain for one with a map of the world on it. That must be to comfort Doo Pak, who clearly misses his native land. This way he can take a shower and gaze at his home country the whole time.

  Oooooh, Doo Pak isn’t whispering anymore now, either. They must both think I’m completely DEAF.

  “But I don’t understand, Mike,” Doo Pak is saying. MIKE????? “Why would SHE go out with YOU?”

  It’s all becoming clearer now. Doo Pak must have recognized me. I have been in the press quite a lot lately, on account of the whole snail thing, and the election, and all. Maybe he can’t believe Michael is actually dating a princess.

  I can’t say I blame him. There really isn’t anything in the world quite as dorky as being a princess. No wonder Michael didn’t warn him ahead of time. It must be excruciatingly embarrassing to him to have to admit to his college friends that not only is he dating a high school girl, but she’s also a PRINCESS.

  Poor Michael. I never knew people actually TEASED him about the fact that he goes out with a royal. That, on top of the fact that his girlfriend has a bodyguard, is mammary-challenged, and a baby-licker, makes Michael’s devotion to me all the more extraordinary.

  Ooooh, they’ve stopped talking. Maybe it’s safe to come out now….Saturday, September 12, 7 p.m., Café (212)

  I have to write this fast, while Michael is up paying for the food. Fortunately, there’s a horrendously long line at the cash register—this place is PACKED—so it should take him a while.

  Anyway, I found out the reason Doo Pak thought Michael was pulling his leg about me being his girlfriend. And it has nothing to do with me being a princess. It has to do with Doo Pak thinking I’m too PRETTY for Michael.

  I am not even kidding. Doo Pak told me so himself when I came out of the bathroom. He looked totally ashamed of himself. And he said, without Michael even hitting him first or anything, “I am very sorry I did not believe you when you said you were Mike’s girlfriend. You see,” he went on, in the same apologetic tone, “you are much too pretty to be dating Mike. He is—what do you call it? Oh, yes—a nerd. Like me. And nerds like us don’t get pretty girlfriends. So I thought he was pranking me. Please accept my very humble apologies for my mistake.”

  I looked from Michael to Doo Pak to see if they were, um, pranking me, but I could tell from Doo Pak’s red, embarrassed face and Michael’s even redder, more embarrassed face that Doo Pak was telling the truth: He thinks I’m too pretty to go out with Michael!!!!! SERIOUSLY!!!!!!

  They must have very different standards for prettiness in South Korea than they have here in the U.S.

  Also, apparently, where Doo Pak is from, boys who play with computers all day just don’t get girlfriends. At all.

  Maybe this is why they are always drawing them. You know, through anime and manga.

  But, as I explained to Doo Pak, being a nerd in America is actually quite stylish, and most sensible girls WANT to date a nerd, as opposed to a jock or a playa.

  Doo Pak didn’t look as if he dared believe me, but I pointed out that Bill Gates, who is in fact the King of the Nerds, is married. And that seemed to cinch it for him. He shook my hand and asked very excitedly whether I had any female friends I might bring over someday for him and the rest of the boys on the floor to meet.

  I told him that I would certainly try.

  Then Doo Pak excused himself to go to the computer store to buy the latest version of Myst, and Michael said irritably that he wished they would let freshmen have single rooms in the dorm, instead of forcing them to share with a roommate.

  Which reminds me about something I noticed in their bathroom right before I left it. Something that completely didn’t register until JUST NOW. SOMETHING THAT MAY BURN ITSELF PERMANENTLY INTO THE SOFT TISSUE OF MY BRAIN:

  THERE IS A BOX OF CONDOMS IN MICHAEL AND DOO PAK’S MEDICINE CABINET!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Seriously. I SAW it. Oh, my God, I TOTALLY SAW IT.

  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???? I mean, clearly DOO PAK isn’t Doing It with anyone. I mean, he basically ADMITTED he’s never had a girlfriend.

  So whose condoms ARE those?????

  Oops, “Mike” is back—Sunday, September 13, 1 a.m., limo back to the Plaza

  OH, MY GOD. OH, MY GOD OH, MY GOD OH, MY GOD. I just have to breathe. Really. Like they made me do in yoga that one time I went. In. Out. In. Out.

  Okay. I can do this. I can write this. I can just set it down on paper like I do every other little thing that happens to me, and then it will be all right. It HAS to be all right. It just HAS to.

  We did it.

  We had The Talk.

  AND MICHAEL EXPECTS US TO HAVE SEX…

  …SOMEDAY.

  There. I wrote it.

  So, why don’t I feel any better??????

  Oh, God, what am I going to DO???? How could it turn out that Lana is right? Lana has never been right about ANYTHING!!! I remember she told us if you sneezed and held your nose at the same time, your eardrums would explode. And what about the great “If you take a shower while you have your period, you could bleed to death” rumor she started? Even last year, she had a couple of people going with the whole Bayer + Diet Coke = hole in your stomach.

  The thing is, none of those turned out to be true.

  Why did THIS one have to be the one she was telling the truth about?????

  College boys DO expect their girlfriends to Do It. At least, eventually. I mean, Michael was very sweet and understanding and almost as embarrassed as I was about it. It’s not like, you know, he’s going to dump me if we don’t Do It tomorrow, or whatever.

  But he’s DEFINITELY interested in Doing It.

  Someday.

  AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

  I should have known, of course. Because real men—even two-dimensional ones like the X-Men’s Wolverine, and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and even Hellboy—ALL want to Do It. They may, you know, be polite about it. I mean, Wolverine might engage in witty repartee with Jean Grey while he lets Cyclops slobber all over her.

  And the Beast might whirl Belle around that ballroom as if there is nothing on his mind but doing the box step.

  But there is no getting around the fact that ultimately, deep down inside, ALL GUYS WANT TO DO IT.

  I don’t know why I thought Michael might be different. I mean, I have seen Real Genius and Revenge of the Nerds. I should know perfectly well that even smart boys like sex. Or would like it, if they could find someone willing to have it with them.

  And it’s not like either of us belong to a religion where it’s, like, against the law to Do It before you get married, or whatever. Well, I mean, Michael’s Jewish, but he’s not THAT Jewish. He eats BLTs all the time.

  Still. I mean, SEX. That is a BIG step.

  Which is what I said to Michael when we were making out in his room after dinner tonight. Not like, you know, he Made a Grab or anything. He’s never done that—although now I know he’s WANTED to. It’s just, you know, that someone’s always around. Except for tonight, because Lars was totally glued to the TV in the lounge with the rest of the sports freaks. And Doo Pak had gone to the library to see if he could find any girls who might be looking for a nerd-for-the-night.

  But we came in from dinner and Michael put on some retro Roxy Music and pulled me onto his bed and we were kissing and stuff, and all I could think was, THERE ARE CONDOMS IN HIS MEDICINE CABINET and COLLEGE BOYS EXPECT THEIR GIRLFRIENDS TO DO IT and WENDELL JENKINS and CORN PRINCESS and I couldn’t concentrate on kissing and finally I just pulled away f
rom him and went, “I AM NOT READY TO HAVE SEX.”

  Which I have to say seemed to surprise him very much.

  Not the part about me not being ready, but the part about even mentioning it.

  Still, he seemed to get over it pretty quickly because after blinking a few times he just went, “Okay,” and went straight back to kissing me.

  But this wasn’t very reassuring, because I couldn’t tell if he’d really heard me or not. And besides, Tina had said Michael and I really needed to have The Talk about this, and I figured if she could talk to Boris about it, I should be able to talk to Michael.

  So, I pushed him away again and said, “Michael, we need to talk,” and he looked at me all confused and went, “About what?”

  And I said—EVEN THOUGH IT WAS THE HARDEST THING I’VE EVER DONE, EVEN HARDER THAN THE TIME I HAD TO ADDRESS THE GENOVIAN PARLIAMENT ON THE PARKING METER ISSUE—“The condoms in your medicine cabinet.”

  And he said, “The what?” and his eyes seemed all swirly and unfocused. Then he seemed to remember and went, “Oh, those. Yeah. Everybody got them. As we were moving in. In that welcome pack they handed everyone at check-in.”

  And then his eyes seemed to get VERY focused—like laser beams—and he pointed them at me and went, “But even if I’d bought them, what’s the big deal? Is it wrong that I care about you and would want to protect you in the event we do make love?”

  Which, of course, made me feel all melty inside, and it was VERY hard to remember that we were supposed to be having The Talk and not making out, especially when it occurred to me that:

  As good as Michael’s neck smells, the rest of him might smell EVEN BETTER.

  Which is all the more reason why I knew we had to hurry up and have The Talk.

  “No,” I said, moving his hand away from mine, because I knew it would be even harder to concentrate on having The Talk if he was touching me. “I think that’s a good thing. It’s just that—”

  And then it all came spilling out. What Lana had said in the jet line. Wendell Jenkins. What Lana said in the shower (not the part about it backing up, though. That was too gross.). Corn princess. The fact that I love him but I’m not sure I’m ready to Do It yet (I said I wasn’t sure, but of course, I AM sure. I just, you know, didn’t want to sound too harsh). The fact that condoms break (if it happened on Friends, it could happen in real life). My mother’s excessive fertility. EVERYTHING.

  Because, you know, when you’re having The Talk, you have to put it ALL out there, or what’s the point?

  Well, almost all of it, anyway. I kind of left out the part about how I’m not so jazzed about the whole nudity thing. Well, MY nudity. His I’d be totally fine with. Plus, you know, on TV sex looks kind of…well, difficult. What if I mess it up? Or turn out to be not good at it? He might dump me.

  Only, you know. I didn’t mention any of that, or anything.

  Michael listened to the whole speech with a very serious look on his face. He even at one point got up to turn the music down. It was only when I got to the part about not being sure I was ready to Do It yet that he finally said something, and that was, in a very dry tone, “Well, that’s not actually a big surprise to me, Mia.”

  Which was a surprise to ME, anyway.

  But when I went, “Really?” he said, “Well, you made it fairly obvious where things stood when you invited all of your girlfriends, and not me, over the minute you found out you had a hotel room all to yourself for the weekend.”

  HELLO. This is so not true. First of all, Lilly and those guys invited THEMSELVES over. And secondly—

  Well, okay, he was right about this part.

  “Michael,” I said, feeling completely horrible. “I’m so, so sorry. I never even—I mean, I didn’t even—”

  I felt so awful, I couldn’t even VERBALIZE it. I felt like a total jerk. Kind of like how I felt at dinner, when Michael was talking about his Sociology in Science Fiction class, and how in Orwell’s 1984, the Lottery is used as a way to control the masses, giving them false hope that they might one day be able to leave their dead-end jobs, and how in Fahrenheit 451, Montag’s wife is totally unsympathetic to his problems with setting books on fire for a living and how all she ever does is talk on the phone with her friends about some fictional TV show called the White Clown. I couldn’t help remembering that all Lilly and Tina and I ever talk about half the time is Charmed.

  But, hello, how can you NOT talk about that show?

  But maybe that’s all part of the government’s strategy to keep us from noticing what they’re up to with the clear-cutting of the national forests and the passing of laws that keep teens from being able to seek reproductive health care without their parents’ consent….

  Besides, sometimes I think Michael won’t ever stop talking about the shows he likes, like 24 and, lately, 60 Minutes.

  Anyway, I did my best to make it up to Michael about the whole not-inviting-him-over-to-the-hotel thing. I put my hand on his and gazed deeply into his eyes and said, “Michael, I really am sorry. Not just about that, either. But the whole…well, everything.”

  But instead of saying he forgave me or anything like that, Michael just went, “Fine. The question is, when ARE you going to be ready?”

  And I was like, “Ready for what?”

  And he said, “It.”

  It took me a minute to figure out what he meant.

  And then, when it finally dawned on me, I turned bright red.

  “Um,” I said.

  Then I thought fast.

  “How about after the prom,” I said, “on a king-sized bed with white satin sheets in a deluxe suite with Central Park views at the Four Seasons, with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries upon arrival, and an aromatherapy bath for after, then waffles for two in bed the next morning?”

  To which Michael replied, very calmly, “One, I’m never going to the prom again and you know it, and two, I can’t afford the Four Seasons—which you also know. So, why don’t you give that answer another try?”

  Damn! Tina is so LUCKY to have a boyfriend she can push around. WHY isn’t Michael as malleable as BORIS?

  “Look,” I said, desperately trying to think of some way to get out of the whole situation. Because it wasn’t going AT ALL the way I’d planned it in my head. In my head, I told Michael I wasn’t ready to Do It and he said okay and we played some Boggle and that was the end of it.

  Too bad things never work out the way they do inside my head.

  “Do I have to decide this right NOW?” I asked, deciding DELAY was the best strategy at this point. “I have a lot on my mind. I mean, it’s possible that at this very moment, my mom could be exposing Rocky to some very harmful stimuli, such as clog dancing, or even funnel cakes. And I have this debate thing on Monday…Did I mention that Grandmère and Lilly are working on it together? I mean, it’s like Darth Vader joining forces with Ann Coulter, only leftist. I’m telling you, I’m a wreck. Can I take a rain check on this whole thing?”

  “Absolutely,” Michael said, with a smile that was so sweet, it made me want to lean over to kiss him….

  Until he added, “But just so you know, Mia, I’m not going to wait around forever.”

  This caused me to pause just as my lips were on the way to his.

  Because he didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to wait around forever for my answer. Oh, no. He meant he wasn’t going to wait around forever to Do It.

  He didn’t say it like it was a threat, or anything. He said it kind of lightly, even jokingly.

  But I could tell it wasn’t really a joke. Because boys really do expect you to Do It. Someday.

  I didn’t know what to say. Actually, I don’t think I could have spoken after that if I’d tried. Fortunately, I didn’t have to, because there was a knock on the door, and Lars’s voice called, “The game is over. It’s after midnight. Time to go, Princess,” which of course caused Michael and me to spring to separate sides of the room.

  (I just asked Lars how he has su
ch an uncanny knack for picking the wrong—or right, as the case may be—moment to interrupt me when I’m alone with Michael, and he went, “As long as I hear voices, I’m not worried. It’s when things get quiet I start to wonder what’s going on. Because—no offense, Your Highness—but you talk a lot.”)

  Anyway. So that’s it.

  Lana was right.

  All boys want to Do It.

  Including Michael.

  My life is over.

  The end.

  Note to self: Call Mom and remind her that she is still breast-feeding and that even though she might FEEL like drinking a lot of gin and tonics, seeing as how she’s around her mother, this could be very dangerous to Rocky’s cognitive development at this point.Sunday, September 13, noon, my room, the Plaza

  Why can’t my life be like the lives of the kids on The N? None of them are princesses. None of them created eco-disasters in their native lands by pouring ten thousand snails into the local bay. None of them have boyfriends who expect them to Do It someday. Well, actually, some of them do.

  But still. It’s different when you’re on TV.Sunday, September 13, 1 p.m., my room, the Plaza

  Why won’t everyone leave me alone? If I want to wallow in my own grief, that should be my prerogative. After all, I AM a princess.Sunday, September 13, 2 p.m., my room, the Plaza

  I so wish I could talk to Michael right now. He called earlier, but I didn’t pick up. He left a message with the hotel operator that said, “Hey, it’s me. Are you still there, or have you gone home yet? I’ll try you there, too. Anyway, if you get this message, call me.”

  Yeah. Call him. So he can break up with me for my reluctance to Do It with him. So not giving him the satisfaction.

  I tried calling Lilly, but she’s not home. Dr. Moscovitz said she has no idea where her daughter is, but that if I hear from her, I should let her know that Pavlov needs walking.

  I hope Lilly isn’t trying to secretly film through the windows of the Sacred Heart Convent again. I know she’s convinced those nuns are running an illegal methamphetamine lab in there, but it was kind of embarrassing the last time, when she sent the video footage to the Sixth Precinct and all it turned out to have on it was shots of the nuns playing bingo.