Party Princess Read online

  “I see,” Grandmère said. “What was I saying, then?”

  “Um. I forgot.”

  “John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth. Have you ever heard of him?”

  Oh, God. Not this again. Because Grandmère’s latest thing? She’s buying waterfront property.

  Only of course Grandmère couldn’t be happy just to own ordinary waterfront property. So she’s buying an island.

  That’s right. Her own island.

  The island of Genovia, to be exact.

  The real Genovia isn’t an island, but the one Grandmère is buying is. An island, I mean. It’s off the coast of Dubai, where this construction company has made a bunch of islands clustered together into shapes you can see all the way up in the space shuttle. Like they made a couple of island clusters shaped like palm trees, called The Palm.

  Now they’re making one called The World. There are islands shaped like France and South Africa and India and even like New Jersey, which, when viewed from the sky, end up looking just like a map of the world, like this:

  Obviously, the islands are not built to scale. Because then the island of Genovia would be the size of my bathroom. And India would be the size of Pennsylvania. All the islands are basically the same size—big enough on which to put a humongous estate with a couple of guesthouses and a pool—so people like Grandmère can buy an island shaped like the state or country of their choice, and then live on it, just like Tom Hanks did in the movie Castaway.

  Except that he didn’t do it by choice.

  Plus his island didn’t have a fifty-thousand-square-foot villa on it with a state-of-the-art security system and central air and a pool with a waterfall in it, like Grandmère’s will.

  There’s just one problem with Grandmère’s island: She’s not the only bidder.

  “John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth,” she said again, all urgently. “Don’t tell me you don’t know him. He goes to your school!”

  “A guy who goes to my school is bidding on the faux island of Genovia?” That seemed kind of hard to believe. I mean, I know I have the smallest allowance of anyone at AEHS, since my dad is worried about me morphing into someone like Lana Weinberger, who spends all her money bribing bouncers into letting her into clubs she’s not old enough to get into legally yet (her rationale is that Lindsay Lohan does it, so why can’t she?). Plus, Lana also has her own American Express card that she uses for everything—from lattes at Ho’s Deli to G-strings at Agent Provocateur—and her dad just pays the bill every month. Lana is so LUCKY.

  But still. Someone getting enough allowance to buy his own ISLAND?

  “Not the boy who goes to your school. His FATHER.” Grandmère’s eyelids, with their tattooed black liner, were squinted together, always a bad sign. “John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the THIRD is bidding against me. His SON goes to your school. He is a grade ahead of you. Surely you know him. Apparently, he has theatrical ambitions—not unlike his father, who is a cigar-chomping, foul-mouthed producer.”

  “Sorry, Grandmère. I don’t know any John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth. And I actually have something a little more important to worry about than whether or not you get your island,” I informed her. “The fact is, I’m broke.”

  Grandmère brightened. She loves talking about money. Because that often leads to talking about shopping, which is her favorite hobby, besides drinking Sidecars and smoking. Grandmère is happiest when she can do all three at the same time. Sadly for her, with what she considers fascist new smoking regulations in New York City, the only place she can smoke, drink, and shop at the same time is at home, on the Net.

  “Is there something you want to buy, Amelia? Something a little more fashionable than those hideous combat boots you continue to wear, despite my assurances that they do not flatter the shape of your calf? Those lovely snakeskin Ferragamo loafers I showed you the other day, perhaps?”

  “I’m not PERSONALLY broke, Grandmère,” I said. Although actually I am, since I only get twenty dollars a week allowance and out of that I have to pay for all of my entertainment needs, and so my entire allowance can be wiped out by a single trip to the movies, if I splurge on gingko biloba rings AND a soda. God forbid my dad should offer ME an American Express card.

  Except that, judging by what happened with the recycling bins, I guess he’s probably right not to trust me with an unlimited line of credit.

  “I mean the student government of Albert Einstein High School is broke,” I explained. “We went through our entire budget in seven months instead of ten. Now we’re in big trouble because we’re supposed to pay for the rental of Alice Tully Hall for the seniors’ commencement ceremony in June. Only we can’t, because we have no money whatsoever. Which means Amber Cheeseman, this year’s valedictorian, is going to kill me, most likely in a lengthy and extremely painful manner.”

  In confiding this to Grandmère, I knew I was taking a certain amount of risk. Because the fact that we’re broke is this huge secret. Seriously. Lilly, Ling Su, Mrs. Hill, Lars, and I all swore on pain of death we wouldn’t tell anybody the truth about the student government’s empty coffers until we absolutely couldn’t avoid it anymore. The last thing I need right now is an impeachment trial.

  And we all know Lana Weinberger would leap at any chance to get rid of me as student government president. LANA’s dad would fork over five grand without batting an eye if he thought it would help his precious baby daughter.

  MY relatives? Not so much.

  But there’s always the chance—remote, I know—that Grandmère might come through for me somehow. She’s done it before. I mean, for all I know, maybe she and Alice Tully were best friends back in college. Maybe all Grandmère has to do is make a phone call, and I can rent Alice Tully Hall for FREE!!!!

  Only Grandmère didn’t look as if she were about to make any phone calls on my behalf anytime soon. Especially when she started making tsk-tsking noises with her tongue.

  “I suppose you spent all the money on folderols and gewgaws,” she said, not entirely disapprovingly.

  “If by folderols and gewgaws,” I replied—I wondered if these were real words or if she’d suddenly begun speaking in tongues and, if so, should I call for her maid?—“you mean twenty-five high-tech recycling bins with individual compartments for paper, cans, and bottles, with a built-in crushing device for the can part, not to mention three hundred electrophoresis kits for the bio lab, none of which I can return, because believe me, I already asked, then the answer is yes.”

  Grandmère looked very disappointed in me. You could tell she considered recycling bins a big waste of money.

  And I didn’t even MENTION the whole “Cans and Battles” sticker thing.

  “How much do you need?” she asked in a deceptively casual voice.

  Wait. Was Grandmère about to do the unthinkable—float me a loan?

  No. Not possible.

  “Not much,” I said, thinking this was WAY too good to be true. “Just five grand.” Actually, five thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars, which is how much Lincoln Center charges campuses for the use of Alice Tully Hall, which seats a thousand. But I wasn’t about to quibble. I could raise the seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars somehow, if Grandmère were willing to fork over the five thousand.

  But alas. It was too good to be true.

  “Well, what do schools in your situation do when they need to raise money fast?” Grandmère wanted to know.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I couldn’t help feeling defeated. Also, I was lying (so what else is new?) because I knew perfectly well what schools in our situation did when they needed to raise money fast. We’d already discussed it, at length, during the student government meeting, after Ling Su’s shocking revelation about the state of our bank account. Mrs. Hill hadn’t been willing to give us a loan (it’s doubtful she even has five grand socked away somewhere. I swear I’ve never seen her wear the same outfit twice. That’s a lot of Quacker Factory tunic sweaters on a teacher’s sal
ary), but she’d been more than willing to show us some candle catalogs she had lying around.

  Seriously. That was her big suggestion. That we sell some candles.

  Lilly just looked at her and went, “Are you suggesting we open ourselves up to a nihilistic battle between the haves and the have-mores, à la Robert Cormier’s Chocolate War, Mrs. Hill? Because we all read that in English class, and we know perfectly well what happens when you dare to disturb the universe.”

  But Mrs. Hill, looking insulted, said that we could have a contest to see who could sell the most candles without experiencing a complete breakdown in social mores or any particular nihilism.

  But when I looked through the candle catalog and saw all the different scents—Strawberries ’n’ Cream! Cotton Candy! Sugar Cookie!—and colors you could buy, I experienced a secret nihilism all my own.

  Because frankly, I’d rather have the senior class do to me what Obi Wan Kenobi did to Anakin Skywalker in The Revenge of the Sith (i.e. cut off my legs with a lightsaber and leave me to burn on the shores of a lava pit) than knock on my neighbor Ronnie’s door and ask her if she’d be interested in buying a Strawberries ’n’ Cream candle, molded in the actual shape of a strawberry, for $9.95.

  And trust me, the senior class is CAPABLE of doing to me what Obi Wan did to Anakin. Especially Amber Cheeseman, who is this year’s senior class valedictorian, and who, even though she is much shorter than me, is a hapkido brown belt, and could easily pound my face in.

  If she stood on a chair, that is, or had someone hold her up so she could reach me.

  It was at that point in the student government meeting that I was forced to say queasily, “Motion to adjourn,” a motion that was fortunately unanimously passed by all in attendance.

  “Our advisor suggested we sell candles door-to-door,” I told Grandmère, hoping she’d find the idea of her granddaughter peddling wax fruit replicas so repellent, she’d throw open her checkbook and hand over five thousand smackers then and there.

  “Candles?” Grandmère DID look a bit disturbed.

  But for the wrong reason.

  “I would think candy would be much easier to unload on the unsuspecting hordes in the office of a parent of the typical Albert Einstein high school student,” she said.

  She was right, of course—although the operative word would be TYPICAL. Because I can’t really see my dad, who’s in Genovia at the moment, since Parliament’s in session, passing around a candle sales form and going, Now, everyone, this is to raise money for my daughter’s school. Whoever buys the most candles will get an automatic knighthood.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks, Grandmère.”

  Then she went off on John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third again, and how she’s planning on hosting this huge charity event a week from Wednesday to raise money in support of Genovian olive farmers (who are striking to protest new EU regulations that allow supermarkets to wield too much influence over prices), to impress the designers of The World, as well as all the other bidders, with her incredible generosity (who does she think she is, anyway? The Genovian Angelina Jolie?).

  Grandmère claims this will have everyone BEGGING her to live on the faux island of Genovia, leaving poor John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third out in the cold, yada yada yada.

  Which is all very well for Grandmère. I mean, she’ll soon have her own island to run away to. But where am I going to hide from the wrath of Amber Cheeseman when she finds out she’ll be giving her commencement address not from a podium on the stage of Alice Tully Hall, but in front of the salad bar at the Outback Steakhouse on West 23rd Street?

  Tuesday, March 2, the loft

  Just when I thought my day couldn’t possibly get any worse, Mom handed me the mail as I walked in the door.

  Normally, I like getting mail. Because normally, I receive fun stuff in the mail, like the latest edition of Psychology Today, so I can see what new psychiatric disorder I might have. Then I have something besides whatever book we’re doing in English class (this month: O Pioneers by Willa Cather. Yawn.) to read in the bathtub before I go to sleep.

  But what my mom gave me when I walked through the door tonight wasn’t fun OR something I could read in the bathtub. Because it was way too short.

  “You got a letter from Sixteen magazine, Mia!” Mom said, all excitedly. “It must be about the contest!”

  Except that I could tell right away there was nothing to get excited about. I mean, that envelope clearly contained bad news. There was so obviously only one sheet of paper inside the envelope. If I had won, surely they’d have enclosed a contract, not to mention my prize money, right? When T. J. Burke’s story about his friend Dex’s death-by-avalanche got published in Powder magazine in Aspen Extreme, they sent him the ACTUAL magazine with his name emblazoned on the front cover. That’s how he found out he’d gotten published.

  The envelope my mom handed me clearly did not contain a copy of Sixteen magazine with my name emblazoned on the front cover, because it was much too thin.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the envelope from my mom and hoping she wouldn’t notice that I was about to cry.

  “What does it say?” Mr. Gianini wanted to know. He was at the dining table, feeding his son bits of hamburger, even though Rocky only has two teeth, one on top and one on the bottom, neither of which happen to be molars.

  It doesn’t seem to make any difference to anyone in my family, however, that Rocky doesn’t actually have the ability to chew solid food yet. He refuses to eat baby food—he wants to eat either what we or Fat Louie are eating—and so he eats whatever my mom and Mr. G are having for dinner, which is generally some meat product, and probably explains why Rocky is in the ninety-ninth percentile in weight for his age. Despite my urgings, Mom and Mr. G insist on feeding Rocky an unmitigated diet of things like General Tso’s chicken and beef lasagna, simply because he LIKES them.

  As if it is not bad enough that Fat Louie will only eat Chicken- or Tuna Flaked Fancy Feast. My little brother is turning out to be a carnivore as well.

  And one day will doubtless grow up to be as tall as Shaquille O’Neal due to all the harmful antibiotics with which the meat industry pumps their products before they slaughter them.

  Although I fear Rocky will also have the intellect of Tweety Bird, because despite all of the Baby Einstein videos I have played for him, and the many, many hours I have spent reading such classics as Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit and Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham aloud to him, Rocky doesn’t show any signs of interest in anything except throwing his pacifier very hard at the wall; stomping around the loft (with a pair of hands—usually mine—to hold him upright by the back of his OshKoshes…a practice which, by the way, is starting to cause me severe lower back pain); and shrieking “Tuck!” and “Kee!” in as loud a voice as possible.

  Surely these can only be considered signs of severe social retardation. Or Asperger Syndrome.

  Mom, however, assures me Rocky is developing normally for a nearly one-year-old, and that I should calm down and stop being such a baby-licker (my own mother has now adopted the term Lilly coined for me).

  In spite of this betrayal, however, I remain hyperalert for signs of hydrocephalus. You can never be too careful.

  “Well, what’s it say, Mia?” my mom wanted to know about my letter. “I wanted to open it and call you at your grandmother’s to give you the news, but Frank wouldn’t let me. He said I should respect your personal boundaries and not open your mail.”

  I threw Mr. G a grateful look—hard to do while trying not to cry—and said, “Thanks.”

  “Oh please,” my mom said, sounding disgusted. “I gave birth to you. I nursed you for six months. I should be able to read your mail. What’s it say?”

  So with trembling fingers, I tore open the envelope, knowing as I did so what I’d find inside.

  No big surprise, the single sheet of typed paper said:

  Sixteen Magazine

  1440 Broadway


  New York, NY 10018

  Dear Writer:

  Thank you for your submission to Sixteen magazine. While we have chosen not to publish your story, we appreciate your interest in our publication.

  Sincerely,

  Shonda Yost

  Fiction Editor

  Dear Writer! They couldn’t even be bothered to type out my name! There was no proof at all that anyone had even READ “No More Corn!”, let alone given it any kind of meaningful consideration!

  I guess my mom and Mr. G could tell I didn’t like what I was seeing, since Mr. G said, “Gee, that’s tough. But you’ll get ’em next time, tiger.”

  “Tuck!” was all Rocky had to say about it, as he hurled a piece of hamburger at the wall.

  And my mom went, “I’ve always thought Sixteen magazine was demeaning to young women, as it’s filled with images of impossibly thin and pretty models that can only serve to legitimize young girls’ insecurities about their own bodies. And besides, their articles are hardly what I’d call informative. I mean, who CARES about which kind of jeans better fit your body type, low rise or ultra-low rise? How about teaching girls something useful, like that even if you Do It standing up, you can still get pregnant?”

  Touched by my parents’—and brother’s—concern, I said, “It’s okay. There’s always next year.”

  Except that I doubt I’ll ever write a better story than “No More Corn!” It was this total one-shot deal, inspired by the touching sight of the Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn in the Chili sitting in the AEHS cafeteria picking corn out of his chili, kernel by kernel, with the saddest look I have ever seen on a human being’s face. I will never witness anything that moving ever again. Except for maybe the look on Tina Hakim Baba’s face when she found out they were canceling Joan of Arcadia.

  I don’t know who wrote whatever Sixteen considers the winning entry, and I honestly don’t mean to brag, but her story CAN’T be as compelling and gripping as “No More Corn!”