Forever Princess Read online

  And okay, that’s not what my book is really about.

  But still! He doesn’t know that.

  How could he say something like that? How could he? That’s not the kind of thing exes—or even mere friends—say to each other.

  And that’s all we’re supposed to be now.

  Anyway. Whatever.

  It’s not like I can show it to Tina, either, and she’s my best friend. Although I don’t know what I’m so embarrassed about, really. There are people who slap their novels all over the Internet, begging other people to read them.

  But I can’t do that. I don’t know why. Except…

  Well, I know why: I’m afraid Tina—not to mention Michael, or J.P., or whoever, really—might not like it.

  Just like every single publisher I’ve sent it to hasn’t liked it. Well, except AuthorPress.

  But they want me to pay THEM to publish it! REAL publishers are supposed to pay YOU!!

  Of course, Ms. Martinez claimed to like it.

  But I’m not convinced she even read the whole thing.

  The thing is, what if I’m wrong, and I’m a terrible writer? What if I just wasted almost two years of my life? I know everybody thinks I did, writing about Genovian olive oil presses.

  But what if I really did?

  Oh, no. Tina is still texting me about the prom!

  Mia! Prom isn’t lame! What’s wrong with you? You’re not going through a depression thingie again, are you?

  “Depression thingie.” Great.

  Okay. I can’t fight Tina. I can’t. She’s a force too strong for me.

  No! No depression thingie. Tina, I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Senioritis, I guess—the same thing that’s keeping all of us from paying attention in class. I just meant—forget it. I’ll talk to J.P. about the prom.

  Do you mean it???? You really will????? You’re not just saying that????

  Yes, I’ll ask him. I’m sorry. I just have a lot of stuff on my mind.

  And you’ll go shopping with us today after school?

  Oh, man. I so don’t want to go shopping with them today after school. Anything but that. I’d take princess lessons over that.

  Wow. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

  Yeah. Sure. Why not.

  YAY! We’re going to have so much fun! Don’t worry, we’ll make you forget ALL about what’s going on with your dad—eep!

  Je ne ferai pas le texte dans la classe.

  Je ne ferai pas le texte dans la classe.

  Je ne ferai pas le texte dans la classe.

  Je ne ferai pas le texte dans la classe.

  Je ne ferai pas le texte dans la classe.

  Je ne ferai pas le texte dans la classe.

  Wow. Madame Wheeton has been on the warpath this month.

  I swear they’re going to take away all our iPhones and Sidekicks one of these days.

  Except, if you ask me, the teachers all have senioritis, too, because they’ve been threatening for weeks, and so far nobody’s actually carried out that threat.

  Thursday, April 27, Psychology

  Okay! So I told someone the truth about something…

  And nothing earth-shattering happened (well, except that Madame Wheeton flipped out over finding us texting each other while she was trying to do her review session for the final).

  I told Tina the truth about J.P. not having asked me to the prom…and my not really wanting to go anyway. And nothing earth-shattering happened. Tina didn’t faint dead away.

  She did try to convince me I’m wrong, of course.

  But what else did I expect? Tina is such a romantic, of course she thinks the prom is the height of teen l’amour.

  I know there was a time when I thought so, too. All I have to do is look through the pages of my old journals. I used to be crazy for the prom. I would sooner have DIED than missed it.

  I guess in a way I wish I could recapture that old excitement.

  But we all have to grow up one day.

  And the truth is, I really don’t see what the big deal is about going to a dinner (rubbery chicken and wilted lettuce under disgusting dressing) and dance (to bad music) at the Waldorf (which I’ve been to a million times before anyway, most notably last time where I gave a speech that may have ruined my family’s reputation, not to mention my native country, for all time).

  I just wish—

  AHHHHH!!!! God, I have to get used to that thing vibrating in my pocket….

  Ameliaaaaaaa—I need an updated guesssssst list from you for Mondayyyyyy. I’m quite put outtttttttt. Everyone I’ve invited has RSVP’d yesssssss, according to Vigo. Even your cousin Hankkkkkkkkkkkk is coming in from the Milan shows to attend. And I just heard from your motherrrrrrrr that your dreadful grandparents from Indianaaaaaaaaaa will be flying into town for the event. I am most upset about thisssssssss. Of course they had to be invited, but I never expected them actually to say yesssssssssssss. It’s all most disturbing…I may need for you to disinvite a few of your guests. You know the yacht only holds three hundred comfortably. Call me immediately.—Clarisse, your grandmotherrrrrrrrrrrrrr

  Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device

  God! Why did Dad get Grandmère a BlackBerry? Is he trying to ruin my life? And who, exactly, was stupid enough to show her how to use it? I could kill Vigo.

  Bystander effect—a psychological phenomenon in which someone is less likely to intervene in an emergency situation when other people are present and able to help than when he or she is alone. See Kitty Genovese case, in which a young woman was brutally attacked within hearing of a dozen neighbors, but none of them called the police, each thinking someone else would do it.

  HOMEWORK

  World History: Whatever

  English Lit: Bite me

  Trig: God, I hate this class

  G&T: I know Boris is playing at Carnegie Hall for his senior project, but WHY WON’T HE STOP ALREADY WITH THE CHOPIN?????

  French: J’ai mal à la tête

  Psychology II: I can’t believe I even bother taking notes in this class. I have lived this class.

  Thursday, April 27, Jeffrey

  Great.

  J.P. saw us in the hallway heading out toward the limo and was all, “Where are you girls going, looking so happy?” and Lars went, before I could stop him, “Prom dress shopping.”

  And then Lana and Tina and Shameeka and Trisha looked at J.P. expectantly with their eyebrows raised, like, Hello? Prom? Remember? Did you forget something? Would you like to ask your girlfriend to go with you?

  I guess news travels fast. The part about J.P. not having asked me to the prom, I mean. Thanks, Tina!

  Not that she doesn’t mean well.

  Of course J.P. just smiled at us tolerantly and went, “Well, have fun, girls, Lars.” Then he kept walking toward the auditorium, where he was holding play rehearsal.

  They were all totally flabbergasted—Lana and those guys, I mean. That he didn’t smack himself in the forehead and go, “D’oh! Prom! Of course!” Then drop to one knee and take my hands tenderly in his and ask me to forgive him for being a churlish lout and beg me to go with him.

  But I told them they shouldn’t be so shocked. I don’t take it personally. J.P. can’t think about anything but his play, A Prince Among Men.

  Which I totally understand, because when I was writing my book, I felt the same way. I couldn’t think about anything else. Every chance I got, I just curled up in bed with my laptop and with Fat Louie at my side (he proved to be such an excellent writing cat) and wrote.

  I mean, that’s why I didn’t keep up with my journal, or anything, not for almost two whole years. It’s hard, when you’re really concentrating on a creative project, to keep your mind on anything else.

  Or at least it was for me.

  Which, in a way, I guess, was why Dr. K suggested it. That I write a book. To get my mind off…well, other things.

  Or other people.

  And it wasn’t like I had anythin
g else to do, since my parents took away my TV, and it was really hard to watch my shows out in the living room. It’s kind of embarrassing to veg out in front of Too Young to Be So Fat: The Shocking Truth when people know you’re watching it.

  Anyway, writing my book was great therapy, because it really worked. I didn’t feel like writing in my journal once while I was writing and researching it. Everything just went into Ransom My Heart.

  Now that the book’s done, of course (and getting rejected everywhere), I suddenly find myself wanting to write in my journal again.

  Is that a good thing? I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe I should write another book instead.

  So I’m just saying I understand J.P.’s preoccupation with his play.

  The thing is, unlike me, J.P. has a solid chance of actually getting Prince produced, at least off-Broadway, because his dad is such a mover and shaker in the theater world, and all.

  And Stacey Cheeseman has done all those Gap Kids commercials, and had that part in that Sean Penn movie. J.P.’s even got Andrew Lowenstein, Brad Pitt’s third cousin’s nephew, playing the part of the male lead. The thing is bound to be HUGE. I hear, from people who’ve seen it, it might even have Hollywood potential.

  But, back to the whole prom thing: It’s not like I don’t know J.P. loves me. He tells me so, like, ten times a day—

  Oh, God, I forgot how annoyed everyone gets when I start writing in my journal instead of paying attention to what’s going on. Lana is making me try on a strapless Badgley Mischka now.

  Look, I get the fashion thing now. I do. How you look on the outside is a reflection of how you feel about yourself on the inside. If you let yourself go—not washing your hair, wearing the same clothes you slept in all day or clothes that don’t fit or are out of style—that says, “I do not care about myself. And you shouldn’t care about me either.”

  You have to Make An Effort, because that says to other people I Am Worth Getting To Know. Your clothes don’t have to be expensive. You just have to look good in them.

  I realize that now, and acknowledge that in the past, I may have slacked off in that area (although I still wear my overalls at home on the weekends when no one is around).

  And since I’ve stopped binge eating, my weight has stopped fluctuating, and I’m back down to a B cup.

  So I get the fashion thing. I do.

  But honestly—why does Lana think I look good in purple? Just because it’s the color of royalty doesn’t mean it looks good on every royal! Not to be mean, but has anyone taken a good look at Queen Elizabeth lately? She so needs neutral colors.

  An excerpt from Ransom My Heart by Daphne Delacroix

  Shropshire, England, 1291

  Hugo stared down at the lovely apparition swimming naked below him, his thoughts a jumble in his head. Foremost amongst them was the question, Who is she?, though he knew the answer to that. Finnula Crais, the miller’s daughter. There had been a family of that name in villenage to his father, Hugo remembered.

  This, then, must be one of their offspring. But what was this miller about, allowing a defenseless maid to roam the countryside unescorted and dressed in such provocative garb—or completely undressed, as the case now stood?

  As soon as Hugo arrived at Stephensgate Manor, he would send for the miller, and see to it that the girl was better protected in the future. Did the man not ken the riffraff that traveled the roads these days, the footpads and cutthroats and despoilers of young women such as the one below him?

  So fixed was Hugo upon his musings that for a moment, he did not realize that the maid had paddled out of view. Where the waterfall cascaded, the pool below was out of his line of vision, being blocked off by the rock outcropping on which he lay. He assumed that the girl had ducked beneath the waterfall, perhaps to rinse her hair.

  Hugo waited, pleasantly anticipating the girl’s reappearance. He wondered to himself whether the chivalrous thing to do was to creep away now, without drawing attention to himself, then meet up with her again upon the road, as if by accident, and offer her escort home to the Stephensgate.

  It was as he was deciding that he heard a soft sound behind him, and then suddenly, something very sharp was at his throat, and someone very light was astride his back.

  It was with an effort that Hugo controlled his soldierly instinct to strike first and question later.

  But he had never before felt so slim an arm circle his neck, nor such slight thighs straddle his back. Nor had his head ever been jerked against such a temptingly soft cushion.

  “Stay perfectly still,” advised his captor, and Hugo, enjoying the warmth from her thighs and, more particularly, the softness of the hollow between her breasts, where she kept the back of his head firmly anchored, was happy to oblige her.

  “I’ve a knife at your throat,” the maid informed him in her boyishly throaty voice, “but I won’t use it unless I have to. If you do as I say, you shan’t be harmed. Do you understand?”

  Thursday, April 27, 7 p.m., the loft

  Daphne Delacroix

  1005 Thompson Street, Apt. 4A

  New York, NY 10003

  Dear Author,

  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your manuscript. However, it does not suit our needs at the present time.

  Not even a signature! Thanks for nothing.

  I just walked in the door and Mom wants to know why someone named Daphne Delacroix keeps getting all this mail from publishing houses addressed to our apartment.

  Busted!

  I thought about lying to her, too, but there’s no point, really. She’s going to catch me eventually, especially if Ransom My Heart does get published someday, and I build my own wing onto the Royal Genovian Hospital, or whatever.

  Okay, well, I have no idea how much published novelists get paid, but I heard the forensic mystery writer Patricia Cornwell bought a helicopter with her book money.

  Not that I need a helicopter, because I have my own jet (well, Dad does).

  So I was just like, “I sent out my book under a fake name just to see if I could get it published.”

  My mom already suspects what I wrote wasn’t a really long history paper. I couldn’t lie to her about it. She saw me in my room, listening to the Marie Antoinette movie sound-track with my headphones on and Fat Louie by my side, typing away all the time…well, whenever I wasn’t at school, princess lessons, therapy, or out with Tina or J.P.

  I know it’s bad to lie to your own mother. But if I told her what my book was really about, she’d want to read it.

  And there’s no way I want Helen Thermopolis reading what I actually wrote. I mean, sex scenes and your mother? No, thank you.

  “Well,” Mom said, pointing to my letter. “What did they say?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Not interested.”

  “Hmmm,” Mom said. “It’s a tough market these days. Especially for a history on Genovian olive oil presses.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

  God, what if TMZ got hold of the truth about me? What a liar I am, I mean? What kind of role model am I? I make Vanessa Hudgens look like Mother Freaking Teresa. Minus the whole nudity thing. Because I’m not about to take naked photos of myself and send them to my boyfriend.

  Thankfully it was kind of hard to have a conversation with Mom because Mr. G was practicing his drums, with Rocky banging along on his toy drum set.

  When he saw me, Rocky dropped his drumsticks and ran over to throw his arms around my knees, screaming, “Meeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh!”

  It’s nice to be able to come home to someone who’s always happy to see you, even if it’s an almost three-year-old.

  “Yeah, hi, I’m home,” I said. It’s no joke trying to walk with a toddler attached to you. “What’s for dinner?”

  “It’s two-for-one pizza night at Tre Giovanni,” Mr. Gianini said, hanging up his sticks. “How can you even ask?”

  “Where were you?” Rocky wanted to know.

  “I had to go shopp
ing with my friends,” I said.

  “But you din’t buy anything,” Rocky said, looking at my empty hands.

  “I know,” I explained, heading to the kitchen drawer where we keep the silverware with him still attached to me. It’s my job to set the table. I may be a princess, but I still have chores. That’s one thing we established during family sessions with Dr. K. “That’s because we went prom dress shopping, and I’m not going to the prom, because it’s lame.”

  “Since when is the prom lame?” Mr. Gianini wanted to know, wrapping a towel around his neck. Drumming can make you sweaty, as I know all too well, from the small damp person attached to my legs.

  “Since she became a bitingly sarcastic, soon-to-be college girl,” Mom said, pointing at me. “Speaking of which, family meeting after dinner. Oh, hello.”

  She said this last part into the phone, then gave Tre our standard order of two medium pies, one all meat for herself and Mr. G, and one all cheese, for Rocky and me. I’m back on the vegetarian bandwagon. Well, I’m really more of a flexatarian…I don’t order meat for myself except in times of extreme stress when I need a quick source of high protein, such as beef tacos (so irresistible, though I try to abstain). But when someone else serves meat to me—for instance, at last week’s meeting of the Domina Rei—I’ll eat it to be polite.

  “Family meeting about what?” I demanded, when Mom hung up.

  “You,” she said. “Your father’s scheduled a conference call.”

  Great. There’s really nothing I look forward to more than a nice call from my dad in Genovia in the evening. That’s always a big guarantee a good time will be had by all. Not.

  “What did I do now?” I wanted to know. Because, seriously, I haven’t done anything (except lie to everyone I know about…well, everything). But other than that, I’m always home by curfew, and it isn’t even because I have a bodyguard who basically ensures it, either. My boyfriend is way conscientious. J.P. doesn’t want to get on the bad side of my father (or mother or stepfather), and when we get together, he freaks if I’m not on my way home a half hour before I’m supposed to be, and so he literally hurls me into Lars’s arms every time.