Princess in Waiting Read online

  Michael + Mia

  Courageous, ambitious Earth signs, Taurus and Capricorn seem to be made for each other. Both value career success and share a love of beauty and of lasting, classical foundations. Capricorn’s irony charms the Bull, while the latter’s expert sensuality rescues the Goat from his or her obsession with career. They enjoy talking together, and communication is excellent. They confide in each other, one promising never to offend or betray the other. This could be a perfect couple.

  See? We’re perfect for each other! But expert sensuality? Me? Um, I don’t think so.

  Still… I’m so happy! Perfect! You can’t get better than perfect!

  Sunday, January 11

  Royal Daily Schedule

  9 a.m.–10 a.m.

  Mass in Royal Genovian Chapel

  Oh, my God, I have only been Michael’s girlfriend for twenty-four days, and already I’m terrible at it. The girlfriend thing, I mean. I can’t even figure out what to get him for his birthday. He is the love of my life, the reason my heart beats. You would think I would know what to get the guy.

  But no. I haven’t got a clue.

  Tina says the only appropriate thing to get for a boy you have only been officially dating for less than four weeks is a sweater. And she says even that is pushing it, since Michael and I have not even been out on an official date yet—so technically, how can we be dating?

  But a sweater ? I mean, that is so unromantic. That is the kind of thing I would get my dad—if he wasn’t so in need of anger management manuals, which is what I got for him for Christmas. I would get a sweater for my stepdad for sure.

  But my boyfriend ?

  I was kind of surprised Tina would suggest something so banal, as she is basically the resident romance expert of our little group. But Tina says the rules about what to give boys are actually very strict. Her mom told them to her. Tina’s mom used to be a model and international jet-setter who once dated a sultan, so I guess she would know. The rules for presents for guys, according to Mrs. Hakim Baba, go:

  Length of Time Going Out:

  Appropriate Gift:

  1–4 months

  Sweater

  5–8 months

  Cologne

  9–12 months

  Cigarette lighter*

  1 year +

  Watch

  But this is better at least than Grandmère’s list of what is appropriate to give boyfriends, which she presented to me yesterday, as soon as I mentioned to her my horrible faux pas of missing Michael’s birthday. Her list goes:

  Length of Time Going Out:

  Appropriate Gift:

  1–4 months

  Candy

  5–8 months

  Book

  9–12 months

  Handkerchief

  1 year +

  Gloves

  Handkerchiefs? Who gives handkerchiefs anymore? Handkerchiefs are completely unhygienic!

  And candy? For a guy ????

  But Grandmère says the same rules apply for girls as for boys. Michael is not allowed to give me anything but candy or possibly flowers for my birthday, either!

  Overall, I think I prefer Mrs. Hakim Baba’s list.

  Still, this whole dating/present-giving thing is so difficult! Everybody says something different. Like, last night I called my mom and asked her what I should give Michael, and she said silk boxer shorts.

  But I can’t give Michael UNDERWEAR!!!!!!!

  I wish my mom would hurry up and have this baby already so she would stop acting so weird. She is pretty much useless to me in her current state of hormonal imbalance.

  Out of desperation, I asked my dad what I should get Michael, and he said a pen, so Michael could write to me while I am in Genovia, instead of my calling him all the time and breaking the bank of Genovia.

  Whatever, Dad. Like anyone writes with a pen anymore.

  And hello, I am only going to be in Genovia for Christmas and summers, as per our agreement drawn up last September.

  A pen. I am so sure. Am I the only person in my family with a modicum of romance in my bones?

  Oops, gotta stop writing, Father Christoff is looking this way. But it is his own fault. I wouldn’t write in my journal during mass if his sermons were even semiinspiring. Or at least in English.

  12 p.m.–2 p.m.

  Lunch with Director of Royal Genovian Opera, leading mezzo-soprano

  I thoughtI was a picky eater, but it turns out mezzo-sopranos are way pickier than even princesses.

  My zit is growing out of all proportion despite application of toothpaste last night before I went to bed.

  3 p.m.–5 p.m.

  Meeting with Genovian Homeowners Association

  You would think that the Homeowners Association, at least, would be on my side on the parking meter issue. After all, it’s their houses these tourists keep parking in front of. You’d think they’d want to bring in a little more income for sidewalk repairs. But NOOOOOOOOOOO.

  I swear I don’t know how my dad does this every day. I really don’t.

  7 p.m.–10 p.m.

  Formal Dinner with ambassador to Chile and his wife

  Huge controversy due to René “borrowing” Chilean ambassador’s convertible Porsche—and his wife—for a jaunt into Monte Carlo after dessert. Couple eventually found playing tennis on royal court.

  Sadly, it was strip tennis.

  Eight days until I see him again. Oh, joy! Oh, rapture!

  Monday, January 12, 1 a.m.,

  Royal Genovian bedchamber

  I just got off the phone with Michael. I had to call him. It wasn’t like I had a choice. I had to find out what he wanted for his birthday. I know that is cheating—asking someone what they want—but I seriously can’t think what to get him. Of course if I were the Kate Bosworth type I would so totally have gotten him the perfect gift already, like maybe a charming friendship bracelet that I wove myself out of seaweed or whatever.

  But I am not Kate Bosworth. I do not even know how to weave. OH, MY GOD, I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO WEAVE!!!!!!!!!!

  I have to get him something really good, since I forgot. About his birthday, and all. And then of course there’s the whole thing about how he is saddled with a talentless freak princess for a girlfriend, instead of a hot Kate Bosworth type who can surf and weave and is self-actualized and never gets zits and everything. I have to get him something that is so fabulous that he forgets that I am nothing but a non-surfing, fingernail-biting freshman who happened to have been born royal.

  Of course Michael says he doesn’t want anything, that I am the only thing he needs (if only I could believe this!!!!!!!!!!) and that he will see me in eight days, and that is the best present anyone could get him.

  This seems to indicate that he might actually be in love with me, as opposed to only loving me as a friend. I will of course have to check with Tina to see what she thinks, but I would have to say that in this case, Signs Point to Yes!

  But of course he is only saying that. That he doesn’t want anything for his birthday, I mean. I have to get him something . Something really good. Only what?

  Anyway, I really did have a reason to call him. I didn’t do it just because I wanted to hear the sound of his voice, or anything. I mean, I am not that far gone.

  Oh, all right, maybe I am. How can I help it? I have only been in love with Michael since, like, forever. I love the way he says my name. I love the way he laughs. I love the way he asks my opinion, like he really cares what I think (God knows nobody around here feels that way. I mean, make a suggestion—like, that it might save water to turn off the fountain in front of the palace at night, when no one is around anyway—and everybody practically acts like one of the suits of armor in the Grand Hall started talking).

  Well, okay, not my dad. But I see him less here in Genovia than I do back home, practically, because he is so caught up in parliamentary meetings and racing his yacht in regattas and hanging out with Miss Czech Republic.

  Anyway, I like ta
lking to Michael. Is that so wrong? I mean, heis my boyfriend, after all.

  If only I were worthier of him! I mean, between my not having remembered his birthday, my not being able to figure out what to get him, and my not really being that good at anything, the way he is, it’s a wonder he’s even interested in me at all!

  So we were just saying good-bye after having had a perfectly pleasant conversation about the Genovian Olive Growers Association and Michael’s band that he is trying to put together (he is so talented!), and whether it is off-putting to call a band Frontal Lobotomy, and I was just working up the guts to go, “I miss you,” or “I love you,” thus leaving an opening for him to say something similar back to me and therefore resolve the does- he-just-love-me-like-a-friend-or-is-he-in-love-with-me dilemma once and for all, when I heard Lilly in the background, demanding to talk to me.

  Michael went, “Get away,” but Lilly kept on shrieking, “I have to talk to her, I just remembered I have something really important to ask her.”

  Then Michael went, “Don’t tell her about that,” and my heart skipped a beat because I thought Lilly had all of a sudden remembered that Michael had been going out with some girl named Anne Marie behind my back after all. Before I could say another word, Lilly had wrestled the phone away from him (I heard Michael grunt, I guess in pain because she must have kicked him or something), and then she was going, “Oh, my God, I forgot to ask. Did you see it?”

  “Lilly,” I said, since even eight thousand miles away, I could feel Michael’s pain—Lilly kicks hard. I know, because I have been the recipient of quite a few kicks of hers over the years. “I know that you are used to having me all to yourself, but you are going to have to learn to share me with your brother. Now, if this means we are going to have to set boundaries in our relationship, then I guess we will have to. But you can’t just go around ripping the phone out of Michael’s hand when he might have had something really important to—”

  “Shut up about my sainted brother for a minute. Did… you… see… it?”

  “See what? What are you talking about?” I thought maybe somebody had tried to jump into the polar bear cage at the Central Park Zoo again.

  “Oh, just the movie,” Lilly said. “Of your life. The one that was on TV the other night. Or hadn’t you heard your life story has been made into a movie of the week?”

  I wasn’t very surprised to hear this. I had already been warned that a TV movie about my life was in the works. But I’d been assured by the palace publicity staff that the movie wouldn’t be shown until February sweeps. I guess the joke was on us.

  Whatever. There are already four unauthorized biographies about me floating around out there. One of them made the best-seller list for about half a second. I read it. It wasn’t that good. But maybe that’s just because I already knew how it all turned out.

  “So?” I said. I was kind of mad at Lilly. I mean, she’d booted Michael off the phone just to tell me about some dumb movie?

  “Hello,” Lilly said. “Movie. Of your life. You were portrayed as shy and awkward.”

  “I am shy and awkward,” I reminded her.

  “They made your grandmother all kindly and sympathetic to your plight,” Lilly said. “It was the grossest mischaracterization I’ve seen since Shakespeare in Love tried to pass off the Bard as a hottie with a six-pack and a full set of teeth.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said. “Now can I please finish talking to Michael?”

  “You didn’t even ask how they portrayed me ,” Lilly said, accusingly, “your loyal best friend.”

  “How did they portray you, Lilly?” I asked, looking at the big fancy clock on top of the big fancy marble mantelpiece over my big fancy bedroom fireplace. “And make it quick, I’ve got a breakfast and then a ride with the Genovian Equestrian Society in exactly seven hours.”

  “They portrayed me as less than fully supportive of your royalness,” Lilly practically screamed into the phone. “They made out like after you first got that stupid haircut, I mocked you for being shallow and a trend-follower!”

  “Yeah,” I said, waiting for her to get to the point of her tirade. Because of course Lilly hadn’t been very supportive of my haircut, or my royalness.

  But it turned out Lilly had already gotten to the point of her tirade.

  “I was never unsupportive of your royalness!” she shrieked into the phone, causing me to hold the receiver away from my head in order to keep my eardrums intact. “I was your number-one most supportive friend through the whole thing!”

  This was so patently untrue, I thought Lilly was joking, and I started to laugh. But then I realized when she greeted my laughter with stone cold silence that she was totally serious. Apparently Lilly has one of those selective memories, where she can remember all the good things she did, but none of the bad things. Kind of like a politician.

  Because of course if it were true that Lilly had been so supportive of me, I never would have become friends with Tina Hakim Baba, who I only started sitting with at lunch back in October because Lilly wasn’t speaking to me on account of the whole princess thing.

  “I sincerely hope,” Lilly said, “that you are laughing in disbelief over the idea that I was ever anything less than a good friend to you, Mia. I know we’ve had our ups and downs, but any time I was ever hard on you, it was only because I thought you weren’t being true to yourself.”

  “Um,” I said. “Okay.”

  “I am going to write a letter,” Lilly went on, “to the studio that produced that piece of libelous trash, demanding a written apology for their irresponsible screenwriting. And if they do not provide one—and publish it in a full-page ad in Variety —I will sue. I don’t care if I have to take my case to the Supreme Court. Those Hollywood types think they can throw anything they want to in front of a camera and the viewing public will just lap it up. Well, that might be true for the rest of the proles, butI am going to fight for more honest portrayals of actual people and events. The man is not going to keep me down!”

  I asked Lilly what man, thinking she meant the director or something, and she just went, “The man! The man!” like I was mentally challenged, or something.

  Then Michael got back on the phone and explained that “the man” is a figurative allusion to authority, and that in the way that Freudian analysts blame everything on “the mother,” blues musicians have historically blamed their woes on “the man.” Traditionally, Michael informed me, “the man” is usually white, financially successful, middle-aged, and in a position of considerable power over others.

  We discussed calling Michael’s band The Man, but then dismissed it as having possibly misogynistic undertones.

  Seven days until I can once again be in Michael’s arms. Oh, that the hours would fly as fleetly as winged doves!

  I just realized—Michael’s description of “The Man” sounds a lot like my dad! Although I doubt all those blues musicians were talking about the Prince of Genovia. As far as I know, my dad has never even been to Memphis.

  Monday, January 12

  Royal Daily Schedule

  8 p.m.–12 a.m.

  Royal Genovian Symphony

  Just when it seems like maybe, just maybe, things might be starting to go my way, something always has to come along to ruin it.

  And as usual, it was Grandmère.

  I guess she could tell because I was so sleepy again today that I’d been up all night talking to Michael. So this morning between my ride with the Equestrian Society and my meeting with the Genovian Beachfront Development Society, Grandmère sat me down and gave me a lecture. This time it wasn’t about the socially acceptable gifts to give a boy on his birthday. Instead, it was about Appropriate Choices.

  “It is all very well and good, Amelia,” Grandmère said, “for you to like that boy .”

  “I should think so!” I cried, with righteous indignation. “Considering you have never even met him! I mean, what do you even know about Michael, anyway? Nothing!”

&n
bsp; Grandmère just gave me the evil eye. “Nevertheless,” she went on. “I do not think it wise of you to allow your affection for this Michael fellow to blind you to other, more suitable consorts, such as—”

  I interrupted to tell Grandmère that if she said the words Prince William I was going to jump off the Pont des Vierges.

  Grandmère told me not to be more ridiculous than I already am, that I could never marry Prince William anyway, on account of his being Church of England. However, there are apparently other, infinitely more suitable romantic partners for a princess of the royal house of Renaldo than Michael. And Grandmère said she would hate for me to miss the opportunity to get to know these other young men just because I fancy myself in love with Michael. She assured me that, were the circumstances reversed, and Michael were the heir to a throne and a considerable fortune, she highly doubted he would be as scrupulously faithful as I was being.

  I objected to this assessment of Michael’s character very much. I informed Grandmère that, if she had ever bothered to get to know Michael, she’d have realized that in every aspect of his life, from his being editor in chief of the now defunct Crackhead to his role as treasurer in the Computer Club, he has shown nothing but the utmost loyalty and integrity. I also explained, as patiently as I could, that it hurt me to hear her saying anything negative about a man to whom I have pledged my heart.

  “That is just it, Amelia,” Grandmère said, rolling her scary eyes. “You are entirely too young to pledge your heart to anyone. I think it very unwise of you, at the age of fourteen, to decide who you are going to spend the rest of your life with. Unless, of course, it happened to be someone very, very special. Someone your father and I know. Very, very well. Someone who, while possibly seeming a bit immature, probably just needs the right woman to make him settle down. Girls mature much more quickly than young men, Amelia—”