Forever Princess (11 page)

Sunday, April 30, noon, the loft

Okay, I still haven't thought of any better questions for Michael, but those were the best I could come up with after what happened with J.P. being all
You wrote a
romance? Not to mention the nine hundred text messages I've received from Tina telling me we have to talk “in person.” I have no idea what could be so important that we can't discuss it over the phone.

But Tina is totally convinced that René might have hackers secretly taping my cell phone transmissions (just like Prince Charles and Camilla and the “tampon” incident), so for the moment, she won't say or text anything too inflammatory to me via cellular transmission.

Which makes me think whatever it is that's on her mind, I probably don't want to hear it.

Possibly the reason that I can't come up with any better questions for Michael might have something to do with the fact that I woke up this morning to Rocky banging on my face with his fist, yelling, “Soopwise!”

I was “soopwised” all right. Surprised he was in my room, since he isn't supposed to be allowed in it—and he isn't supposed to be able to get in it with the special slippy thing I put over the doorknob that only adults know how to work.

Only it turned out an adult had opened the door for him. An adult who was peering down at me with a big happy grin on her face.

“Well, hey there, Mia! How you doin'?”

Oh my God. It was Mamaw. With Papaw right next to her. In my room. My
BEDROOM
.

That's it. I'm moving out of this place. Just as soon as I can figure out where I'm going to go to college. Which I have a little less than a week to decide.

“Happy birthday, in advance!” Mamaw yelled. “Look atchoo, lying in bed at ten o'clock! Who do you think you are, anyway? Some kinda princess?”

This caused Mamaw and Papaw to explode with laughter. At their own joke. It caused me to pull the covers up over my head and yell, “MO-O-OOOM!!!”

“Mother.” I could hear Mom show up. “Please. I'm sure Mia's very excited to see you, but let's give her a chance to get up and greet you properly. You'll have plenty of time to visit each other.”

“I don't see when,” Mamaw said. I could tell by her voice that she was scowling. “Y'all have us visitin' so many museums and tours and whatnot.”

“Well, I'm sure Mia will be more than happy to go on some of those tours with you,” I heard Mom say.

It was at that point I flipped the covers down and glared at her. Mom just glared right back.

So, apparently, I'm taking Mamaw and Papaw to the Central Park Zoo later today.

I understand that it's the least I can do in my capacity as their only granddaughter. Still.
It's not like I don't exactly have other things to do.

One of them being get ready for my coffee date, I mean interview, with Michael. Which I need to continue doing right now. Even though it's hard because my hands are trembling so much I can barely hold my eye pencil to outline my lids.

And I really wish Lana would quit texting me to tell me what to wear because that's not helping, either.

Although I refuse to take her advice, and I'm going with something casual. Just my 7 For All Mankind jeans, the Christian Louboutin boots, my off-the-shoulder Sweet Robin Alexandra top, all my bangles, my Subversive lava bead cameo choker, and my chandelier earrings. That's not too much at all! I mean, it's not like I'm trying to get him to like me in a sexy way. We're just friends now.

I'm going to brush my teeth one more time, though, just to be safe.

Mr. G and Rocky are putting on a drum recital for Mamaw and Papaw.

Please, let me get out of here without developing a cluster headache.

Sunday, April 30, 12:55 p.m., Caffe Dante,
MacDougal Street

My hands are sweating so much. This kind of weakness is insufferable, especially in a member of the House of Renaldo. We're all feminists. Even Dad. He has the endorsement of NOWG, National Organization of the Women of Genovia, after all. Even Grandmère is a member.

Speaking of Grandmère, she's e-mailed me, like, FOUR times today about the party and/or Dad's election. I've deleted each one. I don't have time to read her insane messages! And why can't she learn to e-mail properly? I realize she's four hundred years old, and I have to respect my elders (even though if you ask me, she is in no way deserving of my respect). But still, she could let go of the R button once she's pressed it the first time.

Where IS Michael? Lars and I are here. And I realize we're five minutes early. (I wanted to get rid of the paparazzi if I had to, but there's none here, strangely. I also wanted to have the first choice of seat so I could make sure I got the best lighting. Lana assures me this is vitally important in boy/girl meetings, even of the Friends Only variety. Also, I wanted to snag a table close by for my bodyguard, yet far enough away that he wasn't breathing down our necks, no offense, of course, Lars, if you're reading this over my shoulder, which, don't lie, I know you do when the battery on your Treo runs down.) So where is—

Oh, God. There he is. He's looking around for us.

He looks SO good. Even better than yesterday, because today he's wearing jeans and they're fitting him
SO PERFECTLY in all the right places.

Wow. I'm turning
into
Lana.

And he's also wearing a totally nice black short-sleeved Polo shirt and I'm just going to come right out and say that everything we suspected lay under the sleeves of his suit jacket yesterday REALLY DOES. As in, muscles. Not hideous bulked up steroidy ones, either.

But Lana was not far off in her Christian Bale
Batman
assessment.

And I know I have a boyfriend. I am merely observing this in my capacity as an investigative journalist.

!!!!!

He's seen me!!!!! He's coming!!!!!

I'm dying now, good-bye.

Interview with Michael Moscovitz for the
Atom
, as recorded by Mia Thermopolis on Sunday, April 30, via iPhone (to be transcribed later)

Mia:
So, it's okay if I record this?

Michael
(laughing): I said it was.

Me:
I know, but I need to record you saying it. I know it's stupid.

Michael
(still laughing): It's not stupid. It's just kind of weird. I mean, to be sitting here being interviewed by you. First of all, it's you. Second of all…well, you were always the celebrity.

Mia:
Well, now it's your turn. And thanks again, so much, for doing this. I know how busy you must be, and I want you to know I really appreciate you taking the time out to meet with me.

Michael:
Mia…of course.

Mia:
Okay, so first question: What inspired you to invent the CardioArm?

Michael:
Well, I saw a need in the medical community and felt I had the technical knowledge to fill it. There've been other attempts in the past to create similar products, but mine is the first to incorporate
advanced imaging technology.
Which I can explain to you if you want, but I don't think you're going to have room for it in your article, if I remember how long the stories are in the
Atom
.

Mia
(laughing): Uh, no, that's okay—

Michael:
And, of course, you.

Mia:
What?

Michael:
You asked what my inspiration was for inventing the CardioArm. Part of it was you. You remember, I told you before I left for Japan, I wanted to do something to show the world I was worthy of dating a princess. I know it sounds dumb now, but…that was a big part of it. Back then.

Mia:
R-right. Back then.

Michael:
You don't have to put that in the article if it embarrasses you, though. I can't imagine you'd want your boyfriend reading that.

Mia:
J.P.? No…no, he'd be fine with that. Are you kidding? I mean, he knows about all that. We tell each other everything.

Michael:
Right. So he knows you're here with me?

Mia:
Um. Of course! So where was I? Oh, right. What was it like to live in Japan for so long?

Michael:
Great! Japan's great. Highly recommend it.

Mia:
Really? So are you planning on…Oh, wait, that question's later…Sorry, my grandmother woke me up really
early this morning and I'm all disorganized.

Michael:
How is the Dowager Princess Clarisse?

Mia:
Oh, not her. The other one. Mamaw. She's in town for my birthday party.

Michael:
Oh, right. I wanted to thank you for the invitations to your party.

Mia:
…the invitations to my
party
?

Michael:
Right. Mine arrived this morning. And my mom said hers and Dad's and Lilly's came last night. That was really nice of you, to let bygones be bygones with Lilly. I know she and Kenny are planning on going tomorrow night. My parents, too. I'm going to try to make it, as well.

Mia
(under breath):
Grandmère!

Michael:
What was that?

Mia:
Nothing. Okay…so what did you miss most about America while you were gone?

Michael:
Uh…you?

Mia:
Oh, ha ha. Be serious.

Michael:
Sorry. Okay. My dog.

Mia:
What did you like best about Japan?

Michael:
Probably the people. I met a lot of really great people there. I'm going to miss some of them—the ones I haven't brought over here with the rest of my team—a lot.

Mia:
Oh. Really? I mean…so you're moving permanently back to America now?

Michael:
Yeah, I have a place here in Manhattan. Pavlov Surgical will have its corporate offices here, though the bulk of the manufacturing will be done out of Palo Alto in California.

Mia:
Oh. So—

Michael:
Can I ask
you
a question now?

Mia:
Um…sure.

Michael:
When am I going to get to read your senior project?

Mia:
See, I knew you were going to ask me that—

Michael:
So, if you knew, where is it?

Mia:
I have to tell you something.

Michael:
Uh-oh. I know that look.

Mia:
Yeah. My project's not about the history of Genovian olive
oil presses, circa 1254–1650.

Michael:
It's not?

Mia:
No. It's actually a four-hundred-page medieval historical romance novel.

Michael:
Sweet. Hand it over.

Mia:
Seriously. Michael—you're just being nice. You don't have to read it.

Michael:
Have
to? If you don't think I want to read it now, you're high. Have you been smoking some of Clarisse's Gitanes? Because I'm pretty sure I got high once on the secondhand smoke from those.

Mia:
She had to quit smoking. Look, if I e-mail you a copy, will you just promise to not start reading it until I've left?
Michael:
What, now? You mean this minute? To my phone? I completely and totally swear.

Mia:
Okay. Fine. Here it is.

Michael:
Outstanding. Wait. Who's Daphne Delacroix?

Mia:
You said you wouldn't read it!

Michael:
Oh my God, you should see your face. It's the same
color red as my Converse.

Mia:
Thanks for pointing that out. Actually, I changed my mind. I don't want you to have a copy anymore. Give me your phone, I'm deleting it.

Michael:
What? No way. I'm reading this thing tonight. Hey—cut it out! Lars, help, she's attacking me!

Lars:
I'm only supposed to intervene if someone is attacking her, not if the princess is attacking someone else.

Mia:
Give it to me!

Michael:
No—

Waiter:
Is there a problem here?

Michael:
No.

Mia:
No.

Lars:
No. Please excuse them. Too much caffeine.

Mia:
Sorry, Michael. I'll pay for dry cleaning….

Michael:
Don't be stupid…are you still
recording
this?

End recording.

Sunday, April 30, 2:30 p.m., a bench in
Washington Square Park

Yeah, so, that didn't work out so well.

And it got even worse when I was saying good-bye to Michael—after I'd tried, then failed, to wrestle his iPhone away from him so I could delete that copy of my book I'd so stupidly sent him—and we got up to leave, and I stuck out my hand to shake his hand good-bye, and he looked at it and said, “I think we can do a little better than that, can't we?”

And held out his arms to give me a hug—an obviously
friendly
hug, I mean, it was nothing more than that.

And I laughed and said, “Of course.”

And I hugged him back.

And I accidentally smelled him.

And it all came rushing back. How safe and warm I'd always felt in his arms, and how every time he'd held me like that, I'd never wanted him to let go. I didn't want him to let go of me there, right in the middle of Caffe Dante, where I was just interviewing him for the
Atom
, not on a date or anything. It was so stupid. It was so awful. I mean, I had to practically
force
myself to let go of him, to stop breathing in his Michael-y smell, which I hadn't smelled in so long.

What is
wrong
with me?

And now I can't go home, because I don't think I can deal with running into any of my various family members from Indiana (or Genovia) who might be there. I just have to sit out here in the park and try to forget what a complete
idiot I was back there (while Lars stands guard to protect me from the drug dealers who keep asking me to “Smoke? Smoke?” and the homeless people who want to know if I can give them “a five dollars” and the packs of touring NYU kids with their parents, who keep going, “Oh my God, is that—It is! It's Princess Mia of Genovia!”) and hope eventually I'll go back to normal and my fingers will stop shaking and my heart will stop beating
Mi-chael, Michael, Mi-chael
like I'm back in freaking ninth grade again.

I really hope that hot chocolate washes out of his jeans.

Also, I would just like to ask the gods or anyone else who might be listening…why can't I conduct myself in a grown-up fashion around guys I used to date and with whom I broke up and whom I should be completely and one hundred percent OVER?

It was just so…
weird
sitting so close to him again. Even
before
I could smell him. And I get that we're just friends now—and, of course, I know I have a boyfriend, and Michael's got a girlfriend (probably—I never did get a straight answer about this).

But he's just so…I don't know! I can't explain it! He sort of emanates this…
touchable
quality.

And, of course, I knew I couldn't touch him (before I did touch him…which he ASKED me to do. He couldn't have known what that hug would do to me. Did he know? No, he couldn't have. He isn't a sadist. Not like his sister).

But being there in the café with him, it was like…well, it was like no time had gone by. Except, of course, a lot of time had gone by. Only in the best way, you know? Like,
even though I might have sounded stupid on the tape (I just played it back. I sounded like a complete idiot), I didn't
feel
stupid while I was saying it—not the way I used to when I was younger around Michael. I think it's because…well, a lot of stuff has happened since I was last in Michael's company, and I just feel more confident about things (okay, well…about men) than I used to. Recent hug-related freak-out aside.

For instance—now that I played the tape back, I realize Michael was kind of flirting with me! Just a little.

But that's okay. It's
more
than okay, actually.

Oh, no. Did I just write that?

Not that it matters, because I'm pretty sure he thinks the only reason I was there was because I'm doing an article for the
Atom
(although some reporter I am, since I didn't even ask him all my questions, once I got so preoccupied wrestling him over his phone).

Wrestling! In a restaurant! Like a seven-year-old! Great. When am I ever going to learn to act like a grown-up? I really thought I'd reached the point of being able to maintain a somewhat dignified demeanor in a public place.

And then I wrestled my ex-boyfriend in a café over his iPhone! And spilled hot chocolate over him!

Then I smelled him.

I think I lost one of my chandelier earrings, too.

Thank God no paparazzi showed to get photos of
that
.

Which is kind of odd, if you think about it. That none of them was around, since they seem to show up everywhere else I go.

Whatever.

Anyway, I guess it was…sweet? Michael, I mean, and his reaction to my telling him I wrote a romance novel. Even though I completely regret sending it to him.

He said he's going to read it! Tonight!

Of course, J.P. said the same thing. But J.P. also told me I shouldn't sell myself short. Michael didn't say anything like that.

Then again, Michael's not my boyfriend. He doesn't have my best interests at heart the way J.P. does.

It was just so adorable how he said I was the inspiration for his inventing the CardioArm, though. Even if that was ages ago, and before we broke up.

He also said it was nice of me to let bygones be bygones with Lilly. He obviously doesn't know the truth. I mean that
I'm
not the one who's been holding a grudge all this time, but—

Oh, no. Grandmère's calling. I'm going to pick up, because I have a few things I want to say to her.

“Amelia?” Grandmère sounds like she's in a tunnel. I hear blow-drying in the background, though, so I know it's only because she's getting her hair done. “Where are you? Why aren't you answering any of my e-mails?”

“I have a better question for you, Grandmère. Why did you invite my ex-boyfriend and his family to my birthday party tomorrow night? And you better not say it's to butter him up so I can ask him for a CardioArm, because—”

“Well, of course that's why, Amelia,” Grandmère says. I hear a slapping noise, and then she says,
“Stop that, Paolo. I said not so much hair spray.”
To me she says, in a louder voice, “Amelia? Are you still there?”

Really, nothing she says or does should surprise me anymore. And yet, it does. Continuously.

“Grandmère,” I say. I'm mad. Really. This isn't just any ex-boyfriend. It's
Michael.
“You can't do this. You can't
use
people like this.”

“Amelia, don't be stupid. You want your father to win the election, don't you? We need one of those arm contraptions. As I think I told you. If you had done what I asked you and requested one from him, I wouldn't have had to send him and that horrible sister of his an invitation, and you wouldn't be placed in the awkward position of having to entertain your former paramour at your birthday soiree tomorrow night in front of your current paramour. Which I admit will be tricky…”

“Former—” I sputter. There's a pack of pubescent boys skateboarding nearby. I watch as one of them wipes out on a cement mound placed in the park for this purpose. I know exactly how he feels. “Grandmère, Michael was
not
my paramour. That word suggests that we were lovers, and we were
not
—”

“Paolo, I
told
you, not so much hair spray. Are you trying to gas me? Just look at poor Rommel, he's practically hyperventilating, his lung capacity isn't the same as a human's, you know!” Grandmère's voice is fading in and out. “Now, Mia, about your gown for tomorrow night. Chanel will be delivering it in the morning. Kindly let your mother know someone needs to be at your flat to receive it. This means your mother will have to stay home from her little art studio for once. Do you think she can handle that, or is it too much responsibility? Never mind, I already
know the answer to that question—”

My call-waiting is going off. It's Tina!

“Grandmère. This isn't over,” I inform her. “But I'm going now—”

“Don't you dare disconnect me, young lady. We haven't spoken about what we're going to do if the Domina Rei make an offer of membership to you tomorrow, as you know they're likely to. You—”

I know it's rude, but I've had quite enough of Grandmère. Really, thirty seconds of her is enough.

“Bye, Grandmère,” I say. And switch over to Tina. I'll deal with Grandmère's wrath later.

“Oh my God,” Tina says, the minute I pick up. “Where are you?”

“Washington Square Park,” I say. “Sitting on a bench. I just met Michael and spilled hot chocolate on his pants. We hugged good-bye. I smelled him.”

“You spilled hot chocolate on his pants?” Tina sounds confused. “You
smelled
him?”

“Yeah.” The skateboarders are all trying to outdo one another with their jumps, but most of them just keep crashing. Lars is watching them with a little smile on his face. I really hope he isn't thinking about asking one of them to borrow a skateboard to show them how it's done. “He smelled really, really good.”

There is a long pause as Tina digests this.

“Mia,” she says. “Did Michael smell better to you than J.P.?”

“Yes,” I say, in a small voice. “But he always has. J.P. smells like his dry cleaner.”

“Mia,” Tina says. “I thought you bought him some cologne.”

“I did. It didn't take.”

“Mia,” Tina says. “I
have
to talk to you. I think you better come over.”

“I can't,” I say. “I have to take my grandparents to the Central Park Zoo.”

“Then I'll meet you,” Tina says, “at the zoo.”

“Tina,” I say. “What's going on? What's so important that you can't tell me what you need to say over the phone?”

“Mia,” Tina says. “You
know
.”

She is wrong. I have no idea!

And it has to be something pretty bad if she's afraid TMZ might pick it up, and it would damage my dad in the polls even worse than he is doing now.

“Meet me inside the Edge of the Icepack penguin enclosure at four fifteen,” she says, sounding just like Kim Possible. If Kim Possible ever asked people to meet her inside penguin enclosures.

Still, I'm not surprised. Somehow, the Central Park Zoo penguin enclosure is where I always end up during my hours of darkest need.

“Can you just give me a hint?” I ask. “What does it have to do with? Boris? Michael? J.P.?”

“Your book,” Tina says. And hung up.

My
book
? What could my book have to do with anything? Unless…

Could it be
that
bad?

Great. And both J.P. and Michael are reading copies of
it
right now. RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!

I could throw up just thinking about it.

I should just go over to Eighth Street, buy a wig from one of the drag queen stores, and ditch town. I'm practically legal, and there's nothing left for me here. I've been humiliated in every way a person possibly can be. I might as well just grab a bus for Canada.

If only I could figure out a way to get rid of my bodyguard….