Royally Crushed (46 page)

“Shouldn’t you wear a dress?”

“Bite your tongue.” Hell, no!

A pair of wrinkles mars the space between his brows. I have to admit, he looks pretty damned good for a school dance chaperone. Not like the usual dowdy parent or substitute gym teacher they rope in for these things. But that doesn’t give him permission to nag me.

To change the subject, I gesture toward the garment bag he has looped over his forearm and raise a brow. He’d better not be changing into any outfit requiring a garment bag. What he has on is uptight enough.

“Oh, this is Prince Georg’s tuxedo. I was just about to take it over to his family’s apartments.”

“Why do you have his tux? I thought all his good clothes were done by the cleaners downstairs.” One of the perks of being a prince is having a dry cleaner right there in the palace to get his clothes looking good at a moment’s notice. Of course, the downside is that Georg actually has to wear tuxes. Regularly. The dinner parties he has to attend with his parents are nothing like Natalie’s with her dad’s dentist pals.

Dad grabs his wallet from the kitchen counter and pockets it. “I offered to pick it up while I was getting my own suits this afternoon. He mentioned that he had an Academy Awards party to attend tonight and I suggested he wear Dolce and Gabbana. Don’t you think he’ll look good in it?”

Great. Now Dad’s offering Georg style tips? I suppose it does come with his job, but it’s just wrong for my own father to go making my boyfriend look good when he’s going to be out without me. And where there’ll probably be a bunch of gorgeous—and rich—chicks flirting with him.

“I guess. So, um, where’s this party Georg’s going to?” If Dad’s dressing him for it, maybe he has some info.

“I’d have to look at my calendar; I can’t remember offhand,” Dad says, heading for the apartment door. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll go pick
up Anna and we can head over to the hotel. All right?”

“All righty!”

My enthusiasm is so obviously faked that Dad pauses with the door open to glare at me. “I think this evening will be fun, Valerie. Don’t write it off as a waste of your time until you’ve given it a chance. Attitude is everything.” He even has the gall to hold up Georg’s tux and tell me that Georg’s making the most of the night and that I should follow his example.

I plaster a smile on my face and wave him out the door.

The sooner he goes, the sooner we can get to the dance and the sooner this whole wretched night will be over.

I decide to do one last e-mail check while Dad’s gone, just to see if the A-listers have sent me their last-minute Oscar picks (since half the fun of the evening is seeing who’s best at predicting the winners). Nada from any of them. But there is one from a familiar address.

“Ulrike really did a fantastic job. It’s beautiful in here and insane at the same time,” Maya tells me. And she’s right. The doors have opened, the place is packed, and everyone is jamming to Helmut’s (surprisingly modern and dance-y) tunes. But despite the kickin’ music, there’s a surreal air to it all. There actually are chandeliers in this place—and they’re amazing. I keep catching myself staring at them, analyzing the way the light reflects off the hundreds of tiny crystals. Even the walls in this place are beautiful. They’re a
rich nutmeg color with gold-painted trim. There are heavy velvet curtains tied back with gold cord alongside each of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Other than the thumping music and the fact that everyone’s dressed like they just walked out of the trendiest European shops, you’d think the place was taken straight from the pages of “Cinderella.”

If Georg were here, I’d be having the time of my life.

As it is, I have to admit that things aren’t that bad. I’ve been hanging out at the refreshment table (put in the proper place at the proper time by the guys, just as their to-do list instructed), and Ulrike has finally relaxed now that everything’s in full swing. Maya’s been dancing like crazy, even to classic Snoop Dogg. (I can’t believe they have old Snoop Dogg in Schwerinborg, but they do . . . and everyone knows the words just as well as they do to the bizarro German pop songs I couldn’t begin to sing.)

I hand Maya an extra-large glass of the free punch Ulrike convinced the hotel to provide. As she slugs it down, I say, “You ought to tell Ulrike. I think she’s just now figuring out that this is all going to be okay.”

Maya laughs. “Remember how I said I wouldn’t volunteer because I thought I’d mess up? Total lie. I’ve seen Ulrike put these dances together before. I know how she gets. I volunteered last time and swore I’d come up with an excuse if she asked again. Did she make you call the
hotel a million times asking the same questions?”

I shake my head. “Nope. DJ.”

“Well, I’ll go find her and tell her it’s all marvelous. You get out and dance, okay? I know Prince Georg couldn’t make it, but . . .” She looks around, like she’s expecting Steffi to pop up. “Well, if he’d come, I bet he’d have danced with you. I think he kind of likes you, even if he acts like he doesn’t.”

I try not to give myself away by smiling too big. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Just don’t tell Steffi I said so. You haven’t seen her, have you?”

When I shake my head, Maya says, “Wonder where she is tonight? Guess we’ll hear on Monday if she doesn’t show.”

She flips her empty punch cup into the trash bin, then waves a good-bye as she sways back onto the dance floor. It’s a mass of people out there, but she fits right in.

I wish I could. Maybe I could forget about Georg for a while. And about Steffi’s mysterious absence. Not that I want her here, but it’s odd. It’s making me wonder if she figured out where Georg would be and finagled an invite somehow.

I grab a cup of punch and sling it back. I’ve gotta stop my imagination from taking over my good sense.

“I think we’re going to manage without any major glitches,” Ulrike says, walking up behind me. “Do you think?”

She still sounds nervous. Unbelievable. “Ulrike, you
think
? Look around you. Everyone’s having a blast!” Well, everyone except me. I’m just counting off the minutes.

“I know, I know. I get a little uptight about having things turn out okay. But if I didn’t, who would?” She puts an arm around my shoulders—easy for her to do, since she’s so much taller than I am—and gives me a quickie hug. “Thanks for tolerating me the last couple days. I know I can be a pain, but I couldn’t have pulled this off without you. Helmut’s really good, isn’t he?”

I agree that Helmut’s keeping the place on fire. I look over to where he’s set up near the front of the ballroom. I expected someone named Helmut to be hairy and very hippie-ish, I guess. But he’s actually pretty young—maybe college-age or a little older—and decent-looking, too.

I take a step to the side so I can get a better look at him and I realize he’s talking to none other than Fräulein Predator.

Geez. She’s probably telling him his music has inappropriate lyrics or something.

“You know Fräulein Putzkammer, right?” Ulrike says, following my gaze over to the DJ and Anna. “She’s the chaperone your dad suggested.”

“Yeah, I do,” I say, trying to keep from spitting as I talk. Thinking about The Fräulein makes me want to do that, though I know it shouldn’t.

“She was so excited when she found out Helmut was going to be the DJ,” Ulrike says. “Can you believe they already knew each other? How’s that for a coincidence?”

“Wild,” I say, totally not caring. Besides, doesn’t it figure that someone named Putzkammer would hang out with a guy named Helmut?

“By the way,” I ask her, “you know how last names have meanings? Like someone told me last week that Schmidt in German is the same as Smith in English.”

“Sure.”

“What in the world does
Putzkammer
mean?”

One side of her mouth hooks up in a grin. “
Putz
has a lot of meanings, but in this case, I would guess it’s closest to the English word ‘clean’ or ‘fine.’
Kammer
is, literally, ‘chamber.’”

“Like ‘house cleaner’?” Not predator? Or ho?

“Not really.” She frowns for a sec, then says, “
Putzkammer
is a lot more formal than ‘house cleaner.’ More like, um . . . what’s the English word? Oh . . . ‘chamberlain’! That’s it. Same idea, though.”

Leave it to The Fräulein to actually have a name that’s hoity-toity in German. “Thanks.”

She smiles. “You’ll start getting better at German. It’s great you’re working so hard at it.”

I mumble something nonsensical, ’cause I’m gonna let her go right on thinking that.

After a few minutes, I urge Ulrike to take a break and go dance, assuring her that I can handle giving out cups of punch by myself and that I won’t allow anyone to sneak over with a bottle of liquor and pour it in the bowl. But despite my promise, I have a hard time keeping my undivided attention on the punch bowl. I can’t stop sneaking peeks at Anna and the DJ. How they’re talking over the music is beyond me, but they seem to be laughing it up, like hanging out together at a high school dance is the coolest thing in the world.

Guess it’ll keep her from doing something to embarrass me. Like asking Dad to dance.

I force myself to grab a stool from the wall so I can sit facing away from them. I stare out at the mass of bodies on the dance floor, watching everyone shake their hips and wave their hands in the air as they sing along with the music.

I know I look pathetic. It’s like I’m the ultimate wallflower, hanging out dateless at a girls-ask-guys dance, handing out cups of Schwerinborg’s knock-off version of Kool-Aid. And what’s worse, even though everyone’s required to speak English when we’re at school (that’s the whole point of
English immersion, I suppose), there’s no such restriction here. So most of the conversations are in German, the one language God never intended for me to speak.

I can’t help but feel distinctly apart from it all.

If my life were a movie, this would be the point when the whole dance floor would go silent and everyone would turn toward the doors. The crowd would part and I’d see Georg standing there in the open doorway, scanning the crowd for someone. Everyone would wonder who, but then his gaze would fall on me.

And he’d smile. A cheesy, movie-moment type of smile.

Everyone would ooh and aah as he strode through the room (and he really would stride, what with his soccer muscles and all), and he’d sweep me onto the dance floor and the whole world would know that he loves me.

But no. Instead, I get Dad. Sneaking up behind me.

“Are you having fun, honey?”

“I dunno.” I gesture toward the DJ’s setup. “She gonna request Bowie?”

He must’ve been expecting a cynical comment out of me, ’cause he grabs an empty stool, pulls it up beside mine, and says, “Oh, don’t be that way.”

“What way?”

“Fifteen and female and pouty.”

“Well, I am fifteen and I am female, and there’s nothing
wrong with that. And I won’t even address the pouting.”

I’m
so
not pouting. I
feel
like pouting, but I think I’m actually doing a good job of appearing to be a perky little volunteer here, handing out punch and selling the occasional bottle of water.

“It’s not so bad having me here as a chaperone, is it?”

I slide a sideways look at him. I can’t help but crack up, because he looks so stiff and formal compared to everyone here, even if he is more laid back than most adults. “No, Dad, you’re fine. Just don’t try to dance, okay?”

“Not to worry. Not my kind of music.”

So long as The Fräulein doesn’t finagle a special request. Although—as both of us glance over at Anna—I find myself wondering if Dad and Anna have ever danced together. If he has visions of himself sweeping her off her feet and onto the dance floor, kind of the way I was fantasizing about Georg.

Though it’s possible he’s simply thinking about sweeping her away from Helmut.

“She seems like she’s having a good time, doesn’t she?” Dad says, sounding pleased.

“Um, yeah.”

“The DJ’s her cousin’s boyfriend. They’ve known each other for years. I think she’s getting caught up on family gossip.”

So much for sweeping her away from a rival.

“I guess things are going pretty well with you two, if she agreed to come to the dance as a chaperone,” I venture. I have to admit, ever since Ulrike told me about Dad volunteering to come—and bringing The Fräulein—I’ve wondered how fast things are going between them.

“They’re still casual,” he says, knowing where my thoughts must be going. “We’re not even exclusive. But if it gets more serious, I’ll let you know.”

We’re not even exclusive?
I turn to face him. “You know I don’t mean to be a butthead about it. If you want to go out with her—exclusive or not—I’ll try to be happy for you. I’ll even call her Anna if she really wants me to.”

As long as I don’t have to think about Dad and Anna having kids together, I think I can push the pause button on my Opposition to The Fräulein mentality.

Dad fakes like he’s going to knock me off the stool. “I didn’t raise you to use words like ‘butthead.’”