by Meg Cabot
Michael’s a pretty good present giver, though, so I trust his is going to be better.
And it’s a new year, so I’m going to spend it taking Paolo’s advice: figuring out how to make these diamond shoes work for me.
The people I’ve heard from so far (that I actually know, though not necessarily intimately) include:
1. My mom and half brother, Rocky (singing “Happy Birthday” together).
This is the first year I’ve heard them without Mr. Gianini accompanying on his drum set. That made me a little sad. But when I called them back (I only spoke to Mom, because she’d already dropped Rocky off at school), she sounded upbeat. It’s good that she’s doing so well, because I sometimes wonder if she’s just masking her grief by throwing herself into her work like the bereaved single moms I always see on made-for-TV movies, where the ghost of the deceased husband is watching over her and the kids until they cute-meet a new guy.
This time Mom mentioned she’d seen a piece on Dad’s arrest on Access Hollywood and wanted to know if I think he’s on drugs, and if so, did I think we should get together to do an intervention?
I said no to both.
This actually makes me think Mom’s getting back to her normal sassy self (and that Mr. Gianini has moved on to heaven or his next life or whatever, because if he were a ghost he would definitely never steer her in Dad’s direction).
2. The president (of the United States. I’m pretty sure it was prerecorded, though).
3. Ex–college suite mates, Shawna and Pamela, who now share an apartment over their shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that sells artisanal mayonnaise.
4. The Windsors (despite what some people say about them, they’re all actually very sweet).
5. Tina Hakim Baba. (She was trying so hard to sound chipper. I know Michael said I should listen to Boris’s side of the story, but would it be so wrong if instead, the next time I happen to be in the same room as Boris, I tell Lars that I thought I saw a weapon on him? A body cavity search by the Royal Genovian Guard could teach him a valuable lesson.)
6. My father, hoping I have a very happy twenty-fifth birthday. Which is great, except that I turned twenty-six today. But since it’s my birthday, I’m choosing to be magnanimous. (He’s never gotten my age right. Once he gave me a birthday card with my name spelled wrong. But at least that meant he’d addressed it himself.)
7. Ling Su and Perin. I totally made it a point not to mention my b-day to anyone at work, so I have no idea how they remembered. This is an example, though, of Perin’s extremely high-level organizational skills, and why I’m glad I hired her.
8. Ex-high-school-nemesis Lana Weinberger (I mean Rockefeller. So hard to remember that she goes by her married name now).
This was surprising since I haven’t talked to Lana in ages, even though she lives just up the block from here, on Park and Seventieth (in Penthouse L, as she always makes a point to remind us. She even had it emblazoned in block letters on her monogrammed wedding and baby announcements).
Lana left a long, rambling message about how we need to spend more time together because Best Friends Are Forever! and it’s been way too long and she knows I’m super involved with this “after-school thing” I’ve started for “all the juvenile delinquents” (even though I explained to her last time I saw her that it’s a community center open to all students in the five boroughs, not just ones with criminal records), but couldn’t I “take one day off from being a politically correct do-gooder to get a mani-pedi and bikini wax, for old time’s sake?”
“Also,” she went on, “there’s something really super important I need to talk to you about, just a teeny tiny favor that only you could help me with, Mia, so can you please call back as soon as possible? Okay, bye-yeeee bitch!”
The good thing about being in one’s midtwenties is that you know nothing bad is going to happen if you don’t return people’s texts and voice mails . . . especially the texts and voice mails of people who probably only want to use you for your fortune or political connections.
9. Shameeka Taylor. Shameeka wanted to say how sorry she is about the protesters (who are gone today, thank God. I guess Grandmère was right—either that or Cousin Ivan only paid them to protest for one day) and that everything is going well with the new boyfriend (even though he was only supposed to be a one-night stand, but he makes such amazing breakfasts that she’s decided to let him turn into a thirty-night stand) and she appreciates my wearing the red Vera suit (she does marketing for Vera Wang) to the benefit for victims of Hurricane Julio.
• Note to self: Did she send me the suit, or did I buy it? I seriously don’t even remember. Check into this.
Am I doing so many public events these days that they’ve all begun to blur? Am I slipping into early-onset dementia? How early does early-onset dementia begin, and what are the symptoms besides forgetting where my clothing comes from? Is one of the symptoms a twitching eyelid?
Or is it the Tylenol PM? I know I’ve only just started taking it, but seriously, I can’t even remember falling asleep, let alone any of my dreams.
And finally:
10. My ex-boyfriend J. P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV. I can’t believe he had the nerve to contact me.
Oh, wait, I forgot: he’s J.P.
Anyway, he posted the following on my Instagram (where, of course, EVERYONE can see it).
And even though at the restorative yoga class I took with Grandmère to prove to her that yoga isn’t so bad and she should do it to improve her joint health, the yogi said that hatred bars the path to spiritual enlightenment, I really do hate J.P. Or at least dislike him a lot:
Mia, I’ve been following you on social media. May I just say I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become? You look more beautiful every day. I don’t understand why Michael hasn’t proposed yet. I’m sorry the press is now calling you “Why Won’t He Marry Mia.”
Really? He had to bring that up? Also, he had to mention that I look great, nothing about everything I’ve accomplished, like founding the Community Center or the op-ed piece I just had published in the Wall Street Journal?
Then he made things worse by listing his own accomplishments.
I’ve been keeping quite busy! As you know, I’ve always had a creative side. Screen- and playwriting have always been my thing in the past, but to my surprise, this winter I was inspired to write a novel! Even more surprising, it’s a YA novel set in the dystopian future featuring a love triangle centered around a racially diverse, strong-minded heroine who is also suffering from radiation poisoning.
Of course it is. Because J.P. knows so much about all of those things, being a white male who has never suffered from radiation poisoning and doesn’t know anyone who is racially diverse (except Shameeka and Ling Su and Tina, and they stopped being friends with him long ago, after what he did to me).
The words just seemed to pour out of me. I think it might even end up being a trilogy!
Of course.
Since you’re a published author, Mia, I was hoping if I sent Love in the Time of Shadows to you, you’d read it and give me your thoughts, and also perhaps send it on to your editor. (Do take your time, I know how busy you must be, especially dealing with your father’s arrest. And I was so sorry to hear about Frank, by the way. Please give my regards to your mother.)
Of course he had to bring up my stepfather’s death and my father’s arrest. BECAUSE IN HIS MIND THESE TWO THINGS ARE EQUALLY BAD.
OMG, I seriously hope J.P. gets radiation poisoning, then has to go live in the dystopian future.
Oh, wait. Maybe he already does:
Unfortunately things haven’t been going so well for me recently either. My latest film, which I wrote and also produced and directed, Nymphomania 3-D, was not well received by critics (or audiences). I am really in the hole to my investors, and have been forced to take a job working here in the city at my uncle’s company. But I won’t bore you with the details!
Too late.
Thank you, Mia. Despi
te what you might think, I will always love you and wish things could have turned out differently between us.
XOXO J.P.
Ugh. UGH UGH UGH UGH.
Someone with full cognitive development who is also self-actualized would never take pleasure in the pain of someone else—even their ex-boyfriend who completely betrayed them and who has now fallen on hard times and made a movie called Nymphomania 3-D (which, by the way, I looked up and it’s about “a young girl’s sensual journey from frigidity to sexual awakening in the arms of a skilled older lover” who also happens to be a writer named John Paul)—but I’m going to be honest:
It’s possible this is the best birthday present I’ve ever received. Because it gives me free rein not to feel the least bit bad about COMPLETELY HATING J.P.
But because I’m a princess, instead of reveling in J.P.’s pain, I’ll simply write back to him and tell him “Thanks for the birthday wishes” and to send his book along, but that since I’m quite busy, I don’t know how long it will be before I can read it, if ever.
(Wrong: I will read it immediately and laugh and laugh at how stupid it is. Plus I’m going to make sure to get a copy of Nymphomania 3-D and play it in the palace theater and laugh at that, too.)
(Well, probably not, because it sounds completely disgusting.)
It’s not all good news, though.
RateTheRoyals.com chimed in to let me know my royal popularity rating has now sunk to an all-time low, “thanks to recent highly publicized events.” This has now made me less popular than a royal baby.
Thanks, Rate the Royals. Happy birthday to me.
CHAPTER 11
9:05 a.m., Friday, May 1
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
Rate the Royals Rating: 5
Marie Rose just arrived with breakfast (Belgian waffles still hot from the kitchen downstairs and a soft-boiled egg with buttered toast and a pot of steaming hot Genovian black tea with milk and fresh squeezed juice).
I told her she didn’t have to keep doing this—she’s supposed to be the chef for the consulate general, not me—but she only rolled her eyes and said, “C’est pas grave.”
She is a lovely woman and a true patriot of the sovereign city-state, though she got her green card in 1997, and both her daughters are American citizens.
Of course Marie Rose checked Rate the Royals, too. She says the site is an outrage and ought to be shut down. She says I’m “definitely a four,” right after Kate, William, and Prince Harry. Royal babies, she said, shouldn’t count.
“On good days, after having had your hair blown out, Princesse,” she says, “you’re probably a two, after Kate, or maybe even a one if Paolo’s used that airbrush makeup that makes your skin look so smooth on high-definition television.”
I tried to explain to her that Rate the Royals is not an attractiveness rating scale, but a popularity ranking,* but she’s staying firm.
*Not that rating women on a numerical scale of attractiveness is ever okay, even when we do it to ourselves. It is always sexist and wrong. Popularity rankings are not much better, though, because they’re basically about how well a celebrity—in this case, a person born into a royal family—is marketing themselves, which is an exhausting job in and of itself.
I wish I could take Marie Rose with me everywhere I go. But of course it’s rude to poach other people’s staff.
I’m sure my current unpopularity has nothing whatsoever to do with yesterday’s events (sarcasm).
According to Brian Fitzpatrick (founder and developer of Rate the Royals), the lowest-ranked royals in the world right now (besides me) are:
1. His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Faisal, crown prince and deputy supreme commander of Qalif, who only last night imposed martial law after his own wife was found trying to flee across the border into Saudi Arabia.
2. My father, the Crown Prince Regent of Genovia, Artur Christoff Phillipe Gérard Grimaldi Renaldo (no surprise).
3. My grandmother, the Dowager Princess Clarisse Renaldo (who, I’m sure, would take great pride in her unpopularity, if she knew about it. Grandmère loves being number one, even if it’s Number One Most Despised Royal).
This is no doubt due to a paparazzo managing to snap a photo of her taking a long drag from her electronic cigarette outside the Manhattan House of Detention when she went to post bail for Dad.
She probably would have gotten away with this and even had her Royal Rating boosted up a few points (in a isn’t-it-funny-when-you-see-old-ladies-smoking kind of way) if Grandmère hadn’t noticed the photog and then smacked him in the head as hard as she could with her $20,000 Birkin bag.
Not that I blame her. I feel like smacking paparazzos in the head all the time, though I, of course, would never do so with a $20,000 bag, because I
a) would never buy a $20,000 bag, and
b) restrain myself.
But of course the photog got a picture of my grandmother hitting him, which he’s using in a suit against the principality of Genovia for $200 million in damages, something else the protesters brought up, like it’s coming out of their personal pockets (no).
• Note to self: Would a paparazzo ever earn that much snapping photos of unsuspecting celebrities in his/her lifetime? Probably not unless he/she wins the lottery, and that tiny scratch is hardly going to prevent this guy from buying Powerball tickets.
Anyway, I still feel a bit guilty, because it wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone down to White Street to post Dad’s bail. He did ask me first, but I was so angry that he could have done something so stupid, I said, “Dad, when someone gets arrested, they’re supposed to call their lawyer or their parents for help, not their children.”
Then I hung up on him.
Ugh, that sounds awful.
But honestly, he’s supposed to be setting a good example, not getting arrested in foreign countries for speeding race cars down public streets, especially right before an election. It’s one thing to be going through a midlife crisis because your cousin is beating you in the election for prime minister and the woman you’ve allegedly been in love with for some time is now finally available but doesn’t seem to know—or care—that you are alive.
It’s quite another to try to get that woman’s attention by driving your newly acquired vintage Formula One race car at a hundred and eighty miles per hour down one of the most highly trafficked highways in the world. He could have been killed . . . or worse, killed someone else.
I hope I impressed upon him the gravity of the situation.
And really, what worse punishment is there than to have to face the Dowager Princess of Genovia after having spent the night in a jail nicknamed “The Tombs”? I can’t think of any.
Frankly, Dad’s lucky that paparazzo came along when he did, otherwise he’s the one who would have been hit by that Birkin.
Still, a part of me can’t help feeling like this is all my own fault (not what happened to Dad, of course, or what Grandmère did. They’re responsible for their own actions, but how rotten I feel right now). Why did I click on Rate the Royals????
Dominique is always saying to me in her thick French accent: “Your ’ighness, why do you do this to yourself? Stop going online! Nothing good evair comes from going online. You will only see something terrible that will make you feel bad, like that princesses can’t be feminist role models, or another comment from your crazy stalker about ’ow ’e would like to kill you!”
Dominique is right. It’s ridiculous how one critical remark can ruin your whole day. After all these years, why do I still let it? I should know better. I’m a college-educated, vital, attractive, newly-turned-twenty-six-year-old woman, with meaningful employment, a loving (if sometimes challenging) family, an amazing boyfriend, loads of great friends, and tons to offer the world.
So what do I care what some nutcase on Rate the Royals says? Screw Rate the Royals. Everyone knows that if 95 percent of the people don’t hate you, you’re n
ot doing your job right.
So I’m going to ignore the haters, get out of this bed, and get to work doing what human beings were put on this planet to do: leave it a better place than they found it.
(Which is something Rate the Royals will never be able to say it’s done.)
P.S.
Oh, Lord, I see I once again forgot to add tea bags to my grocery-store delivery list, so as soon as I’m done with this pot Marie Rose brought me, I’m out.
But for some reason I have tons of cookies, ice cream, cheese popcorn, and cat food. At least Fat Louie will be all right. He has a plethora of varieties to choose from in his finicky old age.
I’m sure if Rate the Royals saw how incredibly giving and kind I am to the animals, it would be worth another point. Prince Harry doesn’t even own a cat.
P.P.S.
No! I must stop this! I don’t care! I’m not going to stoop to the level of Brian Fitzpatrick. You thought you would bring me down, didn’t you, Brian? But all you’ve done is make me more determined than ever to conquer the universe with my wit, charm, and kindness.
P.P.P.S.
Would having the Royal Genovian Guard look up the ISP address of Rate the Royals and then send Brian Fitzpatrick a cease and desist be an abuse of my powers? Check on this. Because this is what I’d really like to do for my birthday.
Aside from getting out of seeing Cirque du Soleil tonight. And, of course, sending Brian Fitzpatrick a box filled with deadly scorpions.
CHAPTER 12
9:25 a.m., Friday, May 1
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
Rate the Royals Rating: 5
Was getting out of the shower when I got the following text(s):
Michael Moscovitz “FPC”: Picking you up in exactly one hour for a birthday surprise. Take the bag Marie Rose has packed for you and meet me in the consulate lobby. Don’t bring your laptop. There’s no Internet where we’re going.
