Princess in Love

by Meg Cabot

  One good thing about this tongue, though: if Kenny was thinking about moving on to Frenching, we totally can’t until I heal. And that could, according to Dr. Fung—whom my mom called as soon as Lars brought me home—take anywhere from three to ten days.

  Yes!

  TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT THE HOLIDAY SEASON IN NEW YORK CITY

  Tourists who come in from out of town in their giant sports utility vehicles and try to run you over at the crosswalks, thinking they are driving like aggressive New Yorkers. Actually, they are driving like morons. Plus there is enough pollution in this city. Why can’t they just take public transit, like normal people?

  Stupid Rockefeller Center tree. They asked me to be the person who throws the switch to light it this year, as I am considered “New York’s own Royal” in the press, but when I told them how cutting down trees contributes to the destruction of the ozone layer, they rescinded their invitation and had the mayor do it instead.

  Stupid Christmas carols blaring from outside all the stores.

  Stupid ice-skating with stupid boys who think they can skate backwards when they can’t.

  Pressure to buy stupid “meaningful” gifts for everyone you know.

  Final exams.

  Stupid lousy New York weather. No snow, just cold, wet rain, every single day. Whatever happened to a white Christmas? I’ll tell you: Global warming. You know why? Because everybody keeps driving SUVs and cutting down trees!

  Stupid manipulative Christmas specials on TV.

  Stupid manipulative Christmas commercials on TV.

  Mistletoe. This stuff should be banned. In the hands of adolescent boys, it becomes a societally approved excuse to demand kisses. This is sexual harassment, if you ask me.

  Plus all the wrong boys have it.

  Sunday, December 7

  Just got back from dinner at Grandmère’s. All of my efforts to get out of having to go—even my pointing out that I am currently suffering from a perforated tongue—were in vain.

  And this one was even worse than usual. That’s because Grandmère wanted to go over my itinerary for my trip to Genovia, which, by the way, looks like this:

  Sunday, December 21

  3 p.m.

  Arrive in Genovia

  3:30 p.m.–5 p.m.

  Meet and greet palace staff

  5 p.m.–7 p.m.

  Tour of palace

  7 p.m.–8 p.m.

  Change for dinner

  8 p.m.–11 p.m.

  Dinner with Genovian dignitaries

  Monday, December 22

  8 a.m.–9:30 a.m.

  Breakfast with Genovian public officials

  10 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

  Tour of Genovian public schools

  12 p.m.–1 p.m.

  Meet with Genovian schoolchildren

  1:30 p.m.–3 p.m.

  Lunch with members of Genovian Teachers Association

  3:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m.

  Tour of Port of Genovia and Genovian naval cruiser (the Prince Phillipe)

  5 p.m.–6 p.m.

  Tour of Genovian General Hospital

  6 p.m.–7 p.m.

  Visit with hospital patients

  7 p.m.–8 p.m.

  Change for dinner

  8 p.m.–11 p.m.

  Dinner with the dowager princess, prince, and Genovian military advisors

  Tuesday, December 23

  8 a.m.–9 a.m.

  Breakfast with members of Genovian Olive Growers Association

  10 a.m.–11 a.m.

  Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, Genovia Palace Courtyard

  11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.

  Meet with Genovian Historical Society

  1 p.m.–3 p.m.

  Lunch with Genovian Board of Tourism

  3:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m.

  Tour of Genovian National Art Museum

  6 p.m.–7 p.m.

  Visit Genovian War Veterans Memorial,

  place flowers on grave of Unknown Soldier

  7:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.

  Change for dinner

  8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m.

  Dinner with Royal Family of Monaco

  And so on.

  It all culminates in my appearance on my dad’s annual nationally televised Christmas Eve address to the people of Genovia, during which he will introduce me to the populace. I am then supposed to make a speech about how thrilled I am to be Dad’s heir, and how I promise to try to do as good a job as he has at leading Genovia into the twenty-first century.

  Nervous? Me? About going on TV and promising fifty thousand people that I won’t let their country down?

  Nah. Not me.

  I just want to throw up every time I think about it, that’s all.

  Whatever. Not that I thought my trip to Genovia was going to be like going to Disneyland, but still. You’d think they’d have scheduled in some fun time. I’m not even asking for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Just, like, some swimming or horseback riding.

  But apparently, there is no time for fun in Genovia.

  As if going over my itinerary wasn’t bad enough, I also had to meet my cousin Sebastiano. Sebastiano Grimaldi is my dead grandfather’s sister’s daughter’s kid. Which I guess actually makes him my cousin a couple times removed. But not removed enough that, if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be inheriting the throne to Genovia.

  Seriously. If my dad had died without ever having had a kid, Sebastiano would be the next prince of Genovia.

  Maybe that’s why my dad, every time he looks at Sebastiano, heaves this big shudder.

  Or maybe it’s just because my dad feels about Sebastiano the way I feel about my cousin Hank: I like him in theory, but in actual practice, he kind of bugs me.

  Sebastiano doesn’t bug Grandmère, though. You can tell that Grandmère just loves him. Which is really weird, because I always supposed Grandmère was incapable of loving anyone. Well, with the exception of Rommel, her miniature poodle.

  But you can tell she totally adores Sebastiano. When she introduced him to me, and he bowed with this big flourish and kissed the air above my hand, Grandmère was practically beaming beneath her pink silk turban. Really.

  I have never seen Grandmère beam before. Glare, plenty of times. But never beam.

  Which might be why my dad started chewing the ice in his whiskey and soda in a very irritated manner. Grandmère’s smile disappeared right away when she heard all that crunching.

  “If you want to chew ice, Phillipe,” Grandmère said, coldly, “you can go and have your dinner at McDonald’s with the rest of the proletariat.”

  My dad stopped chewing his ice.

  It turns out Grandmère brought Sebastiano over from Genovia so that he could design my dress for my nationally televised introduction to my countrymen. Sebastiano is a very up-and-coming fashion designer—at least according to Grandmère. She says it is important that Genovia supports its artists and craftspeople, or they will all flee to New York, or even worse, Los Angeles.

  Which is too bad for Sebastiano, since he looks like the type who might really enjoy living in LA. He is thirtyish, with long, dark hair tied back in a ponytail, and is all tall and flamboyant-looking. Like for instance, tonight, instead of a tie, Sebastiano was wearing a white silk ascot. And he had on a blue velvet jacket with leather pants.

  I am fully prepared to forgive Sebastiano for the leather pants if he designs me a dress that is nice enough. A dress that, should he happen to see me in it, will make Michael Moscovitz forget all about Judith Gershner and her fruit flies, and fill his head with nothing but thoughts of me, Mia Thermopolis.

  Only of course the chances of Michael ever actually seeing me in this dress are very slim, as my introduction to the Genovian people is only going to be on Genovian television, not CNN or anything.

  Still, Sebastiano seemed ready to rise to the challenge. After dinner, he even took out a pen and began sketching—right on the white tablecloth!—a design he thought might accentuate what he called my narrow waist and long
legs.

  Only, unlike my dad, who was born and raised in Genovia but speaks fluent English, Sebastiano doesn’t have a real keen grasp of the language. He kept forgetting the second syllables of words. So narrow became “nar.” Just like coffee became “coff,” and when he described something as magical, it came out as “madge.” Even the butter wasn’t safe. When Sebastiano asked me to please pass him the “butt,” I had to practically stuff my napkin in my mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

  All my efforts to stifle myself didn’t do any good, though, since Grandmère caught me and, raising one of her drawn-on eyebrows, went, “Amelia, kindly do not make light of other people’s speech habits. Your own are not even remotely perfect.”

  Which is certainly true, considering the fact that, with my swollen tongue, I can’t really say any word that starts with s.

  Not only did Grandmère not mind Sebastiano saying the word butt at the dinner table, she didn’t mind his drawing on the tablecloth, either. She looked down at his sketch and said, “Brilliant. Simply brilliant. As usual.”

  Sebastiano looked very pleased. “Do you real think so?” he asked.

  Only I didn’t think his sketch was so brilliant. It just looked like an ordinary dress to me. Certainly nothing to make anyone forget the fact that I’m about as likely to clone a fruit fly as I am to use animal-tested hair products.

  “Um,” I said. “Can’t you make it a little more . . . I don’t know . . . sexy?”

  Grandmère and Sebastiano exchanged looks. “Sexy?” Grandmère echoed, with an evil laugh. “How? By making it lower cut? But you haven’t got anything there to show!”

  Now, seriously. I would expect to hear this kind of thing from the cheerleaders at school, who have made demeaning other people—especially me—a sort of new Olympic sport. But what kind of person says things like this to her only grandchild? I had meant, of course, a side slit, or maybe some fringe. I wasn’t asking for anything Jennifer Lopez-ish.

  But trust Grandmère to turn it into something like that. Why do I have to be cursed with a grandmother who shaves off her eyebrows and seems to enjoy making light of my inadequacies? Why can’t I have a normal grandmother, who bakes me cookies and can’t stop bragging to her friends in her bridge club about how wonderful I am?

  It was while Grandmère and Sebastiano were cackling to themselves over this great witticism at my expense that my dad abruptly got up and left the table, saying he had to make a call. I suppose it’s every man for himself where Grandmère is concerned, but you would think my own father would stick up for me once in a while.

  I don’t know, maybe I was feeling odd about the giant hole in my tongue (which doesn’t even have a nice hypoallergenic stud in it so I can pretend to have done it on purpose to be controversial). I sat there listening to Grandmère and Sebastiano chatter away about how pathetic it was that I would never be able to wear anything strapless, unless some miracle of nature occurred one night that inflated me from a 32A to a 34C, and I couldn’t help thinking that probably, given my luck, it will turn out that Sebastiano isn’t in town just to design me a dress for my royal introduction, but to kill me so that he can assume the throne of Genovia himself.

  Or, as Sebastiano would say, “ass” the throne.

  Seriously. That kind of stuff happens on Baywatch all the time. You wouldn’t believe the number of royal family members Mitch has had to save from assassination.

  Like supposing I put on the dress that Sebastiano has designed for me to wear when I’m introduced to the people of Genovia, and it ends up squeezing me to death, just like that corset Snow White puts on in the original version of the story by the Brothers Grimm. You know, the part they left out of the Disney movie because it was too gruesome.

  Anyway, what if the dress squeezes me to death, and then I’m lying in my coffin, looking all pale and queenly, and Michael comes to my funeral and ends up gazing down at me and doesn’t realize until right then that he has always loved me?

  Then he’ll have to break up with Judith Gershner.

  Hey. It could happen.

  Okay, well, probably not, but thinking about that was better than listening to Grandmère and Sebastiano talk about me as if I weren’t even there. Seriously. I was roused from my pleasant little fantasy about Michael pining for me for the rest of his life by Sebastiano saying suddenly, “She has bute bone struck,” which, when I realized I was the she he was referring to, I took to be a compliment about my bone structure.

  Only a second later it wasn’t such a compliment when he went, “I put makeup on her that make her look like a mod.”

  Implying I don’t look like a model without makeup (although of course I don’t).

  Grandmère certainly wasn’t about to come to my defense, however. She was feeding bits of her leftover veal marsala to Rommel, who was sitting on her lap, shivering as usual, since all of his fur has fallen out due to canine allergies.

  “I wouldn’t count on her father letting you,” she said to Sebastiano. “Phillipe is hopelessly old-fashioned.”

  Which is so the pot calling the kettle black! I mean, Grandmère still thinks that cats go around trying to suck the breath out of their owners while they are sleeping. Seriously. She is always trying to convince me to give Fat Louie away.

  So while Grandmère was going on about how old-fashioned her son is, I got up and joined him on the balcony.

  He was checking his messages on his cell phone. He’s supposed to play racquetball tomorrow with the prime minister of France, who is in town for the same summit as the emperor of Japan.

  “Mia,” he said, when he saw me. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing. Go back inside.”

  “I will, in a minute,” I said. I stood there next to him and looked out over the city. It really is kind of awe-inspiring, the view of Manhattan from the penthouse of the Plaza Hotel. I mean, you look at all those lights in all those windows, and you think, for each light there’s probably at least one person, but maybe even more, maybe even like ten people, and that’s, well, pretty mind-boggling.

  I’ve lived in Manhattan my whole life. But it still impresses me.

  Anyway, while I was standing there looking at all the lights, I suddenly realized that one of them probably belonged to Judith Gershner. Judith was probably sitting in her room right this moment cloning something new. A pigeon, or whatever. I got yet another flashback of her and Michael looking down at me after I’d split open my tongue. Hmmm, let me see: girl who can clone things, or girl who bit her own tongue? I don’t know, who would you choose?

  My dad must have noticed something was wrong, since he went, “Look, I know Sebastiano is a bit much, but just put up with him for the next couple of weeks. For my sake.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about Sebastiano,” I said sadly.

  My dad made this grunting noise, but he made no move to go back inside, even though it was about forty degrees out there, and my dad, well, he’s completely bald. I could see that the tips of his ears were getting red with cold, but still he didn’t budge. He didn’t even have a coat on, just another one of his charcoal-gray Armani suits.

  I figured this was invitation enough to go on. You see, ordinarily my dad is not who I would go to first if I had a problem. Not that we’re not close. It’s just that, you know, he’s a guy.

  On the other hand, he’s had a lot of experience in the romance department, so I figured he might just be able to offer some insight into this particular dilemma.

  “Dad,” I said. “What do you do if you like someone, but they don’t, you know, know it?”

  My dad went, “If Kenny doesn’t know you like him by now, then I’m afraid he’s never going to get the message. Haven’t you been out with him every weekend since Halloween?”

  This is the problem with having a bodyguard who is on your father’s payroll: All of your personal business totally gets discussed behind your back.

  “I’m not talking about Kenny, Dad,” I said. “It’s someone else. Only lik
e I said, he doesn’t know I like him.”

  “What’s wrong with Kenny?” my dad wanted to know. “I like Kenny.”

  Of course my dad likes Kenny. Because the chances of me and Kenny ever getting past first base are like, nil. What father doesn’t want his teenage daughter to date a guy like that?

  But if my dad has any serious hope of keeping the Genovian throne in the hands of the Renaldos, and not allowing it to slip into Sebastiano’s control, he had better get over the whole Kenny thing, because I’m pretty sure that Kenny and I will not be doing any procreating. In this lifetime, anyway.

  “Dad,” I said. “Forget Kenny, okay? Kenny and I are just friends. I’m talking about someone else.”

  My dad was looking over the side of the balcony railing like he wanted to spit. Not that he ever would. I don’t think. “Do I know him? This someone else, I mean?”

  I hesitated. I’ve never really admitted to anyone out loud that I have a crush on Michael. Really. Not to anybody. I mean, who could I tell? Lilly would just make fun of me, or worse, tell Michael. And Mom, well, she’s got her own problems.

  “It’s Lilly’s brother,” I said in a rush, to get it over with.

  My dad looked alarmed. “Isn’t he in college?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “He’s going in the fall.” When he still looked alarmed, I said, “Don’t worry, Dad. I don’t stand a chance. Michael is very smart. He’d never like someone like me.”

  Then my dad got all offended. It was like he couldn’t figure out which to be, worried about my liking a senior, or angry that that senior didn’t like me back.

  “What do you mean, he’d never like someone like you?” my father demanded. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Duh, Dad,” I said. “I practically flunked Algebra, remember? Michael is going to an Ivy League school in the fall, for crying out loud. What would he want with a girl like me?”