Forever Princess

  “And I ought to have told you about it from the beginning,” Michael interrupted.

  “Even so,” I said. “I acted like a complete and utter psycho—”

  “No, Mia, you didn’t—”

  “Oh my God,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him with a laugh. “Can we please not try to rewrite history? I did. You were right to break up with me. Things were getting too intense. We both needed a breather.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “A breather. You weren’t supposed to go and get engaged to someone else in the meantime.”

  For a second after he said it, I couldn’t inhale. I felt as if all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out of it, or something. I just stared at him, not sure I’d heard him correctly. Had he really said…was it possible he’d really…?

  Then he laughed, and, as the waiter came back to pick up his empty salad plate (I’d barely touched mine), said, “Just kidding. Look, I knew it was a risk. I couldn’t have expected you were going to wait around for me forever. You can get engaged—or, what is it? Right, friendship-ringed—to whomever you want. I’m just glad you’re happy.”

  Wait. What was happening?

  I didn’t know what to do or say. Grandmère had prepared me for tons of situations—from dealing with thieving maids to escaping from embassies during coups d’etat.

  But honestly, nothing could have prepared me for this.

  Was my ex-boyfriend really intimating that he wanted to get back together?

  Or was I reading too much into things? (It wouldn’t be the first time.)

  Fortunately just then our main courses came, and Michael steered the conversation back to normal ground like nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had happened. Suddenly we were talking about whether or not Joss Whedon will ever make a Buffy the Vampire Slayer feature film and how much Karen Allen rocks and Boris’s concert and Michael’s company and Dad’s campaign. For two people with relatively nothing in common (because, let’s face it, he’s a robotic-surgical-arm designer. I’m a romance writer…and a princess. I love musicals and he hates them. Oh, and we have totally dissimilar DNA) we have never, ever run out of things to say to each other.

  Which is completely weird.

  Then, without my knowing quite how, we got to Lilly.

  “Has your dad seen the commercial she made for him?” Michael asked.

  “Oh,” I said, smiling. “Yes! It was wonderful. I couldn’t believe it. Was that…did you have something to do with that?”

  “Well,” Michael said, smiling too. “She wanted to do it. But…I might have encouraged her a little. I can’t believe you two still aren’t friends again, after all this time.”

  “We aren’t not friends,” I said, remembering what Lilly had told me about how he’d said she had to be nice to me. “We just…I don’t know what happened, really. She never would tell me.”

  “She’d never tell me, either,” Michael said. “You really have no idea?”

  I flashed back to an image of Lilly’s face as we sat in G&T that day she told me J.P. had broken up with her. I’d always wondered if that had been it. Could this whole thing have been over a boy? Is that what I was being so dense about?

  But that would be so stupid. Lilly wasn’t the type of person to let something as dumb as a boy get in the way of a friendship. Not with her best friend.

  “I really,” I said, “have no idea.”

  The dessert menus came, and Michael insisted on ordering one of each dessert, so we could try them all (because this was a celebration), while he told me stories about the cultural differences in Japan—how one takeout restaurant delivered meals in actual china bowls that he’d place outside his door when he was finished eating, and the restaurant would come back to pick them up, which takes recycling to another level—and some of the embarrassments he’d suffered because of them (karaoke ballad singing, which his Japanese coworkers had taken very seriously, high among them).

  And as he talked, it became clear that he and Micromini Midori? Not a couple. He mentioned her boyfriend, who is apparently a karaoke champion in Tsukuba, several times.

  Then I started giggling in a different way when, after all the desserts came, I noticed two girls in a boat in the center of the lake, arguing fiercely with each other, and rowing in circles, not getting anywhere. Lana’s plan of spying on me completely and utterly failed.

  It was later, after the check came—and Michael paid, even though I said I wanted to take him out, to thank him for the donation to the hospital—that things really started to fall apart.

  Well, maybe they’d been falling apart all afternoon—steadily crumbling—and I just hadn’t been paying attention. Things have a tendency to do that in my life, I’ve noticed. It was when we were standing outside the Boathouse, and Michael asked what I had to do for the rest of the day, and I admitted that—for once—I had nothing to do (until my therapy appointment, but I didn’t mention that. I’ll tell him about therapy someday. But not today), that everything disintegrated like one of the madeleines we’d been nibbling on.

  “Nothing to do until four? Good,” Michael said, taking my arm. “Then we can keep on celebrating.”

  “Celebrating how?” I asked stupidly. I was trying to concentrate on not smelling him. I wasn’t really paying attention to anything else. Like where we were going.

  “Have you ever been in one of these?” he asked.

  That’s when I saw that he had led me over to one of those cheesy horse carriages that are all over Central Park.

  Well, okay, maybe they’re not cheesy. Maybe they’re romantic and Tina and I talk about secretly wanting to ride in them all the time. But that’s not the point.

  “Of course I’ve never been in one of these,” I cried, acting horrified. “They’re so touristy! And PETA is trying to get them banned. And they’re for people who are on dates.”

  “Perfect,” Michael said. He handed the carriage driver, who was wearing a ridiculous (by which I mean, fantastic) old-timey outfit with a top hat, some money. “We’ll go around the park. Lars, get up front. And don’t turn around.”

  “No!” I practically screamed. But I was laughing. I couldn’t help it. Because it was so ludicrous. And so something I’ve always wanted to do, but never told anyone (except Tina, of course), for fear of being ridiculed. “I am not getting in there! These things are cruel to horses!”

  The carriage driver looked offended.

  “I take excellent care of my horse,” she said. “Probably better than you take care of your pets, young lady.”

  I felt bad then—plus, Michael gave me a look, like—See, you hurt her feelings. Now you have to get in.

  I didn’t want to. I really didn’t!

  Not because it was stupid and touristy and I was afraid someone would see me (of course I didn’t care about that, because secretly it’s something I’ve always longed to do). But because—it was a romantic horse-and-buggy ride! With someone who wasn’t my boyfriend!

  Worse, with someone who was my ex-boyfriend! And whom I’d sworn I wasn’t going to get close to today.

  But Michael looked so sweet standing there with his hand out all expectantly, and his eyes so kind, like, Come on. It’s just a cheesy carriage ride. What could happen?

  And at the time, all I could think was that he was right. I mean, what harm could one buggy ride around the park do?

  Also, I looked all around, and I didn’t see any paparazzi.

  And the red velvet bench in the back of the carriage looked roomy enough. We could definitely both fit on it and not touch or anything. Like, I could easily sit there and not run the risk of smelling him.

  And really, in the end, how romantic could a cheesy touristy buggy ride be to a jaded New Yorker like myself? Despite J.P.’s portrayal of me in A Prince Among Men as a kook who is constantly in need of rescuing (which is completely inaccurate), I’m actually very tough. I’m going to be a published author!

  So, rolling my eyes and pretending to be all I’m so
over this, I laughingly let Michael help me into the carriage and sat down on the lumpy bench. Meanwhile, Lars climbed up beside the lady in the top hat, and she started the horse, and we got going with a lurch….

  And it turned out I was wrong.

  The bench was not that big.

  And I’m not that jaded of a New Yorker.

  Even now, I can’t really say how it happened. And it seemed to happen pretty much right away, too. One minute Michael and I were sitting calmly beside each other on that bench, Not Kissing, and the next…we were in each other’s arms. Kissing. Like two people who had never kissed before.

  Or, rather, like two people who used to kiss a lot, and really liked it, and then had been deprived of kissing each other for a very long time. And then, suddenly, were reintroduced to kissing, and remembered they liked it. Quite a bit.

  And so they started doing it again. A lot. Like a couple of kiss-starved maniacs, who had been in a kissing desert for approximately twenty-one months.

  We basically made out from, like, Seventy-second Street, all through the park, and up to Fifty-seventh. That’s, like, twenty blocks, give or take a few.

  YES. WE KISSED FOR TWENTY BLOCKS. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. IN AN OLD-TIMEY HORSE CARRIAGE!

  Anyone could have seen us. AND TAKEN PICTURES!!!!

  I have no idea what came over me. One minute I was enjoying the clip-clop of the horse hooves and the beautiful scenery of the lush green leaves of the park. And the next…

  And yes, I will admit it did seem like Michael was sitting AWFULLY close to me on that benchy thing at first.

  And, okay, I did sort of notice his arm went around me when the carriage first lurched forward. But that was only natural. I thought it was sweet. It was the kind of thing a friend—a guy friend—might do for a girl friend.

  But then Michael didn’t take his arm away.

  And then I got another whiff of him.

  And it was all over. I knew it was all over, but I turned my head to tell him—in a polite way, of course, the way a princess would—not to bother, that I’m with J.P. now and that it’s hopeless, I won’t do anything to hurt or betray J.P. because he was there for me when I was at my most despairing, and Michael should just give it up, if that was what he intended. Which it probably wasn’t. But just in case.

  But somehow those words never came out of my mouth.

  Because when I turned my head to tell Michael all that, I saw that he was looking at me, and I couldn’t help looking back, and something in his eyes—I don’t know. It was like there was a question there. I don’t know what the question was.

  Okay. I guess I do.

  In any case, I’m pretty sure I answered it when he brought his lips down over mine.

  And, like I said, we kept on kissing, passionately, for twenty-something blocks instead. Or whatever. Math’s not my best subject.

  Actually, as long as I’m confessing everything, I should admit there was more than kissing. There was a little—discreet—below-the-neck action as well. I really hope Lars did what Michael asked and didn’t turn around.

  Anyway, when the carriage stopped, I finally came to my senses. I guess it was the fact there was no more clip-clopping sound. Or maybe it was just the final lurch that practically threw us both off the bench.

  That’s when I was like, “Oh my God!” and stared up at Michael, all horrified, realizing what I’d just done.

  Which was make out with a boy who wasn’t my boyfriend. For a really long time.

  I guess the most horrifying part was how much I’d liked it. Which was a lot. A whole lot. That major histocompatibility complex thing? It does NOT mess around.

  And I could tell Michael had felt the same way.

  “Mia,” he said, looking down at me with his dark eyes filled with something I was almost afraid to put a name to, and his chest going all up and down like he’d just been running. His hands were in my hair. He was cradling my head. “You have to know. You have to know I lo—”

  But I smashed my hand over his mouth just like I’d done to Tina. My hand that used to have the three-carat diamond ring on it. From another boy.

  I said, “DO NOT SAY IT.”

  Because I knew what he was going to say.

  That’s when I said, instead, “Lars, we’re leaving. Now.”

  And Lars hopped down from the top of the carriage and helped me from the bench. And the two of us went to my waiting limo.

  And I climbed inside. And I totally did not look back.

  Not even once.

  And there’s a message on my phone from Michael, but I’m not looking at what it says. I’m NOT.

  Because I can’t do this to J.P. I can’t.

  Oh my God, though. I love Michael so much.

  Oh, thank God. We’re here.

  Dr. Knutz and I have a lot to talk about today.

  Friday, May 5, 6 p.m., limo home from Dr. Knutz’s office

  When I walked into Dr. Knutz’s office, Grandmère was there. AGAIN.

  I demanded to know why. WHY she keeps insisting on violating my doctor-patient confidentiality. And okay, today was supposed to be my last therapy session ever, but still. Just because I’d invited her to join me a few times before didn’t mean she could keep showing up to my appointments ALL the time.

  She tried to use the excuse that this is the only place she knows she can find me. (Too bad she didn’t look out her window at the Plaza a little while ago, she could have seen her granddaughter going around Central Park in a horse-and-carriage in a lip-lock with a boy who is not her boyfriend.)

  Which I supposed (then) was a reasonable excuse. But that still didn’t make it RIGHT, and I told her that.

  Of course, she fully ignored me. She said she needed to know if it was true I’m getting a romance novel published and if so how I could do this to the family and why didn’t I just shoot her if I wanted to kill her, and get it over with? Why did I have to do it this way, by slowly humiliating her in front of all her friends? Why couldn’t I be more like Bella Trevanni Alberto who is such a perfect granddaughter (I swear if I have to hear this one more time…)?

  Then she started in about Sarah Lawrence (again) and how she knows I have to pick a college by election day (also PROM), and if I’d just pick Sarah Lawrence (the college she would have gone to if she’d bothered going to college), then everything would be all right.

  I let out a shriek of frustration and stormed right past Grandmère and straight into Dr. Knutz’s office without waiting to hear any more. Because really, how ridiculous can that woman be? Besides, I was in crisis mode, what with this thing with Michael. I don’t have time for Grandmère’s histrionics.

  Anyway, Dr. Knutz listened calmly to what had just happened—with me and Grandmère, I mean—and said he was sorry, and that obviously, since this was my last session, it wouldn’t happen again, but that he’d speak to Grandmère if I wanted. For what good that will do.

  Then he listened to me describe what had just happened with Michael.

  And his response was to ask me if I’d given any thought to the story he’d told me last week about his horse, Sugar.

  “Because as I was explaining, Mia,” Dr. Knutz went on, “sometimes a relationship that seems perfect on paper doesn’t always work out in reality, just like Sugar looked like a perfect horse on paper, but in real life, we just didn’t click.”

  SUGAR! I pour my heart out about my romantic travails (and pain-in-the-butt grandmother), and Dr. Knutz still can’t talk about anything but his stupid horses.

  “Dr. K,” I said. “Can we talk about something else besides horses for a minute?”

  “Of course, Mia,” he said.

  “Well,” I said. “My parents have told me I have to pick out a college to go to by Dad’s election—and my prom. And I can’t decide. I mean, it seems as if every school that let me in only did so because I’m a princess—”

  “But you don’t know that to be true,” Dr. Knutz said.

  “No, but with my SAT score
s, it’s pretty obvious—”

  “We’ve discussed this before, Mia,” Dr. Knutz said. “You know you’re supposed to be concentrating on not obsessing over things you have no control over. What, in fact, are you supposed to do instead?”

  I raised my gaze to the painting behind his head, of a herd of stampeding mustangs. How many hours have I gazed at that painting over the past twenty-one months, wishing it would fall on his head? Not enough to hurt him. Just enough to startle him.

  “Accept the things I cannot change,” I said. “And pray for the courage to change the things I can, as well as the wisdom to know the difference.”

  The thing is…I know this is good advice. It’s called the Serenity Prayer, and it really does put things in perspective (it’s supposed to be for recovering alcoholics, but it helps recovering freakoutaholics, like me, as well).

  But honestly, it’s something I could have told myself.

  What’s becoming more clear to me every day now is that I’ve graduated. Not just from high school and princess lessons, but from therapy, too. Not that I’m self-actualized or anything, because Lord knows, I’m not…I don’t believe anyone can ever achieve self-actualization anymore. Not and still be a thinking, learning human being.

  I’ve just realized the truth, which is: No one can help me. My problems are just too weird. Where am I going to find a therapist with experience helping an American girl who finds out she is, in fact, a princess of a small European country, who also has a mother who married her Algebra teacher, a father who can’t commit to romantic relationships at all, a best friend who won’t speak to her, an ex-boyfriend she can’t stop kissing in a Central Park carriage, a boyfriend who wrote a play revealing intimate details about them, and a grandmother who is certifiably insane?

  Nowhere. That’s where.

  I have to solve my own problems from now on. And you know what? I’m pretty sure I’m ready.

  But I didn’t want Dr. Knutz to feel bad, because he had helped me a lot, in the past. So I said, “Dr. Knutz. Would you mind looking at a text message with me?”