Lana. No. Not a baby beauty pageant.
Why? This one has more than $1,500,000 in cash, prizes, and scholarships. It says if I don’t register her, I will be denying her the opportunity to learn valuable new skills that will help empower her and enable her to accomplish her future goals.
Lana, you are being scammed.
No, I am not! Purple Iris is the most beautiful baby in her playgroup. Everyone says it. I’m sure someone spotted her there and entered her name. Or maybe from my Instagram or Facebook page about her.
Then how did they get your home address?
It’s public record. And anyway, the pageant is real, I looked it up. This is the tenth year of the program. They are dedicated to helping girls build character and appreciate their self-worth.
Your kid isn’t even one year old yet. How is this going to build her character?
It’s going to teach her how to show poise and confidence in front of an audience, the way you do, Mia, when you’re giving one of your boring speeches. Only Iris doesn’t have to give a speech because there’s no talent required for this pageant. The contestants are judged on confidence and charisma.
Lana, did you read the fine print?
The entrance fees are to offset the costs of producing the pageant.
How much are they?
It is an investment in her future!
Lana, what’s wrong with you? You used to be able to see through obvious cons like this. Did your brain slip out through your vagina along with the baby when you gave birth?
No, since I had a cesarean. I wasn’t going to let my joy hole get all out of shape from squeezing that thing out of it. You’ve probably noticed she inherited Jason’s ginormous head.
Both your husband’s and your baby’s heads have always looked average-sized to me.
Well, they aren’t. Everyone on his dad’s side of the family has a huge head. After I saw the ultrasound, I told the doctor if she thought I was squeezing that thing out from my joy hole, she could just think again. Jason’s mother never recovered from having three boys. She still walks funny.
I really do not know what to say in reply to that.
Are you going to help me or not??? There’s an essay part of the application, and you know writing’s not my strong suit, so I need your help, Mia. You’re the best writer I know.
I will help you, but I strongly disapprove.
You’ll feel differently when you have a baby. Then you’ll see what it’s like!
Fine. E-mail the application to me, and I’ll help you. But just this one time!
And only if you promise no surprise bachelorette party at Crazy Ivan’s!
I promise! Oh, thank you! You won’t regret this.
I already do.
By the time I was done having this conversation, my eye was twitching like crazy. I had no choice but to stretch out on the couch and watch Judge Judy yell at a man named Bud for moving in with his new girlfriend, Tiffany, and then, after promising he’d pay half the rent, spending all his rent money on tattoos, a new Corvette, and a trip to Atlantic City with his ex-girlfriend.
The judge decided in favor of the plaintiff—Tiffany—in the amount of $5,000, but only because Bud had paid his half of the rent for one month, and had written on the canceled check the word rent, which showed statement of intent. Case dismissed.
It was very soothing.
Three things I’m grateful for:
1. Fair judges.
2. My mother, for never entering me in a baby beauty pageant.
3. Austrian schnaps.
CHAPTER 41
5:05 p.m., Tuesday, May 5
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
Rate the Royals Rating: 7
I didn’t think things could get much worse, but everyone knows the minute you think this, they do. It’s like saying, “I think I’ll go to the pool today.” The second you say this, the sun disappears behind a cloud.
I was filling out baby Iris’s beauty pageant essay when my phone rang.
It was my father’s office, wanting to know when was the most convenient time for me to meet with “the Prince of Genovia and his lawyers.”
“His lawyers? Why does Dad need me to meet with his lawyers?” I asked.
“I believe it’s to discuss your prenuptial agreement, Your Highness,” his assistant said. “What day is best for you?”
“Prenup? My father wants me to get my fiancé to sign a prenup?”
“Why, yes. Yes, Your Highness, he does.”
I cannot believe this.
I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked, given what I know about my family.
But this is low, even for them. And frankly, the kind of thing I’d expect from Grandmère, not Dad.
But Marielle, Dad’s assistant, assured me that the prince is very concerned about protecting my (and the family’s) “financial interests.” A prenup is “standard” in all Genovian royal marriages (oh, really? Because there have been so many?) and are really meant to protect the assets of both parties.
But I know what all this actually means:
It means that somewhere deep down inside, Dad must believe the stupid rumor started by the Post. As if that is why Michael has been dating me on and off since the ninth grade: because he has been plotting to take advantage of me—like Bud took advantage of Tiffany on Judge Judy.
Only instead of refusing to pay half the rent and taking off to Atlantic City with an ex-girlfriend in a new Corvette, Michael is only marrying me to reincorporate Pavlov Surgical in Genovia in order to reduce its tax burden.
Except that I don’t need Judge Judy to rule on how stupid this idea is. I told Marielle that a good time for me to meet with the prince and his lawyers about my prenup would be “never.”
“I beg your pardon?” she said, sounding surprised.
“You heard me. Never. Also, please tell my father to call me, as I have something important I’d like to discuss with him.”
When Marielle asked politely if she could know “the nature of the matter” I’d like to discuss with my father, I said: “Yes, please tell him it has to do with Olivia Grace Clarisse Mignonette Harrison.”
Then I hung up the phone.
What is wrong with me? I don’t know.
I can’t even blame the schnaps because I only had a few sips.
CHAPTER 42
7:45 p.m., Tuesday, May 5
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
Rate the Royals Rating: 7
I was eating cheese popcorn while checking on my phone to see if there is a Wiki-How for “How to Discuss Your Dad’s Secret Love Child with Him” (there is not. This seems like a missed opportunity) when the RGG buzzed up and announced, “Your Highness, your father is here.”
“Uh . . . send him up,” I said into the intercom (after I’d got done choking). What else was I supposed to do?
Then I ran around really fast, getting rid of all evidence that I’d been drinking, even though of course I am an adult, and should be able to drink if I want to.
When I opened the door, I was shocked. Dad looks awful. I mean, he hasn’t been looking too good anyway since his arrest, all pasty-faced and sort of green around the gills (although that could have been partly due to the excessive celebration in which he engaged last night over my engagement. Or possibly he’s been eating prewashed lettuce from California).
But then I realized that for some reason he’d taken it into his head to shave off his mustache, which he’s had for quite some time now, and which has become as distinctive a part of his look as his bald head (the hair on his scalp never did grow back after the chemo, but he’s been rockin’ a ’stache since growing one for a Save the Children charity drive one “Mo”-vember, and we all said how sporty he looked in it).
It’s frightening how horrible he looks without it!
“Dad, what happened?” I couldn’t help blurting when I saw him.
“What hap
pened? What do you mean, what happened?” he demanded. “You know about your sister, that’s what happened.”
He barged in past me, and then went to lie down on my couch like he was in his analyst’s office, or something.
“No,” I said, shutting the door. “I mean what happened to your face? Where’s your mustache?”
“Oh, that.” He touched his upper lip, which for the first time I realized he doesn’t have—an upper lip, I mean. It’s been hidden under a patch of sandy-colored hair for so long, I stopped noticing he only has a lower, no upper, lip. “I shaved it off. Apparently only men who work in the pornography industry have mustaches anymore.”
“Dad, who told you that? It isn’t true. You should grow yours back. You look—” I wanted to say naked without it, but thought that might hurt his feelings, so instead I said, “Less dignified without it.”
“Your cousin Ivan mocked my mustache in his last ad. He said it made me look old. Like ‘an old, balding Ron Burgundy’ were his exact words. Mia . . .” He looked up at me helplessly. “Who is Ron Burgundy?”
“Never mind, Dad,” I said, feeling sad that my father was so unfamiliar with the comic stylings of Will Ferrell. “There’s nothing wrong with looking like Ron Burgundy, and that’s even more reason not to shave it off. You need to grow it back right away, to show Cousin Ivan that he can’t get to you.”
He folded his arms over his face and sighed. “But he has gotten to me, Mia. I’m afraid that was the last straw. Do you have anything to drink?”
I told him about the schnaps and he said, “I meant anything good,” so then I had to explain that it was schnaps, not schnapps, so he agreed to have some.
He took the glass and then got mad because Fat Louie jumped onto his chest (which is actually a compliment; Fat Louie has grown much less athletic in his old age, so when he jumps onto anything, it’s only because he’s put a lot of effort and thought into it).
So I moved Fat Louie back into his little bed and then Dad began to talk . . .
. . . and talk, and talk.
He talked all about how he’d been wanting to tell me about Olivia forever, but he hadn’t known how, because he was terrified of what I was going to think.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a man who has, upon occasion, spelled my name wrong on my birthday cards wouldn’t know I’d be delighted to have a little sister, especially one I could take with me to every single Disney musical on Broadway so people would no longer give me the side-eye for going by myself as an adult.
“It wasn’t as if it was just a one-night stand,” he went on. “I was in love with Elizabeth, but she didn’t want to settle down any more than your mother ever did, let alone raise Olivia in the stifling environment of a palace. And then she died, and it was so terrible. Why do I keep falling for women who are so afraid of commitment, Mia? Why?”
“Well,” I said, thinking about what the Drs. Moscovitz had said. Is there ever a good time to tell your father that his future son-in-law’s parents think he has an Oedipus complex? No. Some things are better kept to yourself.
“Naturally, I can understand why an independent, free-spirited woman like your mother—or Elizabeth—wouldn’t want to settle down with a man like me, who has as many responsibilities as I do—”
“I know you can’t help that you were born a prince,” I interrupted, “but no one is forcing you to stay on the throne, or run for prime minister year after year.”
He looked a bit startled at this. “But I have to. For the good of the country. And what reasonable woman would want to live with my mother, even in a palace on the Mediterranean, in the most beautiful country in the world?”
“None,” I said, thinking about what my mother had said to me on the phone about Dad when we’d discussed Michael’s proposal. “But Grandmère does have her own place, you know. You could always ask her to actually stay there.”
He looked even more alarmed. “Stay in the summer palace? Year-round?”
“The summer palace isn’t exactly an outhouse, Dad. It has seventeen bedrooms.”
“I don’t think your grandmother would hear of it,” he said.
“Dad!” This just goes to show that you can have all the money in the world—even a castle and a crown—and it still can’t buy you happiness. Or common sense. “Listen to yourself. You sound like someone complaining that your diamond shoes are too tight.”
He looked taken aback. “My what?”
“Your diamond shoes. I know you don’t literally own a pair of diamond shoes, but someone quite wise told me that we need to be more appreciative of the things we have. You have to make sacrifices for love, you know.”
“By wearing overpriced, uncomfortable shoes?”
“No, Dad.” I took a deep breath and tried to find another way to make him understand. “It’s like what Robert Frost said in that poem about the road less traveled. It may not get you to where you were headed, but it will get you somewhere, and that place may be even better than where you thought you were going.”
Dad glared at me. “You know, I prefer following maps, Mia. GPS is even better.”
“I know. But I don’t think maps or GPS are working for you anymore, Dad. Prenups and living with Grandmère and keeping all these secrets and promises you made to people who aren’t around anymore? Olivia’s mom has been dead for ten years now. I think the statute of limitations on your promise to her is up.”
He nervously chewed his lower lip, which was upsetting, because then it looked like he had no lips at all, like a bird. I wanted to tell him to stop, but it’s not really the kind of thing you can say to your parent.
“I . . . I don’t know, Mia. I’ve never been a father before. Not like this. With you, I always had your mother. I knew she’d never do the wrong thing.”
“Dad, being a single parent was never easy for Mom, even if to you she might have made it look that way. Do you think she’s having an easy time with Rocky? She’s not. The school sent him home with a note the other day asking that Mom take him to a psychopharmacologist because of his obsession with farting.”
Dad got the faraway look in his eyes he always has when the subject turns to my mother. “That’s not your mother’s fault. The boy has just suffered the loss of his father. And besides, that school obviously isn’t a very good one if it can’t handle a young boy’s perfectly normal interest in flatulence.”
“Well, be that as it may, parenting isn’t easy for anyone. It’s the hardest job in the world, but I think you’d be good at it. You’ve always done pretty well with me.”
“Your mother did all the heavy lifting with you. I think I could make things much, much worse for that little girl.”
“Worse than not being there at all?” I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t see how.”
I shouldn’t have said it. I should have said something else—pulled out one of my many platitudes, or lies—or simply shut my mouth and said nothing at all.
But I didn’t, and the result was that tears filled my father’s eyes.
It’s pretty horrible to watch your dad cry. I’m not going to say it’s the worst thing in the world, because there are definitely worse things, like that time I went to Africa to oversee the installation of some water wells. Seeing a man driving a hollowed-out Sealy box spring on wheels pulled by a donkey down the highway, his family sitting inside it (because that was the only form of transportation they could afford), was definitely worse than watching my dad cry.
But awkwardly patting my dad’s shoulder and telling him things were going to be okay when, to be honest, I wasn’t sure they were going to be (just like with Africa, even after installing the wells) was up there on my list of worst things ever.
Finally, I got up and grabbed my phone to check out the menus the RGG had provided me from all the restaurants in the area that had been approved to deliver to us.
“I’m going to order some dinner now,” I said. “Is there anything you particularly feel like eating?”
I think this surprised Dad so much that he forgot about crying, which was partly my intention. “I . . . I don’t know,” he said, looking shocked. Food? Who can think about food at a time like this? Uh, Mia Thermopolis can.
“Well, you have to eat something. Hunger and dehydration can lead to impaired decision making, and also mood swings.” At least according to iTriage, and also Ling Su, who always makes sure the kids at the center have plenty of healthy snacks to eat while doing their homework. It’s led to a lot less crying-while-doing-algebra. “Marie Rose left a lot of stuff in the fridge, but I really don’t think I could handle black truffle mac and cheese right now. What about you?”
“Well . . .” He blinked a few times. “Maybe I could eat a little something. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything other than nuts at the bar at the hotel, and there’s something I’ve always wanted to try . . . but no, I couldn’t. It’s silly.”
“What, Dad? Just tell me.”
“Well, I keep seeing advertisements on the television for something they call cheesy bread. I’ve always wondered what it tastes like.”
He sounded wistful, like King Arthur in the musical Camelot when he and Guinevere wonder what the simple folk do. People always laugh at that part of the show, because it’s so ridiculous that royal people don’t know what “simple folk” do.
But in my dad’s case, it’s true. Growing up all his life in a palace, he really doesn’t know. I think it’s another reason he probably found my mom—and Olivia’s mom—so appealing.
“Fine,” I said, feeling a little sorry for him. “Cheesy bread it is.”