But I’m never going to be that girl.
And my worst fear is that someday he’s going to realize it and dump me the way my mom dumped my dad, leaving him the brokenhearted, race-car-speeding, empty shell of a man he is today.
Honestly, what good is owning a castle if the person you love doesn’t want to share it with you?
CHAPTER 2
3:32 p.m., Wednesday, April 29
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
New York City
Tried to go to work at the Community Center after my appointment, but Perin called while I was on my way and said hordes of paps had shown up there, too, and were bothering the teens (and their adult mentors) by asking how they felt about my father’s brush with the law, and whether or not I was “carrying Michael’s twins,” so maybe it would be better if I “worked from home.”
So sweet, right? Who else has such kind, concerned friends?
And not just the kind who’ve known you since high school and so have no problem telling you that your bra strap is showing and that there’s salad in your teeth. The kind who are willing to run the Community Center you just founded even though they could probably be making millions running a start-up in Silicon Valley instead.
(See? I am already taking the doctor’s advice and practicing more gratitude in my day-to-day life.)
I said, “Thanks, Perin, I understand.”
People everywhere pray for a job where they can “work from home,” so I guess, going with the gratitude theme, I should be grateful for this opportunity.
I wonder how, though, when people get one of these jobs, they keep themselves from spending the entire day going on YouTube and looking at videos about baby deer that have been adopted by golden retrievers. Because that’s all I’ve accomplished today so far.
Well, aside from FaceTiming Michael and asking again if he could see my twitch. Of course he asked if I could turn the camera lower, and then lower, and then unbutton my shirt . . .
And suddenly I realize what else people who work from home do all day.
Except that Michael does not work at home, he works at the company he founded, Pavlov Surgical, so we couldn’t have quite as much fun as we wanted since his work space has glass walls and anyone could have looked in and seen what we were up to.
He did tell me though (later) that he’d read on WebMD that eye twitches are very often caused by a magnesium deficiency and that human spermatozoa are a rich source of magnesium.
“Is that so?” I said. “I suppose you’re going to volunteer to come over later to help relieve me of this severe nutritional deficiency?”
“Well, I don’t want to brag, but I have been touted in the press as manly enough to render perfectly respectable princesses sex mad from several miles away.”
“Nice try, Mr. Moscovitz,” I said. “I’m reporting you to the board of health for making unsubstantiated nutritional claims. Good-bye.”
His eyes actually looked as normal as he claims mine do, so maybe he really is okay, and the whole shadow thing is a figment of my admittedly sometimes overactive imagination.
I am going to order magnesium right now from the grocery store down the street (to be delivered, although sadly I can’t order it with my smartphone because the closest grocery store from which the Royal Genovian Guard will accept deliveries doesn’t have an app for that. Also, I’m not allowed to have apps, except of course for iTriage, which I can’t imagine doing any harm).
I’m sure the news of what I’m ordering will get out somehow and the next headline about me is going to read:
“Pill-Popping Princess!
CAN ANYONE SAVE HER?
Pope Swears He’ll Try.”
CHAPTER 3
8:32 p.m., Wednesday, April 29
Benefit for the Chernobyl Shelter Fund
Waldorf Astoria Bathroom
New York City
Have to write fast because the ladies’ room attendant is wondering what I’m doing locked in this bathroom stall.
But I had to jot down what this scientist who has been working on the project to build a containment structure over Chernobyl just told me (cannot believe all that radiation is still floating around out there, even though that nuclear reactor exploded almost thirty years ago).
So this scientist said that the very intelligent are sometimes bad at games like Trivial Pursuit because they dismiss knowledge they consider “inconsequential” to make room for information they think we’ll need someday (which finally explains why I’m so terrible at Jeopardy! Also sports).
(Of course I’m not saying I’m very intelligent.)
But why else do I know absolutely nothing about Chernobyl (or really what anyone is talking about here tonight, though I’m happy my presence is drawing attention to such an important cause) and so much about etiquette, Genovian history, and European citrus production?
Although this doesn’t explain why I know everything about Star Wars.
CHAPTER 4
5:22 a.m., Thursday, April 30
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
New York City
The journaling isn’t working yet, and neither is the magnesium. Probably I should have taken Michael up on his offer. (Just kidding.)
Not that I could have even if I wanted to, since he ended up not being able to come over again tonight, this time because of some kind of glitch in the consulate’s security system. Anytime anyone enters or exits the building from any of the side doors, it sets off the alarm, the one connected to the New York City Police Department.
Which I guess is a good thing (nice to know the system works), but I can’t have any overnight guests until they find the glitch, unless I want to pick up the morning paper and see “Princess of Slut-o-via!” in twenty-point font on the cover again.
Used an eye mask, earplugs, my mouth guard, Tylenol PM, and stole a shot from the two-hundred-year-old bottle of Napoleon brandy the consulate general keeps hidden under his desk for visiting dignitaries (which technically I am), but am still wide-awake at five in the morning.
The reporters seem to be having a nice time out there, though, judging by their laughter.
I partly blame my inability to fall asleep on the fact that I made the mistake of FaceTiming with Tina Hakim Baba before bed (even though she lives only a few dozen blocks away, I hardly ever see her anymore either). The whole time, I couldn’t stop lying. What kind of person lies to her best friend? Well, one of her best friends.
Our conversation started out normally enough—Tina swore she couldn’t see my eye twitching, even when I said the words guaranteed to bring on the twitch:
“Dad’s going to lose the election and my cousin Ivan will be the new prime minister of Genovia. He’ll do nothing for the immigration problem, but he will destroy the country’s fragile ecosystem and infrastructure by dredging the harbor and allowing cruise ships larger than the Costa Concordia to dock at the Port of Princess Clarisse.”
“Really, Mia, I can’t see it,” Tina assured me. “I’m not saying it’s all in your head, but I don’t think you need to worry.”
I could feel my eyelid pulsating like Sigourney Weaver’s stomach in the movie Alien, so I knew she was fibbing to make me feel better.
Maybe that’s why later on in the conversation, I returned the favor.
Still, since Tina’s in med school at NYU, it was refreshing to hear her take on twitching eyes, which she knew all about since she just did a section on ophthalmology. She confirmed everything Dr. Delgado said. It’s nice to know I’m not seeing a quack.
I didn’t ask her about the thing Michael told me, though. I didn’t want to remind her of her ex, Boris, with whom she’s been going through an extremely painful breakup.
“I think it’s good for you to get back into journaling,” Tina said. “I tried it, too, in the hopes it would help me not to think so much about . . . well, you know.”
Well, so much f
or not talking about her ex. That’s when our conversation started going downhill, and I started lying my head off.
I felt forced to ask: “Did journaling help?”
“No,” she said, with a sigh. “I really think I might be addicted to Boris. Did you know a medical study showed that participants who had recently experienced a breakup had the exact same brain activity as people going through drug withdrawal?”
Ack.
“Well,” I said, trying to keep my tone upbeat. “You’re a strong, independent woman, and I know you’re going to break that bad habit!”
“Thanks.” She sighed again. “It’s so hard, though. I thought Boris and I would stay together forever, the way you and Michael have.”
Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Look, I know it’s weird that I’m nearly twenty-six and still dating my high school boyfriend. Believe me, I’m more than aware of what a cliché it is.
But it gets even worse: almost all my friends are people I went to high school with, too.
But in my own defense, when you find out at the tender age of fourteen that you’re the heir to a throne and a billion-dollar fortune (because my mom and dad never got married, and Dad always thought he could have more kids. Due to chemo for cancer that fortunately has remained in remission, he cannot), who are you going to trust, the people who knew and liked you before you got on Forbes List of Richest Young Royals, or the people you met after?
The answer is obvious. I can’t even count the number of guys I dated after I found out I was a princess who turned out to only be interested in me for my tiara.
(Well, yes, I can, actually: two. Josh Richter and J. P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV. Not that I’m still bitter about it, or hold a grudge against them, or asked to have my Facebook password taken away and changed so I don’t spend hours obsessively looking up every detail of their lives to make sure they’re miserable without me, because only a weirdo would do that.)
• Note to self: Ask Dominique what the new password is because it would be quite nice to see the photos Lana is posting of her new baby. I’m sure that at nearly twenty-six, I am mature (and self-actualized) enough not to go hunting down my exes. Besides, I am so happy in my own relationship that I don’t care what my exes are doing anymore. Very much.
One of the reasons I love Tina so much is that she understands and sympathizes with so many of my issues—being the daughter of an extremely wealthy Arab sheikh who also forces her to be followed around by bodyguards at all times—but she’s also the opposite of me in many ways. She’s good at math and science, and intends, as soon as she gets her medical license, to join Doctors Without Borders and help sick children. This is so admirable and amazing! I wish I could be more like her.
Except the part where she still hasn’t managed to sever all ties to her ex, Boris Pelkowski.
“Tina,” I said. “Michael and I are an anomaly. Hardly anyone stays together forever with their first significant other, except maybe in YA novels. And usually when they do, it’s because he’s a vampire or a werewolf or owns a beautiful estate called Pemberley or something.”
“But—”
“Seriously, did you think Lilly Moscovitz and Kenny Showalter were going to stay together forever when they both went off to Columbia after graduation?”
“Well,” Tina said. “I guess not after Kenny built that yurt in the middle of campus, then refused to go to class anymore.”
“Exactly,” I said. “It’s normal for people to change and grow, and for couples to sometimes grow apart.”
“You and Michael never grew apart. And what about Perin and Ling Su?”
I sighed. Just like I have a disproportionately large number of friends from my high school class, a disproportionately large number of the couples from that class have stayed together since graduation.
I blame the faculty. The absurd amount of homework with which they loaded us down every night gave many of us permanent post-traumatic stress. College—even though I attended Sarah Lawrence, one of the top schools in the country—was a breeze compared to AEHS (Albert Einstein High School).
“Okay, well, Perin and Ling Su are an anomaly, too,” I said to Tina. “But they’ve had their problems. Remember how they had to pretend for so long that they were only roommates?”
“Only because Ling Su’s grandparents were so old-fashioned,” Tina protested. “They totally support same-sex marriage now.”
“Yeah, because Perin worked so hard to win them over. She even learned Mandarin. What’s Boris done for you lately, Tina, except swap his classical violin for an electric guitar, write a bunch of cheesy pop songs, and then become an international pop sensation who is fawned over by millions of girls who call themselves the Borettes, one of whom he slept with?”
“Allegedly,” she reminded me. “He still says he didn’t do it. He says he misses me and wants to meet with me so he can explain—”
“Oh, Tina!”
“I know. But he still insists those pictures of him were Photoshopped, and that he would never, ever cheat on me.”
I could feel myself beginning to clench my jaw, and tried to relax it. Who could have imagined that Boris Pelkowski, the mouth-breathing violin virtuoso from my Gifted and Talented class way back in ninth grade, would become “Boris P.,” the purple-haired pop singer-songwriter who now plays sold-out concerts all over the world and has girls throwing themselves at him every time he steps from his limo (even though he still hasn’t quite learned to breathe through his nostrils, a fact the Borettes have declared “totes adorbs” on the Internet).
Although there was nothing “totes adorbs” about the nude photos one of those girls posted online of herself with him in a hotel room.
“What about the texts she posted that he sent her?” I asked Tina. “Did he have an explanation for those?”
“He said she did interview him for her blog, so the texts are real, but that everyone’s taken everything he said out of context, and that all the rest she made up to get more hits on her site. I mean, I guess that’s possible, right?”
“Um,” I said. “Sure. I guess so.”
Lie number one.
Boris had told Michael the exact same thing (the two of them are still friends—they get together to play World of Warcraft a few times a month. The fact that Boris enjoys playing online fantasy role-playing games only endears him more to the Borettes).
Michael refuses to stop speaking to Boris just because he “allegedly” cheated on my friend. He says there are two sides to every story, and as a fellow celebrity, I should understand how these kinds of things get twisted by the press, and that I should give Boris the benefit of the doubt.
But I’ve seen the photos. Some violin players develop Fiddler’s Neck, a sort of callus along the underside of their chin from holding their instrument there for extended periods of time.
The guy in the photos has the same Fiddler’s Neck pattern as Boris (as I know only too well, having seen him shirtless playing water volleyball at the palace pool back in Genovia when he used to be allowed to visit there with Tina).
So despite Boris’s protests—and Michael’s—those pictures aren’t Photoshopped. The story has to be true.
Although I guess Michael hasn’t really driven me sex mad, so maybe it isn’t true. Ugh.
I always thought when I became an adult everything would become less confusing, but unfortunately, everything’s only become more confusing.
“Boris says that girl could have hacked into his phone, then wrote all those mean things about me because she’s obsessed with him,” Tina went on. “You know, stalker style. He says she’s jealous of me. But none of that seems very likely . . .”
“Tina!” I gasped. “You say that like there’s nothing for her to be jealous of. You know perfectly well how hot you are. You’re the hottest, most beautiful woman I know.” This, at least, was not a lie.
“That’s sweet of you to say, Mia, but I’m not as hot as her,” she said with an unhappy sigh. “Have you seen
her? She’s totally rocking that Brooklyn hipster music blogger thing.”
“And I will be more than happy to yank that ring right out of her septum if you’d like me to. I can always claim I tripped and grabbed it by accident.” To my relief, Tina started to laugh. “No, really. People will believe me, because I have a reputation for being a klutz, but I’m also a princess, and princesses never lie.”
HA HA HA HA.
“Aw, thanks, Mia,” she said. “That’s what I love about you. You’re the loyalist friend ever. Anyway, I don’t know what to do. Boris told me that new song of his, ‘A Million Stars,’ is about me.”
Ugh! I don’t want to be that girl—the girl who tells someone not to give her ex another chance, especially right after that person’s just called her the “loyalist friend ever.”
Because, of course, there’s always a chance Michael is right, and the thing with Boris really is only a misunderstanding. And this is America. We love forgiving people, then letting them have a second chance.
But that doesn’t mean “A Million Stars” isn’t the worst, cheesiest, most horrible song ever.
Which, of course, is only my opinion. The Borettes love it so much they’ve made it the number one bestselling song of all time ever. You can’t go anywhere—any elevator, any store, any airport, any hotel lobby, any restaurant, not even New York’s Times Square—without hearing it being blared over a set of speakers.