“No,” I cried. “We are not moving to Genovia.”
Michael looked thoughtful. “It’s something to think about,” he said. “It would be safer, both for you and the babies, especially considering everything Dominique said this morning about those new threats.”
Babies? Babies? What kind of alternative reality was I now living in, where suddenly my boyfriend is talking about babies?
Then Dr. Delgado (who is only an internist, after all, not an ob-gyn) glanced at my foot and said it was bruised, not broken, told me stay off it for the next few days, gave me the name of an ob-gyn (for “future appointments”), loaded me down with prenatal vitamins and information, told me everything was going to be all right, and sent us both along our way, cheerfully wishing me luck with the “babies.”
• Note to self: Do not sign up with any more physicians who are male. Female physicians only, from now on. Male physicians cannot relate, and do not understand.
CHAPTER 62
10:05 a.m., Thursday, May 7
Inside the HELV
What am I going to tell Sebastiano? He’s going to kill me. The design I picked out for my wedding gown is never going to work now.
Wait, what am I thinking? Wedding gown? Who cares about a wedding gown. There are human lives growing inside me.
But seriously, that dress is going to look hideous.
CHAPTER 63
10:10 a.m., Thursday, May 7
Inside the HELV Rate the Royals Rating: 1
I guess I’m still in a state of shock because all I can think about is not my “babies,” but how hungry I am.
But what are women who are pregnant even allowed to eat?
CHAPTER 64
10:15 a.m., Thursday, May 7
Hi-Life Restaurant
Upper East Side
It turns out women who are pregnant can eat whatever they want, unless it’s raw, unwashed, or undercooked, seafood, has caffeine or alcohol, is unpasteurized, or contains the word herbal, because there’s no data on what “herbs” do to developing fetuses.
(Michael has already downloaded seven pregnancy books to his phone.)
Weirdly, I don’t feel like reading any of the pregnancy books (even though he really wants me to) or the literature Dr. Delgado gave me. I’d rather just eat my eggs (thoroughly scrambled, because undercooked eggs can contain bacteria) with whole-wheat toast.
I figure I should eat as much as possible now, before the morning sickness hits (although, according to one of the books Michael has downloaded, not everyone gets this. Maybe I’ll be one of the lucky ones. Except my boobs are killing me, so I don’t know).
I think Michael’s going to make a good dad. Not that I ever thought otherwise, but it’s been only an hour since he found out, and he’s already canceled all my appointments for the day (informing Dominique vaguely that I’m “under the weather”) and has the names picked out. Adam for a boy and Leah for a girl. It’s entertaining to watch.
“Oh, really? What if it’s two boys?” I asked. “Or two girls?”
Now he’s looking frantically through the baby-name app he just downloaded. “Crap. I never thought of that.”
“Also,” I added, “if we have a girl, we can’t call her Leah. Because then she’s going to be Princess Leah.”
“Oh my God.” His eyes lit up. “I didn’t think of that. Princess Leia of Genovia? That’s fantastic.”
“No, it’s not. Of course, we could name the other one Luke if it’s a boy—”
He sucked in his breath, his eyes lighting up even more.
“Michael, I was kidding,” I said. “We can’t name our twins Luke and Leia.”
“Well, we could—”
“No, we can’t. And don’t you think it’s a little early to be picking out names? We have a lot of bigger problems.”
“I’m already on it,” he said, growing serious. “I called my real-estate broker and told her we now need a classic six—” Three-bedroom, three-bath apartment, with a separate living and dining room in a prewar building, very difficult to come by in New York. “She’s got four viewings lined up.”
“That’s not what I mean, Michael. I meant—”
“Oh, I know what you meant. I think we should move to Genovia, and be settled there before the babies are born. I think it’s important we have a place here so our kids can get to know the city the way we did when we were growing up, but the rest of the time they should live in Genovia so they can go outside to play and not have to worry about being stalked by the paparazzi or some psychopath waiting for them outside the door.”
Every time he says the word babies I feel a little nauseous. (Could I actually have morning sickness after all? Probably it’s only the maple syrup I keep smelling from the table next to ours.)
“Michael, I totally agree with all of that. But we can’t just drop everything and move to Genovia. What about my community center? What about Pavlov Surgical?”
He shrugged. “I told you when we went out of town: Perin and Ling Su can run that center blindfolded. That’s why you hired them. They’re amazing. And I can run my company from anywhere. Eventually I planned on reincorporating it in Genovia anyway, like everyone was accusing me of wanting to do.”
I gave a mock scowl. “I knew you were only marrying me so you could take advantage of Genovia’s low tax rates.”
He reached for my hand across the diner table, then squeezed it, gazing lovingly into my eyes. “That was my scheme all along, baby. To knock you up with twins so you’d never be able to get away, then turn to the dark side. I mean, significantly lower my overhead.”
“I should have run the moment I first saw you.”
“You couldn’t,” he said. “Vice Principal Gupta would have given you detention for leaving school property during class.”
Now he’s poring back over his books, looking so worried, I’ve almost forgiven him for getting me into this situation. Although I do realize there were two of us there, and I’m the one who invented the whole fire-marshal thing.
It couldn’t have been Space Alien. I only came up with that one last weekend.
It’s very strange how things that used to really matter to me already don’t matter anymore. Like it doesn’t matter to me that Michael says he’s going to take over cleaning Fat Louie’s litter box from now on because of the risk of my getting toxoplasmosis and transmitting it to the babies. I’m not even going to argue with him that only cats who hunt and kill rodents—or are fed raw meat by their owners—get infected with this disease, and that it’s much more likely I’d get it from gardening (ha! Like I’ve ever gardened) or eating raw meat myself than from Fat Louie. He’s never fed raw meat and, as an ancient indoor cat, has never caught a mouse in his life (though he used to sit on the windowsill—back when he could fit on it—and stare wistfully at the pigeons on the fire escape).
I don’t even care what my ranking is anymore on Rate the Royals. Not that I ever cared, but I seriously do not care now. I can actually see Brian Fitzpatrick standing outside the window of this diner gesturing frantically to me (how? How do paparazzi always know where I am?) and it isn’t bothering me at all.
It’s like a great calm has come over me. I know exactly what I’ve got to do.
And that is go home with Michael, put up my bruised foot, then binge-watch every single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a row without stopping (except for meals) until I’m done.
Then maybe—just maybe—I’ll feel prepared for parenthood.
I can’t, though. We have too many other things we have to do. Such as break the news to our parents. And grandparents.
I know Grandmère is going to love the news that days after finding out she’s a two-time grandmother, she’s now also a great-grandmother (no. No, she is not going to love finding this out).
I don’t want to do this. Look what happened when Grandmère found out Michael and I were getting married.
But we don’t have a choice. Because this, unlike a royal engagement, isn’t exactly s
omething you can hide, especially since by the time the wedding rolls around—unless we change the date—I’ll be showing. Even Sebastiano is not a skilled enough designer to disguise the belly bump of a woman who is eighteen weeks pregnant with twins.
Oh, God! I can barely take care of myself. How am I going to take care of a baby, let alone two?
Oh, I forgot. I’m a princess. I have staff.
And if we move to the palace, we’ll have even more staff. Dad always complains that when he was a kid, he had a night nanny, a day nanny, and various tutors, and this was in addition to all his riding and fencing and language instructors. He said he saw his parents only twice a day, at breakfast and at teatime, and he thought this was normal and how all children lived until he was sent away to boarding school and the other boys immediately stuck his head in a toilet.
Thank God for Michael. When I pointed all this out to him just now, he said, “Well, that won’t happen to our children because we’re never going to send them to boarding school and they’re going to have only one nanny, who’ll be a lovable robot like the one on The Jetsons. I’m working up the plans now.”
“Michael,” I said, laughing, “be serious.”
“I am being serious.”
“If you invent a robot nanny, then I’ll have to deal with the ensuing social unrest that inevitably comes when automaton technology puts humans out of work. Thanks a lot.”
He looked contrite. “Sorry. I didn’t think of that. Maybe I’ll hold off on the robot-nanny plan.”
Then he ordered three extra-large blueberry muffins, in a to-go bag, from the server.
“Who are these for?” I asked bewilderedly. “Lars? You know he doesn’t eat muffins. He calls them fattins because he thinks they’re nothing but fat.”
“No, they’re not for Lars,” he said, looking at me like I was crazy. “They’re for you and the babies, in case you get hungry later.”
He’s going to be the best dad.
CHAPTER 65
3:00 p.m., Thursday, May 7
Grandmère’s Limo
Haven’t gotten a chance to break anything to anyone yet.
That’s because when Michael and I walked out of the diner, Brian pounced, and for some reason—possibly hormones—I was feeling magnanimous, so I actually stopped to listen to him for once.
“Princess, I know you must be very upset about the vile lies some of my colleagues are spreading about your father,” he said very rapidly. He’s obviously been rehearsing. “Would you like to take a moment and give the readers of Rate the Royals a chance to know the truth?”
And though I knew Dominique would disapprove, since Brian isn’t affiliated with a major (or even cable) network—and of course he’d done something completely unethical in the ladies’ restroom at the center the other day—I decided that while I didn’t have to forgive him, I could still use him to my advantage.
(That’s a very important distinction, and one often pointed out in Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and various other television shows. You don’t have to like or forgive someone to work with them.)
“Yes, Brian,” I said, noticing that he’d stepped it up a notch in recent days and had actually hired a cameraperson—well, a woman who was recording our conversation with a camcorder. “I would like everyone to know that my father, the Prince of Genovia, is the first to admit that he’s made many mistakes in his life, but his daughter Olivia is not one of them. In fact, he considers her one of his proudest accomplishments—and I agree. The only reason you’ve never heard about her before now is that her mother, who sadly passed away a decade ago, very wisely asked that she be raised out of the glare of the media. As someone who’s experienced what it’s like to be a teen princess in the spotlight, I can definitely understand her concerns. But now that the information is out there—for which I take full responsibility—I only ask that Olivia be given the space and time she needs to adjust to her new situation, and get to know her new family.”
When I was through, Brian appeared dumbfounded with joy.
“Oh, Princess,” he breathed into his recorder. “That was . . . that was . . .”
“Was that enough?” I asked him as Michael tugged on my hand. Other paparazzi, having heard through their mysterious paparazzi underground that I was giving interviews, were rushing over to shout questions of their own, and the scene outside the diner was getting a little chaotic. Lars was beginning to lose it. He doesn’t like uncontrolled venues.
“More than enough,” Brian gushed. “I’ll post it right away. Thank you. Thank you!”
“No, thank you,” I said, and allowed myself to be rushed into the waiting car.
Brian was as good as his word. He did post the interview about a half hour later. And less than fifteen minutes after that, it was picked up by every major news outlet, where it’s received overall positive feedback (though Dominique is upset that I didn’t clear it, or my talking points, through her first).
That’s the good news. The bad news is, when I finally located my grandmother, my worst fears were confirmed:
She was trying to give my little sister a makeover.
Maybe it’s the hormones (I guess I’ll be saying that a lot for the next few months), but suddenly I found myself running around Paolo’s salon, screaming, “There’s nothing wrong with my sister’s hair!”
Everyone stared at me in complete shock, especially Paolo.
“Principessa,” he said, holding a hair dryer over a smocked Olivia’s soaking-wet head. “Calm down. I only give her the blowout. You want I let her catch the cold going around with the damp hair?”
Okay, maybe I overreacted. Olivia obviously loves her new blue nails and spiral curls (and Grandmère, and I don’t think it’s only because Grandmère has allowed her to name the new poodle Snowball, of all things).
But sometimes I think the entire world has gone mad.
That’s when Michael realized he’d forgotten an important meeting at the office and left.
• Note to self: Is it possible Michael left only because he couldn’t handle all the estrogen in the room from three—possibly more, if either of the babies is a girl—female Renaldos? Check with his assistant to see if he really had a meeting. No, don’t. Do not be this person.
After everyone had calmed down a bit, Grandmère and Olivia and “Snowball” and Rommel and I went to lunch at the Four Seasons (for “bonding” time), where I ordered every dessert on the menu because Olivia didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about anything else, and that’s what I felt like eating anyway.
(Although Grandmère remarked about how I ought to be “slimming” before the wedding, not trying to increase my caloric intake as much as possible. HA! Wait until she finds out the truth.)
Now we’re going back to the hotel because Grandmère says that’s where Dad is and he’s going to “hear about” my appalling behavior.
He’s going to “hear about” a lot more than that.
Things to do:
1. Make appointment with ob-gyn.
2. Break the news to Mom that she’s going to be a grandmother. Make sure she knows none of her friends can have the placenta for their weird art projects!
3. Tell Lilly she’s going to be an aunt. Ask her to be godmother? But no fairy jokes.
4. Start interviewing nannies. No robots.
5. Ask Lana what labor feels like No, better not ask Lana anything
6. Ask the vet how to prepare Fat Louie for a new baby. Will he be jealous?
7. What if Michael wants Boris to be godfather? NO.
CHAPTER 66
7:00 p.m., Thursday, May 7
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
Everything is a disaster.
When I got to Grandmère’s this afternoon and went into the library to speak to my dad, I interrupted a meeting he was having. A meeting with Olivia’s aunt and uncle and their lawyer, Bill Jenkins, Annabelle’s dad.
Actually, I didn’t know it was Olivia??
?s uncle because I’d never seen him before (except in the surveillance photos José had taken), but he had red hair and was wearing a light gray suit with a shirt that was open at the collar to show a lot of gold necklaces. So naturally I assumed he was Grandmère’s nemesis, the “bohunk ginger.”
Annabelle’s dad looked exactly like her, only much larger, male, and wearing a suit and tie instead of a schoolgirl uniform.
It turned out neither of my guesses were wrong.
“What it boils down to, Your Highness,” Mr. Jenkins was saying as I walked in, “is that my client is not willing at this time to give up her—”
“Oh,” I said, startled. “I beg your pardon.”
“It’s all right,” my father said, looking weary. “You might as well hear this.”
“Hear what?” I asked. I instantly had a very bad feeling about what I was about to hear.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that Olivia had followed me into the room (as little sisters, and poodle puppies, apparently have a tendency to do).
When her uncle saw her, he leaped from his chair and said, “Finally. There she is. Olivia, get your things, you’re going home right now.”
I was appalled. I thought we’d had the visitation thing all worked out.
But evidently not.
True, in typical Genovian fashion, we had kind of left it up to a recent law school grad who hasn’t yet passed the bar, a New York law firm employed by the royal family of Genovia, and a crisis management team belonging to my ex-boyfriend’s uncle, who is now suing us. This probably hadn’t been the best idea.
So that made it even worse when I heard Olivia say, in the sweetest voice possible, “Oh, I know I missed school today, Uncle Rick, but it was an excused absence. Grandma totally phoned in—”
“I don’t care,” her uncle said, without the slightest hint of sympathy. “Go and get your things.”
I hadn’t even officially met him, but already I strongly disliked him. And I could tell from the dangerous glint in my dad’s eye that I wasn’t the only one.
“Rick,” Catherine said. She looked as if she’d been crying. “Must you—?”