9:55 a.m., Friday, May 8

Third-Floor Apartment

Consulate General of Genovia

Or maybe it was only vomiting at the thought that in a few months, I’m not only getting married . . . I’m also going to have to rule a country.

(In name only, since it’s a constitutional monarchy, and Madame Dupris is going to be the one actually running it. But still.)

Poor Michael! The lovely breakfast he made me! All gone.

And now I’m starving again.

CHAPTER 70

11:45 a.m., Friday, May 8

Third-Floor Apartment

Consulate General of Genovia

Well, that was awkward. As I was scarfing down the second breakfast Michael made me, there was knock on the door, and who should walk in but my parents. Together!

I don’t suppose I should have been too surprised, since Dad is still officially the Prince of Genovia and I live in the Genovian consulate, but still.

They said they wanted to tell me “the big news” in person.

Of course I had to act like Grandmère hadn’t already spoiled it, and also like I hadn’t just been vomiting in the half bath, and also like my boyfriend hadn’t just spent the night, which obviously they must know he does sometimes, since Michael and I have been going out forever, are engaged, Dad receives full reports on my activities—I’m only guessing—from the RGG, and I was wearing pajama bottoms and a VISIT BEAUTIFUL GENOVIA! T-shirt while sprawled with one foot up in the completely unmade bed.

But it was embarrassing nonetheless.

“Well, Mia,” Dad said, smiling more broadly than I’d seen him smile in years . . . maybe ever. “Your mother and I have something to tell you.”

“Great,” Michael said, rushing over with coffee for both of them. He loves playing host. “Mia and I have something tell you two, too.”

“Oh, you go first,” Mom said. She was walking around, poking nosily into all my stuff. This is what she does. She doesn’t mean anything by it.

“No,” Dad said. “I think we should go first, actually, Helen.”

“Let the kids go first, Phillipe,” Mom said. “Don’t be such a spoilsport.”

Dad seemed a little surprised at being called a spoilsport, but after thinking about it a minute, he said, “Well, all right,” with perfect equanimity.

I could tell this was how his life was going to go from now on: Mom was going to boss him around, and he was going to love it. He’s used to having a woman boss him around—Grandmère—but Mom is much better looking and also not his mother.

Michael walked over to the bed and took my hand.

“Well, go on,” he said, giving my fingers an encouraging squeeze. “You’re going to have to tell them sometime.”

This was embarrassing. It’s one thing to tell your grandmother in a fit of pique that you’re pregnant with twins . . .

It’s quite another to announce it to your mother and father, especially after you’ve found out that they’ve gotten back together after twenty-six years, and that your father was giving up his throne to make it happen.

Also, I’ve noticed that online there’s this trend where young couples film their parents unwrapping a box containing baby clothes, or whatever, then announce, as the sweet but puzzled old fogies hold up a set of booties, “We’re having your grandchild!”

This usually makes the grandma-to-be burst into tears.

I wish Michael and I had prepared something this creative. Oh, well, maybe for the Drs. Moscovitz.

Instead I decided to go with the truth.

“Well,” I said, “I went to the doctor yesterday to get an X-ray of my foot, because Olivia’s aunt slammed it in her door, and it turns out I’m pregnant with twins. So we’re probably going to need to move up the wedding date. I hope this won’t be a big problem.”

I wish we had thought to film their reaction, because it was pretty great. They both burst into tears, which was pretty gratifying, and started hugging us and weeping and telling us how happy they were.

Except that as they were hugging us and weeping and telling us how happy they were, Dad got a little too emotional. When I told him to throw out the map, I didn’t mean for him to throw out all his filters, too. He told me that Mom had made him the happiest man on earth, and now I was making him the happiest man in the galaxy, and all he needed was for the lawyers to come up with an agreement so that he could get at least partial custody of Olivia, and he’d be the happiest man in the universe.

“Your mom and Rocky are moving to Genovia this summer, you see,” he told me, “just as soon as I can renovate the summer palace. Hopefully by then I’ll have things straightened out with Olivia, and you’ll be married, and I’ll have abdicated, and we can all be one happy family.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Renovate the summer palace? If you and Mom and Rocky and Olivia are—hopefully—going to live in the summer palace, then where’s Grandmère going to live?”

“In the main palace,” Dad said, squeezing me tightly. “With you and Michael. She can help you with the babies. It will be wonderful.”

Wonderful for who? Not wonderful for me. Not wonderful for my new husband, to have to live with his grandmother-in-law. It’s nice that Dad’s so happy, and great that Mom’s happy, too, and yes, I realize I’m complaining about having to live in a palace, which is like complaining about my diamond shoes being too tight, but it’s a palace with Grandmère, who likes to smoke indoors while perusing the morning paper . . . and then the whole rest of the day until she removes her false eyelashes and turns out the light to go to sleep.