Forever Princess

But he’s still looking for love in all the wrong places. Like fancy underwear catalogs.

At least he knows enough not to date while he’s campaigning.

Then Mom came out with her present to me, which was a collage incorporating all the things from our lives together, including things like ticket stubs from train rides to women’s reproductive rights rallies in Washington, D.C., and my old overalls from when I was six, and pictures of Rocky when he was a baby, and pictures of Mom and me painting the loft, and Fat Louie’s collar from when he was a kitten, and snapshots of me in my Halloween costume as Joan of Arc and stuff.

Mom said it was so I wouldn’t be homesick when I went to college.

Which was totally sweet of her and completely brought tears to my eyes.

Until she reminded me I need to hurry up and make my decision about where I’m going to college next year.

Okay! Yeah, I’ll be sure to get right on that! Push me out of the loft, why don’t you?

I know she and Dad and Mr. G mean well. But it’s not that easy. I have a lot of things on my mind right now. Like how yesterday my best friend confessed she’s been having sex regularly with her boyfriend and never told me until now, and like how before that I gave my novel to my ex-boyfriend to read, and how now I have to go turn in the article I wrote on said ex-boyfriend to his sister, who hates me, and later on tonight I have to attend a party on a yacht with three hundred of my closest friends, most of whom I don’t even know because they’re celebrities my grandma, who’s a dowager princess of a small European country, invited.

And, oh, yeah, my actual boyfriend has had my novel for more than twenty-four hours and hasn’t read it and wouldn’t come to eat at Applebee’s with me.

Could someone possibly cut me a tiny piece of slack?

Life’s not easy for unicorns, you know. We’re a dying breed.

Monday, May 1, Homeroom

Okay, so I just left the offices of the Atom. I’m still shaking a little.

There was no one in there but Lilly when I went in just now. I put on a big fake smile (like I always do when I see my ex-best friend) and went, “Hi, Lilly. Here’s the story on your brother,” and handed the article to her. (I was up until one o’clock last night writing it. How do you write four hundred words on your ex-boyfriend and keep it a piece of impartial journalism? Answer: You can’t. I nearly had an embolism doing it. But I don’t think you can tell from reading it that I spilled hot chocolate on and then smelled the subject.)

Lilly looked up from whatever she was doing on the school computer (I couldn’t help remembering that stage she went through when she used to put the names of deities and then dirty words into Google just to see what kind of websites she’d come up with. God, those were the days. I miss those days.) and went, “Oh, hi, Mia. Thanks.”

Then she added, sort of hesitantly, “Happy birthday.”

!!!!! She remembered!!!!

Well, I guess the fact that Grandmère sent her an invitation to my party might have been a slight reminder.

Surprised, I said, “Um…thanks.”

I figured that was it and was halfway out the door when she stopped me by going, “Look, I hope you won’t be weirded out if Kenneth and I come tonight. To your party, I mean.”

“No, not at all,” I said. Mia Thermopolis’s Big Fat Lie Number Seven. “I’d love for you both to come.”

Which is just an example of how well all those princess lessons have paid off. The truth, of course, is that inside my head I was going, Oh my God. She’s coming??? Why? She can only be coming because she’s plotting some horrible revenge on me. Like, she and Kenny are going to hijack the yacht once it sets sail and steer it out into international waters and detonate it in the name of free love once we’ve all been put into life rafts, or something. Good thing Vigo made Grandmère hire extra security in case Jennifer Aniston shows up and Brad Pitt is there, too.

“Thanks,” Lilly said. “There’s something I really want to give you for your birthday, but I can only do it if I come to your party.”

Something she wants to give me for my birthday, but she can only give it to me on the Royal Genovian yacht? Great! My hijack theory confirmed.

“Um,” I stammered. “You d-don’t actually have to give me anything, Lilly.”

This was the wrong thing to say, though, because Lilly scowled at me and said, “Well, I know you already have everything, Mia, but I think there’s something I can give you that no one else can.”

I got super nervous then (not that I wasn’t before), and said, “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. What I meant was—”

Lilly seemed to regret her caustic outburst, and said, “I didn’t mean it like that, either. Look, I don’t want to fight anymore.”

This was the first time in two years Lilly had referred to the fact that we even used to be friends, and that we’d been fighting. I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say at first. I mean, it had never even occurred to me that not fighting was an option. I just figured the only option was what we’d been doing…basically ignoring each other.

“I don’t want to fight anymore either,” I said, meaning it.

But if she didn’t want to fight anymore, what DID she want? Surely not to be my friend. I’m not cool enough for her. I don’t have any piercings, I’m a princess, I go on shopping sprees with Lana Weinberger, I wear pink ball gowns sometimes, I have a Prada tote, I’m a virgin, and, oh, yeah—she thinks I stole her boyfriend.