Forever Princess

“Family meeting about what?” I demanded, when Mom hung up.

“You,” she said. “Your father’s scheduled a conference call.”

Great. There’s really nothing I look forward to more than a nice call from my dad in Genovia in the evening. That’s always a big guarantee a good time will be had by all. Not.

“What did I do now?” I wanted to know. Because, seriously, I haven’t done anything (except lie to everyone I know about…well, everything). But other than that, I’m always home by curfew, and it isn’t even because I have a bodyguard who basically ensures it, either. My boyfriend is way conscientious. J.P. doesn’t want to get on the bad side of my father (or mother or stepfather), and when we get together, he freaks if I’m not on my way home a half hour before I’m supposed to be, and so he literally hurls me into Lars’s arms every time.

So whatever Dad’s calling about—I didn’t do it.

Not this time, anyway.

Princess Diaries X - Forever Princess

I went to my room to visit Fat Louie before the pizzas came. I worry about him so much. Because let’s just say I do choose to make everyone I know furious with me, and go to a college in the U.S. instead of L’Université de Genovia, which really no one but the sons and daughters of celebrity plastic surgeons and dentists who couldn’t get in anywhere else attends. (Spencer Pratt from The Hills probably would have gone there, if he hadn’t leached his way on to his girlfriend’s ex-friend’s TV show. Lana probably would have had to go there, if I hadn’t forced her to make studying, not getting onto lastnightsparty.com, a priority her junior year.)

The thing is, none of the colleges I got into has dorms that let you bring your cat. Which means if I go there and I want to bring Fat Louie, I’ll have to live off-campus. So I won’t meet anyone, and I’ll be a bigger social leper than I would be otherwise.

But how can I leave Fat Louie behind? He’s afraid of Rocky…understandably, because Rocky adores Fat Louie and every time he sees him he runs and tries to grab him and pick him up and squeeze him, which has given Fat Louie, of course, a complex, because he doesn’t like being grabbed and squeezed.

So now Fat Louie just stays in my room (which Rocky is forbidden from entering because he messes with my Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures) when I’m not around to protect him.

And if I go off to college, that means Fat Louie’ll just be hiding in my room for four years with no one to sleep with him and scratch him under the ears the way he likes.

That’s just wrong.

Oh, sure, Mom says that he can move into her room (which Rocky is also forbidden from entering—unsupervised, anyway—because he’s obsessed with her makeup and once ate one of her entire Lancome Au Currant Velvet lipsticks, so she had to put one of those slippy things on her doorknob, too).

But I don’t know if Fat Louie will really like sleeping with Mr. G, who snores.

My phone! It’s J.P.

Thursday, April 27, 7:30 p.m., the loft

J.P. wanted to know how prom dress shopping went. I lied to him, of course. I was like, “Great!”

Our conversation slipped into the Twilight Zone from there.

“Did you get anything?” he wanted to know.

I couldn’t believe he was asking. I was truly shocked. You know, what with the whole his having neglected to ask me to the prom thing, and all. Silly me, to assume we weren’t going.

I said, “No…”

My shock grew beyond all bounds when he then went on to say, “Well, when you do, you have to let me know what color it is, so I’ll know what color corsage to get you.”

Hello?

“Wait,” I said. “So…we’re going to the prom?” J.P. actually laughed. “Of course!” he said. “I’ve had the tickets for weeks now.”

!!!!!!!!!

Then, when I didn’t laugh along with him, he stopped laughing, and said, “Wait. We are going, aren’t we, Mia?”

I was so stunned, I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I—

I love J.P. I do!

It’s just that for some reason, I don’t love the idea of going to the prom with J.P.

Only I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to explain that to him without hurting his feelings. Telling him that I thought the prom was lame, like I’d said to Tina, didn’t seem like it was going to cut it.

Especially since he’d just admitted he’d had the tickets for weeks. And those things aren’t cheap.

Instead I heard myself muttering, “I don’t know. You…you never asked.”

Which is true. I mean, I was telling the truth. Dr. K would have been proud of me.

But all J.P. said to this was, “Mia! We’ve been going out for almost two years. I didn’t think I had to ask.”

I didn’t think I had to ask?

I couldn’t believe he said this. Even if it’s true, well…a girl still wants to be asked! Right?

I don’t think I’m the girliest girl in the world—I don’t have fake nails (anymore) and I don’t diet or anything, even though I’m far from the skinniest girl for my height in our class. I’m WAY less girlie than Lana. And I’m a princess.

But still. If a guy wants to take a girl to the prom, he should ask her…

…even if they have been dating exclusively for almost two years.

Because she might not want to go.

Really, is it me? Am I asking too much? I don’t think so.