Party Princess

“I don’t think I can learn all the Italian words I have to know by then, Your Highness,” Perin said nervously.

“Nonsense,” Grandmère said. “Nessun dolore, nessun guadagno.”

But since nobody even knew what that meant, they were still freaking out.

Except J.P., apparently. He said, in his deep, calm, My Bodyguard voice, “Hey, guys, come on. I think we can do this. It’ll be kind of fun.”

It took a second or two for this to sink in. But when it finally did, it was Lilly, surprisingly, who said, “You know, J.P.’s right. I think we can do it, too.”

Which caused Boris to burst out with, “Excuse me, but weren’t you the one who was just complaining about how you have the first issue of the school’s new literary magazine to put to bed this weekend?”

Lilly chose to ignore that. J.P. looked kind of confused.

“Well, I don’t know about putting magazines to bed,” he said. “But I bet if we get together tomorrow morning, and maybe Sunday, too, and do a few more read-throughs, we’ll have most of our lines memorized by Monday.”

“Excellent idea,” Grandmère said, clapping her hands loudly enough to cause Señor Eduardo to open his eyes groggily. “That will give us plenty of time to work with the choreographer and vocal instructor.”

“Choreographer?” Boris looked horrified. “Vocal instructor? Just how much time are we talking about here?”

“As much time,” Grandmère said fiercely, “as it takes. Now, all of you go home and get some rest! I suggest eating a hearty supper to give you strength for tomorrow’s rehearsal. A steak, cooked medium rare, with a small salad and a baked potato with plenty of butter and salt is the ideal repast for a thespian who wants to keep up his or her strength. I will expect to see all of you here tomorrow morning at ten. And eat a big breakfast—eggs and bacon, and plenty of coffee! I don’t want any of my actors fainting from exhaustion on me! And good read-through, people! Excellent! You showed plenty of good, raw emotion. Give yourselves a round of applause!”

Slowly, one by one, we started to clap—only because, if we didn’t, it was clear Grandmère was never going to let us out of there.

Unfortunately, our applause woke the dozing maestro. Or director. Whatever he was.

“Tank you!” Señor Eduardo was now awake enough to think that we were clapping for something he did. “Tank you, all! I could not have done eet eef eet were not for you, however. You are all too kind.”

“Well.” J.P. waved to me. “See you tomorrow morning, Mia. Don’t forget to eat that steak! And that bacon!”

“She’s a vegetarian,” Boris, who still seemed sort of hostile about how much violin practice he was going to miss, reminded him.

J.P. blinked.

“I know,” he said. “That was a joke. I mean, after she freaked out about the meat in the vegetarian lasagna that one time, the whole SCHOOL knows she’s a vegetarian.”

“Oh, yeah?” Boris said. “Well, you’re one to talk, Mr. Guy Who Hates It When They—”

I had to slap my hand over Boris’s mouth before he could finish.

“Good night, J.P.,” I said. “See you tomorrow!” Then, after he’d left the room, I let Boris go, and had to wipe my hand on a napkin.

“God, Boris,” I said. “Drool much?”

“I have a problem with oversecretion of saliva,” he informed me.

“NOW you tell me.”

“Wow, Mia,” Lilly said, as we were on our way out. “Way to overreact. What is wrong with you, anyway? Do you like that J.P. guy or something?”

“No,” I said, offended. Geez, I mean, I’ve only been dating her brother for a year and a half. She should KNOW by now who I like. “But you guys could at least be nice to him.”

“Mia just feels guilty,” Boris observed, “because she killed him off in her short story.”

“No, I don’t,” I snapped.

But as usual, I was fully lying. I do feel guilty about killing J.P. in my story.

And I hereby swear I will never kill another character based on a real person in my fiction again.

Except when I write my book about Grandmère, of course.

Friday, March 5, 10 p.m., the Moscovitzes’ living room

Okay, these movies Michael is making me watch? They are so depressing! Dystopic science fiction just isn’t my thing. I mean, even the WORD “dystopic” bums me out. Because dystopia is the OPPOSITE of utopia, which means an idyllic or totally peaceful society. Like the utopian society they tried to build in New Harmony, Indiana, where my mom made me go one time when we were trying to get away from Mamaw and Papaw during a visit to Versailles (the one in Indiana).

In New Harmony, everyone got together and planned this, like, perfect city with all these pretty buildings and pretty streets and pretty schools and stuff. I know it sounds repulsive. But it’s not. New Harmony is actually cool.

A dystopic society, on the other hand, is NOT cool. There are no pretty buildings or streets or schools. It’s a lot like the Lower East Side used to be before all the rich dot-com geniuses moved down there and they opened all those tapas bars and three-thousand-dollar-a-month-maintenance-fee condos, actually. You know, one of those places where everything is pretty much gas stations and strip clubs, with the occasional crack dealer on the corner thrown in for good measure.