Princess in Training

“You have a hotel suite all to yourself,” was all Michael said, “and you invite my sister over.”

“And Shameeka and Tina and Ling Su,” I said, wiping mustard from my chin. Because you have to put mustard on your pretzel, or the healing properties don’t work.

“Right,” Michael said. “Well, are you going to come over here later, or not?”

Which some people might have found kind of, you know, rude. Except to me the fact that Michael was annoyed with me—for whatever reason—was kind of a relief. Because if he was annoyed with me, it probably meant that Doing It wasn’t foremost on his mind. And I really wasn’t looking forward to having the Doing It conversation, even though I knew Tina was right, and we were going to have to get that out in the open one of these days.

So, now I’m just having a restorative slice of plain cheese pizza with Lilly before I summon up my strength to get into the limo with Lars and head uptown to Michael’s dorm. Really, after an evening of partying, it is very difficult to function the next day. I don’t know how those Hilton sisters do it.

Lilly is now saying that we have this election in the bag. I don’t have the slightest idea what she’s talking about, since

A) We never did end up doing that mock debate thingie last night, so it’s not like I ever had a chance to brush up on my answers for Monday, and

B) Most of the people I talked to in the stands at the game today just looked at me like I was a mental case and went, “I’m voting for Lana, dawg.”

But whatever. Lilly spent the entire game sitting with people’s PARENTS, so what does she even know?

I wish I could ask her about this Doing It thing, though. I mean, Lilly’s never Done It either…at least, I don’t think so. She only got to second base with her last boyfriend.

Still, I’m sure she’d have some valuable insights into the whole thing.

But I can’t talk to Lilly about Doing It or not Doing It with her BROTHER. I mean, GROSS. If any girl wanted to talk to me about Doing It with Rocky, I would probably punch her lights out. Although he is, of course, my younger brother, and only four months old.

Besides, I think I kind of know what Lilly would say: Go for it.

Which is very easy for Lilly to say, because she is very at ease in her body. She doesn’t, like I do, change out of her school uniform and into her gym shorts as fast as possible before and after PE, and in the darkest, emptiest corner of the room she can find. She has even, upon occasion, strutted around the locker room COMPLETELY naked, going, “Does anyone have any deodorant I can borrow?” And the remarks Lana and her friends make concerning Lilly’s pot-belly and cellulite seem not to bother her in the least.

Not that I’m worried Michael’s going to make remarks about my nude body. I’m just not so sure I’m comfortable with him knowing anything about it at all.

Although, I wouldn’t mind, of course, seeing his.

Probably, this means I’m inhibited and a prude and sexist and everything bad. Probably, I don’t deserve to be president of the Albert Einstein student council, even for only a couple of days before I resign and let Lilly take over. Certainly, I don’t deserve to be princess of a country that I have managed to get thrown out of the EU…well, if it comes to that, anyway.

Really, I don’t deserve much of anything.

Well, I guess I’ll go to Michael’s now.

Someone, please shoot me.

Saturday, September 12, 5 p.m., Michael’s dorm room bathroom

Okay, I thought Columbia was a hard school to get into. I thought they actually screened their applicants.

So, what are they doing letting crazy people like Michael’s roommate in here?

Everything was going fine until HE showed up. Lars and I buzzed Michael from the lobby of Engle Hall, which is Michael’s dorm, and Michael came down to sign us in, because they take their students’ safety very seriously here at Columbia University (too bad they don’t worry as much about the safety of their students’ guests!). I had to leave my student ID at the security desk so I wouldn’t try to leave the building without signing out. Lars had to leave his gun permit (although they let him keep his gun when they found out I was the princess of Genovia and he was my bodyguard).

Anyway, once we were all signed in, Michael took us upstairs. I had been in Engle Hall before, of course, the day he moved in, but it looks very different now that all the moving carts and parents are gone. There were people running around in just towels up and down the hallway, screaming, just like on Gilmore Girls! And very loud music was blaring out of some open doorways. There were posters everywhere urging residents to come to this or that protest march, and invitations to poetry readings at various nearby coffeehouses. It was all very collegiate!

Michael seemed to have gotten over being annoyed with me, since he gave me a very nice kiss hello, during which I got to smell his neck, and immediately felt better about things. Michael’s neck is almost as good as a NYC vendor pretzel, as far as healing properties go.

Anyway, we managed to ditch Lars in the student lounge on Michael’s floor, since there was a baseball game on the big TV in there. You would think Lars would have had enough athletics for one day, seeing as how we’d just spent, like, three hours at one sporting event, but whatever. He took one look at the score, which was tied, and was glued to the set, along with a number of other people who were as slackjawed as he was.

Michael went ahead and took me to his room, which looks a lot better than it did the last time I’d seen it, the day he’d moved in. There’s a map of the galaxy covering most of the cinderblock, more computer equipment than they probably have in NORAD covering every available flat surface (not counting the beds), and a big sign on the ceiling that says DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT PARKING HERE that Michael swears he didn’t steal off the street.