Princess Mia

“That’s a valid reason for deleting his e-mail,” Dr. Knutz said. And for some reason—even though he’s a COWBOY THERAPIST—I felt pleased by this. “Now. Why don’t you want to go shopping with your friend?”

I stopped feeling so pleased. Could he not PAY ATTENTION TO THE SIMPLEST DETAIL?

“I told you. She’s not my friend. She’s my enemy. If you had seen the movies—”

“I’ll watch them this weekend,” he said.

“All right. But…the thing is…her mom asked me to speak at this event. And Grandmère says it’s a big honor. And she’s super excited about it. And it turns out the mom asked me because Lana recommended me. Which was…decent of her.”

“So that,” Dr. Knutz said, “is why you didn’t turn down her invitation to go shopping right away?”

“Well, that, and…I need new clothes. And Lana knows a lot about shopping. And if I’m supposed to do one thing every day that scares me—well, the idea of shopping with Lana Weinberger DEFINITELY scares me.”

“Then I think you have your answer,” Dr. K said.

“But I’d much rather spend my whole day in bed,” I said quickly. “Reading,” I added. “OR WATCHING TV.”

“Back on the ranch,” Dr. Knutz said, in his good-old-boy drawl, “we’ve got a mare named Dusty.”

I think my mouth actually fell open. Dusty? After all that, he was telling me a story about a mare named Dusty? What kind of weird psychological technique was this?

“Whenever it’s a hot summer day and Dusty passes a certain pretty little pond on my property,” Dr. Knutz went on, “she wades off into the middle of it. It doesn’t matter if she’s saddled up and has a rider on her. Dusty doesn’t care. She’s got to get into that water. Want to know why?”

I was so shocked by the fact that a trained psychologist would tell me a story about a HORSE in a professional setting that I just nodded dumbly.

“Because,” Dr. Knutz said, “she’s hot. And she wants to cool off. She’d rather spend the day in that pond than carry somebody around on her back. But we don’t always get to do what we want to do. Because it’s not necessarily healthy or practical. Besides, saddles are ruined when they get wet.”

I stared at him.

And this guy was supposed to be the nation’s preeminent adolescent and child psychologist?

“I want to go back to something you said yesterday,” Dr. Knutz said, without waiting for me to respond to the Dusty story, thank God. “You said, and I quote—” And he DID quote. He actually read from his notes. “Maybe it’s a little more complicated than a normal teenager’s breakup, because I’m a princess, and Michael is a genius, and he thinks he has to go off to Japan to build a robotic surgical arm in order to prove to my family that he’s worthy of me, when the truth is, I’m not worthy of him, and I suppose because deep down inside, I know that I completely sabotaged our relationship.”

He looked up from his notes. “What did you mean by that?”

“I meant…” This was all going too fast for me. I’d barely gotten over being shocked by the Dusty story, and still hadn’t been able to figure out what it had to do with me going bra shopping with Lana Weinberger tomorrow. “…that I guess I figured he was going to dump me for a smarter, more accomplished girl anyway. So I beat him to the punch by dumping him first. Even though I regretted it later. The whole Judith Gershner thing…I mean, the reason it upset me so much is because I know deep down inside that’s who he should really be with. Someone who can clone fruit flies. Not someone like…like m-me, who’s j-just a p-princess.”

And before I knew it, I was crying again. Man! What was it about this guy’s office that made me weep like a baby?

Dr. Knutz passed me the tissues. Not in an unkind way, either.

“Did he ever do or say anything to make you think this?” he wanted to know.

“N-no,” I sobbed.

“Then why do you think you feel that way?”

“B-because it’s true! I mean, being a princess is no big accomplishment! I was just BORN this way! I didn’t EARN it, the way Michael is going to earn fame and fortune from his robotic surgical arm. I mean, anyone can be BORN!”

“I think,” Dr. Knutz said a little dryly, “you’re being a bit hard on yourself. You’re only sixteen. Very few sixteen-year-olds actually—”

“JUDITH GERSHNER HAD ALREADY CLONED HER FIRST FRUIT FLY BY THE TIME SHE WAS SIXTEEN!” I shouted.

Then I felt ashamed of myself. I mean, for shouting. But I couldn’t help it.

“And look at Lilly,” I went on. “She’s sixteen, and she has her own TV show. And sure, it’s on public access, but whatever, it’s been optioned. And she has thousands of loyal viewers. And she made that show all by herself. No one even helped her. Well, except for me and Shameeka and Ling Su and Tina. But we just helped with the camera work, really. So saying I’m only sixteen—that doesn’t mean anything. There are lots of sixteen-year-olds who have accomplished loads more than me. I can’t even get published in Sixteen magazine.”

“Supposing I take your word for it,” Dr. Knutz said. “If you really feel that way—that you aren’t worthy of Michael—hadn’t you better do something about it?”