But I think it’s going to take more than one pair of healing hands to find the balance in my universe.

CHAPTER 8

11:36 p.m., Thursday, April 30

Third-Floor Apartment

Consulate General of Genovia

New York City

Ugh. So glad that’s over. At least I looked good. Paolo is a true artist of hair.

I couldn’t tell Lilly the truth about why I didn’t want her or Michael around tonight. It wasn’t that I was afraid of them getting oranges thrown at them (no oranges were thrown; everyone behaved with perfect decorum when Grandmère and I went out to greet our guests. Except for the booing).

It isn’t even that the security system is still glitchy and that I’m afraid Michael will get caught entering the building in the wee hours and we’ll get more bad press.

It’s that Genovians are snobs.

That’s why they don’t want the Qalifi refugees to be given Genovian citizenship, even temporary Genovian citizenship. They barely think I’m good enough to have Genovian citizenship.

My eye was twitching like crazy the entire time (when my jaw wasn’t aching from fake smiling), but I don’t think anyone except Grandmère noticed.

Of course, even though I overheard half of them making catty remarks about the fact that I’m a “commoner” and, even worse, an American (but of course the other half of me is royal, so to them that makes up for it), they were falling over themselves in an effort to get selfies taken with me (and the portrait of my dad in the Grand Hallway, since he didn’t show up—probably a good thing, given his current state of near-constant inebriation).

Now they’ll be busy posting their pics to their social media accounts, saying what a fantastic time they had.

Since Michael wasn’t there, several of them asked me with fake concern if “everything is all right” between the two of us. I could tell they were hoping things were not all right and that we’d broken up, so then I could date one of their half-wit chinless sons (who would then become prince consort and father to the future heir to the throne).

“No,” I said, with my big fake smile. “Michael’s fine. Just working late tonight.”

“Oh,” they said, giving me smiles that were every bit as phony as mine. “He works? How wonderful.” (You could tell they didn’t think this was wonderful.)

But has Cousin Ivan (who insists on everyone calling him Count Renaldo, even though he isn’t a Renaldo and that isn’t even a correct title, which I can’t believe I know, but that is what over a decade of etiquette lessons from your grandmother, the dowager princess, will do to you) ever invented a robotic surgical arm that helped save the life of a suffering child?

No. No, he has not.

All Cousin Ivan does is manage the properties his father purchased ages ago, and by “manage” I mean raise the rents so ridiculously high that decent, hardworking Genovians can no longer afford them, which is why there is no longer a single bookstore in all of Genovia.

But when I pointed this out (politely) tonight to one of the count’s supporters, he said, “Books? No one reads books anymore! Look at all the tourism that guy’s bringing in with his T-shirt shops and bars. Have you ever been to Crazy Ivan’s? That place is the bomb. It has a bar that’s topless only! Everyone who comes in—male or female—has to take their top off. It’s mandatory!”

I said I have never been to Crazy Ivan’s, but I certainly do not want to go there now.

That’s when Grandmère took me aside and told me I was being rude.

“I’m being rude?” I demanded. “I’m an adult, for God’s sake—nearly twenty-six years old, the age at which neuroscientists have determined most people’s cognitive development is fully matured. I can say I do not want to go to a bar where shirtlessness is mandatory if I don’t want to, and I can especially say it while I’m standing here on American soil.”

(It’s a common misconception that consulates and embassies sit upon “the soil” of the country they represent. So in all those episodes of Law & Order where Detectives Briscoe et al arrest foreign diplomats who then claim immunity because they’re on “Flockistan soil”? They can’t.)

So then Grandmère dragged me into the drawing room—she has a pretty strong grip for such an old lady, although of course no one knows how old she is since she won’t tell anyone and she had all copies of her birth certificate destroyed, which you can do if you’re the dowager princess—and said, “You will be civil when speaking about your cousin Ivan and his businesses.”

I said, “I don’t see why, all the plans he has for Genovia are only going to ruin the place if he wins. Why are we even having these people to dinner? They’re obviously his friends. Or, I should say, spies.”

Then Grandmère leaned in and hissed, “They’re Genovian citizens, and this is the Genovian consulate, and it will always be open to them. Besides, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

I was appalled. “Are you actually quoting from The Godfather?”

“What if I am?” She exhaled a plume of vapor from her e-cigarette—which, thank God, she’s switched to, none of us could take the Gitanes anymore. “Really, Amelia, you’re slipping. And after everything I taught you, too. I suppose you’re letting this nonsense about your father’s arrest get to you. What is wrong with your eye?”