“True. But do you maybe want to discuss other, less criminal ways we could deal with the matter first?”

“No.”

“All right. Great. I kind of anticipated you’d have this reaction, to be honest, which is why I took the liberty of—”

“Lilly, just shut up for once in your life, and unlace me.”

“Yes, Your High Holiness.”

So now we’re on our way to Cranbrook, New Jersey. (Lilly keeps yelling at François, the driver, that we should have taken the bridge, but that makes no sense, we’d have had to go way out of our way.)

Of course Grandmère was furious when I came out of the dressing room with no gown on and announced we were going to have to reschedule our lunch with Lazarres-Reynolds.

“What could possibly be more important?”

I didn’t tell her, or anyone. I simply said that something very important had come up and I was going to have to meet them another time.

(Dominique took me aside and pointed out one of the reasons Grandmère is so angry is that Lazarres-Reynolds is still going to bill us, and that they cost $500 an hour, or as she put it, “Five ’undred dollairs an hour.” So I said she could tell Grandmère to send the bill to me.)

That’s when Grandmère caused a scene and said she was taking my hybrid electric livery vehicle—she only did this to hurt me—leaving me her obnoxious black stretch limo with the Genovian flags on it that she takes everywhere because she doesn’t believe in traveling inconspicuously like I do (in this way Grandmère has a lot in common with some popular rappers).

But the joke’s on her, because the limo has Wi-Fi and also a bar (though unlike Lilly, I am staying away from it).

I gave my mom a lift home in it. She was only going a block away, back to the loft on Thompson Street. Still, it was fun to ride with my mom in a limo—we don’t get to do it very often.

I thought about using the opportunity to tell Mom about Olivia, but it didn’t seem like the right time. Also, breaking the news that he has a child by another woman is obviously my father’s responsibility.

But when Mom asked where Lilly and Tina and I were going (Tina was going back to the NYU library to study, so I offered her a lift too, then secretly texted her what was up, which might have been a mistake because now she’s sitting on the jump seat looking very pale, mouthing I can’t believe this is happening over and over), I couldn’t exactly lie, not only because I’ve been getting worse and worse at it—not even counting my twitching eye, I’ve still never learned to keep my nostrils from flaring when I tell a fib—but because she’s my mother. I knew she was going to be able to tell something was up (besides Genovia’s security threat level).

So I said we were going to Cranbrook, New Jersey.

“Oh, really?” Mom asked. “What’s in Cranbrook, New Jersey?”

Lilly smiled at me expectantly from over her laptop and the whiskey sour she’d mixed for herself from the mini-bar, clearly enjoying the situation.

I had to think of something my mom totally wouldn’t want to come with us to do, because as an artist her schedule is pretty flexible (except for having to pick up Rocky from after-school karate practice, but she could easily get one of her equally artistic, flexibly-scheduled friends to do that).

“Um, we’re going to look at bridesmaid dresses to get inspiration for Sebastiano,” I said. “There’s a shop out there someone told us about. I hear they have amazing mother-of-the-bride dresses. Do you want to come?”

Fortunately the lighting in the limo is pretty dim, so Mom didn’t notice my nostrils or eyelid. Also I knew she’d be so turned off by the words “shop” and “mother-of-the-bride dresses” there was no way on God’s green earth she’d ever want to join us.

“Oh, no, sweetheart, but thank you so much for the invitation,” she said, smiling warmly. “I really can’t afford to take any more time away from the new painting I’m doing. I’m calling it Woman with a Weed Wacker. I’m hoping it will break new ground in the battle against the Men’s Rights Activists.”

“Oh, no problem, Mom,” I said. “The new painting sounds amazing. Good luck with it.”

“Thanks, Mia. But send me some photos! I’d love to see what kind of dresses you girls find.”

Great. So now when we get to New Jersey, we’re going to have to find some store that sells bridesmaid dresses and look at them, in order to take photos to send to my mom.

Although Lilly said there’s another way to accomplish this. She started looking up bridesmaid dresses online so we can send those to my mom instead.

“Oh, look, Mia. One shoulder empire waist in electric green. Mia, please can you get Sebastiano to go with one shoulder empire waist in electric green as our bridesmaid dresses? I’m begging you.”

Naturally, this got Tina upset. “Stop it, Lilly. Your best friend—who is marrying your brother—has made a life-altering discovery. She has a sister she never knew existed, a little girl who’s grown up without a father or a mother, and you’re sitting there joking about electric green bridesmaid dresses? Really?”

Lilly looked a little ashamed of herself . . . ​at least until Tina went on to add, “Besides, you know I look terrible in green. That cream color that Sebastiano picked out for us this morning is going to be really flattering on all of our skin tones, even if it’s derivative of what Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, chose for the bridesmaids in her wedding to Prince William, and I think we need to stick to it. Even Trisha liked it, and you know she hates everything that isn’t made out of black lace stretch lycra—”