Grandmère’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. So did Rommel’s, on account of she was squeezing him so hard.
“Are you quite certain, John Paul?” Grandmère asked.
“One hundred percent,” Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third said. “It was a mistake for me to bid on it in the first place. I never wanted Genovia—though it took me seeing this play tonight to realize it. It’s that other one, the one with the car race—”
“Monaco,” Grandmère suggested coldly, looking like she smelled something even worse than cigar smoke. But then, she ALWAYS looks like that when she’s reminded of Genovia’s closest neighbor.
“Yeah, that’s the one.” J.P.’s dad looked grateful. “I gotta remember that. Buyin’ it for J.P.’s mom, you know, for an anniversary present. She loves that movie star, the one who was princess there, what’s her name?”
“Grace Kelly,” Grandmère said in an even colder voice.
“That’s the one.” Mr. Reynolds-Abernathy the Third grabbed his son by the arm. “C’mon, kid,” he said. “Let’s go put a bid in, before one of these other, er, people”—he was full-on staring at Cher, who did have a pretty skimpy outfit on, but was still human, and all—“snap it up.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, I turned to Grandmère and said, “Okay, admit it. The reason you put on this play was NOT to entertain the masses who would come to donate money to the Genovian olive growers, but to ingratiate yourself to J.P.’s dad and get him to drop his bid on the faux island of Genovia, wasn’t it?”
“Perhaps initially,” Grandmère said. “Later, I will admit, I rather got into the spirit of the thing. Once bitten by the theater bug, it remains in the blood, you know, Amelia. I will never be able to turn my back completely on the dramatic arts. Especially not now that my show”—she glanced in the direction of all the reporters and theater critics who were waiting for her to make a statement—“is such a hit.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Just answer one question for me. Why was it so important to you that J.P. and I kiss at the end? And tell me the truth for a change, not that bunk about the audience expecting a kiss at the end of a musical, or whatever.”
Grandmère had shifted Rommel in her arms so that she could examine her reflection in the diamond-encrusted compact she’d pulled from her bag. “Oh, good heavens, Amelia,” she said, checking that her makeup was perfect before she went to be interviewed. “You’re almost sixteen years old, and you’ve only kissed one boy in your entire life.”
I
coughed. “Two, actually,” I said. “Remember Josh—”
“Pfuit!” Grandmère said, closing her compact with a snap. “In any case, you’re much too young to be so serious about a boy. A princess needs to kiss a lot of frogs before she can say for certain she’s found her prince.”
“And you were hoping John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth would turn out to be my prince,” I said. “Because, unlike Michael, his dad is rich…and also happened to be bidding against you for the faux island of Genovia.”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Grandmère said vaguely. “But what are you complaining about? Here’s your money.”
And just like that, she handed me a check for exactly five thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars.
“The money you need for your little financial problem,” Grandmère went on. “It’s just a small percentage of what we’ve actually raised so far tonight. The Genovian farmers will never know it’s missing.”
My head spun. “Grandmère! Are you serious?” I didn’t have to worry anymore about Amber Cheeseman sending my nasal cartilage crashing into my frontal lobe! It was like a dream come true.
“You see, Amelia,” Grandmère said smugly. “You helped me, and I helped you. That is the Renaldo way.”
This actually made me laugh.
“But I got you your island,” I said, feeling a bubble of triumph—yes, triumph—well up inside me. “I asked J.P. to eat lunch with me, and that’s what made his dad drop his bid. I didn’t have to stoop to any elaborate lies or blackmail schemes or strangulation—which appears to be the Renaldo way. But there’s another way, Grandmère. You might want to check it out. It’s called being nice to people.”
Grandmère blinked down at me.
“Where would Rosagunde have gotten, if she’d been nice to Lord Alboin? Niceness, Amelia,” she said, “gets you nowhere in life.”
“Au contraire, Grandmère,” I said. “Niceness got you the faux island of Genovia, and me the money I needed….”
And, I added silently to myself, my boyfriend back.
But Grandmère just rolled her eyes and went, “Does my hair look all right? I’m heading over to the photographers now.”
“You look great,” I told her.
Because what does it hurt to be nice?
As soon as Grandmère had been swallowed up by the press corps that had been waiting for her, J.P. appeared, holding out a glass of sparkling cider for me, which I took from him and gratefully gulped down. All that singing can make you thirsty.