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I’m really feeling quite a bit better now. Even my foot hurts a bit less.
Wait . . . what was it I was worrying about again? I’m so
sleepy I forgot . . .
Oh, well.
Three things I’m grateful for:
1. Fat Louie (who is curled up beside me, purring).
2. Little sisters.
3. Michael. Michael. Michael.
CHAPTER 60
8:45 a.m., Thursday, May 7
Inside the HELV on the way
to the Doctor’s Office
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When I got up and tried to walk this morning, I nearly fell down. The foot Olivia’s aunt slammed in the door is twice its normal size.
Michael took one look and said, “That’s it. We’re taking you to the doctor for an X-ray,” even though I protested that I felt fine, really.
(I was trying to sound brave. I don’t feel fine. I’m pretty sure my foot’s not broken because I already checked on iTriage and I can put my weight on it—the nearly-falling-down thing aside—and that means it’s probably only bruised. It’s definitely turned a hideous blue and green in some areas. And it’s so swollen my only shoes that fit are my UGGs, which is bad, because princesses can’t wear UGGs in public. It isn’t DONE. Except on ski slopes.)
So now we’re in the HELV on the way to Dr. Delgado’s office. I’d have made him come to the consulate, but we only have metal detectors, not X-ray technology.
In spite of my own pain—which isn’t really that bad, but then again, I’ve taken a Tylenol—I can’t help wondering how Olivia is doing. Dad texted that she spent last night at Grandmère’s. After the news broke about her true parentage, it was deemed too unsafe to take her back to Cranbrook.
That’s all he texted, though. Nothing about Mom, or whether or not she’s forgiven him.
And of course all Mom had to say about the situation (in a voice mail she left in response to all my voice mails, probably while I was in the shower) was:
“Mia, please, stop worrying about me. I’m fine. Just a little embarrassed at the scene I made in front of everyone last night. I suppose I just never realized before how . . . complex a man your father is, deep down inside. Anyway, I’ll call you later. Have a good day, sweetie.”
I forwarded this message to Tina, to whom I’d also forwarded the recording of my mom and dad’s conversation the night before (although most of it turned out fairly muffled—I am not exactly Carrie from Homeland, though I like to pretend I’d be as good at her job at the CIA as she is—and I’d ended up having to transcribe a lot of it anyway).
Tina texted back promptly:
Your dad did it! He finally impressed your mom! And he didn’t have to injure himself in a high-risk sport to do it!
Yeah, right. All Dad ended up having to do to win my mom’s admiration was alienate his own country’s populace by hiding a love child for twelve years in a small town just off the New Jersey Turnpike. Easy!
He’s screwed things for us so royally, the consulate even had to cancel our appearance on Wake Up America (not that I would have gone anyway) due to the “unprecedented amount of death threats” they’d received.
The RGG says not to worry, though, the death threats aren’t serious (no more than usual, anyway). In addition to the usual antiroyalists, anarchists, misogynists, and general wackos, we’ve now acquired a few white supremacists and even some anti-Semites (Michael says he’s very proud he was finally able to bring something to the family, even if it’s only a hate group).
I instructed Dad that under no circumstances is he to leave Olivia alone with his mother for a period of more than two hours. There is no telling what that woman might do. I have a sneaking suspicion a makeover might be in the works. While this did not end up being the worst thing in the world for me, there is no reason to give Olivia one. She’s only twelve, and besides which doesn’t suffer from the many style maladies that plagued me at age fourteen (such as the “bad hair” Grandmère reminded me last night I inherited from Dad).
Meanwhile, the news from the tabloid press couldn’t be worse. Of course they’re making much of the “scandal” of a newly discovered illegitimate princess (though I fail to see how this is any big deal, since everyone’s been there, done that with me), but some of the more sensationalist sites/networks are trying to suggest that my father took advantage of an innocent watercraft tour guide (since Olivia’s mother died in a Jet Ski accident), not a sophisticated woman who actually piloted multimillion-dollar Learjets.