Princess in Waiting (The Princess Diaries 4)

Oh, all right, maybe I am. How can I help it? I have only been in love with Michael since, like, forever. I love the way he says my name. I love the way he laughs. I love the way he asks my opinion, like he really cares what I think (God knows nobody around here feels that way. I mean, make a suggestion—like, that it might save water to turn off the fountain in front of the palace at night, when no one is around anyway—and everybody practically acts like one of the suits of armor in the Grand Hall started talking).

Well, okay, not my dad. But I see him less here in Genovia than I do back home, practically, because he is so caught up in parliamentary meetings and racing his yacht in regattas and hanging out with Miss Czech Republic.

Anyway, I like ta

lking to Michael. Is that so wrong? I mean, heis my boyfriend, after all.

If only I were worthier of him! I mean, between my not having remembered his birthday, my not being able to figure out what to get him, and my not really being that good at anything, the way he is, it’s a wonder he’s even interested in me at all!

So we were just saying good-bye after having had a perfectly pleasant conversation about the Genovian Olive Growers Association and Michael’s band that he is trying to put together (he is so talented!), and whether it is off-putting to call a band Frontal Lobotomy, and I was just working up the guts to go, “I miss you,” or “I love you,” thus leaving an opening for him to say something similar back to me and therefore resolve the does- he-just-love-me-like-a-friend-or-is-he-in-love-with-me dilemma once and for all, when I heard Lilly in the background, demanding to talk to me.

Michael went, “Get away,” but Lilly kept on shrieking, “I have to talk to her, I just remembered I have something really important to ask her.”

Then Michael went, “Don’t tell her about that,” and my heart skipped a beat because I thought Lilly had all of a sudden remembered that Michael had been going out with some girl named Anne Marie behind my back after all. Before I could say another word, Lilly had wrestled the phone away from him (I heard Michael grunt, I guess in pain because she must have kicked him or something), and then she was going, “Oh, my God, I forgot to ask. Did you see it?”

“Lilly,” I said, since even eight thousand miles away, I could feel Michael’s pain—Lilly kicks hard. I know, because I have been the recipient of quite a few kicks of hers over the years. “I know that you are used to having me all to yourself, but you are going to have to learn to share me with your brother. Now, if this means we are going to have to set boundaries in our relationship, then I guess we will have to. But you can’t just go around ripping the phone out of Michael’s hand when he might have had something really important to—”

“Shut up about my sainted brother for a minute. Did… you… see… it?”

“See what? What are you talking about?” I thought maybe somebody had tried to jump into the polar bear cage at the Central Park Zoo again.

“Oh, just the movie,” Lilly said. “Of your life. The one that was on TV the other night. Or hadn’t you heard your life story has been made into a movie of the week?”

I wasn’t very surprised to hear this. I had already been warned that a TV movie about my life was in the works. But I’d been assured by the palace publicity staff that the movie wouldn’t be shown until February sweeps. I guess the joke was on us.

Whatever. There are already four unauthorized biographies about me floating around out there. One of them made the best-seller list for about half a second. I read it. It wasn’t that good. But maybe that’s just because I already knew how it all turned out.

“So?” I said. I was kind of mad at Lilly. I mean, she’d booted Michael off the phone just to tell me about some dumb movie?

“Hello,” Lilly said. “Movie. Of your life. You were portrayed as shy and awkward.”

“I am shy and awkward,” I reminded her.

“They made your grandmother all kindly and sympathetic to your plight,” Lilly said. “It was the grossest mischaracterization I’ve seen since Shakespeare in Love tried to pass off the Bard as a hottie with a six-pack and a full set of teeth.”

“That’s horrible,” I said. “Now can I please finish talking to Michael?”

“You didn’t even ask how they portrayed me ,” Lilly said, accusingly, “your loyal best friend.”

“How did they portray you, Lilly?” I asked, looking at the big fancy clock on top of the big fancy marble mantelpiece over my big fancy bedroom fireplace. “And make it quick, I’ve got a breakfast and then a ride with the Genovian Equestrian Society in exactly seven hours.”

“They portrayed me as less than fully supportive of your royalness,” Lilly practically screamed into the phone. “They made out like after you first got that stupid haircut, I mocked you for being shallow and a trend-follower!”

“Yeah,” I said, waiting for her to get to the point of her tirade. Because of course Lilly hadn’t been very supportive of my haircut, or my royalness.

But it turned out Lilly had already gotten to the point of her tirade.

“I was never unsupportive of your royalness!” she shrieked into the phone, causing me to hold the receiver away from my head in order to keep my eardrums intact. “I was your number-one most supportive friend through the whole thing!”

This was so patently untrue, I thought Lilly was joking, and I started to laugh. But then I realized when she greeted my laughter with stone cold silence that she was totally serious. Apparently Lilly has one of those selective memories, where she can remember all the good things she did, but none of the bad things. Kind of like a politician.

Because of course if it were true that Lilly had been so supportive of me, I never would have become friends with Tina Hakim Baba, who I only started sitting with at lunch back in October because Lilly wasn’t speaking to me on account of the whole princess thing.

“I sincerely hope,” Lilly said, “that you are laughing in disbelief over the idea that I was ever anything less than a good friend to you, Mia. I know we’ve had our ups and downs, but any time I was ever hard on you, it was only because I thought you weren’t being true to yourself.”

“Um,” I said. “Okay.”

“I am going to write a letter,” Lilly went on, “to the studio that produced that piece of libelous trash, demanding a written apology for their irresponsible screenwriting. And if they do not provide one—and publish it in a full-page ad in Variety —I will sue. I don’t care if I have to take my case to the Supreme Court. Those Hollywood types think they can throw anything they want to in front of a camera and the viewing public will just lap it up. Well, that might be true for the rest of the proles, butI am going to fight for more honest portrayals of actual people and events. The man is not going to keep me down!”