Tina and I vowed that if either of us ever felt like calling our boyfriends, instead we would call each other. Unfortunately I have no cell phone so it is not like Tina will be able to reach me if I am in the middle of knighting someone or anything. But I am fully going to hit my dad up for a Motorola tomorrow. Hey, I am heir to the
sovereign of an entire country. At the very least I should have a beeper.
Note to self: look up word “stile.”
Four days, twelve hours, and five minutes until I see Michael again.
Saturday, January 17,
Royal Genovian Polo Match
Could there be a more boring sport than polo? I mean, besides golf? I think not.
Furthermore, I do not think it is very good for the horses, swinging mallets that close to their heads. It is like Silver, the Lone Ranger’s horse. The Lone Ranger kept shooting off guns next to Silver’s ear. It was no wonder the poor thing kept rearing.
Also, René isn’t too competitive with Prince William, or anything. René keeps riding in front of the poor guy and stealing the ball from him every chance he gets… and they are supposed to be on the same team!
I swear, if René’s team wins, and he pulls a Mia Hamm and swings his shirt around over his head, I will know he is just doing all of this for the benefit of the hordes of Prince William fans who are here. Which I guess is understandable. It probably is disconcerting to him that Wills is so much more popular than he is. And René does have pretty impressive pecs.
If only all those girls knew about the Enrique Iglesias lip-synching….
Three days, seventeen hours, and six minutes until I see Michael again. Talk about impressive pecs…
Saturday, January 17, 11 p.m.,
Royal Genovian bedchamber
Grandmère so needs to get a life.
Tonight was the Farewell Ball—you know, to celebrate the end of my first official trip to Genovia in my capacity as heir to the throne.
Anyway, Grandmère’s been going on about this ball for weeks, like this is going to be my big chance to redeem myself for the whole parking-meter thing. Not to mention the Prince William factor. In fact, between that and the whole not-thinking-Michael-suitable- consort-material, she’s been laying it on so thick, I fully blame her for my zit—even though it’s gone now, thanks to the miracle of modern dermatology. But still. Between the pressures Grandmère has been putting on me, plus the anxiety of knowing that my boyfriend might at this very moment be taking surfing lessons from some zit-free Kate Bosworth type, it is a wonder my complexion does not resemble that guy’s they kept locked in the basement in that movie The Goonies .
Whatever. So Grandmère makes this big deal out of my hair (growing out and so becoming triangularshaped again, but who cares, boys are supposed to like girls with long hair better than girls with short hair—I read that in French Cosmo ) and she makes this big deal out of my fingernails (okay, so in spite of the whole New Year’s resolution thing I still keep biting them. So sue me. The man is keeping me down.) and she makes this big deal out of what I am going to say to Prince William.
Then, after all this, we get to the stupid ball, and I walk up to Wills (who I will admit—though my heart still belongs to Michael—was looking quite studly in his tux) and I’m all set to go, “It’s very nice to meet you,” but it was like at the last second I forgot who I was talking to, because he turned those blue, blue eyes on me, like a pair of klieg lights, and I totally froze up, exactly the way I did that time Josh Richter smiled at me in Bigelow’s Drugstore. Seriously, like, I couldn’t remember where I was or what I was doing there, I was just looking into those blue eyes and going, inside my head, Oh, my God, they’re the color of the sea outside the window of my Royal Genovian bedchamber .
Then Prince William was going, “It’s very nice to meet you,” and shaking my hand, and I just kept on staring at him, even though I do not even like him in that way. I AM IN LOVE WITH MY BOYFRIEND.
But I guess that is the thing with the guy, he has that whole charisma thing going, kind of like Bill Clinton (only I never met him; I just read about it).
Anyway, that was it. That was the extent of my interaction with Prince William of England! He turned around after that to answer someone’s question about Thoroughbred horse racing, and I was like, “Oh, look, baked mushroom caps,” to cover my excruciating mortification and went chasing after the footman who was passing them around. That’s all, the end.
Needless to say, I did not get his e-mail address. Tina is just going to have to learn to live with disappointment.
Oh, but my evening did not end there. Not at all. No, little did I know there was much, much more to come, in the form of Grandmère shoving me at Prince René all night, so that the two of us could dance in front of this Newsweek reporter who is in Genovia to do a story on our country’s transition to the Euro. She SWORE that was the only reason: for the photo op.
But then while we were dancing—which, by the way, I am horrible at… dancing, I mean. I can box step if I look down the whole time and count inside my head, but that is about it, aside from slow dancing, but guess what? They so don’t slow dance in Genovia… at least, not in the palace—I saw Grandmère totally going around, pointing us out to people, and it was so obvious what she was saying, you didn’t even have to be a lip reader to know she was going, “Aren’t they just the loveliest couple?”
EW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So then when the dance was over, just in case Grandmère was getting any ideas, I went up to her and I was all, “Grandmère, I am willing to cool it with the calling-Michael stuff, but that does not mean I am going to start going out with Prince René,” who, by the way, asked me if I wanted to step outside onto the terrazzo and have a smoke.
I of course told him I do not smoke and that he shouldn’t either as tobacco is responsible for half a million deaths a year in the United States alone, but he only laughed at me, all James Spader from Pretty in Pink-ishly.
So then I told him not to get any big ideas, that I already have a boyfriend and that maybe he didn’t see the movie of my life, but I fully know how to handle guys who are only after me for my crown jewels.
So then René said I was adorable and I said, “Oh, for God’s sake, cut the Enrique Iglesias act,” and then my dad came up and asked me if I had seen the prime minister of Greece and I said, “Dad, I think Grandmère is trying to fix me up with René,” and then my dad got all tight-lipped and took Grandmère aside and had “A Word” with her while Prince René slunk off to go make out with one of the Hilton sisters.