Princess in Pink (The Princess Diaries 5)

Completely forgetting about my despair over the whole prom thing—I think the shock of seeing Lilly’s eagerness to lock lips with someone other than her boyfriend had numbed my senses—I followed Michael to the refreshment table and said, “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

He looked at me questioningly. “About what?”

“About your sister!” I cried. “And Jangbu!”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Michael asked. “Haul him out and hit him?”

“Well,” I said. “Yes!”

“Why?” Michael drank some 7-Up, since there wasn’t any Coke. “I don’t care who my sister locks herself in the closet with. If it were you, then I’d hit the guy. But it’s not you, it’s Lilly. Lilly, as I believe she’s amply proved over the years, can take care of herself.” He held a bowl out toward me. “Cheeto?”

Cheetos! Who could think of food at a time like this?

“No, thank you,” I said. “But aren’t you at all worried that Lilly’s—” I broke off, uncertain how to continue. Michael helped me out.

“Been swept off her feet by the guy’s rugged Sherpa good looks?” Michael shook his head. “Looked to me like if anybody was being taken advantage of, it’s Jangbu. The poor guy doesn’t seem to know what hit him.”

“B-But…” I stammered. “But what about Boris?”

Michael looked over at Boris, who had slumped down onto the futon couch, his head cradled in his hands. Tina had rushed over to him and was trying to apply sisterly balm to his wounded feelings by telling him that Lilly was probably only showing Jangbu what the inside of a real American coat closet looked like. Even I didn’t think she sounded very convincing, and I am very easily convinced by almost anything. For instance, in convocations where we are forced to listen to the debate team, I almost always agree with whichever team is talking at the moment, no matter what they’re saying.

“Boris’ll get over it,” Michael said, and reached for the chips and dip.

I don’t understand boys. I really don’t. I mean, if it had been MY little sister in the closet with Jangbu, I would have been furious with rage. And if it had been MY senior prom, I’d have been falling all over myself in an effort to secure tickets before they were all gone.

But that’s me, I guess.

Anyway, before any of us had a chance to do anything more, the front door to the loft opened, and Mr. G came in, carrying bags of more Coke.

“I’m home,” Mr. G called, putting the bags down, and starting to take off his windbreaker. “I picked up some ice, too. I figured we might be running out by now….”

Mr. G’s voice trailed off. That’s because he’d opened the hall closet door to put away his coat and found Lilly and Jangbu in there, making out.

Well, that was the end of my party. Mr. Gianini is no Mr. Taylor, but he’s still pretty strict. Also, being a high-school teacher and all, he is not unfamiliar with games like Seven Minutes in Heaven. Lilly’s excuse—that she and Jangbu had gotten locked into the closet together accidentally—didn’t exactly fly with him. Mr. G said he thought it was time for everybody to go home. Then he had Hans, my limo driver, who we’d arranged beforehand to take everybody home after the party, make sure that when he dropped off Lilly and Michael, Jangbu didn’t go inside with them, and that Lilly went all the way into her building, up the elevator and everything, so she didn’t try to sneak down and meet Jangbu later, like at Blimpie’s or whatever.

And now I am lying here, a broken shell of a girl… fifteen years old, and yet so much older in so many ways. Because I know now what it is like to see all of your hopes and dreams crushed beneath the soulless heel of despair. I saw it in Boris’s eyes, as he watched Lilly and Jangbu emerge from that closet, looking flushed and sweaty, Lilly actually tugging on the bottom of her shirt (I cannot believe Lilly got to second base before I did. And with a guy she’d known for a mere forty-eight hours, as well—not to mention the fact that she did it in MY hall closet).

But Boris’s eyes weren’t the only ones registering despair tonight. My own have a distinctly hollow look to them. I noticed tonight as I was brushing my teeth before bed. It is no mystery why, of course. My eyes have a haunted look to them because I am haunted… haunted by the specter of the dream of a prom that I know now will never be. Never will I, dressed in off-the-shoulder black, rest my head upon the shoulder of Michael (in a tux) at his senior prom. Never will I enjoy the stale cookies he mentioned, or the look on Lana Weinberger’s face when she sees that she is not the only freshman girl besides Shameeka in attendance.

My prom dream is over. And so, I am afraid, is my life.

Sunday, May 4, 9 a.m., the loft

It is very hard to be sunk in the black well of despair when your mother and stepfather get up at the crack of dawn and put on the Donnas while making their breakfast waffles. Why can’t they go quietly to church to hear the word of the Lord, like normal parents, and leave me to wallow in my own grief? I swear it is enough to make me contemplate moving to Genovia.

Except of course there I would be expected to get up and go to church, as well. I guess I should be thanking my lucky stars that my mother and her husband are godless heathens. But they could at least turn it DOWN.

Sunday, May 4, noon, the loft

My plan for the day was to stay in bed with the covers up over my head until it was time to go to school Monday morning. That is what people who have had their reason for living cruelly snatched from them do: stay in bed as much as possible.

This plan was unfairly destroyed, however, by my mother, who just came barreling in (at her current size, she can’t help but barrel everywhere she goes) and sat down on the edge of the bed, nearly crushing Fat Louie, who had slunk down underneath the covers with me and was snoozing at my toes. After screaming because Fat Louie had sunk all his claws into her rear end, right through my duvet, my mom apologized for barging in on my grief-stricken solitude, but— she said—she thought it was time we had A Little Talk.

It is never a good thing when my mom thinks it is time for A Little Talk. The last time she and I had A Little Talk, I was forced to listen to a very long speech about body image and my supposedly distorted one. My mother was very worried that I was contemplating using my Christmas money for breast-enhancement surgery, and she wanted me to know what a bad idea she thought this was, because women’s obsession with their looks has gotten completely out of control. In Korea, for instance, thirty percent of women in their twenties have had some form of plastic surgery, ranging from cheek-and-jawbone shaving to eye slicing and calf-muscle removal (for slimmer legs) in order to achieve a more Western look. This as opposed to 3 percent of women in the United States who have had plastic surgery for purely aesthetic purposes.

The good news? America is NOT the most image-obsessed country in the world. The bad news? Too many women outside of our culture feel pressured to change their looks to better emulate ours, thinking Western standards of beauty are more important than their own country’s, because that is what they see on old reruns of shows like Baywatch and Friends . Which is wrong, just wrong, because Nigerian women are just as beautiful as women from LA or Manhattan. Just maybe in a

different way.