Dr. Knutz regarded me calmly from behind his notepad.
“Listen to what you’ve just told me,” he said. “The boy you love told you he just wants to be friends, and you did nothing. Your best friend humiliated you in front of the entire school, and you did nothing. Your father tells you he isn’t honoring the wishes of your dead ancestor, and you do nothing. I told you the first time we met, no one can help you unless you help yourself. Nothing’s ever going to change for you if you don’t do something every day that—”
“—scares me,” I said. “I KNOW. But how? What am I supposed to do about all this?”
“It isn’t about what you’re supposed to do, Mia,” Dr. Knutz said, sounding a little frustrated. “What do you want to do?”
I still didn’t get it. I was like, “I want…I want…I want to do the right thing!”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Dr. Knutz said. “If you want to do the right thing, don’t be like Pancho. Do what Princess Amelie would do!”
WHAT WAS HE TALKING ABOUT???
But before I had a chance to figure it out, he went, “Oh, look at that. Our time is up. But this has been a very interesting session. Next week, I’d like to see you with your father again. I have a feeling you two will have some issues that need discussing. And bring along this grandmother of yours,” Dr. Knutz added. “I saw a photo of her on Google. She seems an intriguing woman.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What are you saying? How can I do what Princess Amelie did? Princess Amelie failed. Her bill never got passed. No one ever KNEW about it. No one but me.”
“Bye for now,” Dr. Knutz said.
And shooed me away.
I just don’t get it. My dad is paying this guy to help me with my problems. But all he’s doing is passing the buck, saying I have to solve my own problems.
But isn’t that what he’s getting paid for doing???
And how in God’s name am I supposed to do anything about the Princess Amelie situation? I made my case to Dad, and he totally blew me off. What more can I do?
The worst part of it is, Dr. Knutz got my blood work back from Dr. Fung’s office. The results? Normal. I’m totally normal, in every regard. Better than normal. Like Rocky, I’m in the freaking 99th percentile for my age group, or something. I was hoping at the very least that the fact that I’d started eating meat again would have raised my cholesterol to the point that it could be blamed for my hideous depression.
But my cholesterol is fine. Everything is fine. I’m healthy as a freaking horse.
Ouch. Why did I have to use the word “horse”?
Oh, God. We’re here. I can’t BELIEVE I have to do this stupid Domina Rei thing tonight.
All I can say is, if I get Grandmère into this club, or whatever it is, she better get off my back about my hair.
Pancho? He seriously told me a story about a horse named PANCHO?
Friday, September 24, 9 p.m., ladies’ room, The Waldorf-Astoria
She hates the nail polish.
She’s acting like my wearing it is going to totally ruin her chances of being asked to join this crazy club. She’s more upset about my nail polish than she is about the fact that our family, for centuries now, has essentially been living a lie. It was the first thing I brought up when I got to her suite.
“Grandmère,” I said. “You can’t agree with Dad that ignoring Princess Amelie Virginie’s dying wish is the right thing to do. Can you?”
And she’d rolled her eyes and gone, “Not that again! Your father PROMISED me you’d have forgotten all about that by now.”
Yeah. I noticed that by how he hadn’t returned a single one of my phone calls all day. He was giving me the silent treatment, the same as Lilly.
Well, the same as Lilly until she’d exploded this afternoon, that is.
“But, honestly, Amelia,” Grandmère had gone on. “You can’t expect us to completely alter our lives because of the whim of some four-hundred-year-old dead princess, can you?”
“Amelie didn’t craft her Bill of Rights on a whim, Grandmère. And our lives wouldn’t be altered,” I’d insisted. “We’d still go on just like before. Only we wouldn’t actually be RULING. We’d be letting the PEOPLE rule—or at least CHOOSE who they WANT to rule. Which could very well be Dad, you know—”
“But supposing it ISN’T?” Grandmère had demanded. “Where would we LIVE?”