Royal Wedding (The Princess Diaries 11)

And now that I’ve gotten over the initial shock of it—kind of like the initial shock of having twins—I think I’m going to be awesome at ruling. Madame Dupris, Olivia, and the twins and I might actually make something of that tiny little principality on the sea. If Lilly passes the bar, I might see what I can do about getting her hired as attorney general. And Tina, if she ever finishes medical school, to be surgeon general.

(Although we really ought to hire locals. But there aren’t that many Genovians who are interested in pursuing careers in the legal or medical professions, due to the distractions provided by the crystal beaches and many casinos.)

Truthfully, I’m not even that worried about Grandmère. She has other palaces that she inherited from the Grimaldi side of the family, just a stone’s throw from the rue de la Princesse Clarisse in Genovia. Once the twins come, I have a feeling she’s going to want to move into one of them, especially if she’s going to be entertaining romantic guests, like Monsieur de la Rive.

So I’m letting Dad prattle away, telling me how right I was all along about throwing away the map, and how if he’d only “gone for it” sooner, he could have saved himself a lot of heartache.

I’m even restraining myself from pointing out that if he’d “gone for it sooner” with Mom, he’d never have met Elizabeth Harrison, and then Olivia wouldn’t have been born. I’m fairly certain he’ll work this one out for himself, eventually.

Oooh, Tina’s texting:

HRH Mia Thermopolis “FtLouie”>

Hi, how’s it going? Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to say I loved the piece you did with Brian F.! Your hair looked really good! Also, you’re still going with cream for the bridesmaids, right? Because I saw this dress online that’s really pretty, maybe S. could look at it? Or would suggestions make him upset? I know how designers can be. At least on TV and of course in Danielle Steel novels.

Thanks! Go ahead and send me the dress. I’ll forward to S. He’s going to have a lot of design challenges on this project anyway for other reasons.

Really? Why? Don’t tell me your grandmother is making you change everything you wanted to do again . . . Mia, it’s not fair, it’s YOUR wedding! You should be able to have a nacho bar at the reception if you want to! It’s a bit unorthodox but it’s not like it’s never been done.

It’s not the nacho bar. 1 m p3gnant.

Tina, I think there’s something wrong with your phone, the last 3 texts you sent me didn’t have any writing in them.

No, I accidentally hit send before I could write anything, I’m so excited! Oh, Mia!!!!!

But are you sure? Because you know you thought you had dengue fever last month.

No, a blood test and ultrasound confirmed it. But now that you mention it, I think I know now why I thought I had dengue last month.

WHAT DID MICHAEL SAY?????

He’s very proud of himself.

Himself? Why? What did HE have to do with it? I mean besides the obvious?

I have to tell you later when we can talk in person. Right now I’m in the car with my dad. We’re going to pick up Olivia.

Oh, Mia!!! But what about your GOWN?????

Yes, exactly. Priorities.

You know what I mean. What are you going to do????

Work around it. Have you talked to Lana lately?

No. Why would I have talked to Lana?

Stop it, T.! I know you guys are planning a “surprise” bachelorette party for me at Crazy Ivan’s in Genovia.

Oh, no! How did you find out?

Lana already asked me abou

t it. Then Boris spilled the beans about it to Michael. Which means you’ve been talking to Lana AND Boris.

Well . . . we wanted to do something special for you both!

I don’t need anything special. I already have you guys! And there’s no point in throwing me a crazy bachelorette party when I can’t even drink. And it would be more fun to do something all together. Maybe we should go with the boys to Buenos Aires to eat steaks.