Really? You told Clarisse before you told your BFF?
Of course not. I think she must have weasled it out of the help.
Why doesn’t the CIA hire your grandmother to interrogate terror suspects? She does a much better job than they do
of getting classified information.
Sadly, Lilly’s right.
Actually, now that I think about it, it probably wasn’t Mo Mo, but the chef, Gretel, who Grandmère managed to con out of all the intel about Michael’s proposal to me. I knew there was something sweetly gullible about her. Her hair was flat-ironed. Who bothers to flat-iron their hair in the tropics?
Someone who’s anxious to leave there, that’s who, and so willing to accept bribes from my grandmother.
I should have known. Paradise, my butt.
And to think, I fantasized about moving there forever.
CHAPTER 22
3:45 p.m., Monday, May 4
Still in the HELV, still on the WSH
Rate the Royals Rating: 1
Finally got through to Michael. He wasn’t picking up because he was on the phone with his parents. They heard it on 1010 WINS, New York’s twenty-four-hour news radio station.
I told him I was so, so sorry.
“It’s all right,” he said. “They actually didn’t believe it until I told them it was true. They thought it was only a rumor, like the time the Post announced you were carrying Prince Harry’s royal twins.”
Great.
“Are they mad?”
He hesitated. “. . . No, of course not.”
“Michael, I can tell you’re lying. You have the same tone of voice that you get when I ask you if I look terrible in khaki shorts.”
“No one looks good in khaki shorts. And they’re not mad that we’re getting married, just upset that you aren’t converting to Judaism. They’re very concerned about how I’m going to be able to keep kosher in the palace.”
“Michael! Stop it. It’s not funny.”
“Also, that when I become Prince Michael of Genovia, my children are going to be Renaldos and not Moscovitzes.”
I stopped laughing. “Wait . . . they really did say that last thing, didn’t they?”
“Well, I’m their only son, so you can understand their concern. I think they’re torn between the idea of losing a son and the idea of gaining a prince. I told them not to worry, that in the unlikely event Lilly ever gets married, she won’t take her husband’s name, so her kids will be Moscovitzes. Weirdly, this didn’t seem to placate them.”
“Of course it didn’t,” I said. “Lilly swore off men her junior year in college.” I knew better than to mention the thing about Lars, especially with Lars sitting right there in the car. I thought it would be good for him to hear the thing about her having sworn off men, though. Lars’s ego is inflated enough. “She says she’s never getting married. How could you forget?”
“I didn’t forget,” Michael said. “What she actually said was that you fall in love with the person, their gender doesn’t matter. Although to be honest, if you were a guy I don’t know if I’d be as into you.”
“Maybe we should call this whole thing off.”
He sounded shocked. “Why? Because I said I wouldn’t be as into you if you were a guy? I mean I guess I could get used to it, but it might take time.”
“No, because your parents are right. Michael, you know you’re not only going to have to take my name, you’re going to have to renounce your American citizenship when we get married.”