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Lilly said she thought I’d been reading too many of my friend Tina Hakim Baba’s teen romances. I will admit, that is sort of where I got the idea. But that is not the point.
“Seriously, Lilly,” I said. “I have to guard diligently against falling in love with somebody like David Hasselhoff or your brother, because in the end I might have to marry Prince William.” Not that that would be such a great sacrifice, and all.
Lilly got up off my bed and stomped out into the loft’s living room. My dad was the only one around, because when he’d come over to check on me, my mom had suddenly remembered an errand she had to get done and dashed off.
Only of course there was no errand. My mom still hasn’t told my dad about Mr. G and her pregnancy, and how they’re getting married, and all. I think she’s afraid that he might start yelling at her for being so irresponsible (which I could totally see him doing).
So instead she flees from Dad in guilt every time she sees him. It would almost be funny, if it wasn’t such a pathetic way for a thirty-six-year-old woman to behave. When I am thirty-six, I fully intend to be self-actualized, so you will not catch me doing any of the things my mother is always doing.
“Mr. Renaldo,” I heard Lilly say, as she went out into the living room. She calls my dad Mr. Renaldo even though she knows perfectly well he is the prince of Genovia. She doesn’t care though, because she says this is America and she isn’t calling anybody “Your Highness.” She is fundamentally opposed to monarchies—and principalities, like Genovia, fall under that heading. Lilly believes that sovereignty rests with the people. In colonial times, she’d probably have been branded a Whig.
“Mr. Renaldo,” I heard her ask my dad. “Is Mia secretly betrothed to some prince somewhere?”
My dad lowered his newspaper. I could hear it crinkling all the way from my bedroom. “Good God, no,” he said.
“Moron,” she said to me, when she came stomping back into my room. “And while I can see why you might want to guard diligently against falling in love with David Hasselhoff, who is, by the way, old enough to be your father, and hardly a hottie, what does my brother have to do with any of this?”
Too late, I realized what I’d said. Lilly has no idea how I feel about her brother Michael. Actually, I don’t really have any idea about how I feel about him either. Except that he looks extremely Casper Van Dien with his shirt off.
I so want him to be the one who’d written that letter. I really, really do.
But I’m not about to mention this to his sister.
Instead, I told her I think it unfair of her to demand explanations for stuff I said under the influence of codeine cough syrup.
Lilly just got that expression she gets sometimes when teachers ask a question and she knows the answer, only she wants to give someone else in the class a chance to answer for a change.
It really can be exhausting sometimes, having a best friend with an IQ of 170.
HOMEWORK
Algebra: problems 1–20, pg. 115
English: Chapter 4 of Strunk and White
World Civ: two-hundred–word essay on the conflict between India and Pakistan
G&T: Yeah, right
French: Chaptre huit
Biology: pituitary gland (ask Kenny!)
LILLY MOSCOVITZ AND MIA THERMOPOLIS’S LIST OF CELEBRITIES AND THEIR BREASTS
CELEBRITY LILLY MIA
Britney Spears Fake Real
Jennifer Love Hewitt Fake Real
Winona Ryder Fake Real
Courtney Love Fake Fake
Jennie Garth Fake Real
Tori Spelling Fake Fake
