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Still, what about all those debutantes? Weren’t they bringing dates? Wasn’t that what West Point Military Academy was for ? Providing dates to debutante balls? And if those girls could bring dates, and they weren’t even princesses, why couldn’t I?
How I was going to get Grandmère to let me bring Michael to the black-and-white ball, after all of our long discussions about how you mustn’t let the object of your affection even know that you like him, was going to be a major obstacle. I decided I would have to exercise some of the diplomatic tact Grandmère had taken so much trouble to teach me.
“And please, whatever else you do, Amelia,” Grandmère was saying, as she sat there running a hairpick through Rommel’s sparse fur, as the royal Genovian vet had instructed, “do not stare too long at the Contessa’s face-lift. I know it will be difficult—it looks as if the surgeon botched it horribly. But actually, it’s exactly the way Elena wanted it to look. Apparently she has always fancied resembling a walleyed bass—”
“Listen, about this dance, Grandmère,” I started in, all subtly. “Do you think the Contessa would mind if I, you know… brought someone?”
Grandmère looked at me confusedly over Rommel’s pink, trembling body. “What do you mean? Amelia, I highly doubt your mother would have a very nice time at the Contessa Trevanni’s black-and-white ball. For one thing, there won’t be any other hippy radicals there—”
“Not my mom,” I said, realizing that perhaps I had been a littletoo subtle. “I was thinking more, you know. Of an escort.”
“But you already have an escort.” Grandmère adjusted Rommel’s diamond-flake-encrusted collar.
“I do?” I did not recall asking anyone to scrounge up a West Pointer for me.
“Of course you do,” Grandmère said, still not, I noticed, meeting my gaze. “Prince René has very generously offered to serve as your escort to the ball. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. About the Contessa’s taste in clothes. I think you’ve learned enough by now to know that you aren’t to comment—at least to her face—on what any of your hostesses happen to be wearing. But I think it necessary to warn you that the Contessa has a tendency to wear clothes that are somewhat young on her, and that reveal—”
“René is going to be my escort?” I stood up, nearly knocking Grandmère’s Sidecar over as I did so. “René is taking me to the black-and-white ball?”
“Well, yes,” Grandmère said, looking blandly innocent—a little too blandly innocent, if you asked me. “He is, after all, a guest in this city—in this country, as a matter of fact. I would think that you, Amelia, would be only too happy to make him feel welcome and wanted—”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What is going on here?” I demanded. “Grandmère, are you trying to fix up René and me?”
“Certainly not,” Grandmère said, looking genuinely appalled by the suggestion. But then, I’d been fooled by Grandmère’s expressions before. Especially the one she puts on when she wants you to think that she is just a helpless old lady. “Your imagination most definitely comes from your mother’s side of the family. Your father was never as fanciful as you are, Amelia, for which I can only thank God. He’d have driven me to an early grave, I’m convinced of it, if he’d been half as capricious as you tend to be, young lady.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to think?” I asked, feeling a little sheepish over my outburst. After all, the idea that Grandmère might, even though I was only fourteen, be trying to fix me up with some prince that she wanted me to marry was a little outlandish. I mean, even for Grandmère. “You made us dance together—”
“For a magazine pictorial.” Grandmère sniffed.
“—and then your not liking Michael—”
“I never said I didn’t like him. From what I know of him, I think he is a perfectly charming boy. I
just want you to be realistic about the fact that you, Amelia, are not like other girls. You are a princess, and have the good of your country to think of.”
“—and then René showing up like this, and you’re announcing he’s taking me to the black-and-white ball—”
“Is it wrong of me to want to see the poor boy have a nice time while he is here? He has suffered so many hardships, losing his ancestral home, not to mention his own kingdom—”
“Grandmère,” I said. “René wasn’t even alive when they kicked his family out—”
“All the more reason,” Grandmère said, “you should be sensitive to his plight.”
Great. What am I supposed to do now? About Michael, I mean? I can’t bring both himand Prince René to the ball. I mean, I look weird enough, with my half-grown-out hair and my androgyny (although judging by Grandmère’s description of her, the Contessa might look even weirder than I do) without hauling two dates and a bodyguard around with me.
I wish I were Princess Leia instead of me, Princess Mia. I’d so rather take on the Death Star than a black-and-white ball.
Wednesday, January 21, the loft
Well, my mom getting hold of my dad about the Contessa’s ball was a washout. Apparently the whole parking-meter debate has gotten way out of control. The minister of tourism is conducting a filibuster of his own, in response to the one from the minister of finance, and there can’t be a vote until he stops talking and sits down. So far he’s been talking for twelve hours, forty-eight minutes. I don’t know why my dad doesn’t just have him arrested and put in the dungeon.
I am really starting to be afraid that I am not going to be able to get out of this ball thingie.
“You better let Michael know,” my mom just poked her head in to say, helpfully. “That you won’t be able to make it Friday. Hey, are you writing in your journal again? Aren’t you supposed to be doing your homework?”
Trying to change the subject from my homework (hello, I am totally doing it, I am just taking a break right now), I went, “Mom, I am not saying anything to Michael until we’ve heard from Dad. Because there’s no point in my running the risk of Michael breaking up with me if Dad’s just going to turn around and say I don’t have to go to the stupid ball.”
“Mia,” my mom said. “Michael is not going to break up with you just because you have a familial commitment you cannot get out of.”
