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But whatever. That isn’t even the real question— why anyone would have flaming wall sconces in the bathroom. The real question, of course, is this: if I am supposedly descended from all these strong women— you know, Rosagunde, who strangled that warlord with her braid, and Agnes, who jumped off that bridge, not to mention Grandmère, who allegedly kept the Nazis from trashing Genovia by having Hitler and Mussolini over for tea—why is it that I am such a pushover?
I mean, seriously. I totally fell for Grandmère’s whole riff about wanting to show up Elena Trevanni with her pretty and accomplished—yeah, and looking like a snowdrop—granddaughter. I actually felt sorry for her. I had empathy for Grandmère, not realizing then—as I do now—that Grandmère is completely devoid of human emotion, and that the whole thing was just a charade to trick me into coming so she could parade me around as PRINCE RENÉ’S NEW GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To his credit, René seems to have known nothing about it. He looked as surprised as I was when Grandmère presented me to her supposed archrival, who, thanks to the skill of her plastic surgeon, looks about thirty years younger than Grandmère, though they are supposedly the same age.
But I think the Contessa maybe went a little far with the surgery thing—it is so hard to know when to say when. I mean, look at poor Michael Jackson—because she really does, just like Grandmère said, resemble a walleyed bass a little bit. Like her eyes are sort of far apart on account of the skin around them being stretched so tight.
When Grandmère introduced me—“Contessa, may I present to you my granddaughter, Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo” (she always leaves out the Thermopolis)—I thought everything was going to be all right. Well, not everything, of course, since directly after the ball, I knew I was going to go over to my best friend’s house and maybe–possibly–probably get dumped by her brother. But you know, everything at the ball.
But then Grandmère added, “And of course you know Amelia’s beau, Prince Pierre René Grimaldi Alberto.”
Beau? BEAU??? René and I exchanged quick glances. It was only then that I noticed that, standing right next to the Contessa, was a girl who had to have been her own granddaughter, the one who’d been kicked out of finishing school. She was kind of plain and sad-looking, though her slinky black dress was exactly the kind I’d have wanted to wear to the Prom— were I ever asked. Still, she wasn’t exactly wearing it with confidence.
So while I was standing there getting totally red in the face, and probably not resembling a snowdrop as much as a candy cane, the Contessa cocked her head so she could look at me and went, “So that rascal René has finally been snatched up, and by your granddaughter, Clarisse. How satisfying that must be for you.”
Then the Contessa shot her own granddaughter— whom she introduced to me as Bella—a look of pure malevolence that caused Bella to cringe.
And I realized all at once what, exactly, was going on.
Then Grandmère said, “Isn’t it, though, Elena?” And then to René and me she went, “Come along, children,” and we followed her, René looking amused, but me? I was seething !
“I can’t believe you did that,” I cried, as soon as we were out of the Contessa’s earshot.
“Did what, Amelia?” Grandmère asked, nodding to some guy in traditional African garb.
“Told that woman that René and I are going out,” I said, “when we most certainly are not. I know you only did it to make me look better than poor Bella.”
“René,” Grandmère said, sweetly. She can be very sweet when she wants to be. “Be an angel and see if you can find us some champagne, would you?”
René, still looking cynically amused—the way Enrique always looks in Doritos commercials—moved off in search of libation.
“Really, Amelia,” Grandmère said, when he was gone. “Must you be so rude to poor René? I am only trying to make your cousin feel welcome and at home.”
“There is a difference,” I said, “between making my cousin feel welcome and wanted, and trying to pass him off as my boyfriend!”
“Well, what’s so wrong with René, anyway?” Grandmère wanted to know. All around us, elegant people in tuxedos and evening gowns were heading to the dance floor, where a full orchestra was playing that song Audrey Hepburn sang in that movie about Tiffany’s. Everyone was dressed in either black or white or both. The Contessa’s ballroom bore a significant resemblance to the penguin enclosure at the Central Park Zoo, where I had once sobbed my eyes out after discovering the truth about my heritage.
“He’s extremely charming,” Grandmère went on, “and quite cosmopolitan. Not to mention devilishly handsome. How can you possibly prefer a high school boy to a prince ?”
“Because, Grandmère,” I said. “I love him.”
“Love,” Grandmère said, looking toward the big glass ceiling overhead. “Pfuit!”
“Yes, Grandmère,” I said. “I do. The way you loved Grandpère—and don’t try to deny it, because I know you did. Now you’ve got to stop harboring a secret desire to make Prince René your grandson-in-law, because it is not going to happen.”
Grandmère looked blandly innocent. “I don’t know what you can mean,” she said, with a sniff.
“Cut it out, Grandmère. You want me to go out with Prince René, for no other reason than that he is a royal, and it will make the Contessa feel bad. Well, it isn’t going to happen. Even if Michael and I were to break up—” which might possibly happen sooner than she thought “—I wouldn’t get together with René !”
Grandmère finally began to look as if she might believe me. “Fine,” she said, without much grace. “I will stop calling René your beau. But you must dance with him. At least once.”
“Grandmère.” The last thing in the world I felt like was dancing. “Please. Not tonight. You don’t know—”
“Amelia,” Grandmère said, in a different tone of voice than she’d used thus far. “One dance. That is all I am asking for. I believe you owe it to me.”
“I owe it to you ?” I couldn’t help bursting out laughing at that one. “How so?”
“Oh, only because of a little something,” Grandmère said, all innocently, “that was recently found to be missing from the palace museum.”
