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What is wrong with me? I don’t know.
I can’t even blame the schnaps because I only had a few sips.
CHAPTER 42
7:45 p.m., Tuesday, May 5
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
Rate the Royals Rating: 7
I was eating cheese popcorn while checking on my phone to see if there is a Wiki-How for “How to Discuss Your Dad’s Secret Love Child with Him” (there is not. This seems like a missed opportunity) when the RGG buzzed up and announced, “Your Highness, your father is here.”
“Uh . . . send him up,” I said into the intercom (after I’d got done choking). What else was I supposed to do?
Then I ran around really fast, getting rid of all evidence that I’d been drinking, even though of course I am an adult, and should be able to drink if I want to.
When I opened the door, I was shocked. Dad looks awful. I mean, he hasn’t been looking too good anyway since his arrest, all pasty-faced and sort of green around the gills (although that could have been partly due to the excessive celebration in which he engaged last night over my engagement. Or possibly he’s been eating prewashed lettuce from California).
But then I realized that for some reason he’d taken it into his head to shave off his mustache, which he’s had for quite some time now, and which has become as distinctive a part of his look as his bald head (the hair on his scalp never did grow back after the chemo, but he’s been rockin’ a ’stache since growing one for a Save the Children charity drive one “Mo”-vember, and we all said how sporty he looked in it).
It’s frightening how horrible he looks without it!
“Dad, what happened?” I couldn’t help blurting when I saw him.
“What hap
pened? What do you mean, what happened?” he demanded. “You know about your sister, that’s what happened.”
He barged in past me, and then went to lie down on my couch like he was in his analyst’s office, or something.
“No,” I said, shutting the door. “I mean what happened to your face? Where’s your mustache?”
“Oh, that.” He touched his upper lip, which for the first time I realized he doesn’t have—an upper lip, I mean. It’s been hidden under a patch of sandy-colored hair for so long, I stopped noticing he only has a lower, no upper, lip. “I shaved it off. Apparently only men who work in the pornography industry have mustaches anymore.”
“Dad, who told you that? It isn’t true. You should grow yours back. You look—” I wanted to say naked without it, but thought that might hurt his feelings, so instead I said, “Less dignified without it.”
“Your cousin Ivan mocked my mustache in his last ad. He said it made me look old. Like ‘an old, balding Ron Burgundy’ were his exact words. Mia . . .” He looked up at me helplessly. “Who is Ron Burgundy?”
“Never mind, Dad,” I said, feeling sad that my father was so unfamiliar with the comic stylings of Will Ferrell. “There’s nothing wrong with looking like Ron Burgundy, and that’s even more reason not to shave it off. You need to grow it back right away, to show Cousin Ivan that he can’t get to you.”
He folded his arms over his face and sighed. “But he has gotten to me, Mia. I’m afraid that was the last straw. Do you have anything to drink?”
I told him about the schnaps and he said, “I meant anything good,” so then I had to explain that it was schnaps, not schnapps, so he agreed to have some.
He took the glass and then got mad because Fat Louie jumped onto his chest (which is actually a compliment; Fat Louie has grown much less athletic in his old age, so when he jumps onto anything, it’s only because he’s put a lot of effort and thought into it).
So I moved Fat Louie back into his little bed and then Dad began to talk . . .
. . . ?and talk, and talk.
He talked all about how he’d been wanting to tell me about Olivia forever, but he hadn’t known how, because he was terrified of what I was going to think.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a man who has, upon occasion, spelled my name wrong on my birthday cards wouldn’t know I’d be delighted to have a little sister, especially one I could take with me to every single Disney musical on Broadway so people would no longer give me the side-eye for going by myself as an adult.
“It wasn’t as if it was just a one-night stand,” he went on. “I was in love with Elizabeth, but she didn’t want to settle down any more than your mother ever did, let alone raise Olivia in the stifling environment of a palace. And then she died, and it was so terrible. Why do I keep falling for women who are so afraid of commitment, Mia? Why?”
