Forever Princess (16 page)

But then, I don't think Michael had ever felt that he'd needed to.

“…And that's why I want to take the opportunity to show her just how much she means to me by asking her here, in front of all her friends and loved ones—”

It was when I saw him reach a hand into one of the pockets of his tuxedo pants that I
really
started to think that I might need actual CPR in a minute.

And sure enough, from his pocket J.P. pulled a black velvet box…a much smaller one than Princess Amelie's tiara had fit in.

The one J.P. was holding was ring-sized.

As soon as everyone in the crowd saw the box—and then J.P. sink down to one knee—they went totally bananas. People started cheering and clapping so loudly, I could hardly hear what J.P. said next…and I was standing right next to him. I'm sure no one else heard him, even though he was speaking into a microphone.

“Mia,” J.P. went on, looking up into my eyes with a confident smile on his face, as he opened the box to reveal an extremely large pear-shaped diamond on a platinum band, “will you…”

The screaming and cheering from the crowd got even louder. Everything went all swoopy in front of my eyes. The Manhattan skyline before us, the party lights on the boat, the faces before us, J.P.'s face below me.

I really did think for a second that I was going to pass out. Tina was right: I should have eaten more.

But one thing my vision was still steady enough to take in with perfect clarity:

And that was Michael Moscovitz. Leaving.

Yes, leaving the party. The boat. Whatever. The point was, he was exiting. One minute, I saw his face, perfectly expressionless, but there, down below me.

And the next, I was looking at the back of his head. I saw his broad shoulders, and then his back as he made his way toward the gangplank.

He was going.

Without even waiting to see what I'd say in response to J.P.'s question.

Or even what, exactly, that question was. Which, it turned out, wasn't at all what everyone seemed to think it was.

“…go to the prom with me?” J.P. finished, his smile still wide and full of trust in me.

But I could barely drag my gaze to look in his direction. Because I couldn't stop staring after Michael.

It's just that…I don't know. Looking out into the crowd like that, after my vision had gone all kind of wonky from surprise, and seeing Michael turn his back and just walk away, like he couldn't have cared less what happened….

It was like something went cold inside me. Something I didn't even realize was still
living
inside me.

Which, it turned out, was this little tiny ember of hope.

Hope that maybe, somehow, someday Michael and I might get back together.

I know! I'm a fool. An idiot! After all this time, why would I keep on hoping? Especially when I have such a fantastic boyfriend, who, by the way, was still kneeling in front of me,
holding a RING! (Which excuse me, but what's up with that? Who gives a girl a RING as he's asking her to the
prom
? Well, except for Boris. But excuse me, he's
BORIS
.)

But obviously I was the only one harboring that little sliver of hope. Michael didn't even care enough to stay and watch what I said in response to my longtime boyfriend's proposal of prom-promise. (I guess that's what it was. Wasn't it?)

So. That was that.

It's kind of funny, because I thought Michael broke my heart a long time ago. But he just sort of broke it all over again by walking out like that.

It's amazing how boys can do that.

Fortunately, even though I couldn't see very well because of the tears that filled up my eyes by Michael leaving like that, and my heart had just been smashed to pieces (again), I could still think clearly. Sort of.

The only thing I could think to do was give J.P. the speech that Grandmère had made me rehearse nine million times for just such an occasion—though I'd never actually believed such an occasion would ever arise:

“Oh,
insert name of proposer here
, I'm just so overwhelmed by the intensity of your emotions, I hardly know what to say. You've truly swept me off my feet, and I do believe my head is swimming—”

No lie, in this case.

“I'm so young and inexperienced, you see, and you're such a man of the world…I just wasn't expecting this.”

Absolutely no lie, again in this case. Who proposes in high school—even if it is just a promise ring, or whatever?
Oh, wait, that's right. Boris.

Hold on, where's my dad? Oh, there he is. Oh, my God, I've never seen his face that color. I think his head is literally going to explode, he looks so mad. He must think, like everyone else, that J.P. just proposed. He didn't hear that all J.P. did was ask me to the prom. He saw the ring, saw J.P. kneel, and just assumed…oh, this is awful! Why did J.P. have to get me a
ring
? Is that what
Michael
thought? That J.P. was asking me to
marry
him?

I want to die now.

“I think I need to go have a bit of a lie-down in my boudoir—alone—and let my maid apply some lavender oil to my temples while I think this over. I'm just so flattered and thrilled. But, no, don't call me,
I'll
call you.”

The truth is Grandmère's speech just seemed the tiniest bit…
outdated.

And also it didn't really seem to apply considering the fact that J.P. and I have been going out for almost two years. So it's not like his prom-ring proposal was completely out of left field.

Come on! I don't even know where I want to go to college next year. How am I supposed to know who I want to be with for the foreseeable future?

But I have a pretty good clue:
Not
someone who hasn't even
glanced
at my book yet, even though he's had it more than forty-eight hours.

I'm just saying.

The thing is, I'd never say that in front of everyone on the whole boat, and humiliate J.P.! I love him. I do. I just…

Why, oh, why did he have to kneel down like that in front of everyone? And with a
ring
?

So instead of Grandmère's speech—and totally aware that there was this growing silence as I just stood there, idiotically saying nothing at all, I said, feeling my cheeks getting hotter and hotter, “Well, we'll see!”

Well, we'll see? WELL, WE'LL SEE?

A totally hot, totally perfect, totally wonderful guy who, by the way, loves me, and is willing to wait for me for all eternity, asks me to go to the prom with him, and also offers me what looks, at least according to the size chart Grandmère made me memorize in my head, like a three-carat diamond ring, and I say,
Well, we'll see
?

What's
wrong
with me? Seriously, do I have some sort of wish to live alone (well, with Fat Louie) for the rest of my life?

I really think I do. J.P.'s confident smile wavered…but just a little.

“That's my girl,” he said, and stood up and hugged me, while somewhere out in the crowd, someone started to clap…slowly at first (I recognized that clap…it had to have been Boris), and then more rapidly, until everyone was politely applauding.

It was horrible! They were applauding for me saying “Well, we'll see!” in response to my boyfriend's asking me to the prom! I didn't deserve applause. I deserved to be tossed overboard. They were only doing it because I'm a princess, and their hostess. I know deep down inside, they were thinking, “What a byotch!”

Why? Why had Michael
left
?

As J.P. hugged me, I whispered, “We have to talk.”

He whispered back, “I have certification to prove it's blood free. Is that why you look so freaked out?”

“Partly,” I said, inhaling his mingled scent of dry cleaning and Carolina Herrera for Men. We'd stepped away from the microphone by then, so there was no chance of anyone overhearing us. “It's just—”

“It's only a promise ring.” J.P. broke the hug first, but he still held on to one of my hands…into which he'd slipped the box holding the ginormous diamond ring. “You know I'd do anything to make you happy. I thought this was what you wanted.”

I just looked up at him in total confusion. Part of my confusion was over the fact that here was this wonderful, wonderful guy who really did mean what he'd just said—I knew he would do anything to make me happy. So why couldn't I just let him?

And another part of me was wondering what I had ever said to make him think what I wanted was a ring—promise, engagement, or otherwise?

“It's what Boris got Tina,” J.P. explained, seeing my lack of comprehension. “And you were so happy for her.”

“Right,” I said. “Because that's the kind of thing she likes—”

“I know,” J.P. said. “The same way she likes romance novels, and you wrote one—”

“So naturally if her boyfriend gave her a promise ring, I'd want one, too?” I shook my head. Hello. Couldn't he see there was a big difference between me and Tina?

“Look,” J.P. said, closing my fingers around the velvet
box. “I saw the ring, and it reminded me of you. Think of it as a birthday gift if it freaks you out to think of it the other way. I don't know what's been going on with you lately, but I just want you to know…I'm not going anywhere, Mia.
I'm
not leaving you, for Japan or anywhere else. I'm staying right here, by your side. So whatever you decide, whenever you decide it…you know where to find me.”

That's when he leaned down and kissed me.

And then he, too, walked away.

Just like Michael.

And that's when I ran for the safety of…this. Wherever I am now.

I know I should come down. My guests are probably leaving, and it's rude that I'm not there to say good-bye.

But hello! How many times does a girl get sort-of proposed to? On her birthday? In front of everyone she knows? And then turns the guy down? Sort of? Only not really?

Also…what's wrong with me? Why didn't I just say yes? J.P. is clearly the most amazing guy on the planet…he's wonderful, gorgeous, fantastic, and sweet. And he loves me. He LOVES me!

So why can't I just love him back, the way he deserves to be loved?

Oh, crud…someone's coming. Who do I know who's limber enough to climb all the way up here? Not Grandmère, that's for sure…

Tuesday, May 2, midnight, limo home from my party

My dad isn't too happy with me.

He's the one who climbed all the way to the yacht's bow to tell me I had to stop “sulking” (his word for what I was doing, which isn't completely accurate, in my opinion…I'd call it venting, since I'm writing in my journal), and come down and say good-bye to all my guests.

That wasn't all he said, either. Not by a long shot.

He said I have to go to the prom with J.P. He said you can't go out with a guy for nearly two years, then decide, a week before the senior prom, that you're not going to go with him, just because you don't feel like going to the prom.

Or, as he so unfairly put it, “Just because your ex-boyfriend happens to have come back to town.”

I was like, “Whatever, Dad! Michael and I are just friends!”
Love, Michael.
“Like going to the prom with him had ever even OCCURRED to me!”

Because it totally hasn't. Who takes a twenty-one-year-old college graduate millionaire robotic-surgical-arm inventor to their high school prom? Who, by the way, broke up with me two years ago, and also clearly doesn't care about me now either, so it's not like he'd go if I asked.

And like I'd do that to J.P., anyway.

“There's a name for girls like you,” Dad said, as he sat down next to me on my precarious perch out over the water. “And what you're doing to J.P. And I don't even want to repeat it. Because it's not a nice name.”

“Really?” I was totally curious. No one's ever called me a name before. Except for the names Lana routinely calls
me—geek and spazoid and stuff like that. Well, and all the stuff Lilly called me on ihatemiathermopolis.com. “What name?”

“Tease,” Dad said gravely.

I have to admit, that made me start laughing. Even though the situation was supposed to be completely and totally serious, with Dad sitting there on the edge of the yacht, talking me down like I was about to commit suicide or something.

“It's not funny,” Dad said, sounding irritated. “The last thing we need right now, Mia, is for you to get a reputation.”

This just made me laugh even harder. Considering the fact that I happen to be the last virgin in the graduating senior class of Albert Einstein High School (besides my boyfriend). It was just so ironic that my dad was lecturing me—
me
!—about getting a reputation. I was laughing so hard I had to hold on to the side of the boat to keep from falling into the inky black waters of the East River.

“Dad,” I said, when I could finally speak. “I can assure you, I am
not
a tease.”

“Mia, actions speak louder than words. I'm not saying I think you and J.P. should get engaged.
That
, of course, is completely absurd. I expect you to kindly and gently explain to him that you're much too young to be thinking of that kind of thing right now—”

“Da-ad,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It's a
promise
ring.”

“Regardless of your personal feelings about the prom,” he went on, ignoring me, “J.P. wants to go, and surely wasn't wrong to have expected to take you—”

“I know,” I said. “And I told him I wouldn't mind if he takes someone else—”

“He wants to take
you
. His girlfriend. Whom he's been seeing for nearly two years. He has certain rights of expectation because of that. One of them is that, barring any sort of gross misconduct on his part, you would go to the prom with him. And so the right thing for you to do is go with him.”

“But, Dad,” I said, shaking my head. “You don't understand. I mean…I wrote a romance novel, and I gave it to him, and he hasn't even—”

My dad blinked at me. “You wrote a
romance novel
?”

Oops. Yeah, guess I forgot to mention that part to good old Dad. Maybe I could distract him.

“Um,” I said. “Yeah. About that. You don't have to worry. No one wants to publish it anyway—”

My dad waved a hand like my words were something annoying that was buzzing around his head.

“Mia,” he said. “I think you know by now that being royal isn't all about being driven around in limos and having a bodyguard and taking private jets and buying the latest handbag or jeans and always being in style. You know what it's really about is always being the bigger person, and being kind to others. You chose to date J.P. You chose to date him for nearly two years. You cannot
not
go to the prom with him, unless he's been in some way cruel to you…which, from what you describe, it doesn't sound as if he has. Now, stop being such a—what do you kids call it? Oh, right, a drama queen—and come down from here. My leg is getting a cramp.”

I knew my dad was right. I was being stupid. I'd been acting like an idiot all week (so what else was new?). I was going to the prom, and I was going with J.P. J.P. and I were perfect for each other. We always had been.

I wasn't a kid anymore, and I needed to stop acting like one. I needed to stop lying to everyone, just like Dr. Knutz said.

But most importantly, I needed to stop lying to myself.

Life isn't a romance novel. The truth is, the reason romance novels sell so well—the reason why everyone loves them—is because no one's life is actually like that. Everyone
wants
their life to be like that.

But no one's life really is.

No. The truth was, Michael and I were through—even if he did sign his letter to me
Love, Michael
. But that didn't mean anything. That little ember of hope I'd been carrying around—partly, I knew, because my dad had told me that love is always waiting right around the corner—needed to die and stay well and truly dead. I needed to
allow
it to die, and be happy with what I had. Because what I had was pretty freaking great.

I think what happened tonight finally killed that ember of hope about Michael I've been carrying around. I really do.

At least, I'm almost positive when I climbed down and found J.P. (talking to Sean Penn again, of course) and I went up to him and said, “Yes,” and showed him that I was wearing the ring, that killed it. Killed it pretty much dead.

He gave me a big hug and lifted me up and swung me around. Everyone standing around cheered and clapped.

Except my mom. I saw her give my dad a look, and he shook his head, and she narrowed her eyes at him, like,
You are so gonna get it
, and he gave her a look, like,
It's just a
promise
ring, Helen.

I suspect I'm due for a breakfast lecture on post-modern feminism from Mom tomorrow morning. As Lana would say, whatevs. Like any lecture of Mom's can make me feel worse than the sight of Michael's back did a little while ago.

Tina and Lana and Trisha and Shameeka and Ling Su and Perin were all over the ring, though Ling Su mainly wanted to know if I could cut plates in half with my new diamond, since she's doing a new installation piece that involves pieces of broken ceramic (we experimented on some of the dishware from the caterer and the answer is yes, my ring can cut plates in half).

The person who seemed most interested was Lilly. She came over and really looked at it and was like, “So what are you now, like, engaged?” and I was all, “No, it's just a promise ring,” and Lilly went, “That's some big
promise
,” meaning the diamond. Which I'm pretty sure she meant in a semi-insulting way…

And she succeeded.

What I couldn't figure out was why Lilly hadn't sprung her “surprise” on me yet…the one she'd said she could only give me if she came to my party. I'd assumed that meant she was going to give it to me
at
my party—or at least on my birthday itself. But so far she'd showed no sign of doing so.

Maybe I'd misunderstood.

Or maybe—just maybe—there was still some sliver of
affection for me somewhere in her, and whatever diabolical scheme she'd been planning, she'd decided not to launch it after all.

So remembering what Dad had said about how being royal is about being the bigger person, I refused to take offense at her “That's some big
promise
” remark.

And I also refused to ask her where her brother had gone. Though Tina, of course, sidled up to me and pointed out—in case I'd missed it, somehow—that he'd left…and that he'd done it as soon as J.P. had whipped out the ring.

“Do you think,” Tina whispered, “Michael left because he couldn't stand to see the woman he's loved for so long promising herself to another man?”

Really, this was too much.

“No, Tina,” I said flatly. “I think he left because he just doesn't care about me.”

Tina looked shocked.

“No!” she cried. “That's not why! I know that's not why! He left because he thinks YOU don't care about him, and knew he couldn't control his unbridled passion for you! He was probably afraid if he'd stay, he'd KILL J.P.!”

“Tina,” I said. It was sort of hard to stay calm, but I remembered my new motto—life is not a romance novel—and that made it a little easier. “Michael doesn't care about me. Face the facts. I'm with J.P. now, the way I always should have been. And please don't talk to me that way about Michael anymore. It really upsets me.”

And that was the end of it. Tina apologized for having upset me—about a million times—and was really concerned about having hurt my feelings, but we hugged it out, and
everything was fine after that.

The party went on for a little while longer, but then pretty much fizzled out when the dock master came along and said Madonna's band had to unplug due to complaints from the neighborhood associations of nearby waterside condos (I guess they'd have preferred Pavarotti).

In all, it was a pretty good party. I cleared some excellent loot: a ton of Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu totes, clutches, and wallets and stuff; a lot of scented candles (which you can't even take with you to the dorm—whatever college I end up in—since candles are considered a fire hazard); a Princess Leia cat costume for Fat Louie, which won't be too confusing for him, gender-wise; a Brainy Smurf T-shirt from Fred Flare; a Cinderella Disney castle pendant; diamond and sapphire hair clips (from Grandmère, who always says my hair is in my face now that it's long); and $253,050 in donations to Greenpeace.

Oh, yeah, and one three-carat blood-free diamond promise ring.

I'd add one broken heart to the list, but I'm trying not to be a “drama queen,” like Dad said. Besides, Michael broke my heart a long time ago. He can't break it
again
. And all he did was say he liked my book and write
Love, Michael
at the end of his note to me about it. That hardly constitutes wanting to get back together. I have no idea why I got my hopes up in such a ridiculous, girly manner.

Oh, right: Because I'm a ridiculous, girly girl.