Royally Crushed (43 page)

“So, what’d you do all weekend?” Steffi’s question sounds casual to everyone but me as we’re eating lunch at our favorite table in the quad. There’s snow on the ground, but it’s bright and sunny out (for once! hooray!), and the tables and benches are dry, so we headed outside with our lunches. Until Steffi decided to up and speak to me, I’d been enjoying myself out here, watching a group of freshmen attempt to make a snowman, complete with a carrot nose they probably swiped from the cafeteria. The sun and excitement have kept me from falling face first into my food, exhausted.

Still, I’m sharp enough to know Steffi isn’t the least bit interested in what I did this weekend. Other than to confirm that it didn’t involve Georg.

Sorry, sister.

“Not much,” I say. “Went skiing.”

“Where’d you go?” Ulrike’s head swings up, and she shoves her open notebook away. She’s really worked up about the dance and has been quiet until now, making a list of all the stuff she needs to do. “I didn’t even know you skied.”

“We went to Austria.” I’m not going to get too specific. What if Georg has told his friends he went to Scheffau? As much as I’m dying to go “nya-nya-nya” to Steffi, I need to respect the fact that Georg’s not ready for us to be a public couple at school yet.

“Really? Where?” This from Steffi. Of course.

“I can’t remember the name of the place—you know me and the German language—but it was really pretty. I’m totally bruised, though. I wiped out a lot. Get this . . . I have a bruise the size of an apple on my rear end.”

This brings a few sympathy comments from all three of them (guess Steffi figured she’d have to join in or risk looking like a total bitch) and a story from Ulrike about her first ski lesson and how she ran right into the instructor, sending the guy to the first aid shack for the afternoon.

I subtly glance at my watch. Five minutes to go. Gotta strategically keep Steffi off the Georg topic. I’m about to say something about the freshmen and their snowman when I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Hey, guys.”

“Hi, Georg!” Ulrike, Maya, and Steffi all say it at once. Of course, Ulrike’s “hi” is chipper, Maya’s is pretty normal, and Steffi’s . . . well, The Predator could take a lesson from Steffi. Her sultry little “hi” is barely out of her mouth and she’s asking him if he’s ready for the exam he and Maya are having in French IV right after lunch. Just to get him talking to her.

Naturally, he’s polite, and she soon manages to turn the conversation to a direction she’d prefer. Nodding toward Ulrike’s notebook, she says, “Poor Ulrike here is working
her tail off, getting ready for the dance this weekend. Did you get your tickets yet?”

I know she’s just dying, waiting for him to say,
Isn’t it girls ask guys?
or something along those lines, because that would give her the confirmation she’s dying to hear—that he doesn’t have a date with the big event less than a week away. Apparently, most people here do the who-are-you-going-with thing at the last minute, but she’s gotta know Georg’s not a last-minute planner. His life doesn’t allow it for the most part.

I’m cringing on the inside, waiting for Georg to fall into her oh-so-subtle trap.

I need a way to save him. Fast. I stand up, thinking I can get him moving toward his French IV class (since the warning bell is going to ring any second), but just as Steffi opens her mouth to speak again, he says, “I can’t go. I have a party to attend that night.”

He does?

“You do?” Steffi’s eyes meet mine and then look away so fast I doubt anyone else even notices. “Is it a palace event?”

“It’s an Oscar party. You know the Academy Awards are this weekend, right?”

Omigosh. The Oscars are
this
weekend? Every year, the A-listers and I make a huge deal out of it. Since fifth grade, our parents have let us stay up really late to watch it. We rate
all the gowns and gossip about our fave actors—debating who’s the hottest on the red carpet, who needs style lessons, and who’s probably not going to be invited next year because their career is tanking. It’s such an important ritual with us that last year our parents agreed to let us all spend the night at Jules’s place so we could watch it on her monster-size TV, despite the fact we had school the next day.

Which reminds me. “Isn’t it always on a Sunday?”

“Not this year.” Georg explains, “They’re switching venues and decided to host the ceremony on a Saturday night instead.”

Ulrike looks from me to Georg. “Um, do you get to fly to L.A.? Like, to the actual event?”

I’m about to say something along the lines of,
Are you kidding?
but as I look from Ulrike to Georg, it hits me that Georg’s father probably gets invited to events like the Oscars all the time. If not to the actual awards ceremony, then to one of the zillion Hollywood shindigs that follow it. He knows all those Hollywood types. And now that I’m thinking about it, I remember Dad once mentioning that Prince Manfred has put some of his personal money into funding independent film festivals. Encouraging the pursuit of the arts and all that.

“No, no trip to L.A. this time,” Georg says. “It’s a private party here in Schwerinborg. I have school and soccer,
so I couldn’t go to the States even if I wanted to.”

This time?
I try not to stare at him or look surprised, but now I’m dying to ask if he’s been before (and if he knows any famous actors and actresses and what gossip he has about them . . . mostly so I can give the scoop to Jules, Nat, and Christie). His tone makes it clear the topic is closed, though. He even asks Maya if she’ll walk with him to French IV so they can quiz each other on the way.

After Maya loads up her backpack and heads off with Georg, Steffi looks at me with the most overacted sympathetic look I think I’ve ever seen on a human being—assuming she’s human, that is. “Bummer, Val, huh? I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

I give her the Valerie Shrug. Whatta bitch. Thankfully, I’m saved by the bell from any other catty comments she might add.

We wad up our trash and toss it into a nearby can, which gets Ulrike griping to Steffi about the obscene hour the garbage truck showed up on her street this morning, with the sanitation workers clanging cans around and revving the engine of the truck.

In other words, it’s the kind of conversation I can tune out.

Careful not to let Steffi see what I’m doing, I steal a glance toward the door where Georg and Maya disappeared.

And that’s when it hits me.

Georg never mentioned that he had to go to a party this weekend. Not even when I asked him to the dance.

In fact, he said the reason he didn’t want to go was because the Hotel Whatsits is a public place, yadda yadda. He even said it might be fun for the two of us to do something afterward. How could he possibly have meant any of that if he has another party he’s attending?

I frown as I hitch my backpack higher on my shoulder, careful not to let Steffi see that I’m suddenly bothered.

As with Hamlet in Denmark, something is totally rotten in the state of Schwerinborg. And I have to wonder if the prince is involved.

I SIGN ON TO THE COMPUTER IN THE LIBRARY,
shove my Diet Coke—technically Coke Light here in Schwerinborg—off to the side so the librarian doesn’t see it and slap me with a warning, then open a blank document.

Problem is, I can’t figure out what in the world I want to type.

I got the library pass so I could (theoretically) work on an essay for English Literature. I know I’m going to have to show that I was actually doing work while I was here, but I’m just not being productive. I can’t wax poetic about
Pride and Prejudice
when I have more pressing issues futzing with my gray matter.

I have to know where Georg is going this weekend.
Mostly because I’ve worked myself up to the level of total freak-out about his Oscar party statement despite my own resolution not to do this to myself anymore.

I click into the browser and do a Google search for “Oscars” and “Schwerinborg.” All it brings up are the television listings, showing which network is going to be airing it here (one broadcast from Germany is being picked up locally, which is swell, ’cause I can just imagine some burly German announcer trying to describe the fluid drape of an Armani gown).

I try again, this time using the search terms “Academy Awards” and “Schwerinborg.” No dice. Whatever party Georg is going to must not be one that’s at a location the press will be covering, like at a hotel or restaurant. He did say it was a private party, but generally most “private parties” the royal family attends get at least a little publicity.

It occurs to me that maybe there’s no party at all. Maybe he was onto Steffi’s game, and he was afraid
she
might ask him to the dance?

I push the thought from my brain as soon as I consider it. It just isn’t Georg’s style. He’s not deceptive enough to make up a party story as an evasion tactic. He’d just tell her straight out he didn’t want to attend. And he’d do it in that way he has of convincing people to drop the subject
and discuss something else while still being completely tactful.

Though now I’m
really
wondering why he didn’t tell me about his Oscar party. And what he meant by what he was saying on the chairlift about maybe having us make it a movie night when I get home from the dance. Was he just tossing out general ideas? Did he forget he had a party? Not that I was dying to have another hot date where all we do is watch movies, but still. And it’s not like he could go to his party and then meet up with me. The Oscars run late, especially here, given the time difference.

I scoot back from the computer and close my eyes, trying to do that Mom breathe-in-breathe-out thing. Maybe Georg got more pissed at me over my guesthouse hallway comments than he let on. Maybe he was trying to take the polite way out, turning me down for the dance because he really didn’t want to go at all.

I reach forward, grab my Diet Coke, and drain it. The rush of caffeine does nothing to bring down my freak-out level, though.

Since the librarian is looking at me now and I don’t want her to see the Coke can, I lean toward the computer to try and look busy. Since
Pride and Prejudice
ain’t happening, I sign on to my e-mail to whine to Christie about Georg’s mystery party—since she’ll understand—and to
ask her if she’ll look around for an Oscar Internet feed in English so I can watch the show after I get home from the dance. She’s great at finding that kind of thing. But when my mailbox screen pops up, I’m stunned to see a bunch of new mail.

And I’m
really
stunned by the return address on the first one in the box. Guess the spam filters let my mail get through after all.