Either that or he never cared that much about me in the first place.
I prefer to believe the former.
Oh, that I had some kind of outlet, such as music, into which to pour the suffering I am currently feeling! But alas, I'm no
artist. I just have to sit here in silent pain, while around me more-gifted souls express their innermost angst through song,
dance and filmography.
Well, OK, just through filmography since there are no singers or dancers in fifth period G and T. Though if you ask me, there should be. Instead we just have Lilly, putting together what she is calling her quintessential episode of Lilly Tells It Like It Is,
a show that will explore the seamy underbelly of that American institution known as Starbucks. It is Lilly's contention that Starbucks, through the introduction of the Starbucks card, with which caffeine addicts can now pay for their fix electronically,
is actually a secret branch of the Central Intelligence Agency that is tracing the movements of America's intelligentsia - writers, editors and other known liberal agitators - through their coffee consumption.
Whatever. I don't even like coffee.
This can't be how it ends, can it? My love affair with Michael, I mean. Not with a bang, but with hardly even a whimper,
like Rommel when you accidentally step on his tail?
This so isn't how Mr. Rochester would have done it. Broken up with Jane, I mean. If he'd decided to break up with her.
Which he never did because he loved her too much, even when she ran away from him and went to go live with another
guy. Well, OK, and his sisters, and he turned out to be her cousin, but, whatever.
No, even then Mr Rochester reached out psychically and touched Jane's mind with his. Because though their bodies
might be parted, their souls were forever entwined by a love that was stronger than—
Aw, crud. The bell.
Homework:
Algebra: Who cares?
English: Everything sucks.
Biology: I hate life.
Health and Safety: Mr. Wheeton is in love, too. I should warn him to get out now, while he still can.
G & T: I shouldn't even be in this class.
French: Why does this language even exist? Everyone there speaks English anyway.
World Civ.: What does it matter? We're all just going to die.
Once our boyfriends dump us, anyway.
Friday, January 22, 6 p.m.
Grandmere's Suite at the Plaza
Grandmere made me come here straight after school so that Paolo could start getting us ready for the ball. I didn't know
Paolo makes housecalls, but apparently he does. Only for royalty, he assured me, and Britney.
I explained to him about how I am growing out my hair on account of boys liking long hair better than short hair, and Paolo made some tut-tutting noises, but he slapped some curlers into it to try to get rid of the triangular shape, and I guess it
worked, because my hair looks pretty good. All of me looks pretty good. On the outside, anyway.
Too bad inside, I'm completely busted.
I am trying not to show it, though. You know, because I want Grandmere to think I am having a good time. I mean, I am
only doing this for her. Because she is an old lady and my grandmother and she fought the Nazis and all of that, for which someone has to give her some credit.
I just hope someday she appreciates it. My supreme sacrifice, I mean. But I doubt she ever will. Seventy-something-year-old ladies - particularly dowager princesses -never seem to remember what it was like to be fourteen and in love.
Well, I guess it is time to go. Grandmere has on this slinky black number with gutter all over it. She looks like Diana Ross.
Only with no eyebrows.
She says I look like a snowdrop. Hmmm, just what I always wanted, to look like a snowdrop.
Maybe that's my secret talent. I have the amazing ability to resemble a snowdrop.
My parents must be so proud.
Friday, January 22, 8 p.m.
Bathroom at the Contessa Trevanni's Fifth-Avenue Mansion
Yep. In the bathroom once again, where I always seem to end up at dances. Why is that?
The contessa's bathroom is a little bit overdone. It is nice and everything, but I don't know if I'd have chosen flaming wall-sconces as part of my bathroom decor. I mean, even at the palace, we don't have any flaming wall-sconces. Although
it looks very romantic and Ivanhoe-y and all, it is actually a pretty serious fire hazard, besides being probably a health risk, considering the carcinogens they must be giving off.
But, whatever. That isn't even the, real question — why would anyone 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 Grandmere, who allegedly kept the Nazis from trashing Genovia by having Hitler over for tea — why is it that I am such a pushover?
I mean, seriously. I totally fell for Grandmere's whole riff about wanting to show up Elena Trevanni with her pretty and accomplished — yeah, at looking like a snowdrop — granddaughter. I actually felt sorry for her. I had empathy for Grandmere, not realizing then - as I do now - that Grandmere 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 RENE'S NEW GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To his credit, Rene seems to have known nothing about it.
He looked as surprised as I was when Grandmere presented me to her supposed arch-rival, who, thanks to the skill of
Lana's plastic surgeon dad, looks about thirty years younger than Grandmere, 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 Grandmere said, resemble an anteater. Like her eyes are sort of far apart on account of the skin around them being stretched so tight, which makes her nose look extra long and skinny.
When Grandmere 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 get dumped by her brother. But you know, everything at the ball.
But then Grandmere added, 'And of course you know Amelia's beau, Prince Pierre Rene Grimaldi Alberto.'
Beau? BEAU??? Rene and I exchanged quick glances. It was only then that I noticed that, standing right behind us in the reception line was none other than Lana Weinberger, her dad, and her mom. RIGHT THERE BEHIND US.