Then she went to make some phone calls.
To my dad in Genovia, I hope. Or possibly an insane asylum, so that Grandmère can be locked up at last for her own—and my—protection.
But I suppose that's a little too much to ask.
Why can't I have a NORMAL grandma? One who'd make me a cake for my birthday, instead of hosting a transcontinental royal slumber party for me, and allow a cable network to FILM it?
WHY?
Friday, April 30, lunch
I was regaling everyone at lunch about Grandmère's crazy scheme—I had purposefully not told anyone about it, including Lilly, just so I could tell everyone about it at the same time, because ever since J. P. started sitting with us at lunch, there's sort of been this contest between us girls to see who can make him laugh the hardest, because, well, J. P. seems like he could use a laugh, being a bottled-up volcano of passion, and all.
Not that anyone has really ADMITTED that's what we do. Try to see who can make J. P. laugh the hardest, that is.
But we totally do.
At least, I do.
Anyway, I was telling everyone about Lewis-with- the-scissor-handle glasses, and Janine-of-the-purple- hair, and they were laughing—especially J. P., particularly when I got to the part about the sex- segregated shopping for girls and jet-skiing for boys— when Lilly put down her chicken parm on a roll and was like, "Frankly, Mia, I think it was extremely uncool of you to turn down your grandmother's gen- erous offer to throw you such a fantastic party."
I just stared at her with my mouth open, the way I'd stared at Grandmère and Lewis the night before. "I do think it would be kind of neat to fly to Genovia for the weekend," Perin said softly, from the other side of the table.
"I could totally use a Louis Vuitton violin case," Boris said.
"But only the girls would be allowed to shop," I pointed out to him. "You'd have to be jet-skiing with the boys. And you know how you get that allergic reaction to sand-flea bites."
"Yeah," Boris grumbled. "But Tina could have bought one for me."
"You guys," I said. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Hello. Have you ever even seen that show, My Super Sweet Sixteen? They totally try to make the people on it look bad! On purpose. That's the POINT of the series."
"Not necessarily," Lilly said. "I think the point of the series is to show how some American young people choose to celebrate their coming-of-age— which in this country is at sixteen—and to convey to audiences what a difficult and yet joyous time it can be, as sweet sixteens struggle on the threshold of adulthood, not quite a child anymore, not yet a man or woman. ..."
Everyone stared at her. J. P. was the one who finally said, "Um, I always thought the point of the series was to show stupid people spending way too much money on something that ultimately has no meaning."
"TOTALLY!" I burst out. I couldn't believe J. P. had put it so exactly right. Well, I could, of course, because J. P. is a wordsmith, like me, and aspires to a literary career of some sort, just like I do.
But I also couldn't because, well, he's a guy, and most of the time, guys just don't GET stuff like that.
"Lilly," I said, "don't you remember that episode where those girls invited five hundred of their closest friends to that rock concert they gave for themselves at that night club, and they made that big deal out of not letting freshmen come, and had the ones who crashed thrown out by bouncers? Oh, and charged their friends admission to get in? To their own birth- day party?"
"And then gave the money to charity," Lilly pointed out.
"But still!" I said. "What about that girl who had herself carried into her party on a bed held on the shoulders of eight guys from the local crew team, then forced all her friends to watch a fashion show with herself as the only model?"
"No one is saying you have to do any of those things, Mia," Lilly glowered.
"Lilly, that's not the point. Think about it," I said. "I'm the princess of Genovia. I'm supposed to be a role model. I support causes like Greenpeace and Housing for the Hopeful. What kind of role model would I be if I showed up on TV, spent all that money flying my friends to Genovia and had a huge shop- ping spree and rock concert, just for them?"
"The kind who really appreciates her friends," Lilly said, "and wants to do something nice for them."
"I do really appreciate you guys," I said, a little bit hurt by this. "And I definitely think each and every one of you deserves a trip to Genovia for shop- ping sprees and free concerts. But think about it. How would it look, spending all that money on a birthday party?"
"It's going to look like your grandmother really, really loves you," Lilly said.
"No, it's not. It's going to look like I'm the biggest selfish spoiled brat on the planet. And if my grandmother really, really loved me," I said, "she'd spend all that money on something I really wanted— like helping to feed AIDS orphans in Ethiopia, or even ... I don't know. Getting stationary bikes for spinning classes at AEHS!—not something I don't care about at all."
"Mia's right," Tina said. "Although . . . I've always wanted to see Destiny's Child in concert."
"And I've always wanted to see the art collection at the Genovian palace," said Ling Su, a little wist- fully.
"I could totally use a makeover," Per in said. "Maybe then people would stop thinking I'm a boy."
"You guys!" I was shocked. "You can't be serious! You'd want to let yourselves be filmed doing all that stuff? And have it be shown on MTV?"
Tina, Ling Su, Perin, and Boris looked at one another. Then they looked at me, and shrugged. "Yeah."
"Admit it, Mia," Lilly said angrily. "This doesn't have anything to do with you being afraid of looking selfish on TV. It has to do with you still holding what happened at your party last year against me." Lilly's lips got as small as—maybe even smaller than—my mom's had, the night before. "And so you're going to make everybody here suffer for it."
Silence roared across the lunch table after Lilly dropped this little bombshell. Boris suddenly didn't seem to know where to look, and so settled for staring at the leftover buffalo bites on his tray. Tina turned red and reached for her Diet Coke, sucking very noisily on the straw sticking out of it.
Or maybe her sucking just seemed noisy, com- pared to how quiet everyone had gotten. Except of course for J. P., who, out of everyone there, was the only person who had no idea what Lilly had done at my fifteenth birthday party. Even Perin knew, having been filled in about it by Sha- meeka during a particularly boring French class. In French, no less.
"Wait," J. P. said. "What happened at Mia's party last year?"
"Something," Lilly said fiercely, her eyes very bright behind her contacts, "that's never going to happen again."
"Okay," J. P. said. "But what was it? And why does Mia still hold it against you?"
But Lilly didn't say anything. Instead, she scooted her chair back and ran—pretty melodramatically, if you ask me—to the ladies' room.
I didn't go after her. Neither did Tina. Instead, Ling Su did, saying, with a sigh, "I guess it's my turn, anyway."
The bell rang right after that. As we were picking up our trays to take them back to the jet line,
J. P. turned to me and asked, "So are you ever going to tell me what that was all about?"
But, remembering what Tina had said about the volcano of passion, I shook my head. Because I don't want him exploding all over ME.
Friday, April 30, between lunch and G&T
At least Michael is on my side about it. The party thing, I mean. Because when I called him just now on my cell (even though, technically, this was not an emergency) to tell him what Grandmère had planned, he said, "When you say transcontinental slumber party, do you mean that we'd get to sleep in the same room?"
To which I replied, "Most assuredly not."