I guess I must have been more upset about the whole Michael thing than even I thought, because midway through Grandmère’s lecture on tipping (manicurists: $3; pedicurists: $5; cab drivers: $2 for rides under $10, $5 for airport trips; double the tax for restaurant checks except in states where the tax is less than 8 percent; etc.) she went, “AMELIA! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?”
I must have jumped about ten feet into the air. I was totally thinking about Michael. About how good he would look in a tux. About how I could buy him a red rose boutonniere, just the plain kind without the baby’s breath, because boys don’t like baby’s breath. And I could wear a black dress, one of those off-one-shoulder kinds like Kirsten Dunst always wears to movie premieres, with a butterfly hem and a slit up the side, and high heels with laces that go up your ankles.
Only Grandmère says black on girls under eighteen is morbid, that off-one-shoulder gowns and butterfly hems look like they were made that way by mistake, and that those lace-up high heels look like the kind of shoes Russell Crowe wore in Gladiator—not a flattering look on most women.
But whatever. I could fully put on body glitter. Grandmère doesn’t even KNOW about body glitter.
“Amelia!” Grandmère was saying. She couldn’t yell too loud because her face was still stinging from the chemical peel. I could tell because Rommel, her mostly hairless toy poodle who looks like he’s seen a chemical peel or two himself, kept leaping up into her lap and trying to lick her face, like it was a piece of raw meat or whatever. Not to gross anybody out, but that’s sort of how it looked. Or like Grandmère had accidentally stepped in front of one of those hoses they used to get the radiation off Cher in Silkwood.
“Have you listened to a single word I’ve said?” Grandmère looked peeved. Mostly because her face hurt, I’m sure. “This could be very important to you someday, if you happen to be stranded without a calculator or your limo.”
“Sorry, Grandmère,” I said. I was sorry, too. Tipping is totally my worst thing, on account of how it involves math, and also thinking quickly on your feet. When I order food from Number One Noodle Son, I always have to ask the restaurant while I am still on the phone with them how much it will be, so I can work on calculating how much to tip the delivery guy before he gets to the door. Because otherwise he ends up standing there for, like, ten minutes while I figure out how much to give him for a seventeen-dollar-and-fifty-cent order. It’s embarrassing.
“I don’t know where your head’s been lately, Amelia,” Grandmère said, all crabby. Well, you would be crabby too, if you’d paid money to have the top two or three layers of your skin chemically removed from your face. “I hope you’re not still worrying about your mother and that ridiculous home birth she’s planning. I told you before, your mother’s forgotten what labor feels like. As soon as her contractions kick in, she’ll be begging to be taken to the hospital for a nice epidural.”
I sighed. Although the fact that my mother is choosing a home birth over a nice, safe, clean hospital birth—where there are oxygen tanks and candy machines and hot doctors like Dr. Kovac from ER—is upsetting, I have been trying not to think about it too much… especially since I suspect Grandmère is right. My mother cries like a baby when she stubs her toe. How is she going to withstand hours and hours of labor pains? She is much older now than when she gave birth to me. Her thirty-six-year-old body is in no shape for the rigors of childbirth. She doesn’t even work out!
Grandmère fastened her evil eye on me.
“I suppose the fact the weather’s starting to get warm isn’t helping,” she said. “Young people tend to get flighty in the spring. And, of course, there’s your birthday tomorrow.”
I fully let Grandmère think that’s what was distracting me. My birthday and the fact that my friends and I are all twitterpated, like Thumper gets in springtime in Bambi.
“You are a very difficult person for whom to find a suitable birthday gift, Amelia,” Grandmère continued, reaching for her Sidecar and her cigarettes. Grandmère has her cigarettes sent to her from Genovia, so she doesn’t have to pay the astronomical tax on them that they charge here in New York in the hopes of making people quit smoking on account of it being too expensive. Except that it isn’t working, since all of the people in Manhattan who smoke are just hopping on the PATH train and going over to New Jersey to buy their cigarettes.
“You are not the jewelry type,” Grandmère went on, lighting up and puffing away. “And you don’t seem to have any appreciation whatsoever for couture. And it isn’t as if you have any hobbies.”
I pointed out to Grandmère that I do have a hobby. Not just a hobby, even, but a calling: I write.
Grandmère just waved her hand, and said, “But not a real hobby. You don’t golf or paint.”
It kind of hurt my feelings that Grandmère doesn’t think writing is a real hobby. She is going to be very surprised when I grow up and become a published author. Then writing will not only be my hobby, but my career. Maybe the first book I write will be about her. I will call it Clarisse: Ravings of a Royal, A Memoir by Princess Mia of Genovia. And Grandmère won’t be able to sue, just like Daryl Hannah couldn’t sue when they made that movie about her and John F. Kennedy Jr., because all of it will be 100 percent true. HA!
“What DO you want for your birthday, Amelia?” Grandmère asked.
I had to think about that one. Of course what I REALLY want Grandmère can’t give me. But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. So I drew up the following list:
WHAT I WOULD LIKE FOR MY FIFTEENTH
BIRTHDAY, BY MIA THERMOPOLIS,
AGED 14 YEARS AND 364 DAYS
End to world hunger
New pair overalls, size eleven
New cat brush for Fat Louie (he chewed the handle off the last one)
Bungee cords for palace ballroom (so I can do air ballet like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider)
New baby brother or sister, safely delivered
Elevation of orcas to endangered list so Puget Sound can receive federal aid to clean up polluted breeding/feeding grounds
Lana Weinberger’s head on a silver platter (just kidding—well, not really)
My own cell phone
Grandmère to quit smoking
Michael Moscovitz to ask me to the senior prom
In composing this list, it occurred to me that sadly, the only thing on it that I am likely to get for my birthday is item number 2. I mean, I am going to get a new brother or sister, but not for another month, at the earliest. No way was Grandmère going to go for the quitting-smoking thing or the bungee cords. World hunger and the orca thing are sort of out of the hands of anyone I know. My dad says I would just lose and/or destroy a cell phone, like I did the laptop he got me (that wasn’t my fault; I only took it out of my backpack and set it on that sink for a second while I was looking for my Chapstick. It is not my fault that Lana Weinberger bumped into me and that the sinks at our school are all stopped up. That computer was only underwater for a few seconds; it fully should have worked again when it dried out. Except that even Michael, who is a technological as well as musical genius, couldn’t save it).
Of course the one thing Grandmère fixated on was item number 10, the one I only admitted to her in a moment of weakness and should never have mentioned in the first place, considering the fact that in twenty-four hours, she and Michael will be sharing a table at Les Hautes Manger for my birthday dinner.
“What is the ‘prom’?” Grandmère wanted to know. “I don’t know this word.”
I couldn’t believe it. But then, Grandmère hardly ever watches TV, not even Murder She Wrote or Golden Girls reruns, like everyone else her age, so it was unlikely she’d ever have caught an airing of Pretty in Pink on TBS or whatever.
“It’s a dance, Grandmère,” I said, reaching for my list. “Never mind.”
“And the Moscovitz boy hasn’t asked you to this dance yet?” Grandmère asked. “When is it?”
“A week from Saturday,” I said. “Can I h
ave that list back now?”
“Why don’t you go without him?” Grandmère demanded. She let out a cackle, then seemed to think better of it, since I think it hurt her face to stretch her cheek muscles like that. “Like you did last time. That’ll show him.”
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s only for seniors. I mean, seniors can take underclassmen, but underclassmen can’t go on their own. Lilly says I should just ask Michael whether or not he’s going, but—”
“NO!” Grandmère’s eyes bulged out. At first I thought she was choking on an ice cube, but it turned out she was just shocked. Grandmère’s got eyeliner tattooed all the way around her lids, like Michael Jackson, so she doesn’t have to mess with her makeup every morning. So when her eyes bulge out—well, it’s pretty noticeable.
“You cannot ask HIM,” Grandmère said. “How many times do I have to tell you, Amelia? Men are like little woodland creatures. You have to lure them to you with tiny breadcrumbs and soft words of encouragement. You cannot simply whip out a rock and conk them over the head with it.”
I certainly agree with this. I don’t want to do any conking where Michael is concerned. But I don’t know about breadcrumbs.
“Well,” I said. “So what do I do? The prom is in less than two weeks, Grandmère. If I’m going to go, I’ve got to know soon.”
“You must hint around the subject,” Grandmère said. “Subtly.”
I thought about this. “Like, do you mean I should go, ‘I saw the most perfect dress for the prom the other day in the Victoria’s Secret catalog’?”
“Exactly,” Grandmère said. “Only of course a princess never purchases anything off the rack, Amelia, and NEVER from a catalog.”
“Right,” I said. “But Grandmère, don’t you think he’ll see right through that?”
Grandmère snorted, then seemed to regret it, and held her drink against her face, to soothe her tender skin. “You are talking about a seventeen-year-old boy, Amelia,” she said. “Not a master spy. He won’t have the slightest idea what you are about, if you do it subtly enough.”
But I don’t know. I mean, I have never been very good at being subtle. Like the other day I tried to subtly mention to my mother that Ronnie, our neighbor who Mom trapped in the hallway on the way to the incinerator room, might not have wanted to hear about how many times my mom has to get up and pee every night now that the baby is pressing so hard against her bladder. My mom just looked at me and went, “Do you have a death wish, Mia?”
Mr. Gianini and I have decided that we will be very relieved when my mom finally has this baby.
I am pretty sure Ronnie would agree.
Thursday, May 1, 12:01 a.m.
Well. That’s it. I’m fifteen now. Not a girl. Not yet a woman. Just like Britney.
HA HA HA.
I don’t actually feel any different than I did a minute ago, when I was fourteen. I certainly don’t LOOK any different. I’m the same five-foot-nine, thirty-two-A-bra-size freak I was when I turned fourteen. Maybe my hair looks a little better, since Grandmère made me get highlights and Paolo’s been trimming it as it grows out. It is almost to my chin now, and not so triangular-shaped as before.
Other than that, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing. Nada. No difference. Zilch.
I guess all of my fifteen-ness is going to have to be on the inside, since it sure isn’t showing on the outside.
I just checked my e-mail to see if anybody remembered, and I already have five birthday messages: one from Lilly, one from Tina, one from my cousin Hank (I can’t believe HE remembered; he’s a famous model now and I almost never see him anymore—no big loss—except half-naked on billboards or the sides of telephone booths, which is especially embarrassing if he’s wearing tighty-whities), one from my cousin Prince René, and one from Michael.
The one from Michael is the best. It was a cartoon he’d made himself, of a girl in a tiara with a big orange cat opening a giant present. When she gets all the wrapping off, these words burst out of the box, with all these fireworks: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIA, and in smaller letters, Love, Michael.
Love. LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!
Even though we have been going out for more than four months, I still get a thrill when he says—or writes—that word. In reference to me, I mean. Love. LOVE!!!!! He LOVES me!!!!!
So what’s taking him so long about the prom thing, I’d like to know?
Now that I am fifteen, it is time that I put away childish things, like the guy in the Bible, and begin to live my life as the adult that I am striving to become. According to Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst, in order to achieve self-actualization—acceptance, peace, contentment, purposefulness, fulfillment, health, happiness, and joy—one must practice compassion, love, charity, warmth, forgiveness, friendship, kindness, gratitude, and trust. Therefore, from now on, I pledge to
Stop biting my nails. I really mean it this time.
Make decent grades.
Be nicer to people, even Lana Weinberger.
Write in my journal every day, faithfully.
Start—and finish—a novel. Write one, I mean, not read one.
Get it published before I turn 20.
Be more understanding of Mom and what she is going through now that she is in the last trimester of her pregnancy.
Stop using Mr. G’s face-razor on my legs. Buy my own razors.
Try to be more sympathetic to Dad’s abandonment issues, while also getting out of having to spend July and August in Genovia.
Figure out way to get Michael Moscovitz to take me to the prom without stooping to trickery and/or groveling.
Once I’ve done all this, I should become fully self-actualized, and ready to experience some well-deserved joy. And really, everything on that list is fairly doable. I mean, yes, it took Margaret Mitchell ten years to write Gone with the Wind, but I am only fifteen, so even if it takes me ten years to finish my own novel, I will still be only twenty-five when I get it published, which is just five years behind schedule.
The only problem is, I don’t really know what I’m going to write a novel about. But I’m sure I’ll think of something soon. Maybe I should start practicing with some short stories or haikus or something.
The prom thing, though. THAT is going to be hard. Because I truly do not want Michael to feel pressured about this. But I have GOT TO GO TO THE PROM WITH MICHAEL!!! IT IS MY LAST CHANCE!!!!!!!
I hope Tina is right, and that Michael intends to ask me tonight at dinner.
OH PLEASE GOD, LET TINA BE RIGHT!!!!!!!!!
Thursday, May 1, My Birthday, Algebra
Josh asked Lana to the prom.
He asked her last night, after the varsity lacrosse game. The Lions won. According to Shameeka, who hung around after the junior varsity game, at which she’d cheered, Josh scored the winning goal. Then, as all the Albert Einstein fans poured out onto the field, Josh whipped off his shirt and swung it around in the air a few times, à la Brandi Chastain, only of course Josh wasn’t wearing a sports bra underneath. Shameeka says she was astounded by the lack of hair on Josh’s chest. She said he was in no way Hugh-Jackman-like in the goody trail department.
This, like the trouble my mother is currently having with her bladder, is really more than I wanted to know.
Anyway, Lana was on the sidelines, in her little sleeveless blue-and-gold AEHS cheerleading micro mini. When Josh whipped his shirt off, she went running out onto the field, whooping. Then she leaped into his arms—which, considering that he was probably all sweaty, was a pretty risky endeavor, if you ask me—and they Frenched until Principal Gupta came over and whapped Josh on the back of the head with her clipboard. Then Shameeka says that Josh put Lana down and said, “Go to the prom with me, babe?”
And Lana said yes, and then ran squealing over to all her fellow cheerleaders to tell them.
And I know that one of my resolutions, now that I am fifteen, is that I am going to be nicer to people, including Lana, but really, I am having a hard time right now keeping mysel
f from stabbing my pencil into the back of her head. Well, not really, because I don’t believe violence ever solves anything. Well, except for when it comes to getting rid of Nazis and terrorists and all. But really, Lana is practically GLOATING. Before class started, she was fully on her cell phone, telling everyone. Her mother is taking her to the Nicole Miller store in SoHo on Saturday to buy her a dress.
A black off-one-shoulder dress with a butterfly hem and a slit up one side. She’s getting high heels that lace up the ankles, too, at Saks.
No doubt body glitter as well.
And I know I have a lot to feel grateful for. I mean, I have
A super, loving boyfriend who, when the royal limo pulled over to pick him and Lilly up on the way to school today, presented me with a box of cinnamon mini-muffins, my favorites from the Manhattan Muffin Company, which he’d gone all the way down to Tribeca really early in the morning to get me, in honor of my birthday.
An excellent best friend, who gave me a bright pink cat collar for Fat Louie with the words I Belong to Princess Mia written on it in rhinestones that she’d hot-glue-gunned on herself while watching old Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns.
A great mom who, even if she does talk a little too much lately about her bodily functions, nevertheless dragged herself out of bed this morning to wish me a happy birthday.
A great stepdad who swore he wouldn’t say anything in class about my birthday and embarrass me in front of everyone.
A dad who will probably give me something good for my birthday when I see him at dinner tonight, and a grandmother who, if she won’t actually give me something I like, will at least WANT me to like it, whatever heinous thing it ends up being.
I seriously don’t mean to be ungrateful for all of that, because that is so much more than so many people have. I mean, like kids in Appalachia, they are happy if they get socks for their birthday, or whatever, since their parents spend all their money on hooch.