by Meg Cabot
them quicker so they could get away from predators or whatever, but I guess not - and I lunged for the phone, my heart pounding because at last, AT LAST, I was going to get to talk to Michael, and my mom had even said that it was all right,
that my calling him wouldn't count as chasing since he'd called me first. . .
. . . and just as I was about to pick up the receiver, the phone rang. My heart actually did this flippy thing inside my chest,
like it does every time I see Michael. It was Michael calling, I just knew it. I picked up after the second ring -even though
I didn't want him dumping me for some more attentive girl, I didn't want him to think I was sitting by the phone waiting for
him to call, either - and said, in my most sophisticated tone, 'Hello?'
Grandmere's cigarette-ravaged voice filled my ear. Amelia?' she rasped. 'Why do you sound like that? Are you coming
down with something?'
'Grandmere.' I couldn't believe it. It was ten fifty-nine! I had exactly one minute left to call Michael without running the risk
of the wrath of his parents. 'I can't talk now. I have to make another call.'
'Pfiiit!' Grandmere made her traditional noise of disapproval. And who would you be calling at this hour, as if I didn't know?'
'Grandmere.' Ten fifty-nine and a half. 'It's OK. He called me first. I am returning his call. It is the polite thing to do.'
'It's too late for you to be calling that boy,' Grandmere said.
Eleven o'clock. I had missed my opportunity. Thanks to Grandmere.
'You'll see him at school tomorrow, anyway,' she went on. 'Now, let me speak to your mother.'
'My mother?' I was shocked by this. Grandmere never talks to my mom, if she can help it. They haven't gotten along since
my mom refused to marry my dad after she got pregnant with me, on account of her not wanting her child to be subjected
to the vicissitudes of a progenitive aristocracy , ,
'Yes, your mother,' Grandmere said. 'Surely you've heard of her.'
So I went out and passed the phone to my mom, who was sitting in the living room with Mr. Gianini, watching Absolutely Fabulous. I didn't tell her who was on the phone, because if I had, my mom would have told me to tell Grandmere that she was in the shower, and then I would have had to talk to her some more.
'Hello?' my mom said, all brightly, thinking it was one of her friends calling to comment on the high jinks of Eddie and Patsy.
I slunk out as fast I could. There were several heavy objects lying around the couch that my mom could have hurled in my direction if I'd stayed within missile range.
Back in my room, I tried to figure out what to do about Michael. What was I going to say to him tomorrow, when Lars and
I pulled up in the limo to pick up him and Lilly before school? That I'd gotten in too late to call? What if he noticed my nostrils flaring as I spoke? I don't know if he's figured out that they do that when I lie, but I think I'd sort of mentioned it to Lilly, since
I have a complete inability to keep my mouth shut about stuff I really should just keep to myself, and supposing she told him?
Then, as I sat there dejectedly on my bed, pretty sleepy because in Genovia it was five in the morning, I had a brilliant idea.
I could see if Michael was logged on, and instant message him! I could do it even though my mom was on the phone with Grandmere, because we have DSL now!
So I scrambled over to my computer and did just that. And he was online!
Michael, I wrote. Hi, it's me! I'm home! I wanted to call you, but it's after eleven,
and I didn't want your mom and dad to get mad.
Michael has changed his screen name since the demise of Crackhead. Now he's no longer CracKing. He's LinuxRulz.
LinuxRulz: Welcome home! It's good to hear from you. I was worried you were dead or something.
So he had noticed I'd stopped calling! Which meant the plan that Tina and I had come up with was working perfectly.
At least, so far.
FtLouie: No, not dead. Just super-busy. You know, fate of the aristocracy resting on
my shoulders and all of that. So should Lars and I pick you and Lilly up for school tomorrow?
LinuxRulz: That'd be good. What are you doing Friday?
What am I doing Friday? Was he asking me out? Were Michael and I actually going to have a date? At last????
I tried to type casually so he wouldn't know that I was so excited. I had already freaked Fat Louie out by jumping up and down in my computer chair and almost rolling over his tail.
FtLouie: Nothing, so far as I know. Why?
LinuxRulz: Want to go to dinner at the Screening Room? They're showing the first Star Wars. You know the real first one, not that waste of digital pixels, The Phantom Headcase.
OH MY GOD HE WAS ASKING ME OUT. Dinner and a movie. At the same time, because at the Screening Room you
sit at a table and eat dinner while the movie is going. And Star Wars is only my favourite movie of all time, after Dirty Dancing. Gould there BE a girl luckier than me? No, I don't think so.
My fingers were trembling as I wrote:
FtLouie: I think that would be OK. I'll have to check with my mom.
Can I let you know tomorrow?
LinuxRulz: OK. So see you tomorrow? Around 7:45?
FtLouie: Tomorrow, 7:45.
I wanted to add something like I miss you or I love you, but I don't know, it just felt too weird, and I couldn't do it. I mean,
it's embarrassing, telling the person you love that you love them. It shouldn't be, but it is. Also, it didn't seem like something
Jane Eyre would do. Unless, you know, she had just discovered the man she loved had gone blind in a heroic attempt to
rescue his crazy firebug wife from an inferno she'd set herself.
Asking me out to dinner and a movie didn't really seem the same, somehow.
Then Michael wrote:
LinuxRulz: Kid, I've been from one side of this galaxy to the other...
which is one of my favourite lines from the first Star Wars. So then I wrote:
FtLouie: I happen to like nice men...
jumping ahead to The Empire Strikes Back, to which Michael replied:
LinuxRulz: I'm nice.
Which is better than saying I love you, because right after Han Solo says that, he totally kisses her. OH MY GOD!!!
It really is like Michael is Han Solo and I'm Princess Leia, because Michael is good at fixing stuff like hyper drives, and,
well, I'm a princess, and I'm very environmentally conscious like Leia, and everything.
Plus Michael's dog Pavlov sort of looks like Chewbacca, if Chewbacca were a sheltie.
I could not imagine a more perfect date if I tried. Mom will let me go, too, because the Screening Room isn't that far away,
and it's
Michael,
after all. Even Mr. Gianini likes Michael, and he doesn't like many of the boys who go to Albeit Einstein,
as he says they are mostly all walking bundles of testosterone.
I will never get to sleep now, I am too worked up. I am going to see him in eight hours and fifteen minutes.
And on Friday I am going to be sitting next to him in a darkened room. All alone. With no one else around. Except all the waitresses and the other people at the movie. The Force is so with me.
Tuesday; January 19,
First Day of School after Winter Break, Homeroom
I barely made it out of bed this morning. In fact, the only reason I was able to drag myself out from beneath the covers -
and Fat Louie, who lay on my chest purring like a lawnmower all night long - was the prospect of seeing Michael for the
first time in thirty-two days.
It is completely cruel to force a person of my tender years, when I should be getting at least nine hours of sleep a night, to
travel back and forth between two such drastically different time zones, w
ith not even a single day of rest in-between. I am completely jet lagged, and I am sure it is going to stunt not only my physical growth (not in the height department because
I am tall enough, thank you, but in the mammary gland division, glands being very sensitive to things like disrupted sleep
cycles), but my intellectual growth as well.
And now that I am entering the second semester of my freshman year, my grades are actually going to start to matter. Not
that I intend to go to college or anything, at least not right away. I, like Prince William, want to take a year off between high school and college, hopefully volunteering for Greenpeace in one of those boats that goes out between Japanese and Russian whaling ships and the whales. I don't think Greenpeace takes volunteers who don't have at least a 3.0 average.
Anyway, it was murder getting up this morning, especially when, after I'd dragged on my school uniform, I realized my
Queen Amidala panties weren't in my underwear drawer. I have to wear my Queen Amidala underwear on the first day
of every semester, or I'll have bad luck for the rest of the year. I always have good luck when I wear my Queen Amidala panties. For instance, I was wearing them the night of the Non-Denominational Winter Dance, when Michael finally told
me he loved me.
I have to wear them on the first day of second semester, just like I'll have to send them to the laundry-by-the-pound place
and get them washed before Friday so I can wear them on my date with Michael. Because I'm going to need extra good
luck that night, since I plan on giving Michael his birthday present then. His birthday present that I'm hoping he'll like so
much, he'll fall in love with me, if he isn't already. I am still not too clear on that whole point.
So I had to go into my mom's room, the one she shares with Mr Gianini, and wake her up and be all, 'Mom, where's my
Queen Amidala underwear?' Thank God Mr. G was in the shower. I swear to God if I'd had to see them in bed together
in the condition I was in at that time, I'd have gone completely Anne Heche.
My mom, who sleeps like a log even when she isn't pregnant, just went, 'Shurnowog,' which isn't even a word.
'Mom,' I said. 'I need my Queen Amidala panties. Where are they?'
But all my mom said was, 'Kapukin.'
So then I got an idea. Not that I really thought there was any way my mom wasn't going to let me go out with Michael,
after her uplifting speech about him the night before. But just to make sure she couldn't back out of it, I went, 'Mom,
can I go with Michael for dinner and a movie at the Screening Room this Friday night?'
And she went, rolling over, 'Yeah, yeah, scuniper.'
So I got that taken care of.
But I still had to go to school in my regular underwear, which creeped me out a little because there's nothing special
about it, it is just boring and white.
But then I kind of perked up when I got in the limo, because of the prospect of seeing Michael and all.
But then I was like, Oh, my God, what was going to happen when I saw Michael? Because when you haven't seen your boyfriend in thirty-two days, you can't just be all, 'Oh, hi,' when you see him. You have to, like, give him a hug or something.
But how was I going to give him a hug in the car? With Lars watching? I mean, at least I wasn't going to have to worry
about my stepdad watching, since Mr. G fully refuses to take the limo to school with me and Lars and Lilly and Michael
every morning, even though we are all going to the same place. But Mr. Gianini says he likes the subway. He says it is the
only time he gets to listen to music he likes (Mom and I won't let him play Blood, Sweat and Tears in the loft, so he has to
listen to it on his Diskman).
But what about Lilly? I mean, Lilly was totally going to be there. How can I hug Michael in front of Lilly? And OK, it is
partly because of Lilly that Michael and I ever got together in the first place. But that does not mean that I feel perfectly comfortable participating in, you know, public displays of affection with him right in front of her.
If this were Genovia it would be all right to kiss him on either cheek, because that is the standard form of greeting there.
But this is America, where you barely even shake hands with people, unless you're like the mayor.
Plus there was the whole Jane Eyre thing. I mean, Tina and I had resolved we were not going to chase our boyfriends,
but we hadn't said anything about how to greet them again after not having seen them for thirty-two days.
I was almost going to ask Lars what he thought I ought to do when I had a brainstorm right as we were pulling up to
the Moscovitzes' building. Hans, the driver, was going to hop out and open the door for Lilly and Michael, but I went,
'I've got it,' and then I hopped out, instead.
And there was Michael, standing in the slush, looking all tall and handsome and manly, the wind tugging at his dark hair.
Just the sight of him set my heart going about a thousand beats per minute. I felt like I was going to melt. . .
. . . especially when he smiled once he saw me, a smile that went all the way up to his eyes, which were as deeply brown
as I remembered, and filled with the same intelligence and good humour that had been there the last time I had gazed into
them, thirty-two days ago.
What I could not tell was whether or not they were filled with love. Tina had said I'd be able to tell, just by looking into
his eyes, whether or not Michael loved me. But the truth is, all I could tell by looking into his eyes was that Michael doesn't
find me utterly repulsive. If he had, he'd have looked away, the way I do when I see that boy in the cafeteria at school who
always picks the corn out of his chilli. 'Hi,' I said, my voice suddenly super-squeaky. 'Hi,' Michael said, his voice not
squeaky at all, but really very thrillingly deep and Wolverine-like.
So then we stood there with our gazes locked on one another, and our breath coming out in little puffs of white steam,
and people hurrying down Fifth Avenue on the sidewalk around us, people I barely saw. I hardly even noticed Lilly go,
'Oh, for Pete's sake,' and stomp past me to climb into the limo.
Then Michael went, 'It's really good to see you.' And I went, 'It's really good to see you, too.' From inside the limo
Lilly went, 'It's really cold out, will you two hurry up and get in here already?'
So then I went, 'I guess we'd better . . .'
And Michael went, 'Yeah,' and put his hand on the limo door to hold it open for me. But as I started to duck in there,
he put his other hand on my arm, and when I turned around to see what he wanted (even though I kinda already knew)
he went, 'So can you go, on Friday night?'
And I went, 'Uh-huh.'
And then he kind of pulled on my arm in a very Mr. Rochester-like manner, causing me to take a step towards him,
and faster than I'd ever seen him move before, he bent down and kissed me, right on the mouth, in front of his doorman
and all the rest of Fifth Avenue!
I have to admit, Michael's doorman and all of the people passing by, including everyone on the Ml bus that went barrelling down the street at that very moment, didn't seem to take very much notice of the fact that the Princess of Genovia was
getting kissed right there in front of them.
But I noticed, I noticed, and it felt great. It made me feel like maybe all my worrying about whether Michael loved me as
a potential life partner as opposed to just as a friend had maybe been stupid.
Because you don't kiss a friend like that.
So then I slid into the back of the limo with Lilly, a big silly smile on my face that I was totally afraid she might make fun of,
b
ut I couldn't help it, I was so happy. Because in spite of not having on my Queen Amidala underwear, I was already having
a good semester, and it wasn't even fifteen minutes old!