Really, nothing she says or does should surprise me anymore. And yet, it does. Continuously.
“Grandmère,” I say. I’m mad. Really. This isn’t just any ex-boyfriend. It’s Michael. “You can’t do this. You can’t use people like this.”
“Amelia, don’t be stupid. You want your father to win the election, don’t you? We need one of those arm contraptions. As I think I told you. If you had done what I asked you and requested one from him, I wouldn’t have had to send him and that horrible sister of his an invitation, and you wouldn’t be placed in the awkward position of having to entertain your former paramour at your birthday soiree tomorrow night in front of your current paramour. Which I admit will be tricky…”
“Former—” I sputter. There’s a pack of pubescent boys skateboarding nearby. I watch as one of them wipes out on a cement mound placed in the park for this purpose. I know exactly how he feels. “Grandmère, Michael was not my paramour. That word suggests that we were lovers, and we were not—”
“Paolo, I told you, not so much hair spray. Are you trying to gas me? Just look at poor Rommel, he’s practically hyperventilating, his lung capacity isn’t the same as a human’s, you know!” Grandmère’s voice is fading in and out. “Now, Mia, about your gown for tomorrow night. Chanel will be delivering it in the morning. Kindly let your mother know someone needs to be at your flat to receive it. This means your mother will have to stay home from her little art studio for once. Do you think she can handle that, or is it too much responsibility? Never mind, I already know the answer to that question—”
My call-waiting is going off. It’s Tina!
“Grandmère. This isn’t over,” I inform her. “But I’m going now—”
“Don’t you dare disconnect me, young lady. We haven’t spoken about what we’re going to do if the Domina Rei make an offer of membership to you tomorrow, as you know they’re likely to. You—”
I know it’s rude, but I’ve had quite enough of Grandmère. Really, thirty seconds of her is enough.
“Bye, Grandmère,” I say. And switch over to Tina. I’ll deal with Grandmère’s wrath later.
“Oh my God,” Tina says, the minute I pick up. “Where are you?”
“Washington Square Park,” I say. “Sitting on a bench. I just met Michael and spilled hot chocolate on his pants. We hugged good-bye. I smelled him.”
“You spilled hot chocolate on his pants?” Tina sounds confused. “You smelled him?”
“Yeah.” The skateboarders are all trying to outdo one another with their jumps, but most of them just keep crashing. Lars is watching them with a little smile on his face. I really hope he isn’t thinking about asking one of them to borrow a skateboard to show them how it’s done. “He smelled really, really good.”
There is a long pause as Tina digests this.
“Mia,” she says. “Did Michael smell better to you than J.P.?”
“Yes,” I say, in a small voice. “But he always has. J.P. smells like his dry cleaner.”
“Mia,” Tina says. “I thought you bought him some cologne.”
“I did. It didn’t take.”
“Mia,” Tina says. “I have to talk to you. I think you better come over.”
“I can’t,” I say. “I have to take my grandparents to the Central Park Zoo.”
“Then I’ll meet you,” Tina says, “at the zoo.”
“Tina,” I say. “What’s going on? What’s so important that you can’t tell me what you need to say over the phone?”
“Mia,” Tina says. “You know.”
She is wrong. I have no idea!
And it has to be something pretty bad if she’s afraid TMZ might pick it up, and it would damage my dad in the polls even worse than he is doing now.
“Meet me inside the Edge of the Icepack penguin enclosure at four fifteen,” she says, sounding just like Kim Possible. If Kim Possible ever asked people to meet her inside penguin enclosures.
Still, I’m not surprised. Somehow, the Central Park Zoo penguin enclosure is where I always end up during my hours of darkest need.
“Can you just give me a hint?” I ask. “What does it have to do with? Boris? Michael? J.P.?”
“Your book,” Tina says. And hung up.
My book? What could my book have to do with anything? Unless…
Could it be that bad?
Great. And both J.P. and Michael are reading copies of it right now. RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!
I could throw up just thinking about it.
I should just go over to Eighth Street, buy a wig from one of the drag queen stores, and ditch town. I’m practically legal, and there’s nothing left for me here. I’ve been humiliated in every way a person possibly can be. I might as well just grab a bus for Canada.
If only I could figure out a way to get rid of my bodyguard….
Sunday, April 30, 4 p.m., Edge of the Icepack penguin exhibit at the Central Park Zoo
Wow.
Between having my current boyfriend tell me I’m selling myself short writing popular fiction, then spilling hot chocolate all over the jeans of my ex-boyfriend (who is currently reading my book—RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT), then having my best friend say she has to meet me because there’s a PROBLEM with that book—the same book I spent twenty-one months working on—I really didn’t think my twenty-four hours could get any worse.