Mia Goes Fourth

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,

but 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!

Then Michael got in beside me and closed the door, and Hans started to drive and Lars said, 'Good morning,' to Lilly and Michael and they said 'Good morning' back and I didn't even notice that Lars was smirking behind his latte until Lilly told

me later.

'Like,' she said, 'we didn't all know what you were doing out there.'

But she said it in a nice way.

I was so happy, I hardly even heard what Lilly was talking about on our way to school, which was the whole movie thing.

She had sent, she said, a registered letter to the producers of the movie of my life, but still had received no response, even though it was now over a week.

'It is,' Lilly said, 'just another example of how those Hollywood types think they can get away with whatever they want.