Mia Goes Fourth

I couldn't. I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell anyone. I just sat there at lunch being all quiet. People mistook my lack of talkativeness for extreme mental duress. Which it was, actually, only not for the reasons they thought. Basically all I was thinking as I sat there was I HATE MY GRANDMOTHER. I HATE MY GRANDMOTHER. I HATE MY GRANDMOTHER. I HATE MY GRANDMOTHER.

I really, really do.

As soon as lunch was over, I sneaked off to one of the pay phones outside the auditorium doors and called home. I knew

my mom would be there instead of at her studio because she is still working on the nursery walls. She'd gotten to the third

wall, on which she was depicting a highly realistic painting of the fall of Saigon.

'Oh, God, Mia,' she said, when I asked her if there wasn't something she'd possibly forgotten to mention to me. 'I am so

sorry. Your grandmother called during Ab Fab. You know how I get during Ab Fab.''

'Mom,' I said, dirough gritted teeth. 'Why did you tell her it was OK for me to go to this stupid thing? You told me I could

go out with Michael that night!'

'I did?' My mom sounded bewildered. And why shouldn't she? She clearly did not remember the conversation she'd had

with me about my date with Michael . . . primarily of course because she'd been dead to the world during it. Still, she didn't need to know that. What was important was that she was made to feel as guilty as possible for the heinous crime she had committed. 'Oh, honey. I am so sorry. Well, you're just going to have to cancel Michael. He'll understand.'

'Mom,' I cried. 'He will not! This was supposed to be our first date! You've got to do something!'

'Well,' my mom said, sounding kind of wry. 'I'm a little surprised to hear you're so unhappy about it, sweetheart. You know, considering your whole thing about not wanting to chase Michael. Cancelling your first date with him would definitely fall

under that category.'

'Very funny, Mom,' I said. 'But Jane wouldn't cancel her first date with Mr. Rochester. She just wouldn't call him all the time beforehand, or let him get to second base during it.'

'Oh,' my mom said.

'Look,' I said. 'This is serious. You've got to get me out of this stupid ball!'

But all my mom said was that she'd talk to my dad about it. I knew what that meant, of course. No way was I getting out

of this ball. My dad has never in his life forsaken duty for love.

So now I am sitting here (doing nothing, as usual, because I am neither gifted nor talented), knowing that at some point or another I am going to have to tell Michael our date is cancelled. Only how? How am I going to do it? And what if he's so

mad he never asks me out again?

Worse, what if he asks some other girl to see Star Wars with him? I mean, some girl who knows all the lines you're suppose

to shout at the screen during the movie. Like when Ben Kenobi goes, 'Obi Wan. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time,' you're supposed to shout, 'How long?' and then Ben goes, 'A very long time.'

There must be a million girls besides me who know about this. Michael could ask any one of them instead of me and have

a perfecdy wonderful time. Without me.

Lilly is bugging to find out what's wrong. She keeps passing me notes, because they are fumigating the teachers' lounge, so

Mrs. Hill is in here today, pretending to grade papers from her fourth period computer class. But really she is ordering

things from a Garnet Hill catalogue. I saw it beneath her gradebook.

Is your dad super-sick? Lilly's latest note reads. Are you going to have to fly back to Genovia?

No, I wrote back.

Is it the cancer? Lilly wants to know. Did he have a recurrence?

No, I wrote back.

Well, what is it, then? Lilly's handwriting was getting spiky, a sure sign she was becoming impatient with me.

Why won't you tell me?

Because, I wanted to scrawl back, in big capital letters, the truth will lead to the imminent demise of my

romantic relationship with your brother, and I couldn't bear that! Don't you see I can't live without him?

But I couldn't write that. Because I wasn't ready to give up yet. I mean, wasn't I a princess of the royal house of Renaldo?

Do princesses of the royal house of Renaldo give up, just like that, when something they hold as dearly as I hold Michael

is at stake?

No, they do not. Look at my ancestresses, Agnes and Rosagunde. Agnes jumped off a bridge in order to get what she

wanted (not to be a nun). And Rosagunde strangled a guy with her own hair (in order not to have to sleep with him).

Was I, Mia Thermopolis, going to let a little thing like the Contessa Trevanni's black-and-white ball get in the way of my

having my first date with the man I love?

No, I was not.