Mia Goes Fourth

a show that will explore the seamy underbelly of that American institution known as Starbucks. It is Lilly's contention that Starbucks, through the introduction of the Starbucks card, with which caffeine addicts can now pay for their fix electronically,

is actually a secret branch of the Central Intelligence Agency that is tracing the movements of America's intelligentsia - writers, editors and other known liberal agitators - through their coffee consumption.

Whatever. I don't even like coffee.

This can't be how it ends, can it? My love affair with Michael, I mean. Not with a bang, but with hardly even a whimper,

like Rommel when you accidentally step on his tail?

This so isn't how Mr. Rochester would have done it. Broken up with Jane, I mean. If he'd decided to break up with her.

Which he never did because he loved her too much, even when she ran away from him and went to go live with another

guy. Well, OK, and his sisters, and he turned out to be her cousin, but, whatever.

No, even then Mr Rochester reached out psychically and touched Jane's mind with his. Because though their bodies

might be parted, their souls were forever entwined by a love that was stronger than—

Aw, crud. The bell.

Homework:

Algebra: Who cares?

English: Everything sucks.

Biology: I hate life.

Health and Safety: Mr. Wheeton is in love, too. I should warn him to get out now, while he still can.

G & T: I shouldn't even be in this class.

French: Why does this language even exist? Everyone there speaks English anyway.

World Civ.: What does it matter? We're all just going to die.

Once our boyfriends dump us, anyway.

Friday, January 22, 6 p.m.

Grandmere's Suite at the Plaza

Grandmere made me come here straight after school so that Paolo could start getting us ready for the ball. I didn't know

Paolo makes housecalls, but apparently he does. Only for royalty, he assured me, and Britney.

I explained to him about how I am growing out my hair on account of boys liking long hair better than short hair, and Paolo made some tut-tutting noises, but he slapped some curlers into it to try to get rid of the triangular shape, and I guess it

worked, because my hair looks pretty good. All of me looks pretty good. On the outside, anyway.

Too bad inside, I'm completely busted.

I am trying not to show it, though. You know, because I want Grandmere to think I am having a good time. I mean, I am

only doing this for her. Because she is an old lady and my grandmother and she fought the Nazis and all of that, for which someone has to give her some credit.

I just hope someday she appreciates it. My supreme sacrifice, I mean. But I doubt she ever will. Seventy-something-year-old ladies - particularly dowager princesses -never seem to remember what it was like to be fourteen and in love.

Well, I guess it is time to go. Grandmere has on this slinky black number with gutter all over it. She looks like Diana Ross.

Only with no eyebrows.

She says I look like a snowdrop. Hmmm, just what I always wanted, to look like a snowdrop.

Maybe that's my secret talent. I have the amazing ability to resemble a snowdrop.

My parents must be so proud.

Friday, January 22, 8 p.m.

Bathroom at the Contessa Trevanni's Fifth-Avenue Mansion

Yep. In the bathroom once again, where I always seem to end up at dances. Why is that?

The contessa's bathroom is a little bit overdone. It is nice and everything, but I don't know if I'd have chosen flaming wall-sconces as part of my bathroom decor. I mean, even at the palace, we don't have any flaming wall-sconces. Although

it looks very romantic and Ivanhoe-y and all, it is actually a pretty serious fire hazard, besides being probably a health risk, considering the carcinogens they must be giving off.

But, whatever. That isn't even the, real question — why would anyone have flaming wall-sconces in the bathroom? The real question, of course, is this: if I am supposedly descended from all these strong women - you know, Rosagunde, who strangled that warlord with her braid, and Agnes, who jumped off that bridge, not to mention Grandmere, who allegedly kept the Nazis from trashing Genovia by having Hitler over for tea — why is it that I am such a pushover?

I mean, seriously. I totally fell for Grandmere's whole riff about wanting to show up Elena Trevanni with her pretty and accomplished — yeah, at looking like a snowdrop — granddaughter. I actually felt sorry for her. I had empathy for Grandmere, not realizing then - as I do now - that Grandmere is completely devoid of human emotion, and that the whole

thing was just a charade to trick me into coming so she could parade me around as PRINCE RENE'S NEW GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To his credit, Rene seems to have known nothing about it.

He looked as surprised as I was when Grandmere presented me to her supposed arch-rival, who, thanks to the skill of