Royal Wedding - Meg Cabot Page 0,69

my dad were in his right mind, he wouldn’t be okay with it, either!”

“You don’t have to shout,” Lilly grumbled. “But I wouldn’t be okay with it either if it were my kid sister.”

“The problem is, my dad’s been in no condition lately to make decisions.”

“Yeah,” Lilly said. “I saw the mustache. Or should I say, lack thereof. Your dad needs to be kept away from sharp objects and probably everything else right now except YouTube videos about cute puppies.”

That’s when I made a decision. I stood up and started taking off my princess ball gown.

“What are you doing?” Lilly asked.

“We’re going to Cranbrook, New Jersey,” I said. “Help me get out of this thing.”

“Um, okay.” Lilly started helping me out of my wedding dress. “What are we going to do in Cranbrook, New Jersey?”

“We’re going to do what you said—go get my sister.”

“Okay,” Lilly said. “When I said that last night, I might have had a few too many energy drinks, like you’d suggested. Transporting minors over state lines without permission of their legal guardian is a felony.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I’m a princess.”

“True. But do you maybe want to discuss other, less criminal ways we could deal with the matter first?”

“No.”

“All right. Great. I kind of anticipated you’d have this reaction, to be honest, which is why I took the liberty of—”

“Lilly, just shut up for once in your life, and unlace me.”

“Yes, Your High Holiness.”

So now we’re on our way to Cranbrook, New Jersey. (Lilly keeps yelling at François, the driver, that we should have taken the bridge, but that makes no sense, we’d have had to go way out of our way.)

Of course Grandmère was furious when I came out of the dressing room with no gown on and announced we were going to have to reschedule our lunch with Lazarres-Reynolds.

“What could possibly be more important?”

I didn’t tell her, or anyone. I simply said that something very important had come up and I was going to have to meet them another time.

(Dominique took me aside and pointed out one of the reasons Grandmère is so angry is that Lazarres-Reynolds is still going to bill us, and that they cost $500 an hour, or as she put it, “Five ’undred dollairs an hour.” So I said she could tell Grandmère to send the bill to me.)

That’s when Grandmère caused a scene and said she was taking my hybrid electric livery vehicle—she only did this to hurt me—leaving me her obnoxious black stretch limo with the Genovian flags on it that she takes everywhere because she doesn’t believe in traveling inconspicuously like I do (in this way Grandmère has a lot in common with some popular rappers).

But the joke’s on her, because the limo has Wi-Fi and also a bar (though unlike Lilly, I am staying away from it).

I gave my mom a lift home in it. She was only going a block away, back to the loft on Thompson Street. Still, it was fun to ride with my mom in a limo—we don’t get to do it very often.

I thought about using the opportunity to tell Mom about Olivia, but it didn’t seem like the right time. Also, breaking the news that he has a child by another woman is obviously my father’s responsibility.

But when Mom asked where Lilly and Tina and I were going (Tina was going back to the NYU library to study, so I offered her a lift too, then secretly texted her what was up, which might have been a mistake because now she’s sitting on the jump seat looking very pale, mouthing I can’t believe this is happening over and over), I couldn’t exactly lie, not only because I’ve been getting worse and worse at it—not even counting my twitching eye, I’ve still never learned to keep my nostrils from flaring when I tell a fib—but because she’s my mother. I knew she was going to be able to tell something was up (besides Genovia’s security threat level).

So I said we were going to Cranbrook, New Jersey.

“Oh, really?” Mom asked. “What’s in Cranbrook, New Jersey?”

Lilly smiled at me expectantly from over her laptop and the whiskey sour she’d mixed for herself from the mini-bar, clearly enjoying the situation.

I had to think of something my mom totally wouldn’t want to come with us to do, because as an artist her schedule is pretty flexible (except for having to pick up Rocky from after-school karate practice, but she could easily get one of