“Not with all our friends,” J.P. pointed out. “Right before we all graduate and go off to different colleges and possibly never see one another ever again.”

“But we’re going to do that,” I reminded him, “at my birthday blowout on the Royal Genovian yacht Monday night.”

“True,” J.P. said. “But that won’t be the same. All your relatives are going to be there. And it’s not like we’ll really get a chance to be alone afterward.”

What was he talking about?

Oh…right. The paparazzi.

Wow. J.P.really wants to go to the prom. And do all the after-prom stuff, it sounds like.

I guess I can’t really blame him. Itis the last event we’ll ever attend as AEHS students, besides graduation, which the administration has cleverly scheduled for the next day, in order to avoid what happened last year, when a few seniors got so drunk at a downtown club they had to be admitted to St. Vincent’s for alcohol poisoning, after spray painting “The WMDs were hidden in my vagina” all over Washington Square Park. Principal Gupta seems to feel that if people know they have graduation the next day, they won’t let themselves getquite that intoxicated this year.

So I said, “Okay. Well, I look forward to the invitation.” Then I thought it might be better to change the subject, since we both seemed to be getting a little irritated with each other. “So. How did play rehearsal go?”

Then J.P. complained about Stacey Cheeseman’s inability to remember her lines for about five minutes until I said I had to go because the pizzas had come. But that was a lie (Mia Thermopolis’s Big Fat Lie Number Four), since the pizzas hadn’t come.

The truth is, I’m scared. I know he’s not going to ride up to the school in a full suit of armor on a horse painted white in order to ask me to the prom, because he said he wouldn’t.

But he might do something equally embarrassing.

I love J.P.—I know I keep writing that, but it’s because I do. I don’t love himthe same way I loved Michael, it’s true, but I still love him. J.P. and I have so much in common with the writing thing, and we’re the same age, and Grandmère loves him and most of my friends (except Boris, for some reason) do too.

But sometimes I wish…God, I can’t believe I’m even writing this—but sometimes…

Well. I worry that my mom might be right. She’s the one who pointed out the fact that if I say I want to do something, J.P.always wants to do it, too. And if I say I don’t want to do something, healways agrees he doesn’t want to do it either.

The only time he hasn’t agreed with me, in fact, was when I used to say I didn’t want to hang out with him back when I was working on my book.

But that was just because he couldn’t be with me. It was so romantic, really. All the girls said so. Especially Tina, who would know. I mean, what girl wouldn’t want a boyfriend who wanted to be with herall the time, and always do whatever she wanted to do?

Mom was the only one who noticed this and asked me if it didn’t drive me crazy. And when I asked her what she meant, she said, “Dating a chameleon. Does he evenhave his own personality, or is it all about accommodating yours?”

That’s when we got into a huge argument about it. So huge we had to have an emergency therapy session with Dr. K.

She promised to keep her opinions about my love life to herself after that, since I pointed out I’ve never mentioned how I feel about hers. (Although, the truth is, I like Mr. G. Without him I wouldn’t have Rocky.)

I’ve totally never brought upthe other thing about J.P., though. Not to Dr. K, and certainly not to my mom.

For one thing, it would probably make my mom happy. And for another…well, no relationship is perfect, anyway. Look at Tina and Boris. Hestill tucks his sweaters into his pants, despite her repeated requests that he not do so. But they’re happy together. And Mr. G snores, but Mom solved that by wearing earplugs and using a white-noise machine.

I can deal with the fact that my boyfriend likes all the same things that I do and always wants to do everything that I do all the time.

It’s theother thing about him I’m not sure I can deal with….

And now the pizzas reallyare here so I have to go.

 

Friday, April 28, midnight, the loft

Okay. Deep breath. Calming down. It’s going to be fine.

Just fine. I’m sure of it! More than sure. A hundred percent positive everything is going to be—

Oh, God. Who am I kidding? I’m a wreck!

So…the family meeting turned out to be about a little more than just the election and Dad nagging me about which college I’m going to go to—in other words: It was a disaster.

It started out with Dad trying to give me a deadline: Election day. I’ve got until ED (also known as the prom) to decide where I’m going to spend the next four years of my life.

Then I’ve got to make a decision.

You’d think Dad would have more important things to worry about, what with René breathing down his neck in the polls.

Grandmère conferenced herself in, of course, and was giving her two cents (she wants me to go to Sarah Lawrence. Because that’s where she would have gone, back in the age of drawn-on pantyhose, if she’d gone to college instead of marrying Grandpère). We all tried to ignore her, just like in family therapy, but it’s impossible with Rocky around, because for some reason he loves Grandmère, even the sound of her voice (question: WHY?), and ran over to the phone and kept yelling, “Gwanmare, Gwanmare, you come over soon? Give Wocky big kiss?”

Can you imaginewanting that big wonk looming over you? She’s not even technically related to him (lucky kid).

Anyway, yeah. That’s what the big meeting was about—or at least, what itstarted off being about. Me deciding where I was going to go to school in eight days.

Thanks, guys! No pressure!

Dadsays he doesn’t care where I go, so long as I’m happy. But he’s made it more than clear that if I don’t go to an Ivy or Sarah Lawrence or one of the Seven Sisters, I might as well be committing hari-kari.

“Why don’t you go to Yale?” he kept saying. “Isn’t that where J.P. wants to go? You could go with him.”

Of course Yale is where J.P. wants to go, because they have the fantastic drama department.

Except I can’t go to Yale. It’s too far from Manhattan. What if something were to happen to Rocky or Fat Louie—a freak flash fire or building collapse?—and I had to get back to the loft fast?

Besides, J.P. thinks I’m going to L’Université de Genovia, and has already applied and resigned himself to going there with me. Even though L’Université de Genovia has no drama department and I explained to him that by going there he’s shooting all his own career aspirations in the foot. He said it didn’t matter, so long as we can be together.

I guess it actuallydoesn’t matter, since his dad will always be able to get his plays produced.

But anyway, none of that is what I’m freaking out about. It’s what happenedafterward.

It was after Grandmère had harangued me some more about the invitation list to my party—and said to Mr. G, “Do your niece and nephewhave to attend? Because you know if I could scratch them off I could make room for the Beckhams”—and then finally hung up that Dad said, “I think you ought to show it to her now,” and Mom said, “Really, Phillipe, I think you’re being just a tad dramatic, there’s no need for you to stay on the phone, I’ll give it to her later,” and Dad said, “I’m part of this family, too, and I want to be here to support her, even if I can’t actually be there in the flesh,” and Mom said, “You’re overreacting. But if you insist,” and she got up and went into her room.

And I went, starting to feel a bit nervous, “What’s going on?”

And Mr. G said, “Oh, nothing. Your dad just e-mailed something he saw on international business CNN.”

“And I want you to see it, Mia,” Dad said, through the speakerphone, “before someone tells you about it at school.”

And my heart sank, because I figured it was some new scheme of René’s to junk up Genovia in order to get more tourists to go there. Maybe he was going to put a Hard Rock Cafe in there, and try to get Clay Aiken to come and play at its grand opening.

Only it wasn’t. When Mom came out of her bedroom with a printout of what Dad e-mailed her, I saw that it had nothing to do with René at all.

It was this:

NEW YORK (AP)—Robotic arms are the future for surgery, and one in particular, dubbed the CardioArm, will be revolutionizing cardiac surgery, already making its creator—Michael Moscovitz, 21, of Manhattan—a very wealthy man.

His invention is being billed as the first surgical robot compatible with advanced imaging technology. Moscovitz spent two years leading a team of Japanese scientists designing CardioArm for his small company, Pavlov Surgical.

The stock of Pavlov Surgical, Moscovitz’s high-tech company with a monopoly on selling robotic surgical arms in the United States, has surged nearly 500 percent over the last year. Analysts believe that the rally is far from over.

That’s because demand for Moscovitz’s product is growing, and so far his small company has the market all to itself.

The surgical arm, which is controlled remotely by surgeons, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for general surgery last year.

The CardioArm system is considered to be more precise and less invasive than traditional surgical tools that include small handheld surgical cameras inserted into the body during surgery. Recovery from surgery performed by the CardioArm system is considerably faster than recovery from traditional surgery.

“What you can do with the robotic arm—with the capabilities in manipulation and visualization—you just can’t do any other way,” said Dr. Arthur Ward, head of cardiology at Columbia University Medical Center.