“All of your parents’ names have already been put on the guest list,” Grandmère said, from where she sat, enjoying a post-rehearsal cigarette (apparently, she’s allowing herself to smoke after run-throughs, as well as after meals), “for Wednesday.”

“Wednesday?” Tina asked, a funny inflection in her voice.

“That is correct,” Grandmère said, exhaling a plume of blue smoke. Señor Eduardo coughed a little in his sleep as some of it drifted his way.

“But isn’t this Wednesday the night of the Aide de Ferme benefit?” someone else—I think it was Boris—asked.

“That is correct,” Grandmère said, again.

And that’s when it finally sunk in.

Lilly was the first one up.

“WHAT?” she cried. “You’re going to make us do this play in front of all the people coming to your PARTY?”

“It’s a musical,” Grandmère replied darkly. “Not a play.”

“You said, when I asked you last week, that we’d be putting Braid! on a week from that day!” Lilly shouted. “And that was Thursday!”

Grandmère puffed on her cigarette. “Oh, dear,” she said, not sounding in the least concerned. “I was off by one day, wasn’t I?”

“I am not,” Boris said, drawing himself up to his full height, “going to be strangled by some girl’s hair in front of Joshua Bell.”

“And I am not,” Lilly declared, “going to play someone’s mistress in front of Benazir Bhutto—no matter how long she supported the Taliban!”

“I don’t want to play a maid in front of celebrities,” Tina said meekly.

Grandmère very calmly stubbed her cigarette out on an empty plate someone had left on top of the piano. I saw Phil eyeing the smoking butt nervously from where he sat at the keyboard. Obviously, he is as nervous about contracting lung cancer from secondhand smoke as I am.

“So this,” Grandmère said, her Gitane-roughened voice projecting very loudly across the empty ballroom, “is the thanks I get, for taking your dull, average little lives, and injecting them with glamour and art.”

“Um,” Boris said. “My life already has art in it. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Your Royal Highness, but I’m a concert violinist, and I—”

“I tried,” Grandmère’s voice rang out, as she ignored him, “to do something to enrich your humdrum days of scholastic slavery. I tried to give you something meaningful, something you could look forward to. And this is how you repay me. By whining that you don’t want to share what we’ve worked so hard to create together with others. What kind of ACTORS are you????”

Everyone blinked at her. Because, of course, none of us considered himself an actor of any kind.

“Were you not,” Grandmère demanded, “put on this earth with a God-given obligation to share your talent with others? Would you dare to presume to DEFY God’s plan for you by DENYING the world the right to see you perform your art? Is THAT what you’re trying to tell me? That you want to DEFY God?”

Only Lilly was brave enough to answer.

“Um,” she said. “Your Highness, I don’t believe I am defying God—if She does, in fact, exist—by saying that I don’t care to make an ass out of myself in front of a bunch of world leaders and movie stars.”

“Too late!” Grandmère cried. “You’ve already done it! Because only an ASS gets embarrASSed. Where do you think the word comes from, anyway? A true artist is never embarrassed by her work. NEVER.”

“Fine,” Lilly said. “I’m not embarrassed. But—”

“This show,” Grandmère went on, “into which all of you have poured your lifeblood, is too important not to be shared with as many people as we possibly can. And what venue could possibly be as fitting for its one and only performance than a benefit that is being held to raise money for the poor olive growers of Genovia? Don’t you see, people? Braid! bears a message—a message of hope—that it is vital people—especially Genovia’s farmers—hear. In these dark times, our show illustrates that evildoers will ultimately never win, and that even the weakest among us can play a role in thwarting them. Were we to deny people this message, would we not, in essence, be letting the evildoers win?”

“Oh, brother,” I heard Lilly mutter, under her breath.

But everybody else looked pretty inspired.

Until it sunk in that Wednesday night is the day after tomorrow.

And some of us—okay, Kenny—still don’t even know the choreography.

Which is why Grandmère said to be prepared for tomorrow night’s rehearsal to go all night long, if necessary.

Still, Grandmère’s speech WAS pretty inspiring. We really CAN’T let the evildoers win.

Even if the evildoers happen to be…well, ourselves.

Which is why I’ve just told Hans to take me to Engle Hall, the dorm where Michael lives at Columbia. I am going to get him to forgive me if I have to grovel on the floor like Rommel when he realizes it’s bath time.

Monday, March 8, the limo home from Michael’s dorm

Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

That is all I can think of to say.

Also: I’m such an idiot.

Seriously. I mean, all the clues were there, and I just didn’t put them together.

Okay, maybe if I write it all down in a lucid manner, I’ll be able to process it.

So I walked into Engle Hall, where Michael lives, and buzzed his room from the lobby. He was actually home for a change—thank God. He seemed kind of surprised when he heard my voice on the intercom, but he said he’d be right down, because campus security officers guard the doors to the hall, and won’t let anybody past the lobby and into the building unless they’re escorted by a resident. Not even princesses and their bodyguards. The resident has to come down and sign them in, and the guests have to leave ID, and stuff.

I took the fact that Michael was willing even to come down and sign me in as a good sign.

Until I saw him.

Then I realized there was nothing good about it at all.

Because Michael looked REALLY sad about something. I mean, REALLY sad.

And I started getting a very bad feeling.

Because, you know, I know he has midterms this week, and all. Which would be enough to depress anyone.

But Michael didn’t look midterm-depressed.

He looked more I-just-found-out-my-girlfriend-is-a-stark-raving-lunatic-and-I-have-to-break-up-with-her-now depressed.

But I thought maybe I was just, you know. Projecting, or whatever.

Still, the whole way up to his room, in the elevator, I was rehearsing in my mind what to say. You know, how I should act when he brought up the Sexy Dance. And the beer. I was thinking it shouldn’t be too hard for me to convince him that I had been suffering from a temporary hormonal imbalance at the time, on account of how I should be used to acting by now, since I’ve been doing it all week.

Plus, you know, I’m the world’s biggest liar.

But the J.P. thing. That was going to be harder to explain. Because I wasn’t sure I even understood it myself.

Then, when we got to Michael’s floor, Lars discreetly took a seat in the TV lounge, where there was a game on, and Michael and I went to his room, which was fortunately empty, his roommate, Doo Pak, being at a meeting of the Korean Student Association.

“So,” I said, trying to sound all casual after sitting down on Michael’s neatly made bed. Even though the last thing I felt was casual. In fact, I felt as if all the blood in my veins had frozen up. If someone had chopped my arm off at that moment, I’m pretty sure it would have shattered into a thousand pieces instead of bleeding, like I was one of those frozen guys in that cryogenic prison in Demolition Man (also a dystopic sci-fi film).

Because suddenly, I was sure Michael was going to break up with me for being such an immature freak at his party.

And the next thing I knew, I heard myself blurting, “Look, I’m sorry about the stupid sexy dance. Really, really sorry. And there’s nothing going on between me and J.P. Seriously. It’s just that I was FREAKING OUT. I mean, all those supersmart college girls—”

Michael, who’d taken a seat across from me in his desk chair, blinked. “Sexy dance?”

“Yes,” I said. “The one I was doing with J.P.”

Michael raised his eyebrows. “Was that what you were doing? A sexy dance?”

“Yes.” I could feel my cheeks heating up. Can I just say that when Buffy did a sexy dance at the Bronze to make Angel jealous in that one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m pretty sure Angel went out and killed a bunch of vampires afterward just to work out his sexual frustration? Trust MY boyfriend to not even recognize a sexy dance when he saw one.

I tried not to think about what this suggested for the future of our relationship. Not to mention my sexy-dancing skills.

“It’s not totally my fault,” I insisted. “Well, I mean, the sexy-dance part was. But you invite me to this party knowing I’ll be the youngest, least intelligent person there. How did you EXPECT me to feel? I was totally intimidated!”

“Mia,” Michael said, a little dryly. “You were by far not the least intelligent person there. And you’re a princess. And you were intimidated?”

“Well,” I said. “I may be a princess, but I still get intimidated. Especially by older girls. College girls. Who know about…college things. And I’m sorry I spazzed. But was what I did really so unforgivable? I mean, all I did was have ONE beer and do a sexy dance with another guy. And I wasn’t even technically dancing with him, just sort of in front of him. And okay, maybe ultimately it wasn’t that sexy. And I do realize now that the beret was a mistake. The whole thing was totally immature, I know. But—” I could feel tears welling in my eyes. “But you still could have called instead of giving me the silent treatment for two days!”