We all looked at Rommel, who had curled into a ball at the end of the couch and was snoring fitfully, while he dreamed of being far, far away from Grandmère.

“Well, Mother,” Dad said. “Now that you have Mr. Greer looking after you, I feel as if I can leave you for a bit—”

Grandmère just snorted. “Which lucky Victoria’s Secret lingerie model is it tonight, Phillipe?” she wanted to know. Then, before he could even answer, she went on to say, “Amelia, all of this rushing around town has wreaked havoc on my pores. I’m going to have a facial. Princess lessons are canceled for the day.”

“Um,” I said. “Okay, Grandmère.” It was really hard to hide my relief. I have a LOT of shaving to do.

Hmmm, I wonder if she knows this, and that’s WHY she’s letting me go home early?

But no, that’s not possible. Not even GRANDMÈRE could actually WANT me to have premarital sex.

I mean. Could she? Why else would she have—

No. Not even Grandmère could be that calculating.

Thursday, September 9, the Moscovitzes’ apartment, 7 p.m.

Okay, so I’m here. I’m shaved and exfoliated and conditioned and the sponges are secured in my backpack and I think I’m ready.

I mean, aside from the throwing-up feeling, which still hasn’t gone away.

Everything iscrazy here. Michael is packing to leave, and his mother seems to think they don’t actually have things like shampoo and toilet paper in Japan. She keeps slipping that kind of stuff into his suitcase. She and Maya, the Moscovitzes’ housekeeper, went to Sam’s Club in New Jersey and bought a year’s supply of stuff like family-size containers of Tums for him to take with him.

He’s like, “Mom, I’m sure they have Tums in Japan. Or something similar. I do not need a family-size container of them. Or this giant vat of Listerine mouthwash.”

But Dr. Moscovitz doesn’t care, she just keeps putting them back in his suitcase every time Michael takes them out.

It’s kind of sad. I mean, I know how Dr. Moscovitz feels. She just wants to have SOME feeling of control in a world that is rapidly spinning into chaos. And apparently making sure her son has enough antacid to last him until the next millennium helps Michael’s mother feel more in control.

I wish I could tell her she has nothing to worry about, since Michael won’t be going to Japan after all. But I can’t really let HER in on my plan before I let MICHAEL in on it.

Anyway, I already told him we’re going to be sneaking out. He doesn’t like it—he’s always afraid of getting on my dad’s bad side, which I can understand might be a concern to anyone, seeing as how my dad has command of an elite security task force—but I can tell he’s intrigued. He was like, “Okay. Let me just find my jacket. I know it’s in my room…somewhere.”

Little does he know he’s not going to need his jacket.

Lilly just came out of her room with her video camera and said, “Oh, good, POG, I’m glad you’re here. Quick—what are some ways you’d reduce climate-heating pollution so that we don’t experience a climatic disaster equivalent to the ones portrayed inThe Day After Tomorrow andCategory 6 ? I mean, if you ruled the world, and not just Genovia.”

“Lilly,” I said. “I am not in the mood to be on your TV show right now.”

“This isn’t forLilly Tells It Like It Is , it’s for the campaign. Come on, quick. Pretend you’re addressing the Genovian parliament.”

I sighed. “Fine. Well, instead of spending three hundred billion dollars a year extracting and refining fossil fuels, I’d urge world leaders to spend that money developing alternative clean energy resources, like solar, wind, and biofuels.”

“Good,” Lilly said. “What else?”

“Is this part of your scare-the-freshmen-into-voting-for-me thing?” I asked. “Because I’m such a worrywart, I’ve already researched what to do in the event of most disasters??”

“Just answer the question.”

“I’d help developing nations, which are the ones causing the most pollution, switch over to clean energy resources, too. And require automakers to manufacture only gas-electric hybrid cars, and buy back everyone’s SUV, and provide tax breaks to consumers and businesses that switch from fossil fuel burning to solar or wind power.”

“Awesome. Why do you look so funny?”

I put a hand up to my face. I’d been extra careful with my makeup, because Michael would be seeing it extra up close. I didn’t want it to look like I was wearing any. Boys like the natural look. Well, boys like Michael, anyway.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Funny how?” Was I getting a zit? That would be just my luck.

“No. You just look really nervous. Like you’re going to throw up.”

“Oh.” Thank God it wasn’t a zit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“POG.” Lilly lowered the camera and stared at me curiously. “What’s going on? What are you up to? What are you and Michael doing tonight, anyway? He said you had some kind of surprise for him.”

Thank God Michael just came out from his room, carrying his jean jacket and going, “Sorry, I’m ready now.”

I wish I could say the same.

Thursday, September 9, 8 p.m., the Ritz

Have to write fast—Michael is tipping the room service guy. Everything is going perfectly…we got out of the building without anyone suspecting a thing. Michael thinks we’re just having a romantic good-bye dinner for two in my grandmother’s abandoned hotel suite (which, thank God, they’ve cleaned since she left. I don’t think I could go through with this if the place still reeked of Chanel No. 5, as most rooms tend to after Grandmère’s been there). He doesn’t know I’m about to make him the recipient of my Precious Gift.

Ooooh, he’s coming back. I will drop the bomb after dinner…the sex bomb, I mean.

Hey, isn’t that the name of a song?

Thursday, September 9, 10 p.m., taxi home from the Ritz

I can’t believe he—

Oh my God, how am I even going to write this down? I can’t even THINK it, how can I WRITE it???? I really can’t even SEE to write it, the light in here is so bad. I can only see the page when we’re stopped in traffic under a streetlamp.

But since Ephrain Kleinschmidt—that’s my cab driver’s name, according to his license in the bulletproof screen between him and me—took Fifth Avenue and not Park, like I asked, we are stopped in traffic A LOT.

Which is good. No, really, it’s GOOD. Since I guess it means I can hopefully get all my crying out of my system before we get to the loft, so I don’t have to face the Big Interrogation from Mom and Mr. G when I walk in looking like Kirsten Dunst after the hot tub scene fromCrazy/Beautiful . You know. Crying hysterically and all.

The crying is really freaking Ephrain Kleinschmidt out. I guess he’s never had a sobbing sixteen-year-old princess in his cab before. He keeps on looking back here in his rearview mirror and trying to hand me Kleenexes from the box on his dashboard.

As if Kleenex is going to help!!!!!

The only thing that’s going to help is getting this down in some kind of lucid manner to help me make sense of it. Because itmakes no sense. None of this makes any sense. It CAN’T be happening. It CAN’T.

Except that it is.

I just don’t understand how he could never have TOLD me. I mean, seriously, I thought we had a perfect relationship.

Okay, maybe not PERFECT because no one has a PERFECT relationship. I will admit the computer stuff really, really bored me.

But at least he KNEW that, and didn’t bore me with it. That much.

And I know the princess lessons stuff really bored him, too. I mean, the stuff about who to curtsy to when, and all. So I tried to spare him, too.

But other than that, I thought we had a good relationship. An OPEN relationship. A relationship where we could TELL each other things, and didn’t have any secrets.

I had no idea Michael has been keeping something like this from me the WHOLE TIME we’ve been going out.

And his excuse—that I never asked—is BOGUS. I’m sorry, but that is just—OH MY GOD, EPHRAIN KLEINSCHMIDT, NO I DO NOT WANT ANY KLEENEX—stupid. You don’t NOT tell your girlfriend something like that, even if she never asked, because she just ASSUMED….

Although I should have known. I mean, what was I THINKING???? Michael is way too hot not to have—

Okay. Lucid. Right.

Everything was going great. At least, I THOUGHT everything was going great. The throw-up feeling had even gone away. It’s true I couldn’t eat very much—I ordered the bluefin tuna two ways with artichoke salad with fava beans and scallions and Parmesan shavings for me, and the chicken à la moutarde, fresh peas, cipollini onions, baby carrots, and pea “cappuccino” sauce for Michael, plus milk chocolate mousse to share for dessert. I was kind of worried about the scallions but I had a Listerine Pocket Pak in my bag—because I was so nervous about what I knew I was about to do.

But just BEING with Michael and in the vicinity of his neck and therefore his pheromones calmed me down so much that by the time we got to the mousse, I felt like I really could go through with it.

So I went, summoning all my courage, “Michael, remember that time my mom and Mr. G went to Indiana and I got to stay in that hotel room at the Plaza and I invited Lilly and Tina and everyone to stay there with me, and not you, and you got so mad?”

“I didn’t get mad,” Michael pointed out.

“Yeah, but you were disappointed I didn’t invite YOU to stay in it with me.”

“That,” Michael said, “is true.”

“Well, so, I have this hotel suite to myself now,” I said. “And I invited you, and not Lilly and those guys.”

“You know,” Michael said, smiling. “I’d sort of noticed that. But I didn’t want to say anything, in case the girls were coming by after dinner.”