Authors: Meg Cabot
Royal Wedding
She will be more a princess than she ever wasâa hundred and fifty thousand times more.
A LITTLE PRINCESS
Frances Hodgson Burnett
CONTENTS
Royal Scandal:
Prince Phillipe of Genovia Arrested
MANHATTAN â Prince Phillipe Renaldo, the 50-year-old crowned prince of Genovia, was arrested early Wednesday morning for driving his newly purchased 1978 Ferrari 312T3 Formula One race car down the West Side Highway, according to a spokesperson for the New York City Police Department. No injuries were reported.
Witnesses say the prince was driving at speeds in excess of 180 miles per hour before being pulled over by NYPD Highway Patrol officers. A spokesperson for the NYPD confirms that the prince complied with all instructions given by the officers, including taking a field sobriety test.
Police as well as Genovian embassy officials declined to share further details regarding the arrest. Prince Phillipe has had no previous arrests, either in the United States or abroad.
It is illegal to drive race cars intended for closed-track use only on public streets in the state of New York. It is not known whether the prince, whose primary residence is the European principality of Genovia, was aware of this. The prince is said to have purchased the vehicle earlier in the day at an auction upstate.
New to Formula One racing, this is the first year the prince has taken part in Genovia's Grand Prix, infamous for its tight corners through the small principality's narrow, cobblestoned streets and precipitous cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean.
According to the prince's mother, the Dowager Princess Clarisse Renaldo, age unknown, this year's race will also be his last.
“The only place he'll be racing after this is down the aisle, with my granddaughter,” Princess Clarisse was overheard to say outside the Manhattan Detention Complex, where she was waiting to visit her son in jail.
According to the Royal Palace, however, there are currently no plans for a royal wedding between Princess Mia Thermopolis Renaldo, 25, and longtime boyfriend, medical entrepreneur Michael Moscovitz, 29. Moscovitz is founder and CEO of Pavlov Surgical, a successful medical robotics firm.
Princess Mia is the prince's only child and heir to the throne of Genovia. She was raised by her mother, American artist Helen Thermopolis, in New York City's Greenwich Village. Mia has stated in numerous interviews that she is thankful she did not find out she was a princess until she was a teenager, though it meant missing out on the glamour of being raised as a young royal on the Riviera.
“I was able to grow up in a fairly normal way,” Mia has been quoted as saying. “If I'd had a cell phone and constant access to the Internet like most kids do today, I probably would have caught on sooner.”
This is not the first unhappy event to strike the princess's family in recent months: her stepfather, Frank Gianini, passed away last year from congestive heart failure.
In his name, the princess founded the Frank Gianini Community Center in New York City. The center is designed to help children and teens acquire the skills they need to succeed in school or their chosen future career path. In a statement at its opening, the princess said, “My stepfather was always there to help me with my homework, and my hope is that this center will carry on that legacy in his memory.”
Genovia is a constitutional monarchy and member of the EU, with Prince Phillipe having ruled as monarch since the death of his father over twenty years ago. He's also served uncontested as the country's prime minister for nearly a decade, but a distant cousin of the prince'sâCount Ivan Renaldoâhas drawn significantly ahead in recent polls, running on a campaign of economic and immigration reform. Genovia has seen a sharp rise in illegal immigration but a decline in tourism in the past few years due to the worldwide recession, losing revenue to better-known tourist destinations such as Paris, London, and Venice.
For these reasons, many are speculating that the prince's arrest could not have come at a worse time.
2:37 p.m., Tuesday, April 28
Third-Floor Apartment
Consulate General of Genovia
New York City
I don't know what's happening to me. I lie when I should tell the truth, and tell the truth when I should lie.
Like half an hour ago, when Dr. Delgado, the newly appointed “royal physician,” was here, and asked if I've been under any “unusual” stress lately.
I laughed and said, “Gosh, no, Doctor, none that I can't think of.”
You would think Dr. Delgado might have noticed the hordes of paparazzi gathered outside the consulate doors when he came in, and figured out that I was being sarcastic.
But no.
Instead, he said I shouldn't be concerned about the fact that my left eyelid has been twitching pretty much nonstop for the past week, which is why I asked for an appointment in the first place.
According to Dr. Delgado, this sort of thing “happens all the time, and is not at all indicative of a brain tumor or stroke.”
Then he suggested I stop putting my symptoms into iTriage and instead get “plenty of sleep and exercise.” Oh, and I might try eating healthier.
Sleep? Exercise? Who has time to sleep or exercise? And how am I supposed to eat healthier when I'm literally trapped by the press inside the Genovian consulate and can only order food from places that deliver near the United Nations (which are basically steak houses, Chinese restaurants, or gyro joints)?
It wasn't until he was packing up his medical equipment that I realized Dr. Delgado was immune to sarcasm and really intended to leave without writing me a prescription.
So I said, “The truth is, Doctor, I have been feeling a little stressed. You might have heard about my recent family difficulties, which have led to . . .”
I pointed meaningfully out the window. Dominique, the director of Royal Genovian Press Relations and Marketing, says if we don't encourage the media, they'll go awayâlike stray cats are supposed to, if you don't feed themâbut this isn't true. I've never fed the media, and they still won't go away.
“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Dr. Delgado said, seeming to realize things were a little out of the ordinaryâas if the fact that he was visiting me in the consulate instead of seeing me in his office hadn't given it away. “Of course! But your father is doing very well, isn't he? All the reports I've heard say that he'll most likely be given a slap on the wrist, and then he'll be able to return to Genovia. The press seem to find his little mishap with the law quite amusing.”
Little mishap with the law! Thanks to my father's decision to take a midnight jaunt down the West Side Highway in his newly purchased race car, Count Ivan Renaldo, Dad's opponent for prime minister, is ahead five points in the polls. If the count wins, Genovia will be transformed from a charming medieval-walled microstate on the French Riviera to something that looks more like Main Street USA in Disneyland, with everyone strolling around in T-shirts that say
WHO
FARTED
? and eating giant turkey legs.
“Oh, Dad's doing great!” I made the huge mistake of lying (I realize now). This is what we're supposed to tell the extended family and the press. It's not the truth. Royals never tell the truth. It isn't “done.”
It's for this reason that I think I'm losing my grip on my sanity and can no longer tell the difference between what's real and what's a façade for the sake of the media (iTriage says this is called disassociation and is generally used as a coping mechanism to manage stress).
“Wonderful!” Dr. Delgado cried. “And things are going well between you andâwhat is the young man's name?”
I swear Dr. Delgado must be the only person in the entire western hemisphere who doesn't know Michael's name.
“Is Michael Moscovitz the World's Greatest Lover? âYES!' Says Sex-Mad Princess Mia,” declares the cover of this week's
InTouch
.
Michael's dad thought this was so hilarious he bought dozens of copies to give to his friends and even his
patients
. Michael's asked him to stop, but his dad won't listen.
“You really expect me not to buy this?” Dr. Moscovitz asked. “My son is the world's greatest lover! It says so right here. Of
course
I'm going to buy it!”
This could be one of the reasons for my twitch.
“Michael,” I said to Dr. Delgado. “Michael Moscovitz. And yes, everything's fine between us.”
Except that's a lie. Michael and I hardly ever see each other anymore thanks to our work schedules and the fact that I'm being held a prisoner in my current home by the paps. I had to move out of my old apartment last year on account of my stalker, RoyalRabbleRouser, who enjoys posting online about how he's going to “destroy” me for writing a historical romance novel (years ago, under another name) featuring a heroine who has premarital sex (he claims this is proof of how “feminism has destroyed the fabric of our society”).