“My foot hurts,” I said. This was a lie. But for once, I didn’t feel guilty about it. “These are new shoes. I think I have to sit down a minute.”

“Oh, no,” J.P. said. “I’ll go see if I can find you a Band-Aid. Stay here.”

So J.P. is looking for a Band-Aid.

And I’m trying to figure this out.

How could J.P.—J.P., who is so big and blond and good-looking, the guy with whom I have so much in common, the guy everyone liked so much better for me than Michael—be someone it turns out I may have nothing in common with at all?

It can’t be possible. Itcan’t be.

Except…what was Dr. Knutz talking about the other day?

His story about his horse, Sugar. The thoroughbred, who looked so good on paper, but in whose saddle he could never find a comfortable place? Dr. Knutz had to give up Sugar, because he never wanted to ride her, and it wasn’t fair to Sugar.

I get it now. I so get it.

Some people canseem perfect…everything about them can, on paper, be just right.

Until you get to know them.Really know them.

Then you find out, in the end, while they might be perfect to everyone else, they just aren’t right foryou.

On the other hand…

What’s so wrong about a guy who loves his girlfriend getting a hotel room for the two of them on prom night, months in advance? Oh, big crime.

So he screwed up with the play? If I ask him to, I’m sure he’d change it. I—

Oh my God. There’s Lilly.

She’s in black from head to toe. (Well, so am I, actually. Only somehow I don’t think I look like a trained assassin, the way she does.)

She’s heading for the ladies’ room.

Okay, I think this might constitute stalking. But I’m going in after her. She dated J.P. for six months.

If anyone will know if my boyfriend’s a great big phony, she will. Whether or not she’ll even speak to me is another story.

But Dr. Knutzdid say, when I figured out what the right thing to do was, I’d do it.

I really hope this is it….

 

Saturday, May 6, 11 p.m., the Waldorf-Astoria,

ladies’ room

Okay. I’m shaking. I have to stay in here until my knees stop trembling long enough for me to stand up again. For now I’m just going to sit here on this little velvet settee and try to write this down so it makes some kind of sense—

In any case…

I guess I finally know why Lilly was so mad at me for so long.

I walked into the bathroom and there she was putting bright red lipstick on in the mirror.

It looked exactly like blood.

She glanced at my reflection and sort of raised her eyebrows.

But I wasn’t going to back off, even though my heart was pounding.Grant me the courage to change the things I can.

I checked to make sure we were the only people in the room. We were. And then I went, to her reflection, before I could lose my nerve, “Is J.P. a total fake, or what?”

She very calmly put the lid back on her lipstick and slipped it into her evening clutch. Then she said with an expression of total disgust, turning around to look me in the eye, “Took you long enough.”

I won’t say it was like she plunged a knife into my chest, or anything dramatic like that. Because the part of me that used to think I loved J.P. had stopped thinking that as soon as I spilled the hot chocolate on Michael last week, and I realized that whole loving J.P. thing had just been wishful thinking. I mean, I guess Icould have trained myself to fall in love with J.P. eventually, if Michael Moscovitz had never come back from Japan and then been so nice to me and made me realize I’d never fallen out of love with him.

But that will never happen now.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Lilly. I wasn’t mad, really. Too much time had passed—and water gone under the bridge—for me to be mad. I was just curious, more than anything.

“Oh, what,” Lilly said, letting out a sarcastic laugh, “you’rethe one who started going out with him the day he dumped me, practically—dumped me foryou , by the way.”

“He did not dump you for me,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not how it happened.”

“I beg your pardon,” Lilly said. “I was there, you were not. I think I would know. J.P. most assuredly dumped me because, as he said, and I quote, he was hopelessly in love with you. I didn’t mention that part, did I, the day I told you about our breakup?”

I stared at her, feeling color creep up my face. “No—”

“Well, that’s what he told me. That he was dumping me like a hot potato the minute it looked like things were over with you and Michael because now he, quote, had a chance with you, unquote. But I told him there was no way in hell my best friend would ever give him the time of day, because you would never do something like go out with the guy who’d broken my heart.” Her look of disgust deepened. “Oh, but…I guess I was wrong about that, wasn’t I?”

I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe it.J.P.? J.P. had told Lilly he loved me…before he and I had even started going out? J.P. had dumped Lilly because I’d become available?

That was worse—way worse—than calling the paps on me, and telling them where I’d be having dinner.

Or getting a publisher to agree to print my book without even having read it.

“Don’t try to deny it, Mia,” Lilly went on, her upper lip curling. “Not five minutes after I told you about our breakup—our next class period, practically—I saw you two kissing.”

“That was a mistake!” I cried. “He turned his head at the last minute!” On purpose, I knew now, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But then, I shouldn’t have been flinging my arms around boys in the hallway, anyway.

“Oh, and it was amistake that you two went out on a date the same night my brother left for Japan?” she asked, with a sneer.

“It wasn’t a date,” I said. “We went as friends.”

“That’s not how the press saw it,” Lilly said, shaking her head.

“The press?” I inhaled, a single, horrified breath as the truth finally sunk in…after twenty-one long months. “Oh, God. He called them that night. The night we went to seeBeauty and the Beast . That’s why the paparazzi showed up. J.P. called them himself.”

“Oh, NOW you finally realize it.” Lilly shook her head. Now that the blindfold had been lifted from my eyes at last, she’d stopped looking so disgusted. “He played us both. He only went out with me because it was a way to be closer to you…although I’m not entirely sure whatsleeping with me had to do with you—”

“Oh my God!” That’s when all the bones in my body turned into jelly and I had to sit down before I fell down. I collapsed onto one of the velvet couches the Waldorf-Astoria hotel staff had helpfully supplied for this purpose, and sunk my head into my hands.

Also, I would just like to add,I knew it! I knew they Did It! Way back in the beginning of eleventh grade, I knew it.

“Lilly!” I cried. “You told me you never slept with him! I specifically asked you, and you said he could have taken advantage, and he never did!”

“Yeah,” Lilly said, sinking down beside me and slumping against the wall. Her face was devoid of expression. “Well, I lied. I still hadsome pride, I guess. And anyway, it’s not like I didn’t get something out of it, too. I was totally warm for the guy’s form. I just would have appreciated it if, in the end, he wouldn’t have turned out to be lusting for my best friend the whole time.”

“Oh my God,” I said, again. I was having a whole lot of trouble picturing J.P. and my best friend—Lilly—doing…well.That .

Also, what about all those times J.P. said he was a virgin, just like me? About how he was so glad he’d waited for the right girl, and how that girl was me? J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV’s Big Fat Lie Number Four. Or was it Five, now? Wow, he was going to start beatingmy lying record soon.

“Lilly,” I said. My heart felt like it was twisting in my chest, I felt so bad. Not for myself. For Lilly. I understood now. Everything…even about ihatemiathermopolis.com. This didn’t make it right.

But it made it more understandable.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, reaching out to take her hand, with its black-painted nails. “I had no idea. And…well, about the other thing. Him dumping you for me. I had no idea about that, either. Honestly, though…why didn’t you justtell me?”

“Mia, come on.” Lilly shook her head. “Why should I have had to? As my best friend, shouldn’t my ex have been off-limits? You should have known better. And what were you doing, breaking up with my brother over that dumb Judith Gershner thing in the first place? That was just so…psychotic. Most of the beginning of last year,you were psychotic.”

I bit my lower lip. “Yeah,” I said. “I know. But the things you did didn’t help, you know.”

“I know,” Lilly said. When I glanced at her, I saw there were tears in her eyes. “I guess I was pretty psychotic, too. I…well, I loved him, you know. And he dumped me foryou . And I…I was just soangry with you. And you were being so stupidly blind about who he really was. But…you seemed happy. And by then I had Kenny, andI was happy…and well, I figured maybe now that he had you, J.P. would be better…how do you apologize for something like that…what I did?”

She looked at me and shrugged helplessly. I looked back at her, my own eyes filled with tears, as well.

“But, Lilly,” I said, sniffling a little. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too,” Lilly said back. “Even though I kind of hated your guts for a while.”

This made me sniffle harder.

“I hated your guts, too,” I said.

“Well,” Lilly said, the tears sparkling like jewels in the corners of her eyes. “Weboth acted like idiots.”

“Because we let a boy come between our friendship?”

“Two boys,” Lilly said. “J.P.and my brother.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe we should agree never to do that again.”

“Agreed,” Lilly said, and snagged my pinky with hers. We pinky swore. Then, sobbing a little, we hugged.

And it’s weird. She doesn’t smell like her brother.

But she smells really good, just the same. She smells like something that reminds me of…well, of home.

“Now,” Lilly said, wiping tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands, when she let go of me. “I have to get back to the party, before Kenny blows something up.”

“Okay,” I said, with a shaky laugh. “I’ll be right out. I just need…I just need a minute.”

“See you later, POG,” Lilly said.

I can’t even tell you how good it felt to hear her call me that. Even though I used to hate it. I couldn’t help laughing as I wiped away my own tears.

And she got up and left, just as two girls who looked only kind of familiar to me came in and went, “Oh my God, aren’t you, like, Mia Thermopolis?”

And I was like, “Yeah.” What now? Seriously. I don’t know how much more I can take.

And they went, “You better get back out there. People are looking for you. Everyone is saying they’re going to name you prom queen. They’re just, like, waiting for you to come back out so they can start the ceremony.”

So. Yeah. Looks like I’m prom queen.

Sadly, if J.P. is prom king, he’s in for a big surprise.

 

Sunday, May 7, midnight, limo on the way downtown

I walked out of the ladies’ room and sure enough, they were calling out the names of the Albert Einstein High School prom king and queen: J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV and Mia Thermopolis.

I’m not even kidding.

How did I go from the geekiest girl in the whole school my freshman year to prom queen my senior year? I don’t get it.

I guess turning out to be a princess might have helped.

But I don’t think that had all that much to do with it, really.

J.P. came through the crowd and found me and smilingly took my hand and steered me up to the stage where the lights were shining so brightly down on us. Everyone was screaming. Principal Gupta handed him a plastic scepter and put a rhinestone tiara on my head. Then she made a speech about positive moral values and how we exemplified them, and how everyone should look up to us.

Which was a pretty big joke, if you consider what we’d both planned on doing after the prom. Oh, and what I’d been doing in an old-timey horse carriage yesterday with my ex.

Then J.P. grabbed me and dipped my body back and kissed me, and everyone cheered.

And I let him because I didn’t want to embarrass him by having Lars taser him right there in front of the entire senior class.

Although that’s really what I felt like doing.