The Princess Diaries Read online

  What I don’t get is, what’s the big deal? What does he need more kids for? He already has me! Sure, I only see him summers and at Christmastime, but that’s enough, right? I mean, he’s pretty busy running Genovia. It’s no joke trying to make a whole country, even one that’s only a mile long, run smoothly. The only other things he has time for besides me are his girlfriends. He’s always got some new girlfriend slinking around. He brings them with him when we go to Grandmère’s place in France in the summer. They always drool all over the pools and the stables and the waterfall and the twenty-seven bedrooms and the ballroom and the vineyard and the farm and the airstrip.

  And then he dumps them a week later.

  I didn’t know he wanted to marry one of them and have kids.

  I mean, he never married my mom. My mom says that’s because at the time she rejected the bourgeois mores of a society that didn’t even accept women as equals to men and refused to recognize her rights as an individual.

  I kind of always thought that maybe my dad just never asked her.

  Anyway, my mom says Dad is flying here to New York tomorrow to talk to me about this. I don’t know why. I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. But when I said to my mom, “Why does Dad have to fly all the way over here to talk to me about how he can’t have kids?” she got this funny look on her face and started to say something, and then she stopped.

  Then she just said, “You’ll have to ask your father.”

  This is bad. My mom only says “Ask your father” when I want to know something she doesn’t feel like telling me, like why people sometimes kill their own babies and how come Americans eat so much red meat and read so much less than the people of Iceland.

  Note to self: Look up the words progenitive, omnipotent, and mores

  distributive law

  5x + 5y - 5

  5(x + y - 1)

  Distribute WHAT??? FIND OUT BEFORE QUIZ!!!

  Wednesday, October 1

  My dad’s here. Well, not here in the loft. He’s staying at the Plaza, as usual. I’m supposed to go see him tomorrow, after he’s “rested.” My dad rests a lot, now that he’s had cancer. He stopped playing polo, too. But I think that’s because one time a horse stepped on him.

  Anyway, I hate the Plaza. Last time my dad stayed there, they wouldn’t let me in to see him because I was wearing shorts. The lady who owns the place was there, they said, and she doesn’t like to see people in cutoffs in the lobby of her fancy hotel. I had to call my dad from a house phone and ask him to bring down a pair of pants. He just told me to put the concierge on the phone, and the next thing you know, everybody was apologizing to me like crazy. They gave me this big basket filled with fruit and chocolate. It was cool. I didn’t want the fruit, though, so I gave it to a homeless man I saw on the subway on my way back down to the Village. I don’t think the homeless man wanted the fruit either, since he threw it all in the gutter and just kept the basket to use as a hat.

  I told Lilly about what my dad said, about not being able to have kids, and she said that was very telling. She said it revealed that my dad still has unresolved issues with his parents, and I said, “Well, duh. Grandmère is a huge pain in the ass.”

  Lilly said she couldn’t comment on the veracity of that statement since she’d never met my grandmother. I’ve been asking if I could invite Lilly to Miragnac for like years, but Grandmère always says no. She says young people give her migraines.

  Lilly says maybe my dad is afraid of losing his youth, which many men equate with losing their virility. I really think they should move Lilly up a grade, but she says she likes being a freshman. She says this way she has four whole years to make observations on the adolescent condition in post–Cold War America.

  STARTING TODAY I WILL

  Be nice to everyone, whether I like him/her or not

  Stop lying all the time about my feelings

  Stop forgetting my Algebra notebook

  Keep my comments to myself

  Stop writing my Algebra notes in my journal

  The 3rd power of x is called cube of x—negative numbers have no sq root

  Notes from G & T

  Lilly—I can’t stand this. When is she going to go back to the teachers’ lounge?

  Maybe never. I heard they were shampooing the carpet today. God, he is so CUTE.

  Who’s cute?

  BORIS!

  He isn’t cute. He’s gross. Look what he did to his sweater. Why does he DO that?

  You’re so narrow-minded.

  I am NOT narrow-minded. But someone should tell him that in America we don’t tuck in our sweaters.

  Well, maybe in Russia they do.

  But this isn’t Russia. Also, someone should tell him to learn a new song. If I have to hear that requiem for dead King Whoever one more time . . .

  You’re just jealous because Boris is a musical genius and you’re flunking Algebra.

  Lilly, just because I am flunking Algebra does NOT mean I’m stupid.

  OK, OK. What is wrong with you today?

  NOTHING!!!!!

  slope: slope of a line denoted m is

  Find equation of line with slope = 2

  Find the degree of slope to Mr. G’s nostrils

  Thursday, October 2,

  Ladies’ Room at the Plaza Hotel

  Well.

  I guess now I know why my dad is so concerned about not being able to have more kids.

  BECAUSE HE’S A PRINCE!!!

  Geez! How long did they think they could keep something like that from me?

  Although, come to think of it, they managed for a pretty long time. I mean, I’ve BEEN to Genovia. Miragnac, where I go every summer, and also most Christmases, is the name of my grandmother’s house in France. It is actually on the border of France, right near Genovia, which is between France and Italy. I’ve been going to Miragnac ever since I was born. Never with my mother, though. Only with my dad. My mom and dad have never lived together. Unlike a lot of kids I know, who sit around wishing their parents would get back together after they get divorced, I’m perfectly happy with this arrangement. My parents broke up before I was ever born, although they have always been pretty friendly to one another. Except when my dad is being moody, that is, or my mom is being a flake, which she can be sometimes. Things would majorly suck, I think, if they lived together.

  Anyway, Genovia is where my grandmother takes me to shop for clothes at the end of every summer, when she’s sick of looking at my overalls. But nobody there ever mentioned anything about my dad’s being a PRINCE.

  Come to think of it, I did that fact sheet on Genovia two years ago, and I copied down the name of the royal family, which is Renaldo. But even then I didn’t connect it with my dad. I mean, I know his name is Phillipe Renaldo. But the name of the prince of Genovia was listed in the encyclopedia I used as Artur Christoff Phillipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldo.

  And that picture of him must have been totally old. Dad hasn’t had any hair since before I was born (so when he had chemo, you couldn’t even tell, since he was practically bald anyway). The picture of the prince of Genovia showed someone with A LOT of hair, sideburns, and a mustache, too.

  I guess I can see now how Mom might have gone for him, back when she was in college. He was something of a Baldwin.

  But a PRINCE? Of a whole COUNTRY? I mean, I knew he was in politics, and of course I knew he had money—how many kids at my school have summer homes in France? Martha’s Vineyard, maybe, but not France—but a PRINCE?

  So what I want to know is, if my dad’s a prince, how come I have to learn Algebra?

  I mean, seriously.

  I don’t think it was such a good idea for Dad to tell me he was a prince in the Palm Court at the Plaza. First of all, we almost had a repeat performance of the shorts incident: The doorman wouldn’t even let me in at first. He said, “No minors unaccompanied by an adult,” which totally blows that whole Home Alone II movie, right?

  And I was all, “But I’m suppo
sed to meet my dad—”

  “No minors,” the doorman said again, “unaccompanied by an adult.”

  This seemed totally unfair. I wasn’t even wearing shorts. I was wearing my uniform from Albert Einstein. I mean, pleated skirt, kneesocks, the whole thing. Okay, maybe I was wearing Doc Martens, but come on! I practically WAS that kid Eloise, and she supposedly ruled the Plaza.

  Finally, after standing there for like half an hour, saying, “But my dad . . . but my dad . . . but my dad . . . ” the concierge came over and asked, “Just who is your father, young lady?”

  As soon as I said his name they let me in. I realize now that’s because even THEY knew he was a prince. But his own daughter, his own daughter nobody tells!

  Dad was waiting at a table. High tea at the Plaza is supposed to be this very big deal. You should see all the German tourists snapping pictures of themselves eating chocolate chip scones. Anyway, I used to get a kick out of it when I was a little girl, and since my dad refuses to believe fourteen is not little anymore, we still meet there when he’s in town. Oh, we go other places, too. Like we always go to see Beauty and the Beast, my all-time favorite Broadway musical, I don’t care what Lilly says about Walt Disney and his misogynistic undertones. I’ve seen it seven times.

  So has my dad. His favorite part is when the dancing forks come out.

  Anyway, we’re sitting there drinking tea and he starts telling me in this very serious voice that he’s the prince of Genovia, and then this terrible thing happens:

  I get the hiccups.

  This only happens when I drink something hot and then eat bread. I don’t know why. It had never happened at the Plaza before, but all of a sudden my dad is like, “Mia, I want you to know the truth. I think you’re old enough now, and the fact is, now that I can’t have any more children, this will have a tremendous impact on your life, and it’s only fair I tell you. I am the prince of Genovia.”

  And I was all, “Really, Dad?” Hiccup.

  “Your mother has always felt very strongly that there wasn’t any reason for you to know, and I agreed with her. I had a very . . . well, unsatisfactory childhood—”

  He’s not kidding. Life with Grandmère couldn’t have been any picque-nicque. Hiccup.

  “I agreed with your mother that a palace is no place to raise a child.” Then he started muttering to himself, which he always does whenever I tell him I’m a vegetarian, or the subject of Mom comes up. “Of course, at the time I didn’t think she intended to raise you in a bohemian artist’s loft in Greenwich Village, but I will admit that it doesn’t seem to have done you any harm. In fact, I think growing up in New York City instilled you with a healthy amount of skepticism about the human race at large—”

  Hiccup. And he had never even met Lana Weinberger.

  “—which is something I didn’t gain until college, and I believe is partly responsible for the fact that I have such a difficult time establishing close interpersonal relationships with women—”

  Hiccup.

  “What I’m trying to say is, your mother and I thought by not telling you we were doing you a favor. The fact was, we never envisioned that an occasion might arise in which you might succeed the throne. I was only twenty-five when you were born. I felt certain I would meet another woman, marry her, and have more children. But now, unfortunately, that will never be. So, the fact is, you, Mia, are the heir to the throne of Genovia.”

  I hiccuped again. This was getting embarrassing. These weren’t little ladylike hiccups, either. They were huge, and made my whole body go sproinging up out of my chair like I was some kind of five-foot-nine frog. They were loud, too. I mean really loud. The German tourists kept looking over, all giggly and stuff. I knew what my dad was saying was superserious, but I couldn’t help it, I just kept hiccuping! I tried holding my breath and counting to thirty—I only got to ten before I hiccuped again. I put a sugar cube on my tongue and let it dissolve. No go. I even tried to scare myself, thinking about my mom and Mr. Gianini French-kissing—even that didn’t work.

  Finally, my dad was like, “Mia? Mia, are you listening? Have you heard a word I said?”

  I said, “Dad, can I be excused for a minute?”

  He looked sort of pained, like his stomach hurt him, and he slumped back in his chair in this defeated way, but he said, “Go ahead,” and gave me five dollars to give to the washroom attendant, which I of course put in my pocket. Five bucks for the washroom attendant! Geez, my whole allowance is ten bucks a week!

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the ladies’ room at the Plaza, but it’s like totally the nicest one in Manhattan. It’s all pink, and there are mirrors and little couches everywhere, in case you look at yourself and feel the urge to faint from your beauty or something. Anyway, I banged in there, hiccuping like a maniac, and all these women in these fancy hairdos looked up, annoyed at the interruption. I guess I made them mess up their lip liner or something.

  I went into one of the stalls, each of which, besides a toilet, has its own private sink with a huge mirror and a dressing table with a little stool with tassels hanging off it. I sat on the stool and concentrated on not hiccuping anymore. Instead, I concentrated on what my dad had said:

  He’s the prince of Genovia.

  A lot of things are beginning to make sense now. Like how when I fly to France I just walk onto the plane from the terminal, but when I get there I’m escorted off the plane before everyone else and get taken away by limo to meet my dad at Miragnac.

  I always thought that was because he had frequent flyer privileges.

  I guess it’s because he’s a prince.

  And then there’s that fact that whenever Grandmère takes me shopping in Genovia she always takes me either before the stores are officially open or after they are officially closed. She calls ahead to insure we will be let in, and no one has ever said no. In Manhattan, if my mother had tried to do this, the clerks at the Gap would have fallen over from laughing so hard.

  And when I’m at Miragnac, I notice that we never go out to eat anywhere. We always have our meals there, or sometimes we go to the neighboring chateau, Mirabeau, which is owned by these nasty British people who have a lot of snotty kids who say things like “That’s rot” and “You’re a wanker” to one another. One of the younger girls, Nicole, is sort of my friend, but then one night she told me this story about how she was Frenching a boy and I didn’t know what Frenching was. I was only eleven at the time, which is no excuse, because so was she. I just thought Frenching was some weird British thing, like toad-in-the-hole, or air raids, or something. So then I mentioned it at the dinner table in front of Nicole’s parents, and after that all those kids stopped talking to me.

  I wonder if the Brits know that my dad is the prince of Genovia. I bet they do. God, they must have thought I was mentally retarded or something.

  Most people have never heard of Genovia. I know when we had to do our fact sheets, none of the other kids ever had. Neither had my mother, she says, before she met my dad. Nobody famous ever came from there. Nobody who was born there ever invented anything, or wrote anything, or became a movie star. A lot of Genovians, like my grandpa, fought against the Nazis in World War II, but other than that, they aren’t really known for anything.

  Still, people who have heard of Genovia like to go there because it’s so beautiful. It’s very sunny nearly all the time, with the snow-capped Alps in the background and the crystal-blue Mediterranean in front of it. It has a lot of hills, some of which are as steep as the ones in San Francisco, and most of which have olive trees growing on them. The main export of Genovia, I remember from my fact sheet, is olive oil, the really expensive kind my mom says only to use for salad dressing.

  There’s a palace there, too. It’s kind of famous because they filmed a movie there once, a movie about the three Musketeers. I’ve never been inside, but we’ve driven by it before, me and Grandmère. It’s got all these turrets and flying buttresses and stuff.

  Funny how Grandm�
�re never mentioned having lived there all those times we drove past it.

  My hiccups are gone. I think it’s safe to go back to the Palm Court.

  I’m going to give the washroom attendant a dollar, even though she didn’t attend me.

  Hey, I can afford it: My dad’s a prince!

  Later on Thursday,

  Penguin House, Central Park Zoo

  I’m so freaked out I can barely write, plus people keep bumping my elbow, and it’s dark in here, but whatever. I have to get this down exactly the way it happened. Otherwise, when I wake up tomorrow I might think it was just a nightmare.

  But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was REAL.

  I’m not going to tell anybody, not even Lilly. Lilly would NOT understand. NOBODY would understand. Because nobody I know has ever been in this situation before. Nobody ever went to bed one night as one person and then woke up the next morning to find out that she was somebody completely different.

  When I got back to our table after hiccuping in the ladies’ room at the Plaza, I saw that the German tourists had been replaced by some Japanese tourists. This was an improvement. They were much quieter. My dad was on his cellular phone when I sat back down. He was talking to my mom, I realized right away. He had on the expression he wears only when he is talking to her. He was saying, “Yes, I told her. No, she doesn’t seem upset.” He looked at me. “Are you upset?”

  I said, “No,” because I wasn’t upset—not THEN.

  He said, into the phone, “She says no.” He listened for a minute, then he looked at me again. “Do you want your mother to come up here and help to explain things?”

  I shook my head. “No. She has to finish that mixed-media piece for the Kelly Tate Gallery. They want it by next Tuesday.”

  My dad repeated this to my mom. I heard her grumble back. She is always very grumbly when I remind her that she has paintings due by a certain time. My mom likes to work when the muses move her. Since my dad pays most of our bills, this is not usually a problem, but it is not a very responsible way for an adult to behave, even if she is an artist. I swear, if I ever met my mom’s muses, I’d give ’em such swift kicks in the toga they wouldn’t know what hit them.