The Princess Diaries

The Lady Cop I Once Saw give a truck driver a ticket for honking at a woman who was crossing the street (her skirt was kind of short). The lady cop told the truck driver it was a no-honking zone, and then when he argued about it, she wrote him another ticket for arguing with an officer of the law.

Lilly Moscovitz. Lilly Moscovitz isn’t really a woman, yet, but she’s someone I admire very much. She is very, very smart, but unlike many very smart people, she doesn’t rub it in all the time, the fact that she’s so much smarter than me. Well, at least, not much. Lilly is always thinking up fun things for us to do, like go to Barnes & Noble and secretly film me asking Dr. Laura, who was signing books there, if she knows so much how come she’s divorced, then showing it on her (Lilly’s) TV show, including the part where we got thrown out and banned from the Union Square Barnes & Noble forever after. Lilly is my best friend and I tell her everything, except the part about me being a princess, which I don’t think she’d understand.

Helen Thermopolis. Helen Thermopolis, besides being my mother, is a very talented artist who was recently featured in Art in America magazine as one of the most important painters of the new millennium. Her painting Woman Waiting for Price Check at the Grand Union won this big national award and sold for $140,000, only part of which my mom got to keep, since 15 percent of it went to her gallery and half of what was left went to taxes, which sucks, if you ask me. But even though she’s such an important artist, my mom always has time for me. I also respect her because she is deeply principled: She says she would never think of inflicting her beliefs on others and would thank others to pay her the same courtesy.

Can you believe Grandm่re tore this up? I’m telling you, this is the sort of essay that could bring a country to its knees.

Saturday, October 11, 9:30 a.m.

So I was right: Lilly does think the reason I’m not participating in the taping today is because I’m against her boycott of the Hos.

I told her that wasn’t true, that I had to spent the day with my grandmother. But guess what? She doesn’t believe me. The one time I tell the truth, and she doesn’t believe me!

Lilly says that if I really wanted to get out of spending the day with Grandm่re I could, but because I’m so codependent, I can’t say no to anyone. Which doesn’t even make sense, since obviously I am saying no to her. When I pointed that out to Lilly, though, she just got madder. I can’t say no to my grandmother, since she’s like sixty-five years old, and she’s going to die soon, if there’s any justice at all in the world.

Besides, you don’t know my grandmother, I said. You don’t say no to my grandmother.

Then Lilly went, “No, I don’t know your grandmother, do I, Mia? Isn’t that curious, considering the fact that you know all my grandparents”—the Moscovitzes have me over every year for Passover dinner—“and yet I haven’t met any of yours?”

Well, of course the reason for that is that my mom’s parents are like total farmers who live in a place called Versailles, Indiana, only they pronounce it “Ver-sales.” My mom’s parents are afraid to come to New York City because they say there are too many “furinners”—by which they mean foreigners—here, and anything that isn’t 100 percent American scares them, which is one of the reasons my mom left home when she was eighteen and has only been back twice, and that was with me. Let me tell you, Versailles is a small, small town. It’s so small that there’s a sign on the door at the bank that says if bank is closed, please slide money under door. I am not lying, either. I took a photo of it and brought it back to show everyone because I knew they wouldn’t believe me. It’s hanging on our refrigerator.

Anyway, Grandpa and Grandma Thermopolis don’t make it out of Indiana much.

And the reason I’d never introduced Lilly to Grandm่re Renaldo is because Grandm่re Renaldo hates children. And I can’t introduce her now because then Lilly will find out I’m the princess of Genovia, and you can bet I’ll never hear the end of that. She’d probably want to interview me, or something, for her TV show. That’s all I need: My name and image plastered all over Manhattan Public Access.

So I was telling Lilly all of this—about how I had to go out with my grandmother, not about my being a princess, of course—and as I was talking I could hear her breathing over the phone in that way she does when she’s mad, and finally she just goes, “Oh, come over tonight then, and help me edit,” and slammed the phone down.

Geez.

Well, at least Michael didn’t tell her about the lipstick and panty hose. That would have really made her mad. She never would have believed I was only going to my grandmother’s. No way.

This was all at like nine-thirty, while I was getting ready to go to Grandm่re’s. Grandm่re told me that for today I don’t have to wear lipstick or panty hose. She said I could wear anything I wanted. So I wore my overalls. I know she hates them, but hey, she said anything I wanted. Hee hee hee.

Oops, gotta go. Lars just pulled up in front of the Plaza. We’re here.

Saturday, October 11

I can never go to school again. I can never go anywhere again. I will never leave this loft, ever, ever again.

You won’t believe what she did to me. I can’t believe what she did to me. I can’t believe my dad let her do this to me.

Well, he’s going to pay. He’s totally paying for this, and I mean BIG. As soon as I got home (right after my mom went, “Well, hey, Rosemary. Where’s your baby?” which I suppose was some kind of joke about my new haircut, but it was NOT funny), I marched right up to him and said, “You are paying for this. Big time.”