The Princess Diaries (13 page)

And Paolo didn’t stop there. Oh, no. I now have fingernails. I am not kidding. For the first time in my life, I have fingernails. They’re completely fake, but I have them. And it looks like I’ll have them for a while: I already tried to pull one off, and it HURT. What kind of secret astronaut glue did that manicurist use, anyway?

You might be wondering why, if I didn’t want to have all my hair cut off and fake fingernails glued over my real, stumpy fingernails, I let them do all that.

I’m sort of wondering that myself. I mean, I know I have a fear of confrontation. So it wasn’t like I was going to throw down my glass of lemonade and say, "Okay, stop making a fuss over me, right now!" I mean, they gave me lemonade! Can you imagine that? At the International House of Hair, which is where my mom and I usually go, over on Sixth Avenue, they sure don’t give you lemonade, but it
does
only cost $9.99 for a cut and blow dry.

And it is sort of hard when all these beautiful, fashionable people are telling you how good you’d look in
this
and how much
that
would bring out your cheekbones, to remember you’re a feminist and an environmentalist, and don’t believe in using makeup or chemicals that might be harmful to the earth. I mean, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, or cause a scene, or anything like that.

And I kept telling myself, She’s only doing this because she loves you. My grandmother, I mean. I know she probably wasn’t doing it for that reason—I don’t think Grandmère loves me any more than I love her—but I
told
myself that, anyway.

I told myself that after we left Paolo’s and went to Bergdorf Goodman, where Grandmère bought me four pairs of shoes that cost almost as much as the removal of that sock from Fat Louie’s small intestines. I told myself that after she bought me a bunch of clothes I will never wear. I did tell her I would never wear these clothes, but she just waved at me. Like, Go on, go on. You tell such amusing stories.

Well, I for one will not stand for it. There isn’t a single inch of me that hasn’t been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. I even have fingernails.

But I am not happy. I am not a bit happy.
Grandmère’s
happy.
Grandmère’s
head over heels happy about how I look. Because I don’t look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights. Mia Thermopolis never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or Christian Dior bras, which, by the way, don’t even come in 32A, which is my size. I don’t even know who I am anymore. It certainly isn’t Mia Thermopolis.

She’s turning me into someone else.

So I stood in front of my father, looking like a human Q-tip in my new hair, and I let him have it.

"First she makes me do homework. Then she rips the homework up. Then she gives me sitting lessons. Then she has all my hair dyed a different color and most of it hacked off, makes someone glue tiny surfboards to my fingernails, buys me shoes that cost as much as small animal surgery, and clothes that make me look like Vicky, the captain’s daughter in that old seventies series
The Love Boat.

"Well, Dad, I’m sorry, but I’m not Vicky, and I never will be, no matter how much Grandmère dresses me up like her. I’m not going to do great in school, be supercheerful all the time, or have any shipboard romances. That’s Vicky. That’s not me!"

My mom was coming out of her bedroom, putting the last touches on her date wear, when I screamed this. She was wearing a new outfit. It was this sort of Spanish skirt in all these different colors, and a sort of off-the-shoulder top. Her long hair was all over the place, and she looked really great. In fact, my dad headed for the liquor cabinet again when he saw her.

"Mia," my mom said as she fastened on an earring, "nobody is asking you to be Vicky, the captain’s daughter."

"Grandmère is!"

"Your grandmother is just trying to prepare you, Mia."

"Prepare me for what? I can’t go to school looking like this, you know," I yelled.

My mom looked kind of confused. "Why not?"

Oh my God. Why me?

"Because," I said, as patiently as I could, "I don’t want anyone at school finding out I’m the princess of Genovia!"

My mom shook her head. "Mia, honey, they’re going to find out sometime."

I don’t see how. See, I have it all worked out: I’ll only be a princess in Genovia, and since the chances of anybody I know from school ever actually going to Genovia are like none, no one here will ever find out, so I’m totally safe from being branded a freak, like Tina Hakim Baba. Well, at least not the kind of freak who has to ride in a chauffeured limo to school every day and be followed by bodyguards.

"Well," my mom said, after I’d told her all this. "What if it’s in the newspaper?"

"Why would it be in the newspaper?"

My mom looked at my dad. My dad looked away and took a sip from his drink.

You wouldn’t believe what he did next. He put down his drink, then he reached into his pants pocket, took out his Prada wallet, opened it, and asked, "How much?"

I was shocked. So was my mom.

"Phillipe," she said, but my dad just kept looking at me.

"I’m serious, Helen," he said. "I can see the compromise we drew up is getting us nowhere. The only solution in matters like these is cold, hard cash. So how much do I have to pay you, Mia, to let your grandmother turn you into a princess?"

"Is that what she’s doing?" I started yelling some more. "Well, if that’s what she’s doing, she has it all screwed up. I never saw a princess with hair this short, or feet as big as mine, who didn’t have breasts!"

My dad just looked at his watch. I guess he had somewhere to go. I bet it was another "interview" with that blond anchorwoman from ABC News.

"Consider it a job," he said, "this learning how to be a princess business. I will pay your salary. Now, how much do you want?"

I started yelling even more about personal integrity and how I refused to sell my soul to the company store, that kind of thing. Stuff I got from some of my mom’s old records. I think she recognized this, since she sort of started slinking away, saying she had to go get ready for her date with Mr. G. My dad shot her the evil eye—he can do it almost as well as Grandmère—and then he sighed and went, "Mia, I will donate one hundred dollars a day, in your name, to—what is it? Oh, yes—Greenpeace, so they can save all the whales they want, if you will make my mother happy by letting her teach you to be a princess."

Well.

That’s an entirely different matter. It would be one thing if he were paying
me
to have my hair color chemically altered. But paying one hundred dollars per day to Greenpeace? That’s $356,000 per year! In my name! Why, Greenpeace will
have
to hire me after I graduate. I practically will have donated a million dollars by that time!

Wait, maybe that’s only $36,500. Where’s my calculator????

Later on Saturday

Well, I don’t know who Lilly Moscovitz thinks she is, but I sure know who she isn’t: my friend. I don’t think anyone who was my friend would be as mean to me as Lilly was tonight. I couldn’t believe it. And all because of my
hair!

I guess I could understand it if Lilly was mad at me about something that mattered—like missing the taping of the Ho segment. I mean, I’m like the main cameraperson for
Lilly Tells It Like It Is.
I also do a lot of the prop work. When I’m not there, Shameeka has to do my job as well as hers, and Shameeka is already executive producer and location scout.

So I guess I could see how Lilly might kind of resent the fact that I missed today’s taping. She thinks Ho-Gate—that’s what she’s calling it—is the most important story she’s ever done. I think it’s kind of stupid. Who cares about five cents, anyway? But Lilly’s all, "We’re going to break the cycle of racism that has been rampant in delis across the five boroughs."

Whatever. All I know is, I walked into the Moscovitzes’ apartment tonight, and Lilly took one look at my new hair and was like, "Oh my God, what happened to you?"

Like I had frostbite all over my face, and my nose had turned black and fallen off, like those people who climbed Mt. Everest.

Okay, I knew people were going to freak and stuff when they saw my hair. I totally washed it before I came over, and got all the mousse and goop out of it. Plus I took off all the makeup Paolo had slathered on me, and put on my overalls and high-tops (you can hardly see the quadratic formula anymore). I really thought, except for my hair, I looked mostly normal. In fact, I kind of thought maybe I looked good—for me, I mean.

But I guess Lilly didn’t think so.

I tried to be casual, like it was no big deal. Which it isn’t, by the way. It wasn’t as if I’d had breast implants or something.

"Yeah," I said, taking off my coat. "Well, my grandmother made me go see this guy Paolo, and he—"

But Lilly wouldn’t even let me finish. She was in this state of shock. She went, "Your hair is the same color as Lana Weinberger’s."

"Well," I said. "I know."

"What’s on your
fingers?
Are those fake fingernails? Lana has those, too!" She stared at me all bug-eyed. "Oh my God, Mia. You’re turning into Lana Weinberger!"

Now, that kind of peeved me off. I mean, in the first place, I am
not
turning into Lana Weinberger. In the second place, even if I am, Lilly’s the one who’s always going on about how stupid people are for not seeing that it doesn’t matter what anybody looks like; what matters is what’s going on on the inside.

So I stood there in the Moscovitzes’ foyer, which is made out of black marble, with Pavlov jumping up and down against my legs because he was so excited to see me, going, "It wasn’t me. It was my grandmother. I had to—"

"What do you mean, you had to?" Lilly got this really crabby look on her face. It was the same look she gets every year when our PE instructor tells us we have to run around the reservoir in Central Park for the Presidential Fitness test. Lilly doesn’t like to run anywhere, particularly around the reservoir in Central Park (it’s really big).

"What are you?" she wanted to know. "Completely passive? You’re mute or something? Unable to say the word
no?
You know, Mia, we really need to work on your assertiveness. You seem to have real issues with your grandmother. I mean, you certainly don’t have any trouble saying no to
me.
I could have really used your help today with the Ho segment, and you totally let me down. But you’ve got no problem letting your grandmother cut off all your hair and dye it yellow—"

Okay, now keep in mind I’d just spent the whole day hearing how bad I looked—at least, until Paolo got ahold of me and made me look like Lana Weinberger. Now I had to hear there was something wrong with my personality, too.

So I cracked. I said, "Lilly,
shut up."

I have never told Lilly to shut up before. Not ever. I don’t think I have ever told anyone to shut up before. It’s just not something I do. I don’t know what happened, really. Maybe it was the fingernails. I never had fingernails before. They sort of made me feel strong. I mean, really, why was Lilly
always
telling me what to do?

Unfortunately, right as I was telling Lilly to shut up, Michael came out, holding an empty cereal bowl and not wearing a shirt.

"Whoa," he said, backing up. I wasn’t sure if he said whoa and backed up because of what I’d said or how I looked.

"What?" Lilly said. "
What
did you just say to me?"

Now she looked more like a pug than
ever.

I totally wanted to back down. But I didn’t, because I knew she was right: I
do
have problems being assertive.

So instead I said, "I’m tired of you putting me down all the time. All day long, my mom and dad and grandmother and teachers are telling me what to do. I don’t need my
friends
getting on my case, too."

"Whoa," Michael said again. This time I knew it was because of what I said.

"What," Lilly said, her eyes getting all narrow, "is your
problem?"

I went, "You know what? I don’t have a problem.
You’re
the one with the problem. You seem to have a big problem with me. Well, you know what? I’m going to solve your problem for you. I’m leaving. I never wanted to help you with your stupid Ho-Gate story anyway. The Hos are nice people. They haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t see why you have to pick on them. And"—I said this as I opened the door—"my hair is
not
yellow."

Then I left. I sort of slammed the door behind me, too.

While I was waiting for the elevator, I sort of thought Lilly might come out and apologize to me.

But she didn’t.

I came straight home, took a bath, and got into bed with my remote control and Fat Louie, who’s the only person who likes me the way I am right now. I was thinking Lilly might call to apologize, but so far she hasn’t.

Well, I’m not apologizing until she does.

And you know what? I looked in the mirror a minute ago, and my hair doesn’t look that bad.

Past Midnight, Sunday, October 12

She still hasn’t called.

Sunday, October 12

Oh my God. I am so embarrassed. I wish I could disappear. You will never believe what just happened.

I walked out of my room to get breakfast, and there were my mom and Mr. Gianini sitting at the table eating pancakes!

And Mr. Gianini was wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts!! My mom was in her kimono!!! When she saw me, she choked on her orange juice. Then she went, "Mia, what are you doing here? I thought you spent the night at Lilly’s."

I wish I had. I wish I had never chosen to be assertive last night. I could have stayed over at the Moscovitzes’ and never had to look at Mr. Gianini in his boxer shorts. I could have lived a full and happy life without ever having seen
that.