The Princess Diaries

The next day, Mia shares her frustrations with her best friend, Lilly Moscovitz. Lilly tells Mia that Mr. Gianini is cool, but Mia complains, “He’s not so cool if you’re flunking Algebra, like me” (3). Every day, Mia has to stay after school for additional tutoring with Mr. Gianini. She is horrified that Mr. Gianini “call[ed] [her] mother in for a parent/teacher conference” (3) but ended up asking her out. As Mia wonders if her teacher will be “sticking his tongue in my mom’s mouth” (3), she thinks about her crush, Josh Richter, and how he kisses his girlfriend Lana Weinberger next to Mia’s locker. Mia remembers that a few days ago, Josh “sort of smiled and said ‘Hey’” (4) when she and Lilly ran into him at Bigelows, a department store. Mia believes that despite Josh’s jock reputation and his friend group, he’s a “deeply sensitive person” (4) who might see her for who she really is. Lilly, however, tells Mia that she’s living in a fantasy world and needs to “assert [her]self for a change” instead of “lying about how [she] feel[s]” (5) about her mom dating Mr. Gianini. Still, Mia doesn’t want to make her mother sad, so she vents to the diary instead.

The next day, Mia is distracted in algebra by the thought of her mother and Mr. Gianini going on a date. Lana Weinberger, the popular cheerleader dating Mia’s crush, calls her a freak; Mia “[doesn’t] understand what Josh Richter sees in her” (7) because, although Lana is pretty, she is often mean to Mia. Mia goes to Lilly’s house after school. Lilly’s parents are both psychoanalysts, and her brother Michael has a gifted and talented class with Mia and Lilly. Lilly’s parents ask Mia how she feels about her mother’s date, and Mia worries that Michael will tell people about it (9). When Michael teases Mia, Lilly says her brother is “sexually harassing” (11) her. This embarrasses Mia, who worries that if Josh Richter were to “[start] sexually harassing [her] someday” (11), she would be too stupid to notice. Mia then complains that Mr. Gianini’s nostrils stick out, and if her mother marries him, Mia will have to look at those nostrils “EVERY SINGLE DAY, SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, MAJOR HOLIDAYS INCLUDED” (11).

During algebra tutorials, Mr. Gianini asks Mia if his date with her mother makes her “uncomfortable.” Mia lies and once again says it doesn’t bother her. However, in a moment of passion, Mia blurts out, “If you do anything to make her cry, I’ll kick your butt” (15). Mia is embarrassed, but Mr. Gianini laughs. After school, Mia is in the middle of measuring her chest when her father calls from Europe and asks to speak to Mia’s mother. Mia wonders, hopefully, if her father’s mother, Grandmère, died. Mia “just [can’t] tell him about Mr. Gianini” (14), so she lies and says that her mother is at her art studio.

The morning after her date with Mr. Gianini, Mia’s mother gushes that she “had a fabulous time” (17). Mia again tells herself that if her mother is happy, maybe this arrangement will be okay. On Saturdays, Lilly and Mia film footage for Lilly’s public access television show, Lilly Tells It Like It Is. While they are filming a spoof of The Blair Witch Project called The Green Witch Project in Washington Square Park, Mia spies the infamous person known in the neighborhood as “Blind Guy,” who is being helped across the street by a tourist who has no idea that he is going to “feel her up as soon as they [get] to the other side, then pretend he hadn’t done it on purpose” (19). Mia admits he felt her up when she helped him across the street, and Lilly says they should report him to the police.

Mia’s dad calls again, and this time her mother “really [is] at her studio” (20), so Mia asks if Grandmère is dead. Her father says no, and he sounds weird. Mia and her father start to talk about Iceland, and Mia explains in the diary that her father is “a politician” (21), and she spends every summer with him and Grandmère in France. Mia suggests that they go to Iceland next summer instead, and her father says they will “talk about that some other time” (21) before hanging up.

During algebra, Mia notices that Mr. Gianini seems to be in good spirits after his date. At lunch, Lana teases that Mia “still can’t fit into a bra” (23), and Lilly jumps to her defense and tells Lana to “curl up someplace and die” (23). Josh, who is standing nearby, tires of the fighting and announces that he is “outta here” (24). As Lana and Josh leave, Mia wonders why she has to be “incarcerated with [Lana] on a daily basis” (24).

When Mia gets home from school, her mother tells her they need to talk. Although Mia “[is] kind of hoping Grandmère [is] dead,” her mom tells her the real reason for her father’s calls: “Because of his cancer, […] he can’t have any more kids” (26). Mia’s father had testicular cancer and underwent aggressive chemotherapy, and although he is now cancer-free, he is also sterile. Mia doesn’t understand why her father cares about having more kids, because he’s “pretty busy running Genovia” (27), and although he has had many girlfriends, he never mentioned wanting to marry any of them or have more kids. Her father is flying to New York to talk to Mia about this, and she wonders why that’s necessary.

Mia’s dad arrives and checks into The Plaza Hotel. Mia remembers that the hotel once refused her entry because she was wearing shorts, but as soon as she put her father on the phone with the concierge, “everybody was apologizing to [her] like crazy” (29). Mia tells Lilly about her father not being able to have kids, and Lilly theorizes that Mia’s dad “still has unresolved issues with his parents” (29). Mia agrees, because “Grandmère is a huge pain in the ass” (29). During G & T (gifted and talented class), Mia and Lilly pass notes. Lilly calls the Russian violinist, Boris, cute, and Mia insists that he isn’t cute because he tucks his sweater into his pants. Lilly says Mia is jealous because “he is a musical genius and you’re flunking Algebra” (31). Mia is offended, and Lilly accuses her of acting strange.