You can’t leave Michael hanging. Hecould just be flirting with you…but I doubt it. He went to a lot of trouble to send that CardioArm…not to mention Micromini Midori along with it.

And the only way to find out what’s really going on with him is to see him in person. You’ll know when you look him in the eye whether he’s playing or for real.

This is serious, Mia: You could find yourself TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS!!!!

I know you’re probably really upset about this, but is it wrong that I for one find it VERY VERY EXCITING????? Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll stop bouncing up and down in my seat. Someone in the next row just shot me a very annoyed look, and Boris wants me to pay attention to the play now.

I’m glad someone’s happy about it, but I personally am not. I honestly don’t know how it happened. How could I, Mia Thermopolis, go from being the most boring person on the planet (except for the princess thing), who has basically never left her house for the past year and a half because she was always working on her senior project, a history on Genovian olive oil pressing, circa 1254–1650 (and, okay, it was really a historical romance novel, but so what?), to a girl who is being sought after by two highly desirable men?

Really, how????

And, according to my best friend, what I’m supposed to do about it is arrange to meet the one to whom I am not engaged-to-be-engaged….

But how can I arrange to meet Michael now, knowing my weakness for him—especially the smell of his neck—when he might possiblylike me—enough to send my country a CardioArm (and someone to teach our surgeons how to use it)?

I can’t do that to J.P. J.P. has his faults (I still can’t believe he hasn’t read my book), but he’s never met his exes behind my back (not that he has any exes, besides Lilly). He’s neverlied to me.

And admittedly, I don’t think that whole Judith Gershner thing is as big a deal now as I used to, considering it all happened before Michael and I ever went out. I never did flat out ask Michael if he’d ever been with anybody else before me, so, technically, it’s not like he actually lied.

But there is no denying the fact that that was an important piece of information that he really ought to have shared with me. People in romantic relationships really are supposed to share their sexual history with each other. Theircomplete sexual history.

Although I guess hedid share it with me. Eventually.

And I behaved with about as much maturity as a five-year-old. Just like he knew I would.

Oh, God! I’m so confused. I don’t know what to do! I need to talk this all out with someone sane—someone who isnot related to me (see previous statement re: someone sane) or who I go to school with.

Which just leaves Dr. Knutz, I think, unfortunately.

But I’m not seeing him until Friday for what will be our last appointment ever. So.

LUCKY ME!!!! I get to sit around and try to figure out what the right thing to do is on my own until then.

I guess this is how people who are eighteen and soon-to-be high school graduates deal with things.

(You know, there’s someone in this audience who looks so familiar and I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out who it is all night and it finally just hit me: It’s Sean Penn.

No wonder J.P. was acting so nervous before.

Sean Penn, his favorite director, is here in the audience for the big performance of his play,A Prince Among Men . J.P. must have told him about the show when they were talking on the boat at my birthday party. Either that, or Stacey did, since she’s been in one of Sean Penn’s movies before.

That’s awfully nice of Mr. Penn to come.)

Anyway. I know I’ve got to text Michael back. After all, I’m the one who said I wanted to meet him in person. I just left him hanging after that last text when he said that nice thing about how he did it for me and not my dad or Genovia.

But I don’t know what to say, exactly!I can’t tonight seems obvious since it’s after eight already.

On the other hand, people who’ve graduated from high school stay out really late, so maybe this wouldn’t seem obvious to him.

But Tina’s right. I do have to see him.

How about:

Hi, Michael! Tonight won’t work (obviously), and tomorrow night is Boris’s senior project (his concert at Carnegie Hall). Friday is Senior Skip Day. Are you free for lunch on Friday? Mia

Lunch is good, right? Lunch isn’t sexy or anything. You can have lunch and still just be friends. Friends of the opposite sex have lunch all the time and there’s nothing in the least romantic about it.

There. I sent it.

I think that was a good text. I didn’t sayLove, Mia or anything like that. I didn’t get into the stuff about how he gave the CardioArm to Genovia because of me and not my dad. I was just breezy and casual, and—

Oh my God, he wrote back. Already!

Mia,

Friday for lunch is great. Want to meet at the Central Park Boathouse, lakeside, one o’clock?

Love,

Michael

The Boathouse! Friends don’t have lunch at the Boathouse. Well, I mean, they do, but…it’s not casual or breezy. You have to have reservations to get a table, and the lakeside restaurant is sort of…romantic. Even at lunchtime.

And he signed itLOVE, MICHAEL ! Again! Why does he keep SAYING that?

Oh—everyone is clapping….

Ack! Is it intermission already?

 

Wednesday, May 3, 10:00 p.m., the Ethel

Lowenbaum Theater

Okay.

Okay, so J.P.’s play is about a character named J.R., who’s pretty much exactly like J.P. I mean, he’s a handsome, wealthy boy (played by Andrew Lowenstein), who goes to a fancy New York City prep school, which also just happens to be attended by the princess of a small European principality. At the beginning of the play, J.R. is very lonely, because his only hobbies include throwing bottles off the rooftop of his apartment building, writing in his journal, and picking corn out of the chili the lunch ladies in his school cafeteria serve him. This makes his relationship with his self-centered parents very rocky, and he is teetering on the brink of wanting to move to Florida to live with his grandparents.

But then one day the princess, Rhea (played by Stacey Cheeseman, who wears a blue plaid school uniform skirt in the play that, by the way, is much shorter than I’ve ever worn any of mine), goes up to J.R. in the caf and actually asks him to sit with her at lunch, and J.R.’s whole life changes. Suddenly, he starts listening to his shrink about not throwing bottles off the top of his apartment building, and his relationship with his parents improves, and he stops wanting to move to Florida. Soon, it’s all about the beautiful princess, who falls in love with J.R., because of his wit and kindness.

I could tell that the play was about me and J.P. He had changed our names (barely), and a little bit of the details, but who else could it be about?

The thing was, I’m used to people making movies based on my life, and with them taking little liberties with the facts about that life.

But the people who made those movies don’t know me! They weren’t there when the things they were showing actually happened.

But J.P. was. The things he had Andrew and Stacey saying in his play…I mean, they’re things J.P. and I have actually said to each other…and J.P. has the actors in his play saying them completely out of context!

For instance, there is a scene where Princess Rhea drinks a beer and does a sexy dance and totally embarrasses herself in front of her ex-boyfriend.

Which, okay, totally happened.

But shouldn’t that be something that stays private between a boyfriend and a girlfriend? Did J.P.have to go and share that with everyone we know (even if everyone we know pretty much already knows about it)?

And J.P. has J.R. nobly standing by the princess’s side and supporting her (despite the sexy dancing, which I guess is supposed to make everyone hate her and think she’s such a slut and all). Right now there’s a scene going on where Stacey Cheeseman is tearfully explaining to Andrew Lowenstein that she could understand it if he didn’t want to be with her, because he’ll never be able to have a normal life with her, what with all the beer swilling and sexy dancing and the fact that there’ll always be paparazzi chasing them around. And then if they were ever to get married (!!!!), of course he’ll have to become a prince, and lose all his anonymity, and as royal consort, he’ll always have to walk five feet behind her and never be allowed to drive race cars.

But Andrew Lowenstein is saying, in a very patient voice as he holds Stacey Cheeseman’s hand and looks lovingly into her eyes, that he doesn’t care, he just loves her so much, he’d be willing to suffer any indignity for her, even her sexy dancing and his having to become a prince….

Oh, and now everyone is clapping like crazy as the curtain falls, and J.P. is joining the cast as they come out to take their bows….

I just…I just don’t get it. I mean…his play is aboutus .

Only not really. Half the stuff in it didn’t even technically happen the way he has it happening.

Can youdo that?

I guess so. He just did.

 

Wednesday, May 3, 11 p.m., the loft

Dear Author,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript,Ransom Your Heart , with Tremaine Publications. Although your work shows promise, we don’t feel we have a place for it at this time. We apologize for the fact that, due to the volume of submissions we receive, we cannot give you a more detailed critique of your work. Thank you for thinking of Tremaine!

Sincerely,

Tremaine Publications

Thanks for nothing, Tremaine Publications.

Anyway, J.P.’s play was a huge success.

Of course, he passed the senior projects committee with flying colors.

But that’s not all:

Sean Penn wants to option it.

Which basically means Sean Penn—Sean Penn—wants to makeA Prince Among Men into a movie.

Which I’m totally happy about. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled for J.P.

And there are already so many movies about my life. What’s one more, right?

It’s just…WHEN IS IT GOING TO BE MY TURN?

Seriously. When is someone going to recognize somethingI’ve done? Other than bring democracy to a small European nation, which frankly no one seems to care about.

I don’t mean to whine (which I know is hilarious, because it’s basically all I ever do in my journal), but for God’s sake. I don’t think it’s fair that a guy can write a play (which is basically a huge chunk of MY life that he’s more or less STOLEN), throw it up onto a stage, then get a movie deal with Sean Penn.

Whereas I slave—yes, slave—over a book for months, and I can’t even get a publisher to look at it.

Come on!

And I’m going to tell you the truth: I didn’t like that Sean Penn movieInto the Wild so much.

Yes!I know it was critically acclaimed! I know it won all these awards! It’s very sad that boy is dead and all. But I thought the movieEnchanted , with the singing princess and the chipmunk and the people dancing in Central Park, was cuter.

So there!

Anyway, J.P. came up and asked me how I likedA Prince Among Men . (“I was exploring the theme of self-discovery,” he explained to me, “a boy’s journey toward manhood and the woman who helped him find his way from troubled childhood to the full realization of what it means to become a man…and eventually even to become a prince.” He didn’t mention anything about exploring the theme of sexy dancing.)

I told him I liked it a lot. What else could I say? I guess if it hadn’t been about me, I really would have liked it. Except that the princess came off as this kind of kooky girl, who always needs her boyfriend to bail her out of the zany situations she gets herself into, and I don’t actually think I’m like that. I don’t think I need any rescuing at all, actually.

But it seemed the wrong time to give him editorial notes. And I was glad I didn’t, because he seemed so pleased to hear me say I liked it. He wanted me to come out with him and Sean Penn and his parents and Stacey Cheeseman and Andrew Lowenstein so we could all talk about his movie deal. Sean Penn was taking everyone, including the senior projects committee, to Mr. Chow’s for a celebratory meal.

But I said I couldn’t go. I said I had to go home and study for my Psych final.

Which, I will admit, was not very friendly of me. Especially since I don’t have to study for my Psych final at all. I have Psych down cold. After all, I was best friends for most of my life with a girl whose parents were psychiatrists. Then I dated her brother. And now I’min therapy.