Page 16 of Role Model
Chapter Eight
I sit between Cassidy and Richard at dinner. He tells me to call him Richie. I don’t think I’ll call him anything. I feel a little betrayed, even though I know that’s stupid. He could have told me who he was. He knew me, after all. But then again, he probably never has to tell people who he is; they just know.
There are so many food courses and they all look too complicated and strange. I watch as Richard and Cassidy eat without any issue. Food sometimes makes me nervous. Taste and texture can overstimulate me without any warning, but I don’t like to bring it up because then people accuse you of being fussy and they tut and roll their eyes. A lot of the vegetables in these courses are cooked, and I only like them raw. I do my best to eat as much as I can, but each bite makes me more and more anxious.
60“So,” I finally ask Cassidy a question as the plates are once again cleared for the next part of the meal. “What’s it like in the White House?”
Cassidy acknowledges my question with a sideways glance and then indicates that she’s chewing, and will therefore need a moment before answering. After swallowing her guinea fowl, she turns to smile at me. “It’s a bit like this place. Old. Big. Some of it private, some of it public. My friends love coming over though.”
I feel a twinge of envy. “Really?”
“Yeah, they come over most days. They love bothering the secret service. It’s fun.”
I glance down the long, narrow table. Everyone else is deeply involved in dinner conversation, none of the grownups are paying attention to us.
“Yeah, same,” I hear myself lie. “My friends like Downing Street more than I do.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cassidy grins, surprised. “What do they think about you going so viral? I would have thought that might make things weird.”
Being honest about my friends, if you can even use that word, is harder than telling a lie. I know it’s wrong, but the untruth comes as naturally as breathing. “They’ve been great. They help me avoid the photographers at school. They come to my house61because it’s a lot of hassle going out in public. And yeah, they make fun of my security guard as well. They’re the best.”
I’m not a bad kid. I don’t know why I lie.
After a very underwhelming dessert, Richard takes Cassidy and I for a walk around the public parts of the palace. His nanny, a member of the secret service and Ilya follow us at a respectable distance.
“Is this your favourite of your palaces?” Cassidy asks sarcastically.
“No way,” Richard says, refusing to be offended. “This one’s super draughty.”
Cassidy laughs, but I can’t join in. As I look at the paintings and the furnishings and the ceilings as high as a church tower, I think of the people I see on my way to school. The ones laying down on cardboard or wrapping scarves around their dogs. The ones who move from bench to bench, because so many walls and windows now have spikes to keep them away.
It’s not Richie’s fault. But I can’t laugh.
*
A photographer eventually appears and the three of us know what is expected. We stand together, not in62a straight line, but in a small semi-circle with Richie in the middle. Richie says something, trying to be funny and so Cassidy throws her head back and laughs. It almost sound genuine. I try to smile but the photographer has to prompt me.
“Smile, Aeriel. Come on, chin up.”
I try but I know how terrible I am at pretending to enjoy myself. I try. I force a grimace and I hope it at least looks all right on camera.
When I meet with Keren before school the following day, I realise that whatever I did was passable.
“You really do have to get better at smiling,” she tells me, as people bustle around us. Mum left for a meeting before dawn and Dad is getting Gideon ready for a badminton lesson. Fizz is nowhere around, of course. Probably staying with her friends in Camden. Or Brixton. Or Stratford.
“I’ll try,” I tell Keren, looking down at the newspaper in front of me.
Some newspapers don’t care what the children of world leaders do, but other really fixate on it. I stare at the printed photograph of the three of us. Cassidy and Richie look so at ease. I look like an alien.
“She needs to get to school,” Ilya says gruffly, from his usual place by the door.
63“Yes, yes,” Keren sighs irritably. “But tonight you’re doing that live interview with the BBC. I don’t want tired and crabby; I want bright and inspiring. Got me?”
I push the newspaper away and grab my schoolbag. “Okay, Keren.”
“Good girl.”
Ilya never says anything on our drives to school but today he tells me to wait before opening the car door.
