Page 5 of The Impossible Princess
I never hear the click of the camera that takes the picture seen around the world.
3
Laser Eyes
CLARA
When we return to the palace, lasers are shooting from Mama′s eyes. Not actual lasers, just metaphorical ones with crawling text that reads, ”No one in the 800-year tradition of Sondmark Violet Presentations has ever managed to turn it into such a thorough-going cock-up as you have.”
Pewgoes the Sèvres vase.Blastgoes the heraldic crest.Pop, pop, popgo the marble treads on the staircase.
My head is high and I look calm, but I′m gripping my handbag like it′s the last life preserver on a sinking ship. It was Max Andersen, I decide. I got cocky thinking how easy it would be to run the presentation with most of my thoughts centered around a certain officer. Eight years of perfection and I practically dared hubris to knock me down. Eight years, all gone in a single moment.
Even though this is one of the least important royal responsibilities, my mother treats it with all the gravity of welcoming foreign dignitaries or signing peace treaties. She′s always held the belief that following protocol is more important than personal comfort or creative expression. This is fine. She′s the queen. But my thoughts slip away from this line of filial duty.If Lieutenant Commander Andersen and his slow smile hadn′t distracted me— Vede, why does it have to be such a tightrope? I′m trying.A mountain of defeat landslides onto my lungs. I can′t breathe, and I want to cry.Clara, you′ve messed up again.
Before I can stop it, my mind drags out the events of last year, replaying them like a hard-nosed prosecutor with a quota to meet. The images are bright. Graduation from Stanford with my parents in the crowd, the decorous dinner party they hosted before travelling on to Ottawa, celebrating grad night in the tiniest, shiniest dress I own, the race to the airport in the morning to hop on the family jet, and sleeping almost the entire flight. Then, high above the skies of Handsel, discovering that my sorority sisters had replaced every stitch of my luggage with decorative pillows and that the cabin attendant, a man, was not my size. I remember the panic. So much panic.
There is nothing quite like returning to one′s country and being greeted by press photographers, a brass band, and local officials while wearing a sequined, thigh-skimming dress.
A shudder rolls across my shoulders, and the palace doors click shut. Père waves off the butler and it′s only family for once. Mama takes a deep breath, then another, and when she blinks, her expression is tight with conspicuous patience. It is an expression I have grown familiar with this year but never imagined I would encounter today. The Violet Presentation is the first official duty given to a young princess precisely because it is impossible to ruin.
Or it was.
Though it looks like she wishes she could resurrect some of the grislier punishments of Frederick IV, her words are even.
“I am aware these things happen,” Mama says. But there is a tone in her voice that suggests she is aware in the same way that equatorial societies know that some people, somewhere, spend their winters surrounded by snow and darkness. She is aware but unfamiliar with these things that happen.
She doesn′t even need to finish her thoughts. I can read them clearly.What has happened today will not ever happen again.The words are chiseled into my brain.
Mama wheels to the left, and Ella tugs my arm, peeling me away from the Great Hall. ”What in the name of Erasmus′s cap was that?”
I thrust my handbag at her and begin fanning my underarms, my face, tugging at my neckline. ”It was nothing,” I huff, galloping up the stairs.
It wasnotnothing.
I can′t exactly be fired from the family business, but Mama′s banked fury feels like the unpaid intern got a scathing performance review from the CEO in an office-wide email. Fifteen years ago, Alma performed the same presentation, accidentally calling the captain ”Père” and we′ve only recently started laughing about it. I figure my faux pas will be spoken of in hushed tones twenty years from now, and I′m sweating so much this dress is probably ruined forever. ”It′s not the end of the world. I know she′ll calm down. Tomorrow—”
“She? No, Clara, what was that with your Navy officer?” Ella, who never seems to take any of Mama’s disapproval to heart, is grinning.
I halt outside my door. I’m not ready for that talk. “Can I give you the postmortem tomorrow?” I plead. Today is a day for catastrophizing and histrionics.
She gives me a penetrating look. Finally, she lifts her shoulder. ”Okay,” she answers, tugging on my hair.
I push through the door, very deliberately do not slam it, kick off my really sexy heels, and flop backward onto the bed. This is not how today was supposed to go.
My plan was to spend the rest of my day looking for internet footage of the entire Queen′s Day ceremony and replaying my common, ordinary exchange with a certain lieutenant commander. I hadn’t expected to almost fall on my face on national television.
I pull up a video and see myself handing him a posy of flowers, trapped like a mouse in the high-walled maze of official protocol. His eyes hardly meet my face and he seems to have some difficulty placing his bunch of violets into his hatband. ”Goodbye for another year,” I thought as Lieutenant Commander Andersen wheeled from me.
I was careful not to show my disappointment. I resolved to accept the next date I was asked on, or to say yes to one of Mama′s arranged introductions, and to turn off notifications forVrouwAndersen′s occasional social media posts. I thought that it had been a ridiculous year, and it was time to move on.
And then disaster. I watch as, alone in the center of the parade ground, Max caught me as though, alongside rescue diving and navigation, he had trained for this too.
“Regret, regret, regret,” I said when we untangled and he set me on my feet, rising to his own. I knew the faux pas would reinforce my public image of being an inconsequential lightweight, but I smiled anyway. The press had to see that I could take setbacks with good humor. My mother had to see that I could handle this. “I hope I haven’t scuffed your uniform. It would be a shame to disarrange such perfection.”
Such a narrow, impossible line I am being asked to walk. The weight of my role—a role I want and am anxious to show I′m capable of—settles on my shoulders as my mind replays the event over and over. I mean to dissect what went wrong—what I did wrong—but I keep halting at the smile he gave me after I fell all over him.
I wasn′t prepared for what it did to me in the flesh. At that moment, I wanted to forget that I was a grown woman in a position of responsibility under the glare of the watchful press. I very much wanted to disarrange his uniform.
