Page 56 of The Dandelion Princess
Caroline gathers her thoughts before she answers. “His Royal Highness is good with people and it shows. He behaves just as an heir to the throne is expected to.”
“Excellent.” Mama strides towards the door and we follow like a line of magnetized toy train cars with me as the caboose. Pèrecatches her hand and we bump to a stop. In one motion, a frisson of hope electrifies the line. Père touched Mama on purpose.
“How doyoufeel it went?” he asks, brushing his thumb over the back of her hand. Can you make a pass at someone you’ve been married to for thirty-five years? That’s what it looks like.
“It went well.” Mama lifts her chin, but she doesn’t withdraw her hand. “The lieutenant commander was particularly impressive. I welcome a deeper association with him, Clara.”
Mama moves on, but Clara turns around and walks backward, her face frozen in a silent scream, her fist shaking in the air. National hero Lieutenant Commander Max Andersen has finally breached the walls of the Summer Palace.
Alma passes her with a congratulatory touch. Her turn will come. The crowd at that game, heckling him and having more fun than they’d ever had in their lives, want Jacob to try and win their princess. They’re dying for him to get on his knees and beg for her.
“I still expect the highest degree of comportment when you’re outside the palace walls,” Mama commands. “It would take nothing for us to be in an all-out war with Prime Minister Torbald.”
“War?” I lift a wicked brow as I follow. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Each day is warmer than the last as we slide into the final days of May. Water pours from the mountains, swelling rivers and streams, and topless sunbathers begin to dot public parks on the best days. The time until Alix’s wedding is measured in weeks.
I represent my mother at the Motovian Embassy, where I sign a condolence book for the grandmother of the present king in my best penmanship, attend a concert at a primary school, and open a charity bazaar. Light duties. In my other life, I lead some of my bestSquadRuncampaigns and help BeastlyDutchOaths map out a syllabus for teaching the War of the Amber Cross. “I knowabout reluctant students,” I tell him. “You have to start by telling them about the pig. Always start with the pig.”
Alix gets around to sending me sketches for bridesmaid’s dresses, and I pretend to have strong opinions about centerpieces and playlists. Jang Mi releases the photo of the Dandelion Tiara and online speculation goes wild. Official denials mean nothing. News about the benefit concert trickles in from Marc’s occasional texts and Alix’s gossip.
And, all the while, Marc’s kiss lingers in my head like a dream, and I feel like a prophet, trying to work out its meaning.
Yasmin and Dahlia invite me to meet them for lunch at Minty’s. The private club, located in a sprawling townhouse and built during the reign of Magda the Great, acts as a bolt hole to some of the most scandalous people in Sondmark. If secrets slip through the heavy black doors, they say, they’re strangled to death in the wine cellar and buried in the yard, never to escape Minty’s again.
Arne, the head waiter, a slight man with thin hair and a professor’s face, escorts me to a table on the garden patio, where the afternoon sun warms my curls. Carefully pruned trees canopy the dining area, dappling the light, and my old schoolmates tilt their heads up. I give them air kisses before sliding into a chair.
“The gauntlet was thick,” I say, referring to the line of paparazzi waiting on the curb. “Is there someone famous here?”
“Lev Kepler,” Dahlia says, adjusting her massive sunglasses and pointing to a distant table, “the model in all those shirtless Calvin Klein ads.”
“Most people think of him as the Dragons’ best striker in a generation,” I say, craning my neck for a better look.
Dahlia gives a throaty laugh. “I don’t.”
Who can blame her? Thanks to the twenty meter ad covering a whole building in Frederickplatz, the entire country knows the precise shape of his innie.
“He’s with Simone Bissette.”
“Where do I know that name?” I ask, no good without the app I developed to quiz me on foreign dignitaries.
“Noah took her out a few times last year,” Yasmin adds, lighting a cigarette and blowing away the smoke.
I roll my eyes. Arne sets a tall lime and Vestfyn on the table and waits, his very aura coaxing me to make an order worthy of the chef. After I do, Yasmin and Dahlia catch me up on their season.
These friends of mine move through the world wearing expensive clothes to polo matches in California and cricket matches in Mumbai. They give generously—and photogenically—to charities around the world and never wear the same bikini twice. When Yasmin slithers out of a club at 3 AM, no governments topple.
“We haven’t seen you in ages,” Yasmin says, nibbling a vegan microgreen salad with probiotic dressing on the side in between taking long drags on her cigarette. “Your new look is— What is it, Dahl?”
Dahlia tips her sunglasses down. “Sexy. Is Queen Helena allowing you out of the house like this, or are you changing in the bathroom like you used to at Saint Sissela’s?”
“It’s not sexy,” I say, glancing down at the fitted skirt. “It’s nearly the same stuff Alma and Clara wear.” Freja’s off in her own fashion fantasyland, and where she goes, few mortals dare follow.
“It doesn’t look this way on Alma,” Dahlia observes. Yasmin nods.
This is the same dispute I had with Marc—I shy away from the memory of where that ended up—and I frown into my fizzydrink. “It’s just PAPZ being PAPZ. When they quit with that silly nickname, people will get used to it.”
Dahlia waves her hand up and down my figure. “You underestimate the male brain, Ells.”
