Chapter 36 The Wheels Turn
THE WHEELS TURN
A few things happened on Monday.
“That seems like pretty much everybody in Germany,” Ben said, and we all agreed.
Will my Chanel skirt even fit me anymore after this?
My doctor scolds me constantly over my weight.
She calls me “frail” and tells me that’s a bad thing, as if I haven’t always been the same.
She at least should be happy about all this butter and cream.
“And here we see the problem with royalty,” Alix said. “You can’t even get rid of the crazy ones.”
“You have no regrets, then?” Angela asked her.
“Who, me?” Alix looked startled.
“About not living as a princess anymore,” Angela said.
“Not even a tiny little bit,” Alix said cheerfully.
“Absolutely no desire. How can I? I’m American all the way.
Although we do want this tiara back.” We’d told them about our search—how could Ashleigh resist?
—and they were now eagerly following Ashleigh’s channel, or so they said, though that may have been politeness.
Our view count, Ashleigh had proudly informed us, was almost two million now and still rising.
We were in the car on the way back to Dresden when Alix’s phone rang. She picked up—rather rude, I always think, in company—said, “Yes,” a few times, and “Definitely” another, then rang off and announced, “Annnddddd … we have a contract. I’m forwarding it to your lawyer right now, Oma.”
“Oh, wow,” Ashleigh said happily. “Just in time, after we’ve built up all this suspense and have the whole sympathetic story, including the romance. Perfect.”
What did I think? I couldn’t have told you.
I was excited, certainly, though it would be poignant, too, to see the tiara again, and remember it on my mother’s shining head as Lippert readied her for the opera.
Her loving smile in the mirror, her scent when she kissed me …
how I wished I’d had a chance to get past my adolescent opposition and truly know the woman she was!
It was perhaps fortunate that Ashleigh’s phone rang at that moment. She picked up also—had nobody learned better manners than this?—but when she began exclaiming, “Yes. Yes, definitely. Sure. Yes,” in an excited tone, I grew curious.
From behind me, after “Goodbye,” I heard, “YESSSSS!” It was accompanied by Ashleigh throwing her hands into the air and dancing in her seat.
Perhaps not the wisest exclamation when sitting directly behind a man operating a piece of heavy machinery at eighty miles an hour, but Sebastian, to his credit, didn’t flinch.
“What?” Ben asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Ashleigh said happily. “Just that a German TV network—ZDF—hang on, hang on—ooh, the biggest network in Germany! Sixty-five million viewers per month. Oh, score.”
“What about them, though?” Ben asked.
“They want to interview us, that’s all,” Ashleigh said happily.
“Mrs. Stark—they called you Princess Marguerite instead; isn’t that great?
—of course, and me, because I’m producing your story, and Alix, because she’s the new princess.
Sorry, no boys allowed. And they want to go along if we actually ever get to look for the tiara.
We’re in prime time, baby! Also, Mrs. Stark?
My parents say I’m supposed to say ‘thank you’ for all the stuff you’ve been paying for. ”
“You should really thank Sebastian, then,” I said.
“Oh! she said. “I totally forgot. My dad’s embarrassed to ask—I’m supposed to be casual about it—but he’s a major football geek, so if you could, like, do an autograph or something, Sebastian?”
“I can send him a signed jersey if you like,” Sebastian said. “They give you all these game jerseys, and I never know what to do with them.”
“Ooh,” Ashleigh said. “The Super Bowl one?”
“Nope,” Sebastian said good-naturedly. “But I’ll tell him what game it’s from.”
“As long as you won it,” Ashleigh said.
“Dude,” Ben said, sounding pained.
So, yes, we did an interview that afternoon.
Ashleigh was as excited as a squirrel who’d just found her missing cache of nuts, and told the interviewer that she was going back to school to become a documentary filmmaker.
I wondered whether her parents knew about this.
Alix expressed her love for her grandfather and me and talked about how much the trip had meant to her—I teared up a bit at that, which the reporter seemed excited about—and I wore my Chanel suit and tried not to look old.
I’m fairly sure I was the least successful of us.
Never mind, though, because at eleven the next morning, we were all—the five of us, the museum authorities, and the TV crew—going to descend into the bowels of the palace again to find the tiara.
That would be Tuesday, and Friday night was the opera.
On Saturday, we left for home. Without the tiara, of course, as it would be held in escrow, but we’d know we were on our way to retrieving it.
Perfect, you see.
Pity I’d be wearing the ugly shoes for my big moment on screen. Vanity, it seems, is the last thing to die.