Then December 21, 1973
Then
The black-and-white uniform is laid out on the bed in front of Monica in her bedroom, so clean and freshly starched that she can hardly believe it’s hers. It is three days to Christmas Eve, and time for her first shift at the mountain hotel in Storlien.
She still can’t get her head around the fact that she has secured a job as a waitress in the area’s most sparkling establishment, where the guests look like the movie stars in the magazines she secretly reads.
Even the king comes here sometimes!
Monica gets shivers down her spine at the thought that she might one day catch a glimpse of him. He is twenty-seven years old, unmarried, and the most attractive royal in Europe. It is well known that he often calls in at the hotel when he is staying in his cabin nearby.
With trembling fingers she gets dressed and inspects the result in the mirror.
The uniform fits her neat figure to perfection.
She is only just over five feet tall, but her new bra works wonders.
She has put up her brown hair to make her look older, and she has applied extra eyeliner for the same reason.
When she is ready, she goes downstairs to show her mom, who is listening to the radio in the living room.
“What do you think?” Monica asks nervously.
Her mother is clearly unimpressed. “Are you supposed to wear such a short skirt for work?”
Monica has turned up the hem so that she will look better. More grown up.
“Yes, this is how it’s meant to be,” she says airily, putting on her coat.
It takes twenty minutes to walk to the hotel.
Monica is breathless with excitement by the time she arrives.
The building is beautifully illuminated, richly decorated with bunches of fir and dark-red velvet rosettes above the entrance.
There are tall Christmas trees on either side of the staircase, and burning torches in cast-iron holders line the path to the impressive double doors.
She has dreamed of this for years, as well as the chance to become independent and earn her own money.
This is a way out, a portal to another world.
Maybe she will meet her future husband among the guests? Someone from Stockholm who will take her away from here, offer her a different life.
She longs to escape from the darkness and the cold, the suffocating atmosphere at home with all the rules and regulations that govern her parents’ lives, and therefore hers.
She will soon be eighteen, it is time to start living for real.
Dreams can come true, she thinks, smiling happily as she makes for the staff entrance.