CHAPTER ELEVEN
I’d stayed up way too late working on a mood board for Hyacinth’s birthday party. It was so easy to assemble my ideas, as I knew exactly how I wanted things to look, but I needed to run everything past Claudia before I presented it to Hyacinth and Marie. I had a chef/caterer in mind who specialized in delicious Italian dishes and a baker who made the most incredible cakes; I knew both were more than capable of filling in last minute. For a substantial fee, of course.
Because it had been a few years since I’d been a teenager, I went online to do research for what Hyacinth might enjoy.
It occurred to me that Nico’s youngest sister, Princess Serafina, was close in age to Hyacinth, so I looked up some of the princess’s interests. Her favorite American band just happened to be a local one called Silver Cup. I made a note to get in touch with their manager in the morning. If they had availability, they would be perfect for the event.
Staying up most of the night meant that when my phone rang at seven o’clock in the morning, I was completely out of it.
“Hello?” I mumbled.
“Everly? Why aren’t you awake yet?”
I stifled a groan. It was my mother. I loved her dearly, but she always made me feel like I was falling short—in my personal life, at work, with exercising and eating healthy food—whatever it was that I participated in, my mom thought I could be doing it better.
She was an extremely early riser, preferring to get up before the sun, and thought the rest of the world should do the same.
“It’s the weekend,” I told her with a groan, but she breezed past it.
“Did you go out last night like you’d planned?”
I turned over and put an arm across my eyes. I could hear our neighbors yelling next door and wondered whether Vella would make good on her threats and glue their front door shut.
This was all my fault. Not the next-door argument, but me telling my mother that I couldn’t call her back yesterday because I was going out with Vella. I had given her ammunition.
“Yes, I went out last night.”
“And did you meet someone?”
“I did,” I said, trying not to sigh because I knew exactly where this was going. It was like my mother was starring in a one-woman play called You’re a Disappointment and performed it every night of my life.
I figured it was one of the reasons why we bonded so much over our mutual love for royals. My mom never criticized me when it came to that kind of stuff. When we talked about our favorite princes and princesses, I could just enjoy her as a person without her trying to fix me.
“And?” she prompted.
“He gave me his number.” Along with his actual phone.
“Are you going to see him again?”
Probably when I returned his cell, but other than that, no. “I don’t think I’m his type,” I told her.
She sighed. “If you just made a little more effort with your appearance and tried to be more outgoing, I think that—”
Now it was my turn to sigh loudly. My whole life my mom had been trying to turn me into someone I wasn’t and I’d never understood why. “Don’t worry about it, Mom. Things are well under control here.”
Someday I would meet a man, and hopefully he wouldn’t make my life as miserable as my dad had made hers.
Part of me wondered what she would do if I said that to her. If I was completely honest—that I didn’t understand why she pushed so hard for me to get into a relationship when her own had turned out so badly.
I didn’t, though. If there was one thing southern mamas taught their children, it was to be respectful.
I had never told her about my crush on Adrian, either. She would be like a dog with a bone and I wouldn’t ever hear the end of it. She would push me to make a move or tell him about my attraction or wear a padded bra and high heels to catch his attention.
As if she somehow intuited that I was thinking about my job, she asked, “What about work? You have to be more assertive and go after what you want. Don’t let people boss you around and not recognize you for all the hard work you’re doing.”
“I’m actually in charge of planning an event where, if it goes well, I’ll get a promotion.”
“Which is how it should be,” she said with satisfaction. “It’s about time. You have let them take you for granted for too long.”
It made me sad that my mom saw only my shortcomings, and not my awesome parts. When I was at an event, I was the person who inspired confidence, who kept my cool in difficult situations and always found a solution.
But just because I wasn’t actively pursuing meeting someone or being the girl boss my mom thought I should be, it didn’t mean that I was falling short.
“Speaking of that event, I need to go. I have a lot of work to do.” Technically it wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t planning on doing any of that work right now, but I did have a lot of work to do for the birthday party.
“Okay, I’ll text you soon. Love you!”
“Love you,” I said.
There was a crashing noise from Vella’s room, and I wondered whether she had busted a hole through her bedroom wall so that she could deal with our neighbors, who apparently had no concept of time or social boundaries.
I put my phone down on the table near my bed and lay there for a bit, thinking about my call with my mom and my encounter with Max.
Before last night, I would have said that I had some sort of feelings for Adrian. I knew him better than anybody else in the world, and he was very handsome and wealthy and on paper was a total Prince Charming.
But all it had taken was Max smiling at me and being polite and I’d been ready to drop Adrian like a bad habit. It made me think that my feelings for Adrian were pretty superficial and I was a much shallower person than I’d realized.
Or maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction to Adrian getting engaged—latching on to someone else as a way to make myself feel better.
I wasn’t sure.
And I wished I had someone to talk to about it. My mom would have taken it all wrong, and Vella only seemed to care about whether or not I hooked up with Max for the good of all womankind.
Meeting Max last night and my mother’s comments this morning had me reevaluating my life.
I didn’t want to be alone. I absolutely wanted to find my person, my prince, who would make me feel like I was in my own fairy tale. My own parents’ relationship had been so spectacularly unhealthy that I had resorted to wanting a mythological romance that seemed to exist only in books. Like I had to find the opposite of what they’d shared. Work hadn’t really allowed that to happen, as I always had so much to do. I’d been stuck in a holding pattern for a very long time.
My phone beeped—it was one of the online alerts I’d set up for Nico and Kat. They had gone to the opening of a new hospital with their kids, and I looked at the picture of their family.
Kat had been a regular American girl just like me who’d turned her life into something worthy of storybooks.
Why couldn’t I do the same?
If she were in my position, what would Kat do?
Huh. Maybe I should make that my motto. WWKD?
I started writing a list with changes I was going to make in my life. They included:
Put myself out there more—in business and in my personal life. I would try to meet people and stop hiding in this apartment so much and using work as an excuse. I would speak up in the office because I had good ideas.
Fake confidence until I felt it for real. I would stop second-guessing myself at work.
Be a good friend. Kat was an amazing friend, fiercely loyal and loving.
Remember to be kind. The queen was thoughtful and caring to the people around her.
Let go of my crush on Adrian. In some ways it was holding me back. I used our “what if?” potential to shove other men away as possibilities.
Do more charitable work. It had always felt good to help other people; I didn’t know why I had forgotten about that part of myself.
Look fabulous while doing it.
I worried a little about the last one. Despite being annoyed by my mother’s suggestion, I knew that I probably should spend more time on my appearance. It made a difference in my industry, whether or not I wanted to admit it. I’d always gone for comfort over style.
My rack of clothes was against the wall next to the foot of my bed, and I looked at it, remembering how I’d felt when I wore the dress that looked like Kat’s. It had given me faith in myself, confidence. A belief that I could be like Kat.
I wanted that feeling again.
I opened up my laptop and did a search for “how to dress like Queen Katerina.” I found a website run by fans who called themselves “Copy-Kats,” and the content was devoted to Kat’s fashion sense. Not only did they have pictures of her in various outfits, but they also included links to where to buy either the same dress or a close replica.
This would be my first step in my WWKD journey.
Choosing to believe in myself and that I would get the promotion when my event was successful, I maxed out my credit cards and bought a bunch of her outfits. It probably wasn’t a wise financial decision, but fortunately being smart with money wasn’t on my self-improvement list.
I’d have to hope the money followed as I improved myself and my situation.
This was going to work. I’d get my life back on track and manifest the things I wanted. I decided that when I had the chance, I was going to make a vision board for my new future.
A big portion of that was probably going to be dedicated to men with dark hair and light eyes. If I wanted to date someone like Max, I was going to have to actually do the things on my list.
I suspected it wouldn’t be too hard, especially the whole moving-past-my-Adrian-crush thing. All I’d have to do was remember Max offering me his arm and Adrian would be completely banished from my brain.
The thought made me grimace. Maybe I was just trading one obsession for another. I should put a rubber band around my wrist to ward off my intrusive thoughts—if I was feeling nostalgic about Adrian or wishing that I could date Max, I’d snap it to remind myself to not be ridiculous.
Because Max was a pipe dream—a romantic comedy hero come to life for a single night before disappearing back into the genie’s bottle he’d popped out of.
Since I was already up, I went ahead and got ready for my day and had breakfast. I worked on the party for a few hours until it was time to go over to Adrian’s apartment to let the electrician in.
Just as I was about to leave, I heard a phone ringing.
It wasn’t mine, and Vella was still in bed asleep and made a point of turning her phone off so that it didn’t inadvertently wake her up.
Then I realized that it was Max’s phone.
His coat was still on the couch and I reached into the pocket. I checked the screen, but the call was from an unknown number. It might have been one of Max’s many women, but I felt like I should answer it just in case.
“Hello?”
“Everly? This is Max. It seems you have my phone.”
“I do,” I said breathlessly, sitting down because it was exciting to hear his voice again. “Accidentally. I’m sorry I didn’t return it to you last night.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask for it back. I would have called you last night but I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“That was very considerate of you. My mom called me so early this morning it felt like I traveled back in time.”
I wanted to smack myself in the forehead. Why had I said that? He didn’t care.
He laughed, and I didn’t know if it was out of politeness or if he thought I was actually funny. “This works out well because we can hang out again. Can we meet up today? Like in an hour or so? We could have lunch.”
Disappointment welled up inside me. I wished that I were free and could have a meal with him. It would fit into my whole putting-myself-out-there-more resolution, but I’d made a commitment. “I have to go over to my boss’s place to let an electrician in.”
There was silence and I worried he might ask me to leave his stuff with Vella so that he could just pick it up.
“If you want to meet me there, I could give you the address,” I said hopefully. I didn’t want to pressure him or anything, but if this was going to be the last chance I had to talk to him in person, I should take it so that I could appreciate his extremely symmetrical face one more time.
“Sure, why don’t you ...” His voice trailed off and he laughed. “I was about to say ‘Why don’t you text me the address,’ but that’s not going to be possible. And I don’t have a notebook and pen at the ready like some people, so hang on a second.”
I nodded and then immediately felt stupid because he couldn’t see me. “Okay.”
While I waited, I tried not to grin too hard. It had been only a couple of hours since I’d come up with my list of ways that I could be more like Kat and it was already paying off.