12. First Gentleman
12
First Gentleman
ALMA
The afternoon brings more disputations. Jacob fights us about shoe fastenings, metal finishes, and sweater vests. He glowers at Karl, his patience as thin as the dense, dry bread we serve with tea. “Do I look like a sweater vest guy?”
I like this man, and I don’t want to. The feeling is like a tiny colony in a new territory, and my only hope is that influenza or a bad winter or hostile natives will wipe it out. In the meantime, the unwelcome emotion doesn’t stop me from rolling my eyes. I like him, but Jacob Gardner is an obstinate pain in the neck.
I conduct a swift online search and find a British footballer, beard neatly trimmed, checked shirt under a sweater vest open at the throat, sleeves pulled up his tattooed forearms. The image is intensely masculine, showcasing the way a sweater vest can be a classic way to introduce color, texture, and pattern in less-formal settings. I hand over the tablet and go up on my tip toes, directing his attention over his shoulder.
“Is this that soccer player?” Jacob asks.
“Football,” I correct, reaching around him. I zoom in on the picture with the push of my fingers, feeling my pulse leap, noting it like a scientist clicking her pen. “You could get away with something quite fitted.” Our eyes meet, and I pin on a coaxing smile. “This decision could single-handedly revive the dwindling sheep breeds of northern Europe. You might even save the economy of the Vorburgian Isles.”
His chin tips up and away, an uneven, unwilling smile on his face. “I’ll try one .”
I flash Karl a look of triumph, and the aide sends Jacob a glower. “Her Royal Highness says try it, you try it. I say try it—”
Mr. Tumwater digs into his notions box and hands me a slim leather notebook. “I’ll measure, and you’ll stand next to me and record.”
I’ve been measured thousands of times and know exactly what it entails. The idea of weaving myself around Jacob makes my knees soft. “I don’t want to mess it up.”
“Write what I tell you,” he says, dismissing my concern.
I position myself near the crown prince. I can do this. I can. I once faked enthusiasm for the workings of the internal combustion engine because I had a crush on a boy in the fifth form. I can certainly fake being bored by this task. Piece of cake.
“Take your jacket off,” the tailor instructs.
Jacob shrugs out of it and turns, folding the article over the arm of a chair like a boxer draping his robe over the ropes. His shoulders roll under the synthetic cloth, the fabric straining over his bulk when he places his hands on his hips.
I’m pale in the effort to command my pulse, my color, my thoughts. “His shirt has too much material around his waist,” I blurt.
Karl joins us, his expression critical. “I noticed that.”
I train my eyes on the rest of the shirt, cataloging its deficiencies. It’s worn and creased. Though recently laundered, the white of it is no longer that of new snow, freshly fallen. This snow has seen smokestacks and industrialization, possibly a curry dinner.
“We’ll begin with the neck,” Mr. Tumwater instructs.
The tailor measures his arms, shoulders, and chest, speaking quietly as he asks me to record, occasionally asking me to hold the end of his tape. This close to Jacob, I try to imagine we’re measuring a piece of furniture for placement in a dorm room, but as with Napoleon marching into Russia, some endeavors are doomed to fail. I press the back of a hand against my cheek, fanning slightly when Mr. Tumwater adjusts the placement of the tape.
“This is how you find the natural waist,” the tailor tells me. I set my jaw and follow him around to the front. “Bend to the side, sir.” Jacob bends and Mr. Tumwater guides my hand to the furrow, friendly and educational.
“Can you find the other side?” he asks, taking the notebook. He steps back and I square up in front of our subject.
It should be nothing. It should be like dissecting a clam, identifying the parts from a reference guide. I feel my way to the narrow point on his other side and wonder how Mr. Tumwater will reduce this poetry to numbers and notations—something mathematical and scientific. “Here?” I whisper.
“Excellent, ma’am,” the tailor says when I step back. He passes the tape around Jacob, reading and reporting the centimeters. I scribble them into the book, knowing I can’t transmit any of this information to Mama.
He’s high-waisted and long-limbed. I know the way his broad shoulders taper and that his right arm is a fraction longer than the other. I know that his breathing checks when I stand close. Mama doesn’t need to know any of this.
By the time Mr. Tumwater takes the little book from my hand, my skin is hot and cold. Freja would give me a cookie. Ella would tell me to build a pillow fort and take to my bed. Clara would ask me how I’ve managed to get away with groping a man for the good of the country.
Karl orders one tuxedo, several sport coats, and two suits—one in blue wool and the other in charcoal gray—to test the fit before further adjustments. For his casual clothes, we decide on classic chinos and slim fitted button-down shirts. No skinny jeans. This decision was reached after a protracted argument about the width of his shoulders during which I did more touching than was strictly necessary.
“I’ll compile a list of ready-to-wear options for your approval, ma’am,” Karl says, packing away our materials. He turns to Jacob. “I’ll meet you in your suite for our lessons, sir.”
“Not tonight.” The words leap from my mouth. Caroline glances up.
I know how little time we have. I know how perfect he has to be before we cast him onto the world. I know. I know. But he’s tired. I can see it around his eyes and in the way he kneads the back of his neck.
“This is enough for today.”
Karl pinches his lips. “I hoped to start explaining historical pronunciation shifts and the Exceptional Consonant Stretch.”
I cannot leave the crown prince to such a fate. “Tomorrow,” I say.
“As you like.” Karl gives a curt nod and lifts a box from Caroline’s arms, following her up the hall.
There’s something about the way he does it that makes me ask, “Is she in for an evening of linguistic history?”
“He’s not that nice to anyone,” Jacob observes.
He lifts my work bag from my shoulder and opens the door, ushering me from the room. A strange fact, probably gleaned from one of those nature documentaries narrated by Daavi Drikkidorp, slips into my consciousness. Sea walruses can return to a beach filled with ten thousand other sea walruses and know by scent and sound the one sea walrus who belongs to them. It’s a miracle, that kind of connection. I thought it was. But I could close my eyes right now and know exactly who I’m walking with, know the sound of his step, and know how to keep pace at his side.
I let myself feel the exhilaration of danger for a moment—of standing in too-deep water and having a wave strike me on the back, pushing me off my toes. Sooner or later, I have to return to the shore, soaked to the skin.
When we enter the Great Hall, Clara speeds past us, fastening an earring and racing to the foot of the stairs, balanced on impossibly high heels.
“Where are you headed?” I ask, using English for Jacob’s benefit.
“ Hej.” She looks at Jacob, head tipped to the side. “Is Alma being merciless?”
He smiles. “You look good.”
My little sister sparkles when she’s happy. Today, she’s lit up like one of the chandeliers in the ballroom. “Max’s commanding officer and his wife invited us to dinner. How do I actually look, Alma?” Clara spins, showing off her narrow cigarette pants, silk blouse, and crisp blazer. “If you tell me to change, I absolutely will.”
“Perfect,” I say. She darts away and we mount the stairs. “Why is it perfect?” I ask.
“I thought I was getting a break.” He raises his hands above his head in a stretch and the shirt untucks a little, exposing a narrow band of taut muscle. I dig my fingernails into my palm.
Jacob continues, blind to the havoc he leaves in his wake. “If she goes to one of those shoeless houses, her pants won’t be dragging on the ground. It looks pulled together”—a phrase I taught him today—“but not intimidating?”
I nod approvingly. “Why is intimidating not a goal?”
His shoulder bumps mine and a shock of electricity rocks through my stomach. “We’re not on the clock anymore.”
“Civilian,” I taunt. “Royals are always on the clock. It’s the price we pay for gilded chair rails and bronze statuary.”
In our suite, housekeeping has come and gone, leaving a single lamp lit, casting much of the common room in darkness. We’ve had our fill of each other today and need a rest. That’s what I tell myself as I reach for my bag. He shifts it into his other hand.
“What are you doing for dinner?” he asks. “Are you eating with your mother again, or do you have to get done up?”
I’ve spent the whole day answering distracting, obstinate questions like, “What psychopath named this color oxblood?” I don’t hesitate to answer him now.
“Housekeeping left a plate of veggies and hummus in the fridge. I’ll add some cheese and nuts.”
It won’t satisfy my appetite, but I can’t eat at my mother’s table where the coq au vin arrives with a side of geopolitics and a reminder to keep my eye on our Vorburgian guest. If I was honest about how well I’m keeping my eyes on Jacob, she might start a war.
“That’s not enough,” he says.
“It’s enough for me.”
As if on cue, my stomach gurgles.
Jacob grins. “Change into something comfortable. I’ll make you an omelet.”
I’m too famished to turn him down. “You cook?”
I hear a low chuckle. “Some of us didn’t grow up in a palace.” He hands me the bag and walks backward, luring me with promises of a hot meal on a cold night. “Go change. I’ve got mushrooms, ham, peppers, an avocado…”
“An avocado in Sondmark?” I laugh. “In January? How rich is your father?”
He ducks into his room, calling across the divide. “You can share some of your fancy cheese.”
I throw on a pair of leggings and the Harvard sweatshirt, and return to the kitchen, clutching my Gruyère and Fontina, when he appears in the doorway.
He’s wearing another one of his concert t-shirts, this time featuring a man with a wild cloud of hair, his lips a smear of red lipstick and thick eyeliner apparently applied by one of those captive elephants who do art for charity.
The shirt must have been laundered hundreds of times because the neck is slightly stretched out and the material is soft, hugging his chest like an emotional support koala.
He reaches over my head for a couple plates and I lean out of his way, backing into the counter, hands gripping the edge.
“That’s an old shirt,” I observe. Purchased before he had all these muscles.
“Vintage. Original. Rare.” He grins. “I thought you were good at diplomacy.” He fires up a burner and reaches for more ingredients.
“Can I help?” I ask.
He sets a grater in front of me. “Two cups of cheese.”
I click my tongue several times. “You’ll get 500 grams, and you’ll like it.”
We work quietly, my ear trained on his progress—the crack of the eggs, the shake of the seasonings, and the whisk working through the mixture followed by the gentle sizzle when it’s poured into the skillet. The album title stretches in neat copperplate across his chest.
Jacob clears his throat. My eyes snap closed.
“Do you play?” I manage, nodding at his shirt. “Guitar or anything?”
He leans on the counter and crosses his ankles. “Enough to impress the ladies.”
I don’t want to hear about ladies. “How much is that?”
He squints an eye. “Two and a half verses of ‘Escalator to Limbo.’”
I snort. “Let me guess, when the key change comes you have to tune your guitar.”
“I’m that dedicated to the craft.” He palms his chest, mock-serious.
I tear my eyes away from his chest in time to see his expression change. It’s nothing special, this look he gives me. Nothing more than a lingering gaze on my eyes and mouth. But my slow, hormone-addled brain shifts into overdrive, delivering a clear, lightning-fast translation of its meaning.
Jacob likes me, too.
I don’t want to know. No, that’s not quite true. I can’t know. So I turn on the tap of the sink and start washing a bowl, waiting for this forbidden knowledge to swirl down the drain with the last of the bubbles.
“Here,” he says, taking the bowl, brushing his fingers with mine, and drying it with a dishcloth. We linger in this state of potent awareness for several moments until he clears his throat. “I’m not very musical. I just like music.”
“What kind of music is that?” I fling the question at him, doing my part to keep realizations at bay.
“You don’t know The Antidote? Come on.” He tosses the cloth down and drops into an off-tune bass.
I want you
Can’t have you
A better man would know better
“I played this on a continuous loop through most of seventh grade because Anna Melanson started going out with my best friend,” he says, plucking the shirt away from his body.
I laugh because the alternative is horrifying. “Was their breakup super satisfying?”
“They have three kids and run a successful heating and cooling business.” He turns the omelet with the flick of his wrist, and the smells make my mouth water. “I think she’s going to run for mayor in the next election.”
I laugh. “You could have been the First Gentleman of Blackberry instead of a lousy crown prince.”
“Right?”
When he’s in this mood, I think I could ask him a question— the question—and get a real answer. He loves his grandparents and his home in Blackberry. He’s uninterested in leading a European country and living in a castle. As far as I can tell, he’d be content to handcraft furniture for the rest of his life. As much information as his dossier contains, this is the blank page at the heart of it. Why did he agree to become the crown prince?
“What do you want for toppings?” he asks, closing the door on complicated questions.
“Anything.”
“Not anything. What if I put on canned tuna, creamed corn, and yams? You’re fine?”
“I’m fine.”
He sets the spatula down. “Nobody likes everything.”
When I don’t answer, Jacob heaps a generous amount of grated cheese, diced peppers, and ham onto one side of the omelet, flips it, and makes a rustic half-moon. It’s going to be delicious.
Every day I look for ways to protect him when he assumes the role he wasn’t born for. Though we’re not on the clock, I can’t afford to ignore it when he gives me an opening. “Have you ever tried m?mmi?”
He grunts, tipping the omelet onto a plate. A quick swipe of a dishcloth and the pan is ready for his spinach and avocado omelet. “What is that? A Scandi metal band?”
“Food. It’s gritty and sticky, and some people say it looks like paving tar. The Finns serve it around Easter to, I don’t know, remind themselves of the inevitability of death and the hope of the resurrection. Motovia has a dish—it’s a loaf of bread with herring poked into it, like a helmet with fish spikes. It’s the stuff of nightmares.”
I smile when he grimaces. “You can’t make that face when people present you with their treasured national dishes, Jacob.”
“Be real, boss,” he says, handing me a fork. “You’ve never been grossed out?” He carves a large bite out of his omelet and pops it into his mouth.
“I’ve been grossed out. No one unaccustomed to them looks at a dish of boiled silkworms and thinks about how edible and delicious they’ll be. But I managed to swallow down a few pods, and no one guessed my feelings.”
“So you lied,” he says, gray eyes twinkling.
The word stings. “I showed manners. Consideration. Poise. I thought you were trying to get better at diplomacy,” I answer, taking a golden bite oozing with rich cheese, tender ham, and bright peppers. My eyes drift closed for a second as I savor the taste. This is heaven. I don’t have to pretend.
He clears his throat. “Do you always have to hide what you feel?”
“Welcome to royal life.” I blow gently on my fork. “You have to choke down lots of things you hate.”