Chapter 1 #3
Now this was more like it! Huge pieces of art in heavy gold frames filled the walls and followed a giant dark wood staircase up to where she assumed the private quarters for the royal family would be.
The Queen’s apartments, perhaps. It was impossible to understand the scope of such a space on a TV screen, or more accurately, on Lauren’s iPad while Coughy the Baby hacked up a lung across the aisle from her.
The ceiling was so high that they seemed to be almost floating toward the heavens, and the portraits on the wall dwarfed Lauren.
Kings and queens from centuries ago, she assumed, looked down on her as she gazed in awe.
Her mom, she thought suddenly, would absolutely love this.
It was also, Lauren noted, pretty drafty there, with just a tiny plug-in heater on the floor keeping the entire area from
freezing. She guessed that central air hadn’t really been a thing back when the Palace had been built in 1705. (Yes, she had
looked up that fact. Her extensive research also taught her there were a total of 775 rooms, over 40,000 lightbulbs, and 350
clocks used in the entire building.) The cold made her think of her old office sweater, the one from Old Navy that had been
more comfortable than 99 percent of the overhyped brands she had been influenced to buy. Brooke would always tease her about
that sweater, usually mimicking one of those WASPy women with a glass of wine that you find in TV dramas set in the suburbs.
She felt a stinging behind her eyes and quickly banished Brooke from her thoughts. Romantic breakups were definitely difficult,
but a best friend breakup could shatter the most tender part of anyone’s heart.
Or at least, it had shattered Lauren’s.
James didn’t seem to be aware of the ostentation of the cavernous space or of Lauren’s inner monologue. He kept up a steady
pace, and Lauren adjusted her blazer and stood up straight, fully ready to walk into an even grander room.
Instead, he ushered her into a room that definitely would not be described as “grand.” More like “drab office space in a corporate park somewhere in Indianapolis.”
The comms office, Lauren realized, looked a bit like The Office. (The American version, at least. Lauren had never seen the British version, which was something she realized she might have
to fix soon.) Dust-covered fluorescent strip lighting hung in random stripes across the ceiling, there were a dozen or so
pine-colored Formica desks with industrial-looking legs scattered throughout the room, and Lauren spotted several cardigans
slung over the backs of chairs. The computers looked new, but the rest of the tech in sight was very much not—including the
two yellowing fax machines next to the printing station.
Every head in the room swiveled to look at her, and Lauren waved a little, feeling like the new kid dropped into a classroom
mid-semester. “Hello.” She smiled widely.
Already she could see more people leaving other office spaces with something in their hands—papers, a coffee mug, an empty
folder—in order to look busy while attending to the real business at hand: scoping out the potential newbie. She and Brooke
had done that plenty of times in her old office, going back and forth with unimportant tasks in order to see if the new hire
was cute or if Meredith (ugh, Meredith, she had been so annoying) had snuck out for injectables on her lunch break again. The day BTS came to the White House, Lauren
had tracked nearly ten thousand steps without ever going more than fifty feet in any direction.
A woman emerged from a side office carrying an empty mug and wearing the exact kind of comfortable shoes that Lauren wished she had packed instead of the two (beautiful) traitors that were currently on her feet.
Lauren smiled at the older lady, who immediately looked over her shoulder to see if there was someone behind her she was smiling at.
James, who seemed to be really trying to get in his own ten thousand steps that day, didn’t stop to acknowledge the curious
eyes or Lauren’s cautious greeting. He led them into a separate space, shut the door behind them, sat down, and immediately
began tapping at a laptop.
“Is this . . .” Lauren glanced back at the closed door. “A bad time?”
“It’s honestly never not a bad time,” James replied, his eyes not leaving the screen. “That’s the first thing you should know about working here.”
He hit the return key with more force than necessary, then sighed and glanced up at her. “We’re just managing a small situation
to keep it from becoming a bigger . . . issue, and time is of the essence, I’m afraid.” He gestured to the chair across from
his desk. “Please, sit. Would you like anything? Water, perhaps?”
“No, thank you, I’m good.” Lauren perched on the edge of her chair and carefully placed her bag on the floor. “And truly,
not a problem. I understand situation—or issue, as you said—management all too well.”
“Yes, well, with your politicians.” James chuckled, his eyes flicking to the screen again. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, and he tapped out another
forceful message before sighing. “So as you know, we’re looking to fill the position of deputy director of royal communications . . .”
Lauren nodded and started to speak before James cut her off.
“This is not an easy job; this is not a fun job. You won’t be making DC money. The press will no doubt make your life difficult,
especially as an American coming into the institution. But what this job does offer is . . .” James leaned forward and looked
over his glasses. “Honor.”
“Honor,” Lauren repeated. She wanted to go back to the “not much money” part, but James kept talking.
“Working for the royal family is one of the greatest honors in this country,” he said. “You’ll find that there are people
here who have served Her Majesty for decades, and they do so because of a love of country as well as tradition. Esteem. History. And with all of that comes the deepest responsibility to— Oh, eff right off!”
Something on his laptop had grabbed James’s attention again. “Honestly,” he muttered, and began typing away. “Do I need to
do everyone’s job around here?” He glanced at Lauren. “Sorry, so sorry, just one minute.”
“Of course,” Lauren said. She was starting to get that adrenaline flutter in her stomach, though, that feeling born from the
gap between imminent crisis and immediate solution, the knowledge that someone needed to solve the problem now now now and the understanding that she, Lauren Morgan, was the one who could do just that.
Her fingers itched to fly across a keyboard, too. She wanted to pick up a phone and sigh in disgust, just like James was doing
now. She wanted to do something, get results, and move on in a way that she hadn’t been able to do since she saw Brian and
Brooke kissing in his office, neither of them expecting her to show up and surprise Brian so late at night.
Before James could leave the room, though, a woman came bursting through the door, and apparently she hadn’t gotten the memo
about honor, esteem, or history being some of the job perks.
She looked ready to burn the whole building to the ground.
“Amelia,” James said, standing up from his chair, and Lauren stood as well, nervously glancing between them.
Amelia Adams was the director of royal communications—or comms, as they called it at the Palace.
She would be Lauren’s boss, the one Lauren would answer to, perhaps step in for occasionally, her workplace ride or die.
“We have Lauren Morgan with us,” James said in a tone that clearly meant Don’t say anything to scare her off. “I was just explaining to her that—”
Amelia and her heavily kohled eyes barely cast a glance in Lauren’s direction, and Lauren felt grateful for that, the way
one might be relieved to not fall into Medusa’s direct line of sight.
“James,” Amelia said. “I. Am. Done.”
“With what, exactly?”
“This!” she cried. “All of this! How many times, James? How many times do we have to do this?” Her energy filled the room, which made James seem
intimidated in comparison, and Lauren felt that adrenaline burn get just a little bit stronger.
Something was happening. She could practically taste it in the air.
James blinked fast, which was the closest thing he had shown to panic so far. “Amelia,” he said. “We both know that these
sorts of changes take time. We have a plan, we are executing it—”
“No,” Amelia said as another man suddenly showed up in the doorway, looking as annoyed as Amelia was furious.
This was seriously the strangest and best job interview Lauren had ever attended.
“Eugene,” James said, gesturing toward Lauren yet again. “This is Lauren Mor—”
“What are we doing about this?” Eugene said to Amelia, not even sparing Lauren a glance. Bless James for even trying to introduce
her, Lauren thought, and it made her feel a bit warmer toward him.
“Don’t ask me,” Amelia said. She was wearing so much mascara that Lauren was worried her eyelashes would tangle together every time she blinked.
“I am officially done, Eugene. None of this is my problem anymore.
I am not getting called in on my weekends and days off to deal with these .
. . issues that should have been dealt with a long time
ago. I haven’t had a deputy in nearly eight months and I’m expected to just put out every single fire that these pyromaniacs
keep setting off!”
“We are dealing with it,” James insisted, but both Amelia and Eugene looked skeptical.
“Is ‘pyromaniacs’ a metaphor?” Lauren asked, but nobody so much as looked in her direction.
“If this even touches Her Majesty and the Pearl Jubilee . . .” Eugene said, leaving the warning unsaid. He must be Eugene
Ainsworth, the Queen’s principal private secretary, she thought, recalling all the names from her LinkedIn deep dive. Probably
in his early fifties or so, with a few streaks of silver in his light brown hair, dressed impeccably in a three-piece suit.