Chapter 9 Chiffon Cascade
Chiffon Cascade
ELLA
Talk to me, Ella.
I spend the week not replying to his single, not-an-apology text, angry that he put me in a position where I had to defend slope-shouldered adel from the charge of not taking me seriously.
I know they don’t. Few men would. Who is going to swallow the poisonous pill of marrying a royal princess in exchange for hostile media coverage, intense governmental scrutiny, and the chance to escort me to endless state functions?
No one who isn’t wildly into me.
Alix and I spend a couple of days shopping for bridesmaid gifts.
I feign interest in her brilliant idea of setting Yasmin up with one of Tom’s friends.
I don’t feign hard enough, because she asks why I look like I want to lead a cavalry charge through the East Gate. I tell her Mama is driving me crazy.
It’s not entirely a lie. Amidst a firestorm of family scandal, she still finds time to inspect my attire in the Great Hall.
My opportunities to look and act like a normal human girl are few.
Maybe this is why, on the day of the Handsel Film Festival when she’s attending an economic summit, I take a gamble.
“I need your help,” I tell Mama’s dresser, Analiese, poking my head around her office door, a garment bag draped over my arm.
Her brows gather. “You never need my help,” she says, hooking the hanger on the wall and tugging the zipper. “What is this?”
A custom-made dress spills from the garment bag, a dream of soft lavender fabric and dandelions scattered across the gauzy material, the seeds representing hope and resilience, Marc once told me. Devotion and love.
Marc. My lips firm and my eyes flash. Nevermind Marc. Seong deserves my best.
I brush my fingertips across the silk skirt.
It’s just a gown, but Seong is falling off the front page, and this may be my last chance to make an unequivocal statement for its further financial and social support.
Mama might lock me in a tower on a ration of bread and water for this stunt.
It is this worry that brings me to Analiese.
I am determined to look the part of a dutiful princess in every other way Mama would wish.
“You’re going to let me do your hair and make-up,” Ana says, setting me in front of a mirror. “You’re going to wear high heels. You’re going to thank me for not making you wear stockings. You’re going to say, ‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. Anything you say, ma’am.’”
My lips twitch but my voice is humble. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. Anything you say, ma’am.”
Over the course of several hours, she turns me into my mother’s dream, wrestling my hair into loose waves and raking it into an up-do. She zips up the dandelion dress, and I survey my reflection with the knowledge that I have never looked better.
I walk the red carpet of the festival and, by the time I enter the packed theater, the fashion press has identified the silent message stitched into my dress.
When Pixy adds a button on every repost, directing readers to charitable organizations, it doesn’t matter how much trouble I’ll be in. Helping Seong is worth it.
A thunder of applause follows me as I make my way through the royal box, and on the edge of the balcony, Mikkel Dorsgard bows over my hand.
The actor is handsome in a bleak, Scandinavian way.
Hollywood uses him when they need a hot Amish farmer or a hot Cold War spy or a hot Danish philosopher, and it’s a shame my type is a man who is half Seongan, half Sondish, and equally conversant with technology and royal protocol. Bonus points if he owns a palace.
We watch one of Mikkel’s films about early industrialization, filled with artistic jump cuts of a hard rain and a swelling river.
A downstream narrative follows a childless widow cleaning her antique coffee service and tenderly placing it in a box under her bed.
His signature smolder is a look I’ve witnessed in at least three movies, and it’s present and accounted for as he takes his shirt off to scythe her wheat field. I roll my eyes.
Against the flickering lights of the film, my mind drifts back to the single, spare text.
Talk to me, Ella. Despite our hard words, I remember how gentle Marc’s hold was, the imprint of skin on skin.
I blink when the lights come on and the curtain falls closed.
The audience rises, and I stand with them to give Mikkel’s abs a seven and a half minute standing ovation.
We adjourn to a large glassed-in garden for a cocktail party and photocall, and I am drawn away from a conversation with Jeneke Stennum, Yasmin’s mom, to have my picture taken with Prime Minister Torbald.
“Your Royal Highness,” he murmurs, frowning at the Seongan dandelions dotting my dress, “I didn’t realize you wanted to dabble in politics.
I’m sure your mother will be thrilled,” he adds, words laced with acid.
“I’m happy to give you some tips if you want to try your hand at winning an election. ”
I smile at the bank of photographers and try not to fidget. “I’ve never asked; how does it feel to enter a room without the fuss of applause?”
A photographer shouts a direction at me, and we turn as a pair. “It’s a novelty finding you doing some actual work,” he replies.
“I suppose I could be harassing a pair of newlyweds for the crime of getting married.”
Torbald’s jaw sets. “I sleep very well knowing that the country is about to have one less princess propping up an outdated institution and draining the state treasury.” He trades a jovial shout with a passerby and I know the effect will be a dynamic picture.
He’s good at this. “Freja is going to destroy herself, which leaves me plenty of time to focus on Alma.”
“What do you mean?”
“The story the palace told about her broken engagement doesn’t add up. I think she was playing around and got caught.”
I inhale sharply. He’s too close to the truth, and I am boiling with rage. If I stay here another minute, I’m going to push him into the buffet. I straighten my shoulders, sending a brilliant smile to Mikkel Dorsgard.
“You called, goddess?” the actor says, crossing the red carpet. As ever, he smolders.
I manage to get through the rest of the event without doing violence, but as soon as I walk through the doors of the Summer Palace, Mama orders me to her office.
I stand at attention in front of her desk as she scrolls through PAPZ updates, pushing an aggravated finger across the screen.
The headline is, “A Match for Ella?” and she lands on a picture of Mikkel looking down on me like I’ve been captured in the tractor beam of his personal magnetism.
“This is when and whom you choose to date?” Mama asks, the words dropping like hot irons into cold water.
I roll my eyes. “We’re not dating.”
The way Mama inhales makes me think I’m going to give her a stroke. She is tired, and I look away. “Your sisters peddled that line three times in the last year. I am no longer in the market for lies.”
“We’re not,” I insist.
She pulls up the photos. “Whatever the kids call it. Hanging out. Talking stage. Hooking up.”
I grimace. My mother shouldn’t even be in the same galaxy as those words.
She lands on a shot of my dress, the dandelions rioting over chiffon, and releases a ragged breath. “And this. This was deliberate.”
I swallow tightly. “No one was here to inspect my clothing.”
Mama closes her eyes and rubs her temple. “I don’t have time for this, Ella. I’m… just—” her hand punctuates the air as she searches for words, “stay out of the spotlight and focus on the wedding.”
When I depart, I turn and stare hard at her closed door. I knew that dress would displease her. I knew it, but I had to take the chance to help Seong one last time, even if it meant facing her wrath. I close my eyes. Evidently, she can’t even muster that anymore. She’s had enough of me.
I scurry off to my suite, and Clara is hard on my heels. “Come for dinner at Max’s cottage,” she says. “It’ll be nice.”
“Who’s coming?” I snap.
“Max and me, Freja and Oskar, Alma and Jacob.”
The name of every couple is like a giant pendulum, swinging back and forth, trying to knock me off a rickety rope bridge.
I’m bobbing and weaving, but between the prime minister’s threats and Mama’s dismissal, I’m too upset for manners.
“You want to turn me into a charity case? A…” I count in my head, “...seventh wheel?” I push the door of my suite open. “Pass.”
“It’s not like that. Please,” she says. “If he’s free, you can bring Mikkel.”
“I am not seeing Mikkel,” I insist. When she scurries out, I throw a stuffed raccoon at the door.
I slouch into my computer chair, doom scrolling through rh/RoyalsofSondmark, one of the ReadHe threads dedicated to my family. Each comment throws another log onto the blazing fire of my emotions.
@RoyalWeddingRiot: The queen must be out of her mind. Discipline among the princesses has broken down completely. Lawsuit, elopement, cheating allegations…
@King_of_Fromage: Princess Alma is a crushing disappointment. I thought she was going to keep it together. AT LEAST?! Have I been stanning a family of losers?
@Morrissey_is_Murder: Ella is our only hope.
If I’m their only hope, we have drifted too far from divine light. Alma is the best of us, while I can’t wear stockings and heels without moaning that it’s a human rights violation.
I anxiously tap on my keyboard, changing my playlist in a fitful attempt to calm down, but the words turn over in my mind. Ella is our only hope. The dam holding back big feelings swells with hard rain.