Chapter 18 Juicer Stories
Juicer Stories
ELLA
In the darkened cinema room of the Summer Palace, light shifts over my face.
I am fully prepared to enjoy the football match, wearing teddy bear pajamas and snuggling under a lap blanket decorated with the faces of Seongan leading men.
The rest of my family watches the screen in the same way our ancestors watched the horizon for signs of an invading army—with impeccable posture and grim determination.
The motor of my reclining chair whirrs as I extend the footrest, listening absentmindedly as the sports presenters add color commentary to the pre-game warm-up. For the rest of my family, this isn’t a game.
Clara squeaks. “There they are. There they are.”
When the camera pans follows a line of five men making their way to their seats in the stands, I cross my legs and sit up, watching them shuffle into their row, seemingly unaware that they are being filmed.
Everyone in the Summer Palace cinema room sits up.
Vede, I bet most of northern Europe just sat up.
“It’s as we planned,” Mama says, her attempt to settle herself down is disguised as settling us. “The royal party has been noticed.”
The whistle blows and the game begins, but the camera keeps returning to the row of men.
When Sondmark finally scores, everyone but Jacob jumps to their feet and joins in the drinking song, weaving their arms over each other’s shoulders, the camera shaking in the pandemonium of joy.
My sisters try to gauge the effect, commenting back and forth, but when the camera pans to Marc, nobody says a word. I hug my knees.
To my family, he is simply a red herring, blurring the narrative that every man in this row, aside from their dumb brother, is the prayer of three princesses of Sondmark made incarnate. I daresay, he’s not even a bullet point on Caroline’s exhaustive agenda.
I reach for my phone, as I did every day he was in Seong. Can I still do this? We’ve cleared the air. We ought to be able to text.
I like the jacket. Did Noah send you a mood board? I hit send before I can think twice.
Though Marc made such a big thing about it, the kiss hasn’t stopped me from switching out my dresses this week for the kinds of clothes favored by Alma—fitted skirts and silky blouses, my hair twisted up in a semi-tidy bun.
My own take on these rigid uniforms is to give them a tiny nod to Military Sun, an iconic fantasy anime filled with wide-legged, high-waisted trousers and over-the-knee hemlines, touches reminiscent of the Great War.
It gives me the illusion that I am getting away with something.
This change has been mostly unremarkable.
My mother is quietly pleased about the clothes, and it comes as no surprise that the only time I seem to get her approval is when I fall in line.
There has been some social media chatter about the shift, but nobody has lost their flamen minds unless you count the tabloid website PAPZ who pronounces me, in one headline, “Princess Va-va-voom”.
There are other, juicer stories for the press to cover. Three of them are on screen now.
Marc replies. Mood board? Yeah. Something like that.
I almost drop my phone when the camera pans to Marc. He rubs a thumb across his lower lip in an absent-minded gesture, giving the camera a look that says, “Hide your daughters.” I press myself into the seat, gripping the armrests.
Marc crosses his thumb with his index finger, forming a tiny, Seongan finger heart no one in the entire stadium would even notice.
Even my family, picking apart the performance and spooling out each positive and negative consequence of this appearance, hasn’t clocked it.
My cheeks flush, and I unconsciously push my fingers into the same shape before the camera flashes back to the pitch.
The figures blur on the screen as a thought slinks up to me, as stealthy as Freja’s cat. I’m jealous of my sisters. I’ve never wanted to trade places with them, but now… I grab onto the safest idea and hold it fast. My sisters are forging their own paths.
Fighting about the dress code is child’s play compared to what they have achieved.
Mama wanted to match us up with margraves and hereditary princes, but Clara fought her way into relevance and fought for Max, too.
Freja struck out on her own, Oskar firmly at her side, and declined to ask for the right to choose her own happiness.
Alma has steadfastly refused to turn Jacob into a pawn.
My mother, heading off more serious rebellions, has granted each of my sisters her blessing to move forward with their choices. My jealousy makes sense. I’ve wanted to get out of the monarchy from the time I could articulate the divine right of kings.
That explanation doesn’t settle neatly into the space I’ve carved out for it, and I watch the remainder of the game with a furrow between my brows. What else is so upsetting?
When the game ends in a shootout, the Dragons eking out a narrow victory, Mama walks to the front of the room. The meeting may come to order. Each of us offers opinions, but in the end, Mama looks beyond my shoulder.
“Caroline. What are your thoughts?” she asks.
“Rumors concerning Crown Prince Jacob aren’t going away, but public opinion seems to be on his side.”
“The crowd was booing him,” Mama counters.
A ghost of a smile brushes Caroline’s lips. “He took it well, and it was polite of his home country to lose the match.”
I choke on a laugh, but Caroline continues. “It was wise to invite Neerheid van Heyden to round out the party.”
“Why?” I challenge. The question leaps off my tongue and I want to drum my mouth with the flat of my fingers.
Her eyes meet mine squarely. “He’s a well-known fixture at your family events, and the press stopped matchmaking him with members of the royal family some time ago, ” she replies. “With Neerheid van Heyden, we can expect no surprises.”
She’s wrong. A few days ago, Marc pulled me into his arms and kissed me so hard my brain went numb. There’s no telling what he’ll do.
“And Noah?” Mama presses her secretary. “What was your sense of him tonight?”
Caroline gathers her thoughts before she answers. “His Royal Highness is good with people and it shows. He behaves just as an heir to the throne is expected to.”
“Excellent.” Mama strides towards the door and we follow like a line of magnetized toy train cars with me as the caboose. Père catches her hand and we bump to a stop. In one motion, a frisson of hope electrifies the line. Père touched Mama on purpose.
“How do you feel it went?” he asks, brushing his thumb over the back of her hand. Can you make a pass at someone you’ve been married to for thirty-five years? That’s what it looks like.
“It went well.” Mama lifts her chin, but she doesn’t withdraw her hand. “The lieutenant commander was particularly impressive. I welcome a deeper association with him, Clara.”
Mama moves on, but Clara turns around and walks backward, her face frozen in a silent scream, her fist shaking in the air. National hero Lieutenant Commander Max Andersen has finally breached the walls of the Summer Palace.
Alma passes her with a congratulatory touch. Her turn will come. The crowd at that game, heckling him and having more fun than they’d ever had in their lives, want Jacob to try and win their princess. They’re dying for him to get on his knees and beg for her.
“I still expect the highest degree of comportment when you’re outside the palace walls,” Mama commands. “It would take nothing for us to be in an all-out war with Prime Minister Torbald.”
“War?” I lift a wicked brow as I follow. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Each day is warmer than the last as we slide into the final days of May. Water pours from the mountains, swelling rivers and streams, and topless sunbathers begin to dot public parks on the best days. The time until Alix’s wedding is measured in weeks.
I represent my mother at the Motovian Embassy, where I sign a condolence book for the grandmother of the present king in my best penmanship, attend a concert at a primary school, and open a charity bazaar.
Light duties. In my other life, I lead some of my best SquadRun campaigns and help BeastlyDutchOaths map out a syllabus for teaching the War of the Amber Cross.
“I know about reluctant students,” I tell him.
“You have to start by telling them about the pig. Always start with the pig.”
Alix gets around to sending me sketches for bridesmaid’s dresses, and I pretend to have strong opinions about centerpieces and playlists.
Jang Mi releases the photo of the Dandelion Tiara and online speculation goes wild.
Official denials mean nothing. News about the benefit concert trickles in from Marc’s occasional texts and Alix’s gossip.
And, all the while, Marc’s kiss lingers in my head like a dream, and I feel like a prophet, trying to work out its meaning.
Yasmin and Dahlia invite me to meet them for lunch at Minty’s.
The private club, located in a sprawling townhouse and built during the reign of Magda the Great, acts as a bolt hole to some of the most scandalous people in Sondmark.
If secrets slip through the heavy black doors, they say, they’re strangled to death in the wine cellar and buried in the yard, never to escape Minty’s again.
Arne, the head waiter, a slight man with thin hair and a professor’s face, escorts me to a table on the garden patio, where the afternoon sun warms my curls.
Carefully pruned trees canopy the dining area, dappling the light, and my old schoolmates tilt their heads up.
I give them air kisses before sliding into a chair.
“The gauntlet was thick,” I say, referring to the line of paparazzi waiting on the curb. “Is there someone famous here?”
“Lev Kepler,” Dahlia says, adjusting her massive sunglasses and pointing to a distant table, “the model in all those shirtless Calvin Klein ads.”