Chapter 18 Juicer Stories #2
“Most people think of him as the Dragons’ best striker in a generation,” I say, craning my neck for a better look.
Dahlia gives a throaty laugh. “I don’t.”
Who can blame her? Thanks to the twenty meter ad covering a whole building in Frederickplatz, the entire country knows the precise shape of his innie.
“He’s with Simone Bissette.”
“Where do I know that name?” I ask, no good without the app I developed to quiz me on foreign dignitaries.
“Noah took her out a few times last year,” Yasmin adds, lighting a cigarette and blowing away the smoke.
I roll my eyes. Arne sets a tall lime and Vestfyn on the table and waits, his very aura coaxing me to make an order worthy of the chef. After I do, Yasmin and Dahlia catch me up on their season.
These friends of mine move through the world wearing expensive clothes to polo matches in California and cricket matches in Mumbai.
They give generously—and photogenically—to charities around the world and never wear the same bikini twice.
When Yasmin slithers out of a club at 3 AM, no governments topple.
“We haven’t seen you in ages,” Yasmin says, nibbling a vegan microgreen salad with probiotic dressing on the side in between taking long drags on her cigarette. “Your new look is— What is it, Dahl?”
Dahlia tips her sunglasses down. “Sexy. Is Queen Helena allowing you out of the house like this, or are you changing in the bathroom like you used to at Saint Sissela’s?”
“It’s not sexy,” I say, glancing down at the fitted skirt. “It’s nearly the same stuff Alma and Clara wear.” Freja’s off in her own fashion fantasyland, and where she goes, few mortals dare follow.
“It doesn’t look this way on Alma,” Dahlia observes. Yasmin nods.
This is the same dispute I had with Marc—I shy away from the memory of where that ended up—and I frown into my fizzy drink. “It’s just PAPZ being PAPZ. When they quit with that silly nickname, people will get used to it.”
Dahlia waves her hand up and down my figure. “You underestimate the male brain, Ells.”
Arne arrives, unveiling a dish of fresh cod with fennel, buttery smashed potatoes, and coarse mustard. “You are a delight,” he tells me, his expression one of beatific pleasure. “If there is anything else you desire, Your Royal Highness…”
“You will be the first to know.” I sniff, inhaling the sharp tang. “Have a potato, Yasmin. You remember potatoes, don’t you?” I say, sliding it off my fork and onto her plate.
She succumbs to temptation. “We’ve been helping,” she says between chews. “Have you seen?”
I’ve seen. My old friends have been speaking nonstop about the Seongan Crisis to anyone with a microphone. Oh, you wanted to talk about runway fashions? Just a sec. Here’s a hashtag you can follow to make donations! Peace sign. Pose. Pose. Pouty lips. Philanthropy is sexy.
“I can’t believe you actually got one of the hotel heiresses to get a tattoo with the Seongan flag. I couldn’t have asked for more,” I tell them.
“You could, you know,” Dahlia says, suddenly serious. She bites her lip and lets it go. “If it hadn’t been for you—”
“How is the perfidious ex?” I cut in.
Several months ago, Dahlia had the girls over for a movie night.
Searching for a snack, I had found a half-empty jar of strawberry preserves in her fridge—the kind that gets tossed into a gift basket without much thought.
I asked her about it, knowing she doesn’t do jam—and that Edward, Prime Minister Torbald’s longtime aide and Dahlia’s weak-chinned adel boyfriend of nearly a year, has a violent allergy to strawberries.
I know this because it’s one of the details included in the bio I compiled for my Notable Public Figures of Sondmark and Northern Europe app.
Dahlia had burst into tears, and the movie was forgotten as I mobilized a team to crosscheck his socials, uncovering a curious pattern of likes and posts during times when Dahlia was out of the country on shoots.
We found a girl in his ‘Close Friends’ list with a series of Xs and a row of courgettes in her Pixy name.
She’d posted a photo of the breakfast tray her sometime hookup made for her—complete with preserves—on a countertop.
We adjourned to the kitchen to discover that the distinct marble veining matched Dahlia’s perfectly, and that was it—Dahlia didn’t have to wonder anymore, and her sleazeball boyfriend was history.
I am wasted as a princess.
“He’s so far in my rearview mirror he’s not even a speck,” Dahlia smiles, gripping my hand.
“Nobody makes a Saint Sissela girl cry and gets away with it,” I say.
She nods and we move on, the bright sound of a fountain drowning out our gossip.
“What’s next for you?” Yasmin asks.
My lips pull in thought. I’m researching graduate programs and have real estate notifications pinging in from around the globe. “I’m determined to be a very good girl for the time being.”
“Ooh!” Yasmin half-lifts out of her seat, raises her hand, and waves. “Marc.”
Like an expensive gas range on a cold, winter morning, my nerves spark to life. Being a good girl just got a little bit harder.