35. “The One That Got Away” - Katy Perry
“The One That Got Away” - Katy Perry
Lightning rips the sky apart, its jagged shards brilliant against the black night. The accompanying thunder booms loud enough to rattle our dinnerware. A few nervous chuckles sound around the room, everyone waiting for reassurance that the storm will blow over soon.
“Dear me,” Lady Templeman says from across the table, the emerald at her neck glinting at me. “I do hope it lets up before we leave. Storms are such a nuisance.”
King William snorts. “Not likely. They said it’s supposed to hail tonight, golf ball size.” He pushes a bite of pudding into his mouth, oblivious to the fear on Lady Templeman’s face. The grief over losing Argos still lines his own.
“I do hope the gardener remembered to put the hail netting up,” she continues. “I just got an order of roses in from Bulgaria, and they are so susceptible to hail damage, you know. I wonder—”
I tune out the rest of her words, my thoughts on the hydrangeas Adelaide and I planted this morning. The hail will demolish them, and I didn’t have the forethought to put up any protection. A damn rookie mistake.
Another roar of thunder shakes the room, and I push my chair back. “Excuse me, please. Sir. Ma’am.” I curtsy in turn to both the king and queen before rushing from the room, not caring about the horrified faces watching my escape.
There won’t be time to change, so I’ll simply have to put the netting up in my evening gown.
I kick off my heels beside the door leading into the gardens, then yank it open only to have it wrenched out of my grasp by the wind.
Eager to thrust its greedy fingers inside, it slams the door against the wall, and the resounding bang rivals the thunder in volume.
Using both hands, I pull the door shut behind me and stumble to the gardener’s shed. I say a quick prayer that it’s unlocked and try the knob. It turns under my hand and, now aware of the wind’s tricks, I hold on to it tightly as I step inside.
What does hail netting look like? I scan the contents of the musty room, hedge clippers in all manner of sizes taunting me from the wall, a muddy wheelbarrow stubbornly tipped on end as if refusing to be of assistance.
Rolls of mesh are leaning against the back wall, and I have to step over more gardening implements than I’ve ever seen in my life to get to it.
This has to be it. And if not, it will have to work. I just need something to hold it up. I grab a handful of metal stakes and a mallet before ducking my head and marching back into the storm.
It’s stupid really, all of this trouble over a bunch of flowers. But I’ll be damned before I let all of Adelaide’s and my hard work swirl down the drain. I need at least one thing in my life to go according to plan.
The rain has started by the time I get to the Sunken Garden. It soaks me to the bone and makes the moss-covered steps all the more treacherous. Fortunately, the hail is holding off, but who’s to know how long that will last. I’ll need to work quickly.
Hampered by my sodden dress, I pick up one of the stakes and am just about to pound it into the ground when I hear my name being shouted above the fury of the wind. Who is foolish enough to be out in this weather?
I turn to find Bea stumbling down the steps toward me, as soaked as I am but at least dressed more appropriately in jeans and sneakers. “What are you doing?” I yell as she runs closer.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she shouts back.
I motion to the flowers at my feet, a bit bedraggled from the wind but still standing. For now. “I need to protect them from the hail.”
Without another word, she grabs the stake from my hand and holds it in place while I wield the mallet. In a few minutes, thanks to the now muddy ground, it’s in place. We follow suit with the others, forming a border of sorts around the plants. It resembles a rectangle that’s had too much to drink.
“I thought you were in London,” I say, picking up the roll of netting, visible only during the flashes of lightning still rending the sky apart.
My heart freezes as I wait for her answer, sickeningly eager to see how she’ll excuse her betrayal.
Bea is the queen of justification, and she hasn’t yet been backed into a corner she couldn’t talk her way out of.
She helps me unfurl the netting, despite the wind doing its damnedest to tear it from our cold, shaking hands. “I just got back.”
“Good time?” I yell as we back away from each other, spreading the netting into a thin sheet.
I can’t hear what she says, but she shakes her head. Her blonde hair is somehow still beautiful even as it hangs in wet clumps around her ears. I reach the furthest set of stakes before it dawns on me that I forgot to bring anything to fasten the mesh to the posts.
“Bloody hell!” My momentary loss of concentration gives the wind all the room it needs to slip in, rip the cloth out of my grasp, and send it hurling toward Bea.
I chase after it, and between the two of us, we manage to get it pinned to the ground, but not before a wrestling match that leaves us both panting.
I’m exhausted, and my legs are quivering. I slump onto the muddy ground. “What the hell,” I mutter. “This dress is ruined anyway.”
Bea plops down next to me as the rain’s icy fingers trail down my back. I’m shivering uncontrollably, my teeth rattling like marbles in a jar. “Are they worth it?” she asks, pointing to the flowers.
“Probably not.” But I’ve come too far to abandon them now. “You don’t have to help.”
She looks at me, water running down her face and dripping off her upturned nose, and says, “I think I do.” She hangs her head and brushes at the grass between her legs. “I know that you know I was with him.”
Here it is—the truth neither of us can hide from anymore. Two sisters in love with the same man. He chose one and rejected the other. I shrug before pushing to my feet. “Is this the part where I offer my congratulations?”
She tugs on my arm to keep me from walking away. “It’s not like that. Nothing happened.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?”
“Would I lie to you?”
Is she serious? I prop my hands on my hips, and my body temperature rises, despite how cold I am. “As a matter of fact, you would. You did. You assured me you’d stay away from Henry. Instead, you flew off to London with him!”
She bites her lip, and to her credit, she actually looks remorseful. “I’m so sorry, Celia. It was an awful thing to do.”
“Yeah, you could say that. Now help me get this net up before the hail comes. We’ll have to tie the corners to the stakes. I don’t have anything else with me.”
Working one at a time, we get all four corners attached. When the whole thing is finally up, I stand back and laugh. “We actually did it.”
Drenched and shivering hard enough to wake the dead, we stand there grinning at each other like idiots. “What are we doing?” Bea laughs. “Let’s get inside!” She grabs my hand, and we run up the garden path as fast as my dress will allow, dodging puddles the whole way.
Our noisy entrance brings a staff member to the door. She retreats to fetch us towels, leaving us in stoic silence, broken only by the sound of my teeth still clacking together and the ping of water hitting the marble floor. Our laughter seems to have been washed away by the rain.
“I really am sorry,” Bea says.
I glance at her, and if the rivulets of water running down her face are any indication, she looks genuinely sincere. She did help me in the pouring rain, after all.
“Henry and I didn’t go to London together.” She toes a puddle on the floor with her sneaker. “I caught him completely unaware. He didn’t even know I was in the city. We went our separate ways shortly after that photo, and I haven’t seen him since.”
Momentarily stunned, I just stare at her. Is this supposed to make me feel better?
“I’ve always lived in your shadow, and I thought this might help me break out of it once and for all,” she says, her voice small.
“What are you talking about?” I squeeze a fistful of my hair and mechanically watch the drops join their siblings on the floor.
“Come on, Celia. You’re always the star of the show. Everything I do, you do it better. Everyone adores you. They just think of me as Celia’s little sister.”
“That’s absurd. You’ve always been the belle of the ball. Half of Wesbourne is in love with you, and the other half just can’t say it because they’re married.”
“Now who’s being absurd?”
“Regardless, what does any of that have to do with Henry?”
“Oh, please.” Bea rolls her eyes in that annoying way little sisters do. “You two are so close, it’s embarrassing to even be in the same room as you.”
My snort is loud. “Henry and I are not close. We haven’t been for a long time.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Even through all of your professed hatred of him, when the two of you are together, nobody else matters.”
“Bea, that’s just not true.”
She props her hands on her hips in that saucy way she perfected when she was three.
“Really? You’re always picking on each other, arguing, fighting.
You read each other’s thoughts with a single glance.
I’ve fought for his attention long enough to know that as soon as you walk into the room, he’s lost to me.
” Her voice hovers right above a whisper.
“I got so wrapped up in trying to be better at something, anything, than you, that I thought if I could steal Henry . . .” Her voice drifts off.
I pull her into a hug and wish I could take the pain of the last few months from both our hearts. “You can’t steal him, because he’s never been mine.”
Rubber soles squeak down the corridor and are soon followed by their owners: three maids, each bearing a stack of fluffy white towels. They must think we’ve brought the entire storm inside.
Once Bea and I are dry enough to traverse the halls of the palace, we head to our third-floor suites. She stops me before we part ways. “He misses you, Celia.”
A branding iron shoves its way into my chest. “He actually said that?”
“He didn’t have to. The man is clearly miserable.”
I shake my head, not wanting to stir up hope I don’t deserve. “You can’t know that it has anything to do with me.”
“I’m not stupid. Henry is crazy about you. He always has been. And if you don’t do something about it, you’re the stupid one.”