The Professional Read online

  Diana could read the struggle on my face. “Look, Cora, what’s the big stress? You’re not marrying the guy tomorrow. You don’t need to tell your mother about him until he’s gone down on one knee and as far as the paps know, he’s just a bodyguard. I’d say you’ve got plenty of time.”

  But would Alex understand? He had been so disparaging of my family’s prestige and wealth at first. It must hint at some deep seeded insecurities. How could I make it clear that I’m not embarrassed of him, just scared of my mother?

  I shook my head, putting the confusing, frustrating decision in the back of my mind for now. “Thanks for the advice, Diana,” I said. “Sorry, its been so much about me and my never-ending issues lately.”

  She waved me off. “Please, you’ve held my hand through a thousand sleepless nights deciphering Derek’s motives and intentions. I owe you.”

  I grinned. “We never did decide on why he took you to a duck sanctuary for your anniversary.”

  Diana moaned and covered her eyes with her hands. “He was so thrilled too! Neither one of us have ever expressed any interest at all in ducks!”

  “Well,” I said, “you always say you want excitement in a relationship.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s keeping us together,” she mused. “I honestly don’t know how I’d spend my time if I didn’t have his weirdness to figure out.”

  “Maybe you’d get a hobby,” I guessed, glad the conversation had turned away from Alex.

  “Eh, at this point Derek is my hobby.”

  We spent an hour in the cafe, catching up, talking about Derek and classes in the fall, and how busy my next month will be with all the activities my mother must have planned. Diana was flying out to LA to visit her parents for the next two weeks, so I’d be losing her comforting presence for a while.

  We parted outside the cafe. She gave me a tight hug and said, “Don’t think too hard and don’t make any permanent decisions until you’re sure. I don’t have the energy to search this city for a new best friend.”

  “What if Sarah Summers is looking?” I teased.

  She grinned. “In that case, I’ll ship you home myself.”

  She waved goodbye, heading up the street and disappearing into the crowd. Once she was gone, Alex joined me from the patio, yawning.

  “You were sleeping again, weren’t you?” I asked. “People are going to think you’re drunk.”

  He grinned lazily, stretching his long arms as far as his jacket would allow. “Let ‘em whisper. You shouldn’t have kept me up so late last night, beautiful.”

  I grabbed his tie and pulled him down, kissing him. “Shut up and come on, I think we have just about enough time for one more hour of violently loud sex before my mother starts living twenty feet away from us.”

  As if to contradict me, my phone lit up. It was Jackie. I rolled my eyes at Alex and answered reluctantly.

  “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” she asked.

  I checked the screen. Four missed calls from Jackie Solomon. Oops. “I was getting a coffee with a friend,” I said. “Sorry, it was on silent. I’m on my way back now.”

  “Your family is going to be at the front door in less than two hours and you went out to get coffee?” She sounded stunned by my apparent blatant stupidity. She obviously wasn’t as experienced as she claimed. I was a seasoned expert of royal events and there was no way me being around the house with all the clamor and commotion was going to do anybody any good, least of all me.

  “I just need to get dressed,” I said. “It’s not like I’m rolling out the red carpet myself.”

  “I have your stylist here waiting! Get home at once!” She hung up and I laughed.

  “She’s not doing well,” I said. “And apparently she hired a stylist for some reason so let’s get back before her head explodes.”

  Alex gathered my hand in his and we walked down the street together, enjoying our last peaceful moments before everything imploded.

  “So you’re telling her today, right?” he asked.

  Of course, in these last minutes of calm he had to bring up the one question I did not want to think about. I bit my lip.

  “You wanted to get it out of the way,” he reminded me.

  I had and then Diana brought doubts into my mind. But I couldn’t exactly tell him that. He’d be hurt, maybe even think less of me. Or maybe it would just be myself who’d think less of me.

  Screw it. I wasn’t going to be stressing over this for the next four weeks. I was telling her today.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I am. She’ll just have to shut up and listen to me for once.”

  He laughed at my bold words and I did too. Inside though, the nerves began to hatch like a thousand tiny spider eggs and scratch at my insides. I needed to distract myself. I remembered Diana’s questions.

  “When’s your birthday?” I asked.

  “September fifteenth,” he said immediately. “You?”

  “April ninth.”

  He laughed. “Why did you want to know?”

  I shrugged, wrapped my arm around his and rehooked our hands. “I’m just realizing I don’t know very much about you. The basic stuff, I mean.”

  He grinned. “Well ask away.”

  We walked like that down the street, getting ever closer to the manor and the chaos that lurked inside.

  “Allergies?”

  “Strawberries. Weirdest fear? And don’t say rabbits cause I know that’s bullshit.”

  “I can’t believe you read the interview! I’ve been ignoring it and hoping it’ll just disappear.”

  “That’s not how the Internet works, babe. And you didn’t answer.”

  “Fine. It’s Barbie.”

  “Wait, the doll?”

  “Shut up. It’s her glassy eyes, I think. Your turn. Do you travel much?”

  “I spent some time in Thailand once…”

  * * *

  The house was abuzz with energy as we entered through the side door. My mother’s staff had arrived early to unload luggage and begin the last minute preparations before the Queen and Princess finally touched down. I waved to some that I recognized who’d worked at the palace in Athea for years, but didn’t bother them. They all had jobs to do.

  Speaking of which, I had my own. A woman I’d never seen eyes lit when she saw me and she hurried away, speaking rapidly into a walkie-talkie. That seemed to be the magic incantation that summoned Jackie. She exploded through the doors leading to the kitchen where I saw the chefs were already starting on tonight’s dinner.

  “There you are!” she said, walking up and physically pulling me away from Alex. “Get upstairs to the first bedroom on the second floor. They’ve been waiting for you.” She let go of me and kept walking, disappearing into the dining room and shouting something about tea spoons and milk.

  Alex shot me a look and I rolled my eyes. But I wasn’t about to rock the boat any more than I planned today. Besides, even if Jackie was highly annoying and a little stressed out, she was still just doing her job. So I summoned my self control and reported for duty to the stylist on the second floor.

  They immediately descended on me, showering me with hellos and excitement, none of them showing that they’d been kept waiting.

  One of them, a man who introduced himself as James, held up a light yellow dress for me to try on.

  “I was thinking about just wearing this,” I said, gesturing to my white blouse and jeans. I didn’t really feel like dealing with a dress today.

  He laughed and it was echoed by the others, two women and a second man. “Princess, you’re going to be in a million publicity photographs today. You need to look presentable.”

  Of course I did. I should have known better than to assume that even something so simple as coming home from the airport would be blown into a massive event. But because it was their job and I did not want the reputation of a drama queen (or drama princess, I guess), I tried on a variety of dresses before selecting a simple but elegant black number
which was then whisked away to be ironed and prepared. In the meantime, I was seated in front of a mirror and the staff went to work on my hair, makeup, and skin - washing and rolling and scrubbing and applying until I no longer looked like Cora, college student, but instead Cordelia Harmont, princess and heir. I hated the process, but I was used to it, having to go through it almost every time I went home and Mother wanted press pictures of the family looking happy, beautiful, and accomplished together. It all felt so fake to me, this extra layer of public skin, on my family and especially on myself. When I looked in the mirror I hardly recognized who I saw.

  Sometime in the last hour of the process, Jackie swept into the room, now followed by two assistants, one scribbling everything she said down and the other taking pictures just in case they could persuade anyone to care about this. Jackie had gotten ready herself, gorgeous in a green dress, hair curled and down, bouncy with power. She’d powdered away the stress and was looking much more stable.

  “Cora! You’re looking amazing,” she beamed as she gave me a once over.

  I gave a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. Grin and bear it, Cora. One day started, only thirty more to go.

  She busied herself around the room, making sure the attendants were following instructions and commenting on my choice of dress - “absolutely marvelous” - before heading for the door.

  Once they were finished, I was bustled into the great hall and told to stand still a few feet from the side of the front door. I looked around for Alex, but there were so many people running about that I couldn’t even tell if he was somewhere in the great hall with me.

  Outside, I could hear the clamor of the public and I pictured the usual tourist crowd multiplied tenfold at the chance to see real life royalty. Well, they wouldn’t be disappointed.

  Almost on cue, I heard cheers, signaling the arrival of my family’s limos. Behind the doors, around me, stood about fifty people all gone still as we listened to the sound of the gates opening, the cheers intensifying. Any moment now, I’d be given the signal and I’d go out to greet them at the perfect moment. Unbeknownst to the crowd, Jackie had a staff member positioned on the second floor, looking out the windows and waiting until the car came to rest directly in front of the steps leading up to the door I lurked behind.

  Open the door. Smile. Wave. Hug your mother. Wave again. Smile again. No, keep smiling. Smile the entire time. You’re happy. You’re happy to see them. You’ve missed them. You want this to happen. I repeated the mantra over and over until it became my new reality and I could affix that phony, plastic, camera-made smile known to all public figures onto my face and just get this shit over with.

  “GO!” a voice shouted down from the second story and “GO!” Jackie hissed in my ear like myself and every one of the fifty people packed into the entryway hadn’t just heard it. I pushed open the doors and-

  CORA CORA FLASH FLASH APPLAUSE CHEER Photographers and journalists with press passes on the lawn and dozens more crammed against the iron bars with tourists. Flashing lights like a rave or a firework going off twenty feet from my face. Then my mother waving and smiling and Hendrik - HENDRIK? - smiling a little less polished but trying his best as usual and there’s Gran looking like she’d rather be home reading or doing something actually important for the country than visiting America with precious jewels and the crowds have grown three times as large, blocking out the street and reaching like zombies but more accurately like celebrity obsessed fanatics through the bars like if I saw them I’d run down the drive and high-five them if they’d only scream my name loudly enough, like they didn’t know I lived here for years and left the house every morning but that’s probably for the best because then they’d be on me every minute and oh how they react when I wave yes people I see you, you’re screaming loud enough and then Mother is there and she’s embracing me in bony arms smelling like the same scent of perfume she’s worn every day for the past forty years - it’s awfully important dear that you pick a scent early or all your girlfriends will nab up the good ones - and she’s letting me go and holding me away from her, beaming in my face like she hasn’t seen me for years and is oh so, so, so glad that I look healthy and well and then physically turning me like her arms are steel bars on hinges to face the cameras that are allowed to come in with the limos and they flash and the cameras behind the gates flash and Hendrik is enveloping me too, and there’s some blond guy I’ve never seen before that also goes in for a hug and I’m trying to place him because he looks slightly familiar- SHIT don’t hug, curtsy to Gran like that’s a normal thing to do to your own grandmother and then let her hug you like she loves you so much she can’t help but break tradition and then you’re all standing and waving and smiling - don’t forget that big, beautiful smile - and then turning and - ONE LAST WAVE - into the doors.

  The door snapped shut and the noise muted and suddenly I could think again. Of course it wasn’t exactly quiet in the entry room either because there were still fifty staff members and Jackie Solomon clapping loudest of all at my family’s entrance.

  Gran raised a hand and the crowd quieted. She said, “Thank you, thank you. The entire family appreciates your work in helping get the manor back in shape. Now we’ve had a long flight and I would like to get some rest before this evening.”

  That was Gran - right to the point. Jackie, of course, swept in and tried to guide Gran towards the elevators.

  “I know how to get upstairs, deary,” Gran said, brushing her off. She started towards the elevator and then turned on second thought. “Come visit me when you can, Cora. We have some catching up to do.”

  I nodded, then realized I still had the fake-celebrity smile on my face and quickly lessened it to something a little more human. “Of course Gran. It’s good to see you.” Without thinking or caring that fifty plus strangers were standing around watching, I walked forward and gave her a real hug. She seemed to have gotten smaller, frailer, since I’d last visited for Christmas six months ago, but she hugged me with the strength of a woman a quarter her age. She smelled the same as always. For some reason I couldn’t fault it in her like I could my mother.

  Gran left us and the crowd dispersed to finish bringing in the luggage and attend to other tasks. Jackie lingered, but at a nod from my mother, she hurried off to oversee something, anything. That left my mother and brother and me mostly alone in the entryway. Oh joy.

  “Darling, it’s good to see you,” Mother said. She didn’t reach for another hug now that the cameras were out of sight. She looked older. Her dark hair loose, but fading. She was wearing an unusual amount of makeup, so the cameras couldn’t see that she was beginning to wrinkle.

  I grimaced a smile that I’d worn to her face for so many years it looked authentic. “How was the flight?” I asked.

  “Boring,” Hendrik said. “They wouldn’t let me fly.” He clapped me on the back like he’d always done when we were kids and pulled me into a side hug.

  “Not a surprise considering you’ve bailed out of how many planes?” I asked, grinning.

  “Just one and it wasn’t my fault and nobody died if I must remind you,” he said, pointing a finger in my face. I brushed it aside and rolled my eyes. It was good to see him though. I hadn’t heard any mention of his name from Mother or Jackie, so I’d assumed he wouldn’t come.

  Hendrik and I had always gotten along for the most part. He was two years older and served in the Athea Air Corps, mostly flying rescue missions to hikers lost in the mountains. For all my teasing, he actually was quite a good pilot, just like Dad had been before he’d met Mother.

  Mother was looking around the entryway and smiling a plastic smile. It had been ten years since she’d entered this hall with Dad on her arm. I felt an unusual pang of sympathy for her. I’d had years to let the pain of memories attached to this place subside; to her they were all fresh.

  “We’re on the second floor,” I told her.

  She snapped her head around as if she’d forgotten I was there for a brief m
oment. “Oh of course,” she said. “I asked for the same rooms we always stayed in before. I hope your move down from the attic wasn’t too stressful?”

  I shook my head. “I still don’t see why I had to move,” I said.

  She waved a hand as if brushing aside my silly inconvenience. “Because we’re a family, Cordelia, and families all stay on the same floor.”

  Solid logic, but whatever. I wasn’t going to fight her on it because this was the perfect time to tell her about Alex. I didn’t see him in the great hall, but I had a feeling he was near. I opened my mouth, but without another word, my mother turned and left. I pressed my lips together, trying not to let it get to me. She’d always had a rather annoying habit of leaving a room at a moment’s notice, moving away like she was striding into the sunset.

  Hendrik and I watched her go.

  “How’s it going?” I asked him.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked before I could finish my attempt at small talk.

  I feigned confusion, felt that smile remold itself to my face. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  He narrowed his eyes and moved his face within two inches of mine, studying me carefully.

  “Stop it, weirdo,” I said, laughing in spite of myself and pushing him lightly backward.

  He withdrew, but his probing eyes didn’t leave my face. “You’re nervous about something,” he said.

  Leave it to Hendrik to see right through me. I hoped it was a sibling thing and not blatantly apparent on my face. Although if it did look like I was about to confess something, that would explain Mother’s flight from the room.

  “Is this about the guy?” Hendrik asked.

  “What?” I asked, aghast. “How do you know?”

  He looked puzzled. “What do you mean? I read your Humans interview.”

  Oh shit. Mother had never called me back so I could explain and with the party and then Alex, I’d forgotten all about my error. And now it wasn’t an error. It was the truth and I’d let her read about it in a magazine interview.