“I was five.” Amelia sounds as petulant as a child. “I got lost at the VMAs.”
“He had to perform with your snot on his shirt.”
“And the queen had to wipe off your frosting.”
“You think she didn’t have people to do that kind of thing for her?”
“So itistrue?” I hesitate, and Amelia begs, “C’mon, I told you mine.”
“Eddie Vedder isn’t exactly Elizabeth II.”
“I’ll tell you a Paul McCartney story later. Eddie Vedder plus Sir Paul adds up to one queen.”
“Debatable.” I sigh heavily. “There was a luncheon at Buckingham Palace. They had cake. And we weren’t allowed junk food at home.”
I can still taste the cake—overbaked and dry, turning to glue in my mouth.Not worth the calories,Anne would say.
“So I parked myself next to the buffet and had at it.”
Amelia laughs. Anne always emphasized the importance of telling a good story. No one will stop you from controlling the narrative when it’s one they enjoy.
So I don’t say how badly I wanted to hide beneath the table, or that I filled my mouth with pieces of cake, hoping to look busy so no one would talk to me.
“You try telling a ten-year-old to forgo sweets so he can meet some old lady,” I say, and Amelia laughs again, covering her mouth.
I wasn’t ten. I was fourteen, but the story’s funnier if it happened to a little kid. At fourteen, it’s sadder than it is amusing.
Anne was at Dad’s side, tall and slim and poised. Eleven years older than I, she was already engaged to an appropriate man, nothing like the overgrown adolescent whose feet were too big for his body, whose chin was still surrounded by puppy fat. She’d met the queen before. So had I, but I’dbeen a toddler at the time; her majesty was technically a cousin of some sort. Anne would know the exact lineage, but I could never keep it straight.
When Dad gestured for me to stand beside him, there was still a slice of cake in my hand. I couldn’t put it down. When Dad calls, he expects an answer right away.
I’d practiced my bow for weeks before the luncheon. As the queen’s eyes traveled from Dad (bow) to Anne (curtsey) to me, I knew what to do. I don’t know how it happened. One moment, the cake was in my hand, the next at my feet. Dad assumed I’d been drinking—the first time my drinking was referred to as a “problem”; getting kicked out of Eton a few months later was the second time. It would’ve been more humiliating to admit I’d been sober.
“So how about that Paul McCartney story?” I ask, but Amelia holds up her phone.
“Crap—one forty-eight!” She breaks into a run. “I’ll tell you all about Sir Paul tomorrow!”
Without thinking, I jog after her. For a brief moment, it feels easy and familiar: racing back to my room to hide under the covers, avoiding trouble. But at once, a shooting pain travels up my left thigh. I stop in my tracks.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Amelia says, bouncing in place beside me as though trying to keep warm. I don’t know how she manages without a coat. “You were in a car accident this summer, right?” She looks apologetic. “I swear I didn’t look you up, but it’s hard to avoid the headlines.”
“Yeah.” I nod, clenching my jaw so hard that it’s difficult to speak. “Fucked up my leg.”
“We’re almost there,” she says, putting her arm around my waist. I lean on her like a human crutch. I expect her to collapse beneath my weight, but she remains steady.
“You’re stronger than you look,” I say.
I feel her shrug. “Yeah, well, my mother used drugs for most of my life. I have a lot of experience holding someone upright.”
The top of Amelia’s head doesn’t reach my armpit, but she’s more sure-footed than I will ever be again. “You okay to get up the stairs?” she asks when we reach my cottage.
I nod again. “You go,” I manage. I’m sweating bullets, but my skin feels like ice when the wind blows. “Hurry.”
She pulls away. I wait, watching her move across the path between our rooms. She doesn’t run so much as skip, landing on the balls of her feet, almost hopping between her steps. Her wavy hair bounces like pigtails on a playground. She disappears into the darkness of her room just as the music from the third cottage cuts out. It’s suddenly so quiet that I can’t remember what exactly I’m doing outside. Someone else might think they’d dreamed the whole thing, but the pain in my leg reminds me I’m awake.
Carefully, I limp up the stairs, going over the night’s conversation in my head to distract myself.
I’ll tell you all about Sir Paul tomorrow.
