So lightning does strike in the same place twice.
He approaches our little group and says hello.
“Who are you?” Jessica asks him, and her mother immediately chastises her.
“Jessie! You shouldn’t say that. This is Prince Frederic. You need to be polite and call him ‘Your Royal Highness.’”
“But I was only asking,” Jessica replies. “He looks so different from the tea towel.”
“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness,” her mother says on Jessica’s behalf. “We have a tea towel with your face on it at home.”
Frederic nods in acknowledgment, his smile stillremarkably in place. “How do I look different?” he asks Jessica.
“You’re smiling,” she replies simply, exactly the way children do. Simple truths, falling out of their mouths in a way adults rarely do.
“That’s because I’m engaged to a rather wonderful princess,” he tells her, and the girl nods with a serious expression on her face, as though this makes perfect sense.
I don’t let his words warm my heart. Not this time. Experience tells me he’s only saying it for show.
Then it’s time to feed the penguins, and I’m offered plastic gloves and a bucket of small fish. The smell is a little overwhelming, but it must be delicious to the penguins. I toss one into the enclosure, and it’s immediately snapped up by a penguin who waddles away triumphantly with its prize.
“Oh, how marvelous,” I exclaim. “They really are the most wonderful creatures.”
“Aren’t they, ma’am?” replies the ecologist, a man in his twenties with a bushy beard called Mr. Cruikshank.
“I could spend all day here at the aquarium if I could.”
“But we can’t, can we, darling?” Frederic says smoothly. “We must go, as we’re due at our next function. Thank you so much for your time today.” He shakes Mr. Cruikshank’s hand first and then Mr. Proctor’s. “Thank you for the opportunity to swim with the dolphins. It was quite wonderful.”
We say our goodbyes, pose for more photos, and then we’re back in the car being whisked to our next appointment.
Sitting side by side, we fall into silence. I’m not sure what to say to him. It’s becoming as clear as day he’s not viewing this marriage the way I am.
There’s no warmth, no connection.
This is not going the way I’d hoped.
“You did very well today, Asti. You’re good at this. Nothing comes across as planned or manufactured for you,” he says.
I think it’s meant to be a compliment, but to me it’s just a reminder of how very different we are.
“I didn’t plan or manufacture anything, that’s why,” I reply.
My subtext isunlike you.But I don’t say it. What would be the point? Call him out for play-acting at being in love? All he could do is agree with me.
“Well, we’ll see what everyone thinks of us in the papers tomorrow, I imagine.”
I turn to face him. “What doyouthink of us?”
“I think we’re doing what we must,” he says automatically, neatly sidestepping the question the way he does.
We fall back into silence until he says, “We’re doing well.” His voice is quiet, less princely, less Frederic. “We’re going to all these functions and meeting all these people. We’re showing the people that we get on well.”
“Oh, you mean the hand-holding?”
“I mean the way wearetogether.” He pauses, and I brace myself for what’s coming next. He’s going to say I’m unpredictable, or that I take unnecessary risks, like swimming with dolphins, when I should stand neatly beside him and smile politely and do nothing remotely interesting.
But instead he surprises me.
