“But you have never brought anyone here,” she said.
I couldn’t figure out if she was being serious or not.
The king interrupted. “Gertrude, can you imagine how that date might go? Between the guards and you, I’m not sure which would be more intimidating.” The king laughed, and she joined him but eyed me suspiciously as Hamlet snickered into his wineglass, which was nearly empty.
The king turned his attention to Hamlet and said, “You are just lucky, my boy, that your flirtations have not angered your subjects. Luck can only last so long.” He jutted out his sharp chin and glared ever so slightly at Hamlet.
I looked down, a familiar hurt washing over me. I tried to push away memories of last April’s multipage spread of Hamlet and a girl sunbathing at an exclusive resort, images some of the girls at school were only too happy to have on hand for weeks afterward. Hamlet had said the pictures were taken out of context, but I still wasn’t sure how out of context a girl draping herself across him could be. Months later, my desire to punch him for whatever the context was had only slightly diminished.
Hamlet leaned back in his chair. “I’ve never cheated, and you all know it. How can I help it if the public wants to believe that I have?”
His father squinted at him. “You should know as well as anyone that perception is all. If your subjects believe you’ve cheated, you’re a cheat. They won’t trust a liar as their leader.”
Hamlet reached for the wine bottle, and his mother slapped away his hand.
“Enough talk of cheating,” she declared, her brow furrowed and her cheeks ablaze. “Why don’t we retire to the sitting room?”
We all stood and wandered toward the cozy, overstuffed couches in the next room. Hamlet put an arm around me and kissed the top of my head. I shoved him away, pretending I was kidding but taking the moment to pull myself back together. More than anything, I was kicking myself for giving credence to the whole thing. Lots of people had reasons to sell inaccurate, inflammatory stories to the press. It had happened to us before. Hamlet said it wasn’t true, and I knew I had to stop letting such things bother me if we were going to have a future together. And as for being grilled by his parents, if one planned on spending time with the royal family, one couldn’t be overly sensitive.
Hamlet pulled me onto the couch next to him and put his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into the curve of his body, and Horatio plopped down next to me.
“There are other chairs,” the king said, smiling.
“We can’t stand being apart. You know that,” answered Hamlet.
Gertrude sighed.
Hamlet’s father said, “Horatio, your mother tells me you’ve chosen a major.”
“Yeah. Political science.”
“Bah, politics.” The king waved his hand as if clearing the air of something foul. “All of that power, deceit, and corruption.”
“You’ve done well with politics,” Claudius said, his eyes narrowing at his brother.
The king shifted in his seat. “As have you. But we were born into our roles. If you had been able to make the choice, wouldn’t you have done something other than work for me?”
Claudius leaned forward, scratching at his beard, which was short enough to be considered overgrown stubble. “I would have been king.”
Hamlet’s father raised his eyebrows. “You know, being in charge is no picnic.” When Claudius merely sniffed, Hamlet’s father sighed and added, “Don’t be bitter. It was an accident of birth. I’m older, so I’m king. What can we do?”
Claudius ran his fingers through his thick dark hair as he glared at his brother. Then he rose and poured himself a drink.
“Dad, what would you have chosen to be?”
The king looked right at his son and said, “A florist.”
Hamlet began to laugh, and his father joined him with a sound so loud that a security guard poked his head through the door. The king waved the man away.
When he’d settled down, he asked, “Ophelia, is your passion still art?”
“No, it’s Hamlet,” whispered Horatio, and I poked him in the ribs.
I nodded at the king.
“I have that painting of yours hanging in my study.”
I took a moment to think. “The one of the unicorns and the rainbow?” I asked, amazed he still had that thing. I’d presented it, with great solemnity, when I was in the second grade, and he had received it with a bow. “I should make you a new one.”
“I look forward to it.”
The clock chimed ten, so the king excused himself to go back to his office, as he did each evening. Gertrude rose and pecked him on the cheek without comment, which was peculiar. For as long as I could remember, the king’s long hours had driven her nuts. How many times had I heard her say that her husband worked too hard, that he neglected her, and that another few hours wouldn’t change the kingdom one way or another? The tension had been worst right before Hamlet went to college. But then, to my surprise, a few months after he left, she stopped bringing it up as often, at least publicly. I wondered why.
The king’s departure was, as always, the cue for the “young people” to leave. Gertrude and Claudius would stay up talking and, even if it had not been exceptionally boring to be with the two of them, we were not welcome. What she found so fascinating about the king’s reptilian brother, I couldn’t understand.
We got in the mirrored elevator that would stop first at my floor and then continue down to Horatio’s family’s apartment. “I really meant it,” Horatio said. “You’ve got to visit Wittenberg this semester. It’s always so much more fun when you’re around.”
“You really should,” said Hamlet.
“We’ll see,” I said, walking out on my floor. “You coming?” I asked Hamlet, reaching out my hand.
“Is your brother there?” he asked, poking his head out, pretending to be scared.
“She’s right,” said Horatio. “You are a jerk.” He pushed Hamlet out with his foot and yelled, “Good night, sweet prince!”—a mockery of how I sometimes said good-bye to Hamlet. We both turned around and shushed him, laughing.
The king’s Cabinet was expected to live within the castle, as were other high-ranking officials and their most vital assistants. The two-hundred-year-old marble, gilt, and stone portion of the castle was reserved for state dinners, meetings among diplomats, and the like. That part acted as a grand facade to a twenty-story black glass building that loomed over it. The modern section housed the royal residences and included a rooftop pool and gardens, ten floors of meeting rooms and offices, and nine floors of apartments. Upper-level staff, like my father, had apartments on the north side of the building, which looked out at Elsinore’s spectacular skyline, as well as its sparkling river and harbor.
Staff apartments were on the floors directly below the royal residences. Ours had no grand lobby into which the elevator opened. By some strange design, there was not even an entry-way. The elevators just opened into our sitting rooms. Everyone in the castle knew this to be the situation, so people were careful about which buttons they pushed. In addition, one needed a code to go anywhere above the tenth floor.
Even so, with an ever-rotating staff that was often overworked or preoccupied, the chances of an error were great, so one never got the feeling of complete privacy. When we were younger, Hamlet, Horatio, and I found it funny to push all the buttons and see whom we could find in nightgowns or mid-argument. It took a few groundings to teach us that it wasn’t worth it. Every so often I was tempted to do it again but never did.
With the elevator doors closed and Horatio’s laughter fading away, Hamlet and I stood silently, checking whether it was safe to proceed. City lights streamed in through the high windows, giving the large sitting room and open kitchen an eerie blue glow. We listened a minute at the entry to my father’s hall, which branched off to the right of the elevator. We could hear my father’s snore through his closed door, and I tried not to laugh. His bedroom and study were at the opposite end of the apartment from Laertes’s and my hall, so I led Hamlet the other way. We paused again, and since we heard nothing, I kept going. Hamlet shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and sauntered behind me. Laertes’s door was open, but the light was off, so we continued into my room.
“Finally,” he said when we climbed onto my bed.
I kissed his shoulder, then his neck, then his cheek.
But he pulled back and asked, “So, who have you been seeing?”
“What?”
“You told my mom you’ve been dating other people.”
“Leave your mother out of this room, please,” I said, trying to kiss him again, but he stopped me.
“No, seriously. Who?”
“It was nothing,” I said, trying to sound casual, which is precisely what it had been, anyhow. He kept glowering at me. I added, “No one you would know.”
It wasn’t true. Hamlet knew Sebastian from the lacrosse team in high school. He knew that Sebastian was in my circle of friends and that Sebastian and I were always in the art studio together. But Hamlet didn’t need to know that Sebastian took me to hear a band called the Poor Yoricks and asked me out several times afterward. I wanted to torture Hamlet after all he’d put me through, but he didn’t need details.
“That’s—”
“Hey, we agreed: Don’t ask about last semester. This is what you wanted, so—”
“Well, I hate it.”
“Oh, you hate it? Then I am tremendously sorry,” I said with exaggerated sympathy. “Last spring, I totally should have been thinking about
your
feelings in case we got back together.”
He bit back a smile but then furrowed his brow and looked genuinely troubled, so I added, “Hamlet, it was nothing. If you want me to trust you, then you have to trust me. It’s not easy for me, knowing that once you’re back at school, you’ll have those girls in little skirts fawning all over you. I’m not supposed to give that any thought?”
He sat back on his haunches. “I don’t like any of them like I like you. I’ve broken things off in the past because I
have
been tempted… because I never wanted to cheat or lie. But honestly, Ophelia, there’s no one else for me.”
My stomach jumped a little, but I didn’t want to get too excited. I was trying to keep my emotions more in check this year. I had to protect myself.
“I think…” he started, “I want to stay together.”
Again I felt fluttery, but I could not allow myself to trust the sincerity of the sentiment. “Hamlet, you always do this. You decide one thing and then change your mind. It’s hard to know what to believe.”
“Believe that I love you.”
“I do.”
“Let’s try then. Let’s commit to being together.”
“If you say so,” I said, picturing Horatio’s “I told you so” face if Hamlet broke my heart again. But then Hamlet kissed me, and my fears evaporated. I sighed with happiness, thinking that this time things between us would work.
Francisco:
So you were tight with the royal family.
Ophelia:
We spent a lot of time together.
Barnardo:
How much of that time did you spend plotting against them?
Ophelia:
None. Why would I—
Francisco:
Okay. Different question. You were alone with Hamlet constantly, yet your father, from what we understand, was very protective of you.
Ophelia:
My dad was too busy and too tired to notice what I did a lot of the time.
Barnardo:
So you took advantage of his schedule and his position?
Ophelia:
(pause)
No more than any other teenager.
Francisco:
So that’s a yes?
“Did the queen take you out for ‘girl time’?” Zara asks as a picture of Ophelia and Gertrude in front of Elsinore’s most notoriously expensive shop is projected.
“Sometimes.”
“What did you two talk about?”
Ophelia blinks a few times and then her mouth curls into something resembling a smile. “I’ll never tell.”
Zara leans in. “I guess a girl has to keep her secrets. But, just between us, did you talk about Prince Hamlet?”
Ophelia winces almost undetectably but then flips her hair. “What do you think?” she asks as she reaches for a glass of water. Her hands shake slightly, and she spills a few drops on the armrest of the couch.
Zara seems not to notice and winks at the audience.
“Gertrude may dress you up and welcome you at her table, but she’s not your mother and you’re not her child.”
I turned away from my reflection, letting my new dress slip to the floor.
Laertes continued. “You can never have what they have. You can never be rich, like they are. This whole thing with Hamlet can only end in disappointment.”
I picked up the dress, threw it across the plaid couch as if it didn’t cost a month of my father’s salary, and stomped toward our kitchen. “Laertes, I’m aware of all that. Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Sometimes I think you are,” he said while following me.
“Nice.” I scowled. “It’s a dress.”
He slid onto a bar stool at the kitchen island. “It’s not just a dress. Every time that woman gives you something, there is a reason behind it.”
“That is not true.”
“If you broke up with Hamlet—
you
, and I mean you crushed him—do you really think she’d invite you the next morning for tea and shopping?”
I shook my head, knowing he was right.
“Be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”
I handed him a soda before slumping on the kitchen island and asking, “Where were you last night?”
“Movie. I heard Hamlet leave around two.”