God Save the Queen (20 page)

             
I whispered back, “You have no idea.” Then we glided away. The dance went even better than it had this morning. I twirled and dipped at the right moments and I was able to spare Kevin’s feet the punishment I’d been doling out all week long. I was tempted to go off-script and improvise a
Dirty Dancing
move (run into Kevin’s arm, let him hoist me up in the air), but better sense prevailed. We finished flawlessly.

             
As soon as we took our bows, Kevin whispered, “You look stunning tonight, An.” On our last bow he lifted my hand to his lips and gave it a soft peck. I swear, it felt as if someone had dripped hot wax on the spot he kissed.

             
I thought that after that performance, I deserved a breather. But just as I was about to suggest to Kevin that we adjourn to the terrace for a breath of fresh air, I heard a commotion behind me, followed by the rapid-fire clicking of multiple cameras. I turned to see a horde of reporters heading toward me, all hungry for interviews. I turned back to Kevin, who said with a wry smile as he broke away, “Well, I guess your business begins now,”

             
“Kev … Kevin, wait!” I whispered, but he vanished in the crowd and I was already besieged by an international contingent of reporters. It was time to get to work, and I did my best to charm them: “Oh,
hola, ciao,
um …
Bonjour, monsieur
…
Guten Tag
…”

Chapter 29

Surprises

             
Thanks to a scheduling screw-up, the interviews lasted all through the coronation banquet. Oh, I was at the head of the table for the pre-dinner champagne toasts; it
was
my coronation banquet, after all. But no sooner had I raised my fork to take my first succulent bite of beef Wellington, when LaGard appeared at my side. “What are you doing here?” he whispered angrily into my ear. “Reuters and
Le Monde
are waiting outside the library for their exclusive interviews. Leave at once!”

Call me crazy, but I somehow thought that being empress meant that
I
was in charge. This was a classic LaGard maneuver. Since no one had informed me I had to give interviews during dinner (did I mention it was
my coronation banquet?
), I could only conclude that LaGard had forgotten to pass that little tidbit on to the scheduling coordinator. The last thing I wanted to do was to create a scene, however, so I left the table as unobtrusively as possible. Considering the fact that all eyes were glued on me, that wasn’t possible at all.

So there I was in the palace library, answering the same questions that had already been answered in the press packet.
The good news was that there was only one more interview left, thank God. I was getting cramps in my smile muscles, and my stomach was starting to make indiscreet “Feed me” gurgles.

             
“Has it been hard getting around the palace, Your Majesty? I mean, there are so many rooms!”

Yeah, that’s why it’s called a palace
,
I wanted to say. But I smiled prettily and replied, “No, not at all! I mean, it was difficult at first, but now I could probably take a second job as a tour guide. Why not? Whatever it takes to help stimulate our economy.”

             
She nodded as she scribbled that down on her clipboard. “So!” she said, giving me her best bright-eyed smile, “Here you are, living every little girl’s dream. How’s that working out for you? You have the palace, the wardrobe …” She leaned forward and asked in a just-between-us-girls tone, “… and I hear you even have the prince.”

             
“Well,” I began, having no idea how to handle that one, but then I was mercifully rescued by the sound of a clearing throat. I turned around and there was Kevin standing awkwardly at the door, looking like a teenager about to ask for the keys to the family car. I glared at him as I not-to-subtly hissed, “Yes?”

             
He jerked his head to the side and said, “Can I talk to you … over here?”

             
Not unless the palace is on fire,
I wanted to say, but instead I turned back to the reporter and asked daintily, “Would you excuse me for a moment, please?”

             
She replied with barely raised eyebrows as I got up and made my way to the library door. If I could interpret Kevin’s reaction to my icy glare, it would be something like “Hey, I wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?”

My response was a curt murmur: “You
are
aware, aren’t you that I’m in the middle of an interview right now?”

             
“Oh,” he said, looking over at the interviewer as if seeing her for the first time. “Well, um, I just wanted to give you your birthday present.”

             
“My
birthday
present?” I asked, my tone implying that he knew perfectly well how I felt about birthdays.

             
“Well, not rea … you know what, it’s a surprise, a birthday surprise. Nothing at all like a present.”

I remained skeptical. “You already gave me a birthday surprise. The portrait, remember?”

“That wasn’t a birthday surprise, it was just a surprise that just happened to fall on your birthday. Look, do you want to go or not?” He looked at me with puppy-dog eyes. That did it. Damn, why do I always fall for his puppy-dog eyes?

Meanwhile, the reporter behind me was making “I’m still here” noises
--shuffling her papers, yawning loudly, and snapping the clip on her clipboard.

             
“Fine,” I sighed to Kevin. “Once I’m done with this interview--”

             
He beamed. “Great! I’ll be waiting at the main staircase. Try to have Mari or Antonio cover for you.”

             
And he was out the door. I turned, baring a sheepish grin to the reporter. “Sorry, scheduling problems. So! Where were we now?”

             
But she was already packing up her things. “You know, actually, I think that we’re all set here. So, um, it was very nice meeting you, Your Majesty.”

“My pleasure,” I said, offering my hand and praying she wouldn’t curtsy and kiss it like that last reporter. Honestly
.

“Thank you so much for the interview
,” she said, shaking my hand and looking a bit more pleased than I thought necessary.

             
And as soon as she was gone, I began to search for Avery or Mari. I finally found them standing by the west side window, grabbing appetizers off trays as the waiters walked past them. I quickly pulled them to the side while Barnes and Antonio considerately blocked my view so that any stray reporters wouldn’t see me.

             
“Hey, can you guys cover for me while I ditch this place for a while? Kevin wants to show me something.”

             
“Oh,” Avery and Mari both said, exchanging meaningful glances with each other.

“Is
he going to show you your birthday … surprise?” Mari inquired.

             
“Um, yeah. How did you know about it?”

             
“He told us. Where is he?”

             
“He is meeting me at the main staircase. So can you guys cover for me or not?”

             
“We’ve got it all under control,” Avery said. “Don’t worry. We haven’t seen LaGard all night anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Just go and have fun, all right?”

             
“Thanks,” I said, and then scurried out the side entrance below the stairs.

             
I passed a few servants as I made my way up the side staircase and toward the main hall. It was weird when they stopped all conversation and bowed their heads. But it was doubly weird that my immediate reaction was to bow my head right back at them.
Guess I’ll have to get used to that,
I told myself.

There was no one
else in the hallway, just me and my paranoid thoughts, so I began having a knock-down, drag-out fight with my thoughts.

             
What the hell am I doing? What the hell do I
think
I’m doing? What, a coronation wasn’t enough for one day, now I’m going to run off with Kevin? Hel-lo, it’s Kevin we’re talking about here! He’s just a friend! Okay, there was that thing at the lake, but let’s not go there. He’s just giving me a birthday present, and that’s it. Please, heart, can you stop beating so fast?

             
I calmed down a bit by the time I reached the Grand Hall. I turned toward the main staircase, and there was Kevin standing at the top, staring at the hall in front of him. I walked up as casually as I could, pretending I really was calm. He turned around, looking as cheerful as ever.

             
“Anya! Great you came.”

             
I walked up to the top and smiled at him. “Why? I told you that I would. Now where’s my birthday surprise?”

             
Kevin laughed and then took my hands. “I have to show you, but you have to close your eyes first.”

I groaned. Okay, I was trying to hard to pretend I didn’t care one way or the other and it was coming off a little rude.
Note to self: Try to be nice for a change.

“Come on, please?
Can you trust me?” He took a step forward and looked deep into my eyes.

             
I was taken aback and whispered hoarsely, “Of course I trust you.”

             
“Great! All right,” he said as he started pulling me forward, “just close your eyes and follow me. I promise I won’t walk you into a wall or anything.”

             
I laughed. “Kev, I already told you, I trust you and I meant it. Now let’s go before they realize that I’m gone and send out the hounds.”

“Okay, okay.” He
took my hand and walked me into the hallway as I closed my eyes.

             
At first I could pretty much map out our route. But then we started taking so many turns than seemed likely, I suspected he was trying to confuse me. When I finally lost all sense of direction, I actually got a little scared. Finally I heard a door click and swing open. As I walked forward, I felt and heard the sound of my heels hitting stone floor. At long last Kevin leaned in close and I felt his hot breath on my ear as he whispered, “Happy Birthday” and took his hands off my eyes.

             
I covered my mouth and gasped. I was standing in
the Glass Room, as I had pretty much figured out. But
La Salle en Verre,
as we whimsically called it, was utterly transformed. Kevin had set up a small dinner table with food and a little candle flickering in the center. He even draped a string of Christmas lights along the bottom of the huge glass wall, which gave the room an unusual warm glow. The effect was heightened by the full moon that cast a light blue, almost whitish glow over the whole room. It was as if I had walked into a dream.

             
I turned to Kevin and tried to tell him what I thought, but it was impossible. It was like the day I found out I was an empress, and only squeaks and gurgling sounds escaped my mouth. Finally Kevin helped me out by asking, “So you like it?”

             
I looked at him in amazement--how could he ask such a thing?--and then embraced him. “Kevin, it’s perfect! Absolutely wonderful. It’s the best gift I’ve ever received.” I looked up at his face as I held his hands. “Thank you.”

             
He held me tight and then said, “No problem.”

             
Once we were done soaking in the sheer gorgeousness of the room, I made our way down to the table for a closer look. It was a simple meal--a little salad, a loaf of crusty French bread and a wedge of ripe Camembert. Kevin explained how he didn’t want me to risk getting anything on my white dress, so he picked simple foods. I was so hungry from not eating anything at the actual dinner, I inhaled everything so fast that there was no way that it was going to fall on my dress. I kept hearing Kevin snickering about how manly I was eating, but I didn’t care. Finally dinner was consumed, mostly by me, and we just sat there looking at the room. I decided to break the silence by congratulating Kevin on his wonderful dinner.

             
He smiled at my compliment, “It wasn’t that hard. To be perfectly honest, I got one of those salad-bag thingies.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey!’ he shouted. “Those things are harder to make than they sound. You still have to pick out all the rotten, wilted lettuce bits and--”

             
“Stop!” I said, not wanting to hear a word about the rotten, wilted lettuce bits you always find in salad-bag thingies.

             
After having a nice belly laugh, I suddenly decided that I wanted to get up and gaze out the glass wall. Although I had been in this room so many times and enjoyed the view from where I was sitting, I had never really looked out the window before. It looked so enchanting, the way the moonlight hit the trees and the garden fountain. After standing there in blissful silence for a while, I suddenly heard Kevin at my side say, “So, is it still surreal?”

             
I sighed and continued to gaze. “Sure it is, and I think it always will be. I think if it happened when I was much younger, it would have been easier. But at my age … see, seven months ago I pretty much had the whole world figured out, and fairy-tale twists just don’t happen in the real world. A little kid might fall for it, but there’ll always be a part of me that’s skeptical.”

“Skeptical?” Kevin blinked at me. “You don’t really doubt that this has happened?”

“Oh, I know it’s happened. I’m here and my life has done a one-eighty.” I paused to shake my head. ”But just think about it, Kevin. Kids, normal kids my age, are worried about their SAT scores, and getting into college when they go to sleep at night. Me, I have to worry about which finance plan I should choose in order to have my country’s economy skyrocket. Normal kids can go out and hang out at the mall. Me, I guess I could go to the mall, but not without two huge guys packing pistols and walkie-talkies. Normal kids can date who they want. I have to be told I’m not allowed to break up with my cheating boyfriend. I mean, can you imagine the stress that can have on a girl?” I turned my face back toward the glass.