American Royals (40 page)

“My turn,” Daphne purred, an eyebrow lifted in unmistakable challenge.

Nina fanned out her cards and held them close. Their ornate black and red faces, printed with clubs and diamonds and spades, stared impassively back at her. Her hand was no good.

Daphne set down the jack of hearts with a flourish. “The knave,” she declared, using the old-fashioned term—from back when face cards represented the royal family, when the knave was meant to signify the prince, the one who broke hearts.

There was nothing for Nina to play, and Daphne knew it. She gave a narrow smile. “I win,” she declared. Nina watched as she swept everything on the table toward her, her eyes glinting with avarice.

Daphne piled the jewels into her lap, then glanced up at Nina in cold surprise. “What are you still doing here? You know you don’t belong.”

Nina sat bolt upright, her heart thudding dully in her chest. It had only been a dream.

Then the events of last night rushed over her in painful detail—her confrontation with Daphne, her breakup with Jeff. After that, Nina hadn’t been able to go back to campus, where she would be surrounded by all those eager, curious eyes. She’d asked the courtesy car to bring her home instead.

At least here she wouldn’t be bombarded by constant reminders of Jeff. Everything else, even her dorm room, felt too tangled up in memories of him. She couldn’t even get herself a post-breakup Wawa milkshake
,
because now that, too, seemed to belong to her and Jeff.

This was exactly why Nina hadn’t wanted to get close to him in the first place: because she’d known, deep down, that it wouldn’t work out. That no matter how much they wanted to be together, circumstances would always conspire to force them apart.

The early-morning light touched on all the familiar comforts of her childhood bedroom: the old wicker screen in the corner, her brass light fixtures, the deep purple of her throw pillows. It was warm up here, a dry dusty warmth that Nina wanted to wrap around her like a blanket. She realized that she’d fallen asleep with her arm tucked around her old stuffed cat, Lenna, which she hadn’t done in years.

Nina started to turn her face stubbornly back toward her pillow, only to hear noises coming from downstairs. It sounded as though someone was crying. She pulled a terry-cloth robe over her old pajamas and trotted down the stairs barefoot.

Her parents were on the couch together, Isabella tipping her head onto Julie’s shoulder. The light of the television flickered over their faces, underscoring the shadows beneath their eyes. Isabella had a box of tissues in her lap, which she kept nervously picking at. Both women were sniffling.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Her mamá lifted a tear-streaked face. “The king is in the hospital, in critical condition.”

“What?”

Nina’s mom shifted wordlessly, letting Nina wedge herself on the cushion between them. This was how they always used to watch movies when she was younger—Nina in the middle, surrounded by her parents’ warmth, the competing scents of their perfumes.

Her mamá reached for the remote and turned up the volume. “All the cable networks have suspended their regular shows. It’s been round-the-clock coverage.”

A reporter stood before St. Stephen’s Hospital, one hand stuffed into the pocket of her black peacoat and the other clutching a microphone. “To all the viewers just now joining us, we have been covering this unfolding story since two a.m. Eastern time, when the king was rushed to the hospital after his daughter Beatrice’s engagement party. The palace has not yet issued an official statement about his condition. All we know is that His Majesty is being treated in the intensive care unit of St. Stephen’s.”

Nina shook her head. “I
saw
him last night at the party, and he seemed fine. He even danced with the queen for a while! How could this happen?”

The king was always so vibrant, with that booming, larger-than-life laugh. It seemed impossible that illness could strike someone so utterly alive.

“It just
happened,
” Julie said softly. “There’s no how or why for this kind of tragedy. No explanation. Not everything gets to make sense.”

Nina fumbled in her pocket for her phone and dialed Sam’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. She wondered how her friend was holding up, how
Jeff
was holding up.

This was the worst kind of tragedy, wasn’t it—the kind you didn’t see coming. Some things, like breakups or fights with your best friend, you could at least prepare for. But there was no bracing yourself for something like this: for the heart attack that struck at random, mere hours after your daughter’s engagement party.

“Do you remember the day he was crowned?” Isabella’s voice cut through her thoughts.

“Vaguely.” They had staked out a spot on the edge of the parade route, eager to catch a glimpse of the new king and queen. Nina recalled clutching a small American flag on a wooden stick and waving it furiously, remembered buying a cherry snow cone from a street vendor and licking its syrupy sweetness from her fingers.

“Strangers were talking to strangers, everyone acting as though the entire capital had become one giant street festival.” Isabella still held a tissue in her hands. She began folding it over and over into an ever-shrinking triangle. “I never thought I would get the chance to actually work for him, and then …” She sighed. “He’s been such a good king.”

A chill ran down Nina’s spine at the finality of her mamá’s words. It sounded as though she was already
mourning
him. “We don’t know what’s going on. He might make a full recovery.”

“The palace hasn’t made any statement. That’s not a good sign,” her mamá countered. Well, she of all people knew the inner workings of the palace infrastructure.

Nina thought again of the twins. Of the entire royal family, huddled together in one of those bleak waiting rooms, waiting for good news that might never come.

“You should go to St. Stephen’s,” Julie chimed in, as if reading her daughter’s mind. “I know Jeff and Samantha could use a friendly face right now.”

Nina hated the thought of letting her best friend go through this alone. But there was no way she could face the prince right now. “Mom, no. I can’t.”

“I know it’ll be weird, seeing Jeff after last night,” her mom said gently. “But you should be there for Sam’s sake.”

Nina knew her mom was right. But then she thought of last night, of how Jeff had automatically taken Daphne’s side. How easily it had apparently been for him, to walk away from their relationship.

“You don’t understand. It wasn’t exactly a normal breakup.”

“That makes sense, given that your relationship was hardly normal.”

Nina could only nod in agreement, pulling a pillow onto her lap to hug it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” her mom went on. When Nina didn’t answer right away, she tried again. “It just seemed like you and Jeff were so happy together. I can’t understand what came between you.”

It wasn’t
what
came between us,
Nina thought,
but
who. The glamorous, insidious Daphne Deighton, getting what she wanted, just like always.

Nina took a breath and told her parents everything that had happened.

When she finished, her mamá’s face was mottled with anger. “How
dare
she. I always knew there was something off about that girl—what a little—”

“I feel sorry for her,” her mom cut in. “She’s clearly lost sight of reality.”

Nina nodded. “That’s what makes her so dangerous. There’s nothing she won’t do in order to get what she wants.”

“Let me get this straight,” Isabella went on, pulling one leg up to cross it over the other. “You’re giving up, just because Jeff’s terrible ex-girlfriend cornered you in a bathroom and said some nasty things?”

“I’m not
giving up.
I’m just sick of it all: the paparazzi attention, the way the palace kept butting into our relationship. The fact that I had to dress differently if I wanted to be with him. Everything Daphne said was simply the icing on the cake.”

Her parents’ eyes met over her head. Nina could practically feel their indecision, the silent messages crossing and colliding between them.

“Nina, I would be lying if I said we were thrilled when you first told us that you and the prince were dating,” her mamá began—which was a generous way to phrase it, given that they’d found out from the tabloids. “But it was also clear to us that you and Jeff really cared about each other. That kind of feeling doesn’t come along very often. It’s worth fighting for, worth defending. Especially from people like Daphne.”

Nina shifted. “Fight Daphne? You don’t understand what she’s like.”

“Oh, Nina. I’ve gone up against the Daphne Deightons of the world a thousand times over.” Isabella let out a mournful sigh. “You think your mom and I don’t know how it feels, being told that we aren’t good enough, that we don’t belong? I am a gay Latina woman in a position of enormous power in the king’s administration. That has won me far more enemies than it has friends. Every day I face people like Daphne—people who fight dirty, who think that they are entitled to anything in the world that they want, simply because they can reach their greedy hands out and
take
it.”

“Exactly!” Nina exclaimed. “How on earth can I win against someone like that? Fight fire with fire?” The thought of trying to out-manipulate Daphne was daunting. No way could Nina wage that kind of social warfare.

“Of course not.”

Julie combed her fingers through Nina’s hair: a soft, distracted gesture. “Your mamá and I look to each other to stay grounded. People like Daphne—who walk around the world hurting others, hiding their real selves—
those
people are the unlucky ones. You can’t worry about them. All you can do is be yourself, wholly and unapologetically. You don’t have to change for anyone, not even for a prince. And if Jefferson doesn’t love you just as you are, then he isn’t the young man I thought he was,” she added softly.

Nina shook her head. “I don’t know …. Jeff and I said some pretty harsh things to each other.” Hadn’t she called him shallow and selfish?

“Oh, sweetheart. Someday you’ll understand that words are just that—words. They can hurt, but they can also heal.”

They all looked up at the TV, which had panned to the crowds gathering outside the hospital. The capital must be totally shut down this morning. What looked like thousands of people had flocked to the streets, talking in low, somber tones. Strangers hugged one another; police monitored the intersections, to protect people who walked into the road, blinded by tears.

The reporter was saying something else, about how the stock exchange would suspend trading until further notice, but Nina wasn’t listening. All she could think about was this enormous outpouring of love and support for the royal family. She had to be part of it.

“Moments like this have a way of smoothing out the rough edges of things, to help us see what really matters,” her mamá chimed in.

Nina thought of what Jeff had said that night on campus, when he’d surprised her with the Wawa milkshake.
You’re already part of our family,
he’d told her.
You belong with us—with me.

She stood up, running a hand distractedly through her hair, which was still matted with hairspray from last night’s dramatic updo. She needed to go, now. No matter what had happened between her and Jeff, she needed to be there for Samantha.

“Do you think—” She broke off, glancing uncertainly at her parents. “Do you think he’ll want to see me?”

“I don’t know,” her mom said honestly. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

Barely twenty minutes later they pulled up outside St. Stephen’s. Julie was driving, still in her pajamas, with Isabella perched in the passenger seat, casting worried glances back at Nina. They had insisted on giving her a ride so that Nina wouldn’t have to deal with parking.

Nina had watched in terrified awe as her mom cut across lanes of traffic, blazing through yellow lights with abandon. For once it didn’t seem to matter. There was barely anyone on the road. Coffee shops and laundromats were shuttered and dark, TEMPORARILY CLOSED signs fastened over their doors. A hush had fallen over the capital, as if everyone were anxiously holding their breath, putting their own lives on hold while their king’s life lay in the balance.