The Princess Trap (3 page)

“Can you give us a few minutes?” Bea asked.

The man smiled again and left. At a neighboring table, a heavyset customer waved his hand to indicate that he wanted to pay.
Truck driver
, thought Jenna. She looked back at the menu.

“Um, yay? And yum! They’ve got four-cheese pizza,” she said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had one of those?”

“Frankly, darling, there’s not much I
do
know about you since you started moving up in the world!” said Bea. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve yet to actually download much info.”

“There’s always so much to do!” Jenna began. “For real, you cannot imagine …”

The waiter returned, holding a small notepad. “Ready to order?” he asked.

“The four-cheese pizza,” said Jenna, “with a Diet Coke, please.”

“The Cobb salad,” said Bea, “and a chai iced tea.” Then she looked disapprovingly across the table at Jenna. “Your skinny Coke won’t make up for the other ten thousand calories, you know. Four-cheese pizza! The only person I know who eats that is my dad!”

“Don’t even, because I’ll be fat no matter what I eat,” said Jenna, and pressed the flat of her hand against her stomach. “As you can see.”

“You are not fat now, you were not fat then, you are not fat, period!” Bea said with exasperation. “I thought that by now you might be over all your neuroses, Jenna. Or have you forgotten that it was you they cast in the movie?”

“Oh, please,” Jenna said. “That whole thing was just a scam, and you know it.”

Bea shrugged. “Fine, whatevs! Anyway, come on, spill. I’m dying of curiosity. Life as a princess? Tell me already! Then, afterward, I’ll treat you to dessert — an ice-cream cone.”

Jenna giggled. “An ice-cream cone? My hero! Thank you so much for riding to my rescue in the battle against the bulge!”

Al Patel, manager and currently sole waiter of Pizza Heaven, looked out through the spotlessly clean window. Only two of the tables were occupied, one by a man on his own, the other by two girls.
Business is slow
, he thought.
Maybe I’ll give the girls dessert on the house. If they’re happy and they tell their friends about the place, sales might pick up. The school isn’t far away.

He went out and put the drinks on the table.

“The food will be ready in a moment,” he said. “The chef always makes the salads fresh, so it might take a little longer.”

“That’s cool, no worries,” said Bea. Al smiled at the girl. She was slim and blonde and could have got herself hired by any lucky modeling agency. The other girl was curvier, and looked familiar somehow. She stopped talking to her friend and simply smiled at him. Where had he seen her before?

Al went back into the kitchen, where the chef was cutting up tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad, and adding a few olives. The pizza was baking in the oven.

“Take a look through the door for a second, will you?” Al asked him. “Has the shorter one been here before?” He pointed outside. “The dark-haired girl? Her face looks familiar. Think we’ve got our first regulars?” His heart beat a little faster at the thought.

The chef at Pizza Heaven had stopped chopping the salad and was standing motionless, staring at the two girls through the window, his knife in midair.

“I’ve definitely seen her before!” he said. “And just recently. But it wasn’t here …” He put down his knife and, with trembling fingers, leafed through the daily paper. “Look! If I’m not mistaken, we have a princess sitting in our restaurant!”

A
l looked at the newspaper photo
of the dark-haired girl. Then he left the kitchen, carrying the salad, and put it down on the table with the pizza in front of the girl, smiling straight at her. Once again she stopped in midsentence. It seemed as if she was the one doing all the talking. Her friend was just listening, apart from asking the occasional question.

It
is
her
, he thought as he went back to the kitchen. He glanced again at the photo. But was it really possible? Could a princess just wander in off the street and eat pizza at one of
his
tables? Princesses didn’t eat pizza. At least not in public. And a princess wouldn’t be caught dead in an average little place like his.

“Al!” The chef beckoned him excitedly. He had just opened the latest issue of
People
magazine, bought for customers.

“Look, she’s in here, too! It’s got to be her! ‘Princess Jenna of Scandia.’ And it says she was actually here yesterday, visiting her old school …”

“But why doesn’t she have any bodyguards?” said Al. “Surely a princess wouldn’t just go off on her own?”

The chef shrugged. “I’m not saying I know
why
she’s here,” he said. “I’m just saying
that
she’s here.”

The customer at the other table was waving his wallet impatiently. “I’ll go and get his check,” said Al, “and then I’ll talk to her. I can at least say hello, right? Maybe she’ll let us take a photo of her in the restaurant — and then one of her with the two of us.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” whispered the chef, turning to the telephone mounted on the wall in the kitchen. He flicked quickly to the masthead of the paper. “Here. Call the news desk.”

“Hey!” shouted the man at the table. “You having a party or what? I’ve got to get going!”

Al hurried outside. They couldn’t afford to offend a customer. By the time he reached the table, his face was wearing a smile once more. “I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t realize you were waiting,” he said.

The man flapped his hand in annoyance. “Typical!” he said, pulling a bill out of his wallet.

The girls at the neighboring table were in animated conversation. The pizza lay untouched on the plate, and must have gone cold by now.
It
is
her
, Al thought again. The man didn’t tip him.
It’s
definitely
her. If Chef is right, it’ll be such good publicity …

As he passed, he smiled at the girls. What a lucky break!

“I mean, most people would think being a princess was totally cool,” Jenna was saying wearily, sipping her Coke. “I thought so, too, at the beginning.
Princess Jenna of Scandia
. And I’d helped uncover the plot and free the king …”

“Just like in a movie!” said Bea. “My dad said no one would believe something like that could happen in real life. There you were, pigging out at our place year after year …”

“Thanks!” said Jenna, giggling. But it was pretty much true. Some of the best times she’d had in her life were dinners at Bea’s.

“… and you were always so shy that we could hardly get a word out of you, while your
mom
was the snootiest, craziest mother ever …”

“Mom’s not snooty!” said Jenna. They’d had this conversation over and over in the old days. Why couldn’t Bea just drop it already?

“Well, that’s the impression she always gave,” Bea said. “All that silly etiquette business, and you never being allowed to do
anything
, and always having to be home by six!”

“Because she was afraid someone might kidnap me!” Jenna tried to explain for the umpteenth time. “Because I happen to be the daughter of Princess Margareta of Scandia, even though none of us knew it back then. They could have used me to blackmail the king!”

“Don’t get all defensive. I know the whole story,” said Bea. “I’m just saying, you weren’t the most exciting girl in the world, were you? But now all of a sudden you’re a princess. Like I said: Hollywood movie.”

Jenna looked down at her congealing pizza. Suddenly she wasn’t sure that she wanted anything to eat.

“So?” asked Bea. “Is it really like that? Like a movie, I mean?”

Jenna attempted a forkful of pizza. The cheese was cold and claggy. It stuck to the roof of her mouth. She should have ordered a salad instead, like Bea.

“Honestly?” she said, putting down her knife and fork. “It’s not like that at all. I mean, I’m still me, Bea. But my life has done a total one-eighty. It’s totally different.”

“Well, give
me
a gig as a princess and
I
wouldn’t complain,” said Bea. She’d almost finished her salad.

Jenna shook her head. “It’s not as nice as you think. You’re never alone, for one thing — there are always bodyguards with you. And the cameras! I’m supposed to smile and be on my best behavior all the time, polite and ‘dressed appropriately.’ Because if I’m not, you can bet it’ll be in all the papers and all over the web. Everybody’s interested in me, everybody wants to talk to me, to be photographed with me so they can pretend they know me.”

“I guess you can’t blame them,” said Bea. “Take me, for example. It’s all I talk about most of the time. ‘By the way,’ I say, ‘Princess Jenna of Scandia just happens to be my best friend.’ My cred has gone through the roof at school. Not to mention everywhere else.”

“You know I don’t mean you, Bea! Why do you think I was so desperate to come see you? Because you always were my best friend.”

“Were?”

“Still are, I hope. I know you like me for me, for who I was pre-princess, and not because you can show me off. Everyone else only seems to like me because I’m, you know … royalty.”

“Like the poor little rich girls in TV movies,” said Bea, “never sure if a guy is in love with them — or their money.”

“Something like that,” Jenna agreed. And if she really wanted to be honest with Bea, she’d tell her it was worse. No one even wanted to be friends with Jenna the princess. “And it’ll be the same if
I
ever fall in love with someone.” She felt herself turning red. The tabloids had already picked up on that. How sweet — a princess who blushes on cue! Nobody wanted to read things like that about themselves. Or comments about how they came across in public. “Princess Jenna, Still the Ugly Duckling.” “Princess Jenna Looking Helpless at State Reception.” After too many headlines like those, she stopped looking at the papers, but that didn’t keep the other girls at school from reading them — and then ripping out the articles and leaving them spread across her bed.

“Excuse me, Your Highness?” Bea broke into her thoughts. “Is there something — or some
one
— I should know?”

“What are you talking about?” Jenna asked distractedly.

“Boys!” said Bea. “You’re very quiet all of a sudden. Is there a prince for the princess?” She giggled. “‘And will they live happily ever after?’” she pronounced dramatically. “Sorry, Jenna, I couldn’t resist! But that guy who came to our place last year with you and Malena — he was kind of cute.”

“Jonas,” said Jenna, feeling herself turning a deeper shade of red. “He’s been Malena’s friend forever — since they were in kindergarten.”

“How unfortunate,” said Bea. “I thought he had hottie potential. But I guess cousins can’t go stealing each other’s boyfriends, can they?”

“No,” she acknowledged, neglecting to add,
As if someone who can have Malena would want me instead.

“Anyway, you’ll probably have plenty of guys to choose from,” said Bea. “That’s how it is with royalty, isn’t it? You can have a prince, you can have a millionaire, you can have a movie star, you can even have a boring old nobody, if that’s what you want. Not like me.” She rolled her eyes up to the heavens. “
I’ll
probably end up with a boy who plays accordion in a klezmer band.”

“Poor you!” said Jenna, laughing. “Oh, why do I have to go back tonight?” The thought made her feel slightly sick.

“Can’t you change your schedule?” asked Bea. “Stay another day. Two or three, even.”

Jenna shook her head. “The day after tomorrow is this big summer party,” she said gloomily. “Thrown by the family of the girl I share a room with — Ylva.”

“But do you really have to go?” asked Bea. “Wouldn’t she give you a pass?”

Jenna pushed her plate away. She’d eaten almost nothing — meaning fewer calories, at least: Every cloud had a silver lining. “Ylva couldn’t care less whether I was there,” she said. “But her father’s very high up in the army — a general or something, I don’t know.”

“And that’s why you have to go?” asked Bea, puzzled. “What does the military have to do with you?”

Jenna shrugged and picked up a slice of pizza. She gave it an angry bite. “It’s because of the press,” she mumbled. She took another mouthful. “Newspapers, TV, they’re all going to be there, and it’ll be shown all over Scandia — ‘the social event of the season.’ So I have to be there. It’s called ‘making an appearance,’ which is what I have to do all the time.” She bit into the pizza again. A string of melted cheese trailed down her chin. It tasted awful. Everything was awful. She didn’t want to go back to the palace.

“Oh, Jen!” said Bea, and put her hand on Jenna’s arm as if to comfort her and to stop her from shoveling any more food into her mouth at the same time.

At that moment, Jenna heard the
click!
of a shutter. A man was leaning out the window of a black SUV that had stopped at the traffic light. He was taking photo after photo. On the door of the SUV was the logo of the local newspaper.

“Oh no!” Jenna cried, raising her hands to hide her face. “Not again!”