American Royals

Sam turned to her sister. “What’s he talking about?”

There was something unsettled about Beatrice this morning. Her eyes kept flicking down the hall as if she were looking for someone. “Private audiences are meetings we do twice a week, usually for twenty minutes each,” she said impatiently. “High commissioners, military personnel, judges, visiting dignitaries—”

“No, the part about you and Teddy.”

Beatrice seemed surprised by the question. But then, she and Sam hadn’t exactly talked about personal stuff for a long time now.

Sam wasn’t sure when the distance between her and Beatrice had begun. It had just … grown, each of them drawing back one slight inch at a time. Now it was so vast that Sam couldn’t begin to fathom how she might bridge it.

“I asked Teddy Eaton on a date, and he said yes,” Beatrice repeated.

“But …”

But I’m the one he kissed, Sam wanted to cry out. Teddy had missed the knighthood ceremony to linger in the cloakroom with her, and now he was going out with her older sister?

“But you never date.”

“Well, I decided that now is a good time to start,” Beatrice said wearily.

“Why Teddy?” There had been so many young men swarming around the ball last night. Why couldn’t Beatrice have gone for any of them, instead of the one boy Samantha liked?

“He comes from a good family. And he’s very handsome,” was all Beatrice replied. Even here in private, her words sounded stilted and rehearsed, as if she were standing on a podium and delivering a speech.

“That’s it? You picked him out of a crowd for his face and his title?”

“Why do you care anyway? No one is asking you to find a husband!”

“What?” Sam blinked in confusion. “Who said anything about marriage?”

There was a momentary flash of something, vulnerability or confusion or maybe even hurt, behind the immutable expression on Beatrice’s face. It was enough to make Samantha take a single step forward.

But then that mask slid over her sister’s features again. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. This is a Matter of State.” The way Beatrice pronounced it, Sam could practically hear the capitalization.

“Right,” Sam said evenly. “There’s no way I could comprehend the intricate socioeconomic and political implications of the boys you go on dates with.”

She tried not to reveal how much it stung, that Teddy had apparently chosen Beatrice over her. Though she shouldn’t have been surprised; this was what had happened their entire lives, with everything else—their parents’ attention, the throne, the entire country.

Samantha never could keep hold of anything once Beatrice had decided that it should be hers.



DAPHNE



Daphne hated hospitals.

She hated how cold and antiseptic they felt, with that tangy metallic smell underlying everything. She hated the waiting rooms, with their depressing vending machines and outdated magazines, some so old that they dated from the previous king’s reign. Most of all, Daphne hated hospitals for how quiet they were, the silence broken only by those machines beeping their soulless refrains.

But Daphne was no fool; she knew that certain charity hours were worth more than others. She couldn’t just be a docent at the art museum and sponsor the ballet. If she wanted the American people to truly love her, she needed them to feel like they’d had a real, meaningful interaction with her.

Which was why Daphne had embarked upon a tireless self-directed PR campaign. She tutored underprivileged students in math and physics. She volunteered at a local homeless shelter. And every Sunday she came here to the children’s wing at St. Stephen’s Hospital, because Daphne knew that volunteering just once would get her nowhere. It had to be a habit to really count.

And count it she did. Last year Daphne had logged over four hundred hours of volunteer work, carefully recorded and time-stamped. Princess Samantha, meanwhile, had done fourteen. All year. Daphne didn’t hesitate to slip those numbers to Natasha, who gleefully ran them in the Daily News. The comments of support had, predictably, poured in for Daphne. Though she wasn’t sure anyone at the palace had even bothered to reprimand the princess.

Besides, what did it matter that she beat out Samantha, when saintly Princess Beatrice had completed even more hours than Daphne, all while she was a full-time student at Harvard?

For years, Daphne had tried to model her behavior on that of the older princess. Beatrice clearly managed her reputation with the same meticulous caution that Daphne did. As the first female heir to the throne, she had to. Far too many people were silently willing the princess to slip up.

There was no room for error in either of their lives.

If only they could commiserate about it, Daphne sometimes thought. How hard it was to be a woman in this world of monarchies, whose structures and traditions had all been built by men.

Maybe things would improve when Beatrice someday took the throne—when, after two hundred and fifty years, America would finally be ruled by a woman. Or maybe it would have been better if America had never been a monarchy at all, and had some other form of government.

Daphne doubted it.

“Daphne! It’s good to see you.” The aide at the front desk gave a shy smile, though he’d known her for years now. He was an acne-prone guy in his mid-twenties who always seemed on the verge of asking for her autograph.