My mother’s dress swashes back and forth as she hustles and bustles around the grand family room area of the Palace, pacing and murmuring and trying to make sure everything is ready. If she wasn’t my mother, I’d be thinking that if she doesn’t stop buzzing around like a fly, I’m going to be tempted to swat at her like one.
Okay, maybe I actually am thinking that, just a little bit. I would never actually hit any woman, especially my own mother, but that doesn’t mean I can’t let my imagination run wild and at least think about bottling her up in a mason jar for a little while, until she settles down and I can let her back out.
“Do you have the passports, Dear?” she asks me, and I try to stop myself from grimacing.
“Yes, Mother.”
Most people say nothing ever goes right when you’re planning something big: a trip, a wedding, a family vacation. But those people have never had Queen Calinda Carrington as their mother.
Because we happen to be preparing for all three things mentioned above, at once, she is particularly on the ball today, running down her list of to-do’s and making sure everything is crossed off, even though that’s what we pay servants for. And very handsomely, I might add.
“Did you see to it that Lionel and Deron packed our suitcases?” she asks, as if speaking of the devils.
And they are little devils— I always have to go find them wherever they’re off roughhousing or daydreaming, and babysit them while they do whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing for all that money, even though sometimes it would be easier to just do it myself. I swear they act more like twelve year olds than twenty two year olds.
“Yes, Mother,” I sigh.
“Your tux?”
“Yes!”
“And over there in America, have they already picked up Meredith’s… wedding dress?”
She gulps as she asks the end of this last question, as if she doesn’t want to say those three words together.
“Ma.” I squint my eyes at her, in a warning. “You said we weren’t going to get into this today. That you wouldn’t do this again. Or ever again. I’ve made my choice, and that’s that.”
“Do what?” she asks, batting her eyelashes at me in feigned innocence. “I was just trying to make sure we have all the necessities. I wouldn’t want you to not be able to get married.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” I tell her, although I don’t believe her.
I’m sure she was trying to insinuate that Meredith would be flighty and forgetful. My mom has a lot of strong opinions about my fiancée, even though she’s never even met her. Which is part of the problem.
But that’s about to be rectified. After all, there’s no better time than just before my wedding for my mom to meet my fiancée, right? I figure that that way, Mom can’t find anything else about her to be upset about.
“Gregory, I don’t like the way you’re doubting me,” she says, reaching up to put a hand on my shoulder.
I look down at her, wishing that she could just let go and be happy for me.
“You seem awfully concerned about making sure I get married to someone you’ve specifically said I shouldn’t get married to,” I tell her. “Don’t you think that’s a little fake?”
“Well, Gregory,” she says with a pout. “I can’t really help it. I’m only expressing concerns because I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I appreciate your concern, but we’ve been over this. You’re the one—” I lower my voice, so my dad can’t hear, even though his room is far away and the door is usually closed. “You’re the one who said I had to choose a bride, before…”
I don’t say the rest. Not just in case he hears. But because I can’t say it out loud. Before my dad, the King, dies.
“I didn’t know you’d choose some floozy you met on a vacation to the States,” my mom erupts, clearly unable to contain herself any longer.
Both her green eyes—nearly a spitting image of my own, in a female version of course— and her pink lips— which she always keeps perfectly lipsticked, even when she’s not planning to leave the Palace— are widened in surprise, although she’s had months to get used to this fact.
“Mom,” I protest, having had it up to here with her meddling and— more importantly— her unkind words against my fiancée. “I’ve chosen her. Meredith. She’s the one.”
I sigh, annoyed that I have to go through this with her again.
“I know you don’t like it and I know it’s untraditional for the royal family to even let the prince get a say in this, so I appreciate the leniency,” I tell her, trying to be respectful. My mother is the Queen of Ambrosia, after all. Not to mention the fact that she gave birth to me and changed my poopy diapers. “We’re dealing with it in exactly the way you wanted us to, so I’d ask you to respect your side of the bargain and not talk negatively about my future wife.”
Mom nods resolutely.
“You’re right, Gregory. That wasn’t nice of me. I apologize.”
She sniffles as she says it, as if she’s a bit embarrassed to have to apologize yet again. Mom just can’t seem to help herself when it comes to being critical of Meredith— nor when it comes to letting me in on many other opinions she holds about everything and anything under the sun.
A part of me understands, as this isn’t exactly a match made in heaven. It’s more like a match made in a kingdom that still wants to believe that fucking fairy tale marriages exist. And one that forces me to go along with it by marrying someone, anyone, before I take my rightful place as King.