Nobody in Particular(33)
Rose raises her eyebrows, but before she can roast Eleanor, some guy in a tuxedo grabs her arm and vanishes with her into the crowd. Cool, bye, then.
“What’s Santi doing here?” I ask Eleanor. “Did Rose invite him for you?”
“Nope. His mother is the Spanish ambassador.” Eleanor scans the crowd—looking for Santi, I assume—but then she nods somewhere through the sea of people. “Hey, it’s Rose’s parents. Do you want to meet them?”
I blanch, and look at the ground. “Oh, no, that’s okay.”
“Really? Not even to say happy birthday?”
I literally cannot think of anything less appealing than bothering the queen of Henland right now to wish her a happy birthday when she’s probably got no clue who the hell I am. She will definitely, one thousand percent survive without meeting me. Besides, everything Molly drilled into me earlier today—a blur of rules about what everyone needs to be called, and who I’m allowed to talk to, and how deep I have to curtsy—has vanished.
“Maybe we can just get something to eat?” I say weakly.
“Best idea you’ve had all night. Let’s go.”
Waiters with appetizer trays are weaving through the crowd, and we grab a couple of pieces of hot finger food from them, but we hit the jackpot when we find a massive buffet table overflowing with cakes, pastries, and a chocolate fountain.
“Molly is gonna be so pissed she missed this,” Eleanor says. “She said last year the only thing missing was macarons, and look. A whole tower of them. I’m gonna steal her some.”
“You know she didn’t want to come, right?” I ask, just to check.
Eleanor stops smiling. “Yeah. I know.”
I realize too late that I was meant to play along and pretend nothing’s wrong. Because if we don’t acknowledge a problem, it goes away, or something.
Not far from us, Rose is standing with Alfie, talking to a middle-aged couple I don’t recognize. Alfie looks more or less like a model, all sharp jawline and perfectly coiffed hair, and he’s beaming and chatting and bringing the couple to laughter like he was made for this. I would do anything to be confident like that. Rose is standing close-close to him, too. Like, right up in his personal space.
They look like a couple. They aren’t one, though, right? Surely I’d know if they were.
I’m so busy watching Rose, I don’t even notice at first that the king and queen have joined her.
King Edward is a surprisingly short man in person compared to how he looks in photos, with a receding hairline and glasses perched on his strong nose. He seems to be in a cheery mood, and he claps a hand on Rose’s shoulder while grinning. If the king looks happy, though, it’s nothing compared to the beam on Queen Maisy’s face. She’s dressed in jewel tones of deep blue, and her glossy brown hair is swept up in a simple chignon below a tiara. The queen is where Rose gets most of her features from. They’re as beautiful as each other. They look like fairy-tale royals, the kind you romanticize as a little girl, before you grow up and realize most royal families are made up of pretty normal-looking humans who just happen to have a glossy lifestyle.
Not this one, though. Normal is the last word I’d use to describe Rose.
Eleanor leans in with an urgent whisper. “Danni, Santi is getting a macaron. He’s getting a macaron.”
This is actually my first time seeing Santi. Santi, it turns out, looks like any guy off the street, with a long face and thin, short brown hair. That’s the hair Eleanor spent half a day staring at? She must be down bad.
“Isn’t he incredible?” Eleanor asks, and I nod as enthusiastically as I can. “What do I do?” she asks, grabbing onto my arm. Before I can even answer, she steels herself and answers for me. “I’m going in.”
“You’ve got this. I believe in you.”
She takes three quick breaths, jumps on the spot, then casually walks over to the macaron stand. I shuffle closer to eavesdrop and grab a pastry in the process.
“Hola,” Eleanor says alarmingly loudly. “Soy un … una del nombre es ella Eleanor.”
My Spanish is shaky, so I only have a vague idea of what Eleanor just said. But from the look on Santi’s face, he feels the same, and I’m pretty sure he speaks Spanish.
“Hi?” he says.
Eleanor hesitates, and I start racking my brain for an excuse to rescue her if this goes south. Or south-er. “Wait, no. Ella nombre … del una … I’m Eleanor.” She beams and sticks her hand out.
Santi surveys her, and I hold my breath, but he takes her hand and holds it between them. Oh, thank god. “I’m Santi. You’re friends with the princess, right?”
I take that as my cue to leave. The only thing is, I don’t know where to go, exactly. I don’t know anyone, and the idea of introducing myself to the random rich people in the room—a ton of whom seem to be literal royalty—is, frankly, horrifying.
So, I sort of … work the room for a while. And by that, I mean I do aimless laps. When was that aerial show meant to start? At least that’ll give me something to focus on, so I don’t look so lost and out of place.
As I walk, I think of Molly, who must be feeling weird about being at Bramppath tonight, no matter what she thinks of Rose. Wish you were here, I text her. Eleanor’s smuggling you some macarons.