There are Alex and my mom, both wearing oversize cartoon crowns and heavy chains around their necks, a bubble coming out of Alex’s mouth that reads, “It’s good to be king.”
“Mom,” Ellie says, like Mom just stabbed Alex in the face as opposed to taking a goofy selfie with him, but she waves Ellie off, still chuckling as she types. “Oh, relax, Eleanor, he’s family now! And it’s not as though I’m going to put it on Facebook or some nonsense. It will just be for me.”
For her and twenty of the ladies she knows around town would be my guess.
“It’s a very good picture of us,” Alex says, and Ellie and I both turn to look at him. Maybe he’s not a prince so much as a saint.
Then Dad sticks his head out of the kitchen, a bottle of champagne in one hand. “Shall I open this, then? Granted, I can’t drink any. Last time I had champagne was 1996, and I ended up snogging Ewan McGregor in the lobby of the Mandarin Hotel.” He shrugs. “Very pretty bloke, must say, didn’t mind a bit. But anyway, since then, off the sauce for me. Well, not just because of the kiss, because of all the other stuff as well, you know.” Dad waves his hand. “Addictions, car accidents, life ruination, and such.”
Peeling the gold foil from the champagne, he gestures toward Alex with the bottle. “Now, there’s a story for you. That last big hurrah, before I gave it all up for good, happened in Scotland, actually, and involved one of those shaggy cows you have up there. I don’t know if you know many of those cows by name, but this one was called Eliza. No, Elspeth.”
Dad wanders back into the kitchen, still expounding on Scotland and cows and a stolen train, and I look over at Alex, sitting on the couch, his hands locked together between his knees as my sister goes to sit next to him, a hand on his shoulder.
“Welcome to the family,” I mutter.
THE BRIDE WORE PLAID
Or she will? Maybe a sash at least? WE CAN HOPE. So Prince Alexander of Scotland announced his engagement to Actual Human Barbie Doll Ellie Winters (ugh, that naaaame! Shouldn’t she be the plucky lead on some kind of lawyer show set in the Deep South? Oh, wait, I bet we’ll have to call her Eleanor now because ROYAL). Anyway, Eleanor-Not-Ellie has been dating the utter snooze that is Prince Alexander for like ages now, so no one is really surprised, although it’s been a long time since Scotland had a royal wedding, and given this particular family, I’m expecting things will be balls OUT.
The wedding will be in December in Edinburgh—blah blah, WEDDING STUFF—let some other blog handle that. Let’s get to the REAL questions:
Is Seb going to bring a date? If so, can it be me?
Are the “Royal Wreckers” going to throw a bachelor party—sorry, “STAG NIGHT”? How many people will be arrested/deported/killed if they do?
Does Eleanor-Not-Ellie even HAVE a family to come to this thing, or is she a fembot? (You know MY vote.)
No, seriously, how come we never hear about her family? People cannot shut UP about a Certain Sister of a Certain Royal down in London, so how come we haven’t heard anything about Eleanor-Not-Ellie’s peeps? Hmmmmm . . .
(“The Bride Wore Plaid,” from Crown Town)
Chapter 5
“Your new brother-in-law really is super hot,” Isabel says, and I frown at her over the top of our laptops. We’re sitting at a small table in the corner of the Bean Grinder, Perdido’s one and only coffee shop, and while we’re supposed to be taking a practice SAT test, it’s clear Isabel is using the internet for something very different.
“A,” I tell her, “he is not my brother-in-law yet, and B, what happened to helping me ignore all things Ellie?”
Isabel doesn’t even bother to look guilty as she sucks the straw of her iced white chocolate mocha. “That was back when Ellie was just dating a prince, not when she was marrying one,” she reminds me, “and since you’re so determined to ignore everything, I figure someone needs to keep an eye on you.”
“By reading trashy royal gossip websites?” I ask, blowing on the surface of my orange blossom tea.
“By reading trashy royal gossip websites,” Isabel confirms, eyes still glued to the screen in front of her. “It’s a sacrifice, but that’s what I’m willing to do for our friendship, Dais.”
“You do go above and beyond,” I reply, rolling my eyes. I try to go back to the multiple-choice test in front of me, but after a few seconds of staring at the same vocabulary words, I glance back over our screens. “Anything about me?”
Isabel shakes her head, black hair sliding over her shoulders. “Not that I’ve seen, but I haven’t checked Crown Town.”
“Please think about the words you just said, then ask yourself how you feel about them coming out of your mouth.”
Isabel flips me off, her other hand clicking something on her keyboard. “There are tons of these blogs. Some of them are about all the various royals in the world. There are, like, really serious ones, like Royal Watch and Moments of the Monarchies.”
She turns her laptop so I can see the page. This is Royal Watch, and there’s a giant Union Jack across the top. Underneath, I can see a few tasteful pictures of the English royal family.
“Those are mostly run by Americans,” Isabel tells me, and tilts her computer so she can click something else.
“Then there’s Prattle, a magazine about posh people for posh people. You know, ‘What Hotel Has the Best Concierge?’ and ‘Which of Your Family Servants Are You Allowed to Snog?’—that kind of thing.”
“Charming,” I mutter, taking in the giant type of the title and the picture of a frowning aristocrat holding a cocktail.
“But then there’s stuff like Off with Their Heads and Crown Town, and those are the trashy ones,” Isabel finishes, turning her laptop back toward her.
“Which makes them more fun?” I guess, and Isabel shrugs.
“I wish I could say no, but yeah, those are the ones I’ve bookmarked. Guess Ellie was right that with your family being in Florida and the rest of the royals making plenty of headlines in Scotland, no one cares all that much.”
She meets my gaze, eyebrows drawn together. “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s good,” I say, relief turning the words into a sigh. For all that Ellie had claimed that nothing much would change right away, I hadn’t actually believed her. But it’s been over two weeks since the engagement announcement, and while that was a big deal, the spotlight is still firmly on Ellie and Alexander.