Page 98 of Hell Bent
“Uhh …” She looked around. “I’m an electrician. Commercial variety.”
“Foreman,” I said, putting my arm around her, just in case.
“Yes,” Alix said. “A foreman. I wear a hard hat, steel-toed boots, and Carhartts every day, and if I’m not covered in mud, I’m not working.” Her chin up, refusing to be daunted.
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t mean— Oh, dear. Look. My family’s nothing fancy at all, and neither am I. Or Dakota, either. Oh—besides your art, of course. Sorry. I should be saying,I’mnothing fancy.”
Dakota was laughing. “You’re all good, because you’re right, I’m not fancy. House painter. My stepdad was a house painter, too. Electrician would’ve been a big old step up, huh, Jennifer? They make a good living, whereas for me, it was all about juggling those bills. And I didn’t wear Carhartts. I wore Dickies. Overalls, and not the cute kind. And goggles, of course, not to mention the knee pads. I was pretty much sex on a stick when I met Blake. In fact, I believe I had water weed caught in the bottom of my ugly blue tank suit the first time he encountered me, like a slimy green tail. That was extra-special.”
“I didn’t mean that an electrician isn’t good enough,” Jennifer said, clearly still flustered. “How could you think—I’d never say that. I think it’s admirable, making it in a man’s world like you and Dakota have done.”
“Oh,” Alix said, looking thoroughly confused. “OK. I’m the opposite, though. Downwardly mobile, my family thinks.”
“Because your mother’s in investment banking,” Jennifer said. “Right? Isn’t she?”
Alix went still. “Uh—yes,” she said cautiously. “How did you?—”
“And your grandparents were some of the original Bay Area realtors, which they got into accidentally. California after World War II,” she told the others. “Ithoughtthat was you when you said your whole name, except it’s Anastasia Alix, isn’t it? Harlan said something about that after he met you the first time, and it’s just clicked, because I realized that I’ve read an article about your family. Life never managed to beat the ridiculous romance out of my soul, I guess, and I’m good at names and faces. Assistant, like I said. You have a distinctive face, and a distinctive name.” She was laughing, a little embarrassed. “I’m starstruck. Isn’t that silly?”
Owen said, “Uh … what? I don’t get it.”
“Oh,” Jennifer said. “Didn’t I say? She’s a princess.”
38
BLACK AND GOLD
Sebastian
Time for me to step in. “Yep,” I said. “Anastasia Alexandra Glucksburg-Thompkins, Princess of Saxony and of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. And that’s the smallest part of who she is.”
Alix said, “Sebastian’s right. I’m not really a princess. I mean, Iam,but it’s what my grandmother says. We’re ersatz princesses, because those titles were abolished over a hundred years ago. I’m telling you the truth. I’m an electrician. I started doing that after high school over my parents’ screaming objections instead of going to college, probably because I wanted to be tough, or tougher than life had let me be so far. I went to college eventually, but I stopped with two quarters to go, and now I’m back pulling wire until I figure out whether I want to finish. I’m contrary like that, apparently.”
“But your grandmother did grow up in a palace,” Jennifer said. “You’re a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, and related to the British royal family. There were jewels, too. I saw a picture of your … great-grandparents? and there was serious jewelry.Crownjewelry. That’s not really ersatz, is it? I’d think it would just be fun, but it isn’t? Huh.”
Dakota said, “Anastasia. Like the Grand Duchess. Were you named after her?”
“After my mother and grandmother,” Alix said. “Who, yes,werenamed in honor of the Tsarina and her daughter, not that Alexandra was any kind of great humanitarian that you’d want to be named after.” She sighed. “Look. It was all a very long time ago, and the jewels—the emerald parure you’re talking about—that’s just a pair of very special earrings now. The other pieces are sold or lost. The earrings are beautiful, but plenty of women inherit jewelry from their mothers. And you know—” She hesitated.
“What?” Dakota asked.
“It’s all tied up together,” Alix said, “at least for my grandmother and me. The princess thing, and what happened in Germany. It’s not really something we want to revisit, except?—”
“Except what?” Dakota asked.
Alix shrugged. “My grandmother told me today that she wants me to help her look for the tiara. She sold the other pieces a long time ago, and she had to leave the tiara behind in a cellar in theResidenzschloss—the palace—when she ran from Dresden ahead of the Soviet army. But you know, I keep thinking—what about the Jews whose treasures were looted and never returned? It’s because of them that survivors have the right to retrieve their family’s property after all this time, even if somebody else paid for it, even if a whole lot of somebodies passed it down the line so whoever owns it now got it legitimately. What happened to the Jews, or the Poles, or anybody else wasn’t my grandmother’s fault—she was only eighteen when she left Germany after the war—but every German bore some responsibility. The whole deal’s not the nicest inheritance, is what I’m saying.”
“Complicated,” Dakota said. “So what will you do?”
“I’ll help her, of course. She’s my grandmother, and she’s ninety-four. There’s not always time for ‘later,’ and this is one of those times. But maybe you can see why I have mixed feelings about it. Anyway, the tiara’s walled up in that palace, best case. More likely looted by the Russians, or found during renovation, when they probably opened that wall, and getting it back even if it’s surfaced somewhere is going to be a whole project in itself. Plus—I’m living in a trailer. I wear fluorescent work pants, and I drive a pickup. I don’t have much call for tiaras in my life. But she’s my grandmother, and it’s hers, so if I can help her, I will.”
Blake said, “Can’t do anything about who you’re born to. I’m adopted myself. Don’t know my birth parents.”
Dakota said, “Of course you can’t. My birth father’s probably still in prison, and my mom wasn’t exactly Mother of the Year. The way I figure it, if you have somebody in your life as a kid who loves you and takes care of you, that’s the lottery you want to win, not who your parents were. But I’d probably still like to think I was a princess. And you do look like one, I have to say. Aristocratic.”
“I do not look aristocratic.” Alix was still smiling, still trying to laugh it off, but I could feel the tension in her. “You’d never have thought that if you didn’t know my story, because there’s no such thing. Family resemblance, that’s all. I look like my grandmother, but not because we’re both princesses. Because those are my genetics, just like King Charles has his, poor guy.That’smore like ‘aristocratic looks,’ where you marry your third cousin like his parents did, and your kids all look a little equine. My grandmother was a third cousin to both Elizabeth and Philip herself, but fortunately, she broke the chain and married a commoner. That’s probably why I have a chin.”
“It’s odd,” Jennifer said. “I spent most of my life trying toget out of the box the world put me in, but not because it was good. Because it was bad. I never thought about it the other way.”
