Page 40 of The Impossible Princess
That’s it. Nothing more. But she leaves me with the impression that the whole evening would have been less upsetting if I had been as still as the statue of Magda the Great in the forecourt. Still, she touches my face before I turn to go up to my suite. “You’re working hard.”
I give a tiny nod. Yes. I’m working hard, I think, slipping into my suite. But I’m working in the narrow little channel she has set for me, racing and racing like a greyhound after a rabbit dummy. If I catch the prize, there are no guarantees that it will be satisfying.
Ping.
I am halfway out of my stockings and I stumble-hop over my shoes and across the dressing room to answer it.
“I saw you were having dinner with Admiral Raukema.”
The hose are abandoned, one leg turned inside out and the other rolled down to my knee as I give over to typing. “Were you watching me on Open Access?” I ask, naming the Sondmark public television station. “That’s weird.”
“It’s weirder that you wereonOpen Access. Anyway, I watched Open Access before you were on it.”
“You and three old women from Durmstein.”
“We have a club.”
I grin, peeling my stocking free and tossing it in a corner. The shoes I treat reverently, placing them in the appropriate cubby in my closet.
“Your boss was nice.”
“The admiral is not my boss. And he is not nice.”
I google the Naval chain of command, snap a screenshot, draw a line between lieutenant commanders and admirals, and add ‘boss’ with the design app. Send.
“You did well,” he writes, and I scowl at my phone. What am I supposed to say to that? I know I did well. I was like a trained seal barking out the answer to a math equation on an episode ofSondmark Has Flair.
“Clara?”
“???”
“Come over.”
Warmth flickers through me and my heart begins to race. Unconsciously, I start doing the math. Time to change, plus the time to drive, minus the light traffic at this hour of the day. By the time I get there, it’ll be ten. Not too late to see a friend. Friend. But the feeling I have is one of intense craving. We haven’t seen each other in days.
“Coming.”
I move fast, scrubbing off my gala makeup. I pull on black leggings, shove my feet into a pair of trainers and toss on a Stanford sweatshirt.
“Where are you going?” Alma asks as I encounter her in the hall. “Need some company?”
Vede.
I hold up my phone and dance past her, not stopping. “Not this time.” I don’t know what she’s supposed to infer about the phone. That I’m doing research? That the prime minister is on the line?
I register that she looks disappointed, but there is no time to confirm. I jog out to the Fiio and soon I’m flying past the gatehouse with a spurt of gravel.
19
About Butter
CLARA
It’s twenty-four minutes from the time I send the text until the time my car pulls into the drive.
“Security?” he asks.
There’s a twinge of guilt as I bound from the car, tossing the keys on the front seat, but I shove it away.
