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“I don’t know,” I admit as we approach the coffee shop and I hold the door open for her. “I talked to Bert, the head of the RCMP, and it seems a lot of people wouldn’t have been all that happy if they moved in. Crisis averted.”
“More like opportunity wasted.”
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault,” I tell her, and then bring my voice down to a whisper once we enter the shop. “There could have been a million factors as to why they didn’t settle here. Honestly, I couldn’t really blame them. This can be a strange place.”
Being lunch hour, there’s already a line, so I briefly consider going to another coffee shop and skipping the cinnamon bun, but who knows what the line will be like over there.
We’re almost at the counter when a woman sitting at the corner table loudly exclaims, “No!” and her friend leans over to see whatever it is on her phone.
She gasps.
They both gasp.
Then I see someone running past the shop.
And another person.
And another person.
Heading in the direction of the harbor.
My first thought is that there is some sort of emergency.
But then the woman and her friend jump to their feet and she quickly says, “Prince Eddie and his wife just arrived by seaplane!”
That’s all it takes for nearly the whole coffee shop to abandon their cinnamon buns and lattes and run outside, joining the pack of people already running to the harbor.
“This is insane!” I exclaim, looking around. “Everyone has lost their mind.”
Cynthia turns to me and gives me a pleading look with puppy-dog eyes.
“What?” I ask incredulously. “You want to join the mob and run down there too?”
“My mother is obsessed with Monica. It would make her day if I could send her a picture. Maybe she’d finally come and visit me.”
“Fine, go,” I tell her. “I’ll get your coffee for you.”
“And the cinnamon bun!” She grins at me, and then she’s running out of the shop too, her necklace swinging.
I shake my head, and suddenly I’m the next in line since everyone ahead of me ditched out. I look at the barista with her pale silver-purple hair and nose ring. She’s staring longingly at the door, her phone in her hand, mid-text.
“I’d take over for you if I could,” I offer.
She smiles begrudgingly and rings in my order for two oat-milk lattes.
I snag the last cinnamon bun for myself.
Afterward I walk back to the school, hoping Cynthia can tear herself away from the mayhem before the lunch bell rings. Every now and then another person runs or speed walks past me, and I have to wonder what the hell is going through their heads. Maybe it’s because I’d already had that meeting with Harrison, but I don’t understand the obsession. This is like Beatlemania for the twenty-first century.
That said, there is a smaller version of myself, adorned with furry devil horns, perched on my shoulder and whispering in my ear, “They’re back, the royals are back. They might be your neighbors after all.”
That version of me sounds a little too excited, so I flick her off my shoulder and try to regain my composure. The whole town is going nuts for these royals, not me. Besides, just because they’re back doesn’t mean anything, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’ll be my neighbors.
My thoughts become reality. Aurelie Lamont, the French teacher, is leaning against the main entrance into the school, staring off into the distance. She’s from Quebec, so there’s something about her pose that’s even extra dramatic, her dark hair flowing around her.
I give her a quick smile, about to make some passing small talk such as “Hot day, eh?” when she says, “They’re buying a place on Juniper.”
I stop in my tracks. “Sorry, what?”
She looks at me idly. “The duke and duchess. They’re buying a place up on Juniper. That big house behind the gates. Used to belong to Randy Bachman. The Guess Who. ‘Femme Américaine.’ ‘Pas de sucre ce soir.’ You know.”
“Really? Where did you hear that?”
She gives a light shrug with one of her shoulders. “A student told me. She lives in the neighborhood. Don’t worry, I made her tell me in French.”
I just nod at that and walk inside. I hate to admit it, but there’s a flutter of disappointment in my chest. It’s almost as if I secretly wanted them to move next door to me, even though I just spent my lunch hour chastising the idea. I guess having them as neighbors would have made me feel . . . special. Sounds silly and so stupid, but it probably would have been the most exciting thing that ever happened to me.
I shake it off. I have to. It’s dumb, and earlier today the whole thing seemed like a distant memory anyway.
Before I know it, it’s time to go home. I never regained control of my kids after lunch, so I pretty much just let them run wild in the classroom, so long as no one got hurt and no one puked in my bag again. Cynthia never even came to get her latte, so I ended up drinking both of them, and when I get inside the Garbage Pail, my hands are shaking from the four shots of espresso.
