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Cynthia gives me a look like I’m crazy. “You want to try to get your license now? Have you even stepped outside today?”
I shake my head. During recess and lunch hour I stayed at my desk and read my book, preparing for the podcast I’m doing tonight. I’d already read it, but I wanted to skim through it to beef up my talking points in the review.
“Why, what’s happening?”
This island is small, and nothing much ever happens here. Perhaps there’s some hippie protest about a cell phone tower or something.
Cynthia’s eyes go wide, and she gets this excited, knowing look upon her face. “You haven’t heard?”
I stare at her blankly and cross my arms. Obviously not. “What?”
“You know Prince Edward and MRed?”
Do I know Prince Edward and MRed, aka Monica Red, aka Monica, Duchess of Fairfax? “Cynthia, I live on a rock, not under a rock.”
“Well apparently you live under one too. They’re here! Like, today. Now. And looking for real estate. The whole island has been losing their mind over it. Paparazzi have been arriving in float planes all morning, the ferries are full of looky-loos or however you call it. The town is at a standstill.”
My tired brain can hardly comprehend any of this.
You see, Prince Edward, the younger, stoic son of Queen Beatrix and her husband, Prince Albert, recently married a Grammy-winning singer named MRed, and the press has been up in arms about it. Not only is Monica Black, but she’s American and she had a successful career, which may have included a lot of risqué songs, scantily clad videos, performances gone viral, etc. In other words, the UK media has been absolutely brutal to the both of them, with racism and slut-shaming at every turn. I mean, I’m by no means a royal fanatic, but I’ve been keeping up with it (they dominate the news everywhere), and I don’t see the media ever attacking Eddie’s older brother, Prince Daniel, who remains a womanizing bachelor.
At any rate, it was reported everywhere that Monica and Eddie were leaving the UK for a yearlong break for undisclosed reasons. A sabbatical of sorts. Some people thought they’d go to Seattle, to be near her parents. Others thought the ski resort town of Whistler, where the royal family spent winter vacations when Eddie and Daniel were young. Others yet thought India, where the couple often did charity work.
Never in a million years did I think they would pick this island in British Columbia, Canada, a small yet eccentric haven between Vancouver Island and the mainland.
Honestly, I still can’t believe it. None of this seems right.
“Are you sure?” I ask Cynthia. “Maybe it’s just an actor or something.” Our island is known for being the perfect hermit’s hideaway (and I can attest to that—if I didn’t have to work, I think I’d rarely leave the house). There are lots of known authors who toil away in their writing studios, and ex-musicians who sometimes play the local pub, and everyone from Barbra Streisand to Raffi has had a summer home here at some point.
“No, it’s Eddie and Monica,” Cynthia says adamantly. “Don’t believe me? Just walk to town and you’ll be swallowed up by the frenzy.”
She sounds breathless when she says “frenzy,” and there’s a feverish sheen to her eyes. Something tells me that Cynthia is absolutely loving this. Our quiet little town turned into a paparazzi-driven chaos? That sounds awful to me. I can’t even handle the crowds when summer holidays hit, and that’s two weeks from now.
“Okay. I guess I’ll just go home and hope I don’t run into any cops.”
“Nah, they’re all out trying to contain the madness.” She says this gleefully, tapping her fingertips together like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.
We say goodbye, and I pick up the puke purse and take it down to the nurse’s office, where Judy is still tidying up (school nurse by day, restaurant server who never gets my order right at the Sitka Spruce Restaurant by night). She doesn’t even bat an eyeball at it and says she’ll dispose of it for me, like she’s getting rid of a dead body. At this point, that’s what it kind of feels like, and I get out of there before she changes her mind.
The school after three p.m. is probably my favorite place to be. There are usually a few students straggling about, killing time and waiting to be picked up, but today is warm, sunny, and dry (opposed to the usual cold, gloomy, and wet), so any kids who are left are outside. It’s just me in the halls, enjoying being out of the house and away from any stress and responsibilities, and getting to be alone at the same time.
I take a moment to slowly walk down the hall, smiling at all the art the kids have showcased on the walls, and then I’m out the door and heading to my car in the parking lot. It’s a 2000 Honda Civic hatchback that I’ve always called the Garbage Pail (since it’s silver and dented), and I added fuzzy green seat covers for that Oscar the Grouch feel. Almost everyone on the island has an electric car, and it’s definitely on my list of things to get (along with the goal of saving money), but since I essentially take care of both myself and my mother under one income, a new car seems like just another one of my dreams, along with traveling the world and falling in love with someone who deserves it.
