She paused at the entrance to the banquet hall, scanning the tables for Samantha, but she didn’t see her sister anywhere. Maybe Sam was stuck in a small-group session, or on the phone with Marshall.
Beatrice shifted her weight, uncertain. King Frederick and a few other monarchs lounged near the windows, lingering over their glasses of Sancerre—Beatrice had tried, at first, not to serve wine at lunch, but the Europeans nearly revolted in protest. Nearby, Tsar Dmitri sat with his friends; they usually gathered outside so that they could smoke their cigars without being glared at. A few tables away, the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales read on their tablets in placid silence.
Beatrice’s eyes lit on Queen Irene of Slovenia, who was sitting at a table along one wall. With her wild cloud of gray hair and her mismatched assortment of shawls, she rather unfortunately resembled a fortune-teller at a carnival. She looked up, meeting Beatrice’s gaze, and lifted her arm in an overeager wave.
Well, it was better than eating alone.
Beatrice had just started forward when Louise appeared next to her. “Béatrice. Hello,” she said in that low, throaty voice of hers.
Louise’s eyes were rimmed by whorls of black eyeliner, and her hair was pulled into a casual knot. The edge of a bra strap peeked out from the collar of her button-down, which had such a boxy and loose fit that Beatrice suspected it was a men’s shirt. Louise had paired it with a short skirt and tall black boots, giving the whole outfit an artfully disheveled look.
Beatrice tried not to feel self-conscious about her own dress, which was printed with yellow lemons. She’d thought it seemed cheerful, but now the pattern struck her as silly and girlish.
The past couple of mornings, Beatrice had lingered over her warm-up stretches, finally taking Franklin out when it was clear that Louise wasn’t coming. They hadn’t spoken again, though she kept seeing Louise around the conference.
Really, it was impossible not to see Louise. She flitted about like a butterfly, vivid and electric. Half the time she arrived late to the monarchs’ sessions, casually sipping a coffee. She would settle into her seat, swish her long hair over one shoulder, and lift her hand to ask a pert question of whoever was presenting. No one chastised Louise for her behavior. If anything, the other monarchs seemed slightly in awe of her, as if Louise behaved the way they all wished they could.
“Come sit with us,” Louise said. It should have been a question, though it came out more like a command.
“Really?” Beatrice blinked, wishing she hadn’t just said that. “I mean, yes. I would love to.”
She tried not to bounce with excitement as she followed Louise to the back of the banquet hall, where Louise’s friends—Alexei, Sirivannavari, and Bharat—were already gathered. The seat in the corner was empty, clearly reserved for their ringleader. Beatrice assumed that Louise wanted to sit there because it had the best view over the rest of the room, but as they sat down, Beatrice realized that Louise wasn’t actually looking at the rest of the room.
Louise sat in the corner chair because she wanted everyone else to look at her.
Beatrice shifted in her seat, glancing nervously around the table. “Um…hi, everyone.”
No one spoke for a long moment. She had a panicked impulse to make a comment about something, anything—the conference, the rainstorm—but swallowed back her words. There was nothing more painfully desperate than talking about the weather.
Princess Sirivannavari glanced up from her phone, breaking the silence. “I’ve been thinking about getting a pixie cut. Can I pull it off, yes or no?”
Bharat looked at the Thai princess with intense concentration. “How pixie are we talking, exactly? Sleek or shaggy? Punk rocker or Old Hollywood screen siren?”
Beatrice didn’t understand half of what he’d said, but Sirivannavari answered right away. “Sleek, of course. Like, the short-hair-but-big-earrings look. Very Queen Geraldine in the sixties.”
Bharat nodded sagely. He and Sirivannavari both looked to Louise, awaiting her verdict.
Louise took a delicate bite of her salad, then wiped her mouth on her napkin. The crimson of her lipstick left a smear on the white fabric. “I don’t know,” she said. And to everyone’s surprise, she turned to Beatrice. “What do you think, Béatrice?”
Beatrice was so caught off guard that she blurted out the truth. “Pixie cuts always remind me of my high school math teacher, at St. Ursula’s. She rode a motorcycle to school every day. We were all a bit terrified of her.”
Oh my god, she thought as the rest of the table stared. Why had she brought up Ms. Linfield?
Then Louise burst into laughter. “Béatrice is right. Siri, you cannot risk looking like a high school math teacher. I forbid it.”
Beatrice feared she might have hurt Sirivannavari’s feelings, but Siri didn’t seem offended. She just shrugged and looked back at her phone, clearly relieved that the decision had been made.
Bharat sighed, leaning his elbow on the table and cupping his chin in his palm. “I would have made a great math teacher or professor. All those tweed vests and plaid scarves!”
“If you want to dress like that, you should do it.” Louise smiled. “You know what, we should all do it! We’ll call it academic chic.”
“It would be a fun experiment,” Bharat agreed, and Louise laughed.
“Experiment? Academic chic is going to be the hot new thing,” she said firmly. “If we start dressing in plaids and vests, the fashion magazines will take notice, and then the internet bloggers. We’ll have started a global fashion movement within the month—because we decided to, right here at this table.”
Sirivannavari tilted her head. “You really think so?”
“I know so,” Louise said emphatically. “The five of us can make anything happen.”
The five of us. She had included Beatrice in their number. And maybe they were just talking about fashion, but Beatrice still felt swept along by the intensity of Louise’s conviction.
What did it feel like to be that confident, to know that you were strong enough to shape the world to your will? Beatrice had spent so long shaping herself according to the world’s expectations—trying to be the princess, and then queen, she thought America wanted.
Maybe it was time she acted a bit more like Louise.
The rest of the lunch passed all too quickly. Beatrice knew she should get going; she’d planned on reading the Financial Committee’s report before they presented it this afternoon. But it was so much more fun here, listening to the rapid back-and-forth of conversation.
Louise and her friends had an extensive shared history. They had all gone to school together in Switzerland, referenced birthday parties and trips to Verbier and classmates they’d lost track of. They teased mercilessly: Remember when you stepped on a sea urchin at Livadia, and we had to use a fake name at the emergency room? or Whatever happened to your mom’s old assistant, the one who wore the creepy hats? It would have seemed off-putting and exclusive, except that Louise always paused to explain the inside joke, drawing Beatrice into the circle of their shared intimacy.