“Not really,” Phillip quipped. He looked at his parents. “Remind me how many generations of Kings have been crowned at Palmetto? Four, or is it five?”
“It’s
I’d always imagined that Mike was so nonchalant about Prince because it was the kind of thing his family might dismiss. But now I finally understood one of the many silent power struggles I waged with Diana: Every day after school, when I moved Mike’s framed National Merit Scholars certificate to the front of his desk, someone replaced it with his football trophy after I went home.
So success was formulaic to the Kings. If adulthood was for serious, professional accomplishments. . was it possible that high school, in their eyes, meant sports and popularity, to the point where they even trumped academics? So the Kings cared as much about Palmetto Court as I did. Suddenly, this little dinner party went from buzz kill to extremely beneficial.
“Of course, who can forget Phillip Jr.’s flawless coronation speech?” Diana recalled, dotting her mouth with a napkin. “What was it again, dear? ‘As gratitude for this bestowed honor—’”
“ ‘I will earn your absolute trust,’ ” Phillip Jr. finished, smugly nodding his head. I rolled my eyes at Mike to indicate that he would not be bringing that gem back to life at our coronation.
Phillip Jr. lowered his voice and cocked his head away from his mother. “Of course, if you ask Isabelle, it wasn’t my
He and Mike shared a rare brotherly snicker at the reference to what went on behind closed carriage doors during the Prince and Princess’s famously racy ride to the coronation. It was one of Palmetto’s oldest traditions and also one of its most taboo. A half hour before the coronation ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage made two stops at the Scot’s Glen country club. First to pick up the Prince in the Club Room, then to pick up the Princess outside the Ladies Lounge. The nearly crowned then took a ride around all eighteen holes of the golf course and were delivered for their grand entrance to the ceremony, just in time to make their speeches.
Depending on the relationship between the future royalties, the carriage could either be a vaguely awkward or a totally hot ride. And, of course, it was always choice pickings for the rumor mill at school. If there was any chemistry at all between the Prince and Princess, sending a Princess into the carriage was much like sending a bride off to her marital bed. Hence Phillip Jr.’s bawdy boast, and hence Isabelle’s icy not-in-front-of-your-folks glare.
“What about you, Natalie?” she asked, steering the conversation back toward more appropriate ground. “Are you on the Court for Princess, too?”
Before I could open my mouth, Diana snapped, “Don’t change the subject, Isabelle.”
I used my toe to nudge Mike’s groin. When his head shot up and his eyes met mine, I raised my eyebrows in the most seductively threatening way I could manage at the dinner table.
“No one’s changing the subject,” Mike piped in obediently. “If I win anything, it’ll be because of Nat.”
Diana was banging the prongs of her fork on her dinner plate without realizing the entire table was trembling to the beat of her nerves. I popped another bite of filet mignon in my mouth, enjoying every delicious moment.
I had never seen Diana King so unglued. There was something gorgeously transparent about her poker face:
“Really, Mr. and Mrs. King,” I said sweetly, laying a hand on Diana’s arm to silence the fork. “Don’t worry about a thing.” I wedged my toe further between Mike’s legs, wondering briefly what accolades I could get for working open his fly using only my toes.
“Slightly easier said than done, dear,” Diana said to me.
“I promise,” I said, giving weight to each word. “I think your son and I have found a surefire way in.” I glanced at Mike, unbuttoning him right there in front of his very buttoned-up family. “Pretty soon. . we’ll have this thing nailed.”
Mike bit his lip. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether he was flushed from being turned on or whether he was embarrassed by a little innocent bon mot in front of his family. Everyone but me seemed relieved for the interruption when Binky brought out the palate cleanser.
“Thank you, Binky,” Diana said, settling back into her role as Queen. “I think we’ll ask you to serve dessert aboard P.J.’s sailboat. Of course, it will just be the four of us.” She motioned to everyone but Mike and me.
Mike looked at me. “You’re sure you don’t want to—” “Your mother and I already discussed it, remember? She was kind enough to consider my feelings after what happened to Daddy.”
“Of course,” Mike nodded, looking uncomfortable that he hadn’t remembered instantly. Not that I blamed him — it wasn’t exactly like I went around bragging about my dad’s disappearance all the time. The tragic sailing accident was just a convenient story — clean enough for company and tragic enough that no one, including Mike, had ever really asked for particulars. “We’ll just take the cigarette boat out then, Mother, if that’s okay with you.”
“Do as you wish,” Diana said, standing up to excuse us from the table. “Just remember that when it comes to Prince next week, we’re talking about more than just your wishes.” She looked at me. “This is a family affair.”
As Mike and I walked down the path toward the marina, he motioned me behind the pine tree where we’d once carved our initials. We stood pressed together in between the thick patches of green-mouthed Venus flytraps that grew like sun-spots on the King’s backyard. The plants’ carnivorous jaws were open, waiting for their evening meal.
“You and my mom are sure in cahoots over my Palmetto Prince campaign,” he teased. “Hey, I’m sorry about the sailboat thing. I should have realized.”
“Over and done with,” I said quickly. “And if being in cahoots with your mother gets you the crown, I guess I can suffer it for a week.”
But I didn’t feel in cahoots with Diana at all. In fact, my pride was still stinging from her little “family affair” quip. Why didn’t Mike seem to think anything of it? He was already busy untethering the boat. As I watched his arms flex while he worked, my whole body started buzzing. Really buzzing. Oh, wait — that was my phone buzzing in my purse.
I grimaced, thinking it was probably my mom, wanting me to pick up another bottle of wine for her on my way home. No mother has ever been so excited when her kid got her first fake ID.
But this text was no standard liquor-run call from Mom:
The cool facade I’d managed all through dinner suddenly disappeared into the night. A thick black water moccasin slithered by my feet, and I gripped the wooden buttress of the marina for support.
“Nat?” Mike called from the boat. “The boat motor’s running. Get down here so I can work on yours.”
“Be right there,” I said hoarsely.
Back from the dead indeed.
Dad.
“
Anyone from Palmetto would tell you MacB’s was the only place to brunch — not just for their buttermilk biscuits and homemade peach preserves, but also for the chance to scope out who showed up with whom. Since the rain clouds had finally given way to sun, the weather was in the high 60s, and it seemed like our entire school was trolling the historic wooden boardwalk outside MacB’s.
