was sorely afraid that it would only encourage Her Highness into more high jinks. Prince Raphael was delighted. Sir
Hubert was mortified.
Isabella was scared to death.
She read it that morning over tea. Her husband handed it to her and told her that though he normally discouraged her from
reading the columns, he thought she should see this one. She smiled pleasantly at the end and said, “That’s nice.” But she
was thinking that it wasn’t nice at all. It was the most awful thing that had ever happened.
Ethelbald Candeloro knows about Geoffrey!
she thought.
Ethelbald, she was convinced, was like a cat batting around the mouse rather than biting its head off. She realized suddenly
that she hated Ethelbald. She hated his ugly mustache and she hated his sick grin and she hated the way he was looking up
from that column, smugly, as if to acknowledge that he was toying with her.
It was, she thought, quite apparent. For out of the whole column, one line stood out starkly: “I half expected before the
first year was out to find photos of her straddling a motorcycle and French-kissing a long-haired American auto mechanic with
a criminal record.”
Strictly speaking, Isabella knew that this warning, which she was certain it must be, was a bluff. After all, her one kiss
with Geoffrey had been leaning against a pickup, not straddling a motorcycle. Besides, it wasn’t a
French
kiss but a good wholesome Bisbanian kiss, she could assure you of that. Geoffrey didn’t have a criminal record. (That high
school marijuana charge would not have been considered criminal in most of Europe.) And she would have noticed if cameras
had been sported by any of the dozens of people who had passed them that evening in the dorm parking lot where she and Geoffrey
had lingered and talked and hugged and finally kissed. Wouldn’t she have noticed?
In fact, the only person she particularly remembered passing by that night was Jimmy Bennett, a classmate who was himself
leaving—unenthusiastically, it must be said—that same weekend for his home in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He had been entertaining
friends for months by loudly lamenting his return home, portraying it as a place so remote in location and so insular in attitude
that some of the more cynical townspeople claimed Elvis Presley was living out his waning days there, unnoticed by his neighbors.
“Trust me,” Jimmy would say, “it’s possible. Elvis could jog up and down the streets of Green Bay every day for years, and
no one would notice. They’re an unobservant lot.”
“Jog?” Isabella would ask. “Wouldn’t Elvis be rather old by now?”
“They also can’t count,” Jimmy would say.
Isabella thought Jimmy was a harmless, funny guy, and so she’d never thought much about how he’d seemed to linger longer than
strictly necessary that night when he came by to pick up something that Isabella’s roommate had left for him. But now that
Isabella was thinking about it, she was beginning to remember a few troubling details. For example, the “something” her roommate
had left for him was a camera. Also, the camera was one the roommate and Jimmy had used on a class project—a journalism class
project.
Jimmy had seen her in the parking lot with Geoffrey. Isabella remembered that he’d approached in a hesitant, curious way.
She had told him to go on up to the dorm room. She’d probably gestured to the window of her room, three flights up and with
a direct line of sight to where Geoffrey’s truck was parked. She’d said that the door was unlocked, that the camera was on
the desk. “Help yourself,” she said, and added with a giggle, “Have fun in Green Bay.”
Jimmy had rolled his eyes and grimaced a little and headed on up. A little later, she saw him leave. At least she thought
she remembered that, though she could not say for sure now if “a little later” had been minutes or hours. Time had seemed
to stand still that
Ann Purser
Morgan Rice
Promised to Me
Robert Bausch
Alex Lukeman
Joyee Flynn
Odette C. Bell
Marissa Honeycutt
J.B. Garner
Tracy Rozzlynn