Killer Queens (16 page)

The Dowager Queen was not actually sitting on a throne, but she could scarcely have been more impressive if she had chosen to make the Makarwiczes walk up the burgundy silk carpet into which the insignia of the Herzoslovakian royal family was woven, and kneel before her. Standing in the centre of the room, hands folded at her waist, a footman in full formal regalia flanking her on each side, she was wearing a brocade, ankle-length dress, with a satin sash over her chest on which were pinned a great deal of jewelled stars and brooches, more diamonds flashing at her earlobes and on her fingers. The Dowager might be tiny, compared to the hulking Makarwiczes, but she utterly dominated their first meeting with her, and, Lori suspected, would do so at every single encounter from then on.

‘It is such a pleasure to meet the family of the future bride of Herzoslovakia and mother of its heirs,’ she said, with a gracious nod of her head in welcome that had Bob and Randy ducking into bows and poor Sandy and Hailey trying their best to curtsey, despite the fact that Sandy was wearing mom jeans and Hailey velour tracksuit bottoms from Victoria’s Secret that she had put on to be comfortable for travelling. When their heads came up again, Lori saw with great distress that her entire family were mortified, red with embarrassment.

‘I think my mom and dad would like to change, see their rooms—’ she began, but the Dowager raised a small, plump, ringed hand.

‘We will have tea in the Pink Salon, to greet our very important visitors,’ she announced imperiously. ‘I wish to show them how important their daughter is to us, how Herzoslovakia has taken her to its heart.’ She smiled regally at Mr and Mrs Makarwicz. ‘Here is where Lori will be crowned Queen, after her marriage to my son in Valtzers Cathedral. Joachim has chosen his bride, who will bear children to inherit his throne, and we are all delighted with his choice.’

‘Uh, thank you,’ Bob Makarwicz managed, looking dazed. ‘We’re all very proud of our Lori too . . .’

But the Dowager had already turned on the heels of her court shoes and was gliding across the carpet, away from them, past the throne dais; the Makarwiczes had no choice but to follow her, gawking at the huge carved and gilded chairs of office as they went, imagining their daughter sitting in one of the lesser thrones, a crown on her head, a distant, regal expression on her face. More footmen threw open a long series of doors as they went through drawing rooms and salons to their eventual destination at the far end of the Schloss, with a magnificent terrace outside which offered commanding views over the red-roofed town of Valtzers clinging to the hillside below, and the river that followed the curve of the mountain, a blue-grey ribbon glittering in the sunshine.

‘Here we are!’ the Dowager said, sinking onto a pink silk sofa and gesturing for Lori, Joachim and the Makarwiczes to take their places on the formal arrangement of sofas and armchairs around a low table on which a silver tray held a priceless bone china tea set.

‘Oh, how pretty!’ Sandy Makarwicz commented spontaneously. Lori winced; she had learned already that you didn’t compliment possessions here in Europe. It was a sure way to spot a
nouveau riche
. To fail to take for granted the sheer lavish opulence with which you were surrounded was to proclaim that you hadn’t grown up in such luxury. You could, of course, lean forward and comment knowledgeably on the differences between Meissen and Sèvres china, perhaps, if you knew that your hostess was also interested in such fine distinctions; but if she wasn’t, you ran the risk of looking like a show-off, which was almost as bad as looking vulgar, so you needed to proceed with caution.

‘It is Limoges,’ the Dowager said politely to Sandy. ‘Made for the Herzoslovakian royal family in the nineteenth century, in France, with our crest on every piece. The set is still perfect – we only bring it out on the most important of occasions. Like today.’

A footman came forward, but she waved him away. ‘I shall pour myself,’ she said, ‘for our honoured guests. It is China tea,’ she added to the Makarwiczes. ‘I prefer China, but perhaps you would like Indian?’

Four horrified faces stared back at her. She might almost as well have been speaking in Mandarin or Hindi for all they knew how to answer her. Lori cringed; the only tea the Makarwiczes ever drank was from a can or a plastic bottle, sweetened and flavoured with peach or strawberry, served at Denny’s or Arby’s on the rare occasions they went out to dinner.

‘They’ll be fine with China tea,’ she said quickly to the Dowager, from her privileged seat next to her future mother-in-law. ‘We’re really more coffee drinkers in the States.’

‘I can certainly send for some coffee—’ the Dowager began, but Lori shook her head vehemently. She would have it sent to their rooms, later. With Coke, if there was any in the Schloss.
Oh boy, Mom and Dad aren’t going to be able to drink coffee or sodas with meals
, she realized.
Just wine or water. Dad’s going to hate that.

None of the worry showed on her face; years of competitive sports had taught her to keep her expression neutral under pressure, and that training was coming in very useful now. In her excitement to have her family visit, she hadn’t considered how very different their social customs were from that of Europeans, let alone European
royalty
, for goodness’ sake.

I’m going to have to sit down with them all as soon as I get them alone and explain a whole bunch of stuff to them – God, where do I even start?

‘Milk? Sugar?’ the Dowager was asking Sandy, who looked to Lori for help. That was another minefield, Lori was pretty sure; you didn’t have milk in China tea, she thought. Or at least the Dowager never did.

‘They’ll all have it with two sugars,’ she said quickly.

‘Ah, the American sweet tooth,’ the Dowager smiled. ‘Here in Herzoslovakia we are famous for our baking skills. Pastries, little biscuits – what I think you call “cookies”. Please.’ She indicated a little plate of pale yellow-tinted macaroons. ‘These are one of our specialities, filled with jam made with a berry from the hillsides.
hangönştelĭn
, they are called.’

Randy reached for one, the yellow
hangönştelĭn
tiny in his huge hand. He wolfed it down in a single bite, wincing as he did so; Lori knew it was because the berry jam was actually quite sour. It was considered a delicacy here, but she tried to avoid it as much as possible. She looked round at her family, now all holding miniature china teacups and saucers, looking like adults at a children’s tea party, sipping their tea in disbelief at its odd, aromatic taste, trying to fight through their jet lag to look polite and enthusiastic, visibly uncomfortable on the stiff, buttoned and tasselled chairs, their jeans and sneakers and sweatshirts looking ridiculously inappropriate next to the Dowager and Joachim’s extremely formal wear and Lori’s own Jil Sander navy silk dress and topaz earrings.

The dress, like most of Lori’s current wardrobe, was a recent acquisition. The clothes which Lori had brought to Herzoslovakia on what she had thought was to be a short visit had by now been considerably extended in the boutiques of Valtzers at the royal family’s expense: Lori had barely objected, since, if she were staying on in Herzoslovakia, she clearly needed many more clothes than one suitcase would carry, and only a few of her outfits were at all suitable for a queen-to-be. And Valtzers was a shopping paradise for her specific needs: its main streets, like other hideaways for the truly rich – Geneva or Montenegro, for instance – were lined with extremely expensive and chic boutiques, which sold taste as well as quality. No flashy leopard print Versace or Cavalli for the ladies who shopped in Valtzers: they were wives, not mistresses. Lori had swiftly assembled an entire dressing-room full of Helmut Lang, Balmain, Temperley London, Reed Krakoff, Proenza Schouler: elegant, restrained, fashionably cut garments in superb quality wool, crepe and silk. They felt a little like costumes to her still, and it was hard to take in that a silk blouse could easily cost a thousand dollars, a day dress three times that. It was a fortune to pay for clothes, but she could, at least, see what the money was buying. When she got dressed every morning, she immediately felt more confident, more assured, knowing that she looked exactly right for the role of fiancée to a king.

While my family looks like they came to do manual work in the Palace! Why didn’t I get them up to their rooms straight away to change and settle in?
she thought in frustration.
I should have planned this all so much better!
But the Dowager – who had suggested that Lori call her
Mušsi,
or ‘Mama’ in Herzoslovakian, a cosy name which Lori did not yet feel comfortable enough to use – and Joachim had wanted so much to greet the Makarwiczes as soon as they arrived, and in the most impressive, regal way possible.

Lori had been so flattered by this, so happy at the lack of snobbishness the Herzoslovakian royal family were showing to her blue-collar relatives, that she hadn’t paused to realize that visiting royalty arrived already dressed in a style appropriate for this kind of reception. Randy was in a Syracuse University sweatshirt, for goodness’ sake; the pockets of Hailey’s pink velour jogging pants had diamanté trim around them. There was probably some slogan on her ass – ‘Pink’ or ‘Juicy’. And the exquisite manners that Joachim and the Dowager were demonstrating, the way they were behaving as if their guests were Prince Hugo and Princess Sophie from the British royal family, for example, just made it worse.

By the time they come back for the wedding,
she told herself grimly
, I’ll have this all under control. Mom, Dad, Randy, Hailey, they’ll all know what to expect and how to dress. I’ll make sure they look great for the official photos – I’ll take them out and buy them a whole set of new clothes.

She glanced sideways at the Dowager as she replaced her cup and saucer on the table. To her surprise, she realised that the Dowager was looking at her too, and as their eyes met, her future mother-in-law gave Lori a little nod, like a sign of agreement, as if she had read Lori’s mind;
which
, Lori thought,
she probably has.
By the time of the wedding, the Makarwiczes would be dolled out from head to toe in outfits suitable to their status as the family of the bride, whatever Lori and the Dowager needed to do to achieve that.

Lori had thought there might be some issue convincing her family that they would need to accept what they might perceive as charity from her fiancé and his mother; the trip, of course, had been entirely paid for by the Herzoslovakian royal purse. Instead, the problem turned out to be convincing the Makarwiczes not to turn round and go home almost immediately after they had arrived.

‘We just don’t fit in!’ Sandy wailed as soon as she and the rest of the family were alone with Lori, in the suite of rooms set aside for Sandy and Bob’s use. Plopped down on the chaise-longue at the foot of the four-poster bed, she stared around her with as much distress as if she were in a sunless maximum security prison cell, rather than a huge, brocade-walled bedroom with a balcony overlooking the river below, another huge bedroom leading off this one for Bob’s use – the Herzoslovakians had very old-fashioned ideas about spousal sleeping arrangements, as Lori had already learnt with Joachim. Priceless hangings draped the carved mahogany frame of the bed, yellow roses were arranged in equally priceless vases on the marble mantelpiece.

‘We don’t belong here!’ Sandy continued.

She gestured down at herself, her ‘comfort-cut’ jeans, her lime Gap sweater with attached white collar, cuffs and hem, her white sneakers, the bobble at the back of her ankle socks just visible. And then at her husband, in his stay-pressed chinos and checked shirt. To Lori, they were exactly what a mother and father should look like, exactly what all the other moms and dads back home in Dorchester looked like. People shopped at the Gap and Macy’s and Bon Ton, maybe went for the day to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse for Ann Taylor Loft and Lord and Taylor if they were rich and fancy. No one wanted to stand out: that would embarrass themselves, their children and their community. One of the oddities that Lori had always noticed about Dorchester was that you never saw anyone wearing the sexier, tighter clothes that were available in shops like Bebe in the Carousel Mall. She had no idea who bought the stretch satin minidresses there or where they wore them: if you ate out at one of the chain restaurants in the mall, Uno Chicago Grill or Ruby Tuesday’s, say, in anything but a T-shirt and jeans or denim skirt – with a turtleneck over the tee in colder weather – you’d get the kind of stares that implied you were a hooker plying for trade.

Lori took a deep breath.

‘
I
belong here now,’ she said: there was no point reassuring her folks that they fitted in here, because it was obvious that they did so about as well as the Dowager would queuing for a table at TGI Friday’s. ‘So we need to figure out a way that you guys can too, anytime you come visit. And at the wedding, of course.’

‘Oh Lori, honey, I don’t think I can do it!’ Sandy was on the verge of tears. ‘It’s too much for me and your dad! I don’t understand half of what Joachim’s mom says, though I’m sure she couldn’t be kinder and nicer! And the way they look just puts us all to shame.’

‘We’re small-town folks, and proud of it,’ Bob Makarwicz chimed in. ‘Maybe that’s where we should stay.’

Randy, leaning against the fireplace, nodded in vigorous agreement, nudged a porcelain vase with his shoulder by accident, turned to catch it before it fell, an agonized expression on his face, hit the fire-irons below with his feet and sent them crashing down to the marble floor as he stood, gripping the vase, afraid to move. Hailey, who had been smoking on the balcony, dashed in, relieved him of his burden and shooed him towards an armchair, where he sat nervously, his large body filling it so completely that he had to remove the silk pillow from behind his back to fit into the chair properly.

‘See?’ Sandy said. ‘Your brother’s going to break something every time he turns round!’