They don’t tie me to the hood of the stretch limo that waits outside. But I wish they would. I half sit, half lean along the seat, my back to the driver. Grandpa and Ms. Chancellor sit across from me. They don’t touch. But there is an easiness between them, a comfort borne from twenty-five years of late nights and early mornings, good times and bad.
“You clean up real good, kid,” Grandpa says, but he’s not looking at me. He slaps Ms. Chancellor’s hand. “Now, how about me?”
“You look like a man who has never quite mastered the bow tie.” She takes his shoulders and turns him to face her. “Here.”
As Ms. Chancellor goes to work on his tie, he shifts his gaze to me.
“You, too, Gracie. I almost didn’t recognize you with the dirt washed off. No casts?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Good.” He eyes my dress. “So how many people had to force you into that thing?”
“Just her. But she’s stronger than she looks.”
Ms. Chancellor pulls his tie tight. He grunts.
“Tell me about it,” Grandpa says.
“I’ll have you know, William, that Grace is very excited to be taking part in her first official function.”
“Her first!” Grandpa sounds almost nostalgic. He turns and looks out the tinted window at the scene that is rolling by. Ancient buildings and cobblestone streets. Bicyclists and fruit stands. As we climb higher and higher toward the city center, we can glimpse more and more of the sea.
“My first came six months after I got here. There I was, fresh off the boat, just a junior State Department employee at the time, and I was told to go to the palace. The king’s father was on the throne then. He was a big man, powerful. World-class polo player, they said, but if you ask me, so few people play polo, how hard could it be to be world-class, really?” Grandpa considers this for a moment and then talks on.
“Anyway, the president was supposed to visit that day, but something came up at the last minute and he needed to cancel. And instead of calling on the king himself, the ambassador at the time sends me, hat in hand, up to the palace to make our apologies.”
Grandpa laughs a little at the memory. I try to imagine him as a young man, insecure and frightened, but the mental picture simply doesn’t fit. I can’t see him as anything but a senior statesman.
“So the palace officials put me in an elevator and take me down to the basement. I thought I was going to an office or a study or something — probably to see an aide. But no. It was the pool. Hot springs run underneath the whole city, you see. And there is the king himself, climbing out of the water. Naked as the day he was born. Ha!” Grandpa slaps his leg. Ms. Chancellor demurely covers her smirking lips. “Then His Royal Highness proceeds to stand there stark naked through the whole talk. Lots of bowing and apologizing on my end. And then the king — the naked king — says, ‘Oh well. I guess I have time to get back in. Why don’t you join me?’”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“What could I do? I joined him!”
“So you took a bath with the king of Adria?”
“I did indeed, Gracie. I did indeed.” He gives a very mischievous grin. “So just keep that dress on tonight and you’ll be ahead of me.”
“I promise I’ll try.”
Those are the words that are still in the air when the limo slows and turns through the palace gates. When a uniformed man opens the limo’s door, I glance down at the red carpet that runs to the palace’s massive doors. Grandpa exits the car first and offers his arm to me.
“You ready, Gracie?” he asks with a wink.
I smile and look up at the white-haired man who, to me, is little more than a stranger.
“Absolutely,” I lie.