The Royal Expectation Read online

  “What are they saying on the Stream, today?” Emma asked.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” DeMarcus asked. Emma nodded gravely. He held up a GlassPhone™ with the top Trending Chatters.

  @lollingallday: ok 1 question…….. why does “king” emma insist on wearing that ugly ass clothing???

  @popsicleenthusiast4: i am so looking forward to Tristan beating the hell out of @newKINGemma, about time someone showed her where her place is

  @DUKETRYST: click HERE to listen to my newest song, “I am the best and always will be and nobody will ever beat me especially not a stupid girl”

  @jaaaaaamin: idea: what if instead of emma playing in the tournament, she actually showers and wears some make up, for once????

  @944greenbury: lets take bets on how and when king emma will back out of the tournament. no way in hell she’s gonna compete

  @JanetheReporterOfficial: As Royal HorseGolf Tournament nears, former King Queen Donna to appear in commercial for new horse-related charity, vid coming later today. Meanwhile, 72% of peasants agree in recent poll, @newKINGemma is “underwhelming.”

  Emma looked up at DeMarcus and grinned through the pain—that’s all she could do these days. She would prove them wrong. She would prove them all wrong.

  When they pulled up outside of the hospital, Emma peered out the limo window at the mass of reporters. At least ChatterStreamers still flocked to see her in public, even if they trashed the way she looked, talked, and ate. As DeMarcus ushered her through the legions of RoyalChatterStream reporters, flashing lights, and screaming voices, Emma thought that maybe, just maybe, she could win them over with enough time, and enough steady discussion of her sensible economic policies. She stepped up to her podium and heaved in a few deep breaths to steady herself. But then she looked out at the crowd and realized that they were in fact, not facing her.

  “Trevor is giving an impromptu press conference in the cancer ward,” DeMarcus muttered.

  “That bastard,” Emma spat out. He really and truly knew the way to slither his way into people’s hearts. “What is it about?”

  DeMarcus listened into his GlassWatch™ intently.

  “He has a ‘shocking announcement,’” he reported back. Emma groaned. There was nothing she loathed more than Trevor’s half-assed, entirely unpleasant attempts at producing an album that primarily consisted of scratching noises and intermittent coughing. But before Emma could demand attention, the crowd of reporters began to swarm toward the exit.

  “Wait!” Emma yelled. “Where are they going?” she asked as she swirled toward DeMarcus. He leaned down to consult his GlassWatch™.

  “Trevor is leaving the Royal Village this very moment, on a surprise voyage into the spiritual unknown.”

  Emma watched in vain as the bulk of the mass of reporters filed out the door after a figure that she could only assume was her older brother. She wanted to scream after the reporters, running after them with flailing arms, demanding their attention. She would drag them back to the hospital, sit them down forcefully, and whisper intently in their ears about the threat of communicable diseases in such a small community. But that is not what a King would do, even if it was what Emma would do.

  She looked out at the audience before her. It consisted of a janitor intently staring at his GlassPhone™ while he half-heartedly mopped the floor.

  “Hey!” Emma yelled at the janitor. The man seemed surprised that Emma would be speaking to him. “Yeah, you. Do you want to hear my speech?”

  The man shrugged in response. “No thanks.”

  “You could go hold a baby,” DeMarcus said.

  “What?” Emma asked. “Why?”

  “Peasants like it when important people hold babies.”

  “That’s weird and creepy,” Emma responded. “And I don’t even like babies.”

  DeMarcus shrugged. “Trevor always holds babies, and people love that.”

  Emma looked at the vaguely disinterested janitor, and the wing of crying babies in the distance. She sighed.

  “Fine,” she said in defeat.

  “Hey!” she screeched at the hapless janitor once more. “Want to see me hold a baby?”

  The janitor shrugged noncommittally; that would probably be the best she could get. Emma would do her damn duty, even when it involved holding crying and pooping idiots. Now that she thought of it, that seemed to be most of what her job had entailed thus far.

  Trevor waved as somberly as he could at the screaming throngs of fans at the feet of his private jet. He saw young girls with freely flowing tears, older women threatening to break through the police-mandated barriers, and an entire legion of men with beards shaped like his, throwing their bodies against the crowd. It was true Trevor-induced mayhem, and he absolutely loved every second of it.

  “Do not despair!” he screeched into his GlassMic™. “I will return, and I will return with glorious, glorious art!”

  His fans yelled and begged for him to stay. Their adoration was endearing, but the raw truth was that the retired King needed to figure some shit out, and the desert was calling him.

  “Do not look for me, and do not worry—I will be back in time to win the Royal HorseGolf Championship for the third time!”

  He had, in fact, never won. Trevor waved his final farewell, and then stepped through the doorway to face his future. The door closed with a resounding clang. There was no turning back now. In fact, as he turned back to try to leave, Duchess Sardine stood in the entryway with her arms crossed.

  “Sardine!” he screeched. “What are you doing here?”

  He hadn’t seen his best friend in many months, not since he trained to be King, fell in love with Daisy, decided to give up the throne because it was boring and stupid, pronounced his love to Princess Daisy, and then had his heart broken in front of the entire world. In the weeks that followed, he had made sure that his divorce with Loretta was signed, sealed, and delivered. He tried to figure out some semblance of a life in the aftermath of all the drama. It involved quite a bit of weed smoking, Whiskey Rebellion drinking, and attempting to convince Sardine to hang out with him again. When none of the aforementioned had seemed to offer him any guidance, he realized what he needed to do. He needed to take a lot of drugs and explore himself in the desert on a Freemasonic retreat.

  “I’m part of the process,” Sardine said without looking up from her GlassPhone™. She was Trevor’s oldest and most loyal friend, mostly out of convenience and the lack of an attempt to find any other friends because it seemed to be too hard. She eternally clutched her phone and an iced latte in hand, and was usually found disregarding the emotions and sentiments of those around her. Trevor loved her disregard for anything that other people pretended to care about, like peasant poverty or “the economy.” She knew what she was about, which was mostly just scrolling through the Stream and rolling her eyes.

  “Do I have to kill you or something?” Trevor asked. Sardine shrugged.

  “I hope not,” she answered. “Some small dude in a hood told me to come here.”

  Trevor nodded. That must be little Miguel Jefferson, a second grader who also happened to be the secretive leader of the Freemasons. Trevor was a lifetime member of the Freemasons after his coronation, sailing half-assedly through the induction rites and joining one of the oldest and most nefariously secretive Royal clubs. Now he was ready for the next phase in Freemasonic Membership—the spiritual trip to the deserted expanses of California. The entire process was guided by Freemasonic code and would test his spirit, or resolve, or sanity, or something like that. To be honest, he hadn’t really listened during the orientation meeting or read his contract very closely; he had been fantasizing about the crowds that would weep when he departed (and oh, how they had wept!). Mostly, he just wanted to do something that would make people pay attention to him and soothe his most recent wounds.

  He turned back to look at the private enclave that awaited him. The entirely wooden plane interior was covered with portraits o
f previous kings. In the center were two plush seats and a cup of steaming herbal tea. As Trevor walked toward the tea, its pungent odor made him cough up more phlegm than he knew he had inside him.

  “What the hell is that?” Trevor asked. Sardine shrugged and sunk into one of the seats.

  “I think I’m supposed to make you drink it,” she said, “or, whatever.”

  Trevor considered the murky mixture of toxic, steaming liquid.

  “Do I really have to?” he asked. Sardine shrugged and did not look up.

  “Come on,” Trevor urged. “You’re supposed to give me the real experience!”

  “I don’t really care,” Sardine said.

  “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Trevor asked. Duchess Sardine did not look up from her phone. It was vividly clear to Trevor what was going on. He heaved a heavy sigh and settled in next to his friend, placing his hand over her bony wrist. She looked at him with a sneer, and he quickly removed his hand.

  “Look, I’m sorry that I didn’t ask you to marry me, but you have to understand that I had to do what’s best for the country,” Trevor said. “And even though you harbor deep, powerful love for me I simply had to marry Eloise, and then bury Eloise, and then be surprise-married to Loretta, and then divorce Loretta—look, you understand, don’t you?”

  Sardine lifted an eyebrow, and emitted one sharp laugh.

  “Trust me,” she said. “I do not want to marry you. Never have, never will.”

  “I get it,” Trevor said with a wink. “Burying your emotions is the easiest coping mechanism, I understand. You must see that this is the best way to preserve our friendship, though! Sex always complicates everything.” He considered her tanned skin and shapely ears, and shrugged. “I mean, let’s not rule anything out, of course. We’ll see where this plane takes us, and who knows what’ll happen?”

  “Just drink this stupid drink,” Sardine said, holding out the tea toward Trevor. “And please stop talking.”

  He grasped the mug and shrugged once more; if this is what she needed to get over him, he couldn’t say no. He tipped the mug back into his throat as quickly as he could—it burned the entire way down, like a Whiskey Rebellion that had been set on fire after being soaked in gasoline for a few minutes first.

  “Don’t you dare vomit on me,” Sardine warned. He may or may not have a reputation for vomiting suddenly and without warning, but he figured he could try to hold it together on an airplane. Trevor had truly descended into physical disarray in the past few weeks, and his stomach showed the results—growing several belt loops in girth and protruding further from his body than ever before. His neck and chin had started to droop with his new weight gain, and his beard was a wildly untamed beast. But at least he didn’t have to be King anymore, and he could focus on what mattered, like taking his large body to the desert for no real reason other than boredom.

  “Do you regret giving up the crown?” Sardine asked in a dull and flat voice.

  “What?” Trevor asked in surprise. The most Sardine ever asked him was, “Do you want to drink this?” and the answer was usually, “Yes.”

  “They told me to ask you that,” Sardine said. “Guess I’m supposed to be planting a bunch of questions about life or whatever in your head, or something stupid like that.”

  Trevor laughed loudly—the Freemasons could try as hard as they wanted to make this trip meaningful, but Trevor would be damned if he learned anything about himself or the world.

  “So do you?” Sardine asked. Of course not. How could he regret giving up the one thing that had turned out to be the biggest pain in his existence since he was forced to start wearing pants at age two?

  “Yes,” he answered, and then grabbed his mouth in surprise. He had not meant to say that. It wasn’t even true, so why had his mouth uttered that answer?

  “I don’t know why I said that,” he said. “I love not being King. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”

  Sardine took a slurping sip of her coffee. “You sound a lot like you’re trying to convince somebody,” she said. “Not that I care, because I don’t, just like be aware of yourself.”

  Trevor puffed his chest out indignantly. He was the most self-aware person he knew. He was so self-aware that he thought about himself constantly, and spent long hours looking at himself in the mirror. He even knew that he had four freckles on the back of his neck—it literally couldn’t get more self-aware than that.

  “Shut up,” was all he could think to reply.

  “Have you ever fantasized about hooking up with me?” Sardine asked. Trevor laughed out loud.

  “Absolutely,” he responded, and then clutched his mouth once more. “I mean, no. Of course not. What’s happening?” In truth he had thought about hooking up with Sardine quite often, but always under the cover of darkness and late at night. The only sign his friend had heard what he said was a very slight and powerful smile. Trevor felt his own face heat with embarrassment. The plane hadn’t even taken off yet and Trevor was already in over his head.

  “What did you do to this drink?” Trevor asked.

  “Nothing,” Sardine drawled. “Oh, except I put in that concoction of blue drugs they gave me. But like, you’ve had worse, trust me.”

  “Oh,” Trevor said, gripping the arms of his seat as his stomach lurched like he was on the top of a rollercoaster. “Is that why I feel like we’re flying?”

  “No, that’s probably because we are flying.”

  “Very funny,” Trevor said. But then a sharp thud jolted them both from side to side.

  “We’re here,” she announced. “Man, longest six hours of my life. You really know how to talk about yourself and reveal all your deepest secrets all at once.”

  “No way,” Trevor said. But as he craned his neck to look out the window, he saw a new world. The cracked, dusty ground stretched as far as the eye could see. Sparse, scraggly rocks peppered the view and he could almost see the heat in the thick waves of haze that layered the horizon. He certainly wasn’t in the Royal Village anymore.

  Trevor gulped. He missed his GlassTV™ and his leathered bedroom. This had been a terrible, foolish idea. “I think I want to go home.”

  Sardine laughed next to him. “Then you certainly won’t like what’s next.”

  “Take me . . . take me home . . . ” But the harder Trevor struggled against his thick tongue, the darker his vision became. His world slowly drained to a deep pit of emptiness, and he was left with Sardine’s disinterested shrug and a frightening group of hooded individuals staring down at him. They looked like gods on his judgment day.

  “Every four minutes, a horse walks on the ground without socks,” Donna said gravely. The swelling vocals of a majestic mezzo-soprano rang out, articulating the lyrical injustice of such misery with the assistance of a fleet of mournful violins. It was the kind of music that would make you weep regardless of your current emotional state—if you had a weak soul, that is. Luckily for Donna, she had been immune to the plight of most creatures from a young age.

  “Is this the kind of world we want to live in?” Donna asked. She was perfectly coiffed to the utmost degree—a spitting image of a GlassTV™ cooking host. Her blond hair hung at her earlobes in an effortless inner swoop, her cheeks shone with rosy color, and she wore a modestly blue and flatteringly shapely dress. All in all, Donna looked like someone who hugged acquaintances in the grocery store, not somebody who was currently plotting the demise of most of her friends and family, as well as an entire nation.

  Donna’s voice continued to narrate through the beautiful imagery of luxurious horses galloping through the Royal Fields.

  “Here at Socks for Horses we deeply and truly believe that no horse should have to prance or dance without socks.”

  Suddenly, the galloping horses stopped in their tracks and pawed aggressively at the ground. A slow zoom revealed a distinct lack of socks on each and every hoof.

  “When that morning chill is in the air, it is downright cruel for these
wonderful creatures to have to freeze their little hooves off in the line of duty.”

  Close-ups of horse faces filled the screen while a single depressive trumpeter sounded the most mournful tune ever articulated by a brass instrument. A chestnut mare named Penelope stared directly into the camera. A tear streamed out of her eye and dripped out of frame.

  “Please, don’t make Penelope cry.”

  Then Donna was back on screen walking side-by-side with Penelope, who bounced boisterously with rainbow-colored socks on every hoof.

  “Support the Royal HorseGolf Horses today. Socks for Horses. Because everyone needs socks.”

  Donna smiled into the camera for as long as she possibly could. She felt the tension in her mouth and struggled to keep her composure. Tonight she would need to add her cheeks to the list of demeaning areas she made Sweaty Intern massage before bed.

  “Cut!” Steven shouted from behind the camera.

  “Thank the Lord,” Donna said. “Who the hell chose this horse?” she screeched, gesturing at Penelope, who pranced around in a circle while emitting large masses of waste. “Do we have any takes without her actively shitting?”

  “We framed it out,” Steven assured her. He swung his baseball cap around to face forward and reflexively wiped his circularly rimmed glasses. She thought that Steven, the Royal Director, was an utter fool. Luckily, this made him the perfect filmmaker to create this overproduced promotional video for her latest tactical maneuver in the valiant pursuit of Belgium.

  Behind Donna, Penelope continued to poop more than seemed healthy for a horse of her stature. She pranced into the waste and then spun around with those rainbow socks, which had now become quite solidly brown.

  “Can someone handle this?” Donna shouted again into the light-filled void. They were in fact not on the Royal Lawn as the background suggested, but in the Royal Studio. Set builders and decorators had spent hours constructing the vividly green replica, and now it was entirely covered in horse poop.