And how like something Michael would do, if ever given the opportunity . . . which I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure he will never have to. Because protecting your subjects, which includes your loved ones, is what being a royal is all about.
Of course, if they make a third movie of my life, it would be lovely if they show Michael taking a bullet for me, just to liven things up a bit. But only a small one that does minor damage, and not to his face (or anything downstairs).
It wasn’t until I saw Michael eating his own crab cakes (with surprising savagery) that I realized that’s what’s been going on in his eyes lately: Mr. Gianini’s dying, a possible madman wanting to kill me, and protesters throwing genetically modified oranges at my bodyguard have brought home to him how fleeting life is, and how, when you really love someone, all you want to do is spend all the time you can with that person.
Why delay happiness—even for a matter of principle—if you can have it right away? Of course, we’re going to have a talk eventually about all those things that were mentioned in the Post article—like that when we get married, he’s going to have to give up his name (and U.S. citizenship, etc.). Women give up those things when they marry as a matter of course—well, not their citizenship, generally—so it shouldn’t be such a big deal (plus, I think he already knows), but we live in a society where, for most men, I’m afraid this would be nonnegotiable.
But Michael’s not like most men.
I did tell him that we are absolutely one hundred percent going to have to elope because there is no way I’m going through what William and Kate did on their wedding day. That was completely ludicrous. Sweet to watch on television if you weren’t there yourself, but the behind-the-scenes drama was insane.
He agreed.
Except a little while later, after we’d finished dinner—I have to admit, I was so excited and happy I could barely finish my shrimp pasta, though I did manage to polish off all my crab cakes and lemon sorbet in limoncello—and we were both in the hammock, looking for shooting stars (I do not think that last one was a satellite no matter what he says), he said, “My parents are going to be really disappointed if we don’t have a wedding.”
“But, Michael, your parents are so progressive! They subscribe to Mother Jones.”
“Yes, but they’re getting older, and lately they’ve been dropping hints that there are only two occasions during which families get together anymore, and only one of them is happy.”
It took me a little while to figure out what Michael meant. I lifted my head with a jerk from his chest. “Yikes!”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “Think about the number of funerals there’ve been in our families lately.”
“Of course,” I murmured, lowering my head again. “Mr. Gianini.”
“My great-aunt Rose.”
“Pavlov . . .”
He laughed and kissed me. We didn’t actually have a funeral for his dog. He now lives as tiny cremated ashes in an elegant tin shaped like Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons on Michael’s bedroom shelf.
“What if we have a very small wedding?” I asked. “Just family and friends.”
“Do you really think you could get away with that?”
“Why not? Brad and Angelina did.”
He looked skeptical. “They’re movie stars. You’re going to rule a country.”
“That makes it even easier, in a way,” I said. “I have national security to help me keep it a secret.”
“True, but how would we keep the press from finding out?”
“The way Brad and Angelina did. They didn’t invite their most talkative family members . . .”
He raised his delectably dark, thick eyebrows. “Are you saying you wouldn’t invite your grandmother to your own wedding?”
“Or we could invite her and not tell her what it actually is until the last minute,” I said with a shrug. “Think about what will happen if we don’t. At her own wedding to my grandfather, I heard there was a two-day public holiday, a military parade, a gown that today would be worth over a couple hundred thousand dollars, it was dripping with so many diamonds and pearls, a religious and civil ceremony, television cameras, enough cake to feed the entire populace, twenty thousand bottles of champagne, fireworks and carriage rides through the town square, a commemorative postage stamp with her head on it—”
“Wait a minute,” Michael said, tensing up. “Is that something they’re going to do to me? Make a stamp of my head?”
“Oh,” I said soothingly. “No, of course not.”
It was totally something they were going to do to him. There’s only one commemorative stamp of me, but there are three of my dad, and sixteen of Grandmère (they reissue them every time the postage rate changes, and she’s been around for a while).
Personally I’d love to lick a stamp of Michael’s head and stick it on an envelope, but I’ll wait until after we’re married to break the news to him that he has to sit for a state portrait. To misquote Beyoncé, I’m not sure he’s ready for this jelly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m beginning to think maybe we should risk disappointing my parents, and just elope.”