The Royal Delivery

by Melanie Summers

  “Wonderful. Well, who knows, Brooke? You may be leading the charge on a revolution in maternity care.”

  “That’s my goal—to empower women everywhere to take control of their health rather than numb themselves with junk food, only to then require medication to get through delivery...”

  Text from me to Nikki: Are you watching this crap?

  Nikki: Yes, call me immediately.

  "How obnoxious can that woman get?" I say as soon as Nikki answers the phone. I’m lying on the couch with Buckety and a box of crackers while Arthur is down at the gym working out.

  “Her obnoxiousness knows no bounds.”

  “And how is she possibly four months pregnant but not showing at all yet? I mean, I’ve been squinting at the screen the entire interview, and it looks like her stomach is actually concave." I nibble on the corner of a saltine like Charlie Bucket having the tiniest bite of chocolate he bought with that dollar he found.

  "Yes, there's something weird there,” Nikki says. “She probably hired a surrogate and will strap a pillow to her midsection in a couple of months. The phony bitch."

  Nikki and I both laugh at the idea. When we’re done, I say, "It's so nice to have a snarky friend to share these moments with."

  "Well, you can pretty much always count on me for some snark. And whenever there’s some pious bitch who needs to be made fun of, I’ll always be here for you."

  "And that's why I love you,” I say, burping and giving the rest of the cracker to Dexter, who’s standing beside the couch, staring at me with hopeful eyes.

  “Do you really think she and Blake are in love?”

  “Doubt it.”

  This is a conversation neither Nikki nor I ever grow tired of. Brooke moved at lightning speed from trying to snag Arthur out from under me to marrying Blake Cunningham, who for many years was considered the second most eligible bachelor in the kingdom (right behind Arthur, of course).

  “Can you believe she’s going to give birth live on television? Talk about overconfident. There are about a million ways that could go wrong.”

  “That’s for sure,” Nikki says. “And isn’t it a bit of a private moment to share with the world? I mean, her hoity-toity parents must be horrified.”

  “Ooh! I didn’t even think of that. I bet Arabella will find out all the gossip.”

  “Girls’ night coming on?”

  “Definitely. Except maybe a girls’ day because I seriously can’t stay awake after nine p.m. these days.”

  I watch the screen. Brooke and Veronica are now behind the counter in the studio’s kitchen, putting a whole lot of green things into a blender.

  “Oh God, did she just put an entire leek in there?”

  “I think so. Wow, gross. I wouldn’t drink that if you offered me a million dollars.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Actually, I would. I’m a little short on cash this month,” Nikki says with a laugh.

  My gut twinges with guilt. This is one of the hard bits about being insanely rich (well, married to someone insanely rich) and having a regular-type best friend.

  “Do you need anything?”

  “God, no! I’d never take money from you. Eww! Gross! They’re drinking it!”

  “That makes me feel nauseous just watching it,” I say, pushing the box of crackers away from me. “But seriously, if you ever need money, I want you to let me know, okay? Arthur has his own funds.”

  “I’m not taking your charity.”

  “It would be a gift,” I say.

  “Same thing.”

  We’re both quiet long enough to hear Brooke say, “...there’s a positive side effect of eating this way—I’ve had virtually no morning sickness at all.”

  “Really? None?” Veronica asks.

  “Not even a hint of nausea.”

  “Wow. Impressive. You’re obviously a perfect example of an optimal pregnancy."

  "Yes, I am." Brooke gives Veronica a dazzling smile.

  “Well, that’s rich,” I say. “She’s actually saying women cause their own morning sickness. Ask me how much junk food—or regular food, for that matter—I’ve eaten in the last two weeks. None. That’s how much, and yet I’m in a very real, constant state of nausea.”

  “You should turn the volume off. It’s not good for your rage.”

  I do as Nikki suggested but still find myself simmering.

  “Oh, they’re moving over to the yoga mats now. This ought to be good.”

  I watch for a second as Brooke starts a series of sun salutations. “It’s like she’ll stop at nothing in her quest to prove how perfect she is. There’s nothing worse than someone born with every advantage—including their genetic makeup—who takes pleasure in rubbing everyone else's noses in the fact that they can't be perfect, too."

  Nikki puts on her best snooty voice to imitate Brooke. "It's easy if you just sleep properly and eat well. Then you, too, can become a gorgeous, skinny doctor, marry a movie star, and have babies without anyone ever noticing you're pregnant."

  I join Nikki in imitating Brooke. "...and then as soon as the baby is born, get right back to traveling the globe to tend to the less fortunate.” Pulling the box closer, I take out a cracker. "God, I hate her. There is literally no area in life where I'm better than her."

  "That’s not true, and even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. You're the one who Arthur married, not her—in spite of all her efforts."

  “True..." I say. "But in the eyes of the public, she was still the front runner, and now that she's married Avonia’s next most eligible bachelor, she’ll be keeping herself right where she wants to be—in the spotlight. I'm afraid people are going to forever be comparing the two of us. Oh God. I just realized the comparisons could very well carry over to our children. Her baby will probably bully my baby all the way through grade school.”

  “Oh, yeah. Her baby’s definitely gonna be a total little arsehole,” Nikki says, “But don’t worry. Your baby will be so fierce, no one will dare fuck with her.”

  “God, I hope so. I’d love to raise her to never put up with any shit from anyone, unlike her mum.” I stare at a close up of Brooke, who smiles as she does full cobra. “Why can’t Brooke just go away and never come back?”

  “Ah, who cares about Awful Brooke? So what if she's a doctor? So what if she’s able to do—oh, Jesus, what the hell is that pose?”

  I cringe as Brooke contorts her body until she’s on her allegedly pregnant stomach with her feet wrapped over her shoulders and tucked neatly under her chin.

  “It’s called Formidable Face Pose.”

  “That should be called the Creepy as Fuck Pose,” Nikki says. “But whatever, you are the consort to the future king, you're the head of what—three dozen charities? And you're just a much better person than her overall."

  "Thank you,” I say in my best Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth impression. “If only the rest of the kingdom thought like you." Sighing, I shut off the telly. “You know what? Forget what’s-her-name. She’s none of my concern.”

  “Exactly. Good for you,” Nikki says in a firm tone. “Oh crap, I just realized I should have left for the salon twenty minutes ago.”

  “Okay. Catch you soon, my friend.”

  After we ring off, I stare at the black television screen for a minute, thinking about Brooke. Looking over at Dexter, who’s asleep on the couch next to me, I say, “She’s none of my concern, right, Dex?”

  He opens one eye and stares for a second before he returns to snoring.

  Hmm. I hope that meant he agrees with me...

  SIX

  Fetuses with Low More Compasses

  Tessa - 7 Weeks 5 Days

  Have you ever noticed that when you’re in the market for something—say, a new Coach bag—you start to see them everywhere? It suddenly seems like every woman out there has one? That’s exactly what it’s like being pregnant—only I suppose I’m not exactly ‘in the market’ for pregnant women, but I am one, so I’m obsessively checking o
ut baby bumps everywhere I go (which isn’t many places lately, to be honest; it’s more like ‘what I see on the telly’).

  But even in the real world, it seems like everyone I know is pregnant, from Awful Brooke to Kate the Perfect across the pond. Well...I suppose that’s really only two women, isn’t it?

  Oh, I just realized how bitter I sound. I really wish I were handling this like Grace Kelly would have done, but the truth is, I’m a wreck, and not just the nausea and raging hormones – which are bad, by the way. I’m like that the guy in that Katy Perry song who’s completely fickle and she should just kick to the curb. No, not that hilarious Russell Brand...who also turned out to be fickle, now that I think about it. But I mean the fictitious one who’s always either hot or cold. I wonder if she already knew Russell when she wrote that song? Hmm. I should Google that.

  But not now. I don’t have time at the moment because I’m supposed to be on my way to the small boardroom for my Monday ‘Spin Session’ with Dylan (or ‘spin sesh’, as she calls it. Insert eye rolling here). I suppose I should be grateful it doesn't mean a ninety-minute spin class, although by the end of it I'm typically as worn out and dejected as I would be were I trying to keep up with her on a stationary bike. But to be fair, I’m not downing enough caffeine and sugar to kill a race horse, and I also am feeling rather under the weather these days.

  Anyway, today I’m going to put a stop to Dylan and my Monday Spin Sessions. Arthur and I had a talk about it last night, and I decided I’ve had enough of all of this. With my pregnancy and how much busier my life is about to become, I need to find places to cut my scheduled activities. Might as well start with things I hate.

  I realized sometime around my wedding that I wasn’t going to try to be someone I’m not anymore. Instead, I try to present myself as Tessa (only with a much better wardrobe) and hope eventually I’ll win over the public. If there’s anything I learned in the past two years, it’s that trying to be someone I’m not ends in disaster.

  So, I’ll go to today’s ‘spin sesh’, listen politely, say ‘no, thank you’ to every ridiculous suggestion she has this week, then tell her I need to ‘phase out the spin sessions’ before the baby arrives because I won’t be able to fit her in anymore. She won’t like it, but that’s not my problem.

  I arrive in the boardroom in time to see Dylan drain the last drops of a can of Insta-Energy into her mouth and toss it into the bin behind her with the skill of a female Lebron James. She looks up, and when she sees me, her mouth spreads into a wide grin, her eyes crazed with caffeine and God-knows-what. She then zips around the table at lightning speed, slapping packets in front of each of the people at the table.

  "Happy Monday," she sings as she rounds the table and pulls out a package of whiteboard markers from her suit jacket pocket. "We’ve got a lot to go over today and some epic decisions to make. If we play our cards right, this will be the moment that turns this ship around. I don't think I need to tell you all what's at stake here. Every decision the princess makes will be scrutinized—bottle vs. breast, drug-free vs. epidural, midwife vs. hospital...everything is going to be weighed and judged by both the media and the public.”

  I purse my lips together for a second while my heart feels like it's dropped down somewhere around my knees. She's not wrong, which absolutely sucks cold teenie-weenies.

  "Brilliant. It’s important to know what’s at stake. I suppose...”

  Dylan tilts her head. "It is important, Princess. Vital, in fact. This is all one big experiment—a super fun, lifelong experiment."

  "You should try being the experiment. It's not quite so fun."

  “Oh! Don’t say that, Princess Tessa. Be excited! You can only go up from here.”

  “Strictly speaking, that’s not true, Dylan,” a bearded young man who has hipster written all over him says. “She could easily go down, say, if she developed a crack addiction or committed double homicide.”

  “Well, then it’s up from here, then,” I say with a small laugh. “No plans of doing crack or killing anyone in the near future.” Except maybe Dylan and Beardy.

  Sitting down, Dylan cracks open another Insta-Energy. “Perrrrffffect. Love it, Princess. That’s a can-do attitude. Now, we should do a quick Vomitgate recap so we can prevent further instances. My survey results indicate the negative association with Princess Tessa and Vomitgate has already died down by 32%, which is terrific news. I’ve prepared word clouds based on comments made on the various royal watcher websites from the night after Vomitgate and this morning. You can see on page 2 here how the words such as ‘alcoholic’, ‘addict’, ‘drug problem’, ‘druggie’, ‘wino’, and ‘embarrassment’ have shrunk over the course of the week so that in this morning’s cloud, the font size is approximately one-third of what they were before."

  As I stare at the humiliating cloud of words depicting the public's perception of me, a wave of nausea hits, giving me another reason to go crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head, and sleep until next year.

  “I can see by the look on your face that you're upset." Dylan says, nodding vigorously while she stands and positions herself in front of the whiteboard. “But here's the exciting part, this baby is exactly the thing you need to improve your image. The anticipation and celebration surrounding a royal baby is only bested by a royal wedding. So, once we get the news out about your little bundle of joy, we can expect a huge upswing in your numbers and a replacement of at least half, if not two-thirds, of these negative keywords. We are going use this baby to get you on top for once."

  "I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of using my baby to promote and improve my image."

  "Honestly, who's to say who's using who?" Dylan asks, shrugging her shoulders.

  “You did. Just now." I lean my elbow on the table, then rest my chin on my hand. "You literally just said that we were going to use this baby to get me to the top."

  "But is that really so bad? I mean honestly, the baby is using you right back."

  Dylan spins and writes ‘Baby Equals PR Salvation’ on the board. Turning to us, she says, "It really is a two-way street, wouldn’t you say? I mean, your baby is currently sucking all the calcium from your bones and the iron from your blood, and I can guarantee you, he or she isn’t experiencing a moral dilemma on the matter. Besides, any gains you make will benefit the baby doubly. On page seven, you’ll see a graph to prove my point.

  “We’ve compared five royal moms across Europe, and we can see that their own popularity is exactly correlated with that of their children. The top line is the Duchess of Cambridge in pink. You can see the public has very strongly held positive feelings about the intellect, potential, and likability of all of their children, including the one that hasn't been born yet. Whereas Princess Clarinda's children, who are honour students and show extreme athletic ability, fare much lower in the same categories, even though they’ve proven themselves to have loads of potential. But because people generally don’t like Princess Clarinda, the kids are thought to be rather dull, unattractive loafers.

  “I’ve used this information, coupled with your typical results in my Google analytics and have determined the projections for your baby. If you look at the brown line there at the bottom of the chart, you can see what you—and therefore your baby—are up against. So, I hope this convinces you that trying to get the most mileage out of this pregnancy will be in both your best interests."

  I stare at the graph that represents the lack of potential my unborn child has, feeling suddenly numb and cold. In an instant, all my previous notions of telling Dylan to feck off have disappeared.

  This isn't about me anymore, and there’s a crushing weight of this realization. There’s also something utterly infuriating about seeing my baby’s sad little line on the graph—an entire human being already judged based on statistics and word clouds.

  "Now remember, Your Highness, this is a moment of greatness,” Dylan says, coming around to stand behind me, then crouching very near to my s
houlder. “You are standing at the bottom of Mount Everest, about to embark on the climb of your life, and if you can do it, it will be the greatest achievement of any royal ever."

  “Any royal ever?” I ask, trying to curb the sarcasm out of my voice. “Even, say, Queen Victoria, whose reign spread throughout the world, ending with one-quarter of the Earth becoming part of her empire? Or Louis XIV, who ended feudalism and modernized France, allowing the arts to flourish?”

  Dylan’s smile drops. “Small potatoes compared to what you’re facing.”

  Sighing, I ask the one question that fills me with dread. "What do you propose we do about it?"

  "SHE WANTS ME TO JOIN Awful Brooke’s healthy pregnancy foundation,” I say to Arabella, who’s seated at her kitchen table eating dinner while I sit in the living room as far away from the food smells as I can get.

  Arabella's mouth hangs open for a millisecond before she catches herself and holds a cloth napkin up in front of her lips while she finishes chewing and swallows her food. "Why would she ever want to pair you up with that...hussy?"

  “Because apparently, teaming up with the former rival for your husband's affection is the highest form of confidence. She said it would display a true ability to forgive and a unique security in my relationship with Arthur that plays out very nicely with women aged 35 to 44."

  "Well, did you tell her that Brooke is the devil and you have absolutely no intention of teaming up with her for anything ever in your entire life?"

  "Not exactly. I told her I’d give it careful consideration.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To give me time to think of some other way to improve my image. I obviously can’t count on Dylan to do it, but it has to be done—and fast.” I sigh and fiddle with the hem of my sleeve. "I keep thinking of that bloody graph showing me how my constant screw-ups are going to come down on the baby. It's terrifying to think she might have to bear the burden of my clumsiness. I mean, it hardly seems fair for a tiny person who hasn't even had a chance to draw breath yet to already have such a cross to bear.”