Of Princes and Promises

by Sandhya Menon

  For the mislabeled frogs who were royalty all along

  IT WASN’T A KISS THAT CHANGED THE FROG, BUT THE FACT THAT A YOUNG GIRL LOOKED BENEATH WARTS AND SLIME AND BELIEVED SHE SAW A PRINCE. SO HE BECAME ONE.

  —RICHELLE E. GOODRICH, MAKING WISHES

  OPEN THE DOOR, MY PRINCESS DEAR, OPEN THE DOOR TO THY TRUE LOVE HERE!

  —THE FROG PRINCE

  CHAPTER 1

  Rosetta Academy wasn’t just her school, it was her palace. It was the place where Caterina LaValle ruled supreme, the queen of all she saw and surveyed. Nothing dimmed the shine on her crown, not fighting with her friends, not a bad picture in the New York Times lifestyle section (she’d gotten that photographer fired), not even a breakup with an inconsequential boy.

  Not usually.

  Winter break was the rest her soul had needed after the breakup with Alaric last year. She’d mistaken him for a prince, but he’d turned out to be decidedly amphibian. Still. It was nothing more than a setback, a minor inconvenience. She was back now, ready to rule with even more of a platinum fist—iron was such a plebeian metal—than before. She was going to walk into that brick-and-ivy structure with a sense of ownership, a sense of power, a sense of indestructability, as she never had. Her crown wasn’t askew anymore.

  Queen Cat was back. Rosetta Academy better watch out.

  CHAPTER 2

  CATERINA

  The rumble of the private jet’s engine soothed her. Her father liked to joke that all he had to do with baby Caterina when she fussed was stick her in the plane and fly to a different country. Easy-peasy.

  Caterina took a deep breath and sipped at her freshly squeezed orange juice, proffered by the obsequious flight attendant in a crystal champagne flute. Normally, returning to school after break was something she looked forward to, something she’d have been planning for weeks with her friends. She glanced at her phone, at all the unread texts there from Heather and Ava. A small knot of something unpleasant sat in her stomach.

  It was all his fault. She’d gone through the pictures on her phone, methodically deleting every single one that featured Alaric Konig, her ex-boyfriend, even if it was just an errant finger at the corner of the frame. It took an entire day—over the two years they’d dated, they’d taken thousands and thousands of pictures. Alaric was a ham; anytime he looked good, he wanted the world to know it. And he looked good almost all the time.

  The strange part was, she hadn’t even loved him anymore, not toward the end. Of course she did toward the beginning of their relationship, when everything still sparkled and he told her every day that she was the most beautiful, most intimidating girl he’d ever dated. (Caterina had liked that latter descriptor more than she’d expected to.) She’d felt like she had all the power then, like she could do no wrong. Alaric had needed her more than she’d needed him.

  The plane began its descent, and Caterina’s ears felt the brunt of the pressure. The thing was, she wasn’t sure exactly when that scale, that imbalance of power between her and Alaric, tipped to favor him. When he began to look at other girls, thinking, Hmm. And of all the girls to cheat with—Daphne Elizabeth McKinley? The flamboyant daughter of the McKinley Hotel dynasty. A redhead who thought distressed vintage plaid sweaters were the height of fashion. Caterina’s hand tightened around the stem of her champagne flute as the plane floor juddered with the release of the wheels. Alaric and Daphne Elizabeth had sneaked around behind her back, and no one had told her. She’d looked a complete fool. There were few things Caterina abhorred more than looking like a fool.

  As the jet circled the runway, Caterina closed her eyes. Her soft false eyelashes pressed into the tops of her cheeks. She needed to get ahold of herself. Today was all about reasserting herself, about making sure her friends saw that she was still Queen Cat. That no one could ever take that away from her. Her father’s words floated in her mind like skywriting: It doesn’t matter how you feel on the inside. What matters is what other people can see, and they must see the LaValle power. That’s what defines us.

  As if he could hear her thoughts, her phone buzzed and her father’s name popped up on the screen.

  “Papa,” she said, answering, her voice cool and controlled.

  His deep baritone thundered down the line. “Are you in Aspen yet?”

  “Nearly,” Caterina said, looking out onto the snow-laden city, growing closer outside her window.

  “Feeling invincible?” her father asked, a grin in his voice. It was their inside joke, ever since a journalist had once asked her, for a puff piece on “children of the wealthy,” how she felt in her pretty new dress. Caterina, then only twelve, had replied seriously, “Invincible.” Her answer had made the headline.

  Now, although she felt anything but, she said carelessly, “Always. You know that.”

  “Good. Show them how the LaValles do it.”

  Caterina smiled faintly as her ears popped. “Just as you will when the elections roll around.”

  “Business, politics, finance… we’ll be everywhere.” He paused. “Senator LaValle does have a ring to it, does it not?”

  “Absolutely,” Caterina said as the plane touched down, jarring her in her seat. “Now I must go.”

  “All right. And remember, topolina, trust no one.”

  Caterina nodded, even though her father couldn’t see her. He had seen the havoc Alaric had wreaked on her. For the first week of winter break, she’d been unable to so much as smile, even through all the wonders of Christmas on the Italian Riviera. Finally, her father had managed to coax out of her exactly what had happened. He was furious that she’d let herself get strung along in the first place, and secondly, that she was this upset over a boy. “Get angry, Caterina,” he’d urged her, his deep brown eyes glittering. “Get angry. And then make a plan.”

  So that’s exactly what she’d spent the rest of the winter break doing.

  “Ti amo, Papa,” she said as the flight attendant moved toward her, beaming brightly. “Talk to you soon.”

  “Shall I get your coat, Miss LaValle?” the flight attendant asked. “Are you ready to deplane?”

  Caterina smiled frostily up at him. “Oh yes,” she replied. “I’m absolutely ready.”

  CHAPTER 3

  RAHUL

  His friends were speaking gibberish again.

  “That’s not what he said!” Jaya exclaimed, laughing. She was sitting at their polished oak table in the expansive Rosetta Academy senior dining hall, as they all were, but her chair was so close to Grey’s that their seats practically qualified as a love seat. Her head was resting against his chest, and he was absently playing with her hair. Rahul didn’t understand how that didn’t drive her crazy. He hated people touching his hair.

  “It was exactly what he said,” Grey argued, rumbling a deep laugh. His Kopi Luwak coffee sat by his elbow, steaming gently. “ ‘My universe would implode without you’? Come on. That’s classic codependency.”

  “Or, totally romantic!” Samantha, Leo’s girlfriend, countered, siding with Jaya.

  Leo laughed and stuffed his mouth with another handmade almond biscotti while, beside him, DE was pulling up the exact quote on the newest iPhone that wasn’t available to the public yet.

  They were arguing about the dialogue in some romantic comedy holiday movie they’d all watched over break. Naturally, Rahul hadn’t seen it. But that wasn’t necessary for him to know they were all speaking utter nonsense. Finally, not able to contain his thoughts any longer, he butted in, though he usually preferred to remain on the periphery in conversations where he lacked expertise. “Completely nonsensical. The universe cannot implode simply because one person has ceased to exist within it,” Rahul said, watching his friends as they turned to h
im, their smiles slowly fading. “As it is, the multiverse theory states that everything that exists, to include matter, space, time—”

  “Ix-nay ock-Spay,” Leo said, putting his hand on Rahul’s arm. When Rahul turned to look at him, he widened his eyes meaningfully.

  That was their signal. Whenever Rahul got too literal or logical or went full-on “Robot Chopra,” as DE called it, Leo would say the Pig Latin equivalent of “Nix Spock.” It was a more polite way to ask Rahul to stop talking.

  “Sorry,” Rahul mumbled, feeling his cheeks heat. He’d gotten it wrong again.

  “No worries, dude,” Daphne Elizabeth said, clapping his shoulder heartily from the other side. She ran a finger along the Rosetta Academy insignia engraved along the edge of the dining table. “Some of us are complete morons when it comes to love. And I wholeheartedly include myself under that sad, lonely little umbrella.”

  Jaya and Grey smiled at Rahul kindly, but that just made it worse. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the dining hall let in waves of buttery golden winter sunlight, but Rahul’s own mood was getting more dismal by the minute.

  Just once, he’d like to be able to be one of the group. Not the one who was never in on the joke, not the one who made people laugh because of his idiosyncrasies, but the guy who deliberately made the jokes. The guy who directed conversation, not the one who stymied it. Like Grey. Or Leo. Or literally anyone else but himself.

  “Shit,” DE squeaked suddenly, slumping down in her chair. She attempted to pull her bangs down lower on her forehead, but they were short and barely did anything. “I knew I should’ve worn my ski mask in here.”

  Confused, Rahul turned in the direction she was looking, wondering whether this was yet another figure of speech he was unfamiliar with.

  Caterina LaValle was walking in, flanked by those two girls she was always with. She looked like Princess Isabella of Portugal or a pale-skinned Jhansi ki Rani or some other fierce and beautiful queen. She wore an ultramarine-blue wool dress with bell-shaped sleeves that came to her elbows. Her slim legs were clad in shimmery tights and calf-length leather boots, her dark hair cascading in full, shiny waves down her shoulders—

  “Yo.” DE snapped her fingers in front of Rahul’s face, probably emboldened as Caterina turned toward a corner table with her entourage, obviously not interested in a confrontation.

  He blinked and looked at her, adjusting his glasses. “What?”

  DE smirked at him, her pink lip-glossed mouth all shiny. “Dude. You have it so bad. Jaya asked you a question.”

  Rahul looked over at Jaya, who was grinning, her hand entwined with Grey’s on the table. “I asked, did anything happen between you two over the break? After, you know, the winter formal…”

  Rahul glanced at Caterina again, momentarily reliving what had been one of the best moments of his life. She’d been so unlike herself that night, sad and hopeless and… almost kind of vulnerable. Rahul had wanted nothing more than to take her pain away, to wipe her tears, to tell her that jerk-off Alaric didn’t deserve even an iota of her time. But instead, he’d just taken her in his arms and swayed with her, gently, half expecting her to snap at him that he was making her look like a fool, thanks to his uncoordinated, fawn-on-ice-like movements.

  But she hadn’t. She’d just let his hands rest on her waist while her arms rested on his shoulders. She’d looked into his eyes. There was a small smear of mascara at the corner of one of hers, which just showed how discombobulated she really was. And when he was thinking about that, she’d smiled softly and said, “Thank you, Rahul. You’re really sweet, you know that?”

  Caterina LaValle had called him, Rahul Chopra, sweet. No, actually, to be very precise, she’d called him really sweet. That was a superlative, was it not? That was evidence, was it not, of a burgeoning… something?

  “Well,” Rahul said, playing with the handle of his coffee mug. “I have a feeling things are about to become… more intense between us.” He thought about his word choice, then nodded his head once. “Yes. Definitely more intense.”

  Jaya, Grey, DE, and Samantha all chorused with various versions of, “Wait, what?” while Leo leaned over the table to clap him on the shoulder and yell, at definite hearing-damage volumes, “Quoi! My man, tell me everything!”

  Rahul looked around at all their eager, shining faces. He saw genuine joy there, and excitement. Had his friends known how he felt about Caterina all along? He thought he’d hid it pretty well, but maybe he’d been less suave than he’d thought. Big surprise. “I danced with her at the dance before winter break, as you know,” he began. They all nodded, their eyes sparkling as they waited for more. “And she told me I was ‘really sweet.’ That’s a direct quote. ‘Really sweet.’ ” Smiling a little, he looked around at them all.

  They glanced at each other, and he noticed they weren’t really smiling anymore. DE was staring down into her waffles. Grey itched the back of his neck. Jaya bit her lip. Leo and Samantha both wore identical frowns.

  “And…?” Jaya prompted, leaning forward in her chair. “Did you speak to her over winter break? Did you text each other, perhaps?”

  Frowning, Rahul took off his glasses and polished them on the hem of the orange turtleneck sweater that hung on his frame a little. Maybe he shouldn’t have grabbed the first one off the rack at the store, but frankly, who had time for such banalities as shopping? “No,” he said. “I didn’t have her number. But that’s immaterial, because I know she’ll be ready to pick up where we left off.”

  He was pretty sure he heard DE mumble, “Left what off?” but he didn’t respond because the answer was obvious from what he’d just recounted.

  His gaze stole across the cafeteria again, to where Caterina sat with her entourage. As he watched, she grabbed a cup of to-go coffee that one of her many admirers was holding out (this was not uncommon; all Caterina had to do was sit down in the dining hall, and people would bring her food like she was an Egyptian queen and they her besotted servants) and then stood, her friends standing with her.

  Rahul’s fists clenched. Something inside him was churning. This was exactly how he’d felt when he’d handed his gloves and hat to a homeless person he’d seen shivering on a bench one winter a couple of years ago. A feeling that he had to do something, that time was running out, that he couldn’t just sit idly by and be some passive chump. And that feeling warred with the intense social anxiety that circled him at all times, like a dark vulture that refused to leave him alone. He cleared his throat and surreptitiously wiped his damp palms on his pants.

  “Excuse me,” he said, realizing only too late that he’d interrupted Sam’s story about a vat of jam at her mom’s factory that had almost eaten her scarf.

  He could feel his friends’ eyes on him as he stood from the table, the chair squawking a loud protest, loud enough that Caterina glanced his way. Dammit. This was not how he’d intended to get her attention. He raised his hand up to wave, but by the time his fingers had twitched, she was already turning away and gliding toward the main doors.

  Rahul increased his pace, practically running toward her now, intending to intercept her path in a plausibly coincidental way. Puffing with the exertion, he made like a parabola and leaned into the turn that would place him directly in her way. Unfortunately, due to a slight miscalculation, he ended up running into her friend Ava instead.

  “Ow!” she said, rubbing her shin. “Excuse you!”

  The group came to a stop and Caterina was looking at him, no more than two feet away. She blinked those long, long lashes once, then twice. “Rahul?”

  He opened his mouth to say something cool and collected. How was your break? Or I like your dress—is it new? Instead, he blurted out, “Dance.”

  This happened to him often. Even though he knew social etiquette required people to make at least one to two minutes of small talk before they launched into the topic du jour, Rahul’s brain and mouth hardly ever cooperated.

  “Excuse me?” Caterin
a frowned in that imperious way of hers, turning his blood to ice and molten lava at the same time. But then she was swallowed by a tsunami of seniors, all of whom chose that exact moment to walk through the dining hall doors, notice her, and immediately swarm her to demand her attention. And Rahul was spat aside like a hastily coughed-up hairball from the throat of a Persian cat.

  For a moment, he felt the sting of rejection. But then he brushed it off. That was okay. They ran in different social circles. He’d observed hers enough to know that this was what was expected, nay, required, of her upon returning from a long absence. He could bide his time.

  Rahul turned to make his way back to his seat and saw his friends staring at him with unabashed horror on their faces. It lasted only a brief second before they turned their expressions into smiles.

  “What?” he asked, looking around at all their faces. He took a sip of his now-tepid coffee. “She’s just a little busy right now. We’ll talk later.”

  “Will you?” Jaya asked, glancing at Grey, who gave her a serious look Rahul couldn’t read. Jaya glanced back at Rahul again. It was like she was waiting for a response to her question, which made no sense because he’d made it clear that they obviously would.

  Rahul felt his frustration rise. Everyone was always speaking in code when things would be so much more efficient if they just said what they really meant.

  DE ran a hand through her red hair. Over the break, she’d gotten it cut even shorter, with an undercut and a zigzag pattern shaved through it. “Dude, you… be careful with Caterina, okay? She’s got really sharp edges, and I’m worried you don’t see that.”

  Now, that, at least, he could understand. DE was wrong for a multitude of reasons, but at least she’d spoken plainly. “I can see why you might think that.”

  DE cocked her head, her fingers resting lightly on top of her coffee mug. “What, because of how she eviscerated Alaric at the yacht gala?”