How to Make a Princess Ch 2
I twisted my hips, watching the material flare out around my hips, "I don't know."
"That's why you asked for me, wasn't it?" Lila studied her nails, "So that I could tell you because I do know."
Megan fingered the material of the pink skirt that flowed just past my fingertips, "You may not like it, Grace, but this is what people are going to expect you to be wearing."
I looked past to the blue-eyed man sitting in the chair next to Lila, "What do you think?"
Alexei cleared his throat, before rubbing his hands over his face, "Truthfully? I hate it."
I turned back, "Okay, so I'll take it."
Lila snorted, "It is sufficiently unlike you. But it fits the picture that Queen Ann's trying to sell. Pair it with the right top, maybe a blazer, and we're in business."
I hummed in answer.
"Oh, my God," a woman said in Adrian, "Are you Grace Blakely?"
I blanched, staring at the woman I didn't know, "I'm sorry, have we met?"
"Oh, no! Goodness, no! I recognized you from the coronation footage. You were named one of the best dressed."
"I was?"
"Of course! What you wore was so classy, yet so modern. I would kill for that blazer!"
"Oh! Well, thank you. Can I ask you something?"
"Anything!"
"What do you think of this skirt?"
She eyed it carefully, "I think you look very sweet."
Alexei snorted behind her.
"If I may?" the woman asked, holding up a tang top that she had in her hand, "This was for my sister, but I think it would spice up your outfit."
A few minutes of wriggling later, I stood back in front of the mirror as everyone seemed to perk up. The tang top hugged what little curves I had and at the top had a v leading down to my cleavage. It would have seemed scandalous if it weren't partially covered by lace ups that joined at the top in a bow.
"Yes! Much better!" the woman clapped her hands together, "Then a ponytail and you're all set!"
I caught Alexei's eyes in the mirror, and was unable to hide the smirk when I saw that his eyes were shades deeper than they usually were. I turned around and hugged the woman, who looked like she might faint.
"Thank you so much for your help!"
"Of course," the woman said, enthusiastically waving goodbye.
"We're going to have to get a sweater or something to cover your arms," Lila noted.
"Why?" I asked.
"Your arms," she pointed at them with a well-manicured hand.
"What about them?"
"They're too muscular for a princess."
"Muscular? Isn't that kind of picky?"
Lila grimaced and neared me again, "People are going to start being picky about everything, Grace. Do you understand that? You can't come into the palace with dirty clothes. You can't go out in public without making sure your eyebrows are perfect and your nails are manicured and your skin is perfect. They'll notice everything. When you go out in public, there can't be a strand of hair out of place."
"That seems a little ridiculous, Lila." Alexei said.
"It is ridiculous. But it's also the truth."
"It's summer. In Adria. It easily gets up to 39 here. Sorry, Americans, about 100 in Fahrenheit. It would be stupid to go around in a sweater."
"That's what she's going to have to do. Until she gets less muscular."
I blanched and Alexei continued to study me, "I don't see that happening. Why not build it into her character?"
"A muscular, modern princess?"
"How about a princess that uses daily exercise to work through PTSD. Because that is what her military family taught her." He seemed to get even closer to me, and although he was talking to Lila he only looked at me as he continued. "Don't display her as muscular. Display her as strong. Resilient. It'd be easier mold for our Gracie to fit into anyway."
"It's not a bad idea," Megan said, "It could get a lot of people on her side. It could make people start rooting for her."
I turned back to the mirror for a second to clear my head and think, but then I looked over my shoulder in the mirror and met eyes that made it cloud again.
"What do you think, Grace?" Megan placed her hand on my arm to get me to look at her.
"I feel like I would be capitalizing on my mother's death. For political gain. I don't ever want to go down that road."
Alexei's hand briefly brushed against my waist like he had subconsciously come up to hold it but had corrected himself, "You don't have to. You have a military family. That's reason enough for you to be fit. But saying that you do it to work through PTSD— "
"No!"
"—Would get you more support."
"No. I can be strong and resilient without dragging up my past."
"Your past," Alexei explained calmly, "Will be brought up no matter what. We can take that, and we could use it to help people."
I twirled around, my skirt brushing against his pants, to tell him no again before I stopped, "What do you mean 'help people'?"
(*&*)?
I walked into the building with Noah next to me, "Explain to me why everyone told me to bring you with me?"
He shrugged, "Like we said, we all have our parts to play. The best way to see it is like the American secretaries. Alexei is the security and foreign affairs secretary, Megan is the state department, Lila and I are kind of the press secretary. Because Lila deals with your fashion."
"And you?"
"I help you charm people." He opened the door and bowed, letting me go in first.
I laughed, heading inside and to the front desk, "Hi, I was wondering if you could help me with something. I'd like to speak with whoever does your marketing."
(*&*)?
"Well?" I asked Alexei as I met him at the front door to the palace.
He didn't answer for a second, staring at my outfit.
"Too much?" I asked.
He cleared his throat, "Uh. No. No, you look…fine."
"Fine?" I asked, raising my eyebrow.
He finally met my eyes and cleared his throat again, "I think we're starting to work. I have some papers for you to look over."
"Yeah?"
"Thomas retweeting you did the trick."
"Like I told you it would?"
"Either way, word is getting out. You gained over a million followers on Twitter within two hours of him retweeting you and the hashtag is trending."
I nodded, "Benny from marketing called to tell me donations were already flooding in."
Alexei smiled at me, "So how does champion for mental illness sound?"
"It sounds like something my mother would be proud of."
