I’m thinking of getting my name engraved in gold leaf over the painted angels on my bedroom ceiling; no, I think actual gold-wrought letters might look better. I often get lost in the hand-carved figures of cherubs, gods and goddess, and the unmistakable crests of the Royal Houses of Windsor at night before I go to sleep. The walls, of course, are lavender and silver, an exact replica of Marie Antoinette’s powder room in the Petit Trianon. This is possible only because a family advisor purchased the wallpaper right off the walls of Versailles. I’m not sure how much it cost, but when things don’t have a price or are priced upon request, it always means it’s a good investment of taxpayer money.
My rooms at Balmoral, Kensington, and Windsor are much the same as my quarters at Buckingham Palace, but how would I know? I haven’t been in most of them anyway. My main duty is to represent the ancient institution of royalty by looking pretty, which, with this face, is not that difficult. Looking charitable and humanitarian is required as well (which I am, of course, but some days it’s just easier to pretend).
Grandma Liz – oh, you know her, right? – invites me to tea with William and Harry every Sunday and we eat those tiny little cucumber sandwiches with the crust cut off just the way I like it, holding our pinky fingers up in the air when we take sips. We pat our mouths lightly with napkins and finish with the flick of a white-gloved wrist, as if we are dabbing a cut with rubbing alcohol. A rigorous jab might burn or sting.
When I walk down the street, people recognize me but don’t harass me because, of course, I’m the royal heir to the throne after about ten more people die, just one small family plane crash away from sovereignty. (I’m still working on that.) Every girl and boy has an enormous crush on me, and sometimes it’s weird to see my face on the cover of every British and American tabloid. But you get used it, especially since it’s all praise. I often think the media knows more about me than I do.
Fashion designers pay me to wear their clothes because they know that their website will crash the next day if I’m seen in a certain dress or pair of heels. I wear hats – big, floppy, ridiculous hats – and get away with it because being in the royal family means that you can wear whatever they hell you want to as long as it’s expensive. However, I’m thinking of starting a Princess Grace for H&M line because I want to appear accessible and thrifty to the millions of young girls that idolize me (appear being the key word here).
Often when I overhear the little old women at polo matches and brunches gossiping and speculating about me (naturally, I don’t blame them, because it’s unavoidable when you are born interesting), it’s hard not to block out compliments like, “My god, isn’t she just the spitting image of Grace Kelly with the heart of Diana? What beauty and charisma. Let’s hope the press doesn’t get to her.” But not to worry, they won’t – I’m untouchable. It’s practically impossible for anything to get to me, except…
“Excuse me, Your Royal Highness, but in this house we clear our own plates and wash the dishes,” my father grumbles from the dinner table.
“Feed the dogs, Grace – they’re not going to feed themselves!” yells my mother.
To which I airily reply, “Let them eat cake!”
But I’m kidding, of course… kind of, not really, and she knows it. That’s probably why she only let me get the pastel fleur de lis wallpaper and not the Windsor crest for my wall or the Louis XIV chandelier with the sapphire crystals. Maybe it’s excessive, but isn’t that what Christmas is for? Parents, these days.
My family also assumes that since I am “deluded” with fantasies of royal grandeur and revere ancient tradition, I am all of a sudden a political conservative.
“Oh, look, Grace, it’s your presidential candidate Mitt Romney on television,” Jane says. I don’t even think that she knows what she’s saying or even why she’s saying it, but I guess she heard it from our parents somewhere. They’re probably conspiring to disown me when I vote Republican in 2016, which I wasn’t planning on doing but might now just to spite them. Originally, I was planning on not voting at all since I don’t believe in this pseudo-democratic ploy of electing people to office when your votes don’t actually count. The monarchy is much simpler. (What is the electoral college anyway?)
“Would you mind giving me your spare change, sis? It’s for the penny harvest at school. We’re supporting the undeserving poor.”
She puts a lot of emphasis on that last part because she knows that it’s funny ever since she heard my father mock my Oxford dream. The men in tweed sport jackets who drink port and smoke cigars by the fireside, complaining about the undeserving poor, are the ones on the admissions board at Christ Church College, he once said. I then asked him if he had a problem with that, because I don’t. I love tweed and port (ever since that conversation, I think he hid his collection in the basement so that I can’t get my hands on a bottle) and pipes and cigars, but especially old British men with moustaches and bristly white facial hair. I love the way they say ‘aristocracy’ like they have something funny up their nose and are itching to sneeze it out. Air-ih-SHTOC-kruhshy.
“But you’re gay, sweetie – you can’t really be a princess. You’d have to marry into the royal family and we all know what the chances are of that,” my mother says.
I don’t know whether this is an affront to my physical appearance or to the scarce supply of eligible lesbian princess-brides. My father laughs. They all do. They think it’s hysterical, absurd even, because they’re only kidding, right? And it is, I guess, because I kind of am, too. I can’t imagine England having a gay royal wedding, and as much as I want that to be a possibility, part of me relishes the legacy of tradition. But this inner conflict, no matter how many times I contemplate it, is ultimately pointless. Tradition is changing all the time, and I just really, really, really want to be a princess, goddamnit.
I tell my mother this and she says that it would probably be easier just to get married in Spain and find a beautiful, nice, common lesbian before moving to London together and pursuing my European fantasy. What luck she had, ending up with the only gay, scathingly elitist tradition snob in the country. I tell her that it would also probably be easier if God were a black, Jewish, transsexual woman, but he’s not, which is a bummer. (If he were, just think of all the problems that would solve.)
“Go for it then, my little gay princess,” she says, because she knows I’ve won. I smile the smile that I’ve been saving for my royal wedding portrait and the infamous carriage ride home from Westminster Abbey. My wrist flicks back in the customary wave as I shoo away her offer of a bowl of fruit salad. Call me elitist, but I am determined, entranced by the institution of the monarchy, and I happen to like girls. A triple threat.
Kate Middleton, eat your heart out.
Grace McLeod
Age 16, Grade 11,
Nightingale-Bamford School
Gold Key Gold Medal