Royally Knocked Up by Pamela DuMond

Chapter 18

The woman sounded awfully familiar.

“What do you mean you can’t get up? You’ve fallen and you can’t get up?”

“For God’s sakes, Lucy, no I haven’t fallen. I’m stuck on the throne if you know what I mean. My bones are old, and sometimes everything just freezes. Like putting tuna salad in the freezer instead of the fridge. You realize when it’s too late, and then you’re stuck with frozen tuna salad, which is impossible to chew might I add, because time has marched on without you.”

“Royal Nana?” I startled like I’d been hit with a cattle prod.

“Well it’s not Queen Elizabeth.”

“Are you all right?” I accidentally kicked the paper bag into her stall.

“Peachy, now that you’ve sent provisions.”

I tried to peek under the shared divider but quarters were awfully narrow, and I only managed to bang my head on the toilet paper dispenser.

“The rawhide might be too tough for my teeth but the chocolate is nice, thank you,” she said. “A pregnancy test?”

I slammed out of my stall, tossed the blue pregnancy stick on the countertop next to the sink, and pulled and pushed on Royal Nana’s stall door. But it only budged a few inches, stuck on something in one direction and banging up against something else in the other. “Are you okay?” I dropped to my knees, peered underneath and saw a bejeweled ancient hand lifting the paper sack off the floor. Her walker tied with woolen scarves in Fredonia’s signature colors of purple, gold, and white, was blocking the door.

“I don’t need tampons or the pregnancy test,” she said. “I fear those days are gone.”

“Can you move the walker a little to the right so we can get you out?”

“My favorite scarf is stuck under the wheel. The purple one.”

“I don’t see the purple wheel.” I plopped on the floor, and craned my neck.

“Not the wheel. The scarf. Duchess Edith of Friedricksburgh, the old bat, knit if for me, and I’d hate to tear it. She’d never let me live it down.”

“Lucy!” Alida called. “You need to come out here, immediate…. What are you doing? Dios mio! Have you fainted? Are you okay?” She ran to my side.

“I’m fine. Royal Nana’s stuck in the handicapped stall and I can’t get her out. Go get Buddy.”

“Right!” She glanced at the pregnancy test on the counter, paused for a second, and raced out the door.

“Nana. Don’t panic. Can you breathe okay? Can you feel your legs?”

“Yes. The chocolate is helping. Maybe I was just dehydrated after the long flight here. I was scared someone would pull me off the plane like that poor doctor, but they were quite nice in First Class British Air.”

I wriggled further under the door. “What are you doing here?”

“That should be perfectly obvious. We’ve come to take you home.”

“But I am home.” I lay half in and half out of the stall, my skirt pushed up my thighs, exposing my panty-clad girlie parts. I latched onto the walker and tried to lift the leg off the purple scarf. “Who’s ‘we?’”

And then I heard Nick’s voice.

“Jesus Christ, Lucy. What are you doing?”

I could hear him loud and clear from inside the ladies bathroom. “Celebrating Valentine’s Day with your grandmother. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“I’ve never seen someone celebrate Valentine’s Day lying half in and half out of a bathroom stall.”

“She’s stuck,” Royal Nana said.

I glared up at her. “I am not stuck.”

“Oh, yes, you are.”

“Hang on.” Nick latched onto my boot with both hands and pulled me out of the stall. “I’m rescuing both of you.”

“Stop!” I said, as he dragged me across the bathroom floor.

“Keep going,” Royal Nana said. “I ordered a Long Island Ice Tea twenty minutes ago and I’m parched.”

He helped me to my feet, and stared at me. “Happy Valentine’s Day, wife.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, not husband, Nicholas.” I smoothed back my hair that probably looked like rats had thrown a party in it. “While I appreciate you getting me out of this mess, my answer to your question must stay the same. No. I will not ruin your life again. I’m sorry, but I will not re-marry you.”

“Oh shut up and pull your skirt down.” He wiggled his hand in the space between the door and the frame, managing to hit the right button on the walker to collapse it. He opened the door, leaned in, and helped his grandmother stand up and collect herself. “Are you okay, Nana?”

“I will be once I wash my hands, Nicholas.” She walked the few steps to the sink and ran the water. “Then take me to my table and give me the salty peanuts with the honey on them. Why is this blue pregnancy stick on the counter?”

Nick eyed the stick, then put a hand on my shoulder and glared at me. “We need to talk.”

* * *

We stood outside the MadDog Biker Bar. The snow had stopped for a bit. Clouds parted and even though we were in a big city, stars sparkled in the sky.

“Zip up your coat,” Nick said.

“Look, Bossypants, the pregnancy doesn’t change my mind.”

“This has nothing to do with the pregnancy. Yes I’m excited and thrilled but I didn’t come all the way to Chicago because I ‘intuited’ you were pregnant. I came to win you back. You don’t know the whole story.”

“I know the story,” I scuffed my boot on the cement. “I love you. You love me. It’s not going to work out. We can share custody. Oh, shit, everyone will say I got knocked up to get money.”

“No they won’t. The cock-up has been resolved.”

“For now. We’ll get re-married, and someone will come along and say they have a problem. That Mercury was in retrograde, or the sun was in Uranus—”

“The sun is not in my anus.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” he said, and pulled the black, velvet bag from his coat pocket.

“No.” I shook my head. “They’ll say I’m in it for the fancy clothes, or the jewelry, or because you’re royalty, and I’m a commoner.”

“Perhaps they should have been saying that before we got married.” He pulled out the ruby and diamond bracelet. “I had the safety fixed. We’re good to go. You can wear it now. I’ve waited. You’ve waited. It’s time.” He reached for my hand.

I kept it pressed behind my back. “Maybe you and I don’t belong together, Nicholas. Maybe love isn’t enough. Perhaps the fates, the gods in the heavens, Karma, whatever, wouldn’t be breaking us up so many times if we were really meant to be married. Are relationships supposed to be this hard?”

“Yes. Real relationships are supposed to be this hard. But maybe it’s not the fates or the gods who are breaking us up. Perhaps we are supposed to be together. We are the lovers that went to war and back to prove their love can stand the test of time, that faith endures, that good can win over evil and greed.”

“Can it, Nicholas? Because after everything that’s happened, I’m doubting.”

“My heart broke when you left, Lucy, but then I watched that video interview with the Fredonia News anchor and Archbishop Causesdesperdues enough times and memorized the look in his eyes. It was mean. It was calculating. He knew a lot more than he was saying.”

“I thought I was going to puke. He too has a lazy eye, you know. It’s unnerving.”

“You can survive a lazy eye. You’ve survived worse. After you left, I prayed to my non-denominational gods for answers. Got down on my knees and asked for guidance every single night I went to bed without you. And do you know what those gods whispered in my ear?”

“No.”

“‘Work for it, Nicholas. You want to be married to Lucy? You need to be her knight in shining armor. Fight the bad guys, slay the dragons, and work harder for her then you’ve ever worked for anything or anyone in your entire life. You are Prince Nicholas Frederick Timmel of Fredonia and you have to earn her love.’”

I paced up and down the sidewalk. “I kind of like these non-denominational gods. Tell me more.”

He grinned for the first time tonight. “Ask me what I did.”

I thought my heart would crack and spill out of my chest in little irregular pieces onto the pavement in front him. I missed him that much. “What did you do?”

“I followed the paper trail. I tracked down every decree, every word that Archbishop Causesdesperdues uttered and signed since I met you. I found each wedding he attended, baptism, funeral, and sermon that he gave. Then I started following the money. I might not have had a sword to lop off my opponent’s head, but I had a pen, and I took a shit ton of notes. It took me hundreds of hours. Ask me what I found?”

“What did you find?”

“Father McGillicuddy—the priest who married us at the St. Francis of Assisi Chapel.”

“The imposter priest?”

“But Father McGillicuddy wasn’t an imposter,” Nick said. “He was never an imposter.”

“Archbishop Causesdesperdues said he was. Declared our marriage null and void. He even called himself Milton Mertz when he left the church for pete’s sake.”

“Follow the money. Father McGillicuddy couldn’t put up with the hypocrisy one second longer. He resigned that order after he married us to find peace and brotherhood with like-minded people. He was always licensed to perform royal marriages, Lucy. The archbishop lied about it to create bedlam in the country. Who stands to benefit from that?”

“Politicians who don’t want the monarchy. Politically connected unscrupulous agents and businessmen who want the monarchy to side with them during elections and power struggles. Asshats.”

“Bingo. I’ve got the paper trail. I tracked down the bank accounts where the bribes and the blood money were deposited. Archbishop Causesdesperdues is ruined. He just doesn’t know it yet. Now, hold out your hand, because I’m putting the damn bracelet back on.”

But I held my arm behind me and jutted out my chin. “Wait a minute. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yes. We’re still married. We have been since we said our ‘I do’s’ at the chapel a few months ago.”

“Cristoph’s cock-up?”

“Doesn’t matter. Happened after we were legally married. You don’t plan to divorce me any time soon, do you?”

“No.”

“Then hold out your damn hand. If you don’t want this bracelet I’ll sell it on eBay.”

I shoved my arm in front of him so fast he blinked.

Nick looped the bracelet around my wrist, and pulled me flush against him. He wrapped his arms around me and gazed into my eyes.

“Kiss me, wife. It’s our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple and I plan on making the most of it. I love you, Lucy.”

“I can’t. My lips are frozen. I’m in shock.”

“Allow me to warm them up.” Nick smiled and kissed me like a victor on the battlefield of love.

“Good God, your mouth is hot.”

“You know what else is hot, my little Warrior Princess?”

“I have a feeling I’ll soon be finding out. Happy Valentine’s Day, husband. ”

“What kind of people leave a grandmother alone eating beer nuts on Valentine’s Day?” Royal Nana held the door to MadDog open a crack. “Come back inside and hang out with an old dame for a bit before the naughty business?”

“Yes,” we both said, and smiled at each other right before we kissed again.