by J. Naomi Ay
She was dreaming, so much so, she never realized that the huckleberries were located right next door to Vinz's shack. It was only the strange noises emerging from therein that woke her from her imaginary life in the Palace of Mishnah. Someone was screaming, and another person was moaning. No, now they both were calling out to the Blessed Saint, in between cheers as if watching a football game. Luci wondered what was going on that the Lord should be so invoked.
"Vinz!" Luci called to the boy, who had set Baby on the ground and now was hiding behind a scraggly shrub next to a tree. "It's sounds as if your mother's been hurt. We need to go inside and help her out. Come on." Luci waved and quickly ran through the garden gate. She had a feeling she shouldn't do so. It followed her all the way up to the porch. In fact, the stair creaked and groaned a warning as she stepped upon it. As her hand reached out to the door, it was as if the wood shouted at her to take it back, yet still she pulled it open and looked inside.
There was Vinz's mother on the couch, her tangled blonde head falling over on the side. Her legs splayed one across the back and the other on the floor. She was entirely naked and covered in sweat, her great breasts perky as Luci had just wished hers to be. But, the most shocking thing of all was what was between her legs. It was her father's head that made Luci scream, especially when he looked up with a horrified gaze. In retrospect, Luci would have been happier to see it lifeless and decapitated than still attached to his naked throbbing body. Now, Luci wasn't certain what she should do, but she knew that here was not the place that she should be. She turned as quickly as she could, and ran down the steps to hide with Vinz behind the scraggly shrub next to the tree.
A few moments later, Jorgan emerged from the door. He straightened his trousers and fingered combed his hair. Spying Baby with a bowl, eating berries as quickly as she picked them, he took her hand and guided her back up the street.
That night when the moons had already risen, and a chill breeze raced across the city of Korelesk, Luci walked home to her backyard to remove the laundry from the line and start dinner for her eight brothers and sisters.
"Luci," Renie called when the dishes were cleaned. "Come sit with me a moment. We need to talk." Her heart pounding in her chest, her hands shaking as if from tremors, Luci settled upon the one remaining chair in the living room. "Luci," Renie continued, exhaling smoke. "Father and I have decided you are to go to New Mishnah. You can live with your Great Aunt Klair in her two bedroom flat. She's getting old and could use a bit of assistance. A big strapping girl like you will be very useful."
"Will I still go to school?" Luci squeaked, not believing her luck. She had never met Great Aunt Klair, but that hardly mattered. She could be a wicked witch and Luci would still be delighted to go.
"Of course," Renie insisted. "The schools are better there than here." She leaned close to Luci and coughed smoke in her face. "Do well there, my girl, and you'll be a success. You're smart enough, and you have a pretty face. There is nothing here for you in Korelesk. The whole world is now focusing on Mishnah. I have a feeling deep in my bones, you are meant for a better life."
The next day, Luci slung a bag across her shoulder. She said goodbye to every one of her four brothers and sisters. Only Baby seemed to care as she clung to Luci's leg and begged her not to go.
"Someday soon, Baby," Luci promised although she kept her fingers crossed behind her back. "I'll come back for you." Then, Luci walked down the street to the bus station, resolving never again to return to Korelesk despite her words to Baby. She had enough coins in her pocket for one fare to the Capital City, and as far as she was concerned that would be all she ever needed. It wasn't until after she boarded the bus and was half way across the planet that it occurred to her, she had never said goodbye to Vinz.
****
Great Aunt Klair had a deep husky voice that belied her tiny bird like appearance. Her hair was dyed red although at her advanced age, it appeared somewhat orange with purple streaks. It was also tightly curled and stood up from her ancient head as if a bolt of electricity had recently zapped it from her skull.
"Well," she announced as she opened the front door to discover Luci standing soaked from the pounding rain. "You're quite a hefty one, aren't you? However, did you manage to grow to that size? Come in now and take off those wet shoes and clothes." Luci followed Klair into the darkened parlor as the shades were always drawn no matter the time of day. A talk show played on the vid that was also never shut off as Klair could not sleep without the noise. "Set your things in the back and then come make me some tea. I like extra hot with a tiny slice of lemon." Luci found the maid's room, barely larger than a closet with a single bed, a small cupboard, a mirror, and a window that was long fastened shut. Down the hall was a bath which solely belonged to her. To Luci, these accommodations were as grand as any in the Palace. She didn't mind waiting upon Klair at all. Certainly, one old lady was much easier than eight young kids and an invalid mother. Luci enjoyed the old woman's company especially when they sat around watching the shows on the vid, commenting about everyone and everything happening there. Her favorite show over all was the Royal Presentation which was a weekly cattle call of girls presented to the Prince.
"You know, Luci," Klair said, pointing a crooked finger at the screen, the cat curled up in a ball on her boney lap. "That boy is the same age as you. You certainly ought to go to the next presentation. You're big, but you have a pretty face. Who knows? You might just be interesting to the Crown Prince. Perhaps, he'll be a man who enjoys a woman with a sizable bust." Luci studied the boy as she sipped her milk shake for Aunt Klair always wanted ice cream in the house. Luci enjoyed blending chocolate with a banana. Then, she added whipped cream and a sprinkling of nuts. That and a cookie were her favorite treats in the afternoon.
"He doesn't look very happy," Luci remarked, slurping noisily from her straw. She noted the boy's bored and somewhat pained expression. He would have reminded her a bit of Vinz if Vinz wasn't so ugly. Actually, Vinz was skinnier and shorter with much worse blemishes upon his skin. Frankly, the only thing they had in common was the long, curly black hair and the look of someone who was a product of a Mishnese and a Karut. This boy, the Crown Prince, was standing on a dais at the end of a great hall while many beautiful girls paraded and curtseyed before him. Even though he was only twelve, his grandfather, the King, was searching for a bride. The primary responsibility of a prince was to produce yet another, and if the boy was particular, that process might take a dozen years.
"Who cares if he is happy?" The old lady snapped and waggled her finger upon down as if to catch his attention. "He must do his duty as every prince should. He's quite a fetching fellow for one who is half Karut. I bet he'll be quite entertaining when you get him into bed."
Luci blushed as she did every time Klair spoke like that. She wondered why someone of such an advanced age would be so consumed with the topic of sex for it seemed to be quite often on the old woman's mind. After witnessing the act by her father and the whore, Luci didn't care if she stayed a virgin until she died. She had to admit, however, the Crown Prince was a dreamy looking fellow. When she went to the grocery the next day to purchase more ice cream and boxes of tea, she stopped in at a shop and bought herself a giant pin-up of the boy. She hung it on the wall right opposite her bed and stared at it each night before she fell asleep. She dreamed of dancing in the Palace wearing a dress of pure spun silk, a tiara on her head and ropes of pearls.
Before school started a few weeks later, Klair gave Luci a card.
"Go to the mall and buy yourself better clothes to wear. I won't have my grand-niece looking like a pauper even though she is. Get yourself a haircut and purchase some makeup for those freckles on your face."
"Really?" Luci gasped, staring at the card. "I'll never to be able to pay you back. I don't have any money."
"Pish tosh!" Old Klair replied. "Who else shall I give it to? It's just you or the cat, and he doesn't need any more clothes. Buy a nice gown to wear to the
next presentation. You'll need to look like a princess if that is what you want to be."
"Presentation?" Luci echoed with disbelief.
"What are you, dumb? Don't answer that, I've already decided you are. Never the less, you shall go before the Crown Prince and see if he likes you."
"But I'm not a lady of noble birth," Luci protested.
"But I am," the old woman sighed. "My father was the third son of the Earl of Korelesk. I have secured an invitation by way of the Queen whose mother was a cousin to my Aunt's second husband. You'll have your minute of fame, so do the best you can to attract his attention. See if you might be able to lose a hundred pounds by next week. If not, we'll put a sign on your back declaring that you are certain to be a good breeder. By the size of your hips, you ought to pop out a litter instead of just one." Klair laughed in her chair until tears rolled down her wrinkled face. Luci smiled and laughed a little, too, immediately heading out to search for a gown. She found a pink tulle dress that would suffice for the next presentation. Before returning, she stopped at the salon to cut her ginger hair. It was washed, conditioned, and the split ends were all snipped off.
"It's a lovely color," the stylist cried as she dragged a flat iron down every one of Luci's curly tresses. When she spun Luci around to the mirror, the girl couldn't believe what she saw.
A week later, before the presentation, Luci returned. She had her hair flattened again, and her makeup professionally applied. She wore Great Aunt Klair's grandmother's antique tiara and a double strand of pearls the old woman had saved.
"You look like a giant bon bon," Aunt Klair sighed when she saw the pink tulle dress.
Luci took a taxi to the Palace, again using Aunt Klair's charge card to pay the fee. She climbed the stairs to the Palace gates in the satin shoes that matched the dress. She showed her invitation to the guard who smirked and rolled his eyes.
"She'll suffocate the Prince in her layers of fat," she heard him remark as she walked away. Following the crowd of waif like girls to the Crystal Ballroom, Luci waited in the corridor until her number was called, watching as the other girl's mothers and servants primped and prepared them for battle. Luci followed a young girl called Lady Mariya up to the dais. She echoed Mariya's dainty steps with her own large feet. She exactly copied Mariya's curtsey and murmured, "Pleased to meet you, Sir," in the same soft voice. But, unlike Mariya, when Luci rose to depart, she caught her heel in the hem of her skirt and promptly fell down the step. Her skirt ripped with a terrible sound and her ankle twisted.
"Oh no!" Luci cried as her shoe broke and her foot throbbed with pain. She tried to rise, as best as she could, with the tiny bit of dignity she still had intact. Unfortunately, she found herself unable to stand without bursting into tears.
"Berk." The Crown Prince's melodious voice called out to his friend, a boy who stood next to the throne. "Go assist the Lady." A moment later, a boy knelt down offering Luci his hand. He helped her rise and limp outside the hall.
"Are you alright, Miss?" Berk asked politely.
"I think so." Luci sniffed and wiped her nose on the pink tulle sleeve. Clandestinely, she gazed at him and his white blonde hair. He was dressed in a fine suit of clothes with a red bow tie and a fancy coat, but what she noticed most of all was the size of him. He was nearly as large as her, in terms of width. A smile crossed her face as she looked up into his light blue eyes. He smiled back at her with a confused expression and then excused himself to return to the Crown Prince, while Luci limped her way back to the Palace Gates and the waiting taxi.
"Ha!" Aunt Klair laughed as soon as Luci arrived back home. "Count on you to trip in front of a live audience. The entire country of Mishnah saw you fall. In fact, they're seeing it repeatedly on the evening news. You may not have won the Prince's heart, but you're famous now."
"Lovely," Luci mumbled and changed her dress. Then, she made dinner for Aunt Klair and herself. Aunt Klair's vid played her folly all night long. At first, Luci tried not to watch, but then changed her mind, searching for a glimpse of the white haired boy who had come to her rescue.
****
Luci enjoyed living in New Mishnah. Being the capital city, it was more exciting in the middle of the night than Korelesk was during the day. There were restaurants and bistros open at all hours, and the mall was filled with fancy stores that carried everything imaginable. Unlike at home, Luci also had money as Aunt Klair paid her generously for taking care of both herself and the flat. Luci attended school at an exclusive girl's preparatory academy, her admittance gained on the strength of Aunt Klair's noble connections. There, Luci acquired a few friends, a girl or two who hovered on the outskirts of the school's society. The popular girls were all daughters of nobility, each one addressed as Lady this or Lady that. They all shunned Luci for she was obviously of humble beginnings and her large size and bright red hair were simply not in vogue. What was in fashion, however, was to speak constantly of the Crown Prince for nearly every one of them had made an appearance at a recent cattle call. The girls all followed his affairs incessantly, ceasing all activity including breathing, if he should appear for a moment on the vid. Pin-ups of him hung in every room. Their chatter continuously revolved around who he might select for his future queen.
"Who the hell wants to be a queen?" Luci's friend Leesa sniffed as she sucked on a cigarette. Leesa wasn't a Lady either, just the daughter of a successful businessman, who had bought her way in to the school. The two of them were hiding behind the locker room while the other girls changed clothing for their physical education class. Luci hated running about the track or up and down the gym bouncing a ball. She was always last to complete the race with the slowest time overall, or the first to be knocked out of the game, usually with a newly acquired purple bruise. Her gym clothes were always too tight accentuating the rolls around her waist, and she was embarrassed how her thighs rubbed together. Frankly, it made Luci physically ill just to enter the locker room. She'd rather take demerits and skip the class.
"I should like to be a queen," Luci considered, "Or perhaps, just a duchess or a countess." She thought of that boy, the Crown Prince's best friend, and imagined herself married to him.
"I'd like to be the royal mistress." Leesa smirked, exhaling a puff of gray smoke. "No babies, no royal appointments, just a prince in my bed bringing me gifts."
Luci shivered at the thought. That bed thing bothered her and Leesa's cavalier attitude even more so.
None of that mattered anyway as a short time later, the Crown Prince went away along with all the news reports and pin-ups they had made of him and his friend. Luci concentrated on her studies as Aunt Klair insisted she had a brain although no one was certain how large it was underneath all that frizzy red hair.
Several years later, just before Luci was set to head to the University of New Mishnah, where she had been accepted on a tuition paid scholarship, a great ruckus occurred and the Crown Prince was declared dead. While the other girls in the Academy wept for days, some even collapsing upon their beds in hysterical fits, Luci continued on in a stoic manner. Certainly, she mourned the young man as she still gazed lovingly at the last pin-up of a strappingly built teenager astride a splendid black horse. However, unlike the other girls, she knew, the only chance she ever had of residing in the Palace would not be as the young man's wife, but if she was hired on as a maid.
****
During Luci's first year at the University, the country's economy began to falter. Insulated in the collegiate environment, she took no notice of the defaulting businesses and growing homeless population around her. Aunt Klair still had a fair endowment left over from her once noble father's holdings, so she and Luci lacked for nothing, although their monthly allotment seemed to drain ever quicker. Luci detected during the weekly marketing that the prices of bread and eggs had risen substantially. She resolved to eat less so as not to cause undue strain on Aunt Klair's budget. This, combined with Luci's daily traversing of the immense college campus, diminished her fra
me temporarily to an almost normal size. Aunt Klair was pleased by this and insisted Luci go out to purchase an entirely new wardrobe.
"Too bad the Crown Prince is dead," she clucked. "I suspect now you'd be far more appealing to him." Luci didn't think so for she was still as clumsy and awkward as before. Though her lisp was less noticeable and her stutter contained, she still found herself standing around at parties with nothing to say. Aunt Klair had forced her to join a sorority of sorts, in order to meet more young people. All she met was a punchbowl, a tray of cookies and a kind chaperone or two who took pity or the fat red head standing next to the wall.
Luci enjoyed languages, history, and literature spending most of her time in the giant libraries reading texts and tomes from ancient days. She studied the founding of this planet Rehnor, the wars that preceded it on the mother planet Rozari, and the wars that followed the resettlement here. She studied Rozarian, which was similar to her native Mishnese, having only a thousand years of differing evolution between the two languages. She also took up psychology as she found observing people just as entertaining as reading about them in books.
