Desiree (standard:adventure, 2354 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Aug 04 2007	Views/Reads: 3247/2136	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Falling in love with a prince may turn out to be a cultural hazard.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

cobblestoned courtyard beside the palace.  Just like grandma remembered 
it.  Apparently, the airport official had rung up beforehand.  
Strolling casually across the square was a was a tall, young man, 
dressed in white, like a sailor, with a fringed robe over his shoulder, 
and a medal around his neck.  He came from the west, out of the setting 
sun. 

"Welcome home, cousin," he said warmly, taking her hands.  Desiree felt
something explode inside her.  "It couldn't possibly be true.  No, not 
in a million years!" she thought.  And as she kissed his cheek, she 
realized he was only a year or two older.  His fuzz was just turning to 
beard.  Could this be.....?  Impossible!  Yet....  Suddenly, 
unaccountably, Desiree felt that incomparable swelling of gratitude, 
the feeling that she really was home again -- and welcome!  Tucking her 
under his arm, followed by guards with her baggage, he led her into the 
palace. 

They stood for a moment in the great hall, while he pointed out all the
rooms in the building where one could freshen up.  His politeness had 
no equal in North America.  Every movement was regal, decisive.  His 
faint personal aroma was more arousing than musk. 

"I'm Desiree," she said, turning toward him, touching her hair.  He
returned her stare with the slow-dawning crescent of a smile. 

"Yes, I know," he replied softly, "I am Amoreno, Prince of the Kingdom
of Sardinia, Amoreno Paolercio de Savoy.  I am the great grandson 
removed six times of the original Duke of Savoy, who ruled the island 
of Sardinia in 1720.  That should sound familiar to your grandmother!"  
Desiree found a chair and sank down.  How could he possibly have known. 


"Then he must be, let's see," Desiree counted on her fingers, "my third
cousin, at least."  She looked up into his eyes.  He returned the 
glance and reached out, taking her arms, drawing her to him. 

"I have the same sensitivity as you," he explained.  "I feel what you
feel, think what you think.  Your grandmother passed the word to me 
weeks ago, about your coming.  She could not say how you would arrive, 
but now I understand." 

They talked and talked.  The ground trembled slightly under them, as the
three volcanoes conversed among themselves.  One by one, plates with 
snacks arrived, each brought by a different servant.  For the next two 
hours, she sampled twenty plates with cups of wine, sturgeon eggs, bits 
of pickled fish, chicken livers, and many little sweetbreads, cakes and 
puddings.  Desiree began to get the impression that her family was not 
as destitute as they usually made out for the Internal Revenue Service. 
 If she had known the truth, she would never have flown here on her own 
money. 

After the last dish, he showed her into the coffee room.  Its floor was
composed of thick cushions, set wall to wall.  There was no furniture, 
but hidden speakers filled the room with exotic music. 

"Do you like the coffee?" he asked.  Desiree beamed her delight, 
sipping from her cup. 

"It's fucking fantastic!" she answered without realizing the impact it
might have on a ruling monarch.  Desiree was unwilling to admit that 
she was already infatuated with him.  After coffee, he drew a small 
compact out of his shirt pocket and offered it to her.  She took a 
pinch of the white powder and sniffed it expertly.  Amoreno did the 
same.  They talked until very late, sharing the warm glow of 
togetherness, sometimes laughing and rolling around on the cushions. 

Finally, he called a servant to show her to her room.  Within minutes,
she had unzipped her traveling clothes, enjoyed a scant-but-adequate 
shower, and had dried herself with many little pats from a cottony soft 
towel.  The evening was warm and humid.  She rummaged through her 
suitcases for something appropriate to wear, and finally chose a girl 
scout uniform intended for some poses to be photographed in Athens.  
Desiree paced the room, picked up her camera, loaded it and cleaned the 
lens, washed her hands.  She was more wide awake than ever.  She 
splashed on some fragrance and went out into the hall, closing the door 
behind her.  It was a hall like the palace hall in every palace in the 
world.  There were doors on the left and on the right -- dozens of them 
-- and downstairs, and upstairs, too.  At least she knew where the 
bathrooms were.  She walked to the very end of the hall.  A 
well-dressed servant stepped out of his niche beside the stairway and 
addressed her in perfect French: 

"The young master will see you now." 

She gazed at him, uncertain how to respond. The servant bowed slightly,
"you did request an audience, did you not?" Desiree blushed, then 
reached deeply back to her Sicilian heritage, firm in the realization 
that only once in a lifetime will there ever be this particular 
Sicilian prince named Amoreno, and she was going to meet him in a Girl 
Scout uniform.  "Lead on," she affirmed confidently. 

*   *   *   *   * 

The next day, they shopped at the market, walking along the crooked
sidewalks, visited the tumbled-down Garibaldi monument and 
grandmother's old school.  Desiree never knew the plane had left until 
it was long gone.  In the market, little children would run up to tug 
at Amoreno's robe and give him something.  He always handed them a few 
coins in return.  They stood in the grape arbor, beneath the ledge, 
looking out at the vast, sun-twinkling Mediterranean. 

"I own many properties," he explained.  "These fellows are my
messengers.  You know that excellent coffee we had last night?  The 
trees which grew that coffee, and the ground they grew in are all mine. 
So are the trees of Cacao, and Coconut and Hemp for rope, and Sisal." 

"Nevertheless," responded Desiree, "You can't make much money as a
farmer."  He frowned and replied: 

"Even in this day and age, a Prince has to do some strange things to
keep up his flow of income.  For example, my bank loans money to 
farmers exactly as our family did nearly ten centuries ago.  The fancy 
yacht I keep tied up in the harbor is actually a coast guard cutter.  I 
lease it out to the Navy.  The palace is always available, at a fee, 
for wedding receptions and the like.  After all, I am deeply 
responsible for the livelihood of many servants as well as merchants 
and farmers.  You can't simply shut down a kingdom and tell everyone to 
go home.  They depend on me, and I depend on them.  In a manner of 
speaking, the townspeople of Palermo are my children.  And before the 
last Great War, they were the children of your grandparents.  Would you 
like to stay in Sicily and rule my kingdom with me? 

Desiree recalled a particularly vivid image from the night before and
reached out to take his hand. 

"Yes, Amoreno, Yes, oh yes!" 

A month later, the wedding date was set.  All of the priests approved.
All of the civil officials approved.  All of the townspeople seemed to 
approve.  But Amoreno was uncertain of one thing.  Even though he had 
spoken long distance with her parents, they both felt that Desiree 
should fly back to Cincinnati and obtain their blessing.  With luck, 
they might even be willing to attend the wedding in Palermo. 

The local air service was a 3-engined puddle-jumper with big floats. It
flew -- if you could call it that -- between Palermo and Rome, where 
Desiree could get back to her London-Cincinnati flight.  Amoreno 
remained in Sicily, putting his affairs in order so they could take a 
long honeymoon after the wedding.  He had proposed a month each in 
Burma, Bhutan and Tasmania. Desiree longed for adventure, but her heart 
reached out to the South Pacific: Pago Pago, Tonga Tonga, Bora Bora, 
and Hula Huala, Hawaii. 

Apart from her shoulder bag, which was stuffed full of little gifts for
her parents, she now had a backpack, a woven-silk shopping bag, six 
suitcases, all new luggage, all new clothing, all new shoes.  Amoreno 
knew, somehow, where to find the best clothing shops on the whole 
island of Sicily.  She felt she had enough frocks and gowns to last the 
rest of her life.  And the gifts for her father and mother: tins of 
Sicilian tobacco, and hollow dolls dressed up in Sicilian costumes, 
strange light books with curious writing on the covers, all packaged 
very securely. 

She shivered the whole trip to Rome, fearing another incident, but the
light plane touched down smooth as a feather.  Within the hour she was 
aboard a big jumbo jet, on her way to London.  The next day, when the 
pilot began a descent for touchdown at Cincinnati, she reached into her 
shoulder bag and popped open her compact mirror, just for a touch-up. 

The plane swooped and drooped, heading for its runway at the Greater
Cincinnati Airport.  As it neared the ground, wind began to buffet the 
wings.  Even as she tightened her seat belt, the airplane hit a bump 
and a dollop of snow-white powder spilled into her lap.  The bags on 
the seat beside her suddenly shot into the air. Something burst against 
a bulkhead, trailing a smokescreen of cocaine all the way down the 
aisle to the tail end of the plane, while it screeched and swerved in a 
frantic attempt to stay on the runway and come to a stop.  "Sorry, 
folks," grinned the captain from his cabin, "little hard landing 
there."  He never knew how hard that landing was going to be for 
Desiree, She never guessed that her farmer-prince had been growing such 
lucrative crops; or that she was only another innocent courier needed 
to insure that the products reach their market. 

*     *     *     *     *     * 

Seattle, WA, August 2007 Gerald X. Diamond Copyright 1990


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