“There were a few things I wanted that were more meaningful. One thing in particular. My very closest friend was a girl named Vera. She married young, just seventeen. She married a man my parents would never have considered for me — a carpenter. A year later she had a son, a beautiful little boy with dimples and curly black hair. It was the first time I’d ever felt truly jealous of anyone else in my entire life.”
She looked at me with unfathomable eyes. “It was a different time. I was the same age as you, but I was ready for it all. I yearned for my own little baby. I wanted my own house and a husband who would kiss me when he got home from work — just like Vera. Only I had a very different kind of house in mind. . . .”
It was hard for me to imagine the world that Rosalie had known. Her story sounded more like a fairy tale than history to me. With a slight shock, I realized that this was very close to the world that Edward would have experienced when he was human, the world he had grown up in. I wondered — while Rosalie sat silent for a moment — if my world seemed as baffling to him as Rosalie’s did to me?
Rosalie sighed, and when she spoke again her voice was different, the wistfulness gone.
“In Rochester, there was one royal family — the Kings, ironically enough. Royce King owned the bank my father worked at, and nearly every other really profitable business in town. That’s how his son, Royce King the Second” — her mouth twisted around the name, it came out through her teeth — “saw me the first time. He was going to take over at the bank, and so he began overseeing the different positions. Two days later, my mother conveniently forgot to send my father’s lunch to work with him. I remember being confused when she insisted that I wear my white organza and roll my hair up just to run over to the bank.” Rosalie laughed without humor.
“I didn’t notice Royce watching me particularly. Everyone watched me. But that night the first of the roses came. Every night of our courtship, he sent a bouquet of roses to me. My room was always overflowing with them. It got to the point that I would smell like roses when I left the house.
“Royce was handsome, too. He had lighter hair than I did, and pale blue eyes. He said my eyes were like violets, and then those started showing up alongside the roses.
“My parents approved — that’s putting it mildly. This was everything they’d dreamed of. And Royce seemed to be everything I’d dreamed of. The fairy tale prince, come to make me a princess. Everything I wanted, yet it was still no more than I expected. We were engaged before I’d known him for two months.
“We didn’t spend a great deal of time alone with each other. Royce told me he had many responsibilities at work, and, when we were together, he liked people to look at us, to see me on his arm. I liked that, too. There were lots of parties, dancing, and pretty dresses. When you were a King, every door was open for you, every red carpet rolled out to greet you.
“It wasn’t a long engagement. Plans went ahead for the most lavish wedding. It was going to be everything I’d ever wanted. I was completely happy. When I called at Vera’s, I no longer felt jealous. I pictured my fair-haired children playing on the huge lawns of the Kings’ estate, and I pitied her.”
Rosalie broke off suddenly, clenching her teeth together. It pulled me out of her story, and I realized that the horror was not far off. There would be no happy ending, as she’d promised. I wondered if this was why she had so much more bitterness in her than the rest of them — because she’d been within reach of everything she’d wanted when her human life was cut short.
“I was at Vera’s that night,” Rosalie whispered. Her face was smooth as marble, and as hard. “Her little Henry really was adorable, all smiles and dimples — he was just sitting up on his own. Vera walked me to the door as I was leaving, her baby in her arms and her husband at her side, his arm around her waist. He kissed her on the cheek when he thought I wasn’t looking. That bothered me. When Royce kissed me, it wasn’t quite the same — not so sweet somehow. . . . I shoved that thought aside. Royce was my prince. Someday, I would be queen.”
It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but it looked like her bone white face got paler.
“It was dark in the streets, the lamps already on. I hadn’t realized how late it was.” She continued to whisper almost inaudibly. “It was cold, too. Very cold for late April. The wedding was only a week away, and I was worrying about the weather as I hurried home — I can remember that clearly. I remember every detail about that night. I clung to it so hard . . . in the beginning. I thought of nothing else. And so I remember this, when so many pleasant memories have faded away completely. . . .”