Jalal lifted his arm, and she snuggled in against him as confidingly as a kitten. “Well, I have a crown, my father’s crown, but princes don’t go swimming in crowns, do they?”
“They don’t?” Donnelly sounded disappointed, as if she had been hoping to see just that sight.
“No.” Jalal, smiling, shook his head firmly. All the children had fallen silent, listening to him, almost entranced. “Do you wear your swimsuit to school?”
Donnelly, who did not go to school, gazed at him wide-eyed, and shook her head with mute solemnity.
“Princes only wear crowns in their palaces. There is no palace here. So I left my crown at home.”
“Ohhhh.”
“But one day, I hope you’ll come and visit me in my home, and then I’ll show you my crown.”
“Oh, neat! Can I come, too?” “Do you have a palace?” “Can I come, can I come?” “Is your home in the desert?” “Is it an Arab’s tent or is it a real palace?” “Do you have camels, Jalal?” “What’s it like in the desert?” “Were you a bandit before you were a prince, Jalal?”
And then somehow, in a circle of fascinated children, the two oldest boys carrying his cases, Jalal was being led up to the house, into the kitchen. Clio stood on the dock watching the progress of the little party.
No doubt she should have realized that a man capable of drawing as many followers to his cause as Jalal was said to have had would have powerful charisma. She didn’t like the way they were all falling all over him, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.
Not right now, anyway.
Four
“Uncle Brandon dropped the guys back and went out again. He said not to save lunch for him,” Rosalie reported, when Clio entered the kitchen.
That wasn’t unusual in the run-up to the season. He had probably had to go for more creosote or something, and would grab a hamburger in the plaza. But Clio would rather her father had been here to meet Jalal.
“You’ve got lunch going already?” she asked, sniffing the air. “That’s terrific, Rosalie.”
Whenever her mother was absent on one of her buying trips among the First Nation artists she represented in the gallery, as she was this week, Clio was in charge. This year Rosalie, who had arrived in tears shortly after Christmas declaring that she hated her new stepmother, was proving to be a big help in filling the gap left by Romany. Romany was on a visit to Zara and Rafi.
“What’s cooking?”
Rosalie told her, and the two cousins began to organize the meal.
Jalal was at the table, surrounded by kids. Everyone had something to show him, a question to ask….
“You have to choose a plaque.” Sandor was informing him gravely about one of the house rituals. Sandor himself had moved in only a month ago, so he knew all about it. “It’s for the duty roster.”
They had spread the available plaques out in front of him, and Jalal was considering his choice, though she doubted if he was making sense of the garbled explanation he heard, from several sources.
“Okay, everybody, the table needs to be set!” Clio announced, not sorry to break up the group. “Sorry, your fan club has work to do,” she added dryly to Jalal.
Jalal nodded impassively, recognizing the jealousy in that.
“He has to choose a plaque first!” someone exclaimed indignantly, and of course Clio had to give in.
“What is Clio’s plaque?” Jalal asked, as he browsed among the little squares of plastic, each with a different image on it, that were reserved for the use of visitors. For the length of his stay, this plaque would represent him.
“Clio’s the pussycat,” Donnelly articulated carefully. She pointed to the duty roster on the wall. “The black-and-white one. I’m the butterfly.”
“All right. I will take this one,” Jalal said, choosing a plaque with his finger and drawing it out of the spread.
“The tiger!” they chorused. “He’s a very wild tiger!” Donnelly informed him impressively.
Clio tried, but she could not keep her eyes away.
He was watching her gravely, and something unspoken passed between them. Something that made her deeply nervous.
“Right, then! He’s chosen a plaque! Let’s clear the table!” she cried, and the children all moved to their usual mealtime tasks.
“And I,” Jalal said. “What shall I do to assist?”
She had been hoping that he would expect to be served. She had been anticipating telling him that in this kitchen, everyone did their share, male and female, bandit and nouveau prince alike. She flicked him a glance, and saw that he was watching her face as if he could read her thoughts there. He gave her an ironically amused look, and she blushed.
“You can help me, Jalal,” an adoring voice said. “I have to fold the serviettes.”
One of the boys snorted. “Princes don’t fold serviettes, Donnelly!” he began, but Jalal held up a hand.
“No job worth doing is beneath any man.” And it infuriated Clio even more to see Ben nodding in respectful agreement, as if he had just learned something profound.
Jalal smiled down at Donnelly. “I would like very much to help you,” he said. “Will you teach me to fold them just right?”
It wasn’t often that Donnelly got to pass on her wisdom to anyone; she was usually on the receiving end. At Jalal’s words, her chest expanded with a delighted intake of air.
“It’s very important to match the edges!” she informed him.
A few minutes later they all sat down, amid the usual mealtime babble. When their parents were at the table, a certain amount of order was imposed, keeping it, as their father Brandon said, to a dull roar. But when Clio was in charge, she didn’t usually bother. It didn’t hurt anyone if once in a while bedlam reigned.
But the first time someone said, “Is that true, Jalal?” and the prince replied quietly, “I am sorry, I didn’t understand. When everyone talks at the same time, I can’t follow,” a respectful hush fell on them.
After that, it was, “Shhh! Jalal can’t follow!” when anyone tried to interrupt the current speaker.
Then lunch was over, and there was the usual competition to be first to get their plates into the dishwasher. Donnelly explained the task to Jalal, and again he performed it without apparently feeling that it was any assault on his masculinity or his princely status.
Clio was almost certain that he was doing all this just to spike her guns, because he had guessed that she was waiting to tell him how unimportant his princely status was here in the democratic confines of the Blake family, or to explain that male superiority had been superseded in the West. She was even more convinced of it when, straightening
