Chapter 22

“Now they make new movies in old black and white.
With happy endings where nobody fights.
So, if you find yourself in that nostalgic rage, Honey, jump right up and show your age.
I wish I had a pencil thin mustache. The Boston Blackie kind.
Two-toned Ricky Ricardo jacket and an autographed picture of Andy Devine.
I remember bein’ bucktoothed and skinny, writin’ fan letters to Sky’s niece Penny.
Oh, I wish I had a pencil thin mustache. Then I could solve some mysteries, too.”
-Jimmy Buffett, “Pencil Thin Mustache”

At a café outside the San Finzione Marketplace, there sat a Yia-Yia. Young people going on their first dates in the Marketplace would tell each other to “meet me by the Yia-Yia,” and their parents and grandparents would look at each other and fondly remember meeting up near the old woman who’d always been there drinking her vino and watching them grow up around her.

Not much had reached her from the world outside her fields of vision and hearing in the past week. There’d been talk of an important paper to be signed and important visitors, but people were always visiting this country, and all of them thought they were important.

And she reasoned that someone important must be in town today because the sidewalks were filled with people. Even with her diminishing hearing, she picked up the sounds of a parade headed her direction. That explained all the people. It must be a special day for Good Count Vincenzo. The youngster always seems to appreciate a good parade.

And with everyone seeming to be out for it today, she had the occasional visitor. John Travolta came by earlier, as he sometimes did. She liked him. He was always quite respectful. He’d said something about mourning the loss of a beloved customer. She had no idea how the movie star business worked and wasn’t aware that actors even had customers. The poor man always seemed to have the sniffles when he stopped by. She hoped he was ok.

He wasn’t the only famous person to visit her table now and then. There was Tessa, of course. Tessa was a girl who stopped by once in a while. She was pretty enough to be in movies, and people would sometimes come up and ask her to sign things or take a picture with her, so the Yia-Yia knew Tessa was someone important. She wondered if she knew the Count.

The people around her began cheering, and the Yia-Yia heard the sound of a brass band approaching. They were playing the national anthem. Not the old one, with all the unkind remarks about the Swiss, the one Vincenzo had chosen to write in English, so she never understood it. It sounded nice.

She saw the marching band pass, followed by giant floats made by the People of San Finzione. From where she sat, she couldn’t make out what they said or what the people on them were celebrating. People were always celebrating something in this country. She imagined it was why she saw so many tourists pass her spot each day.

The Yia-Yia saw a long vehicle pass through her window in the crowd. When the passenger door came into view, the convertible vehicle came to a stop. Soldiers went to the door and opened it. More made a path through the crowd, and the Yia-Yia saw someone get out of the limo. She couldn’t make out who they were from this distance. Whoever got out of the car started walking her way.

Flashes of light enveloped the person as they approached. It wasn’t until she’d reached the table that the Yia-Yia was finally able to recognize Tessa. Where was the person who was coming before the flashes started? Could it have been Tessa that got out of the fancy car?

Tessa said a few words to the Yia-Yia. Her Greek had always been adequate for an American, but it was loud with all the cheering. Something about always being happy to see her and hoping she would always see the Yia-Yia in this place. Then Tessa hugged her and walked toward the car and the flashes started again. When the Yia-Yia, could see, the car was moving, and the people’s attention was back to the street. She thought that was good. Mustn’t keep the Count waiting. His car was probably coming soon.

The Yia-Yia thought about getting up to see if she could get a better look at the parade when a waiter came and refilled her glass.

Yeah, why change a good thing now?

Contessa Helena de San Finzione got back into her limousine. She adjusted Lord Byroni and Lord Vincenzo II’s little hats and sunglasses before telling Scappa to start moving again.

“That was nice of you.” Julie Equals, sitting across from them, told her as the parade started again. She looked at the People of San Finzione on either side of the street, holding signs and waving banners. The signs she could read in the four official languages of San Finzione were mostly kind things for La Contessa’s birthday. A good number were not.

The last time Julie had taken a ride like this through the streets of San Finzione had been the time Helen was stabbed and Julie, Troy, and Susan came from the other side of the world to be with her. That night, the streets had also been thronged with people holding signs for La Contessa. Because Helen had been fighting for her life in surgery at the time, those signs had been of a much kinder nature. That kindness of the People of San Finzione was still conveyed in the well-wishes for La Contessa and the Royal Twins.

“I’m seeing a lot more signs in Swahili than I did before.” Julie commented. “Hope those are all good things.”

“They are.” Helen assured her. “And there’ll be more soon. Yesterday’s treaty will see to that.”

She waved at President Balozi Faraji, up ahead on a float built by San Finzione’s Uongoian community. He would be coming to the party later. He simply wouldn’t be told that the people who’d robbed him were also on the guest list. He’d accepted Helen’s assurances that the criminals had been caught and were facing justice for their crimes. That the man was so forgiving made Helen regret what she’d done during their first meeting more. She knew that feeling would fade, but it would always remain in the background.

It was at that moment Helen’s eyes lit on one of the posters in the crowd. The ones carried by the people she’d told Julie about in the Tool Room. It was one she’d seen since the first year she’d had to sit through this parade alone. Someone always hung onto it. It was a mugshot from her criminal days that was the most commonly found one online. The picture was framed in the style of an old west wanted poster of her. The crimes listed were things like “being a yanqui harlot” and “corrupting traditional San Finzionean values.”

And there, at the bottom, in the largest print, was the one she knew would be there: Murder for Fucking Our Beloved Count To Death. Below it was a link to the long defunct website lacontessaèunassassinasessuale dot snfnz. Helen had since bought the domain name, and it now linked to the Ministry of Intelligence’s public job listings page.

But it came at the wrong moment. A moment when Helen had been thinking of a bad thing that she knew she’d done. Julie saw the look on Helen’s face and the sad thought forming in her eyes. She made a facial expression in response. Helen knew that face well enough to read it. “This’d be a good time to take out your phone and look at that thing.”

Helen did so. She saw a photograph that she’d taken after Troy & Julie’s first visit to San Finzione. A visit that began with the two of them using their honeymoon to get even with Helen for her prank on Julie the night before their wedding. Helen and Julie hadn’t talked for years after their fight in Madrid, and Helen was afraid that Julie would pity her again the way she sometimes did when they were children if she knew how badly Helen had taken Vincenzo’s loss. She spent most of that time playing it off as callousness, allowing Julie to believe that she’d sexed Vincenzo to death to get his crown. Troy saw right through it and went along with Julie’s prank to bring Helen out of the shell she’d put around herself since taking the throne. It wasn’t until their last night in town that the three of them had finally talked and ended up in bed together. By then, their revenge prank was already in motion.

While Helen had La Policia watching the two of them, a couple of friends who’d come along on their honeymoon took turns putting on wigs of Julie’s distinctive hair and walking around town on Troy’s arm while Julie slipped away and set everything up and Susan coordinated on the computer back in Federal Way. As Troy & Julie returned home in San Finzione One and Helen raced to the airport in her helicopter to say goodbye, she saw what they’d done. Helen brought up the picture.

It was an aerial photograph of St. Francis de Sales Park, the city’s largest. During the week before the photo had been taken, Julie had met with people who’d answered the personal ads Susan had placed and convinced them to meet at the park that day. Blankets and towels had been laid out on the grass, and the words “FUCK YOU HELEN,” visible from the air, were spelled out in fornicating bodies. The sadness faded as she remembered snapping that picture. Because the park was a no-fly zone, Troy’s picture snapped as they passed it on takeoff and the one that Helen had on her phone and was now in a frame on her desk in the Study were the only ones. Maria and Stavro were in that group somewhere, but she’d never bothered to ask them about it. Helen looked back up at Julie.

“Thanks.” Helen said to the first woman she ever loved. “I need to remember that people care about making sure my life’s not miserable more often.”

“Yes, you do.” Julie agreed.

They rode in silence for a while until the parade rounded a corner. That was when Helen saw the same photo on a giant sign being carried in the crowd. Helen looked at who was holding it and saw Susan. Susan saw Helen noticing her and grinned, waving.

“Yeah,” Julie commented. “Sent myself a copy while I had your phone. Think I wasn’t gonna get you back for the Juliessa Skankeko thing? Happy birthday, you fucking cunt.”

Helen leaned forward and hugged Julie. Helen had a number of issues, however, the inability to appreciate a good zing was not one of them.

“I love you, you skanky cow.” Helen told her in response. She returned to waving to The People as the parade continued. The smile on her face a bit more genuine.

Helen sat with her sons in the nursery. She needed to get ready for the party and there was one more matter to take care of first. The kids needed a nap. She hadn’t gotten to spend much time with them in the past few days, so everyone decided to change for the evening and let her put them down by herself.

The excitement of the parade had wound up the boys, but Helen had gotten them to lay down in the crib they would outgrow and need upgrading to real beds soon. The two stopped fussing when they realized Mommy was talking and began listening to their favorite bedtime story.

“When we last left off.” She started telling them in Italian. “The Half-Dragon Girl had defeated the dragon for devouring the maiden who’d been her mommy. But she was not alone. The Kind Old Wizard and the Boy who’d taught her the secret to defeating the dragon; a secret that your parents will teach you one day, but your grandniece is next on the list, agreed to let her live with them in the wizard’s tower. She was very happy there, and they were happy to have her living there. You know how the wizard wanted to adopt the Half-Dragon Girl, but the dragon wouldn’t allow it? Not because of any love for her, but because he thought she was part of his hoard and belonged to him? Well, now that the dragon was gone, it seemed there was nothing to stop them from making that dream come true.”

Vincenzo yawned. Helen didn’t take it personally because that was her goal. Byroni saw his brother stop squirming and did the same.

“Do you remember the magistrates? The ones who always sent the Half-Dragon Girl back to the dragon’s lair every time she escaped? They decided that the wizard was very old and already taking care of the boy, and that taking on a daughter would be too much for him. The boy and the Half-Dragon Girl tried to explain to the magistrates that she had learned to raise herself living with the dragon and the maiden, and everything she knew about being a regular girl had to be taught to her by the other girl’s mother, but they would not listen. The boy insisted that she not use the magic he’d taught her for facing the dragon on them and she loved him very much, so she didn’t. The magistrates tried to send her to join other families, but none were as good as the one she had with the boy and the wizard. So, she would often use the magic to escape those families and stay with them anyway.

“The Dragon never taught the Half-Dragon Girl anything except how to be a dragon, and she didn’t want that. The kind old wizard taught the girl most other things. And he always had patience with the girl when she would exhibit the habits of a dragon and steal shiny things to start her own hoard. She never took from the people she loved, though. That meant the wizard, the boy, the artist girl next door, and her parents were safe from her dragon ways. But, in the Half-Dragon Girl’s mind, everyone else had sided with the magistrates. So, she thought it was ok to take from them.” Helen paused. “Stealing’s wrong. I guess it’s my job as your mommy to tell you that. Your daddy will but tell him I said it too. He won’t believe it.”

Somewhere, a clock struck five. Still enough time for the boys to rest and get ready. Everyone was already gathered at the castle. Maria was playing her job as hostess, since it was La Contessa’s birthday, and all she should have to worry about is her dress and her entrance. Helen’s friends would understand if she took a bit. Some of her advice to Maria had been “La Contessa is always on time. Everyone else is too late or too early.”

“Ooh, and, of course, the Half-Dragon Girl spent a lot of time with the artist girl. She was right next door, so her best friend was never far away. Their love was just as important to the Half-Dragon Girl as her love of the boy and staying near her was just as important. The weird part is that the boy never seemed to notice that the two of them loved each other the same way he and the Half-Dragon Girl did. You know how the other parents wouldn’t let their children play with the Girl? Well, the boy and the also girl kind of got some of that by association. They had other friends, too. But the three of them were most important to each other. The boy didn’t really get to know a lot of other girls well besides those two. So, it’s not like they were doing anything behind his back. More like he was too uncurious to question their relationship. He figured that was just how girl best friends did things together.” Helen thought some more on how to explain it to them. “Look, the thing between Mommy and Daddy and Also Mommy has always been a little complex and should probably be its own story. Just know that it’s wonderful and we’re all happy to have Other Mommy be a part of it, and all of us love you.”