Free Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins Page B

such wads of Juicy Fruit on the soles of our ballet slippers and still feel so good? Especially this one. This mad bomber.”
    She pulled away. With sunburned knuckles, she wiped a string of spittle—his? hers? José Cuervo’s—from her chin. She asked a passing waitress for the time. She was late.
    “I’ve got to go.”
    “How about dinner after your interview? There’s a delicious fish called mahi mahi. The fish so nice they named it twice. Isn’t it charming the way Polynesians double up their language. I’d like to keep a tête-à-tête in Pago Pago, but I’m afraid I’d contract beriberi.”
    “Huh-uh, huh-uh,” said the Princess. “No din-din, no din-din.”
    “Tomorrow?”
    “I’ll be at the Care Fest all day.”
    “Tomorrow night?”
    “Ralph Nader is speaking tomorrow night. I wouldn’t miss that for all the mahi mahi on Maui Maui. Besides, you may be in jail tomorrow night. Maybe you better get your pack of Camels back.”
    “You’re turning me in, then?”
    “I don’t know. It depends. Are you really going to use the rest of your dynamite?”
    “It’s likely.”
    “Why?”
    “Because that’s what I do.”
    “But the UFO conference is over.”
    “I didn’t come here to bomb the UFO conference. That was a mistake. I came here to bomb the Care Fest.”
    “You what?” She felt a bomb go off in her.
    “Boom-boom Care Fest,” he said. He poured tequila through the crack of his grin.
    Abruptly, she stood. “You must be crazy,” she said. “You must really be fucking insane.” She yanked Gulietta away from the sunset and made for the street.
    “You’re turning me in, then?”
    “You’re damned right I am,” she said.

32
    THE IDEA FOR THE MONARCHY of Mu had come to Leigh-Cheri on Maui. It visited her unexpectedly while she sat in koa shade watching Gulietta play octogenarian mermaid and worrying about what she might possibly say to People magazine that was neither a paraphrase of Care Fest brochures nor a violation of the Furstenberg-Barcalona code. At some moment it occurred to her that there was a fair amount of unemployed royalty in the world, royals whose thrones had gone the way of war or political upheaval, just as her family’s had, and that these persons, although they’d been bred to lead, to preside, or at least to symbolize, were living for the most part the lives of the idle rich.
    For example, the comte de Paris, pretender to the French throne, had eleven children who dabbled in elegant pursuits, such as publishing an art magazine (the duke of Orléans) and running a painting gallery (Prince Thibaut). In Brazil, there were among the royal Orleans Braganza family no fewer than eighteen young cousins with time, energy, and money. Otto von Hapsburg, entitled to be emperor were there any longer an Austrian Empire, had seven sons and daughters riding to the hounds of dilettante culture. Italy’s Prince Enrico D’Assia and Prince Amedeo Savoy managed the family holdings and shared Queen Tilli’s devotion to opera. To the list could be added Yugoslavia’s Prince Alexander, King Leka I of Albania (a relative of hers), and Japan’s imperial family, among others.
    Since deposed royalty no longer had individual kingdoms to serve, why not band together to serve the world? The earth could be their kingdom. And they could combine their talents and skills, their illustrious names and considerable wealth (the Furstenberg-Barcalona clan was by far the poorest of the lot), their influence and glamour in a royal crusade on behalf of ecology, conservation, and preservation; on behalf of the sweet kingdom of Earth. They would aim to be efficient and effective. They would, of course, be celebrated. And if it was crowns they wanted, she’d supply them with crowns. Collectively, they would be known as the monarchy of Mu, after the lost continent, the mother island; the homeland of singsong, whose fragrant temples drowned one day in the sea. Each member of the monarchy would be