“Who are you?” she asked, leaning into the camera, “Are you sure you are my daughter?”
“Oh, here we go.”
“No, really, because my Odette was all ‘I reject romance,’ ‘love is not real,’ ‘sad song, heartbreak song, screw love,’” she mocked me before laughing. “Now look at you. Ready to bend over left, right, back, and front to make sure your precious prince has it a bit easier.”
“Are you really my mom?” I shot back. “Because I can’t tell if you are giving me a pep talk or tear down.”
“Of course, I am your mother. Look at your cheekbones. Do you think they fell out of the sky?”
I rolled my eyes, laughing. “You never miss a chance, do you?”
“To remind you that your beauty comes from me? Of course not.”
“Well, thank you, Mom, for these cheekbones. Can we get back on topic, please?”
“Of you freaking out?”
“Yes, that one.”
“You really will not let me rest until I let you read me this speech, will you?” She sighed dramatically.
“I didn’t ask for—”
“But it would make you feel better, right?”
How did moms do this? I hadn’t even thought that it would make me feel better until she asked. How did she know?
“Don’t just look at me. Get on with it.”
I took the folder from my bedside table, sitting up straighter on my bed. “I’ll read it in English first so you can understand.”
“How thoughtful,” she said as she looked away from the camera to the chef bringing her food. “Thank you, dear. Did you add the strawberries and the—”
“And the banana, yes, ma’am. I also added just a hint of nutmeg to give it a little kick for you,” the deep voice of the chef I couldn’t see added.
“Oh, it smells heavenly—”
“Mom!” I called to remind her I was here.
“Huh? What? I’m listening!” she said, looking back at the camera. “You said you’d say it in English. Go on. You have my full attention.”
I gave her a look as she ate her yogurt, and she just nodded for me to go on, taking another spoonful. Lifting the speech, I cleared my throat. “It is with great honor and reverence that I stand here humbly before you all, the future of Ersovia. What you have accomplished is marvelous, but it’s just the beginning. As you go out into the world, whatever you may do from here, I wish you to remember to err on the path of kindness. To have some compassion for yourself as well as for others—”
“Wait, wait, wait.”
“What?”
She put down her spoon, frowning as if what she had just eaten was sour. “Is that how you are starting your speech?”
“Yes, why?”
“It’s boring. Didn’t I teach you to capture your audience—”
“Mom, it’s not a beauty pageant. It’s a speech from the royal family to the public. It was crafted by like a dozen speechwriters—”
“No”—she shook her head at me seriously—“it’s a speech from you, Odette Wyntor, to a bunch of fresh, naïve, hopeful, scared, and excited college graduates. They don’t care if all the palace helped write the speech. At the end of the day, it’s going to be yours when you say it. And to me, your mother, who loves you with extreme bias, you sound boring and scripted.”
My shoulders dropped. “I think you’ve just made my fears worse! What are you expecting me to do? I have to give this in the morning. It’s not like I can change it. I’ve spent the last couple of days—”
“Odette, breathe.”
“I can’t.”
She glared, so I took a deep breath for her.
“If you can’t change it, at the very least, deliver it with more passion—more you than you are now.”
“Of course, it’s not going to be in passionate now, in my PJs, with a scarf on my head,” I muttered.
“Okay. Keep going.”
I didn’t want to. I was too worried about how she’d feel hearing the rest of it. “Mom, I should go to bed. I have to be up early in the morning.”
“All right, go. I love you.”
“Love you too. Goodnight. Well, morning for you. But bye.”
She blew me a kiss before hanging up. I tossed my phone and the speech to the other side of the bed before falling back. No matter how much I tossed and turned, I couldn’t sleep. I just kept watching the time pass by. Frustrated, I rose from the bed, slipping my feet into my slippers and moving to the coffee table to get a glass of water. Truthfully, I wanted something strong.