Bea Quotes

Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.

How frail the human heart must be―a mirrored pool of thought.

If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.

Bending his head over hers, Leo murmured, "When I give you away at the altar, Bea, I want you to remember something. I'm not really giving you away. I'm merely allowing him the chance to love you as much as the rest of us do.

Some days making it to the end of the day is quite the victory. -- Bea

There is no music without you. Music is an expression of all of those things you live for…a reflection of the passion within your soul. I live for you. You’re my passion. You’re my music…you and Bea.

After a universal silence, Leo was the first to speak. “Did anyone else notice—” “Yes,” Catherine said. “What do you make of it?” “I haven’t decided yet.” Leo frowned and took a sip of port. “He’s not someone I would pair Bea with.” “Whom would you pair her with?” “Hanged if I know,” Leo said. “Someone with similar interests. The local veterinarian, perhaps?” “He’s eighty-three years old and deaf,” Catherine said. “They would never argue,” Leo pointed out.

In fiction, I searched for my favorite authors, women I have trusted to reassure me than not all teenage guys are total ditwads, that the archetype of the noble cute hero who devotes himself to the girl he loves has not gone the way of the rotary phone. That all I had to do was be myself (smart, hardworking, funny) and be patient and kind and he and I would find each other. As Bea would say, this why they call it fiction.

Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary cofounder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.

I’ve decided that’s what I must be—a protective spirit who has been cursed to watch over the most self-centered brats in history, who are willingly about to run through this deadly thing.

Better to love God and die unknown than to love the world and bea hero; better to be content with poverty than to die a slave towealth; better to have taken some risks and lost than to havedone nothing and succeeded at it.

Da igual las vueltas que demos al mundo corriendo detrás del sol para que no se ponga nunca, Silvia. Creceremos, como los demás. No somos inmunes al tiempo.

This would be...a book that would be a trapdoor down into some place dark. A place only you could go, alone, when you opened the cover. Because only books have that power.

Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.

Me incliné sobre ella y recorrí la piel de su vientre con la yema del dedo. Bea dejó caer los párpados, los ojos y me sonrió, segura y fuerte. -Hazme lo que quieras... -susurró. Tenía diecisiete años y la vida en los labios.

so damn beautiful." She grinned. "So you've said." Perched on his elbow, stretched alongside her body, he'd say it again and again until she tired of hearing it. "You're beautiful." "Uh huh." "So fucking bea-" "All right, Casanova. Enough!

I sat back and looked at it. It was ugly, dark, uncontrolled. Like a monster's face. Or maybe what I saw there was my own face. I couldn't quite tell. Was the face the image of something evil or the image of myself? "Both," Bea muttered, as if I'd spoken my question out loud. "Of course, it's both. But it shouldn't be. Goodness, no.

Oh, you’ll what? You’ll leave me? What’s that supposed to be—a threat or a promise?

When they asked me what I wanted, I said: ‘The world.

Well, you did it," I congratulated Patch. "I'm as trained as I'll ever be-a lean, mean sword-fighting machine. I should have made you my personal trainer from day one." A rogue smile surfaced, slow and wicked. " No match for Patch.

By intentionally choosing to feel the elevated emotions of the heart rather than waiting for something outside of yourself to elicit those emotions, you become who you are truly meant to be—a heart-empowered individual.

Bea insists that everyone who works in a bookstore wants to be a writer, but Henry's never fancied himself a novelist. Sure, he's tried putting pen to paper, but it never really works. He can't find the words, the story, the voice. Can't figure out what he could possibly add to so many shelves. Henry would rather be a storykeeper than a storyteller.

Look forward to being really in love for the first time, Bea," said Rumfoord. “Look forward to behaving aristocratically without any outward proofs of your aristocracy.Look forward to having nothing but the dignity and intelligence and tenderness that God gave you—look forward to taking those materials and nothing else, and making something exquisite with them.

Bending his head over hers, Leo murmured, "When I give you away at the altar, Bea, I want you to remember something. I'm not really giving you away. I'm merely allowing him the chance to love you as much as the rest of us do." Beatrix's eyes watered, and he leaned against him. "He does," she whispered. "I think so, too," her brother whispered back. "I wouldn't let you marry him otherwise.

The students adore your father,' a perfumed woman said to me. 'Aren't you lucky to live with such a charming man!' 'He's even more charming at home,' Mom said. 'Isn't he, Bea? He rides a unicycle through the house -' '- even up and down the stairs,' I added. 'He juggles eggs as he makes breakfast every morning -' '- which he serves to us in bed of course,' I said. '- and pulls fragrant bouquets out of his ass,' Mom finished. 'He's just a joy.

Bea giggles. It is, very likely, the sound that the earth made the first time it saw the sun come up.

Gone is little girl. Kore. I am chaos bringer. Persephone.

Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they—and all of us—have to be able to think about a world that works differently.

Bea felt a pang in her gut: Yes, she wanted to scream, I want this more than you could possibly imagine. But the idea of saying that out loud [...] felt terrifying. Like giving voice to this secret piece of herself would allow everyone in the world to tell her just how foolish she was for wanting something so laughably out of reach.

refuse what you do not need; reduce what you do need; reuse what you consume; recycle what you cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse; and rot (compost) the rest.

There's nothing wrong with being a little girl, love. Little girls are fearless.

And it's just a hunt?" Bea asked. "Just tracking the guy down, or are we going to have to do a little covering up of our own?" Had she just told me she was willing to kill someone and cover it up? She gave me a happy smile, but that glint in her eyes told me that, yes, she'd just offered to off someone.

Okay,” says Henry, “if you sold your soul for one thing, what would it be?” Bea chews her lip. “Happiness.” “What is that?” he asks. “I mean, is it just feeling happy for no reason? Or is it making other people happy? Is it being happy with your job, or your life, or—

Too many stories start with gods making promises they can't keep.

The reason or dog's evolution could be to guide humans to their higher purpose.

Vitön lyser. Mitt ute i ishavet, trots att ingen ser det. Nu, när jag sitter i Stockholm och skriver det här, så lyser det om Vitön. Det är ingen som ser det. Men den lyser.

No doesn't need an excuse, Persephone.

Sadness taught me to let someone hurt me and yet still talk beautifully about them.

Oh, Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe's and Bea Dante's, and what little girl would not like to whirl in a circular skirt and scanties?

At an age when she might have thought she didn’t need a mother, Bea craved hers more than ever.

It was once said that this is the land of the free. There is, I believe, a statue out there in the harbor, with something written on it about "Give me your hungry...your oppressed...give me pretty much everybody"-that's the way I remember it, anyway. The idea of America is a mutt-culture, isn't it? Who the hell is America if not everybody else? We are-and should be-a big, messy, anarchistic polyglot of dialects and accents and different skin tones.... We need more Latinos to come here. And they should, whenever possible, impregnate our women.

Norman picked up a sketch, glanced at it, then put it back down on the table. "I saw Bea Williamson this morning," he said in a low voice. "Lurking about looking for cut glass." "Oh, of course," Mira said with a sigh. "Did she have it with her?" Norman nodded solemnly. "Yep. I swear, I think it's almost gotten ... bigger." Mira shook her head. "Not possible." "I'm serious," Norman said. "It's way big." I kept waiting for someone to expand on this, but since neither of them seemed about to, I asked, "What are you talking about?" They looked at each other. Then, Mira took a breath. "Bea Williamson's baby," she said quietly, as if someone could hear us, "has the biggest head you have ever seen." Norman nodded, seconding this. "A baby?" I said. "A big-headed baby," Mira corrected me. "You should see the cranium on this kid. It's mind-boggling.

It is—or seems to be—a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of joke, especially his misfortunes, if he have them. And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed round pretty liberally & impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it.

I’m the girl who once upon a time submitted to a beast. I’m the girl who danced to forget, who danced to survive, and I’m the woman who is stronger than the demons of her past and the ones that live in her heart.

But sometimes when you put two very different people together, a kind of magic, an alchemy, occurs. Bea said I was like eggs and sugar, and she was flour and butter, and when you mixed us together, we were more than just the combination of our ingredients, we were the whole damn cake.

I do not lack fear. Don't you understand? Courage is not found in lacking fear, courage is found in not allowing your fear to rule you. Think, young knight, would there bea ny courage required to face that which you do not fear?

The adult must seem to mislead the child, and the Master the dog. They misread the signs. Their ignorance and their wishes twist everything. You are so sure you know what the promise promised! And the danger is that when what He means by ‘wind’ appears you will ignore it because it is not what you thought it would be—as He Himself was rejected because He was not like the Messiah the Jews had in mind.

He was so stubborn, but maybe that's a good thing to be--a force of will that doesn't die no matter how many horrible things happen to you.

No matter how old you are, you always want your mother’s love and acceptance. I guess I’m hoping one day I’ll get it back.

You shouldn't be trying to survive this world; you should be trying to destroy it.' 'That's not quite something I can achieve in an afternoon.

Fine, then I’ll hold your flowers while you tear the world apart,’ he says.

You will come to know that what appears today to bea sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.

Miente. Bea miente, como mentimos todas. No escribe para que la escuchen. Escribe porque no la escuchan. No es lo mismo. O puede que sí.

Keep moving!” “Bea’s arguing with the floor.

Hello, hello, hello. You’re here. You’re finally here. I’m Beast, though I prefer Bea. Guess what? I’m yours, and you’re mine.

That's what happens when people take away their love, Bea. It makes you smaller. Sometimes, it makes you disappear.

Bea looks at him, then, eyes swirling with frost, and even through the mist, she looks suddenly, immeasurably sad. 'You can't make people love you, Hen. If it's not a choice, it isn't real.' Henry's mouth goes dry. She's right. Of course she's right.

Know why they call it a love triangle?” Well, I wasn’t stupid. “Triangles have three sides and there’s three people involved.” Bea nodded. “Yeah, that, but also because they’re shaped like shark teeth and shark teeth can rip people to shreds.” How poetic.

Miles smiled. "Can you keep a secret?" Bea snorted. "Did I tell you what you were in for if you married my daughter?" "No," Miles conceded. "Well, then," she said, as if that settled the matter.

You should never close the door on a gift just because you don't think you fit the mould. Don't ever define yourself by what you believe people see. Open yourself up to possibilities because you are talented enough to do anything.

Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God-Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time.

Whenever Bea stepped into a patisserie to order something for herself, there were ripples of sideward glances, even occasional bald stares, the accusation always implied: It’s your own fault you look like this.

I didn't know what I wanted to Be...A sense that I had permanently botched things already, embarked on the trip without the map. and it scared me too, that I might end up as a mother of 3 working in a psychiatrist's office, or renting surfboards...I guess I saw their lives as failed somehow, absent of the Big Win...What is fate was an inherited trait? What if luck came through the genetic line, and the ability to "succeed" at your chosen "direction" was handed down, just like the family china? Maybe I was destined to be a weed too.

What we did not truly use, need, and love had to go. This would become our motto for decluttering.

I still don’t think—“ Philip begins, but Bea seizes the pot of tea from the center of the table and dumps it in his lap. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Pip!” she says, grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him, sputtering and yelping, toward the door. “So dreadfully clumsy. You know, i think all that cocaine I did must have really done a job on my reflexes! Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?

What if freedom were the ability to make up our minds about what it was we wished to pursue, with whom we wished to pursue it, and what sort of commitments we wish to make to them in the process? Equality, then, would simply be a matter of guaranteeing equal access to those resources needed in the pursuit of an endless variety of forms of value. Democracy in that case would simply be our capacity to come together as reasonable human beings and work out the resulting common problems—since problems there will always be—a capacity that can only truly be realized once the bureaucracies of coercion that hold existing structures of power together collapse or fade away.

Bea dice que el arte de leer se está muriendo muy lentamente, que es un ritual íntimo, que un libro es un espejo y que sólo podemos encontrar en él lo que ya llevamos dentro, que al leer ponemos la mente y el alma, y que esos son bienes cada día más escasos.

I want to be......A prince......Not a Princess! I don't want to be protected! When I'm a prince I'll do the protecting!

Am zărit lumină pe pământ, Şi m-am născut şi eu Să văd ce mai faceţi. Sănătoşi? Voinici? Cu fericirea cum staţi? Mulţumesc, nu-mi răspundeţi. N-am timp de răspusuri, Abia dacă am timp să pun întrebări. Dar îmi place aici E cald, e frumos Şi atâta lumină încât Creşte iarba. Iar fata aceea, iată, Se uită la mine cu sufletul... Nu, dragă, nu te deranja să mă iubeşti. O cafea neagră voi bea, totuşi, Din mâna ta. Îmi place că tu ştii s-o faci. Amară.

I was pretty, always pretty. It’s what they told me again and again until the very word came to mean pain. And still I went on, tearing and pulling and hurting until I was prettier still.

And through it all, we watched each other, Bea and me, locked together in this death in a way I felt echo into the future of our lives, linking us in a way I’d never be able to forget. I knew then, as I’d only been curious about it before, that Beatrice Lafayette was going to be mine.

What the hell?” I muttered. Then I realized it was Jack Quinn’s car. Jack was a Hound and Bea’s boyfriend. The left blinker flashed on for just a second, and then Jack drove at speed again. “Zayvion, I’m sorry to tell you I think I have a crush on another man.” “Who is this unfortunate and soon-to-be-dead fool?” he asked. “Jack. That’s his car. He must have been waiting for us, or maybe he followed us.” “Jack Quinn has been following us?” Shame said. “And now he’s taking us to Collins, I think.” “Or a trap,” Shame said. “He’s a Hound, Shame.” “My statement stands.” “You still don’t get it, do you?” I turned left, following the car. “Hounds are loyal. Jack and Bea told me they’d help me if they could. They’re not going to turn against me while I’m in trouble.” “What happens when you’re not in trouble?” Shame asked. “Don’t know. It’s never happened.

Contrary to what we, the people, have been told, we are the power; we have supreme authority because we are the masses and true power always resides with the masses, never with the global elite who, by their very nature, have always been a vulnerable minority and will always continue to be...As long as the masses realize that, of course.

So I pulled back from everything and everyone I'd known....I realized I'd been changing even before we started moving,that my reinvention began when I was still in the most familiar of places. Once the setting was totally new,though, I finally could be,as well.

Dear Bea— I've been wading through a pile of "Due before 3" mimeos—but now at last I know what to do with them: into the wastebasket! I'm also hep to the jargon. I know that "illustrative material" means magazine covers, "enriched curriculum" means teaching "who and whom," and that "All evaluation of students should be predicated upon initial goals and grade level expectations" means if a kid shows up, pass him. Right?

Blind alleys mean you're going the wrong way. They're there so you can turn around and even try something else. Something even better.

LOVE never runs out, Sweetheart. When it comes knocking on your door, open. And when you start to feel it, know that it’s real.

Maybe, God forbid, the place was what it appeared to be—a melange of Okies and thieves and bewildered jíbaros.

When Miriam first told me about that, I got a picture in my mind's eye of a girl standing very still, with someone hiding behind her, and someone else behind her. And they're all perfectly straight so that no one can tell how many people are actually there. Sometimes I feel exactly like that. Like I'm a bunch of different Beas, all lined up to look like one.

Hate is often at its most powerful when it's formed on the back of love.

There are many paths leading to a garden and many experiences awaiting those who venture in. No matter what your motive—whether to grow healthy, delicious food; spend time outdoors feeling more alive than your desk job allows; help save the planet; find relaxation, solace, or healing; meet your neighbors; get your hands in the sweet earth; or discover for yourself just how abundant and generous nature can be—a garden rarely disappoints. It’s a magnet for life in all its quirky, beautiful forms.

When her friends told me to sit up straight, I jolted. When they said I was a ‘growing girl’ in that tone, I thrust my plate away. When they said I would be prettier if I smiled, I beamed. I was good. I was obedient. I was fucking perfect. So when I finally snapped, I snapped hard. When I finally said no, I screamed it from the mountaintops. Or from the Underworld, as the case may be.

One does not deny their dirty fingers because of their clean toes, For it is with the fingers that one indicates to show off the toes. Do not be too elevated in yourself to realize that there was,and will always be,a part of you that was once digging in the dirt.

Amelia and Poppy both glanced at their younger sister quizzically. “Do you know what we’re talking about, Bea?” Amelia asked. “Yes, of course. Merripen’s in love with her. I knew it a long time ago, from the way he washed her window.” “Washed her window?” both older sisters asked at the same time. “Yes, when we lived in the cottage at Primrose Place. Win’s room had a casement window that looked out onto the big maple tree— do you remember? After the scarlet fever, when Win couldn’t get out of bed for the longest time and she was too weak to hold a book, she would just lie there and watch a birds’ nest on one of the tree limbs. She saw the baby swallows hatch and learn to fly. One day she complained that the window was so dirty, she could barely see through it, and it made the sky look grayish. So from then on Merripen always kept the glass spotless. Sometimes he climbed a ladder to wash the outside, and you know how afraid of heights he is. You never saw him do that?” “No,” Amelia said with difficulty, her eyes stinging. “I didn’t know he did that.” “Merripen said the sky should always be blue for her,” Beatrix said. “And that was when I knew he … are you crying, Poppy?” Poppy used a napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes. “No. I just inh-haled some pepper.” “So did I,” Amelia said, blowing her nose.

There was a moment just before Erik appeared that I saw something in you, something that called to me,” I say, tracing my finger along the length of her jaw. “And what was that?” she whispers. “Hunger…

(…) met the owner of this cozy book-and-candle Apt. G, a tall, leggy, striking girl named Bea or maybe just the letter B or maybe the insect Bee, not sure, her long blond hair pulled in a ponytail, her no-doubt banging body effortlessly buried beneath a pile of tights and sweaters and scarves – she is a walking coat rack – and as we shook hands, Bea fixed me with the most alarming blue-eyed stare of my life, the kind of stare in which you think some potent subliminal message is being passed along (Run away with me or maybe just Run away), (…)

I’m surprised Cole let you stay. What we do here is slightly unconventional.” Bea looked suspicious and in-the-know at the same time. “I’m in love with his brother.” Saying this out loud to Bea felt like jumping out of an airplane—thrilling and irreversible. In that instant Livia knew her love for Blake was as real as the church walls around her. Bea took in Livia’s face with wise eyes. “Why, yes. Yes you are.

I abandoned the assigned problems in standard calculus textbooks and followed my curiosity. Wherever I happened to be--a Vegas casino, Disneyland, surfing in Hawaii, or sweating on the elliptical in Boesel's Green Microgym--I asked myself, "Where is the calculus in this experience?

Like a garden rose she has the delicate fragility of velvety petals, soft to touch, layered, but easily plucked. Yet, I need to be careful because one wrong move and the sharp thorns that protect the truth of her have the ability to make a person bleed, to fucking shred the skin. Like she’s shredding mine now.

persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It’s the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it. Persecution for our faith has always been—and probably always will be—a normal part of life.

and you were sort of hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it might be,and at the same time you were sort of picked up by the old scruff and shook like you might be a cat.you got shook and shook till there was nothing left.you lost your name and your body and your self and you just didn’t care,and you waited until your boot or finger-nail got yellow,then yellower and yellower all the time.then the lights started cracking like atomics and the boot or finger-nail or,as it might be,a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned into a big big big mesto,bigger than the whole world,and you were just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was all over.you came back to here and now whimpering sort of,with your rot all squaring up for a boohoohoo.now that’s very nice but very cowardly.you were not put on this earth just to get in touch with God.that sort of thing could sap all the strength and the goodness out of a chelloveck.

If faith were rational, it wouldn't be - by definition - faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be...a prudent insurance policy.

BEATRICE: Do you truly not know who he was? Mr. Dorian Gray, the lover of Mr. Oscar Wilde, who was sent to Reading Gaol for—well, for holding opinions that society does not approve of! For believing in beauty, and art, and love. What guilt and remorse he must feel, for causing the downfall of the greatest playwright of the age! It was Mr. Gray’s dissolute parties, the antics of his hedonistic friends, that exposed Mr. Wilde to scandal and opprobrium. No wonder he has fallen prey to the narcotic. MARY: Or he could just like opium. He didn’t seem particularly remorseful, Bea. JUSTINE: Mr. Gray is not what society deems him to be. He has been greatly misunderstood. He assures me that he had no intention of harming Mr. Wilde. MARY: He would say that. CATHERINE: Can we not discuss the Wilde scandal in the middle of my book? You’re going to get it banned in Boston, and such other puritanical places.

Such a profound occurrence, when the priorities of those in our lives shine so brightly a path away from who we once thought they were. This light sears insights onto us and helps us along our way. I wonder at times if my old friend hope is my only. She is a relentless presence who will never cease to be--a lone wanderer meeting me time and time again along this road.

They reminded her what it meant to allow someone into your life. You see something you like in a man, so you ask him in, but what comes in is all of him. Not only the parts you took a liking to, but the many parts that don’t fit with you at all. That’s always the way it worked.

The desire to avoid loss ran deep, and expressed itself most clearly when the gamble came with the possibility of both loss and gain. That is, when it was like most gambles in life. To get most people to flip a coin for a hundred bucks, you had to offer them far better than even odds. If they were going to lose $100 if the coin landed on heads, they would need to win $200 if it landed on tails. To get them to flip a coin for ten thousand bucks, you had to offer them even better odds than you offered them for flipping it for a hundred. “The greater sensitivity to negative rather than positive changes is not specific to monetary outcomes,” wrote Amos and Danny. “It reflects a general property of the human organism as a pleasure machine. For most people, the happiness involved in receiving a desirable object is smaller than the unhappiness involved in losing the same object.” It wasn’t hard to imagine why this might be—a heightened sensitivity to pain was helpful to survival. “Happy species endowed with infinite appreciation of pleasures and low sensitivity to pain would probably not survive the evolutionary battle,” they wrote.

That’s how most of the last fifty years of my life disappeared, even though I didn’t know it before now. And believe me, that’s all it takes. One little kiss and then you’ve thrown your lot in with someone, and your whole life has to be built around him. And all the parts of you that don’t fit with him have to go into hiding, and all the ones that do have to come to the surface and act like they’re the whole of you. The

Some will be always strong, and some will be always weak; and though, if there is no God, no divine and fatherly source of order, there will be, trust me, no aristocracies, there will still be tyrannies. There will still be rich and poor; and that will then mean happy and miserable; and the poor will be--as I sometimes think they are already--but a mass of groaning machinery, without even the semblance of rationality; and the rich, with only the semblance of it, but a set of gaudy, dancing marionettes, which is the machinery’s one work to keep in motion.

One thing that distinguishes human beings from other animals is that we are evaluative creatures. We can take a critical stance toward our own activities, and aspire to direct ourselves toward objects and projects that we judge to be more worthy than others that may be more immediately gratifying. Animals are guided by appetites that are fixed, and so are we, but we can also form a second-order desire, “a desire for a desire,” when we entertain some picture of the sort of person we would like to be—a person who is better not because she has more self-control, but because she is moved by worthier desires. Acquiring the tastes of a serious person is what we call education. Does it have a future? The advent of engineered, hyperpalatable mental stimuli compels us to ask the question.

least.” “I don’t remember you complaining.” “Yes, well, I’d only been fantasizing about it for ages.” “See, there’s a thing,” Alex points out. “You just told me that. You can tell me other stuff.” “It’s hardly the same.” He rolls over onto his stomach, considers, and very deliberately says, “Baby.” It’s become a thing: baby. He knows it’s become a thing. He’s slipped up and accidentally said it a few times, and each time, Henry positively melts and Alex pretends not to notice, but he’s not above playing dirty here. There’s a slow hiss of an exhale across the line, like air escaping through a crack in a window. “It’s, ah. It’s not the best time,” he says. “How did you put it? Nutso family stuff.” Alex purses his lips, bites down on his cheek. There it is. He’s wondered when Henry would finally start talking about the royal family. He makes oblique references to Philip being wound so tight as to double as an atomic clock, or to his grandmother’s disapproval, and he mentions Bea as often as Alex mentions June, but Alex knows there’s more to it than that. He couldn’t tell you when he started noticing, though, just like he doesn’t know when he started ticking off the days of Henry’s moods. “Ah,” he says. “I see.” “I don’t suppose you keep up with any British tabloids, do you?” “Not if I can help it.” Henry offers the bitterest of laughs. “Well, the Daily Mail has always had a bit of an affinity for airing our dirty laundry. They, er, they gave my sister this nickname years ago. ‘The Powder Princess.’” A ding of recognition. “Because of the…” “Yes, the cocaine, Alex.” “Okay, that does sound familiar.” Henry sighs. “Well, someone’s managed to bypass security to spray paint ‘Powder Princess’ on the side of her car.” “Shit,” Alex says. “And she’s not taking it well?” “Bea?” Henry laughs, a little more genuinely this time. “No, she doesn’t usually care about those things. She’s fine. More shaken up that someone got past security than anything.