Chapter Ninety-Two

When Alexandra arrived at the palace after work, her cell phone rang. She looked at her caller ID and was surprised. "AJ! I thought you disappeared off the face of the earth!" she laughed. "Maybe got abducted by aliens."
"Been busy."
Alexandra sighed. "Same here, actually. You know my sister's getting married in two weeks --"
"Who hasn't heard about that one?" He chuckled. "Been all over the news."
"Are you coming to the wedding?"
"Me? At a royal wedding?" AJ burst out laughing.
"Yes, you, at a royal wedding. Why not you at a royal wedding? I sent the invite, I surely hope you got it by now."
"Well, Samantha has to go cause she's one of the bridesmaids, but I told her --"
"Then you gotta come."
"I don't have to do anything but watch the whole darn thing unfold from my living room." AJ laughed again. "Best seat in the world. No screaming throngs, no traffic jams. Besides, weddings aren't my thing anyway. Particularly royal weddings."
"But funerals surely are," teased Alexandra.
"Hey -- I didn't know your dad's funeral was going on that night. I just, you know, happened to be in the area and I thought I'd stop by, I took a wrong turn --"
"Nope, it was the right turn," Alexandra grinned surreptitiously. "Listen, remember I told you that my mom made that ultimatum that my sister and I had to get married in 10 days or lose our inheritance?"
"Yeah, that was insane."
"I didn't get a chance to tell you what happened next. So, my sister and I, we came up with a plan to get mom off our back about marriage. We used this top secret formula, called imaginary friend metamorphium, this compound, which turned our imaginary friend dolls that we had since we were kids into real Sims."
"No way, that's impossible. Those things are plush, they can't be made real. My little sister and brother each have one of those."
"With this compound they can be made real. But there's a catch. In order for it to work you have to have built an excellent relationship with it."
"No way, not even." AJ whispered, "So, did it work?"
"Well, there's a wedding in two weeks -- you be the judge." Alexandra let out another chuckle.
"Does your mom know?"
"Of course not. We haven't told her. And I don't want you telling anyone else either."
"Hey, I'm pretty good with secrets."
Alexandra changed the subject. "I have a speech next week at Fort Starch."
"You -- speaking there?"
"Yeah, wild, huh? My brother asked me to address the cadet classes."
"Now that, I'd pay the price of admission to see."
Alexandra sighed. "It's going to be like every other address ever given at Fort Starch -- dry and dull."
"It doesn't have to be. Not with you giving it."
"I'm going to be halfway asleep at the podium, I'm serious. It's one of those state of the union type speeches. Ugh."
"Well, Alex, one thing you can do is, try to talk about something that catches your interest, that might also catch the ear of the cadets, too. Oh, and picture all the cadets in their underwear. That might loosen you up a bit."
Alexandra let loose a hearty, guttural laugh. AJ was good for that. "Oh my gosh, do you want me cracking up on the podium, too?"