The Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland

Author:Barbara Bourland [Bourland, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

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The morning after a race, my mother and I always hunted for newspapers. She collected them all; whether it was my last name and time, a fuzzy dot-print of my head in a crowd, or the finish-line photo from Sydney, they all rated storage. As such, I thought that news coverage was generally a net good and asked the ensigns to bring every paper they could find. While Finn was in the shower I spread them all out on the bed. If my mother could have seen these, I thought, it would have made her so happy.

I turned the pages and read them to her silently. ferdinand fieschi, crown prince of lucomo, wed caroline muller, olympic marathoner, in private ceremony, the Tribune wrote. Every paper had quotes describing a quiet but devoted friendship and subsequent decision to marry: “Caroline has a gentle nature,” moon-faced Atena told the Times. “She is a perfect match for Finn in every way. The whole country is delighted on their behalf.” Considerate, I told my mother, if deceptively familiar.

“Many of Lucomo’s wealthiest residents choose to depart during the film festival, the yacht classic, the San-Berno Stakes, and other large public events. The couple’s decision to have a private wedding and Lugesque-only reception was seen by many as a savvy and thoughtful diplomatic concession by the princesse to honor the dignity and privacy of the residents of Lucomo. In choosing the Lugesque, Caroline has gained the goodwill of a lifetime,” wrote a Times reporter. “By comparison, the celebrated 1999 nuptials of Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, which packed the once-elegant streets of Windsor with plastic trinkets and drunken revelers, seem a greedy spectacle, one that Lucomo’s residents were pleased to avoid in their own country.” I’d intended no such thing, but the Talon found the perfect way to spin our decision, remade us so effectively that it was very much like reading about a complete stranger. There she sat, in an Italian-language newspaper, on her gilded throne; there she stood, kissing the cheek of a stunning Lugesque woman at the reception like they were old pals. I tried to remember the woman from the photograph—tall as Finn, hair like a lion’s mane—but she truly had not made an impression.

I couldn’t recall meeting most of the other guests, either, but then, I never remembered the faces of the people I saw on the sidelines. I absorbed no more about them than I would a single tree or shrub. I’d accepted the current and let Lucomo wash over me, dissolving inside Princesse Caroline the very moment she came into being.

Almost everything I read was positive, save for the coverage of my appearance. Many papers ran photographs of the moment I broke the world record alongside an image of this new face and softened body, a candid photograph that Schätze had staged. In the gray suit, I stood in front of a pink Cap-Griffe town house, lit by a cotton-candy sunset. The cruelest speculated viciously about the change in my facial features.

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