(…) The prince was always sleeping so the bodyguards and I spent a good deal of time together. I taught them a little quatrain though they never could grasp the title, “First Fig.”

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!

But, the truth was, they didn’t care about poetry. They were all 35 and strong and loved blonde Americans. Would I go up to their room?

Leave the comfort of the grand lobby for the cramped quarters of a hotel room? No thank you. Besides, I don’t respond well to pushy in any language. While they protested in a mad mix of Arabic and French, I marked my place in Edna’s poems with a matchbook and silently said goodbye to the title of “desert princess.” The plans I had!

But, the garden of the Ritz can save any girl’s day.

The French doors to the side of the lobby gave way to swaying green, lazy fountains and a glimpse of the Prado’s sturdy, marble walls across the way. Madrid’s evening traffic was muffled to a lullaby, the few sounds that penetrated the perfume of the narcissus blooms and the leaves of the elms soothed. You could see it on their faces. I felt it on mine. The reality of hectic lives and headaches so near made us feel the luxury more intensely. My pocket of opulence—at least for 60 minutes or so.

I chose a remote table and looked out at the patio, white wicker chairs alight with dresses off the runways of Milan and Paris. The stylish ones. The proper ones were drinking four o’clock tea and eating square cakes inside. I was drinking red wine and most assuredly neither.

“Senorita?”

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