Daisy found herself wincing now as the Princess caught her low heel in the muck. Perhaps reinforcements would be required before the day was out.

At any rate, the primary function of the Ushers as a unit was apparently to ensure the Queen's most efficient and accurate advancement through the waiting four thousand. Once she had successfully traversed the line and, having achieved the end of the marquee, the Queen might accept a cup of tea, but she would never eat anything, not wishing to be stared at should it prove necessary for the Heimlich Maneuver to be called into play. So, that was where Charley got it from, Daisy thought.

As Daisy observed the slow but steady progress, measured out at a rate that was sure to win the ultimate race, Daisy thought that there were times when the Queen looked peculiarly like an ingenue in an off-Broadway play: hopelessly trying to hit her mark and unsure where she was supposed to place the prop; or, to put it in Drury Lane terms, uncertain if her smile were too wide for the pits or not wide enough to play to the gods.

If the Queen, whose color could be said to be royal red, was having a tea party, then it would appear to be a requirement that there would have to be at least one mad-in the sense of angry-gentleman present who also happened to be in possession of a hat. In this instance, that Mad Hatter would be Prince Philip (Prince of Corfu by birth; Prince of England only by way of a politely accidental reference on the part of those who really could be expected to know no better; Duke of Edinburgh by created title and, especially, here).

Or, to flip the coin in the other direction, the Queen Mother was attempting to sneak a cigarillo in plain sight at her daughter's tea party, and her son-in-law-a rabid anti-smoker-was royally pissed.

In fact, the claim could be made with complete accuracy, that the two-lashed together in this world solely by the marriage of the one to the daughter of the other-were both fuming.

The Q.M. (as she liked to refer to herself in her own mind, feeling that a good acronym could help define one, as P.M. had done for Margaret Thatcher, or J.R. on that American soap import a few years back) thought, not for the first time, that the world would be a happier and healthier place were it not for the presence of nonsmokers, who were always getting so worked up over everything, thereby causing heart attacks in themselves as well as in everybody else. But, with the way that the world happened to be turning, at present-especially in America where, if rumor could be equated with accuracy, people were practically bearing arms over the issue-it would appear more likely that the anti-smokers would succeed in forcibly excising the other side, before the smokers woke up and smelled the tobacco.

The Q.M. had of late been mulling the issue over. She still couldn't quite figure out what the Antis would do once they had finally succeeded in jettisoning all smokers right off the face of the planet and were forced to face the fact that they were still mortal themselves, but now they had millions fewer people to blame for that unfortunate byproduct of life: that they still suffered from heart disease and cancer, having never given much thought to personal responsibility or-say-giving up double mocha lattes (whatever they were) or taking up regular walks out of doors; that they were, ultimately, no closer to happiness than they had ever been, only now there was just one less excuse for it.

Oh, what the hell, the Q.M. thought. Once that had all occurred, the sourpusses would, in all probability, then take up the long overdue crusade of forming a witch-hunting party, with a view to running to ground the rascal responsible for the invention of the Twinkie.

If other people hadn't acquired the sense to make the connection yet that it was undue anxiety that killed, then more fool them.

Being a naturally peace-loving individual herself, the Q.M. was more than willing to do her part to avert the inevitable Armageddon. And so, in order to avoid her son-in-law's further wrath, she would make good her escape into Holyrood in search of a fast game of snooker.

Besides, there was a blasted hole in the tent, and her cigarillo was getting soaked. Not to mention, that they never served anything to drink but tame tea and soft drinks at these ridiculous afternoon affairs.

She glanced out at the downpour, vaguely remembering a schoolgirl quote, something along the lines of there being "water, water all round, but not a drop to drink," but she gave up on trying to recall the origins of the reference when her head began to ache from the effort.

A body could certainly use some fortifying libation, to go along with the snooker, if it were intended that the body in question were to be later thrown back in like a sardine with the rest of the Prohibition Four Thousand.

Now, then, she thought with a renewed sense of purpose-the only really effective device known to mankind that kept a body going strong for over a century. Where was Charley's new little friend hiding herself?

The Queen Mother had slipped into something a trifle more comfortable.

Considering herself to be too old to have to worry about the newfangled concept that was embodied by the acronym of P.C., the Q.M. thus wore her ermine proudly in spite of the Royal-and politically correct-eschewal of fur. There were an awful lot of dead animals from the Queen's own old wardrobe at B.P. that were now inhabiting the cold storage room back in London, and they would probably never see the light of day again.

Having donned a royal purple full-length stole with ermine trim, along with an evening tiara, the Q.M. was now chalking her cue stick, as she waited impatiently for her turn. She might have known that the American girl wouldn't be up to snuff on the rules of snooker. Still, Charley's girl seemed a nice enough sort and, having confessed after the second snort of whiskey to being something of a "pool shark" back in the States, she really did have quite a deadly aim on her.

Observing Daisy as she sank another ball, the Q.M. decided that it was time to create another diversion. She pulled the sterling silver flask from out of her voluminous purple robes.

"Single malt, this," she said, proffering the flask and inviting Daisy to take another swig. "Couldn't get through one of these ghastly affairs without it."

She keenly eyed Daisy's post-third-shot befuddlement. "Well, then, whose turn is it?" she asked innocently, stealing opportunity and moving towards the table herself.

Daisy stepped back and monitored the Queen Mother's progress to the green baize of the billiards table, its mahogany sides gleaming, the leather mesh pockets gaping enticingly. She couldn't quite decide if it was her own vision that was wobbling or if that was just the natural stride of her opponent.

Back home in Danbury, Daisy'd had a friend-well, more like a pool hall acquaintance, actually-of whom the Queen Mother was oddly reminiscent. It was eerie the resemblance between her and Taffy, the forty-seven-year-old grandmother of five, who still liked to wear mini-skirts and thigh-high leather boots and who believed in family, friendship, and Harley Davidson, but just barely in that order. Taffy liked to shoot pool, liked to shoot it with one cigarette dangling out of the corner of her mouth, and was impossible to beat.

The remarkable thing about getting beat regularly by Taffy, at a game that had the two basic requirements of luck and some sort of aim, was that the woman was a souse. Along with the dangling cigarette, there was an ever-present smudged glass of whiskey at her elbow which, as she bent over the table, could have come from anywhere along the continuum of the fifth that she liked to consume daily. And it was often a tough call to make, which was more precarious: the glass perched on the very edge of the table, or Taffy, tottering woozily up to it to take her shots.

But, no matter how uncertain or circuitous the approach-no matter how long she spent, suspiciously taking in the lay of the balls with one eye squeezed shut, as she swayed on those high-heeled boots like a metronome-when she finally bent over to shoot, it was as though the aging cycle queen had been flash-frozen in space and time, the nanosecond of lucidity elongated just enough to ensure that she would hit her mark with deadly precision.

And now, here was the Queen Mother, who could also bang balls like nobody's business.

"What are your intentions with my grandson?" the Q.M. asked, slamming another shot home while, at the same time, yanking Daisy back from Reverie Lane.

"Intentions?" Daisy echoed, her confusion brought about by a combination of factors, those being that a) she was not now, nor had she ever been, the type of person who had ever intended anything in life; and b) the fact that she was herself now drifting off somewhere, floating out to sea on an ocean of whiskey.

"What are your plans for him?" the Q.M. reiterated, accompanying the surprisingly crisp enunciation of each word with a bang of the cue stick on the floor. But the look on her face gave away the fact that the banging resulted more from an eager anticipation to learn the answer than it did from any presumptions of the right to make imperious demands on Daisy. "What do you want from him? What is it that you see in him?"

Having no clue as to how to properly execute a plan, even if she did have one, Daisy ignored the first question. And, never having been the sort who wanted anything from anybody, she also bypassed the second, thereby mentally leapfrogging her way to the end, where she landed somewhat uncertainly at the base of the third.

"His ears?" Her response, were there a keener observer in the room, could have easily been described as answering a question with another question.

"How splendid!" exclaimed the Queen Mother, evidently relieved that now she was able to understand everything. "I fell in love with his grandfather in exactly the same way. What extraordinary coincidences the world so often seems to be made up of!"

Daisy had found, since arriving in London, that whatever meager interest she did possess for introspective examination of her own motivations had been placed indefinitely on hold. And she had no desire-at least, not at the moment-to resuscitate them.

"What was the war like?" She virtually hiccupped the question, hoping to draw the Queen Mother away from the brink of the subject of Charley by substituting a relevant topic from her own reading of the Q.M.'s past.

"Which war?" came the bemused reply from one who was clearly stumped by the frequent obscurity that was Daisy. Surely, the American girl didn't believe that she was old enough to fill her in on the details of the altercation between George and the colonists, did she?

"Why, World War II, of course." Daisy, like the vast majority of her countryfolk, believed that there had only ever been one good, true, and real war (the one where their involvement had mostly been reinvented by Hollywood and writers of fiction), while all of the others had merely been the product of grim historians with less than vivid imaginations (with the only other notable exception being the Civil War-at least, in the vividness department).

The Q.M. still failed to see how the question was in any way germane to what they had been discussing, but she found, suddenly, that she no longer cared for relevance in the slightest. It was such a novelty these days, when the press only seemed interested in the doings and opinions of younger generations, to be asked a sincerely felt question of any kind. In fact, the only thing that anyone really seemed to ask her about anymore was how she had managed to stick around for so long. People were always regarding her with unconcealed surprise at the prospect of finding her alive, looking at her as if to say, "What? You're still here? Well, if you're not going anyplace, the very least you could do is fill the rest of us poor slobs in on how you're not doing it, so that we might have a go at it as well."

"Actually," began the Q.M., hoping to strike the right tone now that she had an audience, "it was quite a pleasant time, really. Oh, one doesn't mean the actual bombing, per se," she hastened to add, seeing the startled expression on Daisy's face. "The Blitz was hardly a day at the polo grounds. But rather, it was so..." and here she paused, leaning on her cue stick as she searched the high ceiling for the right word, "nice to feel as though one were needed, do you know? My husband, the King, and I used to go out to see the people after the bombs had fallen. And for some strange reason, our just being on the scene seemed to make people feel better about it all, safer, as though we were the British version of your American Marines or something of the sort." She sighed heavily. "Now all that anybody wants from me is to find out what kind of magic dust I've taken, as if the only object of anything were the ability to stay at the party longer than anybody else." She paused, considering again. "And the only one that the people have seemed truly interested in for the past two decades was of a much more recent generation, and her not even really one of us."

Daisy would have liked to offer something reassuring here, but her tongue had grown too furry from the whiskey. And besides, the only potentially reassuring thing that she got the chance to say was, "Well, it doesn't really matter all that much anyway, does it? I mean, you mustn't miss the bombs so much. After all, just so long as someone is making the people feel better, does it really make that big of a difference who is doing it? Or why?"

Because, before she could get her tongue to perform any more tricks, the Queen Mother had done her wobble-walk across the room, and had taken Daisy's hand impulsively in her own.

Daisy noticed for the first time, that the Queen Mother smelled... not precisely like a food item, but rather, more like a person's most favored garment; one that had been stored away in mothballs until almost forgotten and that now, rescued just in the nick of time, had been brought forth in all of its former glory, but this time comfortingly enrobed within a cumulous cloud of whiskey.

"You know, dear, speaking of making people feel better, Charley has been so changed of late-" the Q.M. began.

But before she could go any further, the gentleman just named entered the room in a burst of energy.

"Ah! Daisy! There you are. I have been looking for you everywhere." With a loving nod of acknowledgement towards the Q.M., he added, "I sincerely hope that Grandmother has not been filling your head with a lot of silly stories about what a wretched child I was. Come," he added, with a twinkling smile of expectation, taking her other hand, "you must rejoin the party."

And Daisy, who no longer trusted her own desires around this man, especially not when under the intoxicating influence of whiskey, entwined her fingers in his and allowed herself to be silently led away.

Daisy decided that the Queen Mother had the right idea. It was really difficult trying to deal with these affairs without benefit of additional alcoholic support, and the natural byproduct of the New Puritanism-a Garden Party with tea being the most radical beverage on offer-was beginning to take its inevitable toll.

Upon returning to the tent she had found, much to her horror that, if anything, the crowd had swelled in her absence, with people swirling closely around her to the point where she felt as though she were the wedding ring finger on a particularly fat person with a sodium intake problem. The presence of one too many titles was beginning to make her nervous; and in order to stave off the oral gratification vacuum created by the lack of any more whiskey, the most polite way that one could put it would be to say that she literally pounced on the circulating dessert tray.

Daisy helped herself to something that looked vaguely meringue-y and that had absolutely no odor whatsoever, and three or four more items that were most definitely chocolate by birth.

"Why, Daisy, have you no self-control at all?" Charley asked, clearly charmed.

"Zippo," she replied, popping some more chocolate into her mouth. All previous resolutions cast haphazardly to the four winds, she was once again eating in front of the Prince. "I can always run tomorrow," she added, thankful that the twisted ankle had long since healed. She considered for a moment, postulating a new personal theorem. "And besides, even if I don't use them myself, I'm a definite product of the credit card age. Why pay in advance, when you may not live long enough to enjoy the prize?"

"Well," he replied, "it would appear that, at the moment, my prize has got herself all covered in chocolate."

He removed the silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her hands with it.

Well, it's a good thing that one of us is always prepared, she thought. Although it did seem, at times, that she compelled him to spend an awful lot of time cleaning her up. Still...

Quite suddenly, it occurred to her that the ordeal of meeting his mother still lay in wait in her immediate future, and that there was a residue of whiskey sloshing about in her brain, and, for all she knew, chocolate stains on her dress. How in the world was he ever going to get her cleaned up in time for that?

Daisy felt as though an arctic wind had just blown through her entire being.

Seeing her shiver, and believing its source to be the combined effects of a summer dress with a drafty tent, he took her right hand, rubbing it between both of his for warmth.

"My, Daisy, what a rough little hand you have."

Daisy sought to retrieve it and, reflecting on all of the toilets that the hand in question had cleaned, she snatched it away. Casting about, she tried to come up with a believable alibi for why it was the way it was.

"It comes from tending my garden," was the best that she could come up with on such short mental notice. "I like to help things grow where I can."

"Never heard of gloves, then?" He shrugged. "No matter. I adore this hand. It has such character. Such a welcome change from the mashed-potato ones that one is forced to grow accustomed to."

At the mention of mashed potatoes, Daisy's feelings of dread cranked up yet another notch. The Queen would never mistake her work-roughened hands for soft vegetables. She would know right away that Daisy did not belong with her son.

Watching, as Daisy shuddered anew at the prospect of what she believed would be her certain exposure, the Prince grew concerned that she would catch a serious chill.

"Here," he offered, solicitously, "let me get you something warm to drink."

Left to her own admittedly suspect devices, Daisy tried to maintain some semblance of calm. But she grew restless in about the time that it would take to locate something warm to drink at a normal-sized party. And, as she began to wander among the crowd aimlessly-catching sight of the Queen's husband here, stumbling on a glimpse of the Queen's sister stumbling there-the level of her anticipatory anxiety grew by leaps and bounds.

"Dai-SEE!"

What?

As far as Daisy was concerned, the doctrine that stated "that which does not kill me makes me stronger" had only ever really applied to cockroaches. And, unless her sense of hearing had flown straight out the window-taking along all of her other faculties of reasoning with it-then the possessor of the voice that she was now being subjected to was definitely going to kill her, sinking all of her hopes dead in the water.

Miss Silverman was about to learn that it was indeed true what everybody said about these afternoon affairs: They did let just about anybody into them.

"Dai-SEE!"

Daisy considered running away, but people were jammed in too tightly: if she ever made it through the other side, she'd emerge looking like a crepe. She considered hiding under one of the food tables, but that wouldn't do either: the damp earth would undoubtedly ruin her dress, leaving her to look like a muddied American ballplayer.

It was fast becoming apparent that she couldn't run and she couldn't hide.

If only the fickle hand of fate had seen fit to introduce her to the Duke, she could have hit him up for the name of some poisons that she could employ to either do away with her problem or do away with herself (which might actually be the same thing at this point). But since that undoubtedly cataclysmic event was still sometime in her future and not yet a part of her past, there was nothing left for it but...

Slowly Daisy turned, step by step, inch by inch, as if she were expecting to find the ghost of Bela Lugosi just on the other side of her shoulder, only to be faced with...

"Why, Dai-SEE Silverman, whatever in the world are you doing here of all places? The last time I saw you, you were cleaning my toilet. But, before I even knew what was happening, that lovely Ms. McKenna that you used to work for calls me, and tells me that you won't be coming anymore and that I have to get used to somebody else. Well, I tell you..."

Mrs. Reichert's considerable bosom heaved against the snug fit of her Union Jack patterned silk muumuu. She flung her long blonde-from-the-bottle tresses over her shoulders, flaying the Duke, and-having fortified herself with a single sustaining breath-plowed on.

"When Dr. Reichert, my husband, told me that he had won some kind of silly award for inventing some sort of ridiculous device that would improve people's chances of surviving open-heart surgery-like such a thing would ever make my life any better. I mean, really, I ask you... Don't you think that it's a lot more likely that someone like me'll keel over long before I make it into the operating room?-I told him, 'That's nice, dear.' And then, when he told me that the AMA was sending him to London to give a speech before the Royal Surgeons something or other, and that they said he could bring his wife, I said, 'Even better.' But then, when we got to London, and Dr. Reichert told me that we would also be continuing on to Edinburgh, and that I was going to get to meet the Queen, who wanted to thank him for, oh, I don't know, making the world a better place with that stupid device of his or something, well, then I said, 'Hey.'" She heaved some more. "But I never thought, not in my wildest anything, that I'd be running into you here. Why, little Daisy Silverman, whatever are you doing-"

It was getting to be high time that little Daisy nipped this muumuu-ed moron in the bud.

"I cannot tell you how pleased I am, Madam," she broke in, adopting the arch accent of a truly blue-blooded Brit, "to learn of your poor dear husband's undoubtedly well-deserved success, after what must surely have been an entire lifetime filled with trials and errors. I mean that strictly from a medical point of view, of course. But, what is most unclear to me, is why you are continually referring to this Silverman person, for I haven't a clue as to who you might be speaking of."

Mrs. Reichert examined the woman before her more closely, speed-living through the emotional triangle of disbelief, confusion, and disappointment. She was experiencing the very common feeling of social letdown that one felt when one found that the only person at a party who was their certain social inferior, for one reason or another, wasn't.

"But you're the woman who used to clean my toilets in Westport. You're Daisy Silverman from Danbury," Mrs. Reichert persisted, reluctant to let her social edge die so quickly.

"I assure you that I am not, Madam," Daisy replied, rhyming her 'not' with 'caught' to make 'naught,' so that there could be absolutely no doubt remaining as to her country of origin.

"While it is true that I have been to Westport," Daisy continued, unconsciously sensing perhaps that it would be easier later on to remember near-truths (no matter how bizarre) than one-hundred percent man-made fabrications, "I did not travel there with the express intention that you ascribe to me."

And here, Daisy was lost for a moment, unable to recall why anybody went to Westport if it wasn't to clean toilets. But then, she put herself in Charley's late ex-wife's size tens-just to see how they fit-and all of a sudden, she had no trouble at all thinking of other reasons to go to the lovely waterside town.

"I went there for the shopping," were the words that came tripping off her tongue. "They have those perfectly lovely stores on Main Street, and the prices are quite reasonable there, I think." What else might The Other One have noticed? "I also went for the bookstores."

No, Daisy shook her now very internal head like a dog at her own stupidity. The Other One wouldn't go to a town for its bookstores. But, now that Daisy had sent her there-or, more accurately, sent herself there as being someone like her-she had to quickly figure out what she might notice there.

She began pedaling as fast as she could. "The bookstores had lots of children's books, and lots of books on social issues and for helping people with their problems. Not much about clothes, really, but I did find that they had perhaps one too many books on me. But then, isn't that always the case?"

Seeing the startled look on Mrs. Reichert's face, she hastily amended, "That is to say, on us, er no, I mean on the Royal Family, er, oh you know, that's just a way of talking here: me, us, Royal Family, all of England... If it's about them, then it's about us too, right?" Daisy gave a Solomon-like shrug. "I think that it really is possible sometimes for people to carry an obsession much too far." She was hoping that the very silent Mrs. Reichert was not by this point mistaking her for either an impostor Royal or a complete royal ass.

"And as for your mention of the city of Danbury before... I mean, Hat City, really..." And here, Daisy bestowed upon Mrs. Reichert a most condescending look, as she indicated the perfectly made summer hat that she was wearing on her own head. "As anyone can very well see, we are quite capable of coming up with our own perfectly good creations right here."

Heaving a great sigh of relief, and feeling that she had juggled all of that quite well, Daisy was grateful that Bonita was not in a position to see her. Because the un-whiskeyed portion of her brain was emitting distant signals that warned that Miss Chance might not take too kindly to this denial of her previous position.

And besides, she really didn't mean to be misleading anybody, but rather, it was more that she was growing so used to being this Sills person.

"I do not know any Silvermans now, nor have I ever," she added, putting the final kibosh on even the most stubborn of suspicions. "My family name is Sills."

Daisy experienced a wave of gratitude, Part II, that Bonita was tied up elsewhere with whatever it was that Bonita did when nobody could see her, because Miss Chance had definitely "naught" caught on to the whole name thing yet either.

Mrs. Reichert took in Daisy's auburn hair that, while still the same color that she evidently associated with her former cleaning lady, was now combed to perfection and sans its distinguishing baseball cap. She took in the tasteful, brightly colored summer dress, the one that fit into this place so much more than her own-however well-intentioned-red-, white-and-blue attire. She took in the pumps that could spectate through life with the best of them. And then she reassembled all of these pieces into the framework of all of the things that Daisy had just said.

"No, of course, she could never be you, and you couldn't possibly be the person that I was mistaking you for. She would never be invited to something like this." Mrs. Reichert sighed her heaviest sigh yet. "I don't know what I could have been thinking. Must be all of that Prozac that Dr. Reichert has me taking." She started to turn away, dejected.

Daisy, who only intended to save her own skin, had not meant to push the other woman to the brink, where she would begin to question the workings of what passed as her own sanity. Feeling a wave of sympathy, Daisy impulsively reached out and grabbed Mrs. Reichert by the sleeve.

"Oh, my dear woman, haven't you heard?" she asked in her most reassuring voice. "It is so easy for one to make the kind of mistake that you have just made. Why, everybody who is anybody, these days, has one of those-what does one call them? Ah, yes-doppelgngers crawling around somewhere on the face of the planet. In fact, speaking of which," she added, lowering her tone to a more confiding sotto voce level. "I do believe that the Duke of Edinburgh-what with that eternally retro hairstyle and such-is quite frequently mistaken, by a number of Ladies of the Bedchamber, for the Kim Hunter character in Planet of the Apes."

There, Daisy thought, feeling most satisfied with herself, that ought to make this sad woman feel better about herself.