"Peach, you gotta chillax. It's our girl's night out! Tonight's all about having fun, not about worrying about politics!"
Daisy threw her arm over Peach's shoulders, laughing, and Peach tried to laugh with her. "I know, I know," she sighed, and looked between her friends. Daisy, Pauline, Rosalina, all of them were smiling into the evening light. "You're right. I have to relax."
Going out to eat at Olive Garden was Pauline's idea, her reasoning being "I know a guy," so they could all get a discount. The restaurant was somewhere between fancy and ordinary. Not so fancy that she might expect to find other royals dining there; she hated those places. And yet, it was not so ordinary that they couldn't dress up for the occasion.
They had spent all afternoon out, window shopping at the nearest outlets and then getting all dolled up for dinner. They nearly succeeded in getting her mind off all that had been happening within the walls of her castle. Peach had to admit, it felt nice to dress up because she wanted to, not because she had to represent her Kingdom.
Her friends were so kind to her. They set aside all of their Friday night plans just to help her. Peach's heart surged with warmth for them; she was so grateful to know such wonderful people.
Despite being a Friday night, Olive Garden wasn't very busy. "Perhaps we beat the rush," Rosalina commented with mild interest, and held the door for everyone.
As soon as the man behind the counter spotted Pauline, his eyes lit up. "Ah, Pauline!" he came around to give her a quick hug. "How are you doing? Are there just four of you today?"
Pauline laughed. "Luigi! I'm doing just fine, thank you. Yep, just four. How are you? How's your brother?"
Peach noticed a little button on his shirt with a little green L. She stood off to the side with Rosalina and Daisy while Luigi gathered menus for them. "I'm great! And as for my brother, you can ask him yourself," he winked. "He's working today. I'll see if he can take your order. Ladies, if you would please follow me."
He led them around the corner to a table by a window that had a lovely view of the parking lot. Peach was enamoured by the simultaneous touches of fine taste and bland urban cityscape. "There you are," he passed a menu to each of them, and answered their 'thank you's' with a smile and a nod. "Please enjoy. Make sure to stop by before you leave, okay?" he backed away with a wave before turning to return to the counter at the front.
"Wow," Peach opened the menu, fascinated with the marks of use on the plastic, and the slightly sticky residue on the surface. She could just make out faint jazzy piano music from the speakers. The booth in front of them was lined with fake grape vines, and their table still had fading streaks of cleaner from being wiped down.
Pauline shook her head with a small laugh when she realized Peach hadn't commented about the food. "Oh, Peach." she didn't seem at all interested in the state of the menu, rather, the contents of it. "You're so funny. First, it was all the kiosks at the mall. Now, the menu."
Blushing, Peach lowered her head and started to actually read the menu. "I never really got to experience ordinary things," she murmured, and the girls all smiled at her. "This is all very new to me."
She wanted to experience everything ordinary. Being a Princess, she hadn't had much time down on earth quite like normal people. Nobles, members of royal families tended to have an inflated sense of self-importance and the expectation for every experience to be perfect. So any chance she got, she tried to observe and memorize every little imperfect detail of the world.
She wanted to be out, experiencing the world as it was. Not as royalty thought it should be.
"Hey," Daisy elbowed Pauline, and then gestured over her shoulder in the direction that Luigi went. "So who's the stud?" she wiggled her eyebrows.
