by Tracie Adams
I once had lunch with royalty, but what mattered most wasn’t the crown. It was the moment a young woman in a royal-blue dress lifted her head, met my eyes, and made me feel visible at a time when I thought I might disappear.
It was 1983, long before Charles became King. He was there too, making jokes over wine, but it is Diana I remember. Princess of Wales. A woman whose kindness cracked through the shell of my anxious, homesick sixteen-year-old shell. The royal couple had brought their infant son, Prince William, to visit Charles’s brother, Prince Edward. He was tutoring at the Boys’ College in Whanganui, New Zealand.
I was an American exchange student still stumbling over Kiwi slang, still crying into my pillow at night. The luncheon was another obligation in a year full of them—Rotary speeches, cultural tours, even a terrifying submarine visit amid angry anti-nuclear protests.
When I first arrived, the father of my host family cracked a joke in the town of Bulls, “This is the only place in the world you can get milk from Bulls.” Everyone roared. I sat silent, still startled by the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. I learned new words hourly—loo, jumper, wanker. I ate cow-tongue sandwiches and salty Vegemite without complaint, but I missed my mom’s pork chops with applesauce, my best friend’s laugh, buttery popcorn at the drive-in movies.
I never expected to share a meal with a future King.
At the table I sat among a row of foreign students, facing the princess herself. To my left, a girl from Osaka whispered “konnichiwa” and giggled when I repeated it. She told me about the raw fish her family eats in Japan, seated on floor cushions, the low table heated underneath. I told her about Virginia suppers—fried chicken livers smothered in ketchup, lemon-pepper chicken with mashed potatoes, corn dogs dipped in yellow mustard.
To my right, a Chilean boy’s words tumbled in rapid bursts, the Spanish rhythm fractured in English. Further down sat a Sri Lankan boy, broad-shouldered, wrapped in vivid fabrics, his spicy aura intoxicating. We were the world gathered in miniature. I gripped my teacup tightly, desperate not to embarrass myself.
Just weeks earlier I had been marched aboard the USS Texas, a nuclear-powered warship in Auckland Harbor as protesters swarmed with signs and charred baby doll heads on sticks. “No nukes!” they shouted with electric fury. Down in the submarine’s belly, the metal-thick air turned my childhood claustrophobia into panic. My palms slicked with sweat as I counted my breaths, desperate for someone to notice. No one did.
So, when Diana lifted her head at the luncheon and her eyes found mine, everything shifted. She was softer than newsreels, quieter than glossy magazines. When one of us spoke, she looked up. Just for a heartbeat, she gave us her full attention. Her eyes were the opposite of that submarine—wide open, full of air, a door into light.
She asked about Virginia. My voice wobbled as I told her about leaving friends behind, about playing the flute and cheerleading. Her smile spoke peace over my wiggly nerves. We ate mutton and kumara, the sweet earthiness of the root vegetable melted in my mouth. Dessert was pavlova crowned with kiwi fruit on top of airy peaks of whipped cream. I sank my teeth into the chewy meringue, careful to wipe my mouth with the linen napkin. Charles drank wine and told jokes I caught only through others’ laughter. Boys were blokes, girls were birds, dinner was tea. Language was a puzzle. But Diana’s smile was a universal language that felt like home.
Fourteen years later, on August 31, 1997, I was on a British Airways flight bound for Italy when the pilot announced that Princess Diana was dead, a car crash in Paris. British passengers and flight attendants wept bitterly, their knees sinking to the floor like dead weight. Unlike them, I had sat across from her once. I knew exactly what the world had lost.
By strange fate my husband and I were in London the day of her funeral. Strangers sobbed in the airport, flowers piled high. I pushed my own grief deep into my gut. Sitting on the stained carpet, I drank tea with honey and ate a scone drenched with jam. I closed my eyes and returned to that luncheon—her nod, her smile, the way she made me feel seen.
Years later, I told a young woman about Diana. She blinked, uncomprehending. The world moves on, even royalty eventually disappears. Maybe legacy isn’t statues or headlines but the quiet gift of presence. One hour. One glance across a table. Diana gave me kindness. It was enough.
Tracie Adams writes from her farm in rural Virginia where she spends a ridiculous amount of time with two writing buddies who look a lot like dachshunds. She is the author of two essay collections, Our Lives in Pieces (2025) and Not Finished Yet (2026). Her work, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and long listed for Wigleaf Top 50, is featured in over 100 literary magazines. Read more at www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.
January House Literary Journal 
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