The Little Barmaid

by Holloway, Taylor

  Her lips parted in surprise. I hadn’t planned an outing for us yet. But I’d thought of one that she’d absolutely hate.

  “Where?” she stuttered. We were in public, so she couldn’t very well negotiate out of it. She was going to have to agree, no matter what I said.

  “Fishing,” I told her. “We’re going to go deep sea fishing. At night. I haven’t been fishing in ages. I can’t wait.” I happened to know for a fact that Ursula got horribly seasick. We’d originally planned for a scene to take place on a boat and it had to be cut out of an early script because of it. If Ursula wanted me in public, she was going to have to endure four hours on a small, bumpy fishing boat this evening.

  She turned green just thinking about it. “Oh, how lovely,” she stammered.

  I smiled happily at her. “It’ll be so romantic,” I told her. “Just you, me, the fish, fifty of our closest friends, and the gentle rocking of the boat.”

  This was phase one of Elaine’s plan—turn Ursula’s fake relationship against her. Take her on the most obnoxious dates possible. After a couple of these nightmares, she’d be more open to a negotiated settlement. I could tell by the look on her face that she was already dreading the fishing expedition. Taking her horseback riding was next (she also had a fear of horses). Then volunteering at an animal shelter for abandoned reptiles. Her agent had willingly ponied up a list of Ursula’s greatest fears when Elaine approached her with a long-term plan in mind.

  There was a light at the end of the tunnel with Ursula, but it wouldn’t mean much if Ariel wasn’t standing in it. I desperately needed to figure out what was going on with her. Unfortunately, it would have to wait until after the final bow on this production. We still had a scene to shoot. Until then, I had to play my part. Or parts, rather.

  I turned my attention back to Ursula. “Let’s get this movie finished so we can go fishing, huh babe?”

  Ursula winced. She clearly didn’t like being called babe. Got it. I was going to call her that, and nothing but that, from now on. She saw me register both her displeasure and my own enthusiasm to repeat the nickname. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Great,” she said, accepting my hand and getting into position with me centerstage. “You’re lucky you were too far away from that light for me to push you under it,” she whispered. “I’m not going fishing.”

  “Whatever you say, babe.”

  She was definitely going fishing. Elaine had arranged it so Meg Butler would be there with the cameras. I knew that Ursula was powerless to resist a good media spotlight, even though I’m sure she was going to loathe every single moment of it.

  The gloves were off now. I was going to fix this. I was one hundred percent committed. I was going to drive Ursula to hate me and want nothing to do with me. I was going to figure out how to move heaven and earth to get out of the damn media tour. And I was going to fix whatever had Ariel so spooked. I had to. Because otherwise the damn light might as well have crushed me to death.

  40

  Derek

  “Are you okay?” I asked Ariel when I finally found her alone during an afternoon break. She was packing up her locker in the dressing room. The scene we had been trying to shoot had, at last, been shot. We were done except for a few potential reshoots that Lena was still looking over and deciding on. Most of the cast and crew had already gone out for celebratory drinks.

  “I’m fine,” Ariel said, looking at me with an expression I didn’t know how to name but couldn’t stand seeing on her face. I only saw it for a second before she turned away. “Thank you.”

  “I think someone dropped that light on you intentionally.”

  Ariel was facing away from me so I couldn’t see or interpret her face. “Probably. Things have been getting worse and worse around here. I’m glad we’re finished.”

  Distantly, I knew that Ariel had been putting up with some intense bullying on set. The chorus girls, most of them anyway, had fallen under Ursula’s spell. They had all jumped on the ‘hate Ariel’ bandwagon because someone more popular and famous than they were had told them to. It was like high school but with higher stakes.

  “You could have died.”

  Ariel turned from her locker to look at me. Had she been crying?

  “Derek, why didn’t you tell me about the tour?” she asked. Her voice wavered.

  I sighed. She’d found out. I wanted to tell her myself, in person. But the weekend had gotten so out of control busy, and then I’d spent all of my remaining time fighting things out with Elaine.

  “I was going to tell you today,” I admitted. “But you’ve kind of been avoiding me.”

  “Three months is a very long time,” she said. Her eyes searched mine for something, but I guess she didn’t find it because she looked back down at her bag. “It might be long enough for you to fall in love with Ursula for real.”

  “I’m going to get out of this tour,” I promised her. “This is all just going to be for a few more weeks.”

  “It’s okay,” Ariel said. “You can tell me the truth.”

  “This is the truth,” I said, coming closer to her to grab her hand. “I’ve been talking to my agent. We’re going to figure out a way for me to get out of this tour, to get out of this fake engagement, to get free of Ursula period.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t look convinced.

  “Ariel, what’s wrong? Did something happen?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve just been thinking a lot lately.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I heard through the grapevine that Ursula’s been doing everything in her power to have me blacklisted in Hollywood. She doesn’t want me to work ever again. I think I’m probably going to need to move home.”

  “What do you mean, move home?”

  She was home. Hollywood was her home. I was her home. Or at least, I wanted to be. If she’d have me.

  “Home, to Sacramento,” she replied, staring down at her empty locker. “I don’t think I can keep doing this.”

  “We’re going to figure this out,” I told Ariel. “I just need a little more time.”

  She nodded. “Okay Derek.”

  The fact that she wasn’t even arguing with me made me nervous. Ariel wasn’t usually one to run from an argument. She said how she felt. Her honesty and genuineness was one of the things I liked most about her.

  “Does that mean you’ll give me a little while longer?” I asked. “You aren’t leaving me, are you?”

  She blinked up at me and her eyes were full of unshed tears. I felt helpless. Helpless to fix the situation. Helpless to reassure Ariel. I could make her all kinds of promises here, where we were alone. But those promises didn’t mean much when we couldn’t even walk down the street hand in hand.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Ariel said, and her voice broke. “But I’m not sure I really ever had you, either.”

  I froze. “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head at me. “Let’s not fight. I don’t have it in me right now, okay? It’s been a long day and I almost got crushed by a light.”

  I swallowed. She had a point. I nodded and looked for anything to say that might change the subject.

  “You didn’t get scratched up, did you?” I asked, showing her the long bruise developing on the underside of one of my arms. “The plant bit me a little bit.”

  Ariel’s eyes went wide, and she reached out to touch the purplish mark. “No. I’m totally fine. I’m sorry you got hurt though.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Not directly.”

  “Not even indirectly,” I promised her. “For all we know it was a freak accident. At least we’re both safe now.”

  She smiled a thin, ghost of a smile. “I’m glad you’re safe. Do you want to reschedule our movie date for tonight since you couldn’t go this weekend?”

  I winced. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I have to take Ursula deep sea fishing.”

  “Oh.” Her face fell.

  Shit.

 
This wasn’t working. I couldn’t continue to see two women at once.

  “She hates fishing,” I babbled. “I’ve been talking to my agent, Elaine. She said I should try to sour the relationship. This is my attempt to do that. I’ll take her fishing and she’ll get horribly seasick. Then, after that I’ll take her on other dates she won’t like. Eventually spending time with me will become so unpleasant that she’ll come around to the idea of a mutual breakup.”

  Ariel nodded. “Okay.”

  I reached out to touch her, pulling her to me and holding her against my chest. She came willingly enough, wrapping her arms around my neck and sighing against me. For the first time all day, I felt a little bit better. Just having her in my arms helped.

  “Ariel, you know I love you, right?”

  She looked up at me. “When you’re here with me, I do.”

  “It’s true all the time though, even when I’m not.”

  She nodded. “It’s just hard, Derek. When we’re together, I feel like everything is going to be okay. But when you’re out with her, or I’m running through the things she’s said to me here, or when I’m in the studio singing with the recording of your voice... it’s like I’m the one who’s living the double life. I’m the one who’s living the lie. I don’t know how to do this. I’ve barely ever dated anyone before. I’ve definitely never felt like this for anyone before. But I can’t tell anybody. And it makes me feel like I’m lying to myself.”

  I tipped her chin up to kiss her and she kissed me back hesitantly. “You aren’t lying to yourself. This is going to be okay. I promise. I just need a little more time to figure things out.”

  “Okay. But if we can’t fix this or you go on that tour, I’m moving back to Sacramento,” Ariel said. “I’m not giving you an ultimatum, it’s just a fact. I’m running out of money. I can keep working at Sebastian’s for a little while, but it won’t be enough to keep me afloat. I’m broke. And I think it would kill me to know you were out there touring the country with Ursula and lip-syncing to my voice in front of audiences. I just think it would kill me.” She hung her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” I told her. “I will figure out a way to fix this. It’s my fault we ended up in this situation. You’ve been more than patient already. I should never have asked you to do this, to keep this secret.”

  “You didn’t ask me to,” she said, reaching out to press her hand against my chest as if to steady herself. “I offered.”

  She was right, but it didn’t make me feel better. “One week,” I said. “Give me one week to fix this. That’s all I ask.”

  Ariel nodded. “Okay. I can do that. I hope you know that I’m not angry with you, Derek. I’m just frustrated by this situation. And the fact that people are maybe trying to hurt me—really, physically hurt me now—it isn’t helping.”

  “It was probably Ursula.”

  “How could it have been Ursula?” Ariel asked. “She was in the scene with us.”

  I frowned. “I don’t know. But nobody is going to hurt you,” I told her. “Filming is over. Even if it wasn’t an accident and someone maliciously tried to drop that light on you, it can’t happen again.”

  “I’m going to go home now,” Ariel said, turning to close her locker. “I think I’ve had enough of this day.”

  I wanted to go with her. I wanted to tell Ursula to go fuck off and cash in my rain check with Ariel. But I couldn’t. In order for me to get what I wanted in the long run, I would have to temporarily make myself even more miserable. That meant going fishing with Ursula, even though I hated fishing almost as much as she hated boats. I was going to do it though.

  There are a lot of good things in life that require delaying gratification. My career had been full of false starts and reverses. Full of projects that I thought would be fun, or fulfilling, or successful, and that, for whatever reason, failed to live up to the hype. I was less successful than my brother Tommy in a lot of ways, although I’d always been chasing the fun, and not the success. And I never gave up chasing it—the joy that came from doing what I loved was worth the long nights and the tired feet and the lackluster box office sales. I told myself that if I could just manage to live through the bad parts, then the good parts would come. I convinced myself. I made myself believe it.

  I hoped that Ariel had enough patience in me to put up with this delay in our mutual gratification. I knew she’d be worth the wait. I could see success and happiness for us hanging just out of reach. If we could just hold on long enough to grab it, we’d arrive. I knew to the core of my being that once people saw Ariel on screen, she’d be successful. The roles would start coming in for her, especially after Ursula stopped undermining her. But we just had to wait a little bit longer.

  41

  Derek

  “So, tell us, Derek, when’s the wedding?”

  I stared at the reporter on the red carpet, confused.

  “Uh, we haven’t set a date yet,” I stuttered. It had been a little over a week since filming ended and I was attending my brother Peter’s film premiere. They were supposed to be asking about his movie. Not my relationship. Fake relationship. Whatever.

  “Where’s Ursula? Why isn’t she with you tonight?” another reporter asked. I pretended not to hear her. I fiddled with my cuff links like they’d just become extraordinarily interesting and kept walking.

  The questions kept coming from every angle.

  “Are you and Ursula excited about the tour?”

  “What kind of a wedding does Ursula want?”

  “Are you two looking to start a family soon?”

  It was enough to cause an instant migraine. At least Meg Butler wasn’t here. She couldn’t get real press credentials—too many bridges burned in the past if I understood correctly from Elaine. Stick your foot in your mouth too many times with celebrities on the red carpet by bringing up something wildly inappropriate and they stop letting you in. Her absence was the only good thing about this experience so far tonight.

  I accelerated my walk down the red carpet to a near-canter. This was never the plan for this evening. I just wanted to see the damn movie and support my brother. I hadn’t even thought about bringing Ursula to the premiere. I guess I should have run it by Elaine. It wasn’t a huge deal, but Ursula would definitely bitch at me about not including her tonight. This delicate balancing act of lies and secrets was hard to maintain. Especially because I knew Ariel was at Sebastian’s right now, working her butt off, and wishing she could be by my side instead. Or maybe that was just want I wanted. I shook my head to try and dislodge the worry that Ariel was running out of patience as I tried to fix things.

  Inside the theater, I found Peter and the rest of my family getting ready to go inside and watch the movie. I was late. They saw me approach and turned to greet me. Nothing like a small Prince family gathering to top off an inquisition on the red carpet. I was usually happy to see my family, but tonight I was wishing I’d just stayed home. Or better yet, spent time with Ariel. Being away from her made me crabby and short-tempered.

  “There he is,” my dad said, putting his arm around me and laughing. “The son that got himself engaged by accident.”

  Nice to see you too, dad.

  I shrugged off his embrace, irritated and worried. I’d been initially concerned that my dad was going to take the news about Ursula and the blackmail badly, but he seemed amused. Apparently, I was such a fuck-up in general compared to my brothers that he wasn’t even angry.

  “It wasn’t an accident,” I clarified in a low voice. “it was blackmail. We’ve been over this, remember?”

  My dad nodded a genial, happy smile. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I was just kidding. Don’t be so sensitive. Besides, you’re working on it, right?” he teased.

  For whatever reason, my dad had equated theater with sensitivity and weakness. Because I was the little theater kid of the bunch, I was always accused of being overly sensitive. It had always bothered me. It still did.


  “I am working on it,” I said, keeping my voice low. The last thing we needed was for someone to overhear this conversation and print it. “Hopefully in a few weeks this will all be over.”

  “And then I can meet your real girlfriend,” my dad said, grinning. “The dancer. This is all so dramatic. It’s just like one of your plays.”

  I shrugged. He wasn’t entirely wrong. There was something Shakespearean about the whole thing. I just wasn’t sure yet whether we were in a comedy or a tragedy. I was hoping the former, but lately it was looking like it might be the latter.

  “So,” Holden asked me when we were going into the theater, “how are things going with the tour? Have you figured out how to get out of it yet?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m still working on it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “If you’d told me things were so out of control, I would have done more to stop it.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Isn’t it starting in a couple of weeks?” he asked me, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, it is,” I confirmed, feeling like the world was crumbling around me. “But I’m working on it.”

  I wasn’t making progress, either. Elaine was busy negotiating with Ursula’s people and with the studio, but no one wanted to compromise. Everyone thought the potential of the film and the coming payday was entirely worth me being miserable for a few months. Everyone but me, that is. And Ariel.

  “How’s Ariel holding up?” he asked, reading my mind. Or maybe it was just my face. I could feel myself frowning so deeply that Elaine would probably worry it might impact my long-term bankability if the wrinkles became permanent.