"Go ahead, then. I'll meet you there!" I said. I was tired of listening to her and her annoying, high-pitched squeal, and with that I tucked in my head and just went. As fast as I could. So that even Maybeth saw only a blur of light, felt a whoosh against her pale skin before I was gone.
I laughed and whooped, my heart racing with the thrill of it. This was my one chance, I thought. I was doing everything wrong, and, for once in my life, I didn't care. I didn't slow down or even think about where I was going, I just darted through the great hall and the gigantic gilded doors and the various ornate chambers until all at once there he was. He looked up from the pages and right into me.
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I stopped dead. He was so beautiful.
I was shocked. We fairies were interested in humans; we helped and loved and tormented them. But I had never felt anything like this before. I felt stupid suddenly, and scared. I was used to being invisible and having free rein over the human world. Being able to flit along the curve of a child's ear, playing my harp and tickling the skin with my notes. Sliding myself into a rain gutter. Perching on the tine of a fork. Whispering and singing until the humans dreamed of our world, and longed for it. But I had never been pinned down the way he was pinning me now.
"Hello," he said. His voice rumbled through me.
I looked back and forth, and slipped my cloak over my face to make myself invisible. Was he one of us posing as the prince? I had heard of banished fairies roaming the earth as humans. But this was the prince. It was impossible. I had been one of those fairies who'd seen to it that he was born, to the queen and king--a woman and man with only a touch of fairy blood running through their veins. I had dangled mint under the queen's nose eighteen years before in human time. In our time only months.
Now I felt time grinding to a halt as his eyes bore through me. Bright eyes, like the water of the fairy lake, the sugar water that moved against you like silk.
"What is your name?" he asked.
No human had spoken to me before. Not in this form, with flitting, flapping wings, hovering in the air.
No sooner did I have the thought than I transformed, right there. Without even thinking about it. My tiny fingers stretched out, my body filled and dropped to the floor. My hair grew in masses down my back. And then, before I knew
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what was happening, I was standing in front of him, an almost-human, nearly his own height. It was in this form that we had been known to make humans go mad.
I was horrified at my daring, even as the prince stood and walked over to me.
"Who are you?" he gasped.
"Lil," I whispered, and my voice sounded loud and strange in my ear.
My heart pounded. Run! a voice inside me said, and yet I stood there and lifted my eyes straight into his.
For a second I was sure I heard the voice of the chief fairy elder beating in my ear.
"I have never seen anyone like you," he said, and then he came so close to me that I could practically taste him. Small beads of sweat formed on his brow, like drops of dew on a grass blade.
I knew at that point I should leave. Pull my body in and swoop away as quickly as possible through that gilded door.
But I could not look away from him. I was sure he would taste of peach juice and dew. Figs plucked straight off the tree.
"I have never seen anyone like you, either," I whispered, and stepped toward him. I heard the strange sound move through the room. My voice in human form, light as air.
I walked to him. I lifted my hand and pressed my palm against his cheek, in one quick gesture that seemed to have a life all its own. As if the rest of me were still as small as a hummingbird, hovering in the corner of the room.
He looked as if I'd struck him. I stood, tracing the lines of his face with my fingers, staring into his sugar-water eyes. Was this why Cinderella's stepsisters spent their days
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dressing their hair and painting their faces, to feel like this? I heard all their thoughts, but until that moment I did not understand them. Until now, I thought. These crazy humans, clawing out their hearts when they loved and weren't loved back.
If it had ended there, if I had left, I might have been okay. Though, in truth, it was probably over the moment I saw him in the grand dining room.
But my eyes dropped to his lips, and I could not move. He made me feel as if I'd slipped underwater.
He moved toward me. I pulled my hand from his face and slid it to his dark hair, then ran my fingers back to his neck, where I could feel the sweat gathering. I spread my fingers, moved my palm across his neck. Before I realized what was happening, I'd pulled his face into mine and pressed my lips against his full mouth--quickly, so quickly he could barely have registered it. Not only figs, I thought: apples and strawberries and watermelon, the sweetest in the world. I stopped thinking, stopped listening to the blood rushing through me, pounding through every vein and stretch of skin.
"Lil!" I heard, and the sound crashed through me so that I dropped my hands and covered my ears.
"What is wrong?" he whispered, reaching for me, looking rubbed raw and so soft that I wanted to cry.
But the sound pierced through me. "Lil!" it cried. "Let's go now!" I doubled over in pain, and then suddenly the room receded. I felt myself whooshing through space until the blood pounding stopped and the voice went away.
Maybeth hovered in the corner. Her eyes were so wide I
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thought they would fall out. Tears streamed down her face, glinting and sparkling.
"Maybeth?" I whispered.
I had never seen her like that. I had never seen any fairy like that.
"Don't talk," she said, rushing to me and grabbing onto my hand. I felt her nails dig into me. She tightened her grip and then turned and flew as fast as she could, using all her strength to pull me behind her. I flailed out, caught, frantically turning back to him, to those eyes that seemed to bore into me as we fled from the room, from their world, exchanging the gold and marble for pure space.
"No!" I screamed, and I could feel Maybeth's grip tighten even more, and we were hurtling through the air, faster and faster until I was dizzy with it. And then, suddenly, we were back home, next to the lake, resting on two leaves curling from a branch.
Maybeth was shaking, I saw then. Her hands and arms. She stared over at me with wild eyes. "You can get banished for that, for falling in love with a human."
"In love?" I repeated, as if that were the craziest thing I'd ever heard. But I looked down and saw that I, too, was shaking. I tried to sound nonchalant, but my voice was garbled, strangling in my throat. "I was just playing around, May."
"You're lying," she said. "You're thinking about him right now. You have to stop. They'll know--they might know already."
Fear sliced through me. I kept my eyes to the ground, so she wouldn't see. "I don't think anyone else was at the castle today, were they? Were they, Maybeth?"
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I looked up at her, desperate.
"I don't know," she said.
I DIALED Veronica's number slowly, with shaking hands. This is a normal thing to do, I thought, trying to calm myself. A normal human thing.
"The Pink Sink," a voice said.
I forced myself to speak. "I would like to schedule an appointment with Veronica," I said.
"This is she," the voice said. "Who's this?"
I hesitated. I could feel my face growing bright red.
"Hello?"
"Um." I cleared my throat. "This is Lil? ...I'm from the bookstore. Daedalus Books."
"Oh, hey!" she said, unfazed. I couldn't tell whether she knew who I was or not. "What's going on? What time do you want to come in? I'm here most every day."
"This Saturday?"
"Sure," she said. "Eleven A.M., maybe? Later? I'm booked through the afternoon, but could do it later in the day."
"No, eleven is great."
"Awesome," she said. "You thinking a cut, color, what?"
"I ..." I had no idea what to say. I hadn't thought that far ahead. "I'm not sure. I mean, I ..."
"Why don't we schedule an hour and see?"
"Yes," I said.
"Great. See you then!"
I could hear voices behind her, the faint sound of music, and then the line went dead. I hung up the phone. I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath.
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ON SATURDAY it took me a second to spot the salon with its little pink awning. I walked over, clutching my purse.
I almost never went to this part of the city. New York was so rich and vast, and yet my whole world seemed to be located between Pier A and Thirty-sixth, up and down Eighth Avenue, and over to the water. But now, within the past few days, I'd gone to the Pierre and now to Avenue B in the East Village. There was so much to see, so much that I never noticed. As a human it took so much work, I thought, to be in the world. Once it had all been spread out before me like a huge feast.
I peeked in the window. The salon had bright pink chairs and curving sinks and old-style bonnet hair dryers arching from the white brick walls. I spotted Veronica, fussing over the head of a young woman with long multicolored dreadlocks hanging from her scalp like snakes. Another woman with cropped purple hair stood behind the counter leafing through a book.
Veronica looked up and met my eyes.
She smiled and gestured for me to come inside. The dreadlocked girl glanced up at me, then away, talking the whole time. Around me the street swarmed with life. I took a deep breath and pushed in.
"Hey, missus," Veronica called out. "How are you?" She turned to the girl. "Lil runs that gorgeous bookstore on Jane Street. Isn't her hair fabulous? Wouldn't you die to get hair this white? It's better than platinum!"
I could feel myself blushing, happy that she remembered me. The girl looked over and smiled, seeming slightly confused. "It's very nice," she said in a husky voice.
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"I just work at the bookstore," I said, nodding to her. "Not run it." I clutched my purse, not sure what to do with myself. I was suddenly painfully aware of my age.
"We're just finishing up," Veronica said. "It's your lucky day! Usually you'd have to wait for hours." She laughed. "Just kidding. You can have a seat over there. Want some tea or wine or something?"
"No, thank you," I said. I sank into one of the chairs, studying her. The girl behind the counter looked up and smiled, then went back to her book.
"So what happened then?" Veronica asked. "Don't tell me she left him sitting there?"
"Oh, I'll tell you later," the dreadlocked girl said, glancing at me quickly.
"You can't tease me like that,"Veronica said, shaking her head. Her hands moving through the girl's hair were magical, like she was knitting or crocheting.
"I'm not! And okay, yes, she left him there. Just walked right out and hailed a cab."
"He didn't follow?"
"Do they ever?"
"Well," said Veronica, "miracles have been known to happen. Okay, you're done."
They made it look so simple: having a friend, talking together about anything.
The girl stood up. Her hair shifted like dominoes, like a lion's mane. "Oh, my God, V, I love it!" she said, angling her head back to see herself from the side. She did look wonderful. I thought of Cinderella, locked in her garret, covered in dust, filled with dreams. The way these girls lived now! The freedom they had!
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The girl slipped out of her smock and shook her head. Veronica turned to me. "So are you ready?"
"Yes," I said. "And she looks ... amazing. Really beautiful."
"Thanks!" the girl said as she handed her money to the woman behind the counter.
"What can I say?" Veronica said, shaking her fingers and then blowing on them. "Some of us just have the gift." She gestured at one of the sinks, touching me lightly as I passed her to sit down.
The dreadlocked girl left, trailing a strong scent of herbs behind her. A few minutes later, Veronica was tilting my head back into a small tub.
"So do you live around here?" she asked.
She turned on the faucet, and water streamed down my scalp.
"Midtown," I said.
"Oh, that's right. Garment district, you said. That's a cool area. I live right down the street from here. God, your hair is gorgeous, so thick. Do you have something specific in mind, or are you going for it? I mean, I am an artiste. We could do a cupcake pink, put in some extensions, shave it up the sides...."
"Umm."
"I'm totally kidding. With you it is all about the glamour."
I laughed. "I just want ... a new look," I said, warming to the idea. "Yes. It would be impossible to mess it up, I guess."
"Just relax," she said. "You're in good hands. You'll be gawgeous!" She giggled. She had a giddy, coltlike energy to her, as if she could run off at any moment.
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Her black nails and ring-covered fingers smoothed the shampoo through my hair. The water streamed and bubbled down my scalp. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feel of her fingers, the water pouring down my neck.
"All done," she said too soon, wrapping a towel around my head. She propped me up so that I was looking into the mirror that covered the opposite wall, then led me to a second chair. She slipped a smock over my head and whirled me around so that my reflection was a foot or two in front of me. When she whipped off the towel, my hair fell past my shoulders, damp and white. I looked down. Then up again. For a moment I saw my face as it used to be, with my hair streaming down like liquid fire.
She hummed as she lifted my hair and began pinning it up in chunks.
"How is your dress coming along?" I asked when I caught my breath.
"Oh, I screwed it up," she said. "I was experimenting, but it looked terrible. I can't pull off something so frilly. I'm making some pillows out of the fabric."
"Have you always made things?"
"Oh, yeah," she said, her scissors flickering in the mirror. "My grandmother taught me how to do all that kind of stuff. I never appreciated it when I was a kid, but now I make most of my own clothes. And I sell stuff sometimes, too. Dresses and bloomers, little bags."
"I wish I could sew, make things with my hands," I said.
"It's so easy. I could teach you in one afternoon, I bet. If that. Hey, relax." I hadn't realized I was tensing up. She put her palm on my shoulder, soothing me. "I'm not going to
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take too much off. I know this can be as bad as the dentist's office for some people, but not in my chair."
"I trust you," I said, as her thin silver scissors slid coldly against my neck. Inch long bits fell on the floor around me. I looked up again, stared at my face, my pale green eyes. I could not help feeling giddy the way I had once, so many years before, when I'd seen myself in the light of the palace torches. As old as I was, the sense of possibility and transformation was still there.
"You must have been fabulous back in the day," she said. "I would love to have lived in New York in the forties and fifties. My grandmother used to talk about how things were back then. She told the best stories. I wanted to be an old woman even when I was five. Did you always live in New York? Are you from here?"
I stared at her. "No," I said. "I mean, yes." As she cut my hair and let it drop to my shoulders, it curled out lush and shiny, like hair from a magazine ad. I was mesmerized.
This couldn't be right, I thought, what she was doing. She had to be using magic of some kind. Again I thought of Maybeth. But I could see that Veronica's back was as flat as an expanse of prairie, that she was a regular girl. I smiled despite myself. A flicker, behind me, in the mirror: Was it her? I turned suddenly, but there was only the salon behind me, a window to the quiet street.
"Hey, careful!" she said. "I'm creating art here." She laughed. "My grandmother used to talk about the grand old buildings, back in the day. I still love going to the places that remind me of her stories. Like the Algonquin Hotel, the Russian Tea Room, the garden at Barbetta with the
stone
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fountain. Those places will wipe you out, though. Drinks at the Algonquin are fifteen bucks."
"What about the Pierre?" I asked.
"The hotel, you mean? By Central Park?"
"Yes."
She scrunched up her face. "I'm not sure I've ever been there."
"I think you would love it," I said. "You should go by it one of these days."
"I will," she said. "God, you must have a ton of stories."
I blinked, shook my head. "I have a terrible memory," I said, smiling. "I just remember fragments."
"You are one stingy broad," she said, laughing and touching my arm. "There's no way you didn't see some amazing stuff in your time. You must have gone to movie palaces, gone to dances, dated guys who looked like Brando. I can just see you breaking hearts left and right."
I thought back, concentrating. I had vague memories of a different time, a different city. I could remember parties from fifty years before, the way we all used to stand around in our gowns, martini glasses in our hands and jazz wafting out of the open windows. The dresses I wore once. A dress I had loved especially, white rimmed with black around the sleeves, the hem, the collar, the waist. The skirt had flared out over my hips and would pop up when I twirled around. I remembered someone else, a friend, in a soft, long gown.
"Oh, please," I said. "I'm just an old lady. I can barely remember my own name sometimes." But still, her words thrilled me, as my mind went back further in time. I had been fabulous. I had been one of the most gorgeous and wispy and long-red-haired fairies in existence. Over the
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years I had appeared to countless poets in glimmers on the surfaces of rivers or in panes of glass, inspiring some of the most famous love poems throughout history.
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