The Secret Life of Prince Charming

by Deb Caletti

  “You want to postpone?”

  “I know how disappointed you must be, and I tell you, my heart is breaking over it, but she barely is ever away from those kids, and this would be a good thing for all of us, you know, if I started getting back into life again.”

  “It’s no problem,” I said. “That’s fine, Dad.”

  “It’s a sacrifice on everyone’s part, I realize,” Dad said. “I’m being a little selfish.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said.

  “A person’s got to look after his own needs first, though, I realize, in order to be able to give to everyone else.”

  “We’ll see you when you get back,” I said.

  “I’ll miss you like hell,” he said.

  “We’ll miss you.”

  “Tell Charles I love her,” he said. “And you, too.” His voice was large. Words of love seemed to seal the deal. They were the checkmark next to the item on the list Call kids and reschedule.

  We hung up. Sprout turned to me; she put her hands on my shoulders. Bore her shiny, happy eyes into mine.

  “We’ve been given a miracle,” she said.

  I called Frances Lee.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  The sooner, the better, she agreed. I gave her the names for Joelle to investigate. We’d make a driving route after that, Frances Lee said, if any of the women were even in the area. On the list would be Joelle herself and Brie, of course. And then Jane (age 6), Olivia Thornton, and “Elizabeth.” I paused before I told her the next name, the last name, the name that was a betrayal of Mom. I thought of the bust of that woman left there in my father’s living room, and I felt sorry for it, the way you feel sorry for a barn with a sagging roof, or a child’s shoe abandoned in the street. You couldn’t only finish part of a quest—a quest was something you did all the way.

  “Abigail Renfrew,” I told Frances Lee. “That’s the final one. A.R. I know she lives in Portland too.” I remembered her house. That cat hair on the couch. She was still there, I knew. “Mom saw an article in the paper about her recently.”

  “One less mystery,” Frances Lee said, as if Abigail Renfrew was actually a good thing. I remembered what happened when Mom saw that article: “Portland Artist Makes a Splash in the Big Apple.”

  “‘Local artist Abigail Renfrew’s newest work has gained acclaim among New York gallery owners,’” she read. Her voice was the kind of strong and sarcastic that could crumple at any moment. “‘Adding the subject of water to the female figures she’s created in the past has added new dimensions to her already interesting work,’ Dawson Edwards, owner of three Tribeca galleries said. ‘The interplay between wave and human body is a primitive yet timeless theme we respond to at our basest level, and Renfrew manages these connections with both energy and integrity.’”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Grandma had said.

  “‘The interplay between bullshit and bullshit is a commentary on the ephemeral nature of bullshit.’ God, I hate phony crap like that,” Aunt Annie said. “Look, it’s a freaking wave going over a woman’s body. Big deal.” She stood over Mom’s shoulder, poked at the paper with her finger.

  “I don’t think ‘integrity’ belongs in the same paragraph as Abigail Renfrew,” Mom said. But her voice had gotten wobbly, enough so that I could tell that she was at the edge of tears. Everyone else could tell, too.

  “Oh, honey,” Grandma said.

  “It’s a freaking ugly statue,” Aunt Annie said. “She looks like she was carved out of a Tootsie Roll.”

  “After all these years…,” my mother said.

  “It still hurts,” Grandma said. “I know.”

  Maybe we could just drop Abigail Renfrew’s head sculpture on her porch and run, I thought.

  “So, we’ll meet at the Portland train station? I’ll pick you guys up?” Frances Lee said. “I assume you have a key, or something?”

  “He’s got one hidden.” My heart started to thud around again at the thought. This was stealing. We’d be stealing things out of my father’s house. Stealing stolen things.

  “Think Robin Hood,” Frances Lee said. She’d been reading my mind. “And figure out a way to tell your mom, okay? I don’t want to be charged with kidnapping, or something.”

  “Sure,” I said, but didn’t mean. There was no way that was going to happen.

  “I might have to bring my boyfriend, Gavin’s, little brother, Jake. Fine with you? He needs a ride to Portland. Musician, car breakdown, the usual penniless performer crisis. The rest of the group’s meeting him there. Can’t get his stuff on the train, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “No problem.”

  “Weekend after next, then,” she said. “I’ll call you with some sort of plan.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “This is totally weird and therefore totally fucking awesome.” Frances Lee chuckled. “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.”

  JOELLE GIOFRANCO:

  Let me just say something else. People go on and on about safe sex, yes? Well, if you ask me, safe sex starts long before the condom—just after “hello.”

  “We’re in,” I told Sprout. She was in her own room, sitting cross-legged on her bed, waiting, her sleeves pulled down over her hands to keep them warm. Her room had posters everywhere, barely any white space—animal posters with lion cubs sleeping and pandas in trees; a movie poster with cartoon penguins; another of Mick Jagger holding his crotch that she’d gotten from one of Aunt Annie’s boxes up in the attic and that Mom opposed until Grandma told her to lighten up. Sprout had a habit of snitching band flyers off of telephone poles whenever we went to Seattle, so she also had advertisements for DEADBOLT PLAYING AT THE TRACTOR TAVERN! and SUMMER HEMPFEST! and FREE PRIDE WEEK CONCERTS, DON’T MISS OUT!

  “No way,” she breathed.

  “Yes way,” I said.

  “I was so worried.”

  “Worry no longer,” I said, although I had a feeling our worries were only beginning.

  “I just love Paris this time of year,” Sprout said.

  “Disneyland!” I reminded.

  “Oops, right.”

  Oh, God, what had I done?

  OLIVIA THORNTON:

  In med school, as part of the required psychiatry classes, we had to take these tests. Psychological tests. The results devastated me. I’ve always been too sensitive. But according to mine, I “lacked personal insight.” I read that sitting in class and I almost started to cry right there. I never forgot it because it was probably true. No, I’m sure it was true. I could understand science, the science of the body, but my own heart? I didn’t know what I felt half the time. I was the kind of person who just went along.

  I know I had a hard time being honest in relationships, even to myself. The very first serious boyfriend I had—Jerry Bannister. I liked him for the first couple of months because he was this great singer. He was in the college musicals, choir, all that, and it was exciting to see him onstage, doing this thing I know I could never do. I’m basically pretty shy. Even now—put two bones back together, no problem. Sing in public? Never. But the real Jerry—I don’t know. Did I even like him? He had this mother that treated me like I was doing something criminal by being with him. And his mouth felt all large and gummy when we kissed, and I couldn’t get over that. Wide and rubbery. My insides would clutch up when he leaned toward me. I kept turning my head when he wanted to kiss me, and he thought it was because his breath was bad. He chewed a lot of gum.

  I couldn’t tell him I didn’t want to date him anymore, because he really loved me. He kept saying how lucky he was and all. He was talented and nice and I felt like something must be wrong with me because I didn’t love him too. Maybe I was being too picky. Maybe I didn’t want to be close to anyone. Maybe I’d just be the type who couldn’t feel love all the way or something. I couldn’t tell what was wrong, but what was wrong was that it just wasn’t right. Finally, I went on this campaign, when I look back now, this actual campaign, to get him to break up with
me. It was like some part of me was acting in my own best interests, even if I wasn’t. I tried everything without even being completely aware that I was trying everything—I acted indifferent, and then I was sort of mean to him, and then I accused him of seeing someone else even though I hoped he would. I was hitting him over the head with an emotional shovel and still he wouldn’t let go of my ankles. That’s what it felt like.

  I finally did this awful thing and just didn’t show up for a date. I kept picturing him waiting and waiting, but I couldn’t go there and face hurting him. When he called, I didn’t answer. It went on for days, the calling, until it finally stopped. One time I saw him coming and I actually ran and hid behind the library building. It was awful. I felt like such an idiot. Everyone always said how smart I was, but look at me. I was doing this big, bold thing becoming a doctor, but I wasn’t brave enough to take care of myself.

  I was one of those awful people you hear about who does things like that—maneuvering, disappearing. I couldn’t listen to my own body, which was screaming this one word—AWAY. I felt guilty about doing what I needed to. Guilty about looking after my own best interests above someone else’s. I forgot that wanting out didn’t require certain reasons or a vote, or agreement, or the other person being okay about it. It was simply enough to want out. If it feels bad, it’s bad, and you have the right to change your mind, even if that means someone’s upset or disappointed. You don’t owe someone your life. Years from then, after Barry, even, I finally learned that it was all right to say something wasn’t working for me when it wasn’t working. The world doesn’t come crashing down when you speak the truth.

  I lay in bed reading Catch-22, Daniel’s favorite book, a copy he’d given to me on my birthday. I didn’t bother to read it before; I didn’t know why exactly I was reading it then. Maybe now that Daniel was gone, it seemed more important to understand him than it had when we were together. I guess this was proving Mom right again, because she always made the point that you’d better get to know someone really well at first, or else you’d be spending huge amounts of time trying to figure him out later. Anyway, I don’t know if what I was doing could be called reading, anyway. More like, Eyes Moving Across Words. I’d been over the last few sentences at least seven or eight times, and still, no part of what was written had made the full trip to my brain. I’d even turned the page once, as if the rest of the body parts were doing the reading thing without the participation of my mind. It was like those times you drive somewhere and after arriving, realize you don’t remember a single part of the trip.

  The problem was, I was having a weird sense of unreality about what was happening. Had I really called Frances Lee, a sister who wasn’t a sister? Did she really suggest taking things from my father’s house and visiting the women from his past? Had I really agreed? Two days before, if anyone told me this would happen, I would say that they were crazy. But now this was my life, and this was what was happening in it. Two days can change a life. Hours can, a minute.

  There was a tap at my door. “Quinn?” Mom.

  “Come in,” I said.

  She was in her robe—a thin blue one with white clouds on it. Her hair was pulled back and her face was washed clean of makeup. She smelled like soap. “I was just thinking about you,” she said. She sat down by me on the bed. Her toenails were painted orangey-pink, as usual, but she never painted her fingernails. She always said that toes needed all the help they could get. “What’re you reading?”

  I showed her the cover. The title seemed suddenly like a little fate-joke. Like the times you turn on the radio and there’s a little musical message, like God might be a part-time DJ. You just did horribly on a final, bringing you down a full grade, and there’s some old song going, “You can’t always get what you wa-ant” and you just go, Ha, real funny.

  “Didn’t Daniel give you that book?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  She was quiet. “Are you doing okay with all that?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It wasn’t exactly meant to be.”

  “Still,” she said. She looked down, made the ends of her robe tie meet. “I was thinking, too, that maybe it’s getting harder for you, to look after Sprout in the summer. You’d probably like to get a regular job. Have more time with friends.”

  “It’s okay. I really don’t mind.” Hey, if I worked at Red Robin, I’d never be able to just take off on a trip and steal things from my own father.

  “I really appreciate you, do you know that? I don’t tell you that enough.” She leaned over to hug me. Her face was glowy from being just washed, and maybe from something else.

  “You seem happy,” I said. “Different happy.”

  “Do I?” She got this little tweak at the corners of her mouth, the way she did when she’d been caught. I don’t know if this was how it was with other families, but it was how it was with ours. A tweak, a twitch, a slight smile. You knew each other so well that you heard the paragraphs that lay behind small movements.

  I nodded.

  “Things are good,” she said. “I got a couple of new clients today, and it’s summer. Everything’s hopeful, you know?” She shoved her hands into her cloud-robe pockets.

  “Which new clients?” I asked. I sat cross-legged.

  “I came in here to ask about you,” she said.

  “Huh,” I said. “Hmm.”

  “Don’t ‘huh’ me,” she said. “I had a good day at work. Period.” A lawn mower revved to life outside, probably Tony’s, our neighbor. “Okay,” she sighed. Mom kissed my forehead, got up to leave. Her robe, her painted toenails, her clean, happy face—they made me pause for some reason before I asked what I did next. Soap smells and happy toes—they were calm and present. Maybe it seemed a little unfair to drag them and her back to a place she’d come a long way from.

  “Did Dad ever take anything from you?”

  Mom stopped. She was in the doorway of my room—right between there and here. “He took a lot of things from me,” she said.

  “Like an object,” I said.

  “An object? Why do you ask? Does he have something of mine?”

  “No, he just had this thing of Brie’s. It got me wondering, you know, like maybe there were things of yours he had too.”

  “A few things went missing when we split up. A person moves out, it gets confusing, what’s coming and going.”

  “I was just wondering,” I said.

  “It’s a funny thing to wonder, isn’t it, Quinn?”

  I kept silent. I could see her weigh this, whether to pursue, the decision to let it go.

  “All right. I’m heading to bed,” she said. “Good night, sweetie.”

  “Good night.”

  “Quinn?” Mom said. She turned back around. She bit at the soft part of her index finger. Tony’s lawn mower sounded suddenly loud, practically under my window, then retreated again. “About the stuff going missing? I didn’t spend a lot of energy over it. It seemed the least of the heartbreak at the time, you know?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  Mom wrapped her arms around herself. “The most important things? He had already taken those.”

  Chapter Eight

  ELIZABETH BENNETT:

  I’m clearer now than I’ve ever been, and I have a lot of anger. I think a lot about regrets and what’s been lost. It comes over me like a fierce wave. Mourning. Wasted time. Draining relationships, trivial upsets, years vanished, spent in heartbreak. I remember when I was maybe four, one of my earliest memories—I laid on top of this red padded toy box I had and folded my hands over my chest and closed my eyes and pretended I was dead. I laid there and imagined what it would be like for some prince to come and kiss me alive. I still remember how that padded vinyl felt, and the hard wood underneath the body parts too heavy for a half inch of foam—heels, butt, elbows—when I finally sat up again. It starts so young.

  It starts so young, and I’m angry about that. The garbage we’re taught. About love, about what
’s “romantic.” Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End? Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown as passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from? Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable, and look at these guys—depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all, Prince Charming? What was his secret life? We don’t know anything about him, other than he looks good and comes to the rescue. I told this to Andy, the real love of my life, and he said, “A guy wears a white suit like that, he’s probably got a boyfriend on the side.”

  I went for Mr. Charming himself in high school. Barry Hunt was my first serious boyfriend. If you look up “charming” in the dictionary, you’ll see that it not only has references to strong attraction, but to spells and magic. Then again, what are liars if not great magicians? I once looked at Barry’s picture from then and I couldn’t see what it was that was so magnetic about him. It’s as if that quality can’t appear in a picture, same as vampires can’t be photographed. He broke my heart. I remember seeing this pamphlet not long ago in my doctor’s office: Living with Heart Failure. Funny. But in a way, that’s how I felt for a long time after Barry and I broke up.

  I learned later about the wives, women, broken relationships, hurting children. And you think, these are the men we obsessed over. These are the men we gave ourselves to.

  We should not give away a moment to anyone who does not deserve it.