The Secret Life of Prince Charming

by Deb Caletti

  “And this is Grover,” Frances Lee said, and the dog put his charcoal nose into her palm.

  “Jake’s asleep on the sun porch,” Joelle said. “Some friend of his dropped him off. They’d been up north and driving all day.”

  “I’m gonna go jump on him,” Frances Lee said.

  “Leave him be,” Joelle said. “You guys want dinner?”

  “Fish and chips,” Frances Lee said.

  “I thought so,” Joelle said. She leaned over the metal ledge of the truck, looked at her painting wrapped in cellophane bubbles. “So, she’s finally back.”

  “Help me get it out,” Frances Lee said, but she’d barely had the back open before Joelle had hoisted out the painting all by herself and was heading inside. She was small but strong, that was for sure.

  We followed Joelle inside, into a house that was as jumble-cluttered as the garden. There was a dark floor and lots of windows and an old red velvet couch; pieces of modern art, vases of drooping sunflowers, stacks of books, lamps with beaded shades. A sun made from copper hung from a low beam. Something was cooking in the oven—the air was ripe with the smell of warm fruit. This was so different from our house, where things were in their place and books were on shelves and flowers were thrown away after they’d started to wilt. The funny thing was, it was more like Dad’s house. A lot like Dad’s house, only much, much smaller.

  We walked through the covered porch, then. Frances Lee put her finger to her lips dramatically and pointed to a sleeping figure on the couch. Jake, she mouthed. I saw tousled black hair. I saw an arm flung over his head, marked with a tattoo of a sea serpent. Bare shoulders. Dark lashes against cheekbones. Dark lashes against…

  “Stop staring,” Sprout whispered. I glared at her. She wiggled her eyebrows up and down. Big deal, so he was gorgeous.

  “You guys can have my room,” Frances Lee said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.” She headed down a narrow hall and we followed. “Bathroom,” she pointed. Painted green, a drapey glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a claw-foot tub. And then her own room—painted deep blue, a hundred yellow paper stars hanging from strings from the ceiling, quilted pillows everywhere, a big bed with a plump white comforter.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Tonight, there’ll be a surprise,” Frances Lee said.

  “You’ll come back out for pie after you’re settled? Or are you too tired?” Joelle shouted.

  “Pie’s great, thanks,” I said, even though I felt a thousand years tired. Like I’d been awake for a thousand years, and that bed looked so good I wanted to sink in there and sleep and sleep. Fling my arm above my head. The curve of shoulders. Tan shoulders…

  Sprout must have been tired, too, because when Frances Lee left us alone in her room with our bags piled in the corner, Sprout took off her shoes and flung herself onto the bed, burrowed into the covers.

  “What a day,” she said. This time, she sounded like Mom.

  “Scoot over,” I said. Ah, man. “We’d better not get too comfortable.”

  “I don’t like pie,” Sprout said.

  “We have to be polite,” I said.

  “Screw being polite,” Sprout said.

  “Sprout,” I said. But she didn’t mean it, I could tell. She was just trying out the words. We lay there and watched the paper stars. A window was open, an old window with lots of panes, and the stars swayed and spun. I could smell the lavender outside the window. I could smell summer night coming.

  “I’m going to lie here forever,” Sprout said.

  “What about going to the bathroom? Forever’s a long time.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” she said. She popped up, disappeared down the hall, and came back a while later. “The cold is hot and the hot is cold,” she reported.

  “Good thing to know,” I said.

  We rested for a nice while, as night crept in and the windows turned light purple with dusk. We decided we’d better call Mom and let her know that we’d made it to “California” so she didn’t do anything crazy and call the motel.

  “Is your dad standing right there?” she said. This was always a big deal with divorced parents, it seemed, at least mine—as if the conversation they’d be having with you would be a lot different if either one was in listening distance. The presence of Mom or Dad in the background of our phone conversations was just another way to prove something to each other, I guess. If Dad was nearby when Mom and I were on the phone, Mom’s voice would get icy, as if it were him she was talking to, not me. Dad himself would get louder and more jovial, as if to demonstrate all the fun she was missing out on—too bad, her loss. How wrong of her to think bad of him.

  “He’s in the bathroom.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Long day from trains and airplanes. How’s everyone there?”

  “Fine. Grandma, though—the mystery continues. I surprised her when she was on the computer and she stood up so fast, she knocked over the chair. She said she was buying something too expensive and I just startled her conscience.”

  “She was probably bidding on a sports car.”

  “Vacation home, yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of. eBay should come with warnings, like they have on alcohol bottles. Know your limit. Let me talk to Sprout.”

  I handed the phone over. Sprout listened, rolled her eyes at me. “No, my ears were fine,” she said. “I chewed gum and I kept opening my mouth real wide like you said.” Pause. “It’s great. There’s a pool. Dad’s putting on his swim suit now. We’re going for a quick dip.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me to show off the fact that she could lie effortlessly and make faces at the same time. “Steak and baked potato. With the works. Okay. Love you too.” Sprout flung one arm around me and then squeezed. “Mom says to hug you.”

  “A hug back,” I said.

  Sprout flicked the phone closed. “Mission accomplished,” she said. She lifted her chin, in a display of easy, no problem. “Call me Queen of Liars.”

  It had gotten dark all the way, and the living room was lit with candles—candles everywhere, on tables and books and in the fireplace and on the windowsills. Joelle sat on the worn velvet couch with her feet on the coffee table, ankles crossed. She held a glass of red wine and was looking at the painting, propped now against one wall and sitting in a heap of wrapping. Frances Lee was in a fat leather chair; she’d changed into a long tie-dyed T-shirt and her hair was up in two clips shaped like butterflies. Her knees were up against her chest and the T-shirt was stretched over them.

  Here’s what I liked about Joelle. She patted the couch next to her, indicating for us to sit, as Frances Lee got up to cut some pieces of peach pie. Joelle did not ask us about school, or what grade we were in, or what we like to study, or any of the other BS I-don’t-know-what-to-say-to-you questions. She treated you like you’d sat on her couch a hundred times before, so you felt like you’d sat on her couch a hundred times before.

  “I spent nearly all the money I had at the time on that painting,” Joelle said. “I barely ate for weeks after.”

  “I’d have rather had the food,” Frances Lee said. “Burger King Whoppers, Kid Valley onion rings, skip the art.” There was the small smack of Frances Lee licking a finger as she cut the pie. She seemed hungry almost all of the time.

  “Vanilla malts,” Sprout called back to her.

  “Take one over a painting any day,” Frances Lee said.

  “Come on, Quinn, vote with me,” Joelle said.

  “It’s interesting,” I said, as I looked at the painting. I was trying to be polite. It was also disturbing—I’d always thought so. One breast was a triangle, one eye off in the corner of the canvas, boxed in a cube.

  “She looks psychotic,” Frances Lee said. She handed around plates and forks. Warm peaches, sugary crust. I cut the tip of the piece with the edge of my fork. It was some sort of fruity heaven.

  “I’d been with Barry maybe seven, eight months? I was crazy about him, �
��crazy’ being the operative word.”

  “He hadn’t started the Jafarabad Brothers yet, right?” I asked. I was feeling suddenly more awake. I could tell this was the start of the kind of conversation I had come for, the story of my father. It was right there, and I wanted both to hurry toward it and slow it down.

  “He’d dropped out of school, was juggling in this summer vaudeville show that went from festival to festival. I sewed the costumes. I had no idea what I was doing. God, some of those outfits. I did this one for this singer. Bonita, something. Can’t remember. It was a dragon. Big shiny green tail, and she couldn’t even move. Had to inch her way off the stage.”

  “I thought he was in college when he started the show,” I said. “I heard he did it to pay for a sailing trip.” I remembered that article. The story I’d heard from Dad before.

  “Can you imagine Barry on a sailboat for more than an afternoon? He hates the water. He practically has to get high before he sets foot in a swimming pool.” I nodded. I knew she was right. “I had the idea to start the show. We were sitting around one night and I just started telling him how he had the kind of charisma and talent to hold a show by himself. Forget the singers and the old-fart ventriloquists. He could get a gimmick, make it big. Use his dark looks. Maybe team up with Mike, who wasn’t nearly as talented, but who could play second string, yes? Can you tell I treated him like God? I perhaps haven’t treated God even that well. I fell in love with Barry, and he fell in love with my adoration of him.”

  “Which all works out until you stop adoring.” Frances Lee licked the back of her spoon. Sprout had completely polished off her pie. So much for hating it.

  “I didn’t stop adoring, that was the problem. I had plenty of evidence to stop adoring, but the more he didn’t give me what I wanted, the harder I tried to get it. I kept putting coins in the proverbial slot machine, because that one time I’d gotten a small payoff. Putting them in, putting them in, hoping…By giving him this idea, by encouraging him, by sitting in on rehearsals and calling around to get bookings—I made myself necessary to him. And yet, always, always, he held back a bit, by being cool, being important, having other…people around always. Maybe we shouldn’t discuss this,” she said. She nodded her chin toward Sprout.

  “If you mean we shouldn’t discuss this because of me, I’m not a baby,” Sprout said. “I can handle the truth. We’re here for it.”

  Joelle smiled. “All right then, yes. I can see that.” She took another sip of wine.

  “Women, then. There were always other women around. I wondered who they were and why they were around and I told myself how confused I was when inside I wasn’t really confused. I knew there was something he wanted to change about me—namely, that I didn’t like his behavior. I knew that, I just didn’t want to see. I started getting love confused with angst. Love meant upset. Love meant large, crazy feelings.”

  Frances Lee made the beeping sound of a truck backing up. “Warning, lesson ahead.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom does it all the time,” Sprout said.

  “It took me years to figure out that upset was upset, and tumultuousness was not the same thing as passion. Love isn’t drama,” Joelle said. “Real love is there, not something out of reach.”

  “That’s about twelve lessons,” Frances Lee said.

  “Hard earned,” Joelle said.

  “Now you’ve got Roy,” Frances Lee said.

  “Love with Roy is peaceful. I thought something was wrong, it was so peaceful. Then I realized that what was wrong was that for the first time, it was right. No big scenes, no crying, no clinging and plotting and scheming to keep him. It just is.” She set her wineglass down. The candles on the table flickered with her movement.

  “And they all lived happily ever after,” Frances Lee said.

  “Don’t knock it,” Joelle said. “It’s a hell of a lot better than feeling like that.” She gestured with her fork to the woman in the painting. “No wonder I spent all my money on her. The visual equivalent of me. That’s about how disoriented I was. And I called that love.” She shook her head at herself. “Let’s hang her up now.”

  “Where are we going to put her?” Frances Lee asked.

  “Somewhere where I can see her every day. To remind myself how far I’ve come.”

  “Great. We’re going to have to look at that thing all the time? I’ll have nightmares.”

  “Go get the hammer, Frances Lee,” Joelle said.

  DOROTHY HOFFMAN SILER PEARLMAN HOFFMAN:

  Otto was one of these jealous men. Listen to me right now, a jealous man is a dangerous man. At first I thought I must be something pretty special—he cared so much he wanted me all to himself. Christ almighty. Truth was, in spite of what he showed other people, he was so insecure that the only way he was sure I’d stay with him was to guard me like a police dog, and to keep me small. It started out innocent enough. Did you notice so-and-so? Do you think he was handsome? The warning bells should have been ringing and clanging.

  Pretty soon, it was him checking on me. Holy moly, I couldn’t go to the mailbox without an accounting of my whereabouts. He called all the time, to see if I was where I was supposed to be, locked up in my little castle. I saw you looking at that man. Maybe I was looking both ways before I crossed a street! It got to where I didn’t want to go out because I might accidentally do something to upset him. Once we went to go see a show and had a fight because he thought I found Burt Reynolds attractive. Who didn’t think Burt Reynolds was attractive? He was a movie star! Otto would watch to see if I looked at some man in a magazine ad, or ask if some book I was reading had a racy scene. I was reading Lust for Life and he wouldn’t speak to me. Lust for Life! About Vincent van Gogh, for Christ’s sake! A classic! I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. He just went all silent and moody. He criticized my friends, too. He worried about Rosemary, my cousin, whom I talked to every week. Do you tell her about me? I don’t want you saying things to her when I can’t defend myself. Rosemary is a gossip. She’s not very smart. Rosemary was very smart, if you want to know the truth, though she’s gone now.

  He liked me to wear high heels for him, but not in public. He didn’t want men getting the wrong idea. I looked like a whore. I acted like a whore. A man can create a whole identity for you, and you won’t even recognize yourself. A whole picture that suits him. You don’t draw a straight, firm line with a man—you start losing pieces of yourself, bit by bit. I finally went and got a job as a receptionist at a doctor’s office, Dr. Galveston. I’d taken typing in high school, and I was good at it. Three days a week. When I told Otto, he had a fit. Anger, boy oh boy, you’ve never seen anything like it. A jealous man, I tell you, is a dangerous man. Dangerous. It was the beginning of the end. He couldn’t stand that I had a little success of my own. He was holding me tight in his fist, and I’d wriggled free and gotten out into the world.

  I felt this way then and I feel this way now: I was not put on this earth to be someone’s possession. If I want to be in a prison, then I’ll go rob a bank.

  Frances Lee was right about the surprise. When we turned off the lights, all of the stars hanging from the ceiling glowed in the dark.

  “Magic,” Sprout whispered. And then we just lay there in the darkness, quiet, watching the soft yellow lights sway in the night air. Sprout’s breath was so hushed and regular, I thought she was asleep. But then, there was a small voice beside me.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I said.

  “Where are we?” she said.

  I knew how she felt. “It feels like we’ve been gone a long time, doesn’t it?”

  “Weeks and weeks. I like Joelle, though.”

  “Me too,” I said. It felt sort of wrong to like her. It felt like a betrayal of Mom somehow. But I did like her. She was comfortable and real, and her house was all cozy enchantment.

  “It’s weird she was married to Dad,” Sprout said.

  In a way, I could see them married more than I could
my own mom and dad. “Their houses are sort of similar,” I said.

  Sprout was quiet for a long time. There was just darkness and spinning stars of gold, a crack of light under the door, the smell of night coming through the windows. Then she spoke. “Maybe he took that, too,” she said.

  JOELLE GIOFRANCO:

  I want to rewrite that part of the Bible, I don’t know what it’s called, I’m not a big Bible person. Corinthians something. The one that goes, “Love is patient, love is kind,” et cetera, et cetera. Not that there isn’t good things in it. But I remember there’s a part in there that says there should be no end to love’s faith and endurance. And sometimes there should be an end. We need to call a halt and not persist in some grand hope of some grand love. Some people are not capable of love. Of maintaining a relationship. It’s sad, but it’s true.

  So: Love is ease, love is comfort, love is support and respect. Love is not punishing or controlling. Love lets you grow and breathe. Love’s passion is only good passion—swirling-leaves-on-a-fall-day passion, a-sky-full-of-magnificent-stars passion—not angst and anxiety. Love is not hurt and harm. Love is never unsafe. Love is sleeping like puzzle pieces. It’s your own garden you protect; it’s a field of wildflowers you move about in both freely and together.

  I was having a hard time going to sleep. I had gotten to that point where I was so tired that I wasn’t tired anymore. I’d listened to the sounds of everyone going to bed, the dog flopping down to the floor, the quieting of his jingly tags and clicking toenails; a door shut softly. I heard the scrape of a chair outside against a cement patio, smelled cigarette smoke drifting, and then the back screen door sliding closed. The light filling the crack under the door was gone now. The house seemed to breathe in and out in rhythms of sleep. Even the breeze had stilled and the leaves on the trees had hushed. I had to go to the bathroom, but I was trying to talk myself out of it. I didn’t want to get up and walk around this unfamiliar house, and it was so quiet that a flush would certainly wake people up.