The Secret Life of Prince Charming

by Deb Caletti

  “God be with you,” she said to me.

  “Ha,” I said.

  Abigail opened the door and from behind her, I could see my mother standing on the porch, wearing jeans and a raincoat even though it was summer and the slight drizzle of the day had stopped. Her hair was slightly wild. I’m not sure there was anything underneath the raincoat, and from the look of her hair, it was possible she had just showered when Charlotte called, grabbing the first thing she could throw on. From where I stood, though, I could smell that she had just squirted herself with perfume, and this made me sad. Like perfume would pull it all together and make her a worthy opponent, or maybe just more in control than how she felt. A squirt of perfume is a shot of manufactured confidence, which is probably why it’s so expensive and the bottles so fancy.

  Mom opened her mouth. Abigail’s hand was still on the doorknob, as if in an act of self-protection. Mom just looked at Abigail Renfrew with her mouth open, but nothing came out. Her face twisted up as if she might cry. And that’s when Abigail spoke.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I am so, so sorry.”

  And then, Abigail Renfrew was hugging my mother, and my mother was hugging her, and it seemed so unlikely, the most improbable thing, that I blinked. I really wasn’t sure I was seeing what I was seeing. But that’s what was happening. They were hugging each other, a big, long hug full of no-words words.

  They separated, and then my mom said, “We’re like those old men who served in the war together,” and Abigail said, “I know.” And my mom said, “War injuries,” and Abigail said, “Yes.”

  “I’ve wanted to apologize for so long,” Abigail said.

  “He never did,” Mom said.

  “Barry—‘Love is never having to say you’re sorry.’”

  They both laughed, then, and even though I didn’t get their joke, I could feel the biggest exhale then, a life exhale, a universe exhale, the release of something huge and burdensome. That brick face of the house, what I couldn’t get to behind it—maybe it was some realization that Frances Lee wasn’t the only one who blamed the wrong people when she was angry. I don’t know why we sometimes have such a hard time blaming the one who is really at fault, I just know that we do. It’s easier sometimes to blame someone else entirely, than a person we love. Sometimes, too, it’s easier, way easier, to blame ourselves. But my father, Barry Hunt—his body count was beginning to rise, and finally, it was just too hard not to see.

  “So I’ve got this crazy idea,” Mom said. “I saw the hamburger boy out there. Let’s go tonight, take care of the deed. All of us. There’s some sort of symbolism here, even if I can’t quite figure out what it is.”

  “I’ll get my shoes,” Abigail said.

  “You,” Mom said to me. “Serious, serious talk coming your way. Where’s Sprout?”

  “Charlotte. She wants to be called Charlotte now. She’s hiding from you in the living room.”

  “Charlotte Margaret Hunt,” Mom called.

  “You know I hate my middle name,” came a voice from the living room.

  “It’s your grandmother’s middle name, show some pride. Now get out here.”

  Frances Lee appeared behind her, Jake too.

  “You’re alive,” Frances Lee said to me.

  “This is Frances Lee, Mom, my sister. And this is Jake.”

  Mom turned her eyes toward Frances Lee. She put her hand to her mouth. She looked like she might cry again. “I haven’t seen you in so long—you’re a woman now. You have Charlotte’s eyes,” she said. Her voice was wobbly. She hugged Frances Lee, who hugged her back. “And you have your own eyes,” she said to Jake, who laughed, and she hugged him, too.

  “I guess we’ll all have a chance to get to know each other on the ride home,” Mom said.

  “Not Jake,” Frances Lee said. “You’ll get a ride back with your drummer? You still have time to make the show.”

  “No,” Jake said.

  “No? What do you mean ‘no’? We dragged your sorry butt all around to get you there,” Frances Lee said.

  “I’ve got it handled,” Jake said. “Fritz’s brother is filling in. He’s better than me, anyway. I want to see that ol’ Big Bob gets home.” He looked at me, and I smiled. If I knew Mom, I’d just extended my lecture substantially.

  “I hope all of you are stronger than you look,” Mom said.

  JOELLE GIOFRANCO:

  I grow green beans in my garden. The one thing I know about harvesting them is that you have to train your eyes to see the beans. At first it all looks like leaves, until you see one bean and then another and another. If you want clarity, too, you have to look hard. You have to look under things and look from different angles. You’ll see what you need to when you do that. A hundred beans, suddenly.

  “So this is where your father lives,” Mom said. The two headlights of Mom’s stolen truck were blaring on Dad’s lawn. Big truck, big headlights; it was practically daylight out there with those. She just sat there, looking. You could see the river beyond, silver in the moonlight. The wind chimes swayed in purple-blackness, the sound of spells and night magic. I saw Dad’s abandoned shoes again there on the porch, evidence of his restless urge to be anywhere else as soon as possible.

  Mom shut off the engine, and it all went dark as if the stage lights, too, had been switched off. Frances Lee rode with Abigail in her car behind us, and they also sat in darkness. The house was lit only in moonlight now. You could hear the river’s steady shshsh, a cricket, the slight rumble of a plane overhead, its red lights arcing across the sky.

  “I’ll help with Bob,” Jake said, and made a courteous exit.

  “You never said where you got this truck, Mom,” I said.

  “It was running with the keys in it,” Charlotte guessed. “You hopped in.”

  “It’s a friend’s,” she said.

  “A friend’s,” I said.

  “Will Green.”

  “Our neighbor, Will Green?” I asked. Secrets—I guess Mom, too, had been keeping them.

  “Tucker’s owner?” Charlotte asked.

  Mom nodded. “Something’s happened,” she said. “Even your father’s house doesn’t look the same as I thought it would.”

  “Happened,” I said.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said.

  “Saying what?” I asked.

  “I’ve fallen in love,” she said. She seemed in shock.

  From the backseat, Charlotte groaned.

  “No, you don’t have to worry,” Mom said. “Not at all. That’s just it. It’s some kind of miracle.”

  “What kind of miracle?” I asked.

  “It’s good. It’s actually good,” she whispered.

  I did what Jake did to me. I took her hand. I kissed it. I would be so happy for her. So, so happy. Her eyes were shiny with tears.

  “I keep crying. I can’t stop. Because I just can’t believe it. It’s good.”

  Abigail had some experience moving big pieces of art, and art he may not have been, but big he was. She had placed a blanket underneath him before we put him in the new truck, and this made it easier to slide Big Bob out. A little too easy, because he came out at a nearly uncontrollable speed once he got started, like a kid on one of those giant carnival slides, riding down on a burlap bag.

  “Whoa!” Charlotte screamed.

  “Slow down, big man,” Jake said. There were many hands scrambling to catch him, so he didn’t fall. We had to scootch, scootch, scootch him across the lawn. We worked together, hauling the edge of that blanket. Mom and Abigail Renfrew, Frances Lee and me, Charlotte, Jake. Family was even a bigger word than I imagined before, wide and without limitations, if you allowed it, defying easy definition. You had family that was supposed to be family and wasn’t, family that wasn’t family but was, halves becoming whole, wholes splitting into two; it was possible to lack whole, honest love and connection from family in lead roles, yet be filled to abundance by the unexpected supporting players. That’s what
I felt, then—full. I didn’t even know a person could feel so much. When you let it, when you let family be unlikely and abstract and singular and spacious, those who can’t give love, who are simply unable—they’re dwarfed by the magnitude of those who can.

  There was some discussion about displaying Big Bob dramatically, a floodlight shining on him maybe, or placing him in an inconvenient locale, but it was decided to just leave him quietly. This was not about acts of revenge, only about returning things to the people to whom they belonged. Objects, memories, responsibilities. When we got him in his place, there was the relief of the exhale again, the release of something huge and burdensome.

  We left Bob there, in the center of the lawn, under the moonlight.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  MARY LOUISE HOFFMAN:

  You always hear that you’ll know when it’s right. I’ve even told my daughters that without really experiencing it myself. Before, I always asked, Is this it? Is this the right they meant? Is this the knowing?

  But it’s true. You do know. And you don’t have all those questions. You just know. All this time, they were right.

  We were too jazzed from our own personal victories to stop for the night, so we said good-bye to Abigail and drove home. Abigail and Mom exchanged phone numbers. They had some talking to do. There were few cars on the road, and riding on the freeway brought that sleepy blanket-weight feeling of night. Charlotte fell asleep, but Frances Lee and Mom talked during the drive. Green exit sign past green exit sign, town through town, Mom told Frances Lee what she remembered of Frances Lee as a little girl, her seriousness, her fearlessness, her strength. The time they’d gone to the beach and she’d run straight into the water. The time, when I was still small, that Frances Lee announced she’d be bringing me back home with her. And then, she told Frances Lee about our growing up, Charlotte’s and mine. She filled in the lines of Frances Lee’s imagination, as I laid my head on Jake’s shoulder and finally fell asleep myself, just over the state line.

  This time, Frances Lee and Jake stayed at our house, and Jake had his skivvies on when Grandma walked in on him in the bathroom the next morning.

  “Holy moly,” we heard her shout.

  Gavin picked up Frances Lee and Jake in the morning; he drove over in his station wagon. I didn’t know there were station wagons anymore, the kind with three bench seats like Mrs. Brady drove. He had an air freshener in the shape of a hula dancer, a bumper sticker that said, MAKE COFFEE, NOT WAR. Gavin was an older version of Jake—a bit larger, the start of a beard—and he and Jake greeted each other with that shoulder slap–shoulder slap–hug maneuver that guys who loved each other did. Gavin lifted Frances Lee right up off the ground when he saw her. He took her face in both his hands and kissed her long and hard, which made me realize that a great kiss must run in the family.

  “Wait,” he said when they separated. “Mint. Toothpaste.”

  “I quit,” she said.

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “Nope. You happy?”

  He kissed her face all over, big noisy smooches on her eyes and cheeks and neck. “Happy,” he said into her skin. “Happy, happy.”

  Frances Lee’s backpack was over her shoulder. It was weird now, to have to say good-bye. We’d just found each other.

  “You,” she said to me. “You,” she said to Charlotte, who stood there in her rainbow nightgown. “Me. Sisters. Love.”

  We all hugged good-bye. “Thank you for everything, Frances Lee,” I said.

  “Now that you’re here, how about not going away again?” she said.

  My throat got tight. I thought I might cry again. “How about you not going away either,” I whispered.

  “Stop being mushy,” Charlotte said. “None of us are going away anymore.”

  “What I did on my summer vacation,” Frances Lee said. “Family reunion.”

  Jake held me for a long time. I rested my cheek against his chest.

  “It’s an ending that’s a beginning,” he said.

  “Whoo-eee, what a hunk,” Grandma said at dinner. “I’d have said I was going to Disneyland, too, if it meant spending five days with him. Forget Frontierland.” She dug into her lasagna with bulldozer gusto.

  “I’m still trying to decide on jail time versus some form of torture,” Mom said. She got up to get the milk. “And you two better understand that if you pull something like this again…You just better not pull something like this again.”

  “Can you get the napkins while you’re up?” Aunt Annie said.

  “Five days with a hunk, and I’m only getting a weekend with a couple of ladies from the senior center, going to the outlet malls,” Grandma said.

  “You’re going to have a wonderful time,” Mom said from the kitchen. “It’s great you’re finding new friends and getting out.”

  “What ladies from the senior center?” Charlotte asked. It was the first I’d heard of them, too.

  “Helen and Louanne,” Grandma said.

  “I thought you said Louise,” Aunt Annie said.

  “Louise,” Grandma said. “Pass the salad.”

  “Grandma’s made some new friends. We’ve hardly seen her over the past few days.”

  “A girl’s got to have a little fun,” Grandma said, and snapped her fingers twice.

  Ivar sat under my chair and looked up at me with his soulful brown eyes. “You, you’ve been having too much fun, you sneak.”

  Grandma knocked over her glass. There was a sudden clatter of silverware and glass. It was a good thing Mom had those napkins right there. There was a flurry of mopping and setting things right. I gathered up the soggy napkins and splattered knives. I figured I’d better start the torture now.

  “I’ve just got to say,” Aunt Annie said. “And I know your mom will kill me. But I think what you two did was really cool.”

  “Annie,” Mom said.

  “It takes a lot of courage to really look…Wait.” Annie stopped. “What is going on here? Speaking of look. Neither of you will look at me. You’ve been avoiding my eyes since you got home. Or is it just my imagination?”

  “Your imagination,” Charlotte said into her plate.

  “This is ridiculous,” Aunt Annie said. “You can’t tell me what’s going on?”

  “I don’t think you’d want us to say,” I said. “Maybe we should talk about this later.”

  “Talk about what later?” Mom said. “We’ve had far too many secrets from each other the past while.”

  “Agreed,” Aunt Annie said.

  “Agreed?” I said.

  “You found out about the private detective, right? Just say it. I confess. I hired a private detective to snoop on Quentin Ferrill. There.”

  “Oh, Annie,” Mom said.

  “I’m embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know. After I went on and on about how great he was? He had a woman on the side. And not only that? He had a guy on the side too.”

  “Whoa,” Mom said.

  “There. Everyone knows. How did you find out, did you see the pictures? The bill? I spent an entire month’s salary. Okay, more like two. I’m an idiot. And if you give me any lectures about secretive men…”

  “I have nothing to say,” Mom said.

  “There, are we fine now? Can I have a little eye contact?”

  Charlotte looked at me and I looked at her. We were arguing with our gaze. Charlotte decided that she was the winner.

  “We saw you. In Hot Single Times.”

  “I need to be excused,” Grandma said.

  “We came across some ads. Your picture was there.”

  “Whaaaat!” she yelled. Her eyes were wide and horrified. “Are you sure it was me?”

  “Definitely you,” I said.

  “I did not place any ad in Hot Single Times or any other paper, other than two years ago when I had to sell my Datsun!” Annie cried.

  Grandma was having a hard time trying to get her chair pushed back away from the table—one of the legs was stuck on th
e carpet, and she was trying to wedge herself from the small space to get free.

  “Hold on a minute there, missy,” Mom said.

  “I need to use the lavatory,” Grandma said.

  “Mom! Did you put that in there for me? Tell me you didn’t put that in there for me,” Annie said. She’d clasped her hands together, prayer-style.

  “I didn’t put that in there for you,” Grandma said.

  Annie exhaled.

  “I put that in there for me,” she said.

  “Mom!” Mom shouted.

  “With my picture!” Annie shouted.

  “Mine weren’t that great,” she said.

  Charlotte started to laugh. I did too. “This is not funny!” Annie said.

  “eBay?” Mom asked.

  “Who the hell wants all those doo-dads?”

  “I want me a man,” Charlotte said, and we both cracked up.

  “Buy It Now,” I said, and Charlotte started to hold her stomach.

  “Girls,” Mom said.

  “I can’t believe this. I truly can’t believe this,” Aunt Annie said.

  “All this time? No eBay?”

  “I’ve got my own handle,” Grandma said. She used to have a CB radio in the old days. “LustLady35.”

  “Oh my freaking God,” Annie groaned.

  “That picture with the feathers got me the most action,” Grandma said. “Two from Hot Singles, one from the Stranger Personals…You gotta keep your options open.”

  “You’re writing to these guys, and they all think you look like Annie?” Mom said.

  “I sent my real picture to this one old fart on eBliss. Albert,” Grandma said.

  “And you keep saying how bad men are,” Charlotte said to Mom.

  “Yeah. You better include grandmas and dogs,” I said.

  But Mom wasn’t listening. “Albert,” she said.

  “He’s into river rafting and moonlit walks on the beach,” Grandma said.

  “I want my picture off of there now,” Annie said. “Now, like yesterday.”

  “All right, all right,” Grandma said. “Maybe I’ll end up liking this Albert. I’ll find out next weekend.”