Gorgeous

by Rudnick, Paul

  But there was another, completely legitimate reason for my fury at Tom Kelly. I had fallen in love and I’d told him about it and he hadn’t believed me. He’d denied the only absolute truth of my year as Rebecca. And that was the one thing I could never forgive.

  “I just have one question,” I said and then I waited a beat, so I could be as simple and direct as possible. “Why?”

  “Why did I make you beautiful or why did I stop?”

  “Both.”

  “Because I promised your mother.”

  “You promised her what? To transform me? And then burn me to the ground?”

  “I’ll give you all the money you need, on one condition.”

  “What? What do I have to do?”

  “Trust me.”

  “Trust you?”

  “Yes. And do you know why?”

  I exploded. I couldn’t strategize or keep a tight lid on my rage for one second longer. I just lost it, like an unmanageable, spitting-and-biting four-year-old, high from too much sugar and not enough sleep. “Why? WHY? I’m supposed to ask WHY I should trust you, you pure evil, satanic, piss-headed … evil … gross … repulsive … evil … fart-faced … evil … nowhere-near-as-good-looking-as-you-think-you-are … fuck-headed shit-nosed fuck-faced fuckwad … why? WHY? WHY???”

  Tom laughed at my kindergarten diatribe, although his laughter didn’t sound cruel or spiteful, but that couldn’t be, since Tom Kelly was the most cruel and spiteful creature who’d ever lived. Being cruel and spiteful was probably his skincare regimen; being cruel and spiteful kept him looking so ungodly young and so smug and inappropriately happy.

  “Here’s why you should trust me,” Tom said. “You should trust me because — you have one dress left.”

  Then Lila appeared with an envelope of cash, which believe me, I counted. Then I let Drake drive me to the precinct house, where I bailed out my best friend.

  Later that afternoon, just when I thought my day couldn’t get any more impossible, as I was standing behind the reception counter at the Royal Criterion, a new guest arrived, with her mincing, jabbering and demanding entourage: Lady Jessalyn Clane-Taslington and her closest buddies, Annabelle, Tinsy and Bims. After Westminster Abbey, Lady Jessalyn had felt it her duty, subtly at first, to begin comforting the scorned and unmoored Prince Gregory, and her brief calls, her emails of sensitive quotations from Buddhist scholars and her heartfelt, handwritten notes offering only “honest friendship” had soon reestablished her in first position of the Princess Preakness.

  I knew all of this because the Royal Criterion’s newsstand stocked all of the oversized English glossies with their upbeat, sunshiny titles like Cheerio!, First Up! and Have At It! These weren’t gossipy, vindictive, smut-hungry tabloids but full-color celebrations of all that was right and good with the Royal Family. I’d tried not to read them but from the cover lines, and from Lady Jessalyn’s increasingly large and prominently positioned photos, I was aware that she’d been one of “five hundred intimate guests” at a Buckingham Palace Christmas tree–lighting ceremony, that she’d been spotted giving Prince Gregory a genteel, supportive, sisterly hug at a rock concert promoting international literacy, and that, only a month earlier, both she and the prince had been the guests of a Greek shipping trillionaire on board the trillionaire’s tri-level yacht, which housed two helicopters, a bowling alley and a putting green, for a quiet sail around uninhabited islands in the Aegean. A telephoto lens had captured the prince with his long legs dangling from the stern of the yacht, as Lady Jessalyn with her lithe, tan, bikini-clad body had stood nobly behind him, her glinting, predatory eyes obscured by oversized white-framed sunglasses as she’d placed a blameless, cautiously soothing hand on the prince’s troubled shoulder.

  “Good afternoon, Your Ladyship,” I said through gritted teeth as my one-time nemesis burbled up to the counter, leading her gaggle of friends, who were all vying for maid of honor. “Annabelle, stop picking your teeth,” Lady Jessalyn was saying, “I told you not to have that sesame mini-bagel, and Tinsy, I’m sorry, and I say this as a friend, but even though we’re in the States that doesn’t mean you should attempt turquoise, you look like an enormous bottle of dishwashing liquid, and, Bims, please bring me my smaller Vuitton case, no, the lavender one, with the crest, because I need to speak with this girl about a safe-deposit box. Hello, I’m sure you have a name and I do hope our rooms are ready, we’ve been through absolute torment at the airport — they insisted that Luella remain in her little carrying cage, even though I told them repeatedly that she was drugged to the gills.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “which one of you is Luella?”

  “Luella is Lady Jessalyn’s teacup poodle,” Annabelle informed me, holding up the wire carrier; the tiny animal inside was near comatose but its glassy eyes were pleading for either freedom or death, anything to get away from Lady Jessalyn and her nattering cronies.

  “Everything is in order, Your Ladyship,” I said, handing Lady Jessalyn a packet of electronic keycards, minibar keys and invitations. “We’re delighted to see you and we’re so pleased that you’ve chosen the Royal Criterion.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “You should really give us our rooms for free,” sniffed Tinsy. “We really do dress the place up.”

  “We should at the very least receive complimentary Pilates sessions and seaweed wraps,” declared Bims.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said evenly while I imagined all of them at the bottom of the Atlantic, with stinging jellyfish and electric eels attached to their screaming faces.

  As half the hotel’s bellmen hefted Lady Jessalyn’s matched luggage and began to escort the group to their many suites, Lady Jessalyn turned and shot me a harsh, quizzical look.

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “I don’t believe so,” I said. “I’m fairly new on staff, but if there’s anything I can do to make your stay more pleasant, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “I won’t!” she trilled, and then, to her chums, without lowering her voice, “Americans! Simply besotted with royalty! They’re all such impossible suck-ups!”

  “Oh my God,” said Rocher, later that evening at the apartment as we were digging into Hunan takeout. I’d brought enough for Aimee and Suzanne as well, because while they’d both insisted that they were sticking to strict macrobiotic diets in anticipation of being cast as teenage gymnasts, they didn’t consider poaching food from Rocher and me to be a form of eating.

  “So Lady Jessalyn is staying at your hotel,” said Suzanne, craning her neck to maneuver a power suck from the straw of my milk shake.

  “I love her,” said Aimee. “I mean, she’s so pretty, I think she’s almost as pretty as Rebecca Randle.”

  “Oh, please,” insisted Rocher. “Lady Jessalyn looks like something Rebecca Randle would flush down the toilet after Mexican food.” Rocher was always on my side, but my bailing her out had made her reach for poetry.

  “I read that Lady Jessalyn and Prince Gregory are totally back together,” confided Aimee, as if the royals had sworn her to secrecy. “It’s like, she’s always been there for him and she’s been so good and kind and understanding about Rebecca dumping him. Although some people say that Lady Jessalyn poisoned Rebecca, by hiding radioactive isotopes in her wedding bouquet and that’s why she went psycho and ran away and that Rebecca’s in a private clinic somewhere, and she’s glowing this, like, lime green.”

  “And I bet that Lady Jessalyn is going to marry Prince Gregory,” added Suzanne. “Especially after the whole Rebecca thing, people say that he’s come to his senses and that he’s ready to love again and that he realizes that Lady Jessalyn was always the right choice. And on Crowntown.com, where they handicap all of the candidates, Lady Jessalyn just pulled ahead of that Swedish girl, the Olympic skier, because one of her breast implants just exploded due to cabin pressure on a flight from Gstaad. And the papers say that Lady Jessalyn claims she’s only in town for the international dog s
how, but that she’s really here because Prince Gregory flies in tomorrow to speak at the United Nations. And I heard that during his speech, about England supporting the global initiative on clean energy, you know, like being all brown and everything …”

  “All green,” corrected Aimee.

  “Whatever, all I know is that during the speech, I bet he’s gonna announce his engagement. You know, so that people will pay attention to the clean energy part. What is clean energy, anyway? I mean, when I’m onstage, I try to be really focused and centered and in the moment, so maybe I’m, like, giving off tons of clean energy.”

  “What?” I said, because all I’d heard was the part about Prince Gregory’s possible engagement.

  “It’s gonna be fine,” Rocher assured me on the sleeper sofa at 2:00 A.M. “Aimee and Suzanne are full of shit. Although I bet Aimee could win that whole fucking dog show, if there’s a category for dogs who should get their facial moles removed.”

  “It’s a BEAUTY MARK,” said Aimee from behind the closed door of her bedroom.

  The next morning in the employee locker room at the Royal Criterion, as I was getting ready for my shift, I knew that if I wanted to avoid a wrist-slitting breakdown or a drug-and-tequila-fueled rampage through the hotel lobby, I had to decide exactly how I felt about Prince Gregory moving on with his life and very possibly moving directly toward Lady Jessalyn.

  What did I want the prince to do? Should he stay single forever and grow increasingly gaunt and hollow-eyed as he languished and longed for Rebecca and secretly for Becky, until he died tragically young with the words, “Where are they?” on his parched and pining lips? That sounded just fine. But if I still had any true feelings for the prince then I should really wish him only the best, although if he had to marry someone else he deserved so much better than Lady Jessalyn. He deserved someone who really appreciated him, someone who would know just when to make fun of him and someone who’d help him to be the best prince ever. But now I was drowning again in a vision of the two of us together and I had to stop doing that, I had to become strict about any sort of daydreams or memories or me-and-the-prince moments.

  I looked at myself in the square, unframed mirror glued to the back of my locker door and I told myself, stop it. You are Becky, you will always be Becky, Rebecca is long gone and that’s that. But as I continued to stare at myself I began seeing flashes of Rebecca, as if she were teasing me or reaching out from another dimension.

  “No!” I said out loud as I slammed the locker shut, because I was pretty sure that this was how bona fide, straitjacket-worthy mental illnesses began. I’m fine, I decided, and it doesn’t matter what I think about Prince Gregory, not anymore and if I’m alone forever, well, lots of people are alone. My mom had been alone and she’d never griped about it.

  So in honor of my mom and her selflessness, I ran a gluey lint roller over my blazer, used a rubber band to pull my hair back into a neat ponytail, spritzed my tongue with my ever-present, pocket-sized, meeting-people-is-my-business breath spray, gave my hands a thorough coating of Santine, the Ultimate Strength Antibacterial Germ Slayer, left the locker room and stepped into position behind the reception counter beside Mr. Taldecott, who, with a quick side-long glance, noted that my wardrobe was in order and that I smelled reasonably antiseptic. And then I looked directly into the eyes of Prince Gregory, who’d only just arrived at the hotel, with a far smaller and much better behaved retinue than Lady Jessalyn.

  “Good morning, Your Highness,” I said without missing a beat in the warm, welcoming, mechanically modulated voice of a customer-service recording.

  “Good morning,” said Prince Gregory, not taking his eyes off mine as I silently screamed at him, no, I’m not that insane girl from the altar! We’ve never met before! And the name tag on my lapel doesn’t read “R. Randle”!

  “Welcome to the Royal Criterion, Your Highness,” said Mr. Taldecott. “It’s so good to have you with us again and your suite has been prepared.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Prince Gregory as Mr. Taldecott handed the prince’s secretary a packet of keycards along with the stacks of schedules and briefings that had already arrived from the United Nations. As the prince was led away, he kept making half-turns and scratching his neck, as if he was about to ask a question but wasn’t sure what he wanted to know.

  “What is he doing here?” I asked Mr. Taldecott as soon as the prince was out of earshot. “Why didn’t you tell me he was staying at the hotel?”

  “The prince travels under several assumed names to protect his privacy,” Mr. Taldecott replied. I’d been so distracted by having both Jate Mallow and Lady Jessalyn on site that it hadn’t occurred to me that Prince Gregory might also be a Royal Criterion regular. “You had no need to be aware of his arrival,” Mr. Taldecott informed me. “We can’t be too careful about unwanted publicity, particularly for our most cherished guests.”

  “But … but …”

  “Becky? What’s the trouble? I will be dealing with Prince Gregory myself as I always have.”

  Mr. Taldecott’s phone rang. He listened, said, “Right away,” and told me, “Prince Gregory has requested a carafe of ice water. And he’s asked that you bring it to him personally.”

  “Me?”

  “He asked for the young lady at the front desk.”

  “Maybe he meant Trish….”

  “Trish isn’t here. He meant you, quite specifically.”

  “And he wants me to bring it to him now?”

  “Yes. Have you ever met Prince Gregory or any member of his staff?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then get busy. Suite 2812.”

  “Do I have to go?”

  “If you wish to continue working here.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m just a little nervous because he’s a prince and all. I’ll be fine. And I’m on my way.”

  Mr. Taldecott nodded frostily, because this was the first time I’d ever questioned any of my tasks. I nodded back and headed for the hotel kitchen. The second I was out of Mr. Taldecott’s sight, I veered to the left, down a side hallway and out of the building, striding purposefully, as if I knew where I was going in case I was seen by any other hotel employee.

  Once I’d left the hotel I realized that I hadn’t taken a breath since the prince had shown up and I wasn’t about to resume breathing anytime soon. I kept walking faster and then I ran until, without waiting for the traffic light to change, I raced across Fifth Avenue as cars honked, a bus driver slammed on his brakes, and a cabbie yelled, “Crazy fucking bitch!” I barely heard any of this because I was already on the other side of the street, sprinting along the sidewalk and then hoisting myself over a low granite wall and into Central Park.

  I kept running blindly, not toward any destination, but just away — from the hotel and Mr. Taldecott and especially Prince Gregory and his ice water. I overtook joggers and teams of bicycle riders in matching spandex outfits and I vaulted over strollers being pushed by outraged nannies. All I knew was that I couldn’t stop or something, most likely my life, would catch up with me and grind me into dust.

  I headed into a more rustic corner of the park, clambering atop one prehistoric boulder after another, surprising a pair of hooky-playing teenage lovers and then a low-level drug deal. I kept moving until I reached a grove. I twisted and shoved my way between the birches and pines, ripping long scratches into my face and hands until I found a deserted clearing and, winded and flailing, I fell to the ground, first on my side, and then rolling onto my back, smearing myself with grass and leaves along with crumpled candy wrappers and something I hoped was a deflated balloon from a children’s birthday party.

  Shit, I thought, as I stared up at the cloudless blue sky and then blocked out the bright sun with my hand. I couldn’t face anything, especially not a balmy April day, not right now. Shit shit shit shit shit. Until that moment I’d never considered how useful the word “shit” was; if I could just kee
p repeating “shit” for the rest of my life, as a single run-on sentence, I’d be fine. I’d be safe. I’d just lie on the ground and get covered by the seasons, by the rotting leaves and the frozen drifts and the year-round grit, until I became a small hill, a part of the landscape which only the occasional drunken vagrant would overhear mumbling “Shit shit shit shit shit …”

  But my favorite word abandoned me even as I was determined to think about nothing, which never works, because a blank mind is an invitation to truth.

  I had seen Prince Gregory. He had seen me. He’d known it was me. Or he’d known it was that terrible girl who’d replaced Rebecca at the altar.

  If I had any guts at all, any decency, I would run right back to the hotel and face the music, which would be a dirge. I would own up to everything I’d done and I’d deliver a mealymouthed apology, which would solve nothing. But I couldn’t even do that because I was a hopeless, disgusting, career coward and because I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the prince again and having him regard me with such well-deserved contempt.

  I had to leave New York; I had to keep running, maybe all the way back to East Trawley or to some other East Trawley, to someplace where I could stash myself for the rest of my days. I had to become my mother. Maybe she’d hoped I could escape her fate, but no such luck; I wouldn’t be running away, I’d be completing a circle. I had to find a shack or a tent or a trailer, I had to become a complete nonperson, someone entirely off the grid, a blank space on the census form, so Prince Gregory would never be able to hunt me down.

  I sat up. I would sneak back to the apartment and shove my stuff into my backpack. Then, after scrounging up whatever cash was around, I’d get to the bus station. I thought about texting Mr. Taldecott and inventing some family emergency, but I knew it would be better just to never show up for work and to let him hate me. I wasn’t sure if I’d tell Rocher what had happened or where I was headed, especially because I wasn’t sure myself. All I wanted was to become as imaginary and untraceable and nonexistent as Rebecca.