Forbidden Prince

by Zoey Oliver

  “No, thank you. I’ve…I’ve got it,” I mumble pointlessly as I try to back away. I want to smile, but I’m not sure that I do. His confused expression doesn’t look like a response to a smile.

  The pharmacist gives me a slightly more sympathetic look when I stumble back inside, trying to figure out what I’m going to say to Didi. But when she glances up at me, it’s like she already knows.

  “I guess we have to go,” she sighs.

  It’s not a question.

  “It will all be okay,” I murmur hopefully, holding out my hand.

  She shrugs hopelessly. “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sturgill

  With every step, I feel a little better. As soon as I opened the pharmacy door, I felt like I was caught in the tractor beam. Was I happy? Was I cautious?

  The thing is, I have no idea. She seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see her. But as soon as our eyes met, she withdrew. I could feel her pulling away.

  I suppose that’s exactly what she should’ve done. That’s exactly what we agreed to.

  I suppose your powers of seduction aren’t exactly unlimited, Dr. Stud, I remind myself. Not every woman is just going to throw herself at you.

  The entire time I was in Costa Rica, I flirted with the idea that Joanna and I had a connection. Why did I do this myself? Was I just bored? I don’t know. But obviously, there’s nothing. It was all in my imagination. Just that big, empty house tricking me into thinking I’m seeing ghosts. And maybe Mary and Arthur had something to do with it too.

  I need to move on. Tinder? Something. I should do something.

  “Jen, can you look into a new patient at Harbor Oaks?”

  Jen glances up at me from her filing. “Sure, you got a name? New patient?”

  “Not my patient,” I shake my head. “Didi… something. I just want to keep an eye on her. Maybe follow up. Just let me know when she goes through intake, okay?”

  “Didi… Deirdre? Deirdre Calloway?”

  I shrug. “I’m not sure. Do you know her?”

  Jen rolls her eyes and looks away carefully. “Not for a long time. But I figured Harbor Oaks would be her home eventually, if you know what I mean. I think her mother is there now.”

  “That’s not really…” I begin, preparing a lecture on professional judgment.

  But then I drop it. What’s the point?

  “Well, I hope she gets the help she needs.”

  Jen nods absentmindedly as she does her work, then moves on.

  Harbor Oaks is the county facility. It is kind of a catchall for hospice, assisted living, and long-term treatment such as drug and alcohol counseling or occupational therapy. It’s a beautiful building on the beach. In the 1920s it was a posh tuberculosis asylum. Now it is a posh place to kick a habit or spin out your days until your final one.

  Lots of people make it their final home. My father is one of them.

  Seeing Joanna again has left me strangely shaken. Three weeks in Costa Rica should’ve been enough. Yet I came back to Florida refreshed and ready to go, rededicated myself to my small town, and thought everything would simply resume as it had. And within a few days, I practically trip over her in the pharmacy?

  Is that karma?

  My mother used to believe in karma. Not just content to think of it as getting back what you put into the world, good or bad, she also liked to think of it as a universe with a sense of humor. A vengeful balancing, aimed at the arrogant. Whenever I would do something self-centered, or exhibited too much pride, my mom would warn me: careful about all that karma!

  It seemed like karma was trying to keep me from getting too big of a head. I don’t literally believe in that, but it certainly seems to work out that way sometimes.

  So after all these years keeping everyone at arm’s length, what kind of karma have I built up? I let Joanna drift away from me, stretched to the end of the tether, and when I saw her it was like she snapped back at me at full speed, threatening to knock me down.

  I don’t even know what I could say to her. I’m glad you’re back? What happened to Dusty? Would you like me to take care of some of that tension for you?

  Probably better if I let her make the first move.

  Yes. That is definitely for the best.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Joe

  Again, I am covering for Didi.

  Luckily for her, I think Martha trusts me enough that she is willing to let me handle the Willowdale gallery. On the other hand, she might just be so frustrated with Didi that she’s not particularly interested in checking in with her.

  Every day, I make a little bit more progress on planning the Schindler show. Desi has been working in tandem with me to create marketing pieces and place press releases in the various art journals. The artist had a few more pieces in larger dimensions in her studio to ship to us, and she has been enthusiastic about the show. I mean, I don’t see how she could resist. She stands to make a whole lot of money if this goes well.

  I haven’t been able to hang any of the pieces yet, but I can picture it perfectly in my mind. The gallery is going to be transformed into a lush, sensory garden. Schindler’s paintings practically vibrate with intense color, all in blues and greens and violets with the occasional splash of pink or copper. It would be really nice to sell out the show. That is definitely something I haven’t done yet.

  And as the days drag by, I can feel summer settling in. I’ve almost mastered morning sickness. It hasn’t gone away—I’m just getting really good at it. I get up and shuffle to the bathroom before the nausea hits, then just go along with it. What else can I really do? It’s going to happen, whether I want it to or not. I might as well learn how to go with the flow.

  Standing in front of the mirror, I pivot to the side and check for signs. My boobs are kind of tremendous, not to mention tender and hot to the touch. That’s definitely the most obvious thing. Sometimes I feel like I can sort of see them out of the corner of my eye, which is a new experience. Like, they’re just in a place I normally don’t expect them.

  Am I showing? I doubt it. Probably not for quite a while. But everything is different. Maybe not outwardly, but everything seems different. Everything feels different.

  All of a sudden, I notice that there’s a horizon for my life, way out there. Not just a two-week plan, or two-year plan, or a five-year plan. This is a twenty-year plan I need to make.

  It’s scary as hell, but also sort of wonderful. My life was so much smaller before, I realize. Now I can gallop all the way to the horizon, and I get to bring a whole other person with me. Everything seems much more important than it was before. Much less disposable.

  Sunday morning, I drop by the general store to pick up one of every magazine before borrowing my dad’s truck to go out to Harbor Bay. The floor nurse gives me a friendly nod as I walk through the unlocked doors and stride down the hall toward Didi’s room.

  “Knock knock,” I call out before entering the room.

  Though it is before eleven, she is awake. That must be a good sign. She looks up at me and smiles, picking up a sheet of thick paper and turning it around to show me. On it are some smudges of watercolor in shades of red. A stripe of blue arches across the top.

  “Does this look like a barn to you?” she squints.

  I head toward it to make sure that my first impression was correct.

  “Yeah... no,” I answer, shaking my head. “That doesn’t look anything like a barn.”

  “That is what I was afraid of,” she sighs, laying the paper back on the small table by the window. “But sometimes, art, you know… it’s in the eye of the beholder.”

  “That’s nowhere near a barn, Didi,” I repeat. “I don’t care whose eyes you’re using. I don’t think that you’re going to be in for a career change.”

  She shrugs, poking the point of her paintbrush into a puddle of dark green paint and smearing it under the red shape. It’s sort of childish looking, but I doubt making gre
at art in here is really the point. They want people just to do things, to occupy themselves. They need to walk through pain-free days, just to see what it’s like.

  “I brought you magazines,” I tell her, arranging them on the foot of the bed. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Good news there,” she says brightly. “They tell me I am most of the way through detox, so that’s good. I’ve been downgraded from feeling like hot garbage to feeling like rancid meat.”

  “That’s an improvement?”

  She nods avidly. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe it. Hot garbage was definitely the worst.”

  She’s making light of it, but this has really been terrible. The first three days, they wouldn’t even let me see her, but I could hear her voice echoing down the hall. I could hear her moaning. It broke my heart.

  She probably won’t ever tell me precisely what she went through, but she looks different now. Her freckles are back. The circles under her eyes are almost gone. And she has started to gain back some of the weight she lost.

  “Hey, can I have this pudding cup?” I ask her, poking the tinfoil top with my fingernail. “Suddenly, I’m starved.”

  “Yeah, sure, if you’re not gonna throw it up right away.”

  “I can’t make any promises,” I shrug and go ahead and open the container anyway.

  We’ve known each other for so long, there isn’t a whole lot that we need to say. I need her to know I’m here. She needs to know I’m here. I bring her things, and we don’t talk too much about work because that is a lot of stress, and it’s unclear so far if it’s going to get better or worse.

  So far, I think she’s in the clear. As long as she makes it back in time for the opening, she will be all right. Martha doesn’t even have to know.

  “You know, I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” she mumbles suddenly, hunched over her painting and not looking up at me.

  “It’s just a temporary setback, Didi. You’ll make it through this.”

  “No… I mean everything. Always.”

  She looks up at me, her eyes shiny.

  “When we were in school…yYou looking out for me, I mean. All the acting out that you chaperoned. All the lies you told to my mom, to the school counselor.”

  “Taking your keys when you were drunk,” I add sarcastically. “Making sure you enrolled in community college…”

  She smiles thinly. “Yeah, all that stuff too,” she admits. “And dragging me out of state when it looked like I was hopeless here. That too.”

  “Manhattan was always my dream,” I shrug. “I was happy to have the company.”

  She smiles slowly, sitting back in her chair. The morning light cuts through the window and illuminates her face so that I can really see how much color has returned to her cheeks.

  “You know, that’s what you always say, but that’s not really it. I don’t even think you remember the truth anymore, Joe.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I think you’ve been telling everybody that story for so long that you believe it now. You never would’ve left Willowdale if not for me. You love it here. You’re a country girl. This is where you belong.”

  I shake my head, squinting. This can’t be good for her. I’m not even sure it’s good for me.

  “You look good here, too,” she continues. “You’ve been telling that story about how you were born to be in the big city so long that I think you forgot. You only did that to save me, Joe. You did that for me.”

  Here it comes again, those feelings I don’t want to feel. All that liquid emotion, sloshing around inside me, threatening to spill over the dam.

  “I love Manhattan,” I shrug. “That’s where everything is happening.”

  Didi smiles and takes a deep breath. “That’s true, but lots of things are happening here too,” she suggests, jerking her chin toward my abdomen. “I’m glad we’re back here while you do this. It feels right, doesn’t it?”

  Does it? I ask myself. I have to admit, thinking about being pregnant in Manhattan didn’t sit right with me. But that wasn’t going to be an option, anyway. I probably could have made it work.

  “Being a single mother in Willowdale is not going to be a walk in the park,” I observe. “This gallery better turn out to be a huge success, or I'm going to find myself begging for Dusty’s old job at the general store.”

  “Maybe your dad will hire you to hang drywall or something,” she winks.

  “I know you think you’re joking, but I totally could!” I huff defensively.

  “Of course you could!” she laughs. “You can do anything, Joe. Anything you want.”

  “Okay, okay… Dial it down,” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Sounds like those group therapy affirmation sessions are starting to take hold. Just save your strength for yourself, Didi. I am okay.”

  She winks. “You are more than okay.”

  I stand up, raising my hands defensively. “Seriously. Lighten up on the Saint Didi act, okay? We still got a lot of road to cover here.”

  “Lunchtime!” the orderly sings out, rolling a cart into Didi’s room.

  “Excellent!” Didi sighs, clapping her fingers excitedly under her chin. “I just love the food here!”

  “Okay, well, I guess I better get back to work… I’m leaving you a list of things to do when you get out of here, just so you know.”

  The orderly slides the tray onto Didi’s table and she pokes at the covered containers on the tray, clearly enthralled.

  “Okay, Joe,” she answers distractedly. “Just let me know.”

  “I’m serious, Didi,” I say. “You’re going to get credit for this show, so you’re going to do the work. So hurry up and get rehabbed or whatever, so you can come do chores.”

  With a mouth full of ham sandwich, she wrinkles her nose at me affectionately and gives me a thumbs up. I’m glad to see her eating, to be honest, as I wave and back out of the room.

  Truthfully, it is a lot of work, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, if I do everything, I know it will be done right. No chance of Didi forgetting a shipment, screwing up a press release, or missing a deadline for one of the event contractors.

  On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that is what the drug and alcohol counselors call enabling. And I realize I have been doing it for our whole lives.

  As I walk down the hallway, I have to wonder, have I made her worse? I always told myself that I was saving her more heartache by cleaning up after her, giving her space to heal herself. Besides, who am I to tell her how to run her life?

  But on the other hand, sparing her the consequences of her own actions might have made it easier for her to let things slide.

  And how much of my identity has been formed around mothering my best friend? I chuckle to myself ironically. Seems pretty funny that I never considered having a child of my own, when I’ve been so involved in fostering Didi.

  Or maybe I’m being too hard to myself? Or maybe I am not being hard enough? Or maybe I am exaggerating my own self-importance by thinking that her addiction has anything to do with me at all?

  “Maude?”

  But something that she said made a lot of sense. The idea digs at me. Why did we go to New York? Wasn’t it my idea? Or was it just the escape plan that I formulated for her? And back then, was I telling the truth about it being my dream or not?

  “Maude, dear?”

  Because if I am honest with myself, I can’t remember it being a dream of mine before we were actually doing it. It’s almost like I thought it up on the spot.

  “Maude?”

  My attention snaps back into focus and I look around, realizing someone is calling my mother’s name. An old man is sitting in the overstuffed chairs by the front window, his arm raised over his head to wave in my direction. His expression brightens when our eyes meet and I change directions to head his way.

  “You didn’t hear me!” he smiles as I approach. “I was calling you
!”

  Just as I am about to explain that Maude is my mother, I realize I am talking to Boss Warner. The white fluff in his ears has grown to heroic proportions and he is much older than I remember him.

  He holds out a hand to me and I take it in mine, smiling as I sit next to him.

  “Good morning, Boss Warner,” I smile, remembering my Florida manners. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  He takes a deep breath and holds it, covering my hand with his other hand and patting my wrist fondly.

  “Just another day in paradise,” he sighs, grinning. “I was just sitting here, waiting for the sandpipers. They usually stroll by here around lunchtime.”

  Glancing out the window, I think I can see what he means. There’s a fountain not far away and gravel paths all around it that lead out to the beach. I imagine a lot of wildlife comes by this window over the course of a day.

  “How have you been?” I ask, watching his green eyes gain and then lose focus.

  I can still see the image of the man I used to know, with this older man superimposed over it. He was already quite mature when he was my doctor. I actually thought of him as being ancient. But that must have been ten years ago, perhaps. And now he is here, and I don’t think he is practicing medicine.

  “Oh, can’t complain, can’t complain,” he shrugs. “I mean, I could complain, but what good would it do me?”

  I laugh along at his joke, certain he has said it at least a dozen times, probably since this morning. I remember he was always the sort to recycle a good joke until everyone had heard it at least twice.

  “So,” he says, tugging me a little closer with his eyes twinkling, “how far along are you? Do you know what you are having?”

  My breath catches in my throat. “Boss? What are you talking about?”

  I try to pull back, but he holds my hand trapped between his.

  “Oh, I’ve been in the business too long to miss the signs,” he winks. “And don’t worry… I’m sure no one else will be able to tell for another couple of months. It will just be our secret.”