by Laura Kenyon
“Which two?”
“Regian, but Hunter’s council says it’s coming. And Braddax, as usual.” He shrugged. “Maybe you can remind Belle it’s that time of year again. You know, the only time of year Donner has to do anything?”
“All right,” she said. “Now you better get going before my other husband arrives. He enjoys spending time with me.”
Aaron scrunched his mouth up and flashed a smile his eyes didn’t back up. “I’m sorry, babe. I love you. I promise things will calm down soon.” He disappeared behind the door without waiting for her reply.
Alone again, Cindy clutched her teacup with both hands. Things were busy, she thought while raising the batch of diet tea to her lips, but they were plenty calm. That was the problem.
“Ugck!” she spat the moment the liquid hit her tongue. She’d encountered less vile brews cleaning toilets for her stepmother’s bulimic friends. “Screw this. I was probably too skinny back then anyway.”
“That’s what I said, you diva,” a voice called back as Cindy jumped and fumbled with the cup. “It’s not like you can’t afford a new dress.”
Cindy whipped around and stared at the media screen over the fireplace. Rather than seeing the news, or her own reflection (heaven forbid), she saw a heart-shaped face with a choppy chestnut bob and a crafty smile.
“Rapunzel! What the heck!”
The woman on the screen shrugged. “What? You gave me the bypass code.”
“For emergencies! Geez. Use the regular number first or call my cell phone. What if I was naked?”
Rapunzel’s head shook, revealing a layer of bright pink hair beneath the brown. “First, I tried your cell; it’s off. Second, I can’t predict you getting naked in your living room.”
Cindy’s hands flew to her hips. “It’s not like I—” She stopped and remembered what had almost happened with Aaron. She’d have to change that bypass code pronto. “The kids are at school.”
“Whatever. It’s not like you have anything I’ve never seen before anyway. We’ve got the same equipment.”
Cindy snorted and ground her foot into the carpet. “Yeah right. My equipment’s not even in the same league as yours.”
“What are you, fifteen years old?” Cindy watched Rapunzel roll her eyes and then shake the irritation away. “Remind me to finish yelling at you for that later. Right now we’ve got bigger problems. Like an em-er-gen-cy.”
“An emergency?” Cindy repeated, happy to abandon her own troubles for a moment. “Are you okay?”
Rapunzel fingered a line of beads that looked like turquoise boulders weighing down her neck. Even under duress, she looked confident, spunky, strong … everything Cindy wanted to be if she could just stop over-analyzing for a second. Whereas she could take hours to decide between a white or ivory belt, Rapunzel changed her whole look—brunette girl-next-door, redheaded glam goddess, hipster with a black and purple shag—at least once a week. She was a starlet chameleon, and proud of it.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Rapunzel answered with a sigh. “Just wish I could say the same for my ears. All this crying is—”
“What?” Cindy’s interest was fully piqued. “Who’s crying?”
“Belle,” Rapunzel huffed, as if the question was just as jarring. “It turns out the Mirror wasn’t embellishing Donner’s escapades.”
“What do you mean?”
Rapunzel sucked in her cheeks. “Belle found lace panties and a whole bunch of fetish stuff—at least what she considers fetish stuff—in his special secret room.”
Special secret room? A crushing feeling settled over her. Cindy always worried that Donner was too wild for monogamy, but Belle always insisted he was tame behind closed doors. “What’s she going to do?”
“She’s staying with me for now. He kicked her out.”
Tea splashed into the air and landed in an orange puddle at Cindy’s feet. “Kicked her out? He cheated and kicked her out? But she’s a queen! You can’t just toss out a queen unless—” Cindy’s jaw clamped shut. It had been nearly a century since one of Marestam’s sitting monarchs stooped to divorce. Frigid apathy and murder, perhaps, but not divorce. If that happened, Belle would lose everything. Donner was the one with the royal blood.
“Cin, I don’t know what he’s planning. Just get over here now. The media hasn’t broken anything yet, but I know they’re on it and she’ll be mortified when they do. I’ll call Penny and you handle Dawn. We’re gonna need the whole gang for this.”
Chapter Three
RAPUNZEL
“I wish I could say I’m surprised,” Rapunzel said, tilting the umbrella for optimal sun—and then tilting it back when her friends recoiled from the glare. She sighed and pressed a melon-sized pair of sunglasses over her eyes. People who came to her penthouse, perched high over the upper west bank of Carpale, usually came to make headlines and live it up. This cheer-up-Belle pity party was cramping her style. “The guy’s a wolf, just like Perrin Hildebrand said. Tried to whip it out for me dozens of times. Fortunately, I have a policy of not sleeping with men who were once animals.”
“Oh, is that where you draw the line?” Cindy asked while flipping through her planner. “Good to know it’s not something trivial, like being married to one of your closest friends.” Rapunzel made a face that was half sneer, half smirk. “Did you warn Belle about this?”
Rapunzel rolled her head back. “Oh, I alluded to it. But you girls are a lot closer to her than I am. I know she only came here last night because I’m the shortest drive and don’t have a husband.”
Cindy let out a pop of laughter. “What does that matter? You’re more likely to be occupied with a man at that hour than any of us boring married folk. How many did you have to kick out when Belle knocked on your door last night? Six? Seven?”
“Two,” Rapunzel said. “Give me some credit.” She crossed her arms and plopped into a deck chair. “The others only needed me to ask nicely.”
Cindy let out an I-knew-it grunt while Penny—officially Princess Penelopea of Riverfell—rocked forward to snatch a shrimp.
“He should get herpes,” Penny said, as naturally as if she was observing the weather. “And for the record, Logan and I are doing just fine in the bedroom. But if he ever hit on you, I’d expect a phone call. Outright.”
Rapunzel gulped her wine. “Trust me, Pen. The only way Logan will ever cheat on you is if his mother orders him to. And even she’d choose a foreign daughter-in-law over a philandering son.”
Penny, famous for feeling three magical peas under twenty mattresses, hummed an unintelligible response through a mouth full of shrimp. She was the newest edition to the group and came from another world entirely—a world where freedom was a myth and everyone who survived past age two had skin thicker than leather. She couldn’t fathom things like “political correctness” or “self-censorship” or “sensible style” when there were so many options in Marestam. Rapunzel loved that about her. Every day, her beautiful olive complexion seemed to radiate with hope and freedom—except around her mother-in-law, that is, when it turned ashen.
Cindy looked up from her planner and tossed it aside. Her eyes flicked past the hors d’oeuvres. “All I know is that when Belle comes out here, we need to be supportive. Not so glum as to start her crying again, but not too harsh on Donner either.” She zeroed in on Rapunzel. “After all, things could still work out, and we wouldn’t want her thinking we hate her husband.”
Rapunzel laughed and snapped a cracker beneath a mound of havarti. “Honey, that ship’s sailed on my end. So how about you girls tell me all the nasty things you want to say about Donner and I’ll take the blame. If she goes back to him, I won’t want to be her friend anymore anyway.”
Cindy gasped. “Punsy! Take that back!”
Rapunzel smirked. “We could still hang out in a group, I suppose, but I’d never respect her again. And quit it with the ‘Punsy.’ It makes me sound like a sport.”
Penny and Cindy shot each other mirrored smirks b
ut said nothing. Rapunzel stared over the railing, between the neighboring towers, and into the West River forty stories below. Across the water sat dozens of realms and kingdoms that disappeared in Marestam’s spotlight. Of all the places Grethel could have banished her, she had to be grateful it was here. What if she’d landed in a place where teased hair and snakeskin spandex was de rigueur? She shivered at the thought.
“Need I remind you,” Rapunzel continued, “that Donner was cursed by a pureblood fairy?”
“As opposed to what?” Penny asked while wafting a fly from the crab dip. “Purebloods the only kind that can curse. Aren’t they?”
Rapunzel shook her head but patted Penny’s hand. For someone with a law degree, she didn’t seem all that quick. “Yes, dear. My point is that he was cursed. And when fairies cast a curse, they lose all their powers until it’s finished or broken.”
“Yeah, and they go to jail.” Penny shrugged. “So?”
“So think about it. Why would some happy little fairy, going about her life, give up all her powers just to make some spoiled king ugly? You have to be a special kind of creep to piss someone off that badly. Maybe it scared him straight long enough to fool Belle. But you know people can’t really change. Not permanently.”
Before her guests could argue, Rapunzel saw a head of bright red hair drifting onto the terrace. “Dawn,” she called, hopping to her feet to embrace the Queen of Regian. “So glad you could make our little gathering.”
“How could I miss it?” Dawn said as she sailed around the table, bestowing hugs and expressing her shock. “I felt a ghost stretch out on my grave when I got your message. I would have come sooner, but Hunter and I … we had an obligation.”
“Couples counseling, huh?” Cindy translated, shoving her chair back for a kiss. “No worries. You look nice.”
Dawn smiled and gave a childish twirl in her eyelet sundress. “Isn’t it a lovely frock? It’s a Thumbelina. See how tiny the stitches are? Cost a bit of a fortune, but I have come to believe she’s the only one who makes clothes like they used to.”
Rapunzel nodded, even though she thought the neckline was far too high. According to the others, Dawn’s dress was “refined and dainty,” just like her. But in Rapunzel’s opinion, the “sleeping beauty” queen needed to move on already and stop viewing ancient times through rose-tinted glasses. Sure, she grew up three hundred years ago, but she’d been here for nearly a decade. At least Penny, who looked ridiculous in a plunge-neck catsuit and a skirt that mimicked a dented lampshade, didn’t cling to the past.
Rapunzel leaned back and let the royal flattery session run its course. It didn’t interest her in the least. Despite being revered as an international trendsetter, Rapunzel never spent more than a few seconds thinking about her “look.” In life and fashion, she did what she wanted, when she wanted, until she wanted something else—be that blue hair, a pantsuit, or a henna tattoo on her face. She never understood why so many people wasted their time following trends—or going out of her way to not follow trends, for that matter. The fact that she always seemed to start them was an amusing irony—and what made her the most successful publicist in Marestam.
“When Belle comes out,” she said as the fashion chatter started dying down, “it might be wise to avoid talking about the privileges of royal bank accounts. She thinks she’s gonna wind up in some ramshackle cottage in the boonies again.”
“Oh, of course!” cried Dawn as Cindy re-clasped the knit bolero she was about to show off. “Do tell us, how is she? Has Donner contacted her? How long will she stay here? Please say this will pass.”
“Yeah, we’re here for details.” Penny scooped up her goblet the way a hawk would snatch an unlucky rabbit. “And camaraderie, of course.” She downed the remaining inch of merlot and refilled her glass.
Cindy’s bracelet clunked against the table as she clasped her hands. “Just start at the beginning.”
The terrace fell silent as all eyes settled on Rapunzel. Ordinarily, she would have started with something snarky—a joke to break the tension or a dig at the institution of marriage. But then she looked around the table at three of her closest friends and saw more than just pity for Belle. She saw fear. She saw Penny racing toward her two-drink limit. She saw Dawn kneading her elbows into the table. She saw Cindy feasting on her lower lip like it was a brick of chocolate. She saw her friends terrified that if Belle’s fairy tale could end this quickly, theirs could too.
She relayed the story as Belle had choked it out to her just hours earlier. She told them about the guest bedroom, the red panties, and the fact that Donner hadn’t tried to deny a thing. She told them that Belle was a soaking mess when she knocked on her door at 2 a.m., after having driven around for an hour and cried somewhere in the woods for even longer. She told them that Belle’s slick red sports car—the one none of them had ever actually seen her drive—looked like it had been used as a battering ram. (Which it had—against a tree, unfortunately, not Donner.)
“She finally stopped crying around sunrise,” she said. “I think that was more a sign of dry tear ducts than anything else. And she’s been sleeping ever since. I did damage control all morning, but even I can’t keep the media off this story; it’s too juicy.” Rapunzel looked around. The ordinarily boisterous rooftop emitted nothing but silence. Soul-numbing, ungodly silence. “Someone please say something, because this is almost worse than the crying.”
Another minute passed. The clock atop Carpale Castle—five blocks away and half a mile over—clanged three deep, rumbling dongs. Finally, when the last echo disappeared, Cindy managed a few words.
“So she never saw who it was?” Her voice was so soft it could have been the wind. Rapunzel shook her head.
“The poor thing,” Dawn sighed as each woman sank deeper into her individual nightmare.
Rapunzel, as an unmarried quasi-celebrity with no responsibilities but to herself, could hardly imagine what they were thinking. But she knew it wasn’t good. “You know what?” she blurted, hoping to avoid a group suicide. “Everything’s going to be fine. You know why? Because as much as you all hate Perrin Hildebrand and all his tabloid buddies, everyone knows what Donner’s been up to because of them. The public will have every reason to take Belle’s side. She’ll get a great divorce settlement and live the rest of her life in luxury without that jerk giving her grief all the time. She’ll be a hero, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You really believe that?” Dawn asked, quashing the momentary rise in spirit. Rapunzel made a fist under the table. “I mean, Belle will have their sympathies, of course. But the people of Braddax rely on their King. There would be consequences if they refused to side with him.”
“Well they better,” answered Rapunzel, her tone sharp. “Belle’s their Queen as much as Donner’s their King, and these aren’t the Dark Ages. Men don’t automatically win anymore. You seem to keep forgetting that. Want me to write it down for you?”
Dawn shifted in her seat. “I’m aware that Belle’s their Queen, Rapunzel. And we all love her. But it isn’t her gender that’s the issue. It’s the fact that … well, her blood is not royal.”
Rapunzel’s neck snapped backwards. “Oh.” Her words plopped like bricks into a teacup. “Oh. Well. Excuse me. I didn’t realize those of us with peasant blood were so expendable. I’m probably polluting your air just being here.”
“No,” said Dawn, panning the table for help. “It would be the same for Cindy. I only meant—”
“You know, I actually envy her,” Cindy interrupted, triggering an uproar. The previous skirmish disappeared.
“How can you say—”
“You can’t possibly mean—”
Rapunzel slapped a fistful of crackers in front of Cindy’s drink. “Of course she doesn’t mean that. She’s starving herself for some arbitrary milestone and isn’t thinking straight.”
At this, Cindy’s ordinarily glowing face went flat and starchy. All her dazzling features caved in toward her nose. “
I am not starv—”
“Not. Thinking. Straight,” Rapunzel repeated.
Cindy huffed. “Look. I’m just saying that Belle’s free now. She can have adventures, travel, eat cookies at midnight and find out what she really wants in a man—or if she even wants one at all. She can do anything she wants, anytime she wants to, without having to worry about how it affects anyone.”
“That’s a lot of anys,” said Penny, bringing Cindy’s tribulation into perspective. “But I’m pretty sure you can do that now.”
“Don’t you ever feel trapped? Making a million decisions but never doing what you really want?” She sighed. “Like traveling. Do you know my father went through three passports before he died? Three! I’ve only used mine twice—and once was for coming back! Between the kids and the media and the charities and the constant pressure to be perfect. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know I’m lucky. But between us … in secret … can’t we all just admit that sometimes having it all really means giving it all away?”
Cindy waited for Dawn, who was trapped in the wrong century, or Penny—stuck beneath her mother-in-law’s roof—to back her up. Instead, Dawn just shivered and Penny thrust out her glass. “I need a refill,” she said, eyeing the depleted magnum.
“Yes, honey.” Rapunzel slid her own goblet in front of her friend and accepted the empty. “I think that’s what we all need. I’ll grab another bottle.”
* * *
Belle was still missing when Rapunzel swaggered through the slider, her head feeling too heavy for her body. Flicking open the cupboard, she selected a table wine with a tan label, grabbed a corkscrew, and straddled the bottle. She was leaning forward like a firefighter on hose detail, yanking the cork free, when Belle drifted in from the hallway.
“Watch out!” Rapunzel yelled as the corkscrew flew out of her hand, ricocheted off the oven hood and dropped between Belle’s bare feet. “Sorry. Some bigwig swiped my good opener the other night, even though he’s—”
Rapunzel bit her tongue, recalling her own advice on the patio, and reached for a fifth goblet. “But I’m glad to see the guest of honor’s finally decided to join us.”