The Frog Prince

Chapter Eleven

C hapter E leven

T he manager takes the two menus from the hostess. “If you’ll come this way,” he says, and leads us to our table. Table37. Right in the middle of the long wall, right where Paul didn’t want to be.

Paul hesitates at the table as the manager waits silently, expressionlessly. This is what he does for a living. He can wait all night if necessary.

“Where would you like to sit?” I ask Paul, desperately ready to move beyond the seating stage of dinner. I hate tension—avoid conflict like the plague—and I can’t bear to continue in this vein.

Paul shrugs. “I don’t care.”

“I’ll sit on the booth side, then,” I offer, and I slide carefully between tables and settle into the booth, the seat sinking slightly.

Paul sits in the chair opposite me. The table’s small, we’re practically touching, and the restaurant is beginning to fill up. The hostess seats a couple on one side of us. The middle tables are virtually full.

As I pick up my menu, Paul mutters, “I can’t sit here.”

I look up at him. “Why not?”

“I can’t face the wall. I always sit with my back to the wall. I have to be able to see the door. I have to see who’s coming and going.”

If I had known Paul was going to be such a pain in the ass, I would never have agreed to dinner. “Would you like to switch places with me?”

“Yes.”

I get up and give the hostess an apologetic smile as I have to squeeze past the couple she’s now trying to seat on the other side of us. And now Paul’s squeezing past the couple, and it’s a four-way traffic stop with everyone backing up, moving forward, turning a corner, sitting down.

It’s a damn production, and I’m roiling on the inside, but I take his chair. His chair is hard. And warm. For some reason that gives me the creeps. I suppose if I liked him, if I were more attracted, it’d be a nonissue, but right now, thinking of my butt sitting where his butt has just been is making me feel a little squirmy.

But Paul’s still not happy. “Now you’re too tall.”

I look across the table, try to avoid my reflection in the big mirror running behind Paul’s head. “What?”

“Can you scrunch down a little?”

I smile, but I feel peculiar on the inside. I’m not understanding. Something’s happening, and I don’t understand what it is.

“People are going to think I’m short.” He’s talking again, probably because I’m just staring at him, my mind blank, my face blank, unable to process anything.

“People will think you’re taller than me,” and he’s still talking. His mouth is moving, and I’m watching his mouth, thinking this is weird, he’s so weird, but I can’t seem to say or do anything. “But you’re not taller than me, Holly. I’m taller than you.”

“I know. And nobody is going to think that.”

He gives a little bounce on the bench, and yes, okay, he is rather low, but he’s no lower than I was, and I never worried about who was taller or shorter.

“I can’t sit this low.” He bounces on the bench again, up and down in his black “Sprockets” turtleneck, and with his pale hair combed all the way off his forehead, I feel as if I were in a German postmodern play. Abruptly he leans across the table, tries to get the attention of another unfortunate busboy. “Yeah, hi,” Paul says as the busboy approaches. “I’m too low. I can’t sit this low.”

The busboy stares at Paul and then me, uncomprehendingly, but I say nothing, too fascinated with my glass of ice water.

“I need something to sit on.” Paul’s voice carries, and I slink lower in my seat, knowing that people are going to think Paul is my boyfriend. They’re going to think we’re together, because, well, we’re together, and that’s humiliating, so I practice detaching myself from my body and floating above the restaurant.

“I need something to sit on,” Paul repeats, and I’m no longer floating anywhere but crashing back into our table headfirst.

Something he can sit on? Like what? A booster seat?

“You want something to sit on?” The busboy repeats haltingly. He doesn’t speak English as a first language, either, and I curse Paul silently for putting young immigrant males through this torture with me.

But Paul’s pleased. He’s been heard. “ Exactly! ”

The busboy leaves, and Paul looks at me, hands folded on the table. “We’re going to get this fixed.”

Oh, yes, we will. And my thought is that I’m just going to stand up and leave—I don’t owe him an explanation; I can just go—but before I can move, the manager returns with the busboy in tow.

“What seems to be the problem?” the manager asks.

Paul bounces on the seat once, twice. “I can’t sit here. I’m too short. I can barely see over the table.”

“Why don’t you change places?” the manager suggests with exaggerated politeness, pointing to me.

Paul shakes his head. “My back would be to the door.”

I glance down at the napkin in my lap and think calming thoughts.

“So what do you want me to do?” the manager says.

“Don’t you have something I can sit on?” Paul holds his hands up, showing a good twenty inches of space. “You know, something tall?”

“Like what?”

“Phone books.”

“You want to sit on phone books?”

“Three or four.”

The couples on either side of us are listening. They’re not even trying to hide their interest. Both couples, one young and chic and the other older and silver, are following the discussion now.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the manager answers, “but we don’t have phone books.”

“You have to have phone books. Every restaurant has phone books.”

“But not for people to sit on.”

“I just need—”

“No.”

Paul flushes. “You have to have something in the back. Something I could use.”

“And what do you suggest?” The manager’s voice drips ice.

Paul glances around, his gaze traveling across the restaurant, over the tables, the linens…

“Napkins. Towels. Something like that.”

If I were boneless, I’d slide beneath the table right now.

“You’d like towels ,” drawls the manager.

“Or tablecloths.”

“ Table cloths.”

“Yes, tablecloths,” Paul repeats stiffly. “If you don’t mind.”

The manager bows and walks away. I lower my menu. Paul glowers at me, and I rise. I’ve had it, absolutely had it, and I want to be polite and find a cordial way to make my escape, but before words leave my lips, two busboys return with a stack of tablecloths, still wrapped in plastic from the cleaners.

“Wonderful!” Paul enthuses, as if this were entirely normal. I stand next to our table as he takes half the tablecloths, places them on the bench, sits down, tests the tablecloths, and then stands and takes three more.

And that’s when I go. I don’t even say a word. I can’t. Holding my coat and purse close to my body, I run from the restaurant and all the way to my car as if the devil himself were chasing me.

That was horrible, horrible, and I will never, ever endure another bad date—or rude man—just because I’m supposed to be a nice girl.

I’m not that nice.

God help me, I’m honestly not that nice.

*

I’m so upset driving home—upset with Paul, upset with Tom, upset with me—that I can hardly see straight.

By the time I reach my apartment, I crack, absolutely crack, and do the worst thing possible, I pick up the phone and make the absolutely worst kind of call.

A call of need, a call of desperation.

I phone Jean-Marc. Late on a Friday night, no less. Even worse, he picks up.

Jean-Marc is quiet on the other end of the line, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far, said too much, sounded too broken, too exposed, too pathetic.

I know the worst mistake is ever to need too much, and yet I need too much.

This much I know.

I’m the way I am because I feel so hollow, and the only way to fill the emptiness is by getting something.

Something like attention. Something like warmth. Something like… love.

I’ve read all the magazines and books you’ve read, watched the same TV shows, too. I know what the experts and talk show doctors say. No one will ever love me the way I need to be loved. No one will ever want me the way I want. No one will ever give me everything, so I’ve got to do it for myself. I have to like myself more. Have to love myself so no one else will ever have to do that job.

But I want someone to do that job. I want someone who will find it not a job but a pleasure. Someone who will want me, like me just because I’m likable.

“Maybe it’d be better if you didn’t call anymore.” Jean-Marc sounds quiet, distant, so coolly, completely detached. I say nothing. I’m pressing my nails into the palms of my hands. Not call? “I don’t—” My voice breaks. He hasn’t been a proper lover, proper husband, proper anything at all, but he’s still somehow important. Significant.

He ties me to a life I don’t have anymore, the life I’d thought I wanted, the life I thought I was getting.

“It’d probably be better,” he says, and I wonder how he could say that. Better for whom?

Him?

And I see him—us—on our first date, the beautiful French restaurant, the champagne he’d ordered, and me sitting there smiling like a fool as the bubbles rose up inside me, dancing in my head even as the bubbles fizzed and popped out of my flute onto the back of my hand. It was magic: the place, the night, the dreams.

I even remember what I wore—a turquoise silk blouse, black leather, pants, something sparkly at my ears—and I felt just as sparkly on the inside, felt beautiful and together as if the world were my oyster.

“You don’t want me to call anymore.”

“I just don’t think it helps. You always get upset and I—”

I hang on his words, wondering, hoping, wanting him to finally say something that will help, something that will make sense.

“You’re using me as a crutch,” is what he does say. “But I can’t help you adjust. I can’t help you through this.”

“Why not?” And this time I can’t keep the anger to myself. “Why not, Jean-Marc? You helped make this.”

He makes a rough sound in his throat, very guttural, very French. I’ve heard my favorite French actors do this, and they sound intelligent, gorgeous, sexy, but it makes me see red now.

“You are a part of this,” I say, and I’m practically shouting. “You married me. Whether you like it or not. You walked me down the aisle. You said the words ‘I do.’ You put the ring on my finger—”

“Only because you wanted me to.”

I grab for air, mouth opening wide.

“You pushed,” he continues, his voice bitter, more bitter than I’ve ever heard before. “You pushed and pushed and there you are, living in my house, sleeping in my bed, and what was I to do? Hmm? Tell me, Holly, what was I to do?”

Love me. Be glad I was in your house, sleeping in your bed.

My eyes sting, and I look away, can’t focus, turn my head the opposite direction, trying to escape the pain inside me. I did this. I did this. I did this.

But how?

“I loved you,” I say at last, and the words are almost · laughable between us. What the hell does “love” mean? What the hell does love do?

“Holly, you’re a good girl, a sweet girl, but I didn’t ever…” He sighs. “ Cherie , I didn’t love you.”

Oh. It was bad the first time, but it’s no better this time. No, not at all. “You said you did,” and my voice comes out small, and I sound no better than a kid. Hurt, disillusioned—this isn’t the me I want to be.

He’s not saying anything, and for a minute there’s just this awful silence and emptiness, and I know this place. I know this feeling well.

“You wanted me to love you,” he continues. “You wanted something I didn’t have, something… I don’t know… something I just couldn’t give you.”

“So it—we—were just sex?” Not that the sex lasted very long, either.

“And friendship.”

Fuck. You.

I’m seething. Raging. The friendship was obviously lacking, and for your information, the sex wasn’t that good.

“We made a mistake.” Jean-Marc, who never wanted to talk, can’t seem to shut up now. “So we’re fixing it.”

Leaving me is his idea of fixing.

Jean-Marc must have gone to Dad’s class, Abandonment101: Agony for the Whole Family.

“I won’t call again,” I say, but I don’t want to say the words, don’t want to make anything so final, so definitive. Like death, I think.

Or divorce.

But that’s what this is. And the realization slams into me, swift, harsh—divorce.

Finished. Kaput. Over. Dead.

“Take care, Holly.”

Is this it, then? It’s really over, the final tie cut, the relationship truly dead and buried?

I want to say his name; I want him to be kind; I want warmth, but I can’t tell him what I want, can’t humiliate myself again with what I need.

“Be happy,” he adds, and before I can say “Good luck, good-bye,” he’s hung up.

The tears want to rush my eyes. There’s a half-scream hanging in my throat. I can’t bear it when people hang up on me, can’t bear it when people walk away from me, can’t bear feeling so helpless. Feeling so…

Abandoned.

Thanks, Dad.

I leave my apartment to keep from dissolving into the mess I tend to be, and walk, and walk. It’s dark, and the cold bites at me, and I should have brought a coat, but maybe it’s better this way, better to keep me icy and alive than warm and fragmented.

I can’t call him anymore, I think; he’s told me not to call. He’s told me to leave him alone. That’s essentially what he’s saying.

Stay away.

Leave me alone.

I don’t want to deal with you anymore.

And even though I’m chilly, the tears well up and they fall, but I keep walking up Fillmore, and I wipe the tears as they fall, but I don’t stop walking. I just bundle my arms across my chest and stagger up a hill and down a hill and past the big beautiful houses in Pacific Heights, and back down the street toward Japan Town. I’m so full of missing, so full of loneliness and broken dreams, that I don’t know what to do but walk.

And walk.

And walk.

Missing is the hardest thing I know; missing is so much harder than not thinking and not feeling, and now that I’ve started to feel, I’m afraid to be alone with all my emotions.

If I knew how to talk to my mom, I’d call her right now. I know she was just here for a weekend with me, but she loved Jean-Marc; she thought he was the answer to everything, thought he’d whisk me away, save me from myself. And yet here I am—alone and single again and not quite certain that I can take care of myself despite all my indignant assertions.

But of course she’d think Jean-Marc was the answer. She’s the one who craves the fairy-tale ending even more than I do. She’s the one who believes it’s a man who will, and must, save us… that women need to be rescued, as if we were all helpless, fragile maidens locked in towers and dungeons or lying asleep, poisoned.

Rapunzel had to let down her ridiculously long hair so the prince could climb up it and free her.

Cinderella needed a fairy godmother and glass slippers for Prince Charming to save her from a life of misery.

Snow White needed not just one but a bunch of little men—seven, to be exact—to protect her until the prince could stumble through the woods and discover said maiden, unconscious and waiting for him. A gift offering on ice.

No, can’t call Mom, can’t tell her what I’m feeling, or let her close to my pain. I don’t think she knows what to do with pain. She doesn’t even know what to do with her pain. For God’s sake, she’s fifty-five and sleeping on the living room couch in front of the TV every night!

I lost my husband and I lost my dad, and in so many ways I lost my mom, too.

The losses, added up like that, are rather horrifying, and there seems to be a pattern here, and the pattern requires examination, but that’s the one thing I can’t do. I’m afraid to pull out a mirror and inspect all my flaws and wounds. I’m scared. What if I’m not a real human being after all?

What if I’m an alien?

A two-headed monster from Mars? Something from one of those old sci-fi films I used to watch at the Tower Theater in Fresno back in high school?

I bundle my arms across my chest. It’s colder, and I’m chilled all the way through. My teeth have begun to chatter, and the chattering teeth have helped dry up my tears.

I make another turn, climb another hill, and return to my neighborhood.

I reach the café where I went to breakfast a couple of weeks ago and order a cup of decaf cappuccino, and I sit at a table by the window with my grande cappuccino and stare down into the oversize cup. The tears are so close to the surface but there’s no one to call, no one to tell. I’ve spent too much time trying to be okay; I don’t know how to ask for help.

I reach up to swipe tears, and somehow I hit the rim of the big mug with my elbow, and the cappuccino tips, spilling. Suddenly there is someone shoving paper napkins at me, a whole handful. I say a muffled thanks and clean up the coffee. As I move to throw away the soggy napkins, I realize that the person who shoved the napkins into my hands is Gorgeous Guy, the one who looks like a Gap model, the one who wanted to see the sports section.

“Hi,” I say. “Thanks.”

“You didn’t get burned, did you?”

I’d forgotten what a great voice he had, forgotten that it’s slow and a little sexy. “No. I’m fine.”

“Good.”

He stands next to my table for a moment, staring down at me. “You look familiar,” he says.

“Oh.” I reach up, push hair out of my eyes. “We talked once, briefly. You asked to borrow the sports section.”

He seems to remember, or at least almost, because there’s still a funny line between his eyebrows. “Right.”

“You wanted to check your high school’s score.”

He smiles, expression clearing. “You have a good memory.”

You’re kind of hard to forget. But I don’t say that, because it goes without saying, and I wonder how genetics does this—makes someone so strong and clear, all clean lines, perfect geometric planes, and then throws in the thick hair, the deep-blue eyes, and the intelligence on the inside that makes it come together, the energy that makes the person more than beautiful, but intriguing. “How’s your school doing?”

“Okay.”

“You’re not in high school.”

He laughs. “No. I teach in San Mateo, at the high school. Science.”

“Science?” I look up at him briefly and look away, a hint of heat in my face. I would have loved science if I had a teacher who looked like him.

“Biology, advanced biology, that kind of thing.”

I nod, trying not to think too much about the birds and the bees—reproductive science I’m sure he covers at some point, somewhere in the curriculum. And I think we’ve just about wrapped up our conversation when he gestures to the chair across from me.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Yes—no.” I swipe the rest of my tears away. “I mean, that’d be great.”

He sits, and he’s even handsomer up close. His eyes are really blue, Hollywood blue, and I’m reminded of that actor, the one who played the southern hunk in Sweet Home Alabama .

“Where’re you from?” he asks, leaning toward me, one hard thigh jutting out from beneath the table, the shape of a strong knee just barely outlined against the faded denim.

“Visalia,” I say, knowing he won’t have a clue.

“Exeter,” he answers, and we both grin.

Exeter’s just nine miles east of Visalia. You take Highway198 toward Kaweah Lake, jog right off the highway before you reach Badger Hill, and there it is.

I can’t believe he was raised nine miles from my hometown. He’s too good-looking to be from Cowville. “You moved away from Exeter when you were a kid, right?”

His eyes crease. “Sometimes I wish I did, but nope. Graduated from Exeter High School. I’m Alex.”

“Holly.” I shake his hand, and I’m tempted to ask what class he was in, but I hold back. I know he’s older than I am; I peg him to be early, maybe even mid-thirties, as his bones are settled, his frame big, solid, and there’s something in his eyes that indicates he’s comfortable. Relaxed. He knows who he is.

Instead I point to his feet, “So those are real boots?” I ask. “Not just Needless Markup wannabes?”

He laughs low and husky and, stretching one leg out, lifts the hem on his jeans, showing the genuine stitching on the leather. “Real boots.”

“You were an aggie?”

“Yep. You, too?”

“Nope.”

“No Four-H? No FFA sweetheart queen?”

I shake my head as the knot inside my chest eases. I can already breathe a little easier. I feel a little better. Just knowing that Gorgeous Guy is from my neck of the woods makes everything okay. “I lived in town. I left the ag stuff to my friends.”

“Smart girl.”

“You’re a country boy.”

“Citrus.”

“You must love fog.”

He laughs, and it’s deep, sharp, distinctly male. “Far better than cold snaps.” And we both know we’re talking about the cold, clear winter nights that send farmers rushing through their orchards, lighting the oil smudge pots to keep the fruit from freezing.

“So what are you doing in the city?” he asks, changing the subject.

“I’m in PR.”

He lifts an eyebrow, so I hurriedly add, “I work as an event planner.”

“That’s great.”

And then I blurt things I shouldn’t. “I can’t believe you’re a teacher. I thought you were a model.”

He laughs again, a great big belly laugh, but before he can answer, I hear a voice. “ Holly? ”

I recognize the voice, even the incredulous tone, and immediately flash back to my freshman year of high school.

I turn around, and it is Katie. Katie. Katie from freshman PE, Katie from honors English, Katie from AP history. Katie Robinson. For a moment I do nothing but grin like an idiot, and then I’m launching myself up out of the chair and I’m hugging her. “What are you doing here, Katie?”

“I live in San Francisco.”

“Where?” I let go, step back, glance at Gorgeous Guy and then Katie. “She’s from Visalia, too.” I can’t stop beaming at her. “Do you live near here?”

“Up the street, three blocks over,” she says, pointing toward Lombard. But Katie’s not alone. She’s with a friend she introduces as Kirk. Alex stands up, and we all shake hands.

With introductions over, I turn immediately back to Katie. It’s been so long since I last saw her… seven years… eight… incredible.

“So how are you?” I ask for what seems like the fifth time.

“Good,” Katie answers. “Really good. And you?”

“Great.” I’m still grinning. I can’t help it. These past few weeks have been really hard, and tonight was just the worst, and when I feel at my lowest, Kate Robinson appears. Kate—Katie—and I go way back, to all those geeky years when we washed our faces with Noxzema and slapped on Clearasil like it was going out of style.

“When did you return to California?” I ask. She’d moved away in the middle of our senior year. Her father had been transferred to the East Coast—Boston? Philadelphia? (It’s terrible, but all those places sound the same to West Coasters.) And even though she’d begged to finish her year at Redwood, her parents had decided it’d be in the best interests of the family to move everyone at once. So they’d all gone, Katie and her three younger brothers.

My God. Katie. Katie Robinson.

And she’s even more gorgeous than before, less wholesome, more sophisticated; cheekbones have emerged from adolescent baby fat; her eyebrows are darker; her blond hair highlighted and precision cut. She looks like the ultimate California girl, even though she’s New Jersey born and partially bred.

“Two years ago. I work for Intel, but here in the city.”

Alex is still standing, but he’s reaching for the coat he’d slung over the back of his chair. “Sounds like you guys have a lot to catch up on. I’ll let you chat, but, Holly, can I get your number?”

I think he’s joking and then I see he’s got a pen out and a scrap of paper with his number on it. I tear off the part with his number and then write my number on the other part. I look at him and think he’s so out of my league—I mean, he is Gorgeous Guy after all—but I hand him my number, knowing he’ll never call, knowing he’s just trying to be nice since I was bawling my eyes out.

And then he’s gone, gorgeous Alex walking out the door.

Katie is riffling through her purse, digging out a business card. “Kirk and I are on our way to a comedy club; he’s got front-row tickets, so we can’t be late.” She pulls out a pen and scribbles a number on the back of her card. “But call me in the morning. Let’s get drinks tomorrow night or meet on Sunday for brunch.”

“Great.” I put her card in my pocket but don’t let go. It’s a lifeline, something good from my past, something good in my present. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

She and Kirk are heading to the door. “Don’t forget!” Katie shouts to me, raising her hand to her ear, thumb and pinkie extended. “Call me.”