The Frog Prince

Chapter Twelve

C hapter T welve

K atie and I meet for brunch Sunday morning. Brunch in the city is still something new to me. Growing up, we didn’t belong to any country clubs, and brunch wasn’t something we did as a family. It’s not that Mom didn’t ever make a big breakfast late in the morning, but there was no rushing out of the house on a Sunday if it wasn’t for church. And after church there was usually housework and yard work to do. Not brunching.

But I swear, everyone in San Francisco does it, and on a nice day like today, dozens of people cluster outside every city café, talking, scrolling on their phones, reading newspapers or novels, while waiting to be seated.

We put our name on the wait list and stand outside our corner café with everyone else. Lots of people wearing black, and leather barn coats, turtlenecks, boots, jeans, cords. I’m wearing a skirt. I don’t know why I’m wearing a skirt. Maybe it’s the old good-girl upbringing. Good girls don’t wear jeans to church; good girls dress nicely for social occasions; good girls try to make an effort.

Or just possibly, good girls don’t know any better.

Katie’s telling me about her work. She travels a lot for business, is on the road a couple of weeks every month, but she likes the travel, loves accumulating mileage points, because it allows her to keep up with her friends on both coasts. She’s between boyfriends at the moment but isn’t worried, since there always seems to be someone new on the horizon.

A cool breeze blows, and I hug my coat tighter. “You like dating,” I say, torn between admiration and horror as the restaurant door bangs open and a big group leaves. How can anyone like to date?

“Dating’s fun. It’s an adventure. You never know what’s going to happen.”

I flash back to my last two dates—my first two dates in years, and both scored very high on the Richter scale of horrible encounters. I’d have to give Tom a 6.8 or 6.9 for yucky company, and Paul… oh, he gets at least a 7.3, maybe even a 7.6, for boorish behavior and the booster seat request. Men should never ask for a booster seat on a date. That might be fine when you’re out with Mom, but not with another woman. “And you like that feeling?”

Katie, who is wearing jeans, a dark turtleneck, and a suede coat, shrugs. She looks urban. Hip. Cool. How did she learn to do that? “Why not?” she answers, tucking straight blond hair behind her ear. “It’s fun meeting new people, getting to see if you’re going to click or not.”

I really wish I hadn’t worn a skirt. “I never click.”

“Then you haven’t been out enough. Dating’s like the lottery. You’ve got to up your chances of winning by entering more times.”

The black restaurant door opens again, and the hostess comes out, calls our name, and we get seated inside at one of the little tables next to the window. Normally a window seat is ideal, but today it means we get our sunlight blocked by a half-dozen people on the other side of the glass.

“So, Hol, what’s new with you?” Katie asks as we sit down and rearrange our place settings more to our liking.

I nod to the busboy who has come to fill our water glasses. “Not much.”

She laughs, a burst of short, explosive sound. “Not much? Holly. I got your wedding invitation.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“But you’re not wearing your ring anymore. And you’ve made no mention of Jean-Paul—”

“Jean-Marc.”

“Jean-Marc,” she corrects impatiently, “and that means…?”

“It means we’re not together anymore.”

“You’re getting divorced?” Katie asks, eyeing me over her menu, but I can’t say much more, because our waiter has arrived and he’s giving us the specials, and I’m barely listening because I saw disappointment in Katie’s eyes. Disappointment and… what? Disapproval? Sadness? What?

I order pancakes—easy enough to eat with knots in your stomach—and wait for the waiter to leave. “Yeah, we’re getting divorced.”

“You’ve filed.”

“Yes.”

Katie doesn’t say anything for a minute. She just taps her spoon against the wooden table. Finally she drops her spoon and leans back in her chair. “You were the first from our crowd to marry.”

And the first to divorce, I mentally add.

“So what happened?” she asks.

“He… we…” I try, and I stop. I honestly don’t know how to explain, and I feel that wave of confusion and helplessness, the same one I felt in St. Tropez when I lay on the chaise longue in the sun and everyone was drinking and smiling and I felt cold and sick in my gut, knowing that something was wrong but not knowing how to fix it. “He wasn’t in love with me.”

Katie shoots me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. “ What? ”

“He didn’t want to be married. He told me on our honeymoon.” I swallow. “Told me on the fourth night. Said he didn’t…” I smile. I don’t know why. I guess I figure if I smile, laugh, no one else can laugh at me; no one else can hurt me, because I’ve done it first. “He didn’t feel that way about me. We were better friends than lovers.”

“I don’t understand.” Katie shifts in her chair, arm hanging over the back. “You’re smart, pretty, funny–”

“You’ll change your mind after you marry me.”

“Holly, I’m serious.”

“So am I. But it’s okay. I’m okay with the divorce.”

But Katie doesn’t move; she just stares at me, but her expression is serious, and she looks hard. Fierce. “It’s not okay.”

I bite the tip of my tongue. I’m not going to cry anymore. I’m sick of crying, sick of sad feelings. It’s time to move on. “I can’t blame him, Katie. I should have paid attention…”

“Attention to what?”

“The signs… the signals… I rushed him. Rushed the relationship. I was just so happy to be in love. I couldn’t wait to get married.”

Katie gestures curtly. “Don’t ever say that again. Jean-Marc, Paul, whatever his name is, didn’t have to marry you. He’s a man, has all kinds of degrees from all kinds of prestigious universities, and he bought you a ring, and he showed up at the church, and paid for a honeymoon. Blame him. He screwed you over!”

“I know, but—”

“No. No buts. No more. Holly, stop being a frickin’ doormat. You’ve always been too nice for your own good. Stop letting people walk all over you. Get off the floor and get a life!”

I start laughing. Coming from anyone else, this would have hurt me, but from Katie—formerly pimply, somewhat stocky Katie Robinson, who looked hideous in the bright blue polyester gym shorts we used to have to wear for PE (her thighs were so white, even I couldn’t look at her when she ran)—it’s a relief.

Katie can speak her mind with me and I’ll listen. Katie knows my world—knows my mom, my family. (Heck, Jamie even came from college and took her to our senior prom when neither of us could get dates!) She practically grew up sleeping over at my house, or vice versa. If anyone has insight into my strengths and weaknesses, it’s her.

“Why Jean-Marc?” she asks after a minute. “You never liked having a boyfriend. Why did you settle down so quickly with him? You’re the one who never wanted to be tied down in high school.”

She’s right. It was pretty much the same in college, too. At UC Irvine I liked the idea of having a boyfriend, until I got one, and then I felt… trapped. Bored.

So why was I so desperate to marry Jean-Marc?

Because I thought he wasn’t like American guys. He seemed more intelligent, more interesting, more sophisticated, more of everything. And when I thought I had found the right one, the Prince Charming I’d always been looking for, I jumped. “I was confused,” I say after a moment, when the silence has stretched for an uncomfortably long time. “I guess I thought I was marrying a hero, someone foreign and glamorous, and I thought if someone sophisticated likes me, then well…” I shrug, and my voice fades away.

In the dim light, with her pale oval face and her long, straight blond hair, Katie’s a study of contrasts: tough and tender, fragile and fierce. “You thought you’d be sophisticated, too,” she concludes as our breakfast arrives.

We pause, allowing the waiter to do his presentation with a flourish and leave before we continue.

“I wanted to be special,” I say in a small voice, staring down at my pancakes, and there’s a pound of butter melting into the top of the stack. I really should scrape some of the butter off, but I like butter.

Katie’s cutting into her corned beef hash and eggs. “A man doesn’t make you special. You’re special because you’re you.”

I finally, reluctantly push some of the butter off the stack. “So you feel special?”

“No.” Katie cuts another bite, then looks up at me with a wicked smile. “But it’s what all the experts say. No man will love us the way we need to be loved. We have to love ourselves before anyone else can love us.”

And I suddenly see my mom, stretched out on the sofa in front of the TV night after night. Maybe that’s why Mom is alone. It’s not that she couldn’t have company, but maybe she doesn’t love herself and can’t let anyone else love her.

“You’re a genius,” I say.

“No. I just watch a lot of Oprah and Dr. Phil.”

I laugh. I can’t help it, and yet, laughing, I realize how long it’s been since I did this—felt something like this—and as my laugh dies away, I know I want to laugh more. “It’s good to see you, Katie.”

“Definitely meant to be,” she answers with a firm nod.

The waiter comes by with a pot of fresh coffee and refills our cups, and with our coffees refreshed and our plates nearly empty, Katie leans away from the table, fiddles with a bit of her hair. “I am sorry I missed your wedding, though. Heard it was beautiful. Jean-Marc’s family all flew in from Paris, didn’t they?”

“Provence,” I correct. “And it was beautiful. Very formal. The wedding cost my mom a fortune.” I think of the bridesmaids, the fresh flowers everywhere, the seven-tier wedding cake with delicate spun-sugar blossoms spilling down the side, and remembering makes me sick inside. So much money for so little love. “We should have just run away. Eloped. Done something private and cheap.”

The corners of Katie’s mouth lift. “But you’re a princess, and you know it.”

Once this might have made me smile, but it doesn’t, not now, not after the past horrible year. I wanted to stay in the valley. I never intended to be living in the city. I like farm towns, and cows, and simple things. I wanted marriage and babies. How does that make me a princess? How did I become a princess?

I didn’t go to an Ivy League college. I don’t wear designer clothes. I don’t own any nice jewelry. I don’t even care about the kinds of cars men drive.

But I did want a “happily ever after.” I did want the storybook ending. I wanted happiness. I just don’t know how to get it.

*

Monday at work, there’s another team meeting, but this one is long and intensive. There are lots of upcoming events, lots of client appointments, lots of potential sales meetings. Olivia dispatches duties swiftly. We’re all to bring in new accounts by the end of the quarter.

After the meeting Olivia takes off for an appointment with David. I don’t know where they’re going, and I don’t really care. But once they’re both gone, the office relaxes, and Tessa and Josh head downstairs together. I briefly wonder what’s up with them before I check my e-mail in-box.

There are some boring business e-mails, and then—surprise, surprise!—an e-mail from Brian Fadden.

It’s short, so short it shouldn’t even be called an e-mail, but it makes me smile nonetheless.

“How’s life in the jungle?”

He didn’t sign his name, but it’s there in his signature line, including all his various work contact numbers. “Life in the jungle,” indeed. I smile at the computer screen. Chew the tip of my nail, wonder what I should say. I don’t want to say too much—his e-mail was very short. And I can’t be boring, as his e-mail was amusing.

So not too wordy, not too dry…

I think about it a little longer and then decide just to go for it. I type a quick reply. “It’s actually a zoo, Mr. Fadden. We have one of everything here.” I hit “Send,” watch the e-mail disappear in my out-box, and as I do, I feel a flutter of nerves and anticipation.

Let’s see what happens now.

Then I do something I should have done ages ago: I go through my e-mail address book and delete Jean-Marc’s e-mail addy. I delete every record of his phone number and mailing address from every place I’ve written it. I delete him from my cell phone. I delete him as much as I can from my life.

Finished, I sit back and look at my desk, stacked with folders and files, Post-it notepads filled with scribbled scrawl, and I feel better.

I feel good.

Mom was wrong. I wasn’t lucky to have Jean-Marc. Jean-Marc was lucky to have me.

I leave my computer, grab a diet soda from the break room, and take the elevator downstairs, in need of fresh air.

Tessa’s nowhere in sight, but Josh is still downstairs, smoking a cigarette.

“Hey,” I say, joining him on the blue-painted railing. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

He exhales a stream of smoke, shakes his head. “I used to, years ago; then I quit, but started up again this week. It’s disgusting. It’ll kill me, I know.”

We’re silent a moment, and then Josh asks, “So what ever happened with Paul? Didn’t you two go out on Friday night?”

“Yeah.”

He taps the end of the cigarette, knocking off ash. “That good?”

I nod.

Josh shoots me a narrowed glance. “He can be a bit of a prick.”

“Yeah.”

His eyes narrow further. “What happened?”

I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to involve Josh. They’re friends. No need to complicate things. “Nothing.”

“Nothing, as in not good? Nothing as in, didn’t go out? Nothing as…?’

“Nothing.” I close my eyes, lift my face up to the sun, and suddenly it feels like forever since I was together and on top of the world. I want to be on top of the world again. I want that radiant, joyful, I’m-so-glad-to-be-alive feeling back.

Instead every day feels a decade long, and I know it’s because I think so much. Does everyone think this much? Does everyone want as much as I do?

Does anyone else worry that there won’t be more? Worry that maybe this is it, maybe this will be all there ever is?

I open my eyes, look down the street at the heavy traffic streaming past the convention center. There has to be more magic still, I think. Somewhere. All the happy endings and good things can’t just be at Disneyland. Adults need happy stories, too.

Josh leans over and smashes his cigarette in the sand. “You’re not going to see him again, are you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I look at Josh. “I thought you were friends.”

“I am. But that doesn’t mean he’s good for you. He’s a pain in the ass. So stay clear, okay?”

I wonder how much Josh knows. Probably more than he’ll ever say. I nod, grateful Josh is on my side for this one. “Okay.”

*

I stop by the gym on the way home and jog away on the treadmill. I will never be a real runner, but today I’m so restless that I can’t seem to stop moving. By the time I’m finished, I’ve run for nearly thirty-five minutes, a new record for me.

At home I boil water for Cup O’ Noodles and try to settle down with a cable movie but can’t relax. Cup O’ Noodles is not a satisfying dinner. I want chewy and chocolate, like frosted brownies, but have only peanut butter on my shelves, so I spread some of that on crackers.

I need to grocery-shop.

And I need to buy a desktop computer for my apartment. I spread more peanut butter on another cracker, thinking about the computer I used to have in Fresno, an old laptop that Jean-Marc gave me but took back when we parted. That was so cheap, I think, chomping on my cracker. He had a computer at the university, a brand-new laptop in his study at home. He didn’t need his old one. He didn’t have to take it back.

Jerk.

*

Another week goes by, and I manage to get into the gym only twice, but walking through my neighborhood one evening I notice that the small flower shop is still open, and I purchase a big bouquet of lilies and gerbera daisies for my apartment.

I keep sniffing the sweet, heady fragrance of the lilies as I walk back to my apartment. I’m feeling really cosmopolitan at the moment. Single city girl doing her shopping, buying fresh sourdough bread at the corner bakery, and flowers on her way home…

I hum a little and smile at people as I pass them.

I’m doing okay, I think. I’m actually beginning to like living on my own.

*

Brian Fadden and I have been talking on the phone for a few minutes every couple of days for the past week, and our sporadic, brief e-mails have gotten more frequent, as well as longer.

Today I get an e-mail from Brian asking if I want to get a beer with him after work.

The e-mail couldn’t have come at a better time; after another weekend alone, I’ve reached that desperation point. The point where almost anything is better than nothing, where Monday night beer nights are better than Monday night going home after a bad day at work and sitting alone.

I know that in general, Monday night dollar-beer nights are best avoided. Monday nights are not great date nights, but when you’re sitting there at your desk at ten thirty on Monday morning and you hate your desk and hate your cubicle and hate the computer and hate that you have to work and that you’re going to be sitting here for the next five days, a date for that evening actually sounds good.

Fun.

Why the hell not? I ask myself, staring at the computer screen, studying Brian’s e-mail invitation. I don’t feel like going to the gym after work. Mondays are already long enough and hard enough, and I don’t really want to go home to an empty apartment: And Brian’s e-mails are fabulous. Brilliant. The guy has a way with words.

I chew on my thumb, stare at the screen, insides warm and fizzy. I love the warm fizzies. But is it Brian giving me the warm fizzies, or his cleverness? I’ve always liked dry humor, smart men, but am I physically attracted to him?

It is just drinks at this point. I mean, Brian doesn’t have to be “the one,” but of course I always wonder when I meet a man, is he possibly Mr. Right?

And Brian does fit the requirements for a Mr. Right (not that I’m looking). He’s clever in e-mail, funny over the phone, educated, sophisticated, and he knows how to make me laugh.

But what would he be like in bed?

I close my eyes, try to remember what he looks like. Tall—I remember that much—broad-shouldered, relatively lean. Basketball-player build. Athletic. And if he’s athletic, he’d probably be quite comfortable with his body. In bed.

That’d be good.

I e-mail back: “Okay. Meet you there at 7.”

He replies almost immediately, and we’ve got plans. I’m thrilled this is just drinks, not dinner. Dinner means serious conversation, requiring a level of sincerity not necessary for drinks.

Dinner means possible romance, while drinks mean light, nonthreatening… fun.