by Kim Deister
“Get bent, Luke,” I hissed. The look on his face was priceless, total shock at the anger he heard in my voice. Some things never change… he still thought he could charm every woman he met, no matter how he treated them. “Go away and leave me the hell alone.”
I saw an expression flit across his face that I would have thought was shame if I didn’t know him so well. But his behavior over the years pretty much proved he had no shame whatsoever. There was also a bit of what I thought might be fear. I wonder… I turned to Avalon and smiled at her. She smiled back and I envisioned her collagen-filled lips bursting over her too white teeth.
“We’ve never met, but I’m sure you know who I am, don’t you? After all, we did share a man for quite some time, didn’t we? But, of course, it wasn’t just the two of us, was it, Luke?” I heard him choke a little bit at that last question, but I paid no attention to him as I continued to bait the trap. And I enjoyed it a whole lot more than my mother would have approved of. “I’m Cassidy, Luke’s former fiancée. And you’re Avalon. So lovely to finally meet you.”
I smiled sweetly at Avalon and was gratified to see that plastic veneer slip and crack a little as she squirmed. She said something in reply, but the words were so mumbled that I had no idea what brilliant pearl of wisdom I missed. It was probably difficult to enunciate multisyllabic words around all that puffiness.
Luke looked like a man who knew his secrets weren’t so secret anymore. He stared at me, silently begging me to stop. The bitchy, vindictive part of me wanted to let it all hang out, but that would have the undesired side effect of dragging me once again into his drama. That was something I wanted nothing to do with ever again.
Besides, judging from the suspicious look on Avalon’s face, I had set the stage well. My work here was done. It was pretty obvious that she was as much in the dark about Luke and his wandering penis as I had been. Luke, you have some ‘splaining to do! For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her… until I remembered that she had known about me and she was holding my money in her bra. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so compassionate anymore.
After some awkward small talk, the happy couple stammered their goodbyes. I sounded vaguely psychotic as I waved them off with a cheery farewell. When I turned back to Mac, she was still struggling to get herself together. Tears were pouring down her cheeks and she was shaking with both arms wrapped around her stomach. The grunting noises that came out of her mouth were quiet, but they sounded like a rutting pig.
“So,” I said with a drawl, “that was fun!”
That sent my sister off all over again. Class, discretion, and decorum had fled us as we sat there laughing hysterically. The people around us stared with every expression from amusement to disdain.
Luke and Avalon sat in the far corner over Mac’s shoulder so she couldn’t see them, but I had a perfect view. Luke looked miserable, but Avalon was livid, looking like she was on the verge of losing her shit. If looks could kill, my sister would be making final arrangements for me instead of chortling. The force of Avalon’s glare would take down a lesser person, but all it did was make me laugh even harder.
“Who would’ve thought we’d have Luke to thank for a good laugh? Who would’ve thought we’d have anything to thank Luke for?” Mac wiped the tears from her eyes as she spoke.
“Well, at least we now know that the asshat and his plastic Barbie doll are good for something, even if it’s only comic relief.”
“I gotta ask,” Mac began. “Did it completely suck, seeing him again?”
“Well, yeah, but only because I can’t stand him. Not because I still give a damn, which is what you’re really asking.”
“Well, that’s good, at least.”
“Besides, the sheer amount of crap I've learned about him since then was more than enough to kill any lingering feelings.”
“Like?”
“Like the fact that Barbie over there and I were far from the only ones taken in by him. The club of women in the vicinity who have seen Luke’s junk is rather large and varied.”
“Holy shit. And gross. Anyone I know?”
“A better question, Mac, would be if there is anyone you know that didn’t sleep with him. For example… do you remember Mrs. Finkle and Ms. Carruthers?”
“Senior English and Latin, right?” I nodded and her eyes widened. “Please, don’t tell me.”
I smiled at her and she groaned. Her face looked like she’d just licked a lemon.
“Seriously? Teachers slept with him? Please tell me it was at least after graduation.”
“I wish I could, but I know for a fact that at least those two got busy with him senior year. And there are a few mothers in the club, too. Including a couple of our friends' mothers.”
“Oh, dear God.”
“I don’t think He had much to do with it.”
When I got home after lunch, I felt better than I had in days. The last few weeks had been rough and stress sucked for creativity, which was obvious by the heaping pile of rejected pieces on my worktable. But finding out that Mac was okay lifted a weight off my chest.
As soon as I got home, I called Taylor. Mac had finally given me the green light to catch her up on things. Taylor’s reaction was just like mine had been, only in fast forward. And then I gave her a similar gift, one I would likely not be giving to my mother… my confession that perhaps I had gone too far along the path to spinsterhood. There was a reason the girl was my best friend. There were no cartwheels of self-congratulations, just some mild-mannered teasing and encouragement and an order to get laid. I said goodbye and hung up, still giggling.
Our conversation had barely ended when my phone signaled an incoming Skype call. I accepted it and hurried upstairs to my bedroom as it connected. I flipped the camera around to Finn just as the call connected and was rewarded with Kyra’s squeal of joy at seeing her frog. They chatted, if you could call a monologue a conversation, for several minutes without interruption. She seemed to be satisfied that he was answering the questions she fired at him. Eventually, she remembered she had an aunt on the other side of the camera.
“Auntie Cass?”
“I’m here, baby girl,” I answered, turning the camera around. “Comment ça va?”
“I’m good,” she giggled. “How are you? How’s Finn?”
“Well, as you can see, we are both surviving. I told you you could trust me.”
She rolled her eyes instead of answering me. “I miss you guys.”
“We miss you, too, sweetling. But you’ll be home soon and you can come visit Finn whenever you want.” I knew she wasn’t thrilled with Finn’s permanent move, but she didn’t have much of a choice if she wanted to be able to have him at all. Tom’s allergies made Finn a no-go at their house, whether she liked it or not.
A few more minutes and it was time for her to go. Her grandparents didn’t like me much, especially her grandmother, and I was surprised they let her talk to me that long. I was even more surprised they entertained Skyping with a frog. Tom’s mother wasn’t known for her imagination and patience with “silly things.”
Afterward, I headed upstairs to my attic studio to work. Since I couldn’t work on Chloe’s order until her materials arrived, I had time to work on some new design ideas while I waited. There was a big showcase of local artisans in a few weeks and I wanted to round out my inventory with some new pieces. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t transfer the ideas in my head to the paper in front of me. Not even my usual working soundtrack of heavy metal blaring from the speakers helped.
Sadly, I realized I was thinking more about having left Finn all alone in the big terrarium in my bedroom. Damn you, Kyra. It made me feel better about myself to blame her, rather than my own mental state. I had gotten way too used to having him around all the time.
I trudged all the way down to the first floor to retrieve Finn’s empty froggy condo from the living room. He was staring at me when I walked into my room, half submerged in his little pond. I set the condo on my bed and pulled on my oven
mitts. By that time, he had moved out of the pond and onto a wide flat rock. He sat right in front of the doors, looking for all the world that he knew exactly what was going on and was waiting for me. It was creepy.
“It’s a frog, Cassidy,” I muttered. “It’s a frog and he eats crickets and worms. He doesn’t have a clue what you’re saying or what it means.” He stared up at me as I spoke. “Or do you?” I could feel his froggy judgment and I didn’t blame him. I judged myself. Once again, I was engaging in conversation with an amphibian. The frog stared into my eyes as intensely as if he were seeing my very soul. Get a grip!
“I’ve lost what’s left of my mind."
Still muttering to myself, I opened the doors. With of all my usual trepidation, I took him out and settled him in his froggy condo. I snapped the screened lid into place before hefting the tank in my arms. Halfway up the stairs to the attic, my arms began to burn. Perhaps this wasn’t one of my better ideas. My arms felt like spaghetti noodles, but I made it with human and frog completely intact and set the tank on the big butcher block island.
I perched on the stool in front of him, my chin resting in my hand while I watched him moving around his tank. Music still blared from the speakers and the frog seemed to like it, bobbing his head back in forth in perfect time. The damn thing sometimes acted more human than amphibian and that was weird.
Despite the weirdness and as much as I hated it to admit it, the frog wasn't so bad. Admittedly, it’s not like I had ever spent any up-close and personal time with him before now, but maybe I had misjudged him and his cute factor. Maybe. I had never really looked at him before. His skin was so smooth that it almost looked as if he were cast in porcelain. His back was a beautiful shade of emerald green, unbroken except for a single dark, speckled stripe that ran from the top of his head between his eyes all the way down his back. His throat was a pretty shade of a lighter emerald that faded into a creamy ivory on his chest and stomach. His legs were the same green as his back, fading to yellow gold on his tiny toes. As I examined him, he blinked at me and, for the first time, I noticed his eyes. They were bright blue, shot through with tiny specks of gold.
They were so blue that they didn’t look real. As Kyra had already figured out, I was in no way an expert on frogs. But I always thought their eyes were brown or gold. Not this crazy bright blue. They were oddly mesmerizing.
The spell broke when he looked away and hopped onto a nearby rock overlooking a small ceramic pond. I never noticed how beautiful his little home really was. His terrarium looked like a miniature kingdom fit for a fairy or two. It was full of moss and vines and pretty willow branches, one of them stretching almost all the way to the opposite corner. A hollow tree sat in one corner, its roots buried in a layer of thick moss that flowed inside the tree and formed a soft floor. The little house was so tall that the moss and vines that covered the top almost grazed the screened lid. On either side of the opening that led inside were two gazing balls, tiny golden balls on stone pillars. There was even a little stone pathway that led from the front door to the little pond, bordered by miniature ferns.
Whoever had designed this tank had created a picturesque home for the frog. It was a work of art. I grabbed my sketchbook and a handful of colored pencils. The pencils practically moved of their own accord over the page as I drew the images that were flooding my head. A tiny green frog on a lily pad, peeking out from inside a white lily. A ring? Another frog resting on a tangled bracelet of delicate brown branches. Two tiny frogs in the corner with their back legs akimbo. Earrings, dangling from thin, silver ear wires. A larger frog balanced on a moonstone ball, a pendant.
Dinner came and went before I set down my pencils. When I started drawing, sunlight flooded the room. But now the only light came from a single lamp on the table and moonlight. I stood up and stretched, the aches and pains telling me how long I’d sat there hunched over my sketchbook. After a few minutes of an impromptu yoga session, I sat back down on my stool to look at what I’d drawn.
Page after page of drawings, each one of them crammed full of different designs. In the span of a few hours, I had managed to create not just a few pieces, but an entire collection of frog-inspired jewelry. And I knew that they would be some of my best work. Even as I leafed through the pages, my hands itched to pull out my tools and start working. I studied each drawing, envisioning the stones I would use. The twists of metals and leather. The beads that would bring the pieces to life. Who would ever have thought that a slimy amphibian would end up being my muse?
“We do good work, frog, don’t we?” He croaked and I glanced over at his terrarium. Which was empty. I panicked for a moment until I realized that at some point in my creative fog, I had taken him out of his little fairy home. He sat on the table facing me over my open sketchbook. “Oh! Hello, frog.” Without thinking, I reached out and ran my hand along his back. “Huh. You aren’t slimy at all, are you?” I stroked the skin between his eyes and they began to close in froggy contentment. I couldn’t stop the giggle from bubbling out. “You like that, do you?”
It was the first time I had ever touched him without gloves between my skin and his. I was surprised by how warm he was. I stared down at him for a moment, listening to his little sounds that sounded like a frog version of a purr.
Then an uncomfortable thought crossed my mind. It was sad, but this was the most affectionate contact I had had with a member of the opposite sex for longer than I cared to remember. That wasn’t exactly a comforting thought. Nor was it comforting to realize that it was also the best relationship I had had in a long time.
“It’s sad and pathetic, but there’s no question you’re more dependable than most of the guys I’ve dated lately,” I mused. “The frog thing is a selling point, too, since I’ve had a sad run of bat shit crazy humans. You live alone in a tank, which means you aren’t still living with your mother. It also means you aren’t running around, trying to sleep with every chick with big boobs you come across.” My monologue paused for a moment as I thought of Avalon. “Nor would I have to sit by the phone waiting for you to call, if for no other reason than frogs don’t have phones. And I wouldn’t have to worry about loaning you money and never seeing it again. All in all, you’re kind of the perfect guy. Which, since you’re a frog and not a human being, is a little sad for me.”
I looked down at him for a long moment, thinking things that I didn’t even want to admit to myself. Hmmm… You never know… I lifted him up to my face and stared into his blue eyes before placing a light kiss on the top of his head. Nothing. But it also wasn’t the worst first kiss I’d ever had, which was yet another sad statement on my life.
“Should we try this again, frog? Is there some magical rule that says there has to be lip-on-lip action?” I locked lips with Finn for a second before it hit me how messed up this really was. In the span of a split second, I was angry. Angry with myself, with Luke, with every horrendous date I’d had. Angry that I had stooped to kissing a damn frog.
“What the hell is wrong with me? This is borderline psychotic. What the hell did I think was going to happen? I was going to kiss a damn frog and it would magically turn into my perfect guy?” I thought about smacking myself across the face. Goddess knew, I needed it. “Fuck. I have issues, frog, big ones. But Mac’s right. I need to get a life. With a human.”
And yet I still stood there for a moment or two, looking back at Finn as he stared at me. I couldn’t deny that there was some part of me that actually hoped that it could be true. But there was no magical mist, no glittery swirls of light, no strains of orchestral music in the air. There was no Prince Charming. Just a big green frog sitting in my hand staring at me. I sighed, feeling the anger drain away. In its place was resignation and I thought I almost preferred the anger.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. My niece left you with a nutjob. Let’s put you back inside so I can go take a bath and maybe wash the crazy off me.”
I felt like an idiot as I turned away and went downstairs, leaving Finn be
hind. I thought I was immune to it by now, all those romancey thoughts. But even for the most romantically battle-scarred, fairy tale dreams lingered. The dream that somewhere out there was Prince Charming, a soul mate meant just for me. He was the one person who would love me wholly and completely, protecting my heart instead of destroying it. But those fairy tales dreams died away a long time ago... or so I’d thought.
I blamed my grandmother and all the stories she told me, the Irish folk tales and fairy tales, stories full of magic and romance. She always told me that someday I’d find my own Prince Charming, but those dreams faded after Luke. These days I went more for action movies and thriller novels. No more kissing frogs for this girl.
After a long, hot soak in the tub, I felt a hundred times more normal. I wrapped a big towel around myself and wandered into my bedroom to get dressed. There were certain moments in life that required comfort. Brushes with crazy-cat-lady insanity was one of those moments. So, I dug into my drawer for my favorite pair of pajama pants. Something about Hello Kitty just made everything better. A tank top from a Disturbed concert I’d gone to a few years ago didn’t hurt either, even if it had seen far better days. It was almost as good as chocolate.
Cozy but starving, I gathered my dirty clothes and went back downstairs to dump them in the hamper. Luna tore down the stairs in front of me and disappeared into the living room, erupting into yips and yaps. As I walked by, I glanced into the room to see my dog seemingly having a psychotic break. She ran in frenzied circles, stopping now and then to hop in place like a rabbit on speed. Silly dog. I barely cleared the door of the laundry room when I realized that something wasn't quite right about that scene.
There was a fire roaring in the fireplace, a fire I hadn't started since I had spent most of the day in my studio. What the hell? My clothes landed on the floor and I ran back into the living room, letting out an ear-splitting shriek as I skidded to a stop inside the door.
