Along Came A Prince

by Carlyn Cade

  Soon.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  …A judge, complete with gray, curled wig and black robe, pounded his gavel. “Divorce granted,” he said.

  Moments later, Dean flew down the courthouse steps three at a time, waving his divorce decree papers wildly. A smiling Victoria was waiting inside his car.

  He leaped down the steps even faster to reach her across the street. A car rounded the corner, and he ran directly into its path.

  Crash! Dean’s body was tossed off the hood of the car, and he lay lifeless on the ground…

  ♥♥

  The first few days of rehearsals for London Affair were just that – rehearsals. Since every scene of the movie that didn’t involve Stacia had already been completed, all the time was spent on her scenes. It ended up requiring at least sixteen-hour days at the studio, mostly rehearsing Audra Parker’s movements. This, to her surprise and also Nathan‘s and Arthur’s, she accomplished quickly and was as easy for her as memorizing her lines had been.

  When she thought she had a scene down, Arthur would film “a dry run,” as he called it, making Stacia perform her movements and lines for that particular part. Then all production would halt as Nathan and Arthur would vanish to the editing room to see how everything matched together.

  After deciding what was right and what needed to be changed, Stacia would redo her actions and dialog to coordinate exactly with Audra’s. The rest of the time she stayed in her dressing room, going over her role and watching a video of Audra in the next scene they’d be doing.

  But no matter what she did, her thoughts crisscrossed back to Clay. He’d said he had fallen in love with her. And she was in love with him too. So why was there a problem? What was stopping her from flying back into his arms, or because of her film commitment, having him fly to hers?

  When it became too much for her mind to tolerate, she’d escape by taking a nap. But when she’d awaken, the same puzzle with its unconnected pieces forced its way back into her brain, and she’d end up asking herself the identical questions once again.

  Now it seemed as if her dream had been replaced by a new one, equally as mystifying. She had dreamed she was in a fitting room trying on wedding gowns. She’d found the perfect one and stood admiring the back of it in a full-length, three-way dressing mirror. Beautiful, she told the clerk, her fiancé would love it. Slowly, she rotated the mirror in her hand to view her veil and face. She screamed. Instead of her face, Audra’s had appeared. Then she heard the sound of glass breaking. When she turned around to look, the three-way mirror behind her had shattered, and the jagged shards slipped to the carpeted floor landing upright, as if crystal spikes had been driven there. She stared at the background the mirror had been adhered to, her eyes consuming its blackness, until it felt like she was entering a large black tunnel. And then she woke up.

  Maybe she was having a breakdown from working too hard and trying to figure out the turmoil inside her. Perhaps it was destiny’s way to show her what would happen if she married. Then she reasoned that since she was working so closely to Audra playing her original role, she’d assumed Audra’s identity which would, of course, explain Stacia’s new dream. She dismissed that idea though, because actors usually emulated the character they were playing, not the actor who’d played the role. But since this was a remake of an old movie, maybe that’s what had actually happened. And what about her other dream? What was that all about? She still had no clarifying idea and ended up being more confused than ever.

  Two words began repeating themselves in her mind. Josie and meditation. Josie had said when you meditate, you heighten your awareness to what’s going on inside you. If Stacia tried it, maybe she’d also learn to relax and reduce her stress. Well, that sounded like too easy a solution to her problems. But even if it could work, when would she have time to spend with Josie?

  In the midst of her thoughts, she heard someone knocking on her trailer door. When she answered it, Hal was standing there.

  “How’re you doing, Stace?” he asked.

  “Busy, busy, busy would answer that question.”

  “I had to check on another client here at the studio, so thought I’d look in on you also.”

  “How are Linda and Helen?” Stacia wanted to know how Helen and Sam were, but she didn’t think she should ask Hal that question.

  “When do you and the prince pick up your awards for Matchmakers of the Year?” Hal laughed as he sat down on her sofa. “Mother and Sam have hardly been separated since the first night with Clay and you. He invited her to go with him to Kentucky to see the prince’s ice sculpture exhibit.”

  “And your mother accepted?” Stacia was astonished. That didn’t sound like Helen at all.

  “They’re in Kentucky now,” he said. “I’m surprised too.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “Sam? Any man who treats my mother the way he does wins my vote. She’s unbelievably happy these days.”

  “She said she’d met Sam a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, she did.”

  No wonder Hal’s such a good agent, Stacia thought. He definitely doesn’t divulge much information about anyone. She was glad he was her agent because she was certain he didn’t disclose anything about her either. “When are they coming back?”

  “By the end of the week. Unless they elope or something.”

  “Right.”

  “At their ages, practically speaking, they don’t have a lot of time left for romance in their lives.”

  “You’d better not let your mother hear you talk like that.”

  Hal grinned. “I know, and I don’t mean it the way it sounds. I hope to have my mother around for a long time. I meant they’re both healthy and young, and they should make the most of it. But they need to make decisions quicker than...say, you and the prince?”

  Now it was Hal who was fishing! “What have you heard about Clay?”

  “Guess you don’t have time to read the papers. He’s been all over them. You remembered the exhibit’s tonight, right?”

  “I’d...forgotten.”

  Stacia heard a sharp rap on the door. “They’re ready for you, Miss Saunders.”

  “That’s my call, Hal. Are you going to come watch me?”

  “Not today. By the way, how are you and Farrell Fontaine working out? Has he stayed sober?”

  “He totally keeps his distance from me. I’m grateful for that, because I feel awkward around him. He’s on the set every day, but mostly sits quietly on a stool in the back and observes everything. If he does have to come around me, he’ll only speak a few words to me very politely and about business only.”

  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. Except he has a very strange look in his eyes whenever he glances at me. Almost as if I make him sad.”

  “Stace, I’d better go, or you’ll be late getting on the set. I’ll talk to you soon,” Hal said and let himself out.

  Stacia quickly dressed in her costume. She walked onto the set, and her makeup was touched up, as was her hair.

  “Okay, Stacia. Let’s take it from where we left off,” Nathan said.

  “Quiet on the set.”

  “Ready...and action...”

  The video on the TV screen began playing. The accompanying audio came alive in Stacia’s ear.

  “Our house, Victoria, it’s gone,” Lily cried out, clutching her puppy closer to her. “Our house...I want mommy...I want daddy...Make them come back. I want my dolls and my bed and...

  With the green screen in view, Stacia knelt down on the floor and put her arms in a circle as if hugging Lily. “We’ll be all right, honey. We really will. No matter what, we still have each other,” she said.

  “Cut...” Nathan called out. “And print.”

  ♥♥

  Well, that was strange, Stacia thought as she walked back to her trailer. What a trip to the past she’d just encountered! She felt as if she’d emerged from a time travel tunnel that twirled and swir
led the past and present together, until they both were jumbled and tumbled into one time period…and one person. She hadn’t known Helen very long in the present, yet she’d just acted with her today when the older woman was nine years old!

  It seemed as if everyone she knew changed so much when they got older, yet there was always a thread that entangled them together as one person, so they were recognizable, if you looked closely enough. No matter what age the person was, the remnants of the past stared back at you. And so it was with Helen. The past is always present, no matter what happens between the then and now.

  Everything between them had happened so fast since they met. Now they were good friends, and Stacia would do anything she could to keep it that way.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  …“I don’t mean to not give you any hope, but things look bad. Dr. Fulton’s in a coma. He may never come out of it,” Dean’s doctor said to Victoria and Grand-mère. “If he does, it could take weeks or months, but based on my opinion as well as three other specialists I have consulted, we believe he’ll remain in a vegetative state and eventually pass on.”

  “No...No...No!” Victoria screamed at Dean’s doctor. “He won’t do that, and he won’t die. I won’t let him!”

  “Now, now, child,” Grand-mère said, “neither of us will allow that to happen. I don’t know what we’ll do, but we’ll do it anyway. You’ll see, and we’ll do this together. Thank you, doctor. May we see him now?” She waved her cane toward her grandson’s room.

  “You can go in for a few minutes only. I hope your miracle works. Somehow, if anyone can produce one, I have a feeling you two can.”

  Victoria and Grand-mère entered Dean’s room. He was as still and lifeless as he was lying on the street after the accident. Victoria motioned for his grand-mère to go first. She did and told the sleeping man how much she loved him, and how she and Victoria wouldn’t let him leave them. “Not for anything,” she said. “A Fulton doesn’t quit. When things get bad, they just fix them.” She stepped aside so Victoria could stand by him.

  “Hi, Darling,” Victoria said, as she got as close as she possibly could to Dean. “I love you, and your grand-mère and I are here for you. You were so happy when you were running toward me today. I knew then you’d given me the happiness you promised me.” She bent over and spoke softly in his ear. “But, Darling,” she began, “I have my own surprise waiting for you. I want to give it to you now. Remember the first night when we parked on that country lane? Well, I have our baby nestled inside of me. Did you hear me? We’re going to have a baby. You have to wake up, so you can hear it cry and coo and kiss it. Do you want to feel your baby, so you know it’s there?” Victoria carefully picked up Dean’s hand and placed it on her stomach. “See, my love, I told you. Now come back to us.” She noticed Grand-mère was crying softly. “All three of us,” Victoria whispered...

  ♥♥

  “Are you positive you want to come over today, Josie?” Stacia asked over the phone. “I don’t want to mess up your Sunday afternoon with Ryan.”

  “I’ve waited quite awhile to get you to meditate. If you could see me right now, you’d see me jumping up and down at this chance.”

  Stacia laughed as she imagined Josie jumping like a kangaroo around her living room. “Come any time you’re ready.”

  After saying goodbye, she touched the off button on the phone, laid her head back on the cushion and settled down on her sofa to relax. She closed her eyes, and Clay popped into her mind.

  His image of the night they were in the limo came through clear and strong. She felt the warmth of his hands on her cheeks as he lifted her face to his. The look in his eyes had seemed to proclaim she was all his, and he wanted her like no one else ever could. Luscious and tempting, he’d said. She ran her fingers up her neck, following the path of his kisses and, she wondered how Josie and meditation could clear his vision from her mind, except she couldn’t figure out why she’d even want it to leave.

  Thinking she’d better get something for them to eat because it might be a long afternoon, she made her way into the kitchen. Stacia filled a tray with snack food and went back into the living room. She picked up the Sunday paper. There, staring up at her, was a picture of Clay standing beside an exquisite ice sculpture of Aristides. She decided she liked the image of Clay she’d conjured up in her mind better. The newspaper only showed how handsome he was, but underneath his perfect physical appearance was the real man. Someone gentle, kind, considerate. Someone fun and comfortable to be with. Someone who tempted her like no other man could. Someone she knew she’d fallen hopelessly in love with. A perfect soulmate, if there was such a thing.

  She flipped through the newspaper, entertaining herself, until Josie knocked on her door. When her almost sister-in-law stepped into the entrance hall, she gave Stacia a hug.

  “Come on into the living room.”

  Josie walked in and looked around at the brightness. “We can concentrate better if we close your blinds.”

  “Done.” Stacia did as suggested. “What’s in the big bag you brought?”

  “A candle, some incense and something to burn it in.” Josie began to take items out of her carrying bag, holding each one up as she removed it. “My iPod with good music to meditate by and a sound box to hear it through.”

  “I didn’t know you needed all that in order to meditate.”

  “You don’t. You actually need nothing but quiet and a comfortable place to sit.” She grabbed a couple decorative pillows off the sofa. “These will do fine, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course,” Stacia said.

  Josie arranged the pillows on the floor facing each other, leaving enough space between them for the candle and incense burner. She lit the candle. “Candles give off their own aura,” she explained. “And this is sage,” she instructed as she lit the small bundle. “It cleanses the air.” She walked around the room rotating the weed.

  Stacia grinned. “You really do make your own little world, don’t you?”

  “Everything is meant to relax you and open your chakras.”

  Stacia looked at her blankly.

  “That’s right, you know nothing about any of this, do you? We can go into all of it later. Right now, let’s learn to meditate. First, we’ll sit down on these pillows. You can just sit cross-legged, or however it’s comfortable for you. Good. Next, rest your hands on your legs, palms up. You will receive energy from the Universe into your left hand, and you can send energy out wherever you want with your right hand. You’re doing perfect, Stacia.”

  Josie turned on her iPod. The gentle sound of waves running to the shore filled the room. “Sit tall, close your eyes and relax.”

  Stacia obeyed.

  “Focus on your breathing. Relax. Now, breathe in a color that soothes you and relaxes you. Hold that breath. Now exhale a color associated with stress. Again, breathe in relaxation. Breathe out stress. Breathe in the white light floating toward you. Let it fill your entire body. Exhale and let it cover your whole body back and front, inside and out. This will protect you from anything that’s not for your own higher good or the good of the Universe.

  “Picture a favorite place. It can be by an ocean, or a beach, in the woods, by a waterfall, anywhere you love to be and is relaxing for you. A safe place where no one can harm you.”

  Stacia pictured the waterfall she saw in the woods at SwissDen. Every other thought was erased from her mind. She concentrated on the beauty of the moment while she was there.

  “Hear the sounds around you. Smell the scents. Relax.”

  Stacia drank in Josie’s soft, hypnotic voice as if it were a warm glass of milk. She felt cradled and loved by the nature surrounding her. She relaxed fully. Totally. She could smell the pine trees tinged with the sage burning in the room. She could hear the birds singing around her, and the water gushing from the waterfall. She was relaxed and content and didn’t want to leave this perfect place. Stacia had no idea how long she sat immersed in her parad
ise of perfection, when Josie’s quiet voice broke into her concentration.

  “Whenever you’re ready to leave, please do so, knowing you can go back to this special place any time you want. Come back slowly and when you’re ready, open your eyes.”

  Stacia did as Josie directed. She opened her eyes and stretched. “That was wonderful. I feel so relaxed. One thing though, when do I find out what’s going on inside me?”

  “Patience, Stace. You can’t build a house without a foundation. You can’t learn everything about meditation in one lesson either. This is enough for today. We’ve accomplished a lot. You opened your mind and allowed relaxation to enter it. When you want to try it again, we’ll do some other things. I hope you’re not disappointed.”

  “Not at all,” Stacia admitted. “I didn’t know meditation could make me feel like this, or I would have tried it sooner.”

  Josie laughed. “Did you think it was like wicked witchcraft?”

  “I didn’t know what it was like.”

  “Meditation can lead you down many paths. But basically, it’s meant to take you to a level of consciousness that allows you to explore what’s inside you. Your mind normally makes your decisions for you based on conditioning, the environment and experience. When you sweep your mind clean, and listen to your inner self, you discover all kinds of things your mind normally won’t let you listen to.”

  “What do you know about recurring dreams, Josie?”

  “Dreams are another whole path by themselves. But I believe they’re trying to give you a message. A message you may be able to decipher the deeper you go into meditation. Do you want to share any of your dreams with me?”

  “Well, I’ve had two now. One takes place in London during the war.” Stacia explained the dream in its entirety. “The second seems to have replaced the first one. I’m standing in a wedding dress...” She explained that one also.