I winced, hating to disappoint the only motherly figure I’d ever known. “Better save the receipt,” I said.
Elly’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What did you do, Johnny?”
I blinked up innocently. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t go all charming on me, mister.” She stomped across the room, stopping a few inches away, and glared down at me. “I repeat, what did you do?”
I patted the seat next to me. She rolled her eyes, but sat down, waiting for my tale to begin. For a long moment I said nothing. The air conditioner cooled the stale hotel room as hundreds of people gambled away their futures in the casino below.
“Well,” she prompted when I stayed silent.
Taking a deep breath, I took a gamble of my own. “Remember my friend RJ . . .”
Chapter 22
“What am I going to do with you?” Elly paced in front of me, yet her tiny fairy godmother feet never touched the ground. Rage kept her afloat. “How could you let this happen? I mean, really, you’re a frog prince.”
“I know.” I hid a small smile.
“How many times have we been through this?” she asked. “A hundred? Two?”
“I know,” I repeated, louder this time.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Hiring a nonunion killer is like playing pinochle naked with a semi-erect fairy.”
I swallowed the bile pooling in the back of my throat at her graphic picture. “I think you mean playing Russian roulette with a semiautomatic weapon.”
“You wish.” She tapped my ear with her wand before resuming her pacing along the plush carpet. Elly twirled in my direction, sending a bolt of static electricity shooting from her wand. I ducked, narrowly avoiding being barbecued by the errant strike.
“I never liked that girl,” said the fairy godmother banned from forty-five out of fifty states, barring a pending hearing in MaryHadALittleLand.
“What girl? Sleeping Beauty?”
“No. Not her. The other one.” She tugged at the collar of her gown. “The one you’re playing hide the tadpole with.”
“What?” I swung to face Elly. My chest burned with righteous anger. How dare she? Damn it, I’d stayed faithful to my intended. So far. “I’m not fucking anyone, let alone Lollie Bliss.” I counted to five to calm down before I lost control and said something I’d regret. “You old drunken crone!” Oops. Should’ve counted a little higher.
Elly gasped as if I’d struck her with her own stupid wand. “How dare you, Johnny. After all I’ve done for you.”
“Done for me?” I gave a hollow laugh. “Done to me is more like it. Do you remember my first boy girl dance in the seventh grade?”
“Of course.” Her hands went to her face. “You looked so handsome in your—”
“Dress, madam.” My fingers curled into a tight fist. “You and your magic wand dressed me in a dress.” I blew out a harsh breath. “I was the laughingstock of the entire school. They called me the Frog Princess until my senior year.”
“Which made you the frog prince you are today,” Elly declared with a hiccup. “God help us all.”
After a long hot shower, I toweled off, Elly’s words festering in my mind. What exactly did she know about my relationship with Ms. Bliss and, more importantly, how the hell had she found out? A name popped into my head, but I shook it away. Karl wouldn’t betray me. Not to Elly. The two rarely got along, except when they joined forces to stop me from “doing something stupid.”
Shit!
I grabbed the hotel phone and quickly dialed Karl’s room. The phone rang and rang, finally clicking over to the hotel messaging center. “Call me,” I ordered, tossing the phone back in the cradle.
Just where the hell was Karl? Two nights in a row my supposedly “at your beck and call” servant was suspiciously absent from both my beck and my call.
Pulling on a pair of clean Dockers and a button-down shirt, I contemplated heading to the hotel bar for a light snack and a really large bottle of whiskey, but ultimately decided against it. I hated eating alone, which probably had something to do with my early tadpole development. I’d spent nearly eight years eating every fly-crusted meal alone.
I didn’t want to be alone.
Not anymore.
Reaching for my p-Phone, I dialed Lollie’s number, even though a voice said, “Bad idea, Johnny.” I kicked the bathroom door closed, silencing Elly.
The phone rang once.
“Vaniteuse residence,” a familiar voice answered.
My eyes narrowed. “Marvin? Is that you?”
“Yes, sir,” Sleeping Beauty’s butler said. “Did you call to speak with Princess Beauty?”
“Um . . . I . . .” Shit. What the frog was wrong with me? How could I have dialed Beauty by mistake? Talk about your Freudian slipper. I heaved a sigh. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Glad you’re still alive.”
“What?”
“What?” Marvin echoed.
“You said, you’re glad I’m still alive. What’s that supposed to—”
He cut me off. “I said no such thing.”
“Marvin? Is that you?” Beauty jumped on the phone line, her voice husky from sleep. “Who are you talking to? I warned you about calling those 900 numbers on my phone.”
“I know, my lady,” he said.
“Beauty,” I said to gain her attention. “It’s Jean-Michel.”
Silence.
“Beauty?” I repeated, afraid she’d fallen to sleep.
“Who?”
“Your fiancé,” I yelled.
“Number twenty-nine? What do you want?” She paused. “Are you calling to end our engagement?”
“No.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding shocked and a wee bit disappointed, but I might’ve been projecting. “Well, what is it you want, then?”
Stay calm, I told myself. After all, the poor princess had almost died that afternoon. It was bound to make her a wee bit irritable, if not downright bitchy. I cleared my throat. “Marvin,” I said. “I’ll take it from here.”
“As you wish, sir,” he said, hanging up the phone.
Once he cleared the line, I growled. “Mademoiselle, in the future you will refrain from speaking to me like a servant in front of . . . well . . . the servants.”
I could picture her eye roll, but she sounded contrite when she said, “I apologize. You woke me, and I’m always a bit . . . cranky when I don’t get enough sleep.”
“I see.”
Silence grew between us until Beauty broke it. “So, did you call for something?”
“I . . .” Shit. It wasn’t like I could admit the truth, that I’d dialed her number on accident while trying to make a date with a woman whose boyfriend I’d accidentally hired to kill her. Think, damn it! I ordered my brain, but low blood sugar and lack of sleep had taken its toll. Not to mention the dent in my forehead.
“Well, thanks for calling,” Beauty said. “I look forward to your next pearl of conversational wisdom. I do hope it’s soon,” she said sweetly. Before I could response, she hung up the phone, leaving me staring at the receiver, a small smile on my lips.
Chapter 23
The next morning, I woke up around ten to the scent of fresh coffee and Candi, as in the stripper from Old Mother Hubbard’s All Bare Cupboard. Not her exactly, just her scent, smothered all over my manservant like a cheap Dalmatian fur coat.
“Karl, what the hell? You smell like a stripper,” I said as I tossed on the pair of Dockers from last night and a freshly pressed oxford shirt.
My manservant stepped back. “I . . . ah . . . ,” he stuttered. “I most certainly do not.” He finished with as much dignity as a guy with lipstick stains on his trousers could muster.
I raised an eyebrow. When he turned a nice shade of crimson I decided to let him off the hook. For now. At least about his latest candy-coated conquest. “Talk to Elly lately?”
His skin turned from pink to chalk white. “Elly?”
“Yeah
, you know.” I held up my hand chest high. “Fairy godmother. About yea high. Usually smells like gin.”
Karl gave an exaggerated laugh. “You’re very funny, sir. You should consider a career in comedy. Fans would come from all over—”
I cut him off with a shove. The back of his knees hit the bed, and he tumbled backward across a mound of pillows. “Don’t try and change the subject. You told Elly about my taking off with Lollie yesterday.”
He swallowed hard. “I did not.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I leaned over the bed, menacing my manservant. For a few seconds I enjoyed the power, but it quickly faded under Karl’s whimpering. I dropped down on the bed next to him. “Why, Karl? I thought I could trust you,” I said, laying it on thick.
“I’m so very sorry, sir.” He scrambled off the bed, his face wrinkled with guilt. “I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“So why did you?”
He swallowed, his throat bobbing. “I fear that you are making a grave mistake in trusting Ms. Bliss. One that might cost you your very future, if not your life. Lady Beauty is your One.”
“I know that.” Better than anyone. Without Beauty I would return to being a frog, something I relished less and less as the days passed. But that wasn’t the point. “Don’t be such a drama servant,” I said, crossing my legs at the ankle, and leaned back to survey my manservant. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for thirty years without grave injury.” At least nothing a shot of penicillin didn’t cure.
“What about that time—”
“Okay then,” I said, leaping from the bed and crossing the room in two strides. “We really should get a move on. Places to go. Princesses to save.”
“But, sir,” Karl said. “I really am concerned—”
“As long as you wore a condom, everything will be fine.” I smirked, closing the door on Karl’s flaming face.
Twenty minutes later, my stomach full of casino buffet Humpty hearts and fried little piggy, I slumped against the backseat of the limo, once again on my way to encourage Lollie Bliss to reveal her dirty little secret . . . boyfriend. And if she revealed a bit more, like her naked body, well, who was I to argue?
The thought of a naked Lollie excited me much more than it should. After all, I’d be a married frog prince in less than seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight little hours between me and wedded bliss. Too bad I couldn’t get the thought of pre-un-wedded Bliss from my head.
I lowered the privacy screen between Karl and myself. “So how was it?” I asked to take my mind off my own fantasies. “Did you blow her mind? Make her beg for more? Cause her to laugh uncontrollably when she saw that your mommy stitched your name on your underwear?”
Karl’s hands tightened on the wheel, probably imagining my neck, but he didn’t say a word, a sure sign that I was getting under his pale pink skin. Good. He owed me for tattling to Elly. Because of him I now had a drunken wand-happy fairy watching my every move.
Karl turned the limo onto Fairily Way, stopping briefly at a red light. Silence filled the vehicle.
“Well?” I tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you going to tell me all about your evening of debauchery?”
Karl exhaled noisily. “For the last time, sir, I do not know what you’re talking about. I spent last night alone, asleep in my room.”
“Uh-huh,” I said as we pulled into a parking space a block from the Rose. Not waiting for Karl to open my door, I leapt from the limo and into the street. A blast of heated air sucked the moisture from my skin like a wicked witch invited to Hansel’s house for dinner. God, I hated the desert. What kind of idiot built a city in a forsaken pile of sand? And then decided to build a lush emerald golf course on top of it? I couldn’t wait to return to the rainy weather and rude citizens of New Never City. Home sweat-less home.
Deciding to share my increasingly lousy mood, I turned to tease Karl a bit more when the whirl of a car engine grabbed my attention. I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a black Ford Unicorn riding low to the ground, the sun reflecting off the tiny unicorn emblem on the hood.
I squinted at the car, unable to make out the driver through the tinted windshield.
Tires squealed.
The vehicle headed straight at me.
Time slowed.
My heart leapt into my throat, cutting off my screams as my life flashed before my eyes. Sunny afternoons by the pond playing games of live-action leapfrog all by myself. Nights spent on a lily pad. Alone.
Always alone.
Until the day she came into my life—a golden-haired girl with grape-lollipop eyes and a sloppy wet kiss.
My eyes locked on the car less than ten feet away.
A sloppy wet kiss wouldn’t save me now.
Chapter 24
Drool-coated lips hovered an inch from mine. Hot, fetid breath assaulted my senses. My stomach rolled, but not from the putrid breath of my unwashed whore of a manservant who leaned over me. Nope, the bile rising into my throat had much more to do with the fact that I was nearly kabobbed by a unicorn horn a few seconds ago.
“Sir,” Karl dropped to his knees, “are you all right?”
“That idiot almost killed me.” I sat up, brushing bits of shattered glass and dirt from my shirt. At this rate I’d need a new wardrobe by my wedding day.
“Yes, but are you hurt?”
“You saved my life,” I whispered to my concerned servant. He blushed, but didn’t comment. I staggered to my feet, my knee nearly giving way. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
Karl caught me before I fell to the ground. “Um . . . sir,” he said, trying to hold me upright while I hopped around. “People are staring.”
I stopped my acrobatic tricks long enough to glance around. Other than a pied piper and a pack of brainwashed rats, the street appeared deserted. “I don’t see anyone.”
Karl exhaled loudly. “Very well. But still, this just isn’t dignified. For frog sakes, you’re a prince, and I’m . . .”
“Bald?” I suggested.
Karl scowled. “Well yes, but that wasn’t what I meant.”
“Oh.” I stopped jumping around and gazed at my longtime friend and servant. I owed him my life. He’d swooped in to save me from certain death like some sort of pudgy, pink-headed superhero. “How can I ever repay you for saving me?” I grabbed his face in my hands, squishing his pudgy cheeks until his lips disappeared beneath. “I’ll give you anything. Name it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Well, I wouldn’t mind having a couple of days off next week. . . .”
I released his puffy cheeks with genuine regret. “Next week’s not good. You know, with the honeymoon and all. Bags to pack, unpack . . . carry.” I tapped my bottom lip, thinking. “How about the first week of July? You can watch the fireworks from a beach somewhere.”
“July?” His voice increased an octave. Not an attractive sound, sort of like squawks coming from Peter Piper’s bathroom after a peck of jalapeño peppers. “I’m already on vacation that week,” he whined.
I scratched my chin. “Oh . . . July’s not good for me. I was thinking about going to West Wickedginia for Maple Fest. Maybe we should reschedule your vacation for November.”
Karl’s face turned a shade of pink not found outside the imagination of a crayon company. “You pompous, selfish as—”
I wagged my finger in his face. “You can thank me later.”
A block later, Karl yanked the front door of the Rose open with a growl. What a baby. It wasn’t like I asked him to break up with my ninth-grade girlfriend . . . again. What an ordeal that was. I spent four long hours at the hospital while a gaggle of doctors removed a #2 pencil from Karl’s testicle.
As I entered the shop, bells overhead jangled in greeting, but no one came to welcome us. The buzz of a tattoo gun echoed through the room. I limped farther inside, nodding to the back room where Lollie usually worked. “She must be with a client.” The accompanying scream clinched it.
“Lovely,” Karl said, picking up a dog-eared mag
azine titled Tramp Stamps: The Art of Tattooing Hobos from the waiting room table.
I sat down in the red office chair behind the tiny reception desk that Red normally manned. A stuffed mouse dressed in a small pair of Dockers and a white button-down shirt sat on the desktop, tiny tire tracks across its chest.
My eyes narrowed on the stuffed mouse and the letter “B” burned into its small chest. A frown puckered over my brow. I hefted the rodent up and held it to the light. Karl glanced up, his eyes widening as he pondered the mouse. “Oh my God. Sir, that’s—”
“Sure, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. . . .” My thought trailed off as the buzz of Lollie’s tattoo gun stopped, as did the agonized screams of Lollie’s client.
A minute later Lollie stepped out of the back room, a pair of thick rubber gloves, the kind worn by electricians and firefighters, covering her slender hands.
I dropped the mouse and beamed at the beautiful ink-covered woman in front of me. She stood, as regal as a princess in black leather pants, looking at me as if I was a bug about to be squashed. Lollie Bliss appeared as fickle as lady luck. One minute she was sucking on my tonsils, and the next she was staring at me like I was toe jam left in the bottom of a glass slipper.
“What’s with the gloves?” I asked, for lack of anything better to say.
“What’s with your face?” she returned.
“Ha. Ha.”
Her skin went white. “I’m not joking. You look a little . . . green. And there’s blood on your pants. What the hell happened to you?”
Oh, right. The accident. I’d almost forgotten about that in my haste to see Lollie. A bad sign. I didn’t want to like her, and I wasn’t exactly sure I did, but we had some sort of connection, other than the obvious one about her lover wanting my bride dead and all.
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