The Secret Life of Prince Charming

by Deb Caletti

  I watched the stars and felt far from anything familiar. Liv and Zaney seemed almost like people from a long time ago, another life, and I hadn’t thought about Daniel at all since I’d left. He was beginning to feel like a memory you weren’t sure if you’d made up or really experienced, like the trip to Florida I’d taken as a baby and only knew through the stories I’d been told. I’d given up baby food on that trip, Mom had said, and though I know I was too young, I swear I remembered the scrambled eggs she said were the only things I would eat.

  Talking myself out of the need to get up was going nowhere, that never works—it’s one of those things you know but try anyway. I swung my legs out of bed and onto the cool wood floor. I was at the bathroom door, standing right there, before I realized what was happening. What my eyes were seeing. A naked guy standing at the toilet, his butt a white globe in the moonlight coming from the window, and then the sound of a sudden burst of sleepy peeing.

  I must have gasped or done something else entirely humiliating because he looked at me then, gorgeous face framed in scraggly dark hair, arm with tattoo traveling down to hand holding penis, oh God, and…

  “Oh shit,” he said.

  He reached for the door as I turned away, me in my Nine Mile Falls High Volleyball Team T-shirt and chaste white underwear that Grandma would have been comfortable in, and he in…nothing.

  And that was how I first met Jake Kennedy.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I heard you met Jake,” Frances Lee said.

  Oh God. “Oh God,” I said. Everyone was in the kitchen, Joelle in a flowy caftan, at the stove, flipping several pancakes onto a plate that already held a nice stack of them. All the windows were open, and the air smelled like sizzling oil, frying bacon, coffee, and summer morning.

  “What?” Sprout said. She hated missing out on things.

  “Your sister saw Jake in his skivvies,” Joelle said.

  “No skivvies,” Frances Lee said.

  “Ha, he told me skivvies,” Joelle chuckled.

  “I guess this isn’t going to be our secret,” I said.

  Jake walked into the kitchen then. “This is what I look like with my clothes on,” he said.

  “Kind of late for introductions,” Frances Lee said.

  “You didn’t walk in on me peeing,” Jake said to Sprout. Now he wore knee-length cargo shorts, a tight white tank top. Big white smile, too, that same tangle of hair, this dimple in his cheek that had to mean trouble.

  “I’m Charlotte,” Sprout said. Tattooed arm held out, arm connected to bare chest, bare chest easing down to naked ass…

  “You left the door open!” I said. My face was hot. I was blushing, I knew it, which only made me blush more.

  “Sell tickets next time, Jake,” Joelle said.

  “Big deal, you’re not that much to look at,” Frances Lee said. She took a big jug of milk from the refrigerator; put it on the table, which was set for breakfast.

  “Grab a seat, people,” Joelle said. “You’re getting on the road, you need a big breakfast.”

  “She’s kicking us out,” Frances Lee said. “She and Roy are going away for the weekend.”

  “Roy is my business,” Joelle said, and set the platter of pancakes on the table. “And I’m very glad of that fact.”

  “Joelle, can I pour myself some coffee?” Jake said. “I need serious caffeine when strangers see me naked.”

  “Get over yourself,” Frances Lee said.

  Plates were passed; syrup, too. Frances Lee got up to get the roll of paper towels to share around. Grover sat by my chair and watched me eat, same as Ivar. Dogs are funny, the ways they’re all similar and the ways each is different. Grover kept inching closer to me until he finally set his chin on my chair with such a sweet and hopeful look that you couldn’t help but give him a bit of pancake. This was a better method than Ivar’s, whose endless unblinking stare felt a little creepy-insistent and unsympathetic.

  I didn’t dare look at Jake Kennedy, who was cracking jokes and getting teased like the little brother Frances Lee seemed to see him as. The painting now hung on the kitchen wall, right across from the chair where Joelle sat. The fragmented woman gazed right down over Jake Kennedy, which I decided was a bad sign. If any guy was trouble, Jake Kennedy was. He was the kind of guy who would make my mother freak. Musician, tattoo, gorgeous when naked. Gorgeous when clothed. I didn’t dare look, but I kept looking. He was a little grungy, actually, and he ate with a kind of messy energy that could have been bad manners. But it was all sexy in a way I couldn’t define. The opposite of clean. I could hardly breathe.

  Joelle set down her fork.

  “I’ve got a little favor to ask you all,” she said.

  “Oh, great,” Frances Lee said. “‘Little favor’ never means ‘little favor.’ ‘Little favor’ always means ‘big favor.’”

  Sprout kicked me under the table. She agreed, I could tell.

  “Now come on. You’re going that direction anyway. I have something of your dad’s that I’d like you to return.”

  “No,” Frances Lee said. “I know what this is, and the answer’s no.”

  “This is going to be good,” Jake said.

  “Not a painting,” Sprout said.

  “A little bigger,” Joelle said.

  “A lot bigger,” Frances Lee said.

  “Come on, Frances Lee,” Joelle said. “I cannot keep that fucking thing out in the barn forever. And it scares Harvey.”

  “Don’t ask this,” Frances Lee said.

  “It’d fit in the truck, no problem.”

  “What do you think,” Jake said to Sprout. “One of those enormous lions people have to guard their gate?”

  “Close,” Joelle said.

  Frances Lee snickered. “Yeah, he’d guard the gate, all right.”

  “Tell!” Sprout said. Joelle just sat and smiled. She seemed pleased with herself.

  “Bob’s Big Boy,” Frances Lee said. “A huge Bob’s Big Boy.”

  “Bob’s Big Boy?” Jake said.

  “Hamburger place?” Joelle said. “The little cartoon boy with the red-and-white checkered pants? He’s holding a hamburger on a plate in the air? A little swirl of cartoon hair? He’s adorable.”

  “He’s fucking ten feet tall,” Frances Lee said.

  “Barry and some friends stole him from some frat boys his first year of college. Said the hardest thing was getting him in the elevator of their apartment building. He used to stand outside a Bob’s Big Boy in Montana, or somewhere, they said. He’d fit in the truck just fine,” Joelle said.

  “Nooo,” Frances Lee groaned.

  “Frances Lee,” Joelle said, in a way that finished things. So after we’d cleared up the breakfast dishes, we all followed Joelle to the barn. She hauled open the big doors, and Harvey ran to the farthest corner of the pasture. He stood there and watched suspiciously as Joelle hauled a plastic tarp off of a huge mound in the corner of the barn, revealing, as promised, an enormous, cheery cartoon boy in red-and-white checkered pants, his hair a soft-ice-cream swirl on his gigantic black plastic head. His arm was in the air, and a huge hamburger sat on a plate in his palm. Harvey started to pace.

  “Harvey, it’s fine, he’s harmless. Quit your fretting,” Joelle called to the horse.

  “Harmless? He flings that plate with the hamburger and someone’s gonna die,” Jake said. He had a syrup spot on his shirt, and even that syrup spot was sexy.

  “So you put it in the truck and give it back to Barry,” Joelle said.

  “Like it’s that easy. Easy as mailing a letter,” Frances Lee said.

  “Did you take it from him?” Jake asked. “Like he took the painting? Because, frankly, I’m a little confused.”

  Bob’s Big Boy smiled down upon us. Joelle wiped cobwebs off of him with her hand.

  “God, no. I’ve told Barry for years to come and get this thing. What you get stuck with during a divorce, you wouldn’t believe. I also had this really hideous raccoon coat of hi
s that I finally just threw away because I screamed every time I accidentally touched it in my closet.”

  “Mom ended up with a set of place mats with the animals of Australia on them from her last boyfriend,” I said. OCD Dean had gone on his honeymoon there.

  “And those videos about the life of Pope John Paul,” Sprout said. OCD Dean was a devout Catholic, except for the divorce and the living-together part of his life.

  “Gavin’s friend Ben? You know Ben,” Jake said to Frances Lee. “His girlfriend gave him half a scissor in his boxes of stuff she packed up.”

  “Psycho killer,” Joelle said.

  “And a television set that didn’t work. And an old turntable without an arm,” Jake said.

  “Break up and you’re suddenly a convenient human Goodwill box,” Joelle said. “Clean out your attic and leave me the junk, gee thanks.”

  “There ought to be some Web site called ‘Crap from My Ex dot com.’ You could trade the Crock-Pot you got left with for someone else’s eight-track player,” Frances Lee said.

  “Her mismatched gloves for his left-behind Jockeys,” Joelle said. “Love it. But for now, let’s get this baby out of here. Sayonara, Big Bob. It’s been fun, but you’re going home.”

  Big Bob attracted a lot of attention as he rode in the back of the truck, hamburger upraised. You could see the faces of little kids craning to look as we passed, and trucks blew their horns, and a motorcyclist gave us a thumbs-up, keeping his arm out for a good half mile until he disappeared from view.

  Jake’s gear was in the truck bed with Bob, and Jake and Jake’s guitar rode with Sprout in the backseat; Jake liked to have the extra room to take his guitar out and practice. His presence made me feel strangely here, aware of him and of myself, as if there was a force of energy that flowed from him to me. Everything about him was on one of Mom’s lists somewhere, wasn’t it? My eyes were drawn again and again to the side mirror, where I watched his head bent down over his guitar, the serpent tattoo cradling the instrument’s body. The music sounded completely different than it had on Frances Lee’s tape deck, just his acoustic guitar, this tender strumming. Can you feel sentimental about something that never happened? Or that might happen but hasn’t yet? Because that’s what I felt then, riding in Frances Lee’s truck. Jake’s voice, soft and low, made everything seem important and full of meaning—EZ Storage places seemed full of meaning, and so did exit signs and flocks of crows and rest stops. Jake sang, and Sprout leaned her cheek against the window and Frances Lee drove with a smile and truck drivers honked and waved at Bob, and this was how we made our way to Elizabeth Bennett’s house (mantel clock, hands stopped at 3:30), the second stop of our karmic quest.

  We were traitors to Bob as we drove through the Burger King drive-through. Frances Lee gave our order through the little speaker, and Bob kept smiling way up there against the sky. The boy at the window in his paper hat leaned over to give us our bags.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” he said. He scratched the place under his ear, looked upward.

  “Is what some kind of a joke?” Frances Lee said.

  “That guy in the back of your truck with a hamburger,” the boy said.

  “What guy in the back of my truck with a hamburger?” Frances Lee looked puzzled. She took her change.

  “Right there! I’m looking at him!”

  “What’s he talking about?” Sprout said from the back.

  “Dude, you should stop smoking that stuff,” Jake said.

  Frances Lee gunned the engine. The boy leaned down on his elbows on the take-out window ledge, raised his arm, and flipped us his middle finger.

  “Sheesh, customer service,” Jake said.

  “Someone give me some fries, pronto,” Frances Lee said.

  BRIE JENKINS:

  I moved through my five-and ten-year goals, checking accomplishments off my list as if they were household chores. I had a 4.0 average in college, worked for my dad, had money saved…But there was always some chaotic guy around. Except this one boy, though. Tim Phillips. I remember him. I think about him every now and then. This was in college. Right after the crush on the cowboy and just before I met Lincoln. Before everything (meaning, my life) seriously veered off my careful plan. Tim was just a great guy. And he didn’t have issues, like he was abused in the past, or his father hated him, or his mother sent him away when he was seven to military school. I didn’t have the urge to help him with my love. I just wanted to be with him. Being with him felt so good. I never had to walk on eggshells. It was just happy, you know? Just plain happy. Sort of simple.

  Of course, Lincoln came along then and this whole nurturing thing kicked in, as if my past was louder than my present. I hadn’t stopped to figure out what was going on in my head yet. And so I stopped seeing Tim then. I’d always taken care of my mom, just emotionally speaking, and then when Dad got sick…Lincoln came along and I followed, like a bear going to the river. He drank too much on our first date, and I saw how much he needed me. If a guy seems to need saving, call the Coast Guard.

  Tim Phillips—he didn’t need me. We were like salt and pepper—great separately, great together. Those early days with Tim—they were such fun. I wonder what happened to him. He just—see, I smile even remembering him.

  It got hot that afternoon, real hot. You could see wavy lines coming off the asphalt, and we had all the windows down and Frances Lee also had the air conditioner on, which she said wasn’t really an air conditioner. It was some sort of vent that was spitting out lukewarm air and making a horrendous racket like a helicopter landing. The backs of my legs and arms were hot and sticky, and I kept taking pinches of my skirt and shirt and fanning them in and out for coolness. Sprout had fallen asleep and her mouth hung open and her hair was wet around her forehead, stuck down with sweat. Every now and then Frances Lee would exclaim, “Jesus,” or “Jesus, it’s hot,” and Jake had lost his shirt somewhere back after we had eaten lunch. One arm was out the window so that you could see the fluff of his underarm hair. Sun fell in a triangle against his chest.

  “Jesus,” Frances Lee said.

  “We’ve got to be getting close to the border,” Jake said.

  “Quinn, can you check the map? Do I need to make a turn off here somewhere?”

  I’d been appointed official map reader due to my position in the front seat, and let me tell you, I wasn’t the wisest choice.

  “Upside down,” Jake said to me from the backseat.

  Shit, shit. I turned the map around, tried to get some sense of where we were. I followed the freeway with my finger. “A little bit more and then it connects to I-5 north,” I said. I tried to fold the map back up along the creases, unfolded it, and tried again.

  “Do you need some help?” Jake said.

  I would have blushed if my face weren’t already so hot. “I’ve got it,” I said, and thankfully, I did. Wasn’t there something on Mom’s list about someone making you feel humiliated? Or was that just me making me feel humiliated?

  “Oh, shit, guys,” Frances Lee said.

  Something in her voice made Sprout wake up. “Is everything okay?” she said.

  “Shit,” Frances Lee said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Overheating,” Jake said. “This stupid truck always overheats.”

  “This stupid truck is getting you to your next gig,” Frances Lee said testily.

  “We hope,” Jake said.

  “Goddamnit, Jake,” Frances Lee said. “Shut up, would you?” It was the old “yell at a human when an object does something awful” move. Honestly, this new person who was my sister could sometimes be very hard to like. Frances flipped on her turn signal, setting in motion the frantic tick-tick-tick-tick-tick! The tires crunched in the gravel off to the side of the freeway. Cars whipped past, making their shee-ooom! sound.

  “I have half a mind to leave you right here,” she said to him. This seemed suddenly possible. The three of us (four, if you counted Bob) on the side of the road with our lugga
ge beside us as the truck sped away in a cloud of dust.

  “Is everything okay?” Sprout said again.

  “It’s fine,” I said. I didn’t know if it was fine or not.

  Frances Lee turned off the engine. “We just have to wait a while until it cools off,” she said.

  “How long does that take?” Sprout asked. I heard her suck on her straw from her Burger King cup, making a reached-the-bottom dry slurp.

  “An hour?”

  I wanted to groan. I pictured a desert, those cow skulls lying under a cactus on dry clay ground. I licked my lips. No one said anything.

  “Come on, people, it’s not that bad,” Frances Lee said. She was pissed. The kind of pissed someone gets when they feel responsible for the bad way things have turned out.

  “Frannie, let me do the Coke trick,” Jake said. I felt this mix of hope and dread at his words. He had a solution that would save us. The solution sounded illegal at best.

  “Forget it,” Frances Lee said. The dread part of the hope-dread equation got bigger. Frances Lee shook her head, opened her car door for more air. Shee-oom! Cars passed. Someone honked again, hooted out their window. Bob kept smiling up there in the back.

  “It worked last time.”

  “You’ll fuck up my engine,” she said.

  “Your engine is already fucked up,” Jake said.

  “Fine,” Frances Lee said. She folded her arms. I finally realized who it was that she reminded me of. She reminded me of Sprout. Sprout’s feistiness and certainty and sometimes irritating independence. Sprout, a little older, knowing her own mind even more than she did now.