by Aven Ellis
“Hey,” Chelsea says, taking off her coat and draping it over the vacant chair next to me.
“Hey, Chels,” I say, watching as she sits down. “How are you?”
“Good,” she says, retrieving her iPad from her backpack, along with a textbook, a notebook, a fountain pen, and a stash of tabloid magazines.
I grin as soon as I see them. This is what I love about Chelsea. The woman is majoring in comparative literature; can recite some of the greatest works ever written—in both English and French—and hails from an old-money San Francisco family. But she also gleefully reads every issue of People or US Weekly she can get her hands on with the same abandon that she reads Shakespeare.
I glance at a glossy tabloid, one of the ones that is fond of writing the most outlandish headlines. The formula seems to be two “appetizer” headlines on the side and a “main course” in the middle of the cover. I check out the appetizers first—come on, isn’t that what you do at a meal?—and see the face of a beautiful blonde woman on one side, with a handsome hockey player on the other, and the classy headline of “TOM WHO? Skye Moves on with Hunky Hockey Star!’ Next, there’s a shocking revelation of a celebrity divorce that is about to happen due to the inability of a cheating actor to keep his tongue out of the nanny’s mouth. I recognize the main course immediately, no headline needed for identification.
It’s Prince Christian of Wales, looking very serious as he gets out of a car in a crisp, white, dress shirt; a luxurious, navy overcoat; and no tie. His blond, curly locks appear windblown, his blue eyes serious.
I read the screaming headline at the top:
HERMIT PRINCE MAKES RARE PUBLIC APPEARANCE
Prince Xander the Philanderer secretly confides in friends that the Golden Prince is a hoarder recluse in Cambridge. Palace fears he’s unstable and buried in empty curry takeaway tubs. Appearance forced for PR sake. Page 15.
I furrow my brow as I study the cover. None of this can be true—although I do hope that Skye from the reality dating show Is it Love? is with a sexy European hockey player because Tom, her suitor on the show, was a total assclown.
But I seriously doubt Prince Christian is a hoarder. Or even a hermit. He probably just wants to be left alone, which I can relate to on a minor level. Obviously, the press isn’t hiding in the bushes to get a shot of Clementine Jones, art history major at Stanford University, the second I leave the library, but my sister and parents might be.
Especially this week.
“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Chelsea asks, tapping Prince Christian on the nose and interrupting my thoughts.
“Gorgeous but sad,” I say, staring down at the image. “Look at his eyes. You can see it.”
“I think you should have been a creative writing major,” Chelsea teases. “He’s probably bored because he has to go cut some ribbon somewhere. He can only hide at Cambridge so long before the family forces him out for the occasional appearance to prove he’s not a hermit.”
At the word Cambridge, I can’t help but glance down at my phone. Usually, CP texts me around this time, while he’s eating dinner. For convenience, we exchanged numbers soon after we started swapping messages. He won’t tell me his full first name. He enjoys letting me guess and insists that kind of reveal has to be earned with time. But I did force him to give up his last name, Chadwick, before giving him my phone number for WhatsApp.
CP.
A tingling sensation sweeps over me as I think about him. Since the message he sent me that January night, we text multiple times a day, every day. We exchange long private messages, too, about our studies; life in Cambridge and Palo Alto; and our favorite TV, books, and food. He’s still just as funny and intellectual as he was in that very first message.
I have access to his Instagram account now, too, which is filled with pictures of his beloved dog, Lucy—a red and white Welsh springer spaniel—the English and Scottish countryside, and food he’s eating. None of him, though, as he told me he loathes having his picture taken.
He says he is an “ordinary bloke” and he doesn’t want to ruin my image of him. He thinks I might change my mind if I saw his face. He obviously hasn’t blown up my pictures to see what’s flawed with my face, but I don’t want to push too hard now.
I wonder if he has an illness or is disfigured in some way, if that’s why he’s hiding parts of himself. I know it’s odd that he can see me when I can’t see him, and that red flags should be flying, not only at attention but straight out screaming caution, but I don’t care. I get the impression people have disappointed him, and he enjoys having the keyboard as a protective barrier.
I enjoy our conversations so much that I don’t mind this veil of secrecy around him. I do know he’s a guy, and I do know he’s in the UK, and that’s enough for me at the moment. I’ve gone out with guys at Stanford, a few serious, a lot not, and I’ve never had these kinds of fun, wickedly clever and stimulating conversations in my life.
I’m willing, for now, to just let CP be CP in order to keep talking to him.
My phone begins to vibrate in my hand, and I see MOM flash on my screen.
I sigh. “It’s Mom. I’ll be right back,” I say to Chelsea.
“I’ll be reading about the hoarding prince, which we both know is crap because the king would have housekeepers clean up his shit.”
I stifle a laugh and answer the phone. “Mom, hold on. I’m walking out of the library.”
“Okay, honey.”
I wait until I’m outside before speaking. “I’m out now.”
“So, you’re all ready for Thursday night, right?” Mom asks, a twinge of nervousness in her voice. “Paisley is flying with you, and we’ll all go to the appointment together on Friday morning. I made sure there are a couple of flights after yours in case there’s any kind of mechanical difficulty, and if you have to charge a full fare on another airline, that’s fine.”
I feel a headache coming on. I know Mom is worried, but her worrying, and Paisley’s worrying, makes everything a thousand times worse.
“I’ll be there,” I say, drawing a breath of cold air and letting it fill my lungs.
“We don’t want to miss this appointment. You know how hard it is to see Dr. Choi, and you know how important it is for him to go over the results an—”
“Mom,” I interrupt, “we’ve been through this before. We’ll deal with the results as we get them.”
Mom sniffles. “Of course, of course, you are one hundred percent fine, absolutely you are. It’s just another scan.”
I can’t take this anymore. I can’t. I feel as if everything is closing in on me and I can’t breathe.
“Mom, we’ll see you Thursday night in Phoenix,” I say. “I need to study now.”
I need to be normal.
“Of course, study. I love you. I promise you everything will be just fine. Don’t worry.”
We hang up. I move over to the bench outside the beautiful McMurtry Art and Art History Building and drop down onto it, drawing my knees to my chin and tucking my head down on top of them.
Fine. My whole life I’ve been told I’m going to be “just fine,” but how can I be when my family treats me like a fragile baby bird that might never fly, always awaiting news that my broken wings are back and I’ll fall with dire consequences? They fret over me, and I know the only reason I was allowed to go to Stanford was because Paisley was nearby in case anything happened. They are forever preoccupied with test results, and it’s all my fault. So how can I be fine?
Tears fill my eyes, and I determinedly blink them away.
Buzz!
I sniffle and flip over my phone.
It’s a text from CP.
I pull down the sleeve of my Stanford hoodie and glamorously use it as a tissue before I open his message.
Tonight’s pub quiz question, specifically curated for Clementine by CP:
Work out the name of this dessert from this anagram: Cloacae Heck To
I smile despite my tears. CP alway
s starts chats with a pub quiz question. As he explained to me last month, it’s a trivia night held in a pub. If I get the question right, he always says, “That’s ace, Clementine.”
The Online Slang Dictionary tells me this means “excellent.”
Ha. We both speak English, but sometimes I feel like he’s speaking a completely different language.
I text him back:
I’m afraid I’m not going to be ace on this one, CP. I can’t think when I’m upset.
CP is texting …
Are you OK? Do you want to talk about it?
My fingers linger over the keys for a moment. In my quest to be normal, I haven’t told anyone at Stanford about my medical past. I can’t handle any more people worrying about me than I already have. But somehow CP and his guarded world seem like an outlet to me. He’s someone I can vent to, who can’t smother me because he’s an ocean away.
This time, the little bird doesn’t sit on the branch and wonder if a broken wing will appear. The little bird chooses to fly.
Do you ever wish you could be someone other than who you are? Without the cards life has dealt you? I wish I could fold and start over, with a new card up, asking to be hit with another one. Shit. I’m losing it. I’m talking to you like life is a round of blackjack. I’ll message you later when I’m no longer crazy. Promise I’ll have an answer to your pub quiz question then.
I hit send and put the phone to my head. I don’t know if he’ll give me space after that comment or text me back. And even though I retreated, I hope CP doesn’t.
When there’s no familiar buzz on my phone after a few minutes, I realize CP is giving me space to get my head right for a normal conversation, and to solve that anagram, because I’m shit at those kinds of word puzzles and he knows it’s going to take me awhile.
I stand up and sigh heavily, sadness creeping through me. I need to shake it off and get back to my studies. I have to get to the mall this afternoon, as I’m giving an art tour of this month’s exhibition to a senior group and I need to be “on” for it.
I take two steps before my phone rings. No doubt Paisley’s turn to talk about my appointment and how everything is going to be “fine.”
I’m about to reject the call when a different name catches my eye. My heart stops. I freeze on the sidewalk, causing other students to move around me on the path.
The name of the person flashing on my screen isn’t Paisley.
With a shaking hand, I answer it.
“H-Hello?”
“Hello, Clementine,” a sexy, deep, English-accented voice says into my ear. “I do understand what you mean about the cards. Exactly what you mean. No, we can’t change the hand we’ve been dealt, but we can decide whether to stand or hit, to take the risk. You don’t strike me as the standing type. Perhaps we should talk about how you can take the hit. If you’ll risk a conversation with me, that is. So, will you? Will you talk to me, Clementine?”
Chapter 2
Just a Bloke from across the Pond
I hesitate. Would CP really want to hear my story? I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. The last thing I need is for one more person in my life to treat me like a fragile Fabergé egg. I’ve come to value my exchanges with CP because they are thought-provoking and fun.
I don’t want my story to change that.
“I-I understand if this is too weird,” CP says, his voice breaking through my thoughts. “I can hang up. Right. Well, I’ll just go n—”
“No,” I say, my instincts taking over, as they have throughout the forging of my friendship with CP. “I want you to promise me something. After I tell you, promise me you won’t change toward me. Please promise me that.”
“I can’t promise that,” CP says gravely. “I mean, if you are laundering money or hiding bodies in the cupboards, my opinion of you would change.”
I laugh. “Well, duh, of course not. I embezzle not launder, and I keep the bodies under the floorboards.”
CP laughs—a rich, throaty chuckle—and I think I just felt the first signs of a swoon coming on.
“Well, that changes everything. Go on.”
I walk back toward the bench where I was sitting a few minutes ago and slowly sink down onto it.
“Okay. Nobody outside of my family knows this,” I say, my voice growing quiet. “When I was fourteen years old, I started not feeling well. I had headaches, nausea, and vomiting. My vision gave me issues. I was irritable. I was misdiagnosed at first, a doctor said I had a virus. But it turned out that virus was a brain tumor.”
CP releases an audible gasp on the other end of the line, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“God, Clementine,” he says, his deep voice resonating with shock. “I’m so sorry.”
“Talk about a shit hand of cards, right?” I quip, as I’ve come to use humor to help deal with my medical past. “It was benign, a stage one. I had brain surgery to remove it, and they were able to get all of it. I didn’t need to have radiation or chemotherapy. But it did cause some paralysis of my right eye. If you blow up a picture of me, you can see it. It’s not hugely obvious unless you are super observant or studying my face, but part of it droops. Ironically, getting Botox injections helps the appearance, so yes, I’m already getting Botox, and I’m not even twenty-three.”
“You and my mother could compare notes. Except her Botox makes it look like she has zero facial expressions. Or that could just be her personality. Ice usually doesn’t have much of an expression, unless it begins to melt, but hell would have to freeze over for that to happen with her.”
I pause. CP just served up something very personal in response to my sharing, and I make a note to ask him about this at another point in time. I get the impression his mother isn’t a warm woman who bakes cookies and asks how your day was.
Or in the case of my mother, “How was your day?” followed by, “Did you have any headaches? Dizziness? Vision okay?” as she runs through a tumor symptom checklist.
“How are you now?” he follows up. “Are you okay?”
“I have to have scans regularly to make sure it hasn’t come back,” I say. “I have been tumor free in all of them. But I started having headaches again, and I had to have an MRI last week. I’m going to get the results from my doctor in Phoenix on Friday. Hopefully, another tumor hasn’t taken up residence in my brain matter.”
CP is quiet for a moment. “Clementine, that was a lot for a teenager to go through. It had to be frightening. Now you have to fight the ghost of it as an adult, don’t you?”
A lump forms in my throat. “I’m scared,” I whisper, my voice thick. “I know it could be back. I know it could be worse. Headaches were my first sign before. It could be bigger, or malignant. I could be told I only have years, if I’m lucky, to live. But I can’t share those fears with my family. Ever since I was sick, they have been nothing but fearful for me. The worry might have receded, but it has never left them. I’ve scarred them. Worse, I’m treated like a fragile bird, who might re-break a wing at any moment, who must be watched and protected above everything else. Sometimes, it’s suffocating. Then I feel guilty for thinking that. I just want to be normal, not the girl who had a tumor.”
To my surprise, a sob escapes me.
“Clementine, listen to me,” CP says, his British voice coming through the line in a commanding tone. “You have every right to feel these things. Every single one of them. In my family, it’s always the British mantra ‘keep a stiff upper lip.’ Well, I say bollocks to that. You can feel anger over what cards you’ve been dealt. You can feel the frustration of being smothered, the sadness over the part of your childhood that has been taken from you, and the fear any time you get a headache that it means something. You are allowed to be human. At least you are with me.”
CP’s words wash over me like a powerful wave, knocking the pent-up emotions free and allowing them to crash against the rocks on the shore. I begin crying, and as if he’s right here with me, he continues to tell me he’s here and he will
be as long as I need him to be.
The tears finally subside, and I wipe my face once again with the sleeve of my hoodie. Ick, I can’t wait to get this off and throw it into the washer when I get home. But until then, I get to walk around with snotty sleeves. Serves me right for not throwing a pack of portable tissues into my backpack.
“I wish I could see your face,” I say aloud, “to thank you for what you’ve done for me.”
CP remains silent.
“I don’t care what you look like,” I blurt out. “I want to see you.”
He exhales softly, so softly I can barely hear it.
“I’m just an ordinary bloke from across the pond,” he says simply.
“No. No ordinary bloke would help a stranger like you have,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re anything but ordinary. At least to me you’re not.”
Silence fills the line.
“Thank you,” he says simply. “Clementine?”
“Yes?”
“I know this sounds mad, but I don’t feel like you are a stranger to me.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I agree with you.”
We chuckle together.
“You do realize that I need to see you at some point, right?” I say.
Silence once again.
“CP. Unless you are a middle-aged professor playing a charade with me, I expect to see your face. Oh, wait, unless you are hiding a secret identity. Either you’re keeping bodies under the floorboards; or you’re Prince Christian, hiding in mounds of crap and curry takeout tubs.”
I can’t help but laugh aloud, as both examples are equally crazy.
“This isn’t a game to me,” he says, his voice sharp as he cuts through my laughter. “You are very real to me. Do you understand how much I look forward to texting you? To our conversations? It’s ridiculous how much I enjoy them, and I’ve never even met you. I don’t want my face to change that, Clementine, not when I’m still discovering who you are.”
My heart does a weird flutter, something I’ve never felt before.
