Page 69 of The Frog Prince
Katie can speak her mind with me and I’ll listen. Katie knows my world—knows my mom, my family. (Heck, Jamie even came from college and took her to our senior prom when neither of us could get dates!) She practically grew up sleeping over at my house, or vice versa. If anyone has insight into my strengths and weaknesses, it’s her.
“Why Jean-Marc?” she asks after a minute. “You never liked having a boyfriend. Why did you settle down so quickly with him? You’re the one who never wanted to be tied down in high school.”
She’s right. It was pretty much the same in college, too. At UC Irvine I liked the idea of having a boyfriend, until I got one, and then I felt… trapped. Bored.
So why was I so desperate to marry Jean-Marc?
Because I thought he wasn’t like American guys. He seemed more intelligent, more interesting, more sophisticated, more of everything. And when I thought I had found the right one, the Prince Charming I’d always been looking for, I jumped. “I was confused,” I say after a moment, when the silence has stretched for an uncomfortably long time. “I guess I thought I was marrying a hero, someone foreign and glamorous, and I thought if someone sophisticated likes me, then well…” I shrug, and my voice fades away.
In the dim light, with her pale oval face and her long, straight blond hair, Katie’s a study of contrasts: tough and tender, fragile and fierce. “You thought you’d be sophisticated, too,” she concludes as our breakfast arrives.
We pause, allowing the waiter to do his presentation with a flourish and leave before we continue.
“I wanted to be special,” I say in a small voice, staring down at my pancakes, and there’s a pound of butter melting into the top of the stack. I really should scrape some of the butter off, but I like butter.
Katie’s cutting into her corned beef hash and eggs. “A man doesn’t make you special. You’re special because you’re you.”
I finally, reluctantly push some of the butter off the stack. “So you feel special?”
“No.” Katie cuts another bite, then looks up at me with a wicked smile. “But it’s what all the experts say. No man will love us the way we need to be loved. We have to love ourselves before anyone else can love us.”
And I suddenly see my mom, stretched out on the sofa in front of the TV night after night. Maybe that’s why Mom is alone. It’s not that she couldn’t have company, but maybe she doesn’t love herself and can’t let anyone else love her.
“You’re a genius,” I say.
“No. I just watch a lot of Oprah and Dr. Phil.”
I laugh. I can’t help it, and yet, laughing, I realize how long it’s been since I did this—felt something like this—and as my laugh dies away, I know I want to laugh more. “It’s good to see you, Katie.”
“Definitely meant to be,” she answers with a firm nod.
The waiter comes by with a pot of fresh coffee and refills our cups, and with our coffees refreshed and our plates nearly empty, Katie leans away from the table, fiddles with a bit of her hair. “I am sorry I missed your wedding, though. Heard it was beautiful. Jean-Marc’s family all flew in from Paris, didn’t they?”
“Provence,” I correct. “And it was beautiful. Very formal. The wedding cost my mom a fortune.” I think of the bridesmaids, the fresh flowers everywhere, the seven-tier wedding cake with delicate spun-sugar blossoms spilling down the side, and remembering makes me sick inside. So much money for so little love. “We should have just run away. Eloped. Done something private and cheap.”
The corners of Katie’s mouth lift. “But you’re a princess, and you know it.”
Once this might have made me smile, but it doesn’t, not now, not after the past horrible year. I wanted to stay in the valley. I never intended to be living in the city. I like farm towns, and cows, and simple things. I wanted marriage and babies. How does that make me a princess? How did I become a princess?
I didn’t go to an Ivy League college. I don’t wear designer clothes. I don’t own any nice jewelry. I don’t even care about the kinds of cars men drive.
But I did want a “happily ever after.” I did want the storybook ending. I wanted happiness. I just don’t know how to get it.
*
Monday at work,there’s another team meeting, but this one is long and intensive. There are lots of upcoming events, lots of client appointments, lots of potential sales meetings. Olivia dispatches duties swiftly. We’re all to bring in new accounts by the end of the quarter.
After the meeting Olivia takes off for an appointment with David. I don’t know where they’re going, and I don’t really care. But once they’re both gone, the office relaxes, and Tessa and Josh head downstairs together. I briefly wonder what’s up with them before I check my e-mail in-box.
There are some boring business e-mails, and then—surprise, surprise!—an e-mail from Brian Fadden.
It’s short, so short it shouldn’t even be called an e-mail, but it makes me smile nonetheless.
“How’s life in the jungle?”
He didn’t sign his name, but it’s there in his signature line, including all his various work contact numbers. “Life in the jungle,” indeed. I smile at the computer screen. Chew the tip of my nail, wonder what I should say. I don’t want to say too much—his e-mail was very short. And I can’t be boring, as his e-mail was amusing.
So not too wordy, not too dry…