Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. He travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted.
****
“Daaadd! I want CANDY!”
“I told you once, sweetie, Daddy’s just getting some gas and some smokes, we’ll eat at the next stop!”
“NO!” Pale blue eyes squinted atop pudgy cheeks already ruddy with the beginnings of a tantrum. Pale wisps of hair escaped from pigtails fastened with pink plastic bobble holders that had ceased looking tidy four hours ago. The wispy strands swished with every stomp of her Hello Kitty sandal-shod foot on the hardwood floor. “I want candy NOW! Want it! Want it! WAAAANNNNT IT! Wantitwantitwantit ““
“Now listen…” His lower lids were droopy from bad rest stop coffee, too many sleepless hours on the road, and the sun shining into his eyes as he wound his way up the mountain pass in last year’s Ford SUV. At this altitude, no matter which way he turned the sun shade, the glare ended up in his eyes. It was a losing battle.
Not unlike this one.
“Candy! Candy!” Beneath the scowl and flailing fists, she was enjoying herself. Even if the outburst didn’t yield the desired outcome “ namely a pack of strawberry Airheads, god-awful as they were “ the chance to let off some steam and create the mother of all public spectacles was too tempting, too precious. Her eyes gleamed with perceived malice. Or maybe he was just tired…
Her voice wavered just this side of shrill fishwife as she continued chanting her tribute to the Pagan Gods of Tooth Decay and “Just Wait til You Have Kids of Your Own” comeuppance. He stared at her for a seemingly helpless, tortured moment, then heaved a heavy sigh of defeat. He picked up a copy of the map that he’d come in for and grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge, along with a jumbo-sized bottle of blue Power Ade sport drink. His heavy workboots clomped up to the counter. A slender Japanese woman with boyishly short hair turned down the radio behind her as she sauntered up to the register to ring him up.
“DADDY!” Small feet came stomping up after him. The Airheads were clutched in her tight, sweating little fists.
“Put that back. One pack of Marlboros, please. And thirty dollars on pump five.”
“Want my candy!” The cashier looked amused and bored, a faint hint of a smile quirking the left corner of her mouth at the frazzled pair.
“I said no.”
“Mmmmmmm-EEEEHHHHHHHH!!!!” THUMP! The packet of Airheads skittered across the floor as she threw all forty pounds of her kidney bean-shaped body against the floor planks and planted her forehead against it, slapping it with her palms.
Actually, you didn’t say no, Dad, the cashier mused. You just stood there and waffled like a chump. “Here’s your change, sir.” The remaining bills were crumpled and stuffed into the breast pocket of his faded workshirt. He gratefully tapped a cigarette loose from the pack and pursed it between his dry lips.
“You can’t smoke that in here,” the cashier warned before he could depress the button on the lighter.
“Sorry,” he acknowledged before turning back to the sobbing heap screaming what a doo-doo head he was, how mean, how unfair, how he didn’t love her for not getting her the caaannnnndddyyyyy. “Daddy’s leaving. Buh-bye. I’m going without you…”
“AAAAAAAHHH! DADDYYYYYY! DON’T GOOOO! NOOOOO!”
“Come on, then. Mommy’s waiting.” Mommy was happily oblivious and flicking through the radio channels to find a station that would even come in this high up, windows rolled down to let in the faint breeze.
The cashier smiled with relief as the backs of the pink Hello Kitty sandals flashed, lighting up with each stomping step out the door of the spacious country store.
“Least he didn’t smack her in the middle of the store,” rumbled a low, raspy voice thick with the local accent of a man who’d spent the best, and maybe the worst years of his life in the Canadian Rockies.
“You could tell he was dying to,” she tossed back. “Can you cover me? I need a potty break, Logan.”
“Sure, kid.” He chuckled under his breath at hearing her call the head “the potty.” Women.
“I’m going out on lunch in about twenty minutes. You gonna be okay while I’m gone?”
“ ‘Course. And Yukio, make sure ya remind Jubes to clean out room four, and ta bring the kitty litter. College kids back from a bender stayed there last night and left a present by the couch.”
“Eeeecccchhh. Nasty,” she cringed, turning up her nostril.
“Yeah,” he sighed. He reached below the counter for his cigar box, a gift from Jubilee on his last makeshift “birthday.” The box was made from thin, well-varnished cedar and haphazardly decorated with tickets. Concert tickets, ballpark tickets, plane ticket stubs, all decoupaged into a collage of everywhere the three of them had been since he took her into his home and lonely life.
“What’s this?” he asked, eyeing it curiously as he’d lifted it carefully from the discarded wrapping tissue on his lap.
“Just a place to keep your cigars. And maybe a few memories,” she hedged, glancing up at him through her dark lashes. “I know it means a lot t’you t’be able to remember stuff, with everything that’s happened t’you, an’ all, Logan.” She picked at her thumbnail, already ragged from chewing it while she had assembled the cake, card and gift before him, worrying the whole time. Her worries proved unfounded as an uncharacteristic smile, warm as the sun, crept across his face. Yukio had just shook her head and smiled at the scene that felt like something straight out of an episode of “Eight is Enough.”
They’d be back to cussin’ and fussin’ at each other by morning. Maybe even before nightfall. I love that spunky little squirt, damn it. And she felt that familiar, comfortable soft spot for her old friend of nearly ten years as she swatted his hand, nearly making him drop the cigar back in its nest.
“Hey!”
“No lighting up in here. I just told Mister Father of the Year a little while ago not to dirty up my nice clean floor with his ashes. I’m not letting you off the hook just ‘cause you own this dump.”
“Nice. Real nice talk, little ronin.”
“You’re the bad influence.”
“Whaddever. Quit callin’ my piece of shit store a dump. You’ll hurt her feelins’, girl.” Yukio snorted and raked her slender fingers through her short, spiky black hair. Logan marveled at how fresh and pretty she could manage to look, even with a haircut that resembled a hedgehog. Spiky, bellicose, and flying every which way. Like Yukio. Logan trimmed the cigar and chewed on it as Yukio made her way back to the tiny ladies’ rest room. He reached for his favorite Zippo lighter and played with it, seeing how high he could make the flame shoot from the spout. The late afternoon sunlight shone against the mother-of-pearl barrel. Logan stroked his thumb over it lovingly, letting out a gusty sigh.
The memories that this gift carried were both a precious and terrible burden that robbed him of sleep, more nights than he could count. Logan ignored the questionable wisdom of leaving the cash register unattended and stepped out onto the front porch, feeling the floorboards creak under his weather-beaten black Ropers.
The first embers of the lit cigar made a crackling sound as he drew the first gust of mellow smoke into his lungs. The sun was still shining brightly enough, but small, fluffy clouds dotted the horizon, delivering him that odd little buzz in the back of his neck that he had whenever a storm was brewing. The hairs on his forearms stood on end as he scanned the perimeter of the small parking gravel parking lot. Customers had been few and far in-between all day as the last of the tourists departed back down the hill. The previous weeks had Logan counting more Toronto Maple Leaf bumper stickers than he could shake a stick at and answering stupid questions about “why do Canadians call ham bacon?” Friggin’ tourists. Jubes tripled her allowance money in tips, but that never kept her from being all too vocal about the messes left behind in the cozy bungalows behind the store, sometimes to the point of t.m.i.
“Really gotta get that kid back in school,” he muttered out loud.
“No shit. Kid’s been watching too much damned MTV reality shows and court TV while she’s cleaning the rooms. Aren’t you supposed to be watching the cash box while I go to lunch?” Yukio elbowed him, then looked at the far-off expression in his eye and tightness around the corners of his mouth. “Logan-sama? Hellooooo?”
“Go eat. Ain’t no one here. Figure we’ll get more of a crowd around rush hour.”
“Want me to bring back anything?”
“Bring me one of whatever you’re having.” Logan extracted his wallet from his snug, frayed Levi’s and handed her a crumpled ten. With a side of hot sauce.” There were only two restaurants this far up the mountain: A yuppie vegetarian juice bar run by the homeschooling hippie mom that made the patchwork quilt hanging on Logan’s living room wall, and the steakhouse a couple of miles off that grilled a ribeye that you could cut through like butter. Logan had been friends with Mac and that pretty wife of his, Heather from the day he’d bought the property from the previous owner. Nice folks, he reflected. Heather was a real looker, librarian glasses an’ all, and she made a mean buttered rum on those nights when he chopped them a cord of firewood in exchange for meal credit. But mostly, he just enjoyed heading over there to talk.
Mac’s joke from the other night echoed in Logan’s head as he took another pull from his cigar, wheezing out a chuckle:
”So this woman walks into a pharmacy, steps up to the back counter, and tells the pharmacist, ‘I need you sell me some cyanide.’
He looks at her strangely and says ‘Ma’am, you do know what cyanide is for, don’t you? It’s a poison.’
‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I know that. I want to use it to kill my husband.’
‘Ma’am, I can’t give it to you. That’s murder.’ Then she pulls out a snapshot of her husband- get this, Runt “ IN BED with the pharmacist’s wife! And he looks at it long and hard before handing it back to her, saying ‘Well, now, you didn’t tell me you had a prescription!’”
Logan heard the revving of his motorcycle and the tires kicking up pebbles as Yukio screeched out of the lot, blowing him a friendly kiss beneath the visor of her red helmet. He saluted her retreating back and sat down on the steps.
He never had the chance to make himself too comfortable. Two minutes later, Logan looked up from the hole in his knee that was steadily growing in size from tearing threads out one at a time when a sleek black BMW pulled up to pump four. Logan rose to his feet and dusted off his jeans instinctively, one quick glance telling him that the driver was female and had enough money to top off the tank with premium without batting an eyelash. He wasn’t prepared for the compelling woman that stepped out.
“Purple?” he muttered incredulously. “Damn.” As she approached, Logan heard the faint crunch of gravel beneath her high-heeled mule sandals and noticed that she was perhaps a couple of inches, no, make that three inches taller than him, even flat-footed. Her height and lean, athletic physique, however, were nowhere near as striking as her hair, dyed a stunning shade of amethyst purple. The well-styled layers waved down past her shoulder blades and framed a face with high cheekbones and a patrician profile. Her smile held a faint dimple as she came up the steps.
“Twenty dollars on four,” she announced. Logan stepped aside to allow her to pass, admiring her shapely assets as she strolled into his store.
“Need anything else with that, miss?”
“Just a few little things,” she said absently, almost ignoring him as she perused the postcard rack and feigned interest in the fancy bottles of pure, local maple syrup. “And you could tell me who owns the bungalows out back.”
“You needin’ a place ta stay?”
“If they’re for rent,” she clarified, her voice clipped and efficient as her heels clicked over to the ice box. She extracted a bottle of Fiji water and a Frosfruit popsicle. Coconut-lime. Hunh.
“They are. I’ve got two vacancies after the six-o’clock checkout. The one-bedroom bungalow’s fifty for one night, eighty-five fer the whole weekend.”
“Sounds like a bargain.” She brought her purchases to the counter and removed her sunglasses, folding them and hanging them from the open collar of her blouse. “I’m Betsy,” she told him, extending her hand.
“Logan.” Logan drank her in, curious about the mix of ethnicities that went into this haughty, striking woman. Her accent was thick with pear-shaped vowels and a British lilt. That eye-catching purple hair framed a face with almond-shaped brown eyes that reminded him of Yukio’s. She had the graceful posture and walk of a dancer or a model, yet looked like she maintained her figure from good exercise rather than starving herself.
“Nice to meet you, Logan.” Logan’s eyes flitted to her mouth. Her teeth were even and perfectly straight, without the over-correction of bite on a person that had worn braces as a child. “I’ll take the one-bedroom one, then. Can you recommend anywhere good to eat?”
“What’s yer pleasure?”
“Somewhere that I can get a nice salad?” Logan mentally rolled his eyes.
“Then ya want the Power Station down the road, one exit down. It’s a juice bar and ‘fresh choice’ typ’a joint. Margaret Power runs it. Ya might stumble over her rugrats on the way in. She’s got four of ‘em, an’ they all study at home.” Salad. Logan winced and shook his head as he bagged her purchases. Betsy tucked her postcards into her purse to keep them from getting wet in the bag.
“Sounds great! So I’ll be back at six.”
“I’ll have housekeeping put the finishing touches on it and leave a light on,” he promised.
There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess.
****
An hour later:
“Whoo!” Yukio smothered a belch behind her fingers. “I’m stuffed! That hit the spot.”
“No complaints here, darlin’.” Logan collected the white Styrofoam to-go cartons and empty sauce cups, licking up the last drop of Mac’s spicy red-hot barbecue dip, sucking it from his two fingers in satisfaction. He heard the front screen door hinges creak just as he caught the last of it.
“That must have tasted pretty good.” Betsy strolled into the tiny office and made herself comfortable in the cracked red leather chair beside Logan’s in-box. Yukio raised her eyebrows at Logan, silently demanding an introduction. Logan nodded, gesturing to her. “Betsy, Yukio. Yukio, Betsy’s renting number four.”
“Hi.”
“Hey there. Where you traveling from?”
“I’m actually headed back to Manhattan. I’ve got an early shoot on Monday.”
“You model?”
“A little.”
“Anything we might have seen?” Yukio kept fishing. The purple hair amused her and seemed at odds with the sedate luxury car out front.
Betsy reached into her purse and pulled out a Polaroid photo. “This is the proof from a Vogue cover I did two months ago.” Yukio took the proffered picture.
“Shit. I’ve got this issue sitting at home in my john. Nice gig.” She handed it back, meeting her eyes. “You don’t mind my asking you, Bets, what nationality are you?”
“Nationality? As far as where I’ve lived, here and there. I was raised in London. For all intents and purposes, though, I’m part Japanese.”
“Which side of the family didja get the purple hair from?” Yukio’s eyes crinkled wickedly. Logan wrinkled his nose. Geez. Women…once they get started…
“My mother’s side. Think it was my aunt, maybe you know her, Miss Clairol?” Logan smiled, deciding the coolness he perceived in her manner earlier might have been for show.
“Yukio, go ahead and give Betsy the keys and show her the private parking. I already locked the pumps and the store.”
“Here y’go,” Yukio chirped, dangling the keychain in the air a moment, motioning for Betsy to catch it as she tossed it at her. She caught it deftly, left-handed, as she rose from the leather chair.
“Locals do anything for entertainment here?”
“This is it,” Yukio scoffed. “Not much in the ten-mile radius.”
“Not much, ‘cept fer Mac’s open mike night. Didja see the little barbecue joint across the road from the Power Station?”
“Uh-huh.” Betsy’s eyes twinkled as she tucked the room key into the pocket of her khaki capris. She had seen it. And it hadn’t looked like much, but now she was curious.
“That’s Mac’s. Owner’s a friend of mine. That’s yer best bet. Drinks aren’t watered down, they’ve got a decent jukebox, an’ every now an’ again, you’ll get a band that doesn’t sound like their parents kicked ‘em outta the garage.”
“Unless you’re more into the highbrow scene, coming from Manhattan, an’ all,” Yukio drawled.
“Not really. I spent just as much time out on the piss as I did in class while I was at Oxford.” Betsy dug through her purse and pulled out a American Express platinum card. Yukio whistled. Logan shot her his best look of “quit actin’ like a kid” and ran the credit number and expiration date, then handed her the receipt to sign, tearing off the yellow copy. Their eyes met as she took it from him, brushing her fingers against his. Something stirred in him at the light touch. No fireworks, no butterflies, just that warm little tingle that you feel when a connection’s been made.
“Have a good time tonight, Betsy. Hope ya enjoy yer stay.” Betsy’s mules clicked their way through the screen door.
“I might, if I had someone to share it with. Just a suggestion,” she sang over her shoulder.
“Yeah. Good night. Love you too, Princess,” Yukio muttered. The screen door swished shut with a bang.
“Pull yer claws back in, chickadee, ya might scratch somebody.”
“You’re not headed to Mac’s tonight. She’s high-maintenance, Logan. Just one whiff of that Tuscany cologne should’ve been your first clue, that and those overpedicured toes.”
“Wasn’t lookin’ at her toes,” he reminded her.
“Whaddever. Me, I don’t want any woman sizing me up the way she was you.” Yukio’s preferences were no real secret. It was one more little thing she was frank about from the day they’d met, even back in the day when their friendship evolved into an on-again, off-again “no strings” agreement. So instead of just being an ex who’d followed him out of the country and back to his old stomping grounds, she’d become both enduring friend and resident mother hen, both to him and Jubilee, and she never failed to remind him that she couldn’t make up her mind which of them needed mothering more.
“Sizing me up for what?” It was a redundant question. He just liked to push her buttons. Yukio snorted. It was an indelicate snort.
“Don’t make me tell you. Better yet,” she turned back to him from lifting her purse off the coat hook, “don’t make me pry the Jack Daniels out of your hand when she burns you. And she will.”
“Maybe she digs my sparkling wit.” His smile almost but not quite reached his pensive hazel eyes.
“So did I, once. That’s why I named it Mr. Happy.”
Logan toyed with the idea of hitting Mac’s over the next half-hour as he tuned in the evening news. He moistened his lips with a long pull of beer, savoring it. Nothing did a better job of washing the dust blowing in from the dusty mountain pass like a Molson.
She was a tempting little piece, that Betsy. Correction, bub. Tempting woman. Purple hair notwithstanding. Logan liked to think he had the wisdom of experience, coupled with the insight of his favorite ex-lover to help him make up his mind.
One, yeah, she was high maintenance.
Two, she was driving back to Manhattan. He didn’t have any problem with the thought of a one-night stand, other than that awkward moment in the morning when he laid there, tangled in the covers, trying to decide between a sneaky exit or a shambling “I’ll call you, or something.” She was from Manhattan, for cripes’ sake. “Same time next year?” Nope.
And three…let’s face it. It got old. Logan was guilty who knew how many times over of “love ‘em an’ leave ‘em,” but underneath it all, he was old-fashioned. Once upon a time, he’d been a marrying man. He twiddled the silver dog tags around his neck, then flicked them with his finger.
Logan wanted the brass ring. Just once, he wanted to wake up in the morning next to someone that not only made him wanna stay between the sheets a little while longer, but who he didn’t have to promise to call. Because maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t wanna leave.
Logan heard light footsteps thumping on the wrought iron stairs. He peered outside at the sky, letting out an exasperated sigh at the fading pink rays of the sunset.
SLAM!
“Yer late,” he growled.
“I know, I know. Sorry,” Jubilee huffed, dropping her books on the pine table with a clatter. “Julie was tryin’ t’talk me into staying over to use their new telescope. She wanted to show me this planet her dad found.”
“Planet?” Logan’s bushy dark brows rumpled in disbelief.
“Uh-huh. He even named it. Called it ‘Kymellia,’ or somethin’ weird. I lost track of time when Jules was showing me what she learned in geometry.”
“Ain’t she younger than you?”
“Yup. Home-schooled, though. You know Mrs Power’s always keeping ‘em a step ahead. Freaky Alex knows how to read stuff in Latin, and not just pig Latin where you shuffle the letters around and add ‘ay’ to everything.”
“So now he’s ‘Freaky Alex.’ Nice.” Logan sipped his beer and changed the channel to Jubes’ favorite. “Ya never know. What’s freaky to ya right now might knock ya off yer feet a few years from now. It ain’t always about the guys with barbed wire tattooed around their arms or who cover themselves in Old Navy logos.”
“K Swiss.”
“’Scuse me?”
“K Swiss is cool now.”
“Whaddever.”
“Didja get that sick up off the floor?”
“Uuuugggh. Yuck. Yes. Bastards didn’t even leave a tip!”
“Language, Half-Pint.”
“Learned it from you,” she tossed back as she rummaged through the fridge. She pulled out the leftover spaghetti and peeled back the plastic lid, giving it a sniff before inserting it into the microwave. She hit “reheat” and poured herself some apple juice in her favorite Spongebob Squarepants glass. She gulped it thirstily and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “Who was the chick with the purple hair?”
“Name’s Betsy. She’s headed back to Manhattan. Rentin’ number four.”
“Glad I used some lemon spray when I mopped, then.” Logan was mid-gulp and nearly choked when Jubilee shrugged, “She seemed kinda high maintenance.”
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