The Frog Prince (6 page)

“I’ll get him!” says Roman, his hands on my waist. The unexpected contact of his hands on my bare skin jolts me, and I nearly fall off the rock. I look up to see Onyx’s tongue hanging out of his mouth in a way that makes him look like he’s laughing at me.

By now Roman has made it to the top. He grabs Onyx around the waist and slides down the rock to the ground. Onyx twists out of his hands onto the trail and runs ahead, the leash dragging behind him.

“There’s hardly anyone here,” he says. “We can probably just let him run ahead if you’re not worried that he won’t come back.”

I don’t tell him that I plan to leave the dog here and see if he can find his way home,
Incredible Journey
-style. Maybe he’ll befriend a cat on the way.

“He won’t run away,” I say.
Unfortunately
.

We continue along the trail in silence until we get to what used to be a lake before the dam burst in 1913. I am about to tell Roman how the flood sent a fifteen-foot wall of water into Denver, killing two people, when he throws me off topic with this observation: “You don’t strike me as the tattoo type. What’s it say?”

I am grateful that he is ahead of me on the trail because I stop dead in my tracks just as Onyx comes bouncing back our way. My tattoo is strategically located on my lower back. My
low
, lower back. Like, almost my ass. I narrow my eyes at the dog.
Your fault
, I think at him.
If I didn’t have to climb a rock to get you
… Onyx, seeming to sense my displeaure, whips around and runs away.

It’s not that I’m self-conscious about my tattoo. Or that I didn’t think my obsessions wouldn’t be revealed in time. It’s just that I wouldn’t have picked Day Two as the best time to tell Roman that I’m a big dorknozzle J.R.R. Tolkien fan.

I start walking again. “It’s a few words from a poem I found in a book,” I say, my face hot enough now to sear a steak on. “It says ‘Not all those who wander are lost.’”

Roman stops and turns. “From
The Lord of the Rings?
Let me see.”

I turn around and lift my shirt, hoping my durable, full-coverage hiking underwear isn’t showing above my waistline. I bite my lip against the urge to explain to him that I normally wear butt-floss thongs.

“Love the color,” he says. “I thought it was a henna tattoo for a second.”

“I chose the color on purpose so it would look like a henna tattoo.”

His fingertip traces across some of the lettering, sending a shiver up my spine that I fight by contracting my Pilates-tightened core.

“Are these Elvish runes?” he says, his tone incredulous.

I want to groan with humiliation. “Yeah,” I finally say, dropping my shirt. “I found a guy on the internet to design it.”

“How do you know that’s what it says? I have a friend who had a poem written on her shoulder in Chinese. Then she ran into someone who could actually read Chinese, and he told her it said something like ‘My other ride is your mother.’”

I stare at him, not sure if he’s pulling my leg about the accuracy of a tattoo written in Elvish. “I guess I figured that my odds of running into an elf were small,” I finally say.

Roman chuckles. “Good point.”

He’s staring at me again, and I can feel the silence expanding like a balloon between us, the pressure growing and growing–the dreaded Balloon of Silence. I resist the impetus to blurt out a random thought, and instead say, “I’m going to Kat’s house for dinner tonight. Want to come?”

“Absolutely! By the time we’re done hiking the back forty here we’ll definitely be hungry.”

He’s doing that thing again with his hands and the Camelback straps, and I want to reach out and fondle his shoulders.

He holds out his hand to me and I take it without thinking. “We should go find Onyx,” he says. “Kat probably won’t feed us if we come back without him.”

Distracted by the warmth of our entangled fingers, I say, “Dogs revert to wildness more successfully than any other domesticated animal except cats and pigs.”

He raises one eyebrow in response to this factoid, and I can’t tell if the look on his face is that of pity or amusement. Then he turns and pulls me along down the trail.

Chapter Five

Oh my god, he is sooo yummy
, I think as I watch Roman get out of his car, dressed now in khakis, brown sandals, and a button-up white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His freshly washed hair is still wet, and I tear my eyes away so I can get out of my own car and onto the sidewalk without becoming a pedestrian fatality. Across the street from Kat’s house, joggers, dog-walkers and parents with kids take in the evening air in Denver’s Washington “Wash” Park. Onyx bounds out of the car and streaks for the front door.

“Hey!” says Kat with a big smile from the open doorway. I give her a quick hug. “Hey, Roman!” she says, reaching out to hug him with her other arm. “It’s so good to see you guys!” Come on in…Mitchell says the steaks are almost done.” She hurries back in the direction of the kitchen. “We’re eating on the deck,” she calls over her shoulder.

Kat’s husband, Mitchell, is an anesthesiologist at the hospital by our office, and a former Calvin Klein model. (I mean, can a human being get any closer to perfection?) I decide to forego explaining the black and white, slightly homoerotic photos of Mitchell in tighty-whitey underwear that are hanging on the living room wall, and instead pull him by the hand to the back of the house. We emerge on the deck where Mitchell has just finished removing six thick steaks from an industrial-sized, stainless steel grill.

He hands the plate of steaks to me. I turn back to Roman and am about to introduce the two men when Roman takes charge.

“Hey, Mitchell,” he says, shaking hands with him while I deposit the steaks in the center of the table. “Good to see you again.”

I think for a second and realize that they must have met after the near-fatal foot massacre at the funeral home Friday night. No need to bring up that embarrassing event again.

“Hello, darlings!” comes a voice from behind me.

I frown when I see Kat’s mother-in-law sidle onto the deck. She’s overdressed in a black skirt that is much too short for a sixty-something woman, a spaghetti-strapped silver sequined camisole, and a pair of silver stilettos. But it’s not really her teenage clothing choices that are the problem, or her garish makeup. I can even overlook the leathery, over salon-tanned brownish skin that appears to be melting off at her jaw line. I always tense up when I’m around her, foreseeing how she’ll act when she sees any much younger male of reproductive age. And if she knows that Roman is pseudo-royalty she’ll be unbearable.

“Lydia,” I say through gritted teeth, “this is my friend Roman. Roman, this is Kat’s mother-in-law, Lydia.”

Before Roman can even reach out his hand to shake hers, Lydia sucks in a phlegmy, asthmatic breath and purrs, “Your Highness.” She tucks one ankle behind the other and clenches her thighs in a way that makes me think that she has taken a strong laxative that has suddenly kicked in. Then I realize with horror that this is her attempt at some sort of awkward curtsy.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” she says to Roman, completely ignoring me. “Red or white?”

“Uh, white please,” says Roman, glancing sideways at me. Thrilled to be in the presence of almost-royalty, Lydia grimaces–or smiles, it’s hard to tell–and hurries into the house.

Thankfully, Roman appears highly amused by the whole episode. “Red or white?” he asks.

“Red, please,” I say in a grumpy voice.

“On the prowl,” says Kat of her mother-in-law once Roman is out of earshot.

I look around for Mitchell but he seems to have disappeared into the house. “Aw, c’mon,” I say, sinking into one of the chairs. “There’s no reason why she can't flirt a little.”

“It couldn’t have escaped her notice that you and Roman came together.” She reaches down to pick a plastic grocery bag off the concrete next to her chair. “By the way,” she says, handing it to me, “happy birthday. Don’t open it now…it’s strictly a girls-only type of present.”

“Um…okay,” I say. I can tell by the feel of the object through the wrap that it’s a book. Kat has been known to buy her friends copies of books like
20 Things You Should Know About Your Vagina
. I tuck the bag into my purse and put it out of my thoughts immediately.

As if reading my mind Kat says, “What are you going to do about your boobs?”

I sigh while at the same time silently hoping that a sudden shift in the tilt of the Earth’s axis throws her off the chair. “I doubt he’s going to ask to see my breasts on our second date.”

“You never know…best to be prepared,” she says, chortling through a mouth full of potato chips. “Eventually your prosthetics are going to catch up with you.”

Kat often takes cruel advantage of my poor body image. She knows that I have no alternative but to hoist up my somewhat saggy 36 C-cup breasts into a Victoria’s Secret gel bra. If I were to drop my bra on the floor, it would maintain its silicone-filled shape, making it appear as if someone had, in a moment of forgetfulness, misplaced their breasts.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that you spend so much time obsessing over my secondary sexual characteristics?” I gripe. “Why don’t you ask me if I shaved my armpits today while you’re at it?” I scoop some chips into my hand. “And I’m
not
getting breast implants,” I say, anticipating the next topic she’ll bring up. “They’d look ridiculous on me. They wouldn’t look real.”

“Most men argue that it’s ‘real’ if they can touch it with their hands.”

“It’s
real
,” I counter, “if you don’t have to have it removed before you’re cremated.”

“I’m not even telling you to get breast implants, just advising a breast lift,” she says, still laughing merrily. “In about ten years they’re going to be sagging around your waist like National Geographic tent flaps. Then what are you going to do?”

“Buy a 36-Long,” I mutter, looking over my shoulder into the house to see what’s keeping Roman. I consider going inside to rescue him from the man-eating mother-in-law.

“Do I want to know what kind of conversation I’ve wandered into?” Roman slides up behind me and holds out a glass of white wine.

“Thanks.” I silently vow to maintain control of all the dishes, glasses, and utensils that I may hold during the course of the evening, regardless of what Roman is saying, doing, or touching.

Lydia appears, a store-bought coconut cake in hand. One lonely birthday candle stands tall in the center. “Who is this for?”

“Leigh,” says Kat, as she spears a steak from the platter and begins cutting it into little pieces for her son who still hasn’t materialized. “It’s her birthday.”

“It's your birthday?” says Roman, turning to me in surprise. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“She hates celebrating her birthday,” says Kat.

“What is it with women and birthdays?” Roman mutters as Lydia piles salad onto his plate like he’s four years old. “It's just a number.”

“Oh, getting older isn't Leigh’s problem.”

“Shut up, Kat.” This is careening into embarrassment territory fast.

“Leigh hates the presents.”

Roman looks at me curiously. “You don't like presents?”

“She likes the
presents
,” says Kat. “She just hates trying to figure out what to say when she gets them. Apparently ‘thank you’ is too complicated.”

I shoot Kat a look of hatred as I cut a small piece off a side o’ cow on the serving platter and transfer it to my plate.

“Her birthday isn’t even today,” says Lydia in a sour voice.

I roll my eyes and don't notice when Roman raises his wine glass, nor the fact that everyone at the table has done likewise. Elbow-deep in a mountainous dish of pasta salad, I scramble to find a place on the table to drop the bowl as Roman begins an elegant toast.

“Victor Hugo once said ‘The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved– loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves,’ ” he says, looking at each person at the table in turn.

His gaze rests on me just as I get my glass in the air.
Don’t drop the glass, don't drop the glass
, I chant to myself.

“May this next year bring you the very best of happiness, health and fortune,” he says with real feeling, like we’ve known each other for decades rather than days. “Happy birthday, Leigh.”

It is easily the most touching birthday sentiment I have ever heard. I swallow hard against the palm basketball that has suddenly materialized in my throat. All eyes are on me, waiting for me to respond. I panic.

“Amen,” I stutter. Thankfully I am drowned out by the louder, and more appropriate “hear hears” and “happy birthdays” of the impatient assembled.

Inebriation has been known to actually improve my verbal skills, so I dump the wine down my throat like a sorority pledge at a hazing and look around for more. I decide I’ll need at least fifteen minutes of non-stop drinking before I’ll be able to wrest control of my body back from my autonomic nervous system.

Thankfully, the topic of my birthday is now water under the bridge, and Lydia is regaling the table with a recent visit to what she still refers to as a “beauty parlor.” This gives me the opening I’m looking for and I scoot my chair back so I can make a run for the wine bottle in the kitchen.

I freeze, half-standing, when Roman touches my hand. “Should we celebrate tomorrow?” he says in a low voice. “Do you have plans?”

My heart suddenly feels like someone is jack-hammering out loose asphalt. I drop back into my chair and shake my head, then realize that he probably thinks I’m saying “no” to the first question. “I don’t have plans,” I clarify.

“Would a birthday surprise be out of line?” he asks softly, his fingers wrapped lightly around mine on the table top.

As the others begin an offshoot conversation on another topic, I decide honesty is the best way to go. “I don’t handle the unexpected well.”

Roman smiles. “Then I won’t surprise you, I’ll just tell you where we’re going.”