Page 91 of The Frog Prince

I’ve got to escape the house. Have to escape the TV and the worn, faded chintz sofa and the framed school photos on the wall. I feel trapped here sometimes. Scared.

I go to the Starbucks on Main Street, and it’s a proper Main Street. I love this town. You could go all over the valley—Hanford, Tulare, Sanger, Porterville, Exeter, Kingsburg—and each one has its Main Street with its turn-of-the-century brick buildings and the one big high school stadium and the trees.

It’s not really foggy yet, but it’s cold, and only a few people are walking around, heading either to or from one of the theaters or restaurants that have sprung up downtown.

But at Starbucks I find a crowd, and I wait in line with everyone else before carrying my coffee outside, where I sit on a chilly green metal chair and clutch my warm paper cup.

My breath comes out in little clouds, and as I sit there, the red-and.-white candy cane swags that have been strung up and down Main Street for tomorrow night’s Candy Cane Parade turn on. Red and white lights glow everywhere, and it’s both gaudy and wonderful.

I watched the Candy Cane Parade every year growing up. I used to love Christmas—the stockings, the carols, the pretty wrapping paper—but after Bastard Ted left, it was never the same.

Mom tried. God knows she did. But it wasn’t the same.

I bite my lower lip and stare up at the red and white lights, the colors glowing through the fog. I’m not going to cry. It’s silly to cry. And yet my chest aches for the girl I was and the woman I am.

Who am I? What am I? And when is my skin going to fit?

When do I get porridge that will taste just right?

Standing up, I toss away my now empty cup and head back toward my car.

It was relatively easy moving to the city, I think, but it’s been damn near impossible taking the small town out of me.

*

The paperwork arrivesin the mail two weeks later, on December 7.

Standing on the front steps of Cindy’s butter-cream Victorian, I open the envelope, look at the piece of paper for a moment, not understanding what it is. I read the legalese, see the various stamps and dates, and then it hits me. My divorce is final.

It’s over, I think, feeling nothing. No sadness, no pain, not even relief. I read the wording again and again before slipping the folded paper back into the envelope.

The marriage should never have happened, and now it’s as if Jean-Marc and I never were.

In my bedroom I file the paper away before taking out a notepad. Time to concentrate on Christmas shopping.

*

Christmas comes andgoes, leaving me with all kinds of new credit card debt.

I spend New Year’s with Katie and a couple of her crowd up at Lake Tahoe. I’m not a great skier, but I rent equipment and give it a go, spending much of each afternoon sliding down slippery mountain slopes on my butt. But I tried, and that’s what counts, I tell myself.

*

In January Iwork hard, bringing in lots of new business, and in the first February all-staff meeting David gives me a gift certificate in front of everyone as an award and a thank-you for bringing in the most new business in the new year.

I’d hoped that by my working hard Olivia would see I was a team player and would relent in her hard-ass attitude toward me, but the award from David, as well as the gift certificate to Neiman Marcus, makes her even snarlier than usual.

Valentine’s Day approaches, and the Schlessenger wedding demands hours of Olivia’s and Sara’s time because this wedding, with the black-tie reception for five hundred at the Palace Hotel, seems cursed. Everything that could go wrong does, and what should have been a slam dunk threatens to unravel even up to the last minute.

I’m just glad the wedding’s not my problem, and I spend Valentine’s night at home alone, watching old movies and eating microwave popcorn kettle-corn style.

I shouldn’t be eating kettle-corn popcorn, though. If I were smart I’d lose another five to ten pounds and get really expensive highlights and learn something about fashion and attitude.

Instead of lying on my couch in mismatched sweats, I should be working harder to make myself look like a million bucks so I can go after a man who has a million bucks.

If I were smart, I’d just give up on love and the whole idealistic, romantic thing and become a realist.

I’d know that love and passion never last, that infatuation is based on a mixture of pheromones, novelty, and projection. Which reminds me, there’s a great book published calledWhy We Love, packed with research. The author did all these MRIs of the brain, studying romantic couples, people hopelessly besotted, and in every case the brain chemistry was markedly different. You see, lovechangedthe brain. But the research also revealed—tragically—that even with those hopelessly besotted who’ve become addicted to love (yes, romantic love leads to obsession, making one crave the beloved just as a junkie craves his drug of choice), love goes.