The Secret Life of Prince Charming (12 page)

That night at dinner, Mom discussed with Sprout all of the Parks Department activities she could sign her up for that summer. Pottery. Horseback riding. Swim team. Sprout kept catching my eye, making hers big with
Do Something
urgency. I knew what she was thinking. We had to keep the time open for Frances Lee. The karmic quest could not be interrupted for a coil pot.

“What’s going on with you two?” Mom said.

You couldn’t get anything past that woman. “Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing,” Sprout said.

Mom rolled her eyes. There was no way we were going to pull this off.

“You’re awfully quiet, Mom,” Aunt Annie said to Grandma.

“Sore throat,” Grandma said. She put her hand to her neck. “Eck, eck.”

Under the table where he lay, Ivar sighed through his nose.

Right then, every one of us had a secret. Every single one of us in that kitchen.

After dinner, Sprout came into my room, shut the door. She leaned her back against it and folded her arms.

“Well?” she said.

“Well, what?”

“I want to go on a karmic quest with Frances Lee. I want Brie to get her statue back.”

She sat down, right there by the door. She circled her arms around her knees. She was wearing her pink bathrobe with the butterflies on it. On the collar she’d stuck a pin that had a picture of a dog in sunglasses.

“I’ve been thinking. This isn’t an overnight trip. We don’t know where these women live. Brie and Joelle—right there, that’s a day.”

“So, we do it when we’re at Dad’s. We’re with him on those weekends anyway. We tell Mom we’re with Dad. We tell Dad we’re with Mom.”

It had possibilities. “They don’t talk to each other anyway,” I said.

“The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” Sprout said. Grandma always said this too, especially after she watched the news.

“Okay.” My mind was clicking. I got a pen from my desk—sometimes I thought better with a pen in my hand.

“Don’t write anything down. We can’t leave evidence.”

“You’re right,” I said. “The weekend with Dad…What if it takes longer? Plus a day or so? Who knows.”

“He’s taking us on a trip,” Sprout said.

“She won’t like it, but we’ll tell her we feel we need to go. All those missed years, getting to know him, blah, blah.”

“I can cry if we need,” Sprout said.

“Subtlety is best.” I sat down on my bed. I realized I was still holding that pen, and I tossed it back to the desk. My aim was bad and it hit this stuffed bear, Ariel, I’d had since I was little.

“He can take us to Paris,” she said.

“Subtlety.”

“Disneyland.”

“Better.”

“She always knows when something’s going on,” Sprout said.

“I know.”

“Like she’s got some Early Warning Detection System. I can’t even think about doing something wrong and she knows.”

This wasn’t helping. “This isn’t helping,” I said.

“We just gotta be like spies, is all. Outsmart the enemy.”

We only had a few more weeks with Dad before he was gone for the rest of the summer. He’d perform at local outdoor theater for a while before taking off on the “World Tour.” Mom would know this. We’d have to leave soon, if at all. Maybe Frances Lee wouldn’t be able to make it right now. I shouldn’t be getting Sprout’s hopes up, I knew that.

And what about the bigger picture? We were getting swept up in the energy of a Great Idea. But what about that pesky little concept of post Great Idea consequences? Alienating Dad forever, lying to Mom—none of it was in the realm of good choices.

“I’ve got to think,” I said. “I’ve got to be the responsible one here,” I said.

Sprout stood up. “I hate it when you do that,” she said. Her arms were crossed, her eyebrows down in a fierce V.
“Hate.”

“Shh, for God’s sake.”

“I’m not a little kid,” she said. I thought she even stomped her foot, but I might be remembering wrong. Her words were a foot stomp, anyway.

“Relax,” I said.

“You treat me like I’m two,” she said.

“Stop acting like it, then.”

“I’m not acting like it, you’re acting like it.” We were starting the downhill slide into a serious fight, proof right there what a disastrous idea this could be. The insults had already degenerated into I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I territory, the vicinity of Nuh-uh, uh-huh. She could send me instantly to that place of fury I was in when I was eight and saw my favorite Barbie floating in the toilet, thanks to her.

And then, right then, my phone rang. Over on my desk. Like a referee blowing a whistle.

The fight was instantly over. Sprout’s eyes widened. “Frances Lee,” she said. The words sounded religious.

“Maybe she changed her mind,” I said.

“Maybe she wants an answer,” Sprout said. The phone rang again. “Get it, Quinn!”

I snatched the phone from my desk, looked at the screen. “Oh shit,” I said. “Oh shit, oh shit.”

“What?”

“It’s Dad.” Ring.

“He never calls,” Sprout breathed. Ring.

“Oh shit.” The phone rang again and stopped.

“He knows,” Sprout said. She was there beside me now, on the bed. We were both staring at that phone like it might burst into flames.

“They wouldn’t tell him,” I said. But I wasn’t too sure. I didn’t know Frances Lee or Joelle, either. Maybe Joelle got pissed. I’d certainly seen my share of pissed with Mom and Dad to know how that went. She wasn’t going to talk to him and then,
bam
, before you knew it, she was slamming down the phone after yelling at him.

“He never calls, Quinn. When has he ever called?”

I thought desperately. It seemed hugely important to find an answer. “He wanted me to bring my CD player that time. To go jogging. Remember when he jogged?”

“For, like, a month,” Sprout said.

“He called then.”

“We’re doomed,” Sprout said.

I stood and paced, the phone in my hand. I opened it and looked—no message. “No message,” I reported.

“You gotta call him back,” Sprout said.

“God damn it. I should never have called Frances Lee. Never.” I punched in Dad’s number. Fine. If this was it, this was it. Might as well get it over with. Worse case scenario, I could lie. Lying was beginning to seem like some friend I could always count on.

Ringing. Sprout stared her support my way. I paced around.
God oh God oh God.

“Quinn!” he answered. “Quinn-y, Quinn, Quinn.”

I squinched up my face in confusion, shrugged my shoulders Sprout’s direction. What was going on? Dad sounded happy. Really happy.

“Sorry I missed you. I was in the bathroom,” I said. Ha, lies were already rolling off my tongue.

“No problem!” Maybe he was high. He sounded cheery as a Christmas carol. “Hey, I had something I needed to talk to you about.” I held my breath. It was some trick. His voice would turn nasty, and then he’d skewer me.

“Okay.”

“About the weekend after next,” he said. “You guys are supposed to come over?”

“Yeah.” My chest tightened. I waited for the blow.

“I was wondering if we could reschedule. Remember when you were over last? That reporter came by?”

“The reporter for the
Portland Journal
?” My heart climbed from ground to sky in seconds. It was suddenly a seagull, doing a gleeful swoop. He didn’t know anything about Frances Lee and Joelle. This was about Dad and that junior reporter. I could jump up and down. Sprout’s jaw dropped, her eyes got big. She put her hands near her chest, pretended to grab big boobs. She looked as giddy as I felt.

“That’s her. She took me to some party and I met this woman there.”

“A woman?” I gave Sprout a confused face and she gave me one back. The boob-grabbing hands went back down to her lap. This was a little hard to follow.

“I met a woman at this party the reporter took me to. We talked on the phone a few times…. See, she’s got three kids, but they’re going away weekend after next, when you’re coming, and I was just wondering if maybe we could postpone. You know, until I’m back from tour.”

“You want to postpone?”

“I know how disappointed you must be, and I tell you, my heart is breaking over it, but she barely is ever away from those kids, and this would be a good thing for all of us, you know, if I started getting back into life again.”

“It’s no problem,” I said. “That’s fine, Dad.”

“It’s a sacrifice on everyone’s part, I realize,” Dad said. “I’m being a little selfish.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said.

“A person’s got to look after his own needs first, though, I realize, in order to be able to give to everyone else.”

“We’ll see you when you get back,” I said.

“I’ll miss you like hell,” he said.

“We’ll miss you.”

“Tell Charles I love her,” he said. “And you, too.” His voice was large. Words of love seemed to seal the deal. They were the checkmark next to the item on the list
Call kids and reschedule.

We hung up. Sprout turned to me; she put her hands on my shoulders. Bore her shiny, happy eyes into mine.

“We’ve been given a miracle,” she said.

I called Frances Lee.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

The sooner, the better, she agreed. I gave her the names for Joelle to investigate. We’d make a driving route after that, Frances Lee said, if any of the women were even in the area. On the list would be Joelle herself and Brie, of course. And then Jane (age 6), Olivia Thornton, and “Elizabeth.” I paused before I told her the next name, the last name, the name that was a betrayal of Mom. I thought of the bust of that woman left there
in my father’s living room, and I felt sorry for it, the way you feel sorry for a barn with a sagging roof, or a child’s shoe abandoned in the street. You couldn’t only finish part of a quest—a quest was something you did all the way.

“Abigail Renfrew,” I told Frances Lee. “That’s the final one.
A.R.
I know she lives in Portland too.” I remembered her house. That cat hair on the couch. She was still there, I knew. “Mom saw an article in the paper about her recently.”

“One less mystery,” Frances Lee said, as if Abigail Renfrew was actually a good thing. I remembered what happened when Mom saw that article: “Portland Artist Makes a Splash in the Big Apple.”

“‘Local artist Abigail Renfrew’s newest work has gained acclaim among New York gallery owners,’” she read. Her voice was the kind of strong and sarcastic that could crumple at any moment. “‘Adding the subject of water to the female figures she’s created in the past has added new dimensions to her already interesting work,’ Dawson Edwards, owner of three Tribeca galleries said. ‘The interplay between wave and human body is a primitive yet timeless theme we respond to at our basest level, and Renfrew manages these connections with both energy and integrity.’”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Grandma had said.

“‘The interplay between bullshit and bullshit is a commentary on the ephemeral nature of bullshit.’ God, I hate phony crap like that,” Aunt Annie said. “Look, it’s a freaking wave going over a woman’s body. Big deal.” She stood over Mom’s shoulder, poked at the paper with her finger.

“I don’t think ‘integrity’ belongs in the same paragraph as
Abigail Renfrew,” Mom said. But her voice had gotten wobbly, enough so that I could tell that she was at the edge of tears. Everyone else could tell, too.

“Oh, honey,” Grandma said.

“It’s a freaking ugly statue,” Aunt Annie said. “She looks like she was carved out of a Tootsie Roll.”

“After all these years…,” my mother said.

“It still hurts,” Grandma said. “I know.”

Maybe we could just drop Abigail Renfrew’s head sculpture on her porch and run, I thought.

“So, we’ll meet at the Portland train station? I’ll pick you guys up?” Frances Lee said. “I assume you have a key, or something?”

“He’s got one hidden.” My heart started to thud around again at the thought. This was stealing. We’d be stealing things out of my father’s house. Stealing stolen things.

“Think Robin Hood,” Frances Lee said. She’d been reading my mind. “And figure out a way to tell your mom, okay? I don’t want to be charged with kidnapping, or something.”

“Sure,” I said, but didn’t mean. There was no way that was going to happen.

“I might have to bring my boyfriend, Gavin’s, little brother, Jake. Fine with you? He needs a ride to Portland. Musician, car breakdown, the usual penniless performer crisis. The rest of the group’s meeting him there. Can’t get his stuff on the train, et cetera, et cetera.”

“No problem.”

“Weekend after next, then,” she said. “I’ll call you with some sort of plan.”

“Great,” I said.

“This is totally weird and therefore totally fucking awesome.” Frances Lee chuckled. “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.”

“We’re in,” I told Sprout. She was in her own room, sitting cross-legged on her bed, waiting, her sleeves pulled down over her hands to keep them warm. Her room had posters everywhere, barely any white space—animal posters with lion cubs sleeping and pandas in trees; a movie poster with cartoon penguins; another of Mick Jagger holding his crotch that she’d gotten from one of Aunt Annie’s boxes up in the attic and that Mom opposed until Grandma told her to lighten up. Sprout had a habit of snitching band flyers off of telephone poles whenever we went to Seattle, so she also had advertisements for
DEADBOLT PLAYING AT THE TRACTOR TAVERN
! and
SUMMER HEMPFEST
! and
FREE PRIDE WEEK CONCERTS, DON’T MISS OUT
!

“No way,” she breathed.

“Yes way,” I said.

“I was so worried.”

“Worry no longer,” I said, although I had a feeling our worries were only beginning.

“I just love Paris this time of year,” Sprout said.

“Disneyland!” I reminded.

“Oops, right.”

Oh, God, what had I done?