The Frog Prince (17 page)

Above the windows are words stenciled in white paint. I scoot as far to the edge of the bed as I can without falling onto the floor, and lift my head to try to make them out.

Austria est in orbit ultima

Even after three years of high school Latin all I can come up with is “Austria is in the ultimate orbit”—an unlikely translation unless it was penned by Timothy Leary.

“Where’re you going?” I hear Roman say softly behind me. He grabs me around the waist and hauls me back to the center of the bed, kissing me on the back of the head.

I tilt my head back to look at him over my shoulder. “Well
that
didn’t work,” I say.

“What didn’t work?”

“The story I told you about…I kissed you for hours last night.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he murmurs sleepily. “I was supposed to turn into a frog.”

I smile. “Not a frog….a prince.”

“Well, I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.”

I touch the lumps and bumps of my hair with my hands. “That’s okay, I think I’m the one who turned into the frog.”

His lips are pressed against the back of my neck, and I can feel his mouth turn up into a smile. “I want to kiss you,” he says. “But I need to brush my teeth first.”

“At least you have a toothbrush,” I say with genuine regret, thinking of my bag in the living room of the other house.

“I have a spare one.”

I ponder this information for a few seconds. “Um, is that ‘spare’ as in ‘still in the package,’ or ‘spare’ as in ‘gently used and we’ll need to boil it for ten minutes first?’”

He chuckles sleepily against my neck. “In the package.”

“What’s it say on the wall over there?” I say, pointing to the stencil.

“It’s Latin,” he says, not bothering to look to where I’ve pointed. “ ‘Austria will be the last to perish.’”

I allow a pregnant pause to gestate before saying, “Was this pithy motto written before or after the empire broke apart and you had your asses handed to you in World War One?”

“Geez!” he says, releasing me. Flipping the covers off himself, he slides off the bed onto the floor. “You’re
brutal
in the morning.”

I giggle as he walks to the bathroom in his cotton pajama bottoms and T-shirt.

A very important thing we have in common: neither of us can sleep naked. Roman generously gave me an oversized, long-sleeved T-shirt in the middle of the night. I lift my arm to my nose and inhale deeply, happy that it still has his scent on it, and wondering if there is a way I can sneak it into my bag without him noticing.

He comes out of the bathroom, pulling a toothbrush from his mouth. “I just thought of the number one reason you should be grateful,” he says through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Grateful for what?” There’s so much to choose from in the last ten hours, it’s hard to rank them in terms of a Top Ten list.

He pops back into the bathroom to rinse his mouth, leaving me in suspense. He reemerges, wiping a hand towel across his mouth. “Grateful that I didn’t turn into a prince,” he says.

“Ah,” I say, sliding up in the bed and leaning back against the headboard. “Why’s that?”

“Because then you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Because I’m so lowly?” I say with a smile.

He laughs. “Something like that.” He starts back towards the bathroom, and then turns around. “I just thought of the second number one reason.”

“They can’t both be number one.”

“Okay, well, the other one was a matter of pedigree. This one goes in the psychological trauma category.”

“Fun for everyone,” I say drily. “Do tell.”

“You know those pictures in the dining room, the ones where I’m being mobbed?”

I nod.

“Well, that would become your life. Just look at Prince William. The poor guy can’t even kiss a girl without it being on the front page of every newspaper in the morning. Makes me wonder if he ever lost his virginity.”

“Wow…forget Frog Prince,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “You’re a regular Prince Charming.”

“Well, it’s true!” he says, wandering back into the bathroom. “You would never know what a private life was.”

I kick off the covers and spring out of bed, still marveling at the fact that I am up in a tree. “How in the world did you get the idea to build a house in a tree?” I say, following him to the bathroom, and stop cold. Roman has covered his face with shaving cream and is leaning towards the mirror, razor in hand.

Watching an attractive man shave does funny things to my insides. From an evolutionary standpoint my reaction is completely illogical…it doesn’t follow that just because a man can remove his facial hair he can also, say, run down a giraffe. Nevertheless, there are few things I find sexier than what I am watching Roman do right now.

He runs the blade down one cheek and then swishes it around in the sink. “Disney World.”

I shake my head, already forgetting what we’re talking about. Oh, right….houses, trees, houses in trees. “Disney World?”

“And
The Swiss Family Robinson
.”

He goes back to shaving and I purposely look at the floor so I don’t lose the thread of the conversation again. “Is there some sort of logical connection here that I’m missing?”

“My favorite story when I was a kid was
The
Swiss Robinson
.” Seeing my blank expression he says, “You know…about the family that’s shipwrecked on an island?”

“Must have missed that one, but thanks for the synopsis.”

He is incredulous. “How do you not know
The Swiss
…never mind. Anyway, my parents took me to Disney World when I was a kid. You ever been?”

“Yeah, when I was ten or eleven,” I say.

“Man, I thought every ride in the park was better than the last one. I remember I wanted to ride the Jungle Cruise again–”

“The one where the elephant blows water on you!”

“That’s the one. Anyway, when my father told me we were going to go see some tree, I remember I threw a fit. He was so mad that he almost took me home. Which would have been really terrible, because then I would have missed it.”

“Missed what?” I say, trying to think of a tree in the park that stood out from any other, but I come up blank.

“The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse!” His eyes are animated, the hand with the razor waving around as he talks. “It was supposed to be the house that the family built in the trees after they were shipwrecked. It had six-stories, a kitchen, bedrooms, a water wheel. When we went back home I read up on everything I could find about building tree houses.” He shrugs. “By the time I was eighteen I’d probably built and torn down five or six of them on our property, and every time they got bigger and a little more complicated.”

“I’m guessing the six-story Robinson house was out of the question.”

He laughs. “I didn’t find out until much later that the tree at Disney World isn’t even real. I think it’s made of concrete or something.”

“And the water wheel?”

He shakes his head. “Electrically powered. Even the waterfall’s fake.”

“When did you decide to build these for a living?” I say, peeking up at his reflection in the mirror. He’s curled his lower lip over his teeth and is taking short swipes at his chin with the razor. I look away, afraid that I might, in an explosion of sexual energy, take him down onto the floor. The tile looks very cold.

“I was in law school when I started hearing about green construction and sustainable home construction, but even those companies usually cleared trees to make way for the houses.” He grins. “What is the Swiss Family Robinson tree house if not the ultimate green construction?” He turns on the water and bends down over the sink to splash his face clean.

Roman snaps a towel from the ring next to the sink and presses it to his face. Seeing my expression he pulls the towel away slowly. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I say quickly. “Just thinking of when I went to Disney World with my parents.”

“What do you remember most?”

“Cinderella’s Castle. Cinderella was my favorite Disney cartoon. I had the dress, the wig, the music…I even tried to turn a pumpkin into a carriage once.” I look back into the bedroom, hoping to change the subject. I’d rather not admit to him that my most vivid memory and my biggest letdown were one and the same.

My eyes come back to the motto on the wall:
Austria est in orbit ultima
.

“Why did your mom move back to Austria?”

“Honestly? After my father passed away, she became convinced she wasn’t going to survive him for long. She said she wanted to die in Austria.”

“Is she sick?” I say, alarmed.

He chuckles. “No, no, she’s perfectly fine. But she’s become a little bit of a hypochondriac. She started watching more TV after my father died…I think she’s just seen one too many American drug commercials.”

“What commercials?”

“The ones for prescription drugs,” he says as he fishes through a drawer on the vanity and comes up with a toothbrush—still in the package! He hands it to me and says, “You know, the ones for some disease you can’t really identify, but the symptoms are so vague you’re sure you have it?”

I load up the toothbrush with some toothpaste from the counter. “What exactly does she think she has?”

I watch as he rubs his palm across his cheeks, checking the thoroughness of his shave. “Uh, let’s see,” he says. “By the time she went back to Austria she had seen doctors for irritable bowel syndrome, shift work sleep disorder, and erectile dysfunction.”

I raise my eyebrow at the last one, but don’t ask. “Did you try to tell her that there was nothing wrong with her?”

“I tried,” he says. “For someone my mother’s age, the commercials seem so sincere, like they’re really doing a public service. Hell, sometimes they make
me
think ‘who doesn’t want
this
disease…it comes with a Ferrari and a beach house.’”

I spit my mouth full of toothpaste quickly into the sink to free up room for laughing as Roman heads back into the bedroom.

After I’ve wiped my mouth dry I wet my fingers and run them through my hair, wishing I had my brush. I grab a washcloth and take a stab at scrubbing the smeared mascara off from the skin under my eyes, and then I just give up. What I need is my bag and a shower, in that order.

I join Roman back in the bedroom and find him sitting at a smart-looking, contemporary steel and maple wood desk, tapping on a wireless keyboard in his lap and staring at a flat-screen monitor.

“What are you doing?” I say, jumping onto the bed and pulling the comforter over my legs. The mattress is still warm.

“Looking for tickets,” he says.

“Tickets for what?”

“Plane tickets. For us.”

“For us? Can’t you just fly us anywhere we need to go?” I tease.

“Probably,” he says. “But I’m still looking just in case Faisal doesn’t have a jet available to take you to Europe.”

“
Europe
?” I’ve never been even one state east of the Mississippi River, so I’m not sure if I should be excited or terrified by the prospect of jaunting off across the Atlantic Ocean. “When?”

He spins in the chair. “I told you about it last night, remember?” he says. “I want to take you to Stockholm for New Year’s Eve.”

I twiddle my fingers on the comforter, trying desperately to remember what he said about Stockholm last night.

“The Snow Ball?” he reminds me.

“Oh, right, right,” I say, nodding. Big worldwide annual swing/Lindy Hop shin-dig….it’s all coming back to me.

“I guess I didn’t actually
ask
you,” he says. “So…” he says, smiling, “would you like to spend New Year’s in Stockholm with me?”

“That sounds like fun,” I say. I wonder if I should attach conditions, such as getting to share a bed with his naked body at least twice a day. Instead I say, “When would we leave? I have to put in a vacation request.”

“Well, I
was
going to take you to meet my mother at Christmas, but she’s already made plans to go…somewhere else.”

This vague pronouncement puzzles me, but I don’t ask.

“So we’d leave two or three days after Christmas,” he continues. He swivels back to the monitor. “How long can you stay?”

I try to think of how much vacation I have stockpiled. “How long do
you
plan to stay?” I counter.

He shrugs. “Through January third or fourth. I thought maybe we could take the train to Austria on New Year’s Day. My mother will be back in the country by then.”

My heart seizes up and I hold my breath. Three weeks isn’t enough time for me to work up the courage to meet the would-have-been Queen Consort of Austria who pines away for the monarchy and no, doubt, Isabella, Crown Princess of Denmark.

“What am I supposed to do when I meet her?” I blurt out.

“What do you mean?” he says, clicking his way through what looks like a travel website.

I clear my throat. “Well, I’m not sure what to do when, you know, you introduce us. Is it okay if I shake her hand?”

Roman rotates back in my direction. “Are you kidding me?”

“Well, it’s just that I’ve read articles about Queen Elizabeth and how you’re not supposed to shake her hand.”

“Leigh,” he says slowly, “my mother isn’t queen of
anything
. I mean, she’s older and getting a little frail, so she’s probably not looking for an iron grip and the double pump, but other than that you’re okay to shake her hand.” He looks at me, considering something. “And you probably shouldn’t regale her with the latest sex research,” he says. “She’s a little old-fashioned that way.”

I roll my eyes. “Like you have to warn me about
that
.”

“Good,” he says brightly. “Then it’s all settled.”

“Will I know anyone there? Besides you?”

“Shea and Doug are going. Most of the regulars from the Merc will be going. Patrick Morst will be there teaching.”

“Is Mary going?”

“I think so,” he says, turning back to the computer.

This is good news. I like Shea and her dance partner, Doug, and everyone else from the Mercury Café, but my favorite new friends so far are Patrick and Mary Morst. I took a fast liking to the Buddy Holly-lookalike, Patrick Morst, with his old-school black frame glasses and his propensity to dance in front of a mirror by himself for hours–ear bud wires twirling around him–when the mood struck him.