Godmother (18 page)

A stab of annoyance moved through me, listening to her.

“They will not recognize you. But the prince, he will, the moment you walk in. He has been waiting for you. His whole life.”

She shook her head, put her hands to her head. “I am not worthy of a prince.”

“You are his destiny, just as he is yours.”

The sun was just beginning to turn, melting over the line of trees outside. The room smelled like dust and grass and flowers. How could she be sad in such a world? She should be embracing all of it, I thought. All of it.

“I don't think I have a destiny, Godmother.”

“Everyone has a destiny. And I am here to help you meet yours. Now, let's get started. Let's see. What do you need?”

At that moment I felt him. The prince. In his chambers, thinking of me. In the middle of the dance floor in his suit. Something broke in my chest, and I gasped with pain.

“What's wrong, Godmother?” She rushed forward, put her hand out on my arm.

I took a breath, let the pain spread through me.

“Nothing,” I said, gently pushing her hand away. “You'll need a beautiful dress. You'll need to be the most beautiful girl there.”

Her face seemed to change in the light. A flash of pleasure moved across it. She had dreamed of him, in the field. Longed for him as she scrubbed and mopped and hung wet clothes in the sun.

“Now, hurry. Go into the garden and bring me back three berries from the silver tree that grows in the center.”

“Oh!” she said. “The one the robins live in?”

I nodded, unable to speak, and with delight she turned on her heel and left the room. I heard her slight step on the twisting stone stairs.

I sat on her bed, suddenly feeling as if my chest were collapsing in on itself. I was astonished at what happened next. My throat opened. Hot liquid ran from my eyes and down my face. Droplets moved down my chin to the silk of my dress. I stood and walked to the glass, peering in at myself. I had never felt anything like it. That ache! The tears that wet my skin. My eyes were bright green and filled with water.

What was happening to me?

I knew that in this form, in human bodies, we took on human attributes, but I had never felt anything like this. It consumed me. Her pain had become my pain. All I wanted,
all I wanted,
was him. I was convinced suddenly that the only thing that could heal me was him. Was this how she felt all the time?

I smoothed my hands over my human body. Down my wet face, my long neck, my breasts and waist and belly. Is this what he would feel? Is this what he was imagining, even now? I moved my face in the mirror, the line of my cheekbones catching the light, my thick lashes dotted with tears.

I felt so full!

I leaned my head back, imagined his mouth on my mouth, the palm of his hand sliding across my spine, the way it had felt to breathe in his breath, feel his heart beating against my skin.

I heard her rushing up the stairs. For an instant I imagined leaving her here, going in her place. Me being the one in the dress, me walking into the palace and not having to hide, not having to be invisible, no longer fluttering in the corners of the room, whispering thoughts and dreams into them, but standing right there in the center of everything, my full beauty unmasked, being able to take all of it up into me until they were blinded from it and he could not see or feel anything except my hand on his, my eyes watching him.

“Godmother?”

It was like she'd slapped me.

I whirled around to face her.

She dropped the branch of berries she'd been clutching in her hand.

“Come here,” I said, stretching out my hand to her, and she shrank back, toward the door.

“Who are you?” she breathed, and I knew that something in my face had changed, scared her.

And then something in me snapped off, and I loved her again. “I am your fairy godmother,” I said. “As I told you.”

“Why have you come?”

To send you to the ball.

“But why? Why me?”

“Because it is your destiny. Your mother was a friend to the fairies, and for that reason her child is to be queen of all of this kingdom.”

“Oh. My mother! My father buried my mother under a silver tree that robins live in.”

“I know. I was there. All of us were.”

“You were there?”

“Don't you remember? You were a child. We were covering you. We were all over you.”

“No,” she whispered. “I don't remember anything. Just the silver tree and the hole my father dug under it.”

“Bring those to me,” I said, pointing to the berries on the ground. My face was dry now, though I felt remnants of what had passed over me before.

She bent down and picked them up, handed them to me.

Staring straight at her, I plucked off the first berry, then flicked it out of my hands and toward her. She blinked, and in that moment her soiled smock disappeared. In its place appeared a long pale blue silk dress that nipped into her waist and flared down to the floor. Her skin and hair gleamed, and her feet were bare.

She held up her arms and stared in amazement, then rubbed her hands down the silk that covered her body.

“How did … ?”

“Shhh,” I said, silencing her. I held out the twig. “Pick two more.”

She looked at me, her eyes wide, and then reached forward and touched one berry, then another. I plucked them
off, opened my palm and let them drop to the floor. As they hit the stone, they transformed into a pair of sparkling glass slippers.

She gasped. “Oh!” she said. “They are so … I can't believe it.”

“Yes,” I said. Outside, the sun was sinking into the mountains, and I knew they were all already dancing. She was beautiful and would be there soon, and whatever heart I had was broken. “Put them on.”

She stepped into the shoes, leaning into the wall to balance herself. They fit over her feet perfectly, curving them into arches.

“WHAT ARE
you doing now?” George asked a few days later, pulling out his keys and gesturing for me to leave the store before him. I stepped outside; the early evening was balmy, still light, with a breeze moving through it.

“Heading uptown,” I said. “Going home.”

He smiled. “I'm headed that way, too. Stopping by a friend's barbecue. Why don't you come along?”

“Oh,” I said. I had been looking forward to slipping out of my clothes, the bandages. “I don't know. I'm feeling a little tired.”

George clicked the last lock shut and turned back to me. “At least walk with me,” he said. “And see how you feel in a bit.” He raised his eyebrows up and down.

“I am an old woman, George,” I said, smiling now. “I can't be showing up at barbecues.”

He grabbed my hand, folded it up in his. I pulled away, instinctively, but he held tight. “It's a beautiful evening, Lil.
At least take a walk with me. Okay?” The sky behind him was silver, and the sun spilled through. “Hey. I'm letting you set me up. I don't ever let anyone set me up. Ever. You owe me.”

He looked right at me, his dark eyes pinning me to the spot, to the sidewalk in front of the store.
He senses things,
I thought. I watched him standing there, so beautiful with his dark hair flipping about. Almost like Theodore.

“Come on,” he said, pulling me by the hand.

It was nice, walking with George. I closed my eyes for a second, feeling my hand in his, imagining I was a young woman walking these streets with someone like Theodore, just a regular young woman on a summer afternoon, heading to a barbecue with her beau. I giggled.

“What is it?” George was watching me, a half smile on his face. “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said, quickly shaking my head, embarrassed. “Just remembering something.”

“Tell me,” he said, dropping my hand and gesturing in the air. “You've been working in the store for a few years now, and I know hardly anything about you or your life. You should tell me some things, don't you think? It's good for the soul.”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“Well,” he said, swerving around a woman pushing a stroller and then veering back to me, “why don't you tell me what you were remembering? You always seem to be remembering. Right?”

I felt self-conscious suddenly and was grateful for the movement of the streets, the people. “I just was remembering how things used to be,” I said. “Being young. How different things were.”

He smiled. “I know. You need to get out more, Lil. Don't you think? Not that I should talk.”

I looked at him and saw he was being sweet. “Maybe.”

“I remember a lot, too,” he said. “I mean, I spend a lot of time remembering the past. It's not healthy, but I do it.”

“What do you think about?” I asked. I looked at him differently then, and it was as if I had a way in: I saw him as strange, a little melancholy. The thought popped into my head: He needed to fall in love. He
would
fall in love. With her.

“I don't know,” he said. “When I was young, I thought I'd be a poet or a writer. I was going to write novels hunched over an old typewriter, move to Paris or something. That kind of thing But now look at me.”

“What do you mean, look at you? You're doing so well!” I thought of the bookstore: its crowded shelves and musty smell, its glittering cases, filled with treasures. I couldn't think of anything more beautiful.

“The store's okay, but I guess I just thought my life would be … bigger. Bigger than what it is now.” We were crossing Fourteenth Street, heading up toward Chelsea. The city felt fresher, more open. “You're coming with me, aren't you?” he asked. “We could both use some time among people, don't you think?”

I smiled. “Yes,” I said. I looked around, at the wide street, the people, the fading sky. “Yes, I could.”

“Great,” he said. “I've got to drop something off real quick first. Do you mind? I promised my friend a book for one of his clients.”

“Okay.”

We turned onto Twenty-third Street. He gestured to our
left, and I looked up at a brick building with lacy wrought-iron balconies jutting out, a
HOTEL
sign swooping down.

“He's just in here,” he said. “Has his own gym, if you can believe it.”

George pulled me through the swinging doors and into a lobby, where various people were scattered about on the mismatched couches and clashing paintings hung on the walls. He led me past the desk and to the right, past an elevator and through a creaking doorway, then up a set of mar-bly white stairs with filigreed iron banisters. We reached a landing, and the stairs swung around and kept going

On the next floor, George led me down a corridor, with more hallways shooting off it. We stopped in front of a black door and walked in.

I was surprised by the incongruity of the scene: a gym, radiating healthfulness, stuck amid the crumbling, faded beauty of the rest of the building. The array of workout and weight lifting equipment, the heavy fan blowing air through the room, the mirrors on the walls, a woman riding one of the bikes and a man sitting in an elaborate machine with his arms stretched out on either side of him.

I wanted to cry out with delight. In New York you could find almost anything behind a closed door.

“Hey!” A muscular blond man walked up and slapped George on the arm. “What's up?”

“Not much,” George said. “Heading up to Jennifer's with my friend Lil. I brought your book.” He pulled out a copy of
Tropic of Cancer
from his bag and handed it to the man. Then he looked at me and winked. “First edition,” George whispered.

“Thanks,” his friend said, taking the book. “I'm Mark, by
the way. George always hooks me up. My client's going to go crazy over this. How are you doing?”

“Good,” I said.

“Lil works with me,” George said. He looked at me. “Mark's a trainer.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mark said, to my surprise. “I've heard about you. George says you've straightened the place out.”

“He does?”

“Hell, yeah,” Mark said.

“He is very generous to say that.” I kept watching the man on the machine. His arms spread out like wings, in and out. “What's he doing?” I asked. “What is that machine?”

“Oh, you can do all kinds of stuff on that. Right now he's working on the muscles around his shoulder blades and upper arms.”

“It looks like he's flying,” I said.

“It's a great exercise, a great machine. You want to try it?”

George laughed, rolled his eyes. “He never stops. He's like a preacher.”

“It wouldn't hurt you to use it, either, my friend.” He looked at me. “I'm always trying to get him in here, but he's always coming up with some lame excuse.”

“I'm not exactly a jock,” George said, shrugging.

“You're telling me,” Mark said. “Lil here could probably run you into the ground.”

I was excited suddenly. I was changing, and I wanted to see what my body could do. “I'll try it,” I said. I had a vision then of myself: Hair flowing like autumn leaves, my body smooth and soft. Young again.

George looked at me in surprise. “I'm impressed,” he said. “You might actually shame me into doing a push-up.”

When the man on the machine finished a minute later, Mark led me, carefully but firmly, over to the looming contraption. He motioned for me to sit, then stood above me and pulled down the arms of the machine, locking them in place. From them he pulled out two long cords with handles on the ends and motioned for me to put my hands in.

“Go on, take these. Grab hold,” he said.

I slipped my hands through.

Mark cupped his palms around my hands. “I'm going to let go,” he said. “Just hold this here, keep holding it. Don't let go. I'm not even putting weight on this, okay?”

He released his grip then, and I felt a strong force pulling on me from either side. The pressure of it slid up my arms, burned up to my shoulders. I could feel my wings rustling behind me and pushing into my skin.

“Pull,” he said, leaning into me. He tapped my forearm, the fleshy part underneath, and I moved my arms, following his lead until they were stretched out on both sides of me.

“Good,” he said. He stood back and watched me, keeping his hands out, hovering on either side of me. “Now press back in again, to where you started, and do it again. You're doing great.”