10
Life Is Short, Art Is Long
“If she would’ve just told him about their love child and not felt she had to raise the baby in secret, the prince would’ve rebelled against his family and whisked her away to his castle in Italy.” Muriel sighed. “Trust me, I’m all for independent women, but it’s a crime to be that stubborn.”
The teacher’s lounge was mercifully empty today: just me, Muriel, and Gia sitting at the coveted corner table, aka the table farthest from the microwave and all its weird ambient smells. Our romance book club meetings were always lively when there was no one around to inhibit our deep dives into the steamy scenes.
“But if Sophia didn’t have a stubborn streak, the book would be fifty pages, max,” Gia countered. “It would be nothing but a meet-cute and sex scenes.” She and Muriel fell silent for a moment. Then Muriel said, “I’d rather like that, come to think of it. What about you, Alexis?”
The use of my name startled me out of my head, where I’d been replaying my conversation with Lee for the hundredth time. “Sorry—what was the question?”
“You’ve been in another world all day.” Gia tsked. She held up The Prince’s Secret in all its baby blue–jacketed glory. The handsome prince winked at me from the cover. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, which was a bald-faced lie. Getting into arguments with anyone—especially Lee—made me physically ill. My stomach had been roiling all day, and it had been hard to concentrate on anything, even book club, which was normally my favorite part of the week.
Muriel slapped Gia’s shoulder, a movement that jostled her pink and blue scarves. They matched our novel’s cover because Muriel was next-level festive like that. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? She’s daydreaming about Logan. Who needs a fictional prince when you have a real-life gorgeous governor-to-be?”
Gia’s eyes went wide. Uh-oh. We were finally opening this can of worms. Ever since ambushing me with The Watcher on the Hill post, Muriel and Gia had respectfully skirted the topic, picking up on the fact that I was flustered by the attention. But I knew they were only biding their time, and apparently our discussion of Prince Rupert and Sophia’s illicit affair was emboldening enough to make that time today. “I still can’t believe you kept him a secret for so long,” Gia said. “Dating six whole months.”
“I love that it was a secret.” Muriel sighed wistfully. “There’s nothing more romantic than a clandestine relationship.”
“We didn’t want to distract from Logan’s campaign,” I said, feeling my throat dry up. How had Logan sold this story so effortlessly? He’d talked about his feelings for me in front of the reporters with startling ease. “Really, the details aren’t that exciting.”
Muriel snorted. “How about you spill and let me decide? Use our steam-rating system. Is Logan a three-or four-eggplant kind of guy?” At my silence, her eyes widened. “Five eggplants?”
“Ugh, Muriel, no eggplants.”
“Logan’s packing no eggplant?”
I huffed. “That’s not what I meant—”
“You’ve been dating for months,” Gia repeated. “And here I was, thinking you were still hung up on Chris.” There was a hint of hurt in her voice that made me wince. First Lee, now Gia.
“I really wanted to tell you,” I said gently, putting a hand on her arm. “We just knew the press would go berserk if it leaked. And you know me. That kind of attention’s my nightmare.” A nightmare I’d just willingly signed up for.
Gia nodded, looking slightly mollified, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My decision was feeling less like a good one with each passing day. After a restless night tossing and turning, I’d woken at an ungodly hour to find an email from Nora already waiting in my inbox. It had an intimidating NDA attached and a link to Logan’s private event calendar, with dates highlighted I was “strongly encouraged” to attend. There was also a fifty-two-page media training guide, with an ominous note to expect pop quizzes. Not exactly my Karate Kid fantasy come to life.
“I love a good two-different-worlds story,” Muriel said dreamily. “You’re just like The Prince’s Secret. A handsome ruler and his lovely peasant paramour.”
I started to smile, grateful Muriel was moving the conversation along, then frowned as it dawned on me that I was the peasant.
“Just like Prince Rupert, Logan declared his love for you on television in front of the whole world, but you still stubbornly demur.”
Okay, so maybe there were some parallels. But when Muriel’s eyes crept down to my stomach, surreptitiously checking for a baby bump, it was a bridge too far. I folded my arms over my stomach and shot her a warning look.
“Truthfully,” Gia said, “I’m glad you have such a full life outside school.” She was smiling at me, but her eyes were tinged with sadness. “Since none of us know what’s going to happen next...” She gestured at the empty teacher’s lounge.
The weight in my chest, momentarily lifted by Muriel’s silliness, dropped back with a thud. While the gossip about my relationship with Logan had been a brief but welcome distraction, the impending budget cuts had recast their pall over the teachers and staff of Barton Springs. Now that the news was out, the only thing left to do was wait and grimly speculate about who was going to get the axe. I was pretty sure that’s why the teacher’s lounge was empty. When we were together, it was hard not to look around and clock the people you didn’t expect to return. I’m sure a lot of people were clocking me.
Muriel dropped her head in her hands. “This is why I prefer fiction to real life. When Prince Rupert discovers Sophia can’t afford her medical bills, he simply makes all maternal health care in Algrovia free. Meanwhile, my daughter Carmen has been fighting to make health care affordable for years and no one will listen. This is why I read all day. To escape the blasted world.”
I’d uttered the exact same sentiment on a number of occasions. Why participate in hard and disappointing reality when you could escape into a book? But then it hit me like a bolt of lightning, jarring and white-hot uncomfortable: if I was really honest, part of what I was doing when I curled up with my books was waiting. Waiting for someone else to swoop in and take care of the hard stuff, like Lee was so good at, or waiting to meet the right guy who would magically solve all my problems, like Prince Rupert tried to do for Sophia. No wonder Sophia ran off to take care of things on her own. Suddenly, despite Muriel’s protests, Sophia’s choice made a whole lot of sense to me. Sometimes you had to save yourself. Maybe I didn’t have a lot of practice being the one who stepped up and took charge, but I could try. In fact, now that I thought about it, the answer to what I should ask Logan’s campaign for had been staring me in the face this whole time.
God, romance novels were smart.
“Ladies,” I said, raising a finger to silence their chatter. “Hold that thought.” I straightened my spine, picked up my phone, and opened Logan’s calendar. It was time to cash in my check.