My father sounds like a jerk. When I was two, he went out fishing and just never came back. For years, my mother looked for him, hired seedy private investigators to run his driver’s license and Social Security number, see if he’s working anywhere, searched online. Nothing. It’s like this book I saw in a used bookstore once, called How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. It told you all about how to fake your own death and then assume a new identity.
Unless he actually is dead.
“You know,” I say to Mom. “Someone once told me that you can get a person declared dead if they’ve been missing for seven years. Then you could get Social Security.”
“He isn’t dead.”
We’ve been down this road before. “How do you know that?”
“When we were in high school, he used to bring me flowers every day and braid them in my hair.”
I stare at her. “And that has what to do with this?”
“When someone is your soul mate,” she says, “you know when he’s dead.”
I shake my head. It seems to me like if they had this huge love affair, he wouldn’t just leave. But she won’t listen. “We could really use the Social Security about now. Do you want to lose the business and work at Love That Dog forever?”
“Tell me more about the princess,” she says, obviously wanting to change the subject.
“She’s into shoes. Meg says I should try to get her to wear one of my designs. But I guess it’s stupid.” I didn’t think it was stupid an hour ago, but I wasn’t sweating like this an hour ago either. Now it seems crazy to think someone like Victoriana would want anything to do with someone like me. I mean, sure, she was nice. She’s been trained from birth to be nice. It’s easy to be nice when you have everything handed to you.
But Mom’s thrilled to be talking about something other than how broke we are. “What a wonderful idea. Meg’s right. This, her staying at the hotel, is your chance. It’s meant to be.”
The heat beats on my head until I see red and black spots before my eyes. I want to go back to work where, at least, it’s cold and sterile and quiet.
“How can you believe that . . . fantasy? The reality is, Dad’s never going to come back and I’m never going to see the princess again. Nothing good is ever going to happen. That’s what’s meant to be.”
She doesn’t say anything, just picks up a magazine and fans herself with it, covering her face, and I feel instantly bad. She didn’t ask to be poor. She didn’t ask for my father to leave her. She’s done her best. I want to apologize, but I’m too hot, even to speak.
Finally, she says, “If I didn’t believe, there would be nothing left.”
I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I know. Look, I’m going to go back to the hotel to work. You should come too. It’s cool there. If we stay until dark, we’ll only have to sleep here. Then the heat won’t be so bad.”
But she shakes her head. “You go. But let me make you some eggs. I can light the gas stove with a match. We should eat the food before it goes bad.”
I nod. So much for magic.
Chapter 5
For the next week, I try to run into Princess Victoriana again. It should be easy, right? Considering she’s staying at a hotel where I spend sixteen hours a day (more than usual, due to the lack of air-conditioning at home), and it’s not like she can keep a low profile. I try to make friends with the paparazzi in the lobby but quickly find that they’re only talking to me ’cause they think I know Victoriana’s schedule.
I don’t. The only thing I know is that every morning at eight, a servant leads the bloodhound down Collins Avenue, and almost every day, the papers carry a photograph of Victoriana, partying the night away at the Mansion, the Opium Garden, or some other SoBe club.
I do find out where the dog goes anyway. The next day, the Herald carries an article with photos of the dog, sniffing around the Port of Miami.
There’s a quote from Victoriana, saying, “Where my staff takes my dog for walks is none of my fault. In Aloria, I can walk him myself, but here, I am hounded by reporters.”
There’s a photograph of the dog, with the caption, “Hounded?” The “People” column carries another shot of Victoriana dancing on a table.
I start sleeping in the shop, slumped over the counter, thinking maybe I can see her when she comes in from one of her benders, but I never do. I swear, sometimes, I wake to see her standing behind the potted palms or even by Meg’s coffee shop after it’s closed for the night. Obviously, sleep deprivation is making me hallucinate.
But one day, she comes to my shop.
Yeah. She really does. And she’s drunk.
That, in and of itself, isn’t a big shocker. The shocker is she’s drunk enough to speak to me.
“’Scusez-moi,” she says as I rush to my feet from my stooped position. “I am an emergency.”
Before I can breathe, much less speak, a second voice, then a third, interrupts her in French. Two big bodyguards cast a shadow over my whole field of vision, blocking her.
She starts scolding them. “Non! Non!” A small white hand insinuates itself between the mountains of meat. She says something in French, then adds, “I must speak wiz him myself.”
She pushes them apart, like an ice pick going through Mount Rushmore. The two guards obviously don’t want to part, but they have no choice. She’s their princess.
She lifts her sandal onto the counter. It’s olive-colored snakeskin, retails for over a thousand dollars, and has a broken strap.
None of that’s what I really notice.
What I notice is, it’s still on her foot. Attached to her leg. On my counter!
“Lovely, no?” she says.
“Yes.” The word is barely an exhale. Then, I get that she means the shoe. “Yes, lovely. Donna Karan, from Italy. I saw it in Vogue, her spring collection.”
“I need your help.” She blows mojito fumes—rum and mint leaves—on me with the “h.” “Zees, zey are my favorite, and now . . .” She stares forlornly at her foot, like it’s an injured puppy. “. . . ruined.”
“Okay.” I reach for the shoe, my instincts kicking in despite my nerves. Then, I stop at the evil eye her guard’s giving me. “Um, I can help you. I can fix it.”
“Oh, merci!” The princess claps her hands, almost falling back as she does, but the guard catches her. “And you will have zis finished by ten thirty tomorrow? I have a luncheon with ze mayor at noon, and I need to dress well in time of it. It is most important.”
For a second, she doesn’t sound drunk at all. She sounds like she’s talking about something more important than a shoe. Like world peace.
But then, she sways again, and I doubt she’ll even be awake by ten thirty, much less capable of walking on five-inch stiletto stilts. Still, I say, “I’ll have it done,” already trying to think of a way to ask her about trying on the shoes, my shoes.
“You are my hero!” She leans farther forward, flexible for one that drunk, and kisses me on the cheek. Then, she removes her shoe. She slides her foot off the counter, stumbling backward into the guards. When she recovers, she says, “Tell him my room. I forgot.”