Chapter 1 : Part 3

The Frog Prince
by Jane Porter

(Page 3 of 5)

Turns out I wasn't the storybook wife.

"Holly."

Olivia's impatience cuts, and I look up quickly, so quickly I have to bite my lip to keep the rush of emotion away.

"You moved here to start fresh." Olivia taps her nail on my desk. "So do it."

Olivia's right. I'm lonely as hell, but I've hit the place where it's not just a little lonely but really lonely. The lonely where you slide below the radar screen, lonely where you've become pathetic, lonely where it's better just to stay inside, hidden from civilization.

I don't belong in civilization. I'm a misfit. A blight. Well, maybe not a blight. But I definitely feel like a pimple on a chin. As you know, not a good way to feel. Cautiously I shift my left leg, checking to see if the left thigh spreads as much as the right. It does. I suppress the rising panic. I'm in trouble, aren't I?

I look up, meet Olivia's eyes. "I am a little . . . big . . . ger."

The light of battle shines in Olivia's eyes. "It's not the end of the world. Yet." She sounds crisp now, decisive, as if we've settled on a plan, and she leans forward, urgency in her voice. "The key is to get a grip. Face whatever it is you're avoiding." She pauses, considers me. "Are you still in love with him?"

Him? Him, who? And then I realize she's talking about Jean-Marc. "Y- no. No!" I repeat more forcefully, because I'm not. How could I still be in love with a man who essentially rejected me on our honeymoon?

But Olivia isn't convinced. "Do you need professional help? There's no shame-"

"No." God, this is so humiliating. Olivia could be my mother. My mother would handle a conversation this way. "I'm fine. I'm . . . better. Getting better." And bigger, according to Olivia. I squeeze out a smile. "But you're right. I need to take charge. Join a gym. Take better care of myself."

"What else?"

What else? I thought that was really good stuff. Olivia rises, and her stomach goes concave, making her trousers hit even lower on her magnificent hip bones.

"You need friends."

"I have friends."

"Where?" I open my mouth, but she holds up a slender honey-cocoa finger. "Don't say 'here.' Work isn't your social circle. If you got fired-"

"Am I getting fired?" Olivia doesn't own the company, but as a director she's high up in management, knows everything, has a say in everything. It doesn't hurt that Olivia has that enviable trait called star quality. People want to be around Olivia. Customers flock to City Events to work with Olivia. Olivia makes things happen.

"No." Olivia glances at my half-eaten burrito in the foil wrapper, the crumpled napkin on my desk, the Diet Coke with the smudge of lipstick on the rim, and the files spread open in front of me. "You work hard; you're conscientious, detail oriented."

But?

"But what happens here, at your desk, is only part of the job," she adds. "We're all responsible for bringing in new accounts, for promoting City Events, and one of the best ways to sell City Events is by selling you." And she smiles, a dazzling smile of lovely straight white teeth-her own, not veneers. "But you know that, Holly, and that's why I hired you."

I like her, I really do, and yet right now I'm wanting to crawl under my desk and stay there forever. More pathetic internal monologue: if Jean-Marc had loved me, I wouldn't be here, in San Francisco, in a strange, cold apartment, at a strange, confusing job, trying to figure out where I got it wrong, how I failed in love, why I'm the first of my friends to marry, as well as the first to divorce.

Rationally, I know that Olivia is trying to help me. It's her job to give me feedback and direction, but honestly, her cool, crisp analysis cuts, wounding my already bruised self-esteem. I know we're not supposed to rely on others for our self-worth. I know we're supposed to look inside for validation, but how are you supposed to like yourself, much less love yourself, when the person you trust most asks you just to go away?

"Two words," Olivia says, holding up two fingers and looking down her long, elegant nose at me.

"Zone diet?"

"Image. Success."

I can feel my thighs sprawl on the chair, the weight of my limp ponytail on my neck. How can it be only Wednesday? I need Friday. I really need Friday.

Copyright © 2005 by Jane Porter

About the Author

A UCLA grad with an MA in Writing, I am one of those original book geeks, the girl with the coke bottle glasses that sat with a novel next to the classroom door rather than play during recess. I wrote my first story in first grade, my first picture book in second grade and my first novel in 4th, and I've just continued to write from there - bad poetry, passionate essays, romance rich novels and poignant, bittersweet contemporary fiction.