Goodnight, Sweet Prince

Susan pulled her car, loaded down with all of her worldly belongings, into Trey's driveway behind his car. As she approached the house, she noticed a line of ants marching over the walkway, not having the sense to go around the crack that every third or fourth ant fell into. There was a dead bird under the dogwood tree, and the ants were working hard, taking treasure back to their queen.

Trey wasn’t home. Susan knocked on the door, but he never answered it. She figured he went for a walk down to the creek, something he talked about a lot, walking down to the creek or river and skipping stones or just watching the water flow. He didn’t have any porch furniture, so she sat down on the steps beside the white azaleas and sent a furious text to her mother. After she hit send, she had a moment of regret for the horrible things she said, but it was quickly swept away in the tide of her anger.

Susan rose from the steps and picked a few variegated camellia blossoms from the closest bush. As she tucked one behind her ear, Trey came around the side of the house from the basement. He had a blue ribbon in his hand, the kind girls wear in their hair.

When he saw Susan, he froze for a second under the pines and shoved the ribbon in his pocket.

“You’re early,” Trey said when Susan turned around. One of Elizabeth’s camellias was tucked behind her ear.

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,” Trey muttered under his breath, trying to calm himself. Dammit, he needed to go to the treehouse to put Polly’s ribbon with the others. No one was supposed to see the Polly ribbons.

“What about tomorrow? Can we do something fun?” Susan gazed at him from under her lashes like Mary Elizabeth taught her and began to feel foolish when he stood staring at her without responding. She thought she saw a flash of anger in his eyes and regretted showing up early without calling.

“Do you want me to leave?” Susan’s lower lip trembled and she widened her eyes, tears welling in them. A bluejay on a pine branch shrieked, startling her so the tears spilled from her eyes.

Okay, she was clearly upset about something. Trey got that burning feeling deep in his gut. She looked like she wanted to be rescued.

“What’s wrong?” Trey forced the words out of his mouth.

The neighbor across the street emerged from her house, bound for the mailbox, and Susan’s eyes darted from Trey to the neighbor. Neither acknowledged the other.

Susan gulped in a big breath and said, “Can we go inside? I don't know if I want to talk about it at all, but I definitely don't want to talk about it where anyone can hear me.” She looked pointedly at the neighbor and threw in an affected grin and hearty wave.

Inside, the curtains were drawn and the light was dismal until Trey flicked on the overhead light, throwing a bright glare into the room.

Susan forgot herself and scurried across the red oak floor, turning on a floor lamp and the end table lamps. “Please turn off that overhead light! You know I hate ceiling lights.” The tears were flowing in earnest, great streaks of mascara striping down her face. “And I already look ugly!” She collapsed into sobs, the sofa catching her.

Trey remembered that Elizabeth always said that a long, hot bath could make anything better. Susan looked like she needed a hundred of them, even though this was probably about something ridiculous. Trey suggested one.

How romantic! Was Trey really going to run a bath for her? Ooh, it would be so romantic if she put camellia petals in the tub, bathing in flowers before she let him deflower her.

“Okay. I’ll just run to my car for my stuff if you'll start it for me.”

“What stuff? Why is your stuff in your car?” Trey remembered Tom talking about clingy girls who try to move in by bringing a little bit of their stuff at a time. No way in hell Trey was letting Susan do that to him. She’d get curious about the basement, and he already knew she liked to snoop. He tested her on that by leaving his phone on the table at dinner last week when he went to the restroom. That was the cool thing about tests: you could set people up to do things that make you mad without getting mad. Sometimes it was even better than a secret.

Susan twisted a lock of her bleached hair between her fingers. It had to be bleached—nobody’s hair got blonder in the fall. That was a summer thing. “I was hoping we could spend the night together. I didn’t think I was ready to give myself to anyone, but I love you, and I think I’m ready, so a bath sounds great. I want this night to be magical.”

Wait. Susan was a virgin? That changed everything.

“Is that why you were crying? Are you scared of becoming a woman?” Trey took Susan’s hands and looked into her eyes. They seemed darker than before.

“No! Well, maybe a little, but it’s about Iris, and I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not letting that whore ruin our night.” A fresh deluge of tears followed her words. She didn’t want to go back outside and be seen like this by the nosy neighbors, but no way was she letting Trey see how much of her stuff was in her car before tomorrow morning when he asked her to marry him.

On her way to the car, Susan plucked a few more camellias and dropped them in her overnight bag, the one with her nightdown, toiletries, and an outfit for tomorrow, an off white dress that showed her shoulders. She could hang it in the bathroom during her bath to release the wrinkles from being crammed into her Vera Bradley bag.

Trey said he needed to fix a loose board in his treehouse so it would be safe for her if she ever got over her fear of heights. He would make the repair while she enjoyed her bath. No way was she going up in that deathtrap, but there was no need to tell him that.

The sun sank towards the western horizon, dipping down below the treeline as Trey scaled the boards nailed to the trunk of the live oak holding his treehouse. Susan plucked petals from the camellias into the tub after checking the temperature and opening the cold faucet to keep the water from scalding her, murmuring “he loves me, he loves me not” as she dropped the petals into the water one by one. She was glad she swiped Iris’s bottle of Beautiful at the last minute. It was in her overnight bag, right on top.

Trey pulled the cigar box from under the loose board and slipped the ribbon into it without looking. He was in no mood to find something new in the box again, especially more shells. It was weird how they kept showing up when he put a new ribbon in it. He just wouldn’t look anymore. Just to be safe, he nailed the board down after returning the box to its hiding place. He hammered really hard, to make sure Susan heard him doing the work he said he was doing.

The bath was heavenly. Trey’s house was built in the 50s, so it had an old fashioned tub, porcelain and really deep. Susan wasn’t very tall, so she was able to lie down completely, head resting against the tile wall, completely immersed in the floating camellia petals. It reminded her of the scene with the pretty blonde in American Beauty.

She let the tension in her back melt into the water. She wondered if she should reapply her makeup when she got out or let him see her without it. At the fair, he said she was even pretty when she cried, so she decided to leave her face bare. The grout between the tiles looked like it had never been cleaned. She could hear what her mother would say about that, and a fresh wave of tears engulfed her.

The pounding of Trey’s hammer brought her out of the wave of anger and self pity that just washed over her. No way was she letting Iris ruin tonight. She’d already ruined enough.

The hammering stopped, and Susan wondered how long she’d been in the tub. The water was still hot but beginning to cool. She noticed that there was no towel in the bathroom, but Mary Elizabeth said that whenever you could, you should put your lotion on while your skin is still wet from the bath, then let your skin air dry as it absorbs it. If there was ever a time to give that a try, it was now, and she dismissed her wish for her fluffy bathrobe, in her big suitcase in the trunk of her car.

Wait, there wasn’t even a bath mat or hand towel, not even a washcloth. It was a good thing she hadn’t actually needed to bathe, and they could pick up some towels to coordinate with the blue tile tomorrow when they went to look at china patterns. No way in hell she was having Iris’s pattern in her house.

Susan remained in the tub while she drained it, reaching into her bag for her lotion and applying it as the water level sank, beginning with her shoulders and working her way down. After tonight, Trey could do her back for her.

Trey came down from the treehouse as the sun sank lower, throwing bands of red and orange into the clouds. He stopped in the carport and put the hammer in his tool box and brought it inside and placed it on a shelf over the washing machine. He could hear the water draining from the tub.

He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down on the sofa, propping his feet on the coffee table. Susan’s phone was there. He picked it up and punched in her security code then scrolled through her messages.

There was an unopened one from her mother that said “I’m sorry.” Hmm, this was what Susan didn’t want to talk about.

He opened the message. Iris’s message didn’t say anything else, but the one from Susan that preceded it went off on Iris like a shotgun. Susan called her a whore and said she was a joke as a person and a worse joke as a mother. Like that made her any different from other women. Just like Elizabeth. Just like Eve. Just like all of them. Susan went on to say that she hated being cursed with Iris’s blood and ended with a threat of a restraining order.

Maybe Susan was smarter than he thought, but good lord, what was taking her so long to get dressed? He heard the glass break, and then the smell of that flowery perfume she wore on their first date filled the air.

When Susan finished applying her lotion, her feet were covered in soggy camellia petals with some sticking to her ankles. She scraped her feet against each other to remove the petals. Marginally successful. She reaxhed down to remove them, but one clung to her hand, and when she peeled it away from her lotion-rick skin, a faint red spot remained where the lotion had drawn some color from the petal., so she abandoned the task--Trey wouldn't notice her feet, but he would definitely notice if her hands were covered in spots, might think she had a rash.

With one hand on the tile wall, Susan stepped over the tub onto the tile floor and reached into her bag, resting on the closed toilet, for the perfume. As she pulled it out of the pink paisley bag, it slipped from her lotion-slick fingers, shattering on the tile floor.

No! This was all wrong. There was no way Susan could move without cutting her feet. There were even splinters of glass sparkling from the sodden camellia petals still clinging to her feet.

Not knowing what else to do, she pulled her nightgown, a white poet’s shirt with a ruffle along the shirttail-shaped hem and a blue ribbon threaded through the lace neckline like a corset lacing. It was something borrowed, new, and blue. Blair had just bought it last Thursday when they were shopping at Macy’s, and Susan borrowed it when she packed her bags. Her ring would be the something new. Maybe they could elope. Probably best, and everyone would think it was romantic instead of comparing her wedding to Mary Elizabeth’s. They couldn’t if they weren’t there. She could always have a reception for their one month anniversary, complete with a gift registry. Wait, she wasn’t getting married in a nightgown. She shook her head at her silliness and called Trey to help her.

Trey opened the bathroom door and nearly got knocked over by the force of the cloying fragrance that assaulted him. Susan was standing there in some frilly nightshirt with a blue ribbon woven through it, perfectly Polly.

“I dropped my perfume and it broke,” Susan began, waving her hands toward the glass-littered floor. “I’ll clean it with vinegar if you’ll get me out of here. I don’t even have slippers in my bag.”

Trey scooped her up and carried her over the threshold, away from the overpowering scent of white flowers. He didn’t even struggle. That was her worst fear, that he would say she was too heavy to carry over the threshold and curse the marriage.

Trey carried her into his mother’s bedroom and deposited her on the floral duvet. A brief shimmer of dust rose around her as the bed received her weight. A thin layer of dust covered every surface. He didn’t use this room, hadn’t changed a thing in it since the day the police found Elizabeth’s body, half-eaten by marine life in the salt marsh near the place where Trey’s grandfather used to take him crabbing.

Susan sneezed.

Trey noticed the camellia petals that had fallen to the floor during the short journey from the bathroom. The smell of the perfume competed with the Elizabeth smell that clung to every soft surface in the room, making him lightheaded.

“Were you afraid you’d lose your way?” Trey grinned.

“What are you talking about?” The acrid air burned Susan’s eyes, and she felt the grime of the dusty room clinging to her lotion-damp skin.

She followed his eyes to the trail of petals and giggled nervously, “I’m not Gretel, and you’re not a witch. I think I’m safe.”

“Of course you’re not Gretel,” Trey replied, catching an end of the ribbon between his fingers. “You’re Polly.”

“Who’s Polly?” Susan asked.

“Sweet, pretty girls with blue ribbons are Polly,” Trey responded, pulling the ribbon out of the neckline, winding it around his fingers. “Polly has to be protected. I’ll keep you safe.”

Susan sneezed again. “You’re so sweet! My brother used to call me Pollyanna because he said I was even more naive than Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” She pushed her wet hair out of her face. “But he won’t call me that after tonight, my sweet prince.”

Prince. Trey’s back straightened a little as he smiled down at Susan. “No, he’ll never call you that again after tonight, and he’s never allowed in my treehouse.”

“I’m allowed in your treehouse, right?” Susan batted her eyes like Mary Elizabeth and Blair did when they wanted Robbie or Josh to confirm what they said. “And can we go to your room? All this dust is making me—kerchoo!—sneeze.”

Trey wiped the remaining camellia petals from Susan’s feet. “You’re afraid of my treehouse, scaredy-cat. But tell you what, tomorrow morning, I’ll take your ribbon up there so you’ll always know that you’re welcome there.”

Susan beamed at him. “That’s sweet, but we have to put the ribbon back. It’s Blair’s, and she doesn’t even know I borrowed it.”

“She’s not supposed to have a Polly ribbon. Blue ribbons are Pollys, not your slutty cousin.”

“What are you talking about? My mom’s the slut, not Blair!”

Trey looked through Susan at the picture of himself, age 8, on his mother’s dresser. “What do you mean, your mom’s the slut? Blair’s the boyfriend-hopper.”

Blair had had a few boyfriends before Robby, but that was before Susan met Trey. And he didn’t know about Iris. She’d fix that. “My mom wrote dirty porno letters to my dad and had sex with him! My stepmother found the dirty emails and sent them to me after she told me everything. I’m never speaking to Iris again! That’s why all my stuff is in my car. I’m never going back!”

Okay, weird. Everyone’s mom had sex with their dad. Susan had never even mentioned her dad or stepmom before. Something wasn’t right. Yeah, they should definitely get out of Elizabeth’s room. This was getting really strange, and there wasn’t even a speaker in here to calm shit down with some music. And what business was it of Susan’s who was a whore and who wasn’t? Men were the ones who suffered from their treachery, not dumb girls.

In his bedroom, Trey put on some music and knew instantly it was the wrong music. He didn’t feel like playing any guessing games. He pulled up the app on his phone and handed it to Susan. “Here, you pick something.”

As Susan scrolled through his downloads, a text from Tom popped up. She accidentally tapped it, and it opened. Oops.

“Dude, if she’s bringing stuff into your house, it’s time to ditch that bitch. Run for the fucking hills.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. Where would she go? Would Aunt Betty let her stay in the carriage house, or would she have to go down to the creek and beg Shirley for houseroom?

She thrust the phone back at Trey, sobbing.

Oh, what now? The crying jag was getting old, fast. Trey glanced at his phone and saw Tom’s message. No problem, this was an easy fix. He opened the message and sent a reply: Dude, you sure you sent this to the right guy?

Tom responded immediately, perfectly on point: Shit, sorry about that! Steve’s girl is trying to move in with him on the sly, and she’s a nightmare, nothing like Susan. Meant to send it to him. Hey, why don’t you forward it, that way he hears it from both of us instead of just me.

“I’m going to call Aunt Betty right now before Iris does,” Susan announced, placing the call from Trey’s phone.

“Aunt Betty, I found out something horrible about Iris, and I can’t stay in that house with her another second. Can I stay in the carriage house until I figure out what to do?”

“Good evening, Susan. Yes, it is a lovely evening. I’m just about to sit down to dinner. My blood sugar must be low, as I believe I heard you refer to your mother by her Christian name. I’ll call you back after dinner when I can be certain I’m not having auditory hallucinations.”

Susan put the phone down and didn’t move or speak. Now Aunt Betty would definitely get Iris’s side of the story first. And she never thought much of Susan’s stepmother, had quite a few “at her age” comments about her wedding gown, registry, and reception. It wasn’t fair—the dress had been beautiful: a strapless pure white princess gown with layers of tulle and silver and crystal sparkles shot through the fabric. Susan hoped she could wear one like it for her own wedding.

Trey picked up the phone and opened his texts to show her Tom’s reply. “Here, look—Tom meant to send that to Steve, not me. You’re not going anywhere. I want you right here with me. To hell with Iris and Aunt Betty.”

Susan read the message and bought the coverup hook, line, and sinker. “I had planned on us going out to dinner tonight, but I don’t want to be around people. If you’ll go get us something to eat, I’ll clean the perfume out of the bathroom while you’re gone. Do you have any vinegar? It works best, maybe with some baking soda.”

Oh, thank God. The smell was damn near killing Trey. He kissed Susan gently on the lips and said, “Of course! What would you like to have?”

“A chicken salad sandwich from Joe’s on a croissant with provolone and tomato, toasted. And maybe a piece of death by chocolate from The Boll Weevil.”

“No problem!” Trey could have a real drink while they made her food, but she could think again if she thought he was stopping at more than one place, especially one that didn’t serve liquor. And that was an expensive piece of cake. Anyway, he had chocolate ice cream in the freezer, so she could have chocolate without being such a princess.

Susan sprinkled baking soda on the perfume-drenched glass before sweeping it up and into an empty beer case lined with a plastic bag, then wiped the floor with a damp paper towel to pick up the invisible splinters of glass from the tile. After that, she mopped with vinegar and opened the window.

She pulled her dress for tomorrow over her head to go to the yard for more camellias. She would scatter red camellia petals on Trey’s bed after she put fresh sheets on it. She didn’t notice the ants on the blossoms she plucked.

Trey’s linen closet wasn’t very orderly. The first sheets she selected turned out to be too big for Trey’s bed, and the rest had a discernibly lower thread count. She remembered that she packed her new Laura Ashley sheets from Macy’s when she loaded her car, so she ran back to it and dug them out from under the box filled with the knickknacks from her bedroom, the picture of her and Iris from Mary Elizabeth’s wedding on top. She turned it over before she shut the car door.

She didn’t have time to wash the sheets, but since they’d need to be laundered in the morning anyway, she whipped the blue hydrangea, 400 thread count percale onto Trey’s queen-sized bed, same as hers, and found a fresh mattelasse coverlet in white to finish making the bed. After she plumped the pillows, she began plucking petals from the camellias onto the bed. It looked perfect, like something out of a movie. She even placed the Andes mints on the pillows.

Trey parallel parked on the side street and descended the stairs from the sidewalk to Joes’s. He could hear the shitty Dave Matthews Band cover from the stairs, before he opened the door. "Ants Marching". Great. Susan’s brother’s band was in the corner of the bar that served as a stage. He should have known: Seth's band had a fiddle player who was far and away the most talented member of the band, so Seth kept him hidden in the back. Some dude was collecting a cover charge at the door. The last thing he wanted was for Seth to notice him and take a “pause for the cause”—all the local bands thought they sounded cool, announcing that they were gonna go smoke some weed.

He paid the cover and slipped down to the far end of the bar, away from the stage and close to the booths. Should have called it in, if they bothered answering the phone, which was ringing and being ignored.

When the bartender approached him, he ordered a Tanqueray and tonic with extra lime and a chicken salad sandwich on pumpernickle with mustard. He wasn’t waiting for them to toast a sandwich, and croissants were stupid and pretentious, shaped weird for a sandwich, too. He settled his tab when he ordered, didn’t need some bitchy bartender holding him hostage until Seth took a break to play intimidating big brother.

Kitchen must not be busy. Susan’s sandwich was ready so fast that he ended up slamming the second half of his drink before sidling back through the door and up the stairs into the night.

Oh, what the hell. She was probably going to be pissed about the sandwich, even though Trey was going to tell her they were out of croissants. He called The Boll Weevil and ordered the slice of cake before driving the two blocks up Reynolds from Joe’s.

Weird. He had to go downstairs to Joe’s, now upstairs to The Boll Weevil. If Susan wasn’t Polly, he damn sure wouldn’t be going to all this trouble.

Wow. Susan really knew how to clean. Trey couldn’t even smell the sickly sweet perfume at all when he entered his house. He wondered if she knew how to get rid of bloodstains.

“Honey, I’m home!” He announced, like all those dudes on the old black and white TV shows, laughing to himself at how absurd it sounded.

Susan emerged from his bedroom with a big smile and gave him a big, sloppy kiss. Yuck. Too slobbery.

“They were out of croissants, so why don’t you have dessert first? That’s what I like to do when I’ve had a bad day”

“Out of croissants? Oh well, as long as it’s not pumpernickel, it doesn’t really matter. Did you get the potato roll instead?”

“What’s a potato roll? Is that another Irish thing, like soda bread?”

Ignoring his response, Susan sat down on the couch and said, “I got a text from Seth a few minutes ago. He said he thought he saw you at Joe’s, but you were gone by the time he finished his song and could take a break. What’s up with that?” She crossed her legs and folded her arms over her chest. Great.

“Sweetie, I didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer than I had to,” Trey explained, taking the takeout bags to the kitchen.

He put the humongous wedge of cake on a plate with a fork. Susan turned the fork over but didn’t see a hallmark. Oh, well. Maybe he didn’t know that the way to avoid polishing silver was to use it. Susan was unaccustomed to the feathery weight of the flimsy aluminum fork.

Despite or perhaps because of the events of the day, the butterflies in Susan’s stomach kept her from enjoying the cake like she normally would, and she put her fork down on the plate.

“Come see what I did in your bedroom! We can eat later.”

Elizabeth’s coverlet was on his bed, nearly hanging down to the floor, and it was covered in camellia petals that appeared to be moving. He looked closer. Yep. Ants.

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,” Trey recited under his breath.

OMG, was he reciting poetry to her? Shakespeare? This was even better than Susan imagined, and she kissed him again, with even more passion than when she greeted him at the door.

She sank onto the bed and held her arms out to him. An ant, attracted to her floral lotion, immediately crawled onto her thigh. She didn’t notice.

“Poll—Susan,” Trey began.

“Shhh, let’s not talk anymore. I’m ready. I was a little scared, but then you recited Shakespeare to me, so I know this is meant to be.”

“Wait, where’s your ribbon? We need your ribbon.”

“What for? I don’t want to try any kinky stuff my first time. I’m not ready for that. Just you.”

Trey scrambled for a second, then noticed the new sheets on the bed and said, “It’s blue. You said you borrowed the gown, and it’s new. You said you got those earrings for your 16th birthday, so they’re something old. You need something blue to make it perfect.”

Susan jumped up and retrieved the ribbon from Trey’s mother’s bedroom, stirring up a cloud of dust in her haste so that when she returned seconds later, she sneezed again.

Trey took the ribbon and asked her what she wanted to listen to. She said she didn’t care, as long as it was romantic, so he pulled up a generic Love Songs playlist and tapped the triangle. The Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody” filled the room, and Trey tied the ribbon into Susan’s hair before suffering more of her kisses. He joined her on the bed.

In the distance, they could hear a faint tran whistle. As Trey kissed and caressed Susan, the whistle sounded again, closer this time, and presently, Susan shed Blair’s nightgown and heard the rhythm of the wheels on the tracks. The thrum of the steady approach felt like it was inside her, and since Trey had turned out the lights, she could see the stars through his window. Venus glowed brightest, and the train continued to chug closer, the rhythm increasing as the train picked up speed. She felt a little sting on her leg, and a star fell out of the sky in a white streak. She made her wish.

Trey’s body wasn’t as heavy as she had expected on top of hers, and she relaxed, her worst fear, that he would crush her, assuaged. She was so lost in her moment coming true that she ignored the sensation that something was crawling on her. Trey pulled the ribbon from her hair and pressed it against her cheek, reciting Shakespeare again.

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,”

His breath was hot on her neck.

“Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,”

His hand stroked her face with the blue ribbon, sliding it down her jaw, tracing the silk down her neck. The ants traveled from Susan’s legs to Trey’s, and he felt the first bites.

“To the last syllable of recorded time.”

She felt the silk press into her throat as the train grew louder, closer, until she couldn’t breathe. The train and Trey’s voice became more insistent, almost furious.

“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools"

The stars were all falling away.

“The way to dusty death,”

The train. It was inside her and falling away.

“Out, out, brief candle!”

Darkness fell and sound and air vanished. The train kept moving.

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,”

Stars reflected out of Susan’s lightless eyes.

“That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,”

Trey continued reciting, pumping his hips with the increasing rhythm of the train.

“And then is

heard no more.”

The motion of the bed shook a camellia petal loose from one of Susan’s hands.

“It is a tale

told by

an idiot,”

Ants crawled over milky skin and velvety petals, spots red as camellias rising on Trey’s lady’s hands.

“full

of sound

and fury,”

Finally, he collapsed on her lifeless body, exploding into her as he gasped:

“Signifying nothing.”

in case you missed Trey and Susan’s first date