Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales (2 page)

“Naah,” said the first. “He just wants us out of the country so he can disown us or something. Then we go in search of other kingdoms and find our fortunes—”

I looked at the third Prince. He was sitting quietly, simply exhibiting that unassuming masculine beauty that made you look at him and think,
this is the one: this is the hero.
He didn’t say anything now—just looked at the producer with a thoughtful expression.
Here’s our youngest son,
I thought to myself
, if the others don’t derail us.
Please, God, don’t let them derail us…

“Fathers sends sons to find dog,” the S&P guy was muttering under his breath as he wrote. He looked skeptical: I supposed I could understand why.

“The three princes,” the producer went on, “were greatly surprised by their father’s sudden fancy for a little dog. But as it gave the two younger ones a chance they would not otherwise have had to succeed him—”

“Yeah,” said the first prince, shooting a glance at the King, “political, all right—”

“—and as the oldest was too polite to make any objection, they accepted the commission with pleasure. They bade farewell to the King, who gave them presents of silver and precious stones, and appointed to meet them at the same hour, in the same place, after a year had passed, to see the little dogs they would have brought for him.”

“’Too polite,’” said the first Prince. “He’s a wimp.”

“A year?” the second said, looking sly. “Yeah, I bet. Who takes a year to find a dog?”

“No kidding,” said the first Prince. “Probably he’s planning on shacking up with some princess from the next kingdom over. Marry her, have another son, leave the first three out in the cold—”

The King gave them a glance and shot his cuffs, then looked over at the producer and raised his eyebrows.

“And the old guy’s loaded, we know that,” said the first Prince.

“So when we come back, and the dogs aren’t good enough, and he gets ready to send us out again, we say to him, Look, dad, the expenses last time weren’t nearly enough to last a year. Now how about this. You give us four times as much, and we’ll go away permanently—”

The producer looked across at them and cleared his throat softly.

The first Prince shrugged. “Just a thought,” he said.

“Right,” said the producer. “So. The three princes promised each other that they’d be friends always, share whatever good fortune befell them, and never be parted by any enmity or jealousy—”

“I give
that
five minutes,” the second Prince said.

Here it comes,
I thought.

“—and set out to seek the little dogs that the King desired. Each one took a different road, and the two eldest met with many adventures: but it is about the youngest that you are going to hear—”

“What??”
said the first prince. “Oh, great!
Now
we get the bad news.” He chucked his reading script onto the table.

The second prince looked at his script for a moment more, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing there, and tossed it to the table as well. “I need to call my agent,” he said, and got up and headed for the door.

The producer and the director glanced at each other as he went out. I could just hear the telepathy passing between them as the door shut behind him
: He didn’t talk to his agent?

Yes he did. And his agent didn’t tell him what
we
told him.

Now what do we do? It’s too late to start casting all over again.

Just ride with it for the moment. You know how it is with royalty: they like to throw their little tantrums. Then when they come back and they’re ready to negotiate, they’ve saved face—

The King turned over some pages in the script. “Kind of quiet for me for the next few acts, isn’t it?” he said. “They turn up, I send them off again—”

“You are absolutely the linchpin of this whole thing,” said the director. “Nothing in this story would happen without you. The happy ending would be impossible without you. And you’re the only mature figure in the piece. Everything else is either young love or youthful instability.”

The King nodded, keeping his face noncommittal; but his eyes betrayed him. I knew that for the rest of the readthrough, he would be counting his lines, but I didn’t think that mattered: I thought we had him. Now it was the two princes who we had to fasten down—because without them, a youngest-son story loses most of its tension. I glanced down at my own pad and started to make a note:
Slightly larger part for Ps 1 & 2? Poss. act 2-3 business—

The door opened, and the second prince came back in, smiling slightly. “A year to find one dog?” he said. “I guess these people never heard of eBay.”

The first Prince turned to glance at him. “Second thoughts?”

“Can’t leave
you
to decide which of our parts has the best stuff in it,” said the second Prince, amiably enough; and I saw the director and producer flicked a glance at each other, neither one revealing. I could just imagine the Prince’s agent repeating over the phone, loudly, what his residuals package was going to look like on this project, assuming that it got made with him in it.

“So,” said the producer. “Should I go on?”

The first two Princes nodded; the third just smiled slightly.

Sal cleared his throat again softly and started to read again. “But it’s about the youngest that we’re going to hear. He was young, and gay, and handsome—”

The Standards and Practices guy glanced up. “We’re bucking for an ‘R’ rating here before anything’s even happened,” he said.

The first two Princes smirked at each other. The King studied his nails. The youngest raised his eyebrows, and smiled slightly. “I’m not afraid of being stereotyped,” youngest Prince said. “Just don’t expect me to swish.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the first Prince, still wearing some of the smirk that he had earned on Prince Number Two. “It can be fun to camp it up– “

“Not
that
kind of gay,” said the producer. “The writer’s language is a little antiquated, that’s all. Anyway. He was young, and gay, and handsome, and knew everything that a prince ought to know—”

“I just bet he did,” said the second Prince, grinning at the first.

The King rolled his eyes again. “I have another meeting in an hour,” the King said. “Can we please—”

The producer opened his mouth, and the door opened almost in synch with it. “Sorry I’m late,” said the Beautiful Princess, “but you wouldn’t believe the traffic on Santa Monica this morning. That next-top-model show is shooting on Rodeo, and everything from Beverly to Cañon is jammed with crew trucks and rubberneckers.” She pulled out a chair and slumped into it, her crown slightly askew. She tried to push it back into place. The attempt failed, and even if it had succeeded, the effect would still have been poor in combination with the bright pink cashmere Juicy Couture sweats. “Have I missed anything?” she said. “Where are we?”

“PG-13 and rising,” said the S&P guy, glancing at her cleavage, for the zipper of those sweats was down a long way.

The producer shot him a look. The Beautiful Princess’s eyebrows went up, but more with a pleased look than an annoyed one. “I can do adult,” she said, and looked at the three princes. “Who’s the lucky boy?”

The first two princes looked away. The third Prince simply threw the Beautiful Princess a knowing look… and she caught it, and simpered. It’d been a long time since I’ve seen a good simper: and it boded well, because this was the Princess we needed.

The producer caught my eye and signaled me with a glance. I pushed the spare reading copy of the script over the Princess. She picked it up, paged through it with a trained eye, and within a second had found the page where the others’ scripts lay open. “Okay,” she said, “let’s go.”

“The youngest prince knew everything that a prince should know… and as for his courage, there was simply no end to it.”

“Courage,” the princess said, and smiled. “So it’s an actioner? Well, if we’re not going to have the other kind of action…”

The producer reached out for his coffee and drank a good deal of it. It was a good thing it was cold.
What are their agents telling these people?
I thought.

“All right,” said the producer. “So the youngest Prince went off and started buying dogs. Big ones, little ones, greyhounds, spaniels, lap dogs, you name it. No sooner would he buy one than he’d find a prettier one somewhere else; after a few days he’d have so many dogs that he’d have to get rid of some of them, and always he’d keep on traveling further from home, convinced that there was a prettier dog out there somewhere. Finally he hardly knew where he was any more, and he and the ten or so dogs he had with him at that point took a short cut through a forest. Or he thought it was a short cut. He got lost, and it got dark, and then it started to rain; and he and the dogs wandered around in the stormy, gloomy woods until finally he thought he saw a light some ways off. With difficulty the youngest Prince made his way toward it. And what should he find but an immense castle, all by itself in the woods. It had a golden door all studded with rubies: the glow of these (for apparently they were magic rubies) was what had led him to the place. And as he lifted his hand to knock at the door, it opened—and he saw an immense white marble hall paved with lapis lazuli, and hanging in the air, hundreds of hands…”

The Beautiful Princess’s eyebrows went up. “Kinky,” she said softly.

“No bodies?” said the first Prince.

“Just hands?” said the second Prince.

“CGI,” said the director.

The calculating look in the First and Second Princes’ eyes suggested that they were both wondering whether their agents had got them enough for this part, if the effects budget could take that much strain.

“The hands escorted the prince inside,” the producer said, ignoring them. “Voices which seemed associated with them said, ‘Don’t be afraid; nothing here will harm you.’ And the hands ushered him through room after room, each more splendid than the last, until the Prince found himself in a sitting room where a fire sprang into life in the fireplace as they entered. The hands removed the Prince’s wet, muddy clothes—”

“Woo woo,” said the youngest Prince. The Beautiful Princess shot him a look out of the corner of her eyes, and said nothing, but smiled slightly.

“PG-17 for sure,” said the S&P guy under his breath, making another note.

“And dressed him in new ones embroidered richly in gold and precious stones. When he was ready, the hands led the Prince to a splendid dining room, on the walls of which were painted the history of Puss in Boots and many other famous cats. The Prince was led by the hands to the main table, to one of two places which were laid with golden plates and utensils. He looked at the second place, wondering who it was for, and waited. A nearby door swung open to the sound of invisible trumpets: and in came a tiny figure in a long black veil, escorted by two cats wearing black cloaks and carrying swords. Behind them came a large party of cats carrying musical instruments and various covered dishes.”

“More CGI?” said the King.

“No,” said the producer, “just magic. For some of this stuff, it looks better.—So there stood the prince, astonished: and the little figure walked up to him and threw back its veil to reveal the most beautiful little white cat he’d ever seen. ‘Good evening, Prince,” said the White Cat. ‘You’re very welcome. Will you join us for dinner?’”

“‘Absolutely,’ he said, and sat down—”

“Excuse me,” said the Beautiful Princess. “This is my character? A cat?”

“Yes,” said the producer.

“And I spend how long as this cat?” she said, riffling through the script.

“Until the spell’s broken,” said the director.

“That’s almost the whole story,” said the Beautiful Princess. “Do I really want this on my CV? That I spent a whole story as a cat?”

“It’s a tremendous ending,” said the producer. “Trust me. Besides, everybody knows the cat’s not really a cat. Even the prince knows it. Think of how the suspense will build. When the audience finally sees you, they’ll never forget it.”

She raised her eyebrows again. I held my breath. “Well, I don’t know,” she said. But at the same time, I saw her steal a glance at the youngest Prince: and as she did, she saw that he was stealing a glance at
her
, with just the slightest smile.

The moment held. “All right,” she said, letting her gaze fall to the script again, “let’s see what happens—”

I let the breath out. It was going to be all right…

“So dinner was brought in, and the two of them started to talk, and the Prince discovered that they were both interested in the same kinds of things…so that they were so busy talking, they nearly forgot to eat, and sat there until late in the evening, while the musicians played. Then finally the White Cat reluctantly rose, signaling that the evening was over. The youngest Prince rose with her, and knelt to take her paw and kiss it; and as he bent over it, he saw that on a bracelet there she wore a miniature painted with the face of a man who looked much like him. For the time being, the Prince said nothing, but bade her good night, and went to the bedroom to which the hands conducted him.”

“Right,” said the youngest Prince. “A lookalike? A prophecy? A curse?”

“All three,” said the director, “and he catches on as fast as you have. It’s in the backstory: fairies had it in for her, intended her to marry another guy, she fell for this prince in the miniature instead, he gets killed and she turns into a cat until she finds another prince who looks like the first one and’ll fall in love with her.—So the next morning the Prince gets up and finds that she’s prepared a hunt for him. Off they go, and after the hunt there’s a feast, and after that, a ball back at the palace; and the Prince and the White Cat become inseparable. He gets another look at that miniature, and the guy might be his twin. But he doesn’t say anything for the time being.

“The next day is like the one before, full of entertainments that the White Cat prepares for him: and the day after that, and the week after that, and the month after that, the same. They’re never bored. Every night they’re up late talking, every day they’re out together having a good time, until the Prince finds it really hard to keep in mind why he came to her castle in the first place.”