The Princess Tentwas pretty objectively Not A Good Movie, with lines such as, “You’re a princess where it counts. On theinside,” and “My tent may have been small, but this castle is a prison!” For years afterward, Sibby and I would say these lines to each other at moments both appropriate and not, and always dissolve into laughter afterward.
But even if we teased about it, we also loved it—a long-lost princess, believing herself orphaned, fed up with the system that shuffled her in and out of foster homes. Living on her own at the edge of a forest, strong and resourceful. Hiding her circumstances from everyone at her high school, including the handsome boy in her English class who wrote noncreepy poetry—a feat, let’s face it—and always packed an extra sandwich for her just because. Sibby and I were so invested that we probably would have burned the movie theater down if Princess Freddie (real name: Frederica, of freaking course) didn’t get her happy ending (crown, castle, tent on the grounds, poet-sandwich boyfriend), so it’s a good thing it all worked out for her.
And I guess it also worked out for the young starlet who made Princess Freddie a household name, because on Friday afternoon I’m standing in the doorway of her and her actor-turned-director husband’s brand-new row house in Red Hook—part of a line of buildings that are similar to brownstones in that they’re shoved all together, but dissimilar to brownstones in that they are brutally modern, some faced with wood siding dry-burned black, some with what reminds me of the dull side of aluminum foil, some—including this one—with orange-rusted steel. They all have huge, high windows on the second and third floors, the kind a fancy decorator would tell you absolutelycannothave curtains. It’s not my taste, but I’ve lived in this city long enough to know that this sucker costs at least two million, more depending on what’s beyond this doorway.
I’m sure I’ll get a peek at it soon, but right now I’m still too busy concentrating on keeping my mouth from hanging open as Lark Tannen-Fisher’s assistant, Jade, shows me a piece of paper that she “totally promises” is not legally binding but that also contains scary words likepractitioner(which I think means me) andtermination(which I don’t think means murder, but who knows). I’ve only been here for three minutes, tops, and even though I know I’m not going to take this job until I have an attorney (yeah, I know when to call an attorney! Suck it, Reid!) look over this thing, I’m still having trouble moving past that first minute, when Jade explained who I was about to meet.
Again: a motherfucking movie star!
Jade smiles an extra-white smile at me when I look up from the non-legally-binding paper. “Lark issoexcited to meet you. Shelovesyour Insta.”
“Great!” I say, but my mind is a sieve for anything other thanI’m thinking it all the way down the long front hallway, which smells of fresh paint and money, and I’d probably continue to think it if we didn’t step into a massive kitchen-dining-living room, open and airy and bright. There’s not much furniture yet, but everything that’s built in is gorgeous—sleek, dark-stained wood cabinets lining one whole wall, steel hardware that matches the appliances, a massive white marble island, glass-blown pendant lights hung above. Beyond it, a work-of-art chandelier, tangled branches of wood beautifully intertwined with delicate glass prisms. And where the living room furniture will surely go, a low, rectangular fireplace, built into a white brick half-wall, windows above and flanking it on either side, overlooking the kind of landscaped patio that half the population of Brooklyn would terminate someone for.
In spite of the fact that Jade has spoken to me in sentences that include at least twelve more words in italics, I don’t know if I’m processing it; I am absolutely not playing it cool when she pulls out a fancy acrylic chair away from the island and invites me to sit and “set up.” She asks if I want anything to drink and when I decline, she gives me another blinding smile and says she’ll see me later.
I’m going to meet Princess Freddie, I think as I sit there, my client notebook and my Micron in my hand. Neither are pink or have sparkles, and under the circumstances I consider this a profound failure.
“Meg?”
Lark looks remarkably the same as she had on-screen all those years ago—shorter than I thought, the planes of her face sharper with adulthood, but she’s still got all that long dark brown hair, brown eyes to match, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Her smile is Princess Freddie’s, closemouthed and cautious, and after the movie came out I remember reading an interview where she’d said she’d always gotten teased for how big her mouth was. Since I’d had a face full of braces at the time, I’d felt a kinship.
Lark shakes my hand when I stand from my chair, and I make a real effort not to curtsey, holding the Micron in my other hand so tightly my knuckles ache. “Thanks for having me,” I say, as though I’ve shown up to her wedding shower or a cocktail party.
“I’m thrilled you came. I’ve been following you for ages!”
Given that I spent a good portion of my freshman year drawing sketches of her magical forest tent, this is a moment of cognitive dissonance for me, so I’m pretty sure I smile goofily, feeling as if my braces have grown back.
But when we sit at the gigantic island and Lark tells me about the work she wants me to do, something about her makes my smile start to feel frozen and awkward in a different way. She’s light, cheerful, a mode I know all too well and usually feel comfortable with, but everything she says seems littered with the name of her husband. Cameron wanted to leave LA because it was a wasteland. Cameron picked Red Hook because it’s “gritty.” Cameron wanted this house because its simplicity won’t interfere with his “process.” Cameron supports her acting but also doesn’t approve of the rom-coms she gets offered, anddefinitelydoesn’t want her doing TV. Cameron wants kids, two boys. Cameron wishes she was a better cook.
So I low-key hate Cameron, which is awkward since Lark doesn’t want me to doonlya custom planner for her. She also wants me to do two large walls in her house, because Cameron is into inspirational quotations (here’s hoping he’s not a fan ofBloom Where You’re Planted!). One of them is a larger-scale version of something I’ve done before, a narrow panel in the kitchen that they want done in chalk, but the other—which Lark leads me to—is a massive, high-ceilinged wall in the master bedroom that they want done in paint.
“I don’t usually work with paint,” I tell her as we stand in front of all the blank whiteness. This isn’t entirely true—about a year and a half ago I took a four-weekend sign-painting workshop in Williamsburg to get some practice with retro-style lettering and composition. I’d translated most of what I’d learned there into my regular ink-and-paper practice, but I’d also done a couple of painted signs for Cecelia and the shop, and one for little Spencer Whalen, mostly because I didn’t want Sibby to get in trouble if I’d said no to the request.
So I could probably do this, could brush up on my brush skills, and as long as they don’t want anything too complicated, it’d probably be fine, if more time-consuming than I’d hoped. But something makes me uneasy about it. At first I think it’s a whisper of my most recent outing with Reid, staring up at walls, even though those weren’t blank. After a few seconds, though, I realize it’s another type of familiarity. It’s the sense that if I do this job, I’ll want to say things I have absolutely no place saying. The sense that I’ll break my promise to myself—to Reid, not that I should care—if I take it.
“I could give you some names of people who do that kind of work full time,” I add, once I realize the silence has stretched too long. There’s hardly anything in this room yet—a big California king with all-white linens and a large black-and-white framed photo from Lark and Cameron’s wedding leaning against the wall beside it. In it, Lark’s face is almost totally obscured, and Cameron is wearing a slouchy knit cap and wide black leather cuffs on both his wrists. On the beach! I feel newly committed to my decision to pass. How would I ever get through this job without hiding a message about how much I disapprove of Cameron’s wedding attire?
I would not, probably.
But then Lark says, “Oh,” and she sounds so genuinely disappointed. “Maybe I’ll skip it. I was kind of trying to avoid—” She breaks off, tucks her hands inside the front pocket of the hoodie she’s practically swimming in. “I’d rather have fewer people coming in and out of the house, I guess?”
I look over at her and she gives me a sheepish shrug.
“I get nervous about privacy stuff.”
“Oh, of course,” I say, as if I somehow know how it is to be a child star. I look back up at the wall, now feeling decidedly less committed about why I should pass. All through the mini-tour of this massive house, I couldn’t help but think,This castle is a prison!Except this time, it hadn’t seemed funny at all. When I first saw Lark in that movie years ago, the three-year age gap between Freddie and me seemed huge. She was arealteenager, not the kind of teenager I was—emerging and awkward, parties and proms and joyrides on a very distant horizon. But right now, with Lark standing beside me in this huge, sterile room,Ifeel like the older one, the real adult in the room.
Maybe I could do this part of the job, to help her out. I can ignore whatever she says about Cameron, keep my promise to myself, and give her what she’s asked for. And this will be good for me, too. Even aside from the money I stand to make, this will be a good challenge to set alongside the Make It Happyn job. A place to put all the excess inspiration I amabsolutelystill going to get out of my city walks.
I take a big breath, speak with all the cheery, casual confidence I’m still mustering about this.
“You know what? Why not, right? I like trying new things.”
She smiles at me, big and genuine. Then she says, “Cameron,” and I resist the urge to groan. “He’s always encouraging me to try new things.”
“Such as cooking,” I blurt, and right after it comes out of my mouth I grimace. First of all, I sound like Reid, whom I should not be (a) thinking about, or (b) imitating in any way. Second of all, I barely know this woman, and I’ve also just committed to keeping my mouth—well, my hands—shut about whatever she has going on in her life. And who knows, Lark/Princess Freddie might have a tyrannical streak and I could be five seconds from getting thrown out. Jade had a really firm handshake; she could probably do it.
But Lark surprises me with a snort of laughter that she brings a hand to her mouth to cover. When she composes herself she huffs a small sigh. “It can be exhausting, trying new things. You know?”
