One
Becca
The day I’m to film my preliminary interviews as a contestant onChasing Prince Charming, I stand in front of my ten-year-old daughter who is critically eyeing my floral tank top and knee-length denim skirt.This outfit seemed fine when I bought it for this purpose, but now I think I look less like a potential princess and more like a mom who shops at discount stores.
Which is exactly what I am, though I’d prefer it be less obvious to the camera.
“That’s definitely the one,” my daughterThea signs to me.
I arch an eyebrow. “Really?” I sign back. “Or are you just saying that so I won’t try on my entire closet again?” She’s been a trooper dealing with mylast-minute wardrobe regrets.The only thing I haven’t tried on from my closet is a yellow t-shirt that I once wore as part of a Minions costume.
“You look really pretty in that,”Thea says, dodging the question.
I glance back at my outfit in the mirror. On the show I’ll be wearing ball gowns—got to look the part to keep Prince Charming from running—but the orientation package specified to dress normally in these introductory interviews. Like I would look in my regular life, they said, though there was no way I was going to wear my actual normal clothes, which is more often than not a pair of stained jeans with an old t-shirt and a messy bun.
Today I’m actually wearing makeup, which seems to make my blue eyes brighter, and I went to the salon for the first time in forever and got a blow-out, which has partially survived all the clothing changes.
“Pretty enough forTV?” I sign toThea. Apparently I’m still nervous enough that I need the fashion approval of a tween who only recently stopped wearing the same rainbow unicorn sweatshirt nearly every day.
Thea looks me up and down, twirling a lock of her curly hair—a gorgeous orange-red color she got from her father.Then she shrugs and walks off.
Sigh. I tug at the tank top, wondering if it’s showing too little cleavage. Or too much.
Either way, I doubt I have time to change again, as the producers should be here any—
The doorbell rings, and my heart stops and lurches like a bad car battery.
They’re here.The people who are going to film me—the first of many, many hours of people filming me—are here.
What have I done?
“Mom!” my other daughter Rosie shrieks from the bedroom across the hall. “Mom!TheTV people! I see their truck outside!”
She comes hurtling out of her room just as I leave mine. She dodges around me, a blond five-year-old whirlwind wearing the most sparkly pink princess dress she owns, along with a pair of equally sparkly fairy wings. She gets to the front door before me and jumps up and down with her hands behind her back, her wings askew. “Come here!They’re going to bring the cameras in!”
I’m incredibly nervous about said cameras, but the sight of her beaming face—so happy about her mom being on a show with the words “Prince Charming” in the title—does calm me down somewhat. I smile at her. “Okay, okay,” I say, and reach for the doorknob—
With a squeal, Rosie throws two fistfuls of glitter right in my face.
“Aaaghhhaaahh,” I say, coughing and spitting and blinking glitter.
“Look, Mom, you’re a princess!” Rosie squeals, and she flings open the door.
I’m caught still coughing out puffs of glitter while a smallTV crew on my porch stare at me wide-eyed.The one in front, a tall Black guy wearing dark jeans and a blue t-shirt with the outline of a mountain range on it, recovers quickly.
“Hey,” he says, a smile broadening on his face. A face which, I notice now that I don’t feel like I’m looking through a disco ball, is incredibly handsome. “I’m Nathaniel Coleman, one of the producers, but you can call me Nate.” He introduces me to two cameramen—a short guy with a light brown soul patch and a beefy guy with a bored expression—and Kristin, the interpreter, a middle-aged woman with a short blond bob and wire-frame glasses.
“Hi,” I say with a forced breeziness, pretending that I don’t look like I just came from a New Year’s Eve party at a strip club. “I’m Becca.”
Rosie tugs on my hand, bouncing up and down again. “My mom is a princess!”
“Yes, she is.” Nate tries to smother that grin. Which, with a smile like that, is something he should never do. Not even to spare an embarrassed woman covered in glitter. “It looks like you are, too.”
“I’m not really a princess,” Rosie says. “I have to marry a prince for that.”
The feminist in me (who maybe shouldn’t be going on a show about women competing for Prince Charming) feels the need to clarify. “You don’t need a prince. You can be a princess all on your own.”
Rosie gives me a skeptical look, but I probably shouldn’t go into the details of royal birthright while a television crew is still standing on my porch.
