Mrs. Beast (17 page)

    
Croesus curls his lips and whinnies.

    
"Their plan was coasting.
 
The ladder was almost long enough, and Johann's lips were swollen to Mick Jagger magnitude when one day, after Gothel had lumbered up the hair stair, Rapunzel blurted out:
Mother Gothel, why is it you climb up here so slowly, and the king's son is with me in a moment?

    
"Bricklebrit, I need a plunge." Elora slips off the bench into a Jacuzzi.
 
Croesus spits three gold coins into the tub: plink, plank, plunk.

    
"Make a wish, dog-o-my-heart.
 
I know, you wish I'd finish the story. Okay, Rapunzel spilled the beans.
 
The Grimm psychologist claims it was a Freudian slip and that she wanted to be caught.
 
More likely, she'd had it with bracing her arms against the walls while Gothel hauled her big ass up the tower.
 
I swear, Rapunzel had deltoids like Schwarzenegger's."

    
Croesus raises his hackles in an imitation flex.

    
"You are bad to the bone." Elora laughs and pulls herself onto the bench.
 
"Not as bad as old Gothel.
 
She went crazy, grabbed Rapunzel by the hair and smacked her around for five minutes before taking a pair of scissors to her head.
 
I need another dose of steam," Elora says and prods Croesus with her toe.

    
Croesus responds with a disgruntled growl.

    
"Watch it, Bud.
 
You can be replaced.
 
There's a new litter of Weimaraners at Wegman's place, and he's a close personal friend.

    
Croesus scrambles to the sponge bowl.

    
"There's a dear.
 
Now, did snipping off Rapunzel’s hair chill goat-faced Gothel?
 
No.
 
She was so hot, she conjured up a twister that picked up Rapunzel and dropped her smack in the middle of the Sahara."

    
Croesus bites the sponge and the rocks hiss on cue.

    
"That night, as Gothel was fastening Rapunzel's hair to the window hasp, Johann rode to the tower with swelling heart and misty eyes.
 
He called,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair
.
 
Gothel unwound the braid, and Johann zipped up
 
'cause he finally had enough rope to rescue Rapunzel.
 
He reached the sill and, whoa!
 
Gothel creaked,
Aha! You came for your darling, but the sweet bird sings no more; the cat has got her, and will scratch out your eyes as well!

    
 
Johann totally freaked and jumped from the tower. Didn't kill him.
 
He landed in a bed of thorns Gothel conjured up and his eyes were punctured like pitted olives."

    
Croesus tucks his head under his back leg.

    
"After a month of pitching deafening fits of rage that dried up all the cows for twenty miles, Gothel was visited by the Grimm psychologist.
 
He told her:
There's no greater fury than a woman scorned.
 
If one loves another exclusively, naturally, one does not want some other person to take that love.
 
True,
he said,
you did gloat over depriving the prince of his love, but you didn't destroy him, you didn't push him off the tower, he jumped of his own free will.

    
Croesus paws Elora's foot impatiently.

    
"What happened to Johann?
 
He wandered for five years, a blind, bumbling ball of misery. Finally he stumbled into the Sahara and heard Rapunzel's song.
 
He dropped to his knees and cried
Rapunzel,
like Marlon Brando yelling,
Stella!
 
She fell on his neck, her tears touched his eyes, and he regained his sight. Guess what he saw in addition to Rapunzel?
 
Twins--a boy and a girl. The Grimm psychologist claims the twins demonstrate that children can be conceived without sex as a result of love, that they're a symbol of the bond between Rapunzel and Johann during their separation."

    
Croesus snorts.

    
"What really happened during their separation?
 
I haven't the time to tell,” Elora says with drawn out glee and slips into the tub.
 
She surfaces and squirts Croesus between the eyes.

    
"The prince took the beauty and her children to Kronus Castle where they were supposed to live happily ever after.
 
Bring me my towel."

    
Exiting the sauna, Croesus panting at her heels, Elora strides to her three-panel mirror, unwraps the towel and fluff-dries her hair.
 
Croesus sits at her feet, posing.

    
"How should I fix my hair?
 
I want an outrageous do for the Walpurgis bash.
 
Funny thing, hair," she muses. "Simply follicle, papilla, cells and glands, yet how it's tangled up in women's identity and image, inseparable from sexual attraction and the aesthetic of beauty."

    
Elora snaps her fingers and is instantly covered, head to toe, with coarse black hair.
 
"In prehistoric times, the real babes were the hairiest." Croesus stops posing and jams his nose between her hirsute thighs.

    
She swats him loose. "An abundance of hair protected cave women from the elements, gave good camouflage and hand holds for their nippers, and drove cave men lust-crazy.
 
When Minerva caught Neptune and Medusa getting it on in her own temple . . ."
 
Elora snaps her fingers and twenty serpents spring from her head like jack-in-the-boxes.
 
Croesus yelps and freezes still as a statue, ears flat, eyes glazed.

    
"Quite the canine comic."
 
Croesus' ribs shimmy with silent laughter.
 
"Did Minerva punish her horny husband?
 
No, she venged out on Medusa by turning her glorious hair into scaly serpents.
 
Maybe a wig?"

    
With a snap of her fingers, Elora transforms the snakes to straight black, Cleopatra-style braids.
 
Croesus wags his tail and poses regally at Elora's side.

    
"I could change the color. Roman women of patrician birth clipped hair from German slave girls to make wigs. Augustus' daughter Julia had more blonde wigs than Dolly Parton."

    
Elora snaps her fingers and is coifed in a platinum blonde swirl.
 
She purses her blackberry lips, leans into the mirror, fluffs her hair and coos, "I like to feel blonde all over."

    
Croesus growls, "Grar-rar-rar."

    
"Gentlemen and dirty dogs prefer blondes.
 
Hair color is a whole other discussion, but it pisses me off that regardless of color, long loose hair is seen as both a symbol of virginity and a symbol of promiscuity.
 
Perhaps laissez-hair is best."
 
Elora restores her hair to its knee-length, raven-hued, natural state.

    
"I've got it!"
 
She snaps her fingers and her hair comes to life, rises and curls into a Bride of Frankenstein hair-do, complete with silver steak.
 
The hall clock strikes 11:30PM, and Elora conjures up a simple, ankle length, black rubber dress.

*
     
*
     
*

    
Beauty jolts from sleep and scans the indoor pavilion for the pint-sized Gargoyle whose ravenous eyes kept her alert and writing in her diary until 2
AM
.
 
There's not a soul in sight, but one compartment is secluded by lowered netting.
 
A flutter of movement behind the pink curtain prompts Beauty to cough delicately, hoping to draw attention without being obvious.

    
"You're awake!
 
Come in."

    
Beauty recognizes the voice as Scheherazade's.
 
She draws the curtain aside to discover the girl writing in the red vellum diary.
  
Her mind forms the words,
That's mine!
  
She doesn't speak them because fairy tale beauties are extremely polite and because she remembers Snow White's red lips spewing similar words.
 
Scheherazade's a child, and it's not Beauty's responsibility to scold her.
 
"Where is your mother?" she asks.

    
"I don't know," Scheherazade replies and continues writing.

    
"May I ask why you're writing in my diary?"

    
"Gosh, is this your diary?
 
I didn't read it, cross my heart."
 
She draws an X over her slender chest. "I couldn't find any other paper.
 
I'm writing a note to you from Mother.
 
There, I'm finished."
 
Scheherazade jumps up and hands the book to Beauty.

    
Beauty's heart skips.
 
What catastrophe had caused Rapunzel to depart in such haste she couldn't stop to write a note?
 
She scowls at the open page, trying to decipher the flourishes of ink.
 
"I can't read this," she says and notices a stack of paper on the third shelf of Scheherazade's bookcase.

    
"Silly me.
 
I always write in Arabic."

    
"Are you certain she didn't write a note?" Beauty asks fretfully.

    
"Yes.
 
I know this for a fact because Mother can't write.
 
She could learn if she wanted to.
 
Some of her friends have been our teachers: poets, artists, musicians, dancers, and scholars."
 
Scheherazade places a silver-ringed finger on the page and reads aloud:
 
“
Beauty, I have gone to exchange the changeling for baby Kurt.
 
Please watch the twins.
 
Thanks.
 
Rapunzel.
”

    
"Food's here!" Omar shouts, dashing in from outside, arms laden with loaves of bread, links of sausages, and a basket of strawberries.

    
Beauty can't move; her legs feel as if they're rooted to the ground. The twins stand at the hearth, stuffing their mouths with berries.
 
Rapunzel said she wanted to be my friend . . . some friend!
 
I should be on my way to
 
Elora's . . . to get my Beast back . . . I've never taken care of children . . . they're teasing, playing a game . . . the mirror . . .
 
 
She quietly draws the mirror from her satchel and whispers:

     
"Magic mirror,
I'm all a jitter,

       left here as a baby-sitter,

      
in one way or in another,

      
please locate these

       children's
mother."

    
An image appears and Beauty blinks her eyes three times.
 
She can't make sense of the picture she's seeing or the words she's hearing.