Princess

Princess

"I can't believe she's gone!"

"Huh?"

“Oh, you're awake?"

"Well, of course I am now."

"I still can't believe she is gone. I just can't believe it." His eyes were glistening while mine rolled. He had been watching TV coverage for the five hours since we got home. It was now six in the morning and the CNN coverage showed no signs of abating. Neither did his apparent ability to consume every endless minute of that coverage.

At this point, craving little more than a water and some hangover-reducing Advil, I decided upon the least-resistant course which meant not indulging in the million ways to say "Shut the fuck up and go to sleep, you crazy fuck!" and decided to feign emotional complicity. "I can't believe it either," I mumbled almost barfing on my lie. I did believe it; he had awakened me every thirty minutes since I tried to pass out to give me an update. I knew unequivocally that it was fact. CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC had all confirmed it, what was there to not believe? What I wanted to say was that "I don't care, now come over here and blow me."

"It really is a loss."

"Such a loss." For some reason, I felt increasingly compelled to comfort him in this, the darkest moment of his life up until the day his Nanny died. I averted my attention in the direction of his gaze, toward the television. The looping video of red flashing lights abounded and filled the room. I imagined I was still at the concert from the night before, listening to the "The artist formerly known as..." sing his signature tunes. I hummed a riff of "Nineteen ninety nine" in my head as I flashed forward to the present and watched him hugging himself, rocking forward and backward on the edge of the bed. He started crying again, I wished for doves to appear and relieve me of my melodramatic misery.

"She was the 'People's Princess'," he repeated Wolf Blitzer's corny commentary.

"It's true," I agreed. I did agree with this.

"And those poor boys…orphans."

"Technically, they are not orphans," I couldn't resist the opportunity to tamp down on the spiraling drama. "They still have a father who, independent of this, happens to be the next King of England."

The response landed with the thud I expected, but I was self-satisfied for a moment.

"He is a horrible, ugly monster." He won that round. "They might as well be orphans."

By this point I knew that I was up for the long haul and that slumber would elude me for the near future, at least until the coverage paused.

I rolled out of bed, made a horrifyingly unappreciated big deal of arranging the unattended morning wood in my boxers--I was gorgeously invisible--and slogged into the kitchen where I grabbed a Michelob Light and some pain reliever. I would need both of these to make it through what promised to be an excruciatingly long morning.

We had been boyfriends for over a year and had already moved on from the monotony of monogamy to drinking buddies. He was adorable, if not a handful. I found that ignoring the fact that I knew he had hooked up with other guys wasn't difficult. I expected that, at some point soon, he would be forced to overlook the same improprieties on my end. I had no reason to expect that we wouldn't be together forever; we dwelt nicely together on each others' arms. When we had sex it was fun. When we didn't, it was ok too.

The currently recounted hysteria notwithstanding, I loved him. When I looked in his brown eyes and when I touched his curly auburn hair, I was reminded. When we sat side by side slamming Jaeger or lied side by side in my bed, spooning, it was confirmed as unmitigated truth.

Just the day before, a mutual friend intimated that he had hooked up with him. I had no reason to disbelieve, but was generally unfazed. I allowed our friend to suck me off as penitence. That's how it worked. That's how we worked.

I returned to the bedroom with two beers. I decided to make the best of the situation. I dove into his soul and forced a compassionate tear as I untopped a bottle for him and handed it in his direction. He took it and looked at me with deeply emotional, silent thanks. I played silent connect the dots with the freckles on his cheeks.

I kissed him on the cheek. "You OK?"

For the first time, and certainly not the last, he explained to me his desire to be a princess. He told me about the way his parents loved each other. He told me that he wanted that. I wanted that for him. He had been watching the relationship of Diana and Charles since "The Wedding." I was not sure if he was regurgitating trivia he had heard over the last several hours or if he had genuinely watched them with the intensity that he seemed to exude.

Though we had never actually discussed this topic, it made perfect sense that he would be so engrossed. He wanted a fairy tale. Though I wasn't sure I could provide it, or that I was worthy of such fantasy, I knew he should have it. I knew that he would.

He went on to tell me about her work with AIDS victims, her friendship with Mother Theresa and Sister Elton. He talked about landmines and the children whose obliterated limbs attested to the need for a Princess who'd champion such a worthy and overlooked cause. He talked about Will and Harry. He told me about Lady Parker Bolles with the unabated disdain and personal torture of a woman scorned. He elaborated on glass slippers and lacy, sequined trains.

On into the morning, he persisted. I tarried.

A six pack past dawn, and as a weatherman finally broke into the story with the first Doppler radar reading of the cycle, we knew that thunderstorms would keep us in the house all day.

I ordered a pizza, threw "Purple Rain" into the CD player, and laid beside him for the long haul. We killed a twelve pack and a large pepperoni. We recounted the high points of the previous evening's concert, our mutual love for royalty, and agreed that storybooks needn't be fiction. We had sex. We did not disclose our mutual knowledge of each others' failings. I told him I loved him back.

By noon he was asleep in my arms as I cried by myself for a Princess that I would never know. I kissed his head as he snored.

Twenty years later, when his name remained a green cursive tattoo on my chest, when I was little more than the "boyfriend formerly known as..." he called me when my grandmother passed away, "You okay?"

I cried by myself for a Princess who I would never be.