Hugo Algernon grew up alongside me- except he was famous and I was not. He was Prince of Beddington, even though Beddington territory was merged into the country, and so, practically, no longer existed. He was still a royal. He had money from unknown family vaults, like he was paid simply for being alive. He had a fascinating look, green eyes and olive skin, and he was featured in magazines, or on billboards, and Gap ads. He was good at everything including gymnastics, smiling, polo, and being photogenic. While all the other girls giggled obsessively about him, I hung back, wondering if I liked him because everyone else did. I refused to like him because everyone else did.
Throughout the years he was featured at matches, at his great great grandfather’s funeral, with his first girlfriend, the headlines announced what college he’d chosen, his medieval-knight themed birthday parties. He made appearances at shows and was variously talented.
Then it was my 35th birthday party, and I was out to karaoke with my home girls. They were tipsy, I’m a lightweight so I barely had a sip and I was tipping over. I do a mean cover of Hugo Algernon’s one hit (he had a brief foray into the music business), and I was belting it at the top of my voice, unable to even hear myself, when I passed out.
I woke up by the side of a velvet couch. Fluorescent ceiling lights had been turned on, revealing the grime and residue on the floors. My girlfriends had all left.
I swore not to feel sorry for myself. I could’ve given into the idea that this was perhaps the loneliest morning of my life, even after that valiant effort I’d made, on my birthday. I was tall, thin, long brown hair, chestnut complexion- I looked like a model or actress. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t really that proud of being pretty because it didn’t really mean much. I had a brain, too, and the people who were attracted to me didn’t like my intellect, and the people who liked my intellect didn’t like my looks. People were maybe too intimidated to be my friend. I’d tried joining society, and it hadn’t happened.
I struck up a conversation with the kid sweeping the floor. He was dressed in all black like a theatre usher, and he told me what I wanted to hear; that I still looked good, even with a popcorn kernel in my hair. He gave me a glass of water and told me that I wasn’t lame, only tired. He said he saw the other ladies pulling out of the parking lot. They didn’t get past the curb when a cop pulled them over for breathalyzer testing.
“You’re lucky you stayed,” he said. He looked down at his broom and said, “You do a pretty sweet rendition of Hugo Algernon’s ‘Holding On.’” “Oh?” I said. “It was funny,” he said. “Thanks.” “If you really like him-” I interrupted, “I don’t really like him.” He kept sweeping, “Well I was going to say that if you liked him, there’s a production company upstairs. They’re holding auditions for a reality show he’s going to star in.” “Ha!” I said. “Reality show.” “Yeah, like The Bachelor, but they’re calling it The Prince, and women are going to compete to marry him. You should audition.” “Yeah right,” I coughed. I stood up, brushing dust off my jacket and straightening my skirt. I caught my reflection in the black TV screen.
I was still all dolled up- my hair was blow-dried with soft waves, my lips were still stained with bright red. I had to go to court later that day, but the courts didn’t care much about my glamor. All that spunk I’d reserved for my birthday would go to waste.
“I meant you should audition for fun,” the kid said. “You just might get on the show.”
And that’s how I ended up tramping up the stairs of a mini-mall, to a small office crowded with women. I got a part on the show.
The Prince started in the Spring. I was older than many of the other cast members. They were younger chicketies, with perkier breasts and less cynicism. While the other women were catty even before they met Hugo, I stayed reserved. I wasn’t going to like Hugo just because everyone else did. The introduction was in the lobby of a Mapledon castle, where all five of us selected ladies awaited him, each with a red rose in our hands. When Hugo came up to me to accept my rose, I flushed, minced my words. He was as dashing as I’d remembered, but even more so now- older, wiser, darker, sun-worn. The smile that I’d seen on magazine covers, now displayed directly at me, had a much greater weight. The smile made me feel warm, like I would never have to worry about anything ever again, that Hugo had it all covered. We shook hands and kissed cheeks, he smelled like olive oil. He moved on to the next woman.
I tried to put him out of my mind, convincing myself that he made every woman feel this way, so it wasn’t real. The whole show I stayed reserved. Other women threw themselves at his feet, took him on boat rides around jungle islands, romantic concerts, cooed and giggled and showed their cleavage. I couldn’t outdo them, so I didn’t even try. Instead, I took him to the library, browsing books in silence.
The producer insisted that I take him to my place after the library. I sat on the couch in my living room, put my feet up on the coffee table, slumped down low, and picked his brain about the kingdom of Beddington. The most flirtatious I got was when I asked him how the line of Beddington was going to continue, and I lightly patted my lower abdomen, suggesting that it would continue in my uterus should he choose me as his companion. I don’t think Hugo got that reference, nor any of the show’s millions of viewers.
I was left cut after the second episode. I will never know if it was Hugo himself who cut me, or if Corgi Bess, the platinum blonde who took him to the zoo, that told them to cut me, or if a producer decided to ax me out of the cast on a whim. When I was cut- fired- I felt old. Older than I had a month before, when I had woken up on the floor the morning after my birthday. Washed up.
I watched the show a few times and noticed that all the other women were at least fifteen years younger than me. How had I even tried to compete with them? They were beautiful, and simple. No one wants an unmaterialistic, over-analytical and old princess.
Part of me believed, however, that it was my fault for not winning. I could have won, but- involuntarily- I couldn’t let myself win, in the same way that I couldn’t let myself express affection for him when all the other women were fawning over him. The more viewers the show picked up, the more it meant that the world confirmed Hugo Algernon’s worth, the less I believed he was authentic.
Because of the show, I stopped lawyering. I was tired of legalese, always wanted to be a dancer, especially while I could still move. I made enough from the show that I could retire from the firm and live off of what I made from teaching three classes each week.
The show went two seasons, and I heard that Hugo did end up with Corgi the blonde. And then something happened that I’d never expected. It was my 36th birthday, and I was at that mini-mall, not at the karaoke place, but at the Japanese grocery store right next-door to it. I ran into that kid. He said I did great on the show, really brought contrast and defied the stereotype of “the hot working-woman who isn’t introspective at all.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “I really liked how you said on the show that you couldn’t like Hugo just ‘cus all the other women were into him. You were really philosophical about this conundrum you were stuck in- the prize was loving him and yet the contest itself made love impossible for you.” “I said that out loud?” “Yes, you did, in one of your confessionals.” “I don’t remember. I must have been either drunk or tired.”
As I pulled sushi rice and dried plum from the shelves, I thought about what the kid had said. The contest itself was making me fail? This had been the last of my concerns- I’d always thought that once I decided whether I loved someone or not, that I would win them, and that the process to winning them would be effortless. I began to wonder if he was right, that I was 36 and single still because I was like a rebel without a cause- against the idea of love solely for the sake of not wanting to have it wrong. And that’s when all the bubble gum sugar pop tabloid jazzy headlines sprung around me, and I surrendered completely to it- I loved Hugo.
“Hugo, I love you,” I wrote him, and gave it to the kid who I begged to deliver it to Hugo. I gave the kid directions to Hugo’s Mapledon Castle and told him, “Go forth at once to the castle,” which was only about a ten minutes drive by car. The kid had a car, I didn’t.
There, I had told him I loved him. He was the first person I told that to, and the first person that most women loved and thus the last person I would gawk over. I went to jazz class early, feeling weird about what I’d done, stretching and waiting for my pupils. There was a knock on the glass door. Hugo.
“I got your note,” Hugo said. I looked at my toes like stretching toward them was more important that his entrance. “Oh yeah?” I said. “Aren’t you with Corgi?” “I am,” he said, but he voice tapered off, “Your note means a lot to me.” I looked up at him. There were many ways this could have gone from that point. “It means a lot to me that you told me you loved me in private, off air. You didn’t do it for the attention.” “No, of course not,” I needed to swallow, so I tried to make myself swallow. “But don’t you see, that’s a huge deal to me. All of the other women told me they loved me by the end of the first episode, and you didn’t, not once.” “Did it bother you?” “Yeah, I think it did.” I looked at him, wondering if the conversation was going to continue with this tone of clinical analysis. “Look, I love you too,” he said. It came too easy, and I didn’t believe it. Came out of nowhere. Hugo Algernon, loving me? How absurd. “You already got a wife from the show,” I said. “I had to,” he said. “The show had to end that way.” “How can you prove that you’re not saying it just because I said it?” Hugo smiled that warm, Prince Charming grin, “I’m going to take your class.” “My dance class?” “Sure.” “You can’t dance in those clothes,” I said, pointing to his well-ironed blazer and heavy designer jeans. Hugo started unbuttoning his blazer. He stripped off the jeans and all he had on underneath were his red Coca Cola boxers.
The students started filing in. They weren’t completely surprised by Hugo’s appearance- after all, my claim to fame was that show and they’d seen me on it- but as we did warm ups, they were very aware of celebrity in the room. In between lunges, reaches, and jazz walks, Hugo and I kept exchanging glances in the mirror. When we rehearsed a routine, Hugo was flailing around in the back of the group, droplets of sweat pouring from his wet hair.
After the class, Hugo curled over his knees, panting. The dancing seemed to have knocked the celebrity out of him. I came close to him, put my hand on his back, and tried not to idolize him.