Weekend Princess

Making that tiara shine.

      “We lie like princesses and wait for whatever is supposed to happen next,” I told my niece.
      “Well, what happens next?” she asked.
      “Well, our prince comes to kiss us, or our knight comes to slay the dragon.”
      “And then?” she demanded.
      “And then we live happily ever after, of course. Silly goose.”
      She and I were lying head-to-head on the grass in my yard, staring up through the leaves of the birch trees to blue skies. A little bit of late evening sun peeked through to warm us just enough, but not too much.
      I felt a little bad for lying to my niece. I forgot to tell her, of course, that princesses in these days have to lie a lot more than they did in the old days. I forgot to tell her that princes never come to wake us from our poisoned sleep, and brave knights never storm our prison towers, and there is really no such thing as “happily ever after.” These days princesses dream-walk in their old ball gowns with tarnished tiaras and only one shoe, remembering how great everything way before the stroke of midnight, or before the stroke of thirty-five, which I was lately feeling.
      I reassured myself though that five-year-olds are allowed to believe in fairy tales, and shouldn’t concern themselves too much with real life. At least not yet, anyhow.
      “What do princesses do all day, Aunt Sally? After they get married?” My niece’s questions brought me back to the yard.
      “They live in a castle, far, far away and eat cupcakes for breakfast and have puppies that never grow old,” I told her with a smile.
      “I want to be a princess when I grown up."
      “Me too,” I said. “Me too.”
      She got up to run around, and I sat up and leaned against the tree trunk to watch her, probably a bit wistfully. I couldn’t even remember what it was like to be her age, to be so hopeful and innocent. Sometimes I found it difficult to interact with her; sometimes I found myself fearful of breaking her fragile sense of wonder. That’s why, I suppose, I limited our playtime repertoire to princesses and fairies and a world of make-believe I guessed to be suitable for little girls. Because she seemed to enjoy it and find nothing amiss in it, I found no need to change it, and in a way it was a comfortable vacation for me, too.
      “Not corrupting her too much, are you?” teased my sister, bringing me a glass of lemonade and sitting on the grass next to me.
      “Hardly,” I laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if she isn’t the one corrupting me.”
      “Maybe you could use it from time to time. I know she keeps me young.” My sister took a sip of her lemonade.
      “She’s just so amazing. She’s so ready to believe and discover; it’s almost scary. Aren’t you ever scared?”
      Nora was chasing butterflies and trampling some leftover daisies in the garden. Her little yellow dress spun out around her from the light breeze. Her slender little fingers reached out farther and farther for her elusive prey, and I was sure, just watching her, that she was certain she would somehow capture them.
      “Of course I’m scared. I’m scared all the time. But then she does or says something that reminds me that she’s wiser than I think. The things she says sometimes, Sal. Did I tell you what happened last Thursday?”
      “No, what happened?”
      “Nora comes home from kindergarten a little less excited than usual. It’s still only been a few weeks, you know. It’s too soon for her to be disenchanted or disinterested so I asked if everything was all right. She told me that Annalee –you remember Annalee? –had told her that you can’t grow up to be a princess.”
      “Oh no!” I said.
      “Exactly! And I had no idea what to say to her, especially when she told me that it had made her a little sad all day. She actually asked me whether or not you can grow up to be a princess. So, I did what mom always used to do to us and asked her what she thought. You know what she said?”
      “No, what?”
      “She said, ‘Well, Aunt Sally says that you can, so that makes me think that you can. She’s bigger than Annalee, and she seems like she knows a lot more.’ And then we just sort of left it at that. Nora seemed perfectly consoled, perfectly content knowing that if you had said it was so, then it must be so.”
      “You’re telling me this why?” I asked, suddenly feeling guilty.
      “Because you’re shaping my daughter’s life. I don’t know. I thought it was a cute story.”
      “And what about when she grows up and realizes it was all lies?”
      “I don’t know. She’ll manage. We all manage, don’t we? And the lies only kind of die, I suppose. Don’t you have fun out here with her? Playing make-believe and whatnot? Maybe it’s not all lies after all. Maybe the clouds really are cotton candy.” My sister looked up at the sky and sipped her lemonade again.
      “Maybe,” I said hesitantly, sipping my own lemonade and watching Nora, who just then managed to trap a butterfly between her cupped hands.
      “Mommy!” she shrieked. “Aunt Sally! I caught one!” And she came rushing over, her bare feet kicking up bits of loose grass and dirt.
      Putting her hands right between us, she grinned and released the butterfly, watching it soar back up to the leaves of the tree, like just another leaf, but one spangled yellow and orange.
      “Good job,” my sister congratulated.
      “But catching butterflies is easy,” I told her. “How about I go show you how to catch fairies? I know just the right spot over here.”
      “Yay!” she cried, clapping her hands and hopping ridiculously as children are prone to do.
      “Fairies, huh?” smiled my sister, taking my glass back and standing up.
      “Fairies,” I assured her. “It’s just one of those things that princesses do.”
      “Yeah, Mommy. While we’re waiting for whatever happens next!”
      Nora grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the end of the yard, which was littered with bushes and small trees, a place where anyone might suppose fairies really did live. I thought to myself, as we did, that it must be great to be a princess every day, like Nora, and not just a weekend princess, like me. But at least I had those moments on the weekend, where a little bit of Nora’s magic made my tiara shine again, and my old gown seem like new. As for that one shoe, well, we were barefoot anyhow.