Free Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie Page A

said, frowning again.
    â€œGray-blue. Like a stormy sky.”
    â€œAnd did she have lips as red as blood and skin as white as snow?”
    Andie looked at Alice’s pale little face. “She had skin as white as snow because she didn’t eat a good breakfast. If she’d had a hot breakfast instead of sugary cereal—”
    â€œPrincesses don’t eat hot breakfasts,” Alice said, looking stormy again.
    â€œThey do if they want rosy cheeks.”
    â€œ
This
princess doesn’t want rosy cheeks.”
    â€œFine. She had skin as white as snow.”
    â€œAnd she wears a beautiful blue gown that flutters when she walks,” Alice said, kicking her comforter so the chiffon fluttered again. “Like wings or cobwebs or butterflies.”
    â€œSure,” Andie said, losing her place in the story.
    â€œAnd she is very strong,” Alice went on, “and nobody can make her do anything, not even her Bad Uncle who tries to kidnap her.”
    â€œ
Hell-
o,” Andie said, pulling back a little.
    â€œHe does,” Alice said, very sure. “He is tall and he has white hair and he frowns and he says, ‘You must leave!’ but Alice
shoves
him out the door”—Alice pushed her palms out in front of her—“and he has to let her stay in the castle.”
    â€œAlice met her uncle?” Andie said, taken aback, and then remembered that North had said he’d gone to see the kids right after his cousin had died.
    Alice nodded. “Nanny Joy said that Bad Uncle said they had to go away.”
    â€œNanny Joy, huh?”
Rotten bitch of a nanny.
Although it was possible North had said that. He wouldn’t have known how upset they’d be since he’d have kept his distance.
    â€œNanny Joy was a bad fairy,” Alice was saying, warming now to her story. “She wasn’t like the other princess.”
    â€œThere was another princess?”
    â€œYes. A blue princess. And she would dance all the time. Like this.” Alice pushed the Jessica doll away and slipped out of bed before Andie could stop her, her feet hitting the floor with a thunk, and began to dance, a kind of hoochie-coochie Kabuki glide that involved twitching hips and swaying hands, stopping for moments of tai chi. She hummed something as she moved, completely absorbed in herself, and then finished with a twirl, spreading her arms as she turned in a moment of absolute grace. “She was a very good dancer,” Alice said as she climbed back into bed. “Then what happened?”
    â€œUh,” Andie said, trying to figure out where Bad Uncle and the dancing princess fit with Alice in the castle. “Well. Alice lived in the castle with her brother and the cook and the, uh, dancing princess, and she was very happy except for one thing.”
    Alice folded her arms, but it seemed to be more of a concentration thing than resistance.
    â€œShe was very lonely,” Andie ventured.
    Alice frowned.
    â€œShe had her brother and the cook and the dancing princess,” Andie went on hastily, “but she wanted somebody her own age to . . . dance with.”
    Alice frowned harder.
    â€œSo she decided to go on a quest.”
    â€œWhat’s a quest?”
    â€œA trip to find something. Like to school, to find other children to play with. She went out to look for a school—”
    â€œNo she didn’t.”
    â€œOkay, what did she do?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Alice said, exasperated. “
You’re
telling the story.”
    â€œIf I’m telling the story, why doesn’t Princess Alice eat her hot breakfast and go on a quest for a school?”
    â€œBecause that’s
wrong.
”
    â€œOkay.” Andie gave up. “I have to think about this story for a while and then tell you more tomorrow.”
    Alice sighed. “All right. But there should be more dancing.”
    â€œMore dancing. Got it. Anything