Twenty-six
I was fired.
“The facts are indisputable. You allowed a situation to get out of control, and because of that we lost the opportunity to sign on Sage Adams as our spokesman.” The Queen reclined in her chair and petted Tinker Bell, who was snuggling in her lap. I expected they would both be looking for new quarters after this summer, since Her Majesty’s long tenure as overseer of Fairyland had ended with Ian’s single punch.
“You have displayed a shocking lack of Wow! spirit.”
That really got to me, even though I’d been telling myself nothing mattered, that the Queen thought I was a simpering lackey for whom she had no respect. The sad truth was that I had come to like the Queen. Not in a cozy, best-friend way, but in the way you’d appreciate a chemistry teacher who’s been hard on you all year and, as a result, you ace the AP chem exam because you really do understand covalent bonds.
“There are steps that must be taken,” she said, placing Tinker Bell back on her doggy bed. “Though Michelle has made it evident that no contract will be in the offing, simple courtesy, Zoe, requires you to appear at Mr. Adams’s room with an apology and an explanation.”
I failed to see how this was entirely my fault. If anything, competition for the Dream and Do grant was to blame, since it brought out the worst in us. Ian wasn’t a violent guy, and maybe, in another setting, Dash wasn’t a total jerk. I certainly wasn’t the type to play two guys off each other at once, and if Jess had ever kicked, punched, or in any way physically harmed anyone before, it was news to me.
Still, because I’d been so well-trained, I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Then you are to return to your room, pack your bags, and make arrangements to be transported to the bus station tomorrow morning, which is when you will also relinquish your master key and the telephonic device that I have trustingly placed in your possession.”
The phone was in the pocket of my dress with RJ’s number just begging to be pressed. Once the Queen was finished with me, I could use it to call him and tell him to get the PUD:1,001 progress report that was still in my bag, since I’d been too busy with Sage and his mother to deliver it to the Queen. How sweet would it be to pull out of Fairyland fifty thousand dollars richer in a big black stretch limousine?
So long, suckers!
I said, “Yes, ma’am. I will pack, make arrangements for the bus, and turn over the key and phone tomorrow.”
“I may still require your services in the interim.”
I nodded.
She flicked me off with her fingers. “Be gone.”
The door slid open, and I was excused. Evelyn at her desk regarded me over her half glasses. “I’m so sorry it ended this way, Zoe.”
“So am I.” What else was there to say? Everything I’d worked so hard for—including Jess’s role as Cinderella—was a total bust.
I headed for the resort and to room 505. My only hope was that Michelle was out, because she was the last person I wanted to face. What a horrid, horrid woman.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. “It’s me, Zoe. Your escort.”
I waited as someone came to the door. When it opened I was relieved to see it was Sage in a gray T-shirt and jeans. Reading my mind, he said, “Don’t worry. She’s not here. Come in.”
He waved me in, and I stepped inside feeling slightly nervous. After his performance in the park, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
“My apologies.” He clapped his hands together prayerfully. “I was trying to annoy my mother and, unfortunately, other people were harmed.”
I appreciated the sentiment, even if it was too late and directed at the wrong person. “Actually I was sent here to apologize to you.”
Sage shook his head and sighed. “Adults. I mean, what can you say?”
I smiled as he opened the fridge that I had personally stocked with all sorts of expensive water and organic fruit juices to see he’d slipped in two Cokes. Cracking one open, he handed it to me sheepishly. “All that other stuff’s for show. I’m a total sugar addict.”
We moved over to the table by the window that, incidentally, Sage had opened, despite the threat of paparazzi. I didn’t really know what my role was here. I’d apologized. I’d been fired. I was done.
But Sage insisted on reminiscing about Fairyland and how it had a special place in his heart because his family used to go to Storytown when he was a kid, before he got famous. Before his parents got divorced and Michelle turned into the stage-manager mother from hell.
“Believe it or not, Mom used to take me here all the time when we were living outside Philly. She was like a big kid back then, loving Storytown as much as I did,” he said, resting his chin on his hand and gazing wistfully toward the park. “That’s why when I heard Fairyland wanted to make me a spokesperson, I was all gung ho, though Mom’s theory is that Fairyland’s best years are behind it. All the more reason, if you ask me.”
I was telling Sage how much Storytown had meant to me, too, when there was another knock at the door, followed by Ian’s voice. At the sound of it, my heart seized.
Sage whispered, “It’ll be okay.”
When Ian walked in, Sage held up his arms. “Don’t hit me.”
“I am sorry, man,” Ian said, extending his hand to shake Sage’s. “I came here to apologize. I acted like a jerk.”
“Forget it,” Sage said. “I was the one who started it. Unfortunately Zoe’s paying the price.”
Ian must not have noticed I was there, because as soon as he caught sight of me over Sage’s shoulder, his eyes shone with regret. “Oh, Zoe, I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell her you like her,” Sage said. “She obviously likes you.”
More embarrassment. I bowed my head as Ian came over and, kneeling next to me, repeated a line from his “audition” that day in the Queen’s office. “I am the worst guy ever.”
“No, you’re not.” In fact, secretly, I was kind of touched that he’d defended my honor. “Besides, Dash had it coming.”
Ian grinned. “Is all forgiven, dearest?” Complete with batting eyes, another repeat performance.
Again I couldn’t help but laugh.
“It was my fault!” Sage exclaimed. “Do you want me to do something? Call your boss?”
I said, “Agree to be the spokesperson.”
Sage slumped. “That I cannot do. Unfortunately, until I turn eighteen, my mother has control.”
So that was it. There was no solution. When I told Ian I’d been fired, he slapped his forehead and cursed.
“Too bad we can’t go back to Storytown and go through the Way Back Machine, eh, Zoe?” Sage asked, referring to a perennial Storytown favorite, an attraction where you could “go back in time,” even though all you did was walk through a sewer pipe lined with black-and-white spiraled rope lights—that is, if you could keep from being so dizzy that you fell down.
Ian said, “Let’s find out if it’s still around. They put up a wall around the ruins of Storytown but you can get in if you happen to know how. Which I do.”
Sage nodded. “Why not? I’ve got nothing else to do for the rest of the day and I’m bloody sick of hotel rooms. How about you, Zoe?”
“Sure. Why not? By tomorrow I’ll be back in Bridgewater anyway.”
Sage tossed his empty Coke can into the recycling bin. “Great. Let’s go.”
And that was that. I was about to commit the one sin the Queen had specifically requested I not do. But I suppose that’s what she got for firing me and, on the bright side, at least I hadn’t turned over the progress report to RJ.
Yet.
The evening parade was under way, so there wasn’t anyone in the Haunted Forest when Ian, Sage, and I emerged from the secret door by the Frog Prince’s Pond. Ian led the way, bushwhacking through underbrush until we found a worn path that snaked through a pine grove. Sage, in his pricey YMC suede boots, was slipping more than I was in my wedges, and he was complaining constantly. At last we came to a dark stone wall, the same wall I’d been examining when I’d fallen into the quicksand.
“You don’t want to go over there.” Ian pointed to some loose soil at the wall’s base. “As you can see, the wall dips down. It’s literally sinking. But there’s a way to get in right here.” He ripped down some vines to reveal a flimsy wooden door that opened with a mere push.
Sage went, “Whoa. This place is so overgrown, it’s like coming across some ruins in the jungle.” He went first. “You guys have gotta see this. It is sur-real.”
Which was his way of saying Storytown was a dump covered in weeds and littered with debris. No wonder the Queen had instructed me to keep Sage out of here at all costs, since many of the attractions had been left to simply rot.
The Old Woman’s Shoe had once been bright red, I recalled, with a ladder you could climb to the top and a slide that would take you to the inside. The ladder was gone, and most of the paint had peeled away, just like the merry-go-round that in better days had glittered with gold horses and intricately designed carriages. Someone had removed the horses and seats, leaving only the center. It was uniquely depressing.
As for the Way Back Machine, it was now just a dirty old sewer pipe filled with trash, leaves, and what appeared to be broken glass.
Sage stood by Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’s oversize pumpkin, now defiled by black spray-painted graffiti that read Welcome to Zombie Land. He tossed me his cell. “Take a photo. I have to preserve this moment for posterity.”
A photo like that would be proof that we’d taken Sage to Storytown, and if it was posted online, it would seriously damage Fairyland’s rep. I tried explaining that to Sage, but he insisted.
“If anything, Storytown makes me love Fairyland more,” he said, posing with his arms straight out, like a zombie. “For some reason they saved it, and that tells me this park still has soul. It needs to be saved.”
Click! I took the photo.
“Cinderella’s Castle,” Sage said, taking the phone back so he could shoot his own picture of the fading pink fortress that wasn’t much bigger than our garage at home. “I remember that.” He jogged off to explore what was left inside.
Ian stood at the edge of an embankment. “The moat’s gone. Nothing but a ring of blue-painted concrete.”
But the willow tree was still there.
A lump rose to my throat. Storytown might have decayed into rust and witchgrass, but the tree remained steadfast, as proof that once upon a time there really had been a woman who so adored her daughter that she brought her to a special place where fairy tales and nursery rhymes came true.
I let the memories flood in: Mom running ahead of me in jean shorts and a red-checked top, her ponytail bouncing behind her as she led me through Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’s Garden.
I saw us paddling the swan boats, her lifting me up so I could see Cinderella on the drawbridge. Gently guiding my hand that was clutching the cracker for Little Bo Peep’s sheep. I could even feel the mounting trepidation as the sheep’s mouth got closer and closer and then stole the cracker from my tiny fingers.
“Mom,” I whispered, hoping maybe, wherever she was, she’d hear. Even though I knew that was silly, I couldn’t help it.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Ian’s voice broke through my fog.
I didn’t want to tell him, because how would I explain that a willow tree just made me cry?
“Did your mom used to take you here?” he asked softly.
I nodded. “It’s been such a crappy day, getting fired and . . . other stuff . . . and then seeing this . . . I swear, I don’t cry all the time.”
He wiped away my tears with his thumbs as he had the night before when I’d broken down the first time. “Zoe, it’s okay. You loved your mom, and your mom used to bring you here.” He pulled me into him and rested my head on his chest. “It’d be weird if you didn’t cry.”
He stroked my hair and didn’t say anything as I let it all out, the stress of serving the Queen, trying so hard to be perfect, and then learning that I’d been nothing but a laughingstock all along.
If I’d had a mother, she’d be there in Bridgewater when I’d get home tomorrow to listen and understand and tell me that the Queen was a dried-up, two-bit theme-park manager. But there would be only my dad, and even though he was a sweetheart and did everything he could for me, at the end of the day he wasn’t my mother.
“I should go,” Ian said, after a while. “Not that I’m not loving every aspect of this.” He looked down at me and smiled. “But, you know, the hot-dog-and-mac-and-cheese crowd awaits.”
I sniffed back the tears and said, “Yeah. I gotta pack.”
“Lemme go find Sage and tell him,” Ian said. “You wait here.”
While Ian crossed the drawbridge into Cinderella’s Castle, I walked over to the willow and knelt at its roots, focusing on what this place meant to Mom and me. Perhaps here, right at this spot, we’d leaned against this trunk and stuck our legs out over this cool, green grass and fed the ducks. Mom would have remembered; I’d been too young.
I fingered the willow’s brittle bark with the hope that by mere touch I could resurrect the past. But of course I couldn’t. So I did the next best thing.
Reaching into my shirt, I removed Mom’s single-pearl necklace, the one Dad had given her the day I was born, and dropped it in a small hole I dug with my finger. Patting over the dirt, I knelt there.
“I miss you, Mom.” My chest ached, and so did every muscle as I fought back another bout of sobs. I guess this was the release Ari had encouraged, the “letting go” that I didn’t want to do.
It’ll happen when you least expect it, he’d said at one of our last sessions. “Maybe in class or at the movies or while cleaning out your mother’s closet.”
Or at an abandoned nursery-rhyme theme park.
Didn’t think of that, did you, Ari?
I felt a touch and nearly leaped out of my skin, but it was only Ian.
“Sage is gonna stay here and keep looking around. You ready?” he asked, offering me his hand.
I took one last glance at the willow. Bye, Mom, I thought, running my finger over the disturbed dirt. See you later.
I stood and took Ian’s hand. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”