Twenty-seven
I spent the last night in Fairyland hanging out at the Frog Prince’s Pond with Ian and Jess and RJ, though I could barely look RJ in the eye.
There were a couple of times when I almost took Jess aside to tell her that her BF was not the dude he appeared to be. What worried me was that if he could live a lie, like being Mr. Fairyland, then what about his feelings toward Jess? RJ could have been lying about those, too.
But whenever I looked, they were holding hands or stealing quick kisses. She was obviously so freaking happy that no way was I going to be the messenger bearing bad news—and, besides, there was always the possibility that RJ really did like her. I hoped so, because Jess was too good a person to have her heart broken.
Meanwhile, Jess was irate over my shoddy treatment, since, apparently, I was the only one being punished. The Queen hadn’t so much as reprimanded her, Ian, or, according to all reports, Dash. It was so unfair.
“It’s because you’re expendable,” RJ said, when Jess and Ian were off swimming. “How does that make you feel?”
Perched on the lily pad, I hugged my knees. “How do you think it makes me feel? Like crud.”
“Then why don’t you give me that progress report?”
“Maybe I will,” I said, still unsure of what was right. “I’m not leaving until tomorrow.”
I did not want to think about tomorrow. After tomorrow I’d be in Bridgewater without Jess. Without Ian. It was a double blow.
Jess and RJ thoughtfully went on ahead on the way back to the dorm so Ian and I could be alone for the last time. I was determined not to cry again. Twice in twenty-four hours was over my limit.
We were walking hand in hand up the path through the Haunted Forest, neither of us knowing what to say. I wanted to tell Ian that I really, really liked him, that he was the best thing to have come into my life, ever, but it seemed ridiculous, considering that we’d just gotten together and we’d probably never see each other again.
Finally, Ian stopped right before we entered Fiddler’s Green. “Look. I want to say something.”
“Me too.”
He sighed. “Okay, that’s it. That’s all I came up with.”
“That you wanted to say something?” I laughed. “The entire summer you can’t shut up with your bad puns, and suddenly you’re speechless?”
He ran his finger along my chin. “That’s what happens when all that’s left is good-bye.” He cringed. “That sounds like a bad Sage Adams lyric, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve got news for you. All of Sage Adams’s lyrics are bad.”
“God, you’re great.” Ian bent down and kissed me slowly and softly. It was the kind of kiss you give someone when you’re pretty sure you’ll never see them again and you want to leave a lasting impression.
He hooked his arms around my neck. “I don’t want you to go.”
Understatement of the year. “If you’re ever back in Jersey . . .” I began.
“Oh, I’ll be back in Jersey. Didn’t I tell you? I’m moving in with you for senior year. I hope that’s not a problem, you know, now that I’ve seen your eye tis.”
Senioritis. “That pun is a fail on so many levels. I mean, the last part makes no sense.”
“It would if I were with a bunch of guys.”
I forced a smile. “Just don’t say this is the end, okay? Just say we’ll keep in touch and maybe run into each other, you know, in the near future.”
“Zoe.” Ian did his dead-serious thing. “You don’t understand. Nothing is going to keep me away from you, certainly not three thousand wimpy miles and definitely not the Queen. Don’t sell me short.” He gave me one last kiss. “It’s not over by a long shot.”
Because Jess is Jess, she insisted on spending the night with me in her old bed. I kept the mood light by going over all the crazy things that had happened at Fairyland, like my first and last performance as Cinderella and the time the Queen thought she had been blinded by a dust mote and Tinker Bell’s attempts to do me in.
We’d barely fallen asleep, it seemed, when the alarm rang. My last early morning to walk Tink, and even that chore was bittersweet. I let Jess snooze as I slipped into my shorts and hoodie, wrapped my hair in a band, grabbed my bag, and headed out into the park.
Now that it was mid-August, dawn came later, around six o’clock in the morning, for which I was extremely grateful as I trudged through an autumnal mist over the dew-soaked grass. I let myself into Tinker Bell’s boudoir, roused her out of bed, and snapped on her collar. Tricking myself into believing that this was any other morning and that I would be back doing the same thing tomorrow, I led her around her favorite bush, waving to the Maintenance guys inspecting the benches for gum and the gardeners searching for weeds among the petunias.
When I returned I found the Queen waiting in full regalia, arms crossed.
“I was prepared to exercise Precious myself,” she said. “As I must do tomorrow.”
I sadly hung up the leash.
The Queen flung out her hand. “ID, master key, and telephonic device. We might as well get this over with now.”
“Here?” I was expecting a more formal exit in her office. Not in the doghouse. Literally.
“Here.”
I reached into my bag, got my ID, and placed it in her hand along with the master key and iPhone. “That’s it. Can I go?”
“Hmm.” The Queen set aside my ID and master key, but, as I’d feared, she searched my phone.
“I thought so.” She frowned and flipped the phone around to show me RJ’s number. “Do you know what this is?”
“It’s RJ’s number. On speed dial.” I mean, really, what did I have to lose? I was already history.
“What’s RJ doing with a cell phone?”
I was tempted to tell her the truth. But then I realized that RJ was acting with good intentions. He was trying to save the Pinelands and the endangered amphibians and the spike-nosed whatnot, so I wasn’t about to turn him in for that. No reason both of us had to lose our jobs.
“I have no idea, ma’am. But I can assure you that I never called him.” Or gave him the progress report.
“Then I will simply ask him himself.”
I braced for the worst as she pressed his number and put the phone to her ear. “No, RJ,” she snapped. “This is not Zoe. This is your boss.”
Crap!
There was some frantic mumbling on his end. The Queen straightened her posture, clearly not buying whatever excuse he’d invented.
“You have precisely five minutes to be out of bed and presentable,” she said. “A security patrol officer will escort you to my office, where I will hold an official inquiry. Don’t be tardy.”
Oh, god. This was going to be bad.
She slid the phone to Off and then unhooked the radio from her belt, the radio she used only to call the trolls. Speaking into it, she said, “I need you to bring RJ to my office posthaste. Also secure the perimeter and make sure no one exits or egresses until I give the command.”
Lifting her finger from the button of the radio, she turned to me with a sly smile. “Very good, Zoe. You have managed to trap our spy.”
Spy?
But Ian had been the spy—or, to be more accurate, the one who’d been crossing into the Forbidden Zone—and before that, Marcus.
Poor, innocent Marcus.
I rushed to keep up with her as the Queen sailed down the hall to her office, brimming with power. Two trolls on alert outside her door parted to let her in. The door slid open, and there, chilling with Andy over a couple of cups of coffee, was RJ wearing a huge grin.
The door slid closed, and the three of them erupted into enthusiastic applause.
“Brilliant!” The Queen clapped madly. “Simply brilliant, Zoe. With that kind of Wow! spirit, I knew you’d win.”
“What?” I said. “What did I win?”
The Queen placed her skeletal fingers on my shoulder and pushed me into a chair. “Why, the Dream and Do, my dear.”
But . . . but that was impossible. I was supposed to be on the bus back to Bridgewater in just a few hours. I’d been fired!
Andy raised his hand. “I’ll confess. I didn’t think she could do it.”
“I know, right?” RJ chimed in. “When I was laying it on her, I kept thinking this is crazy. It’s too much. How’s this girl expected to turn down fifty grand and a chance to save the environment?”
“The spike-nosed hornbeam turtle.” The Queen erupted into a full-throated laugh, even pinching her nose to stop. “I mean, honestly, RJ. Where did you come up with that?”
RJ threw up his hands. “Beats me. Discovery Channel? I dunno.”
I had no idea what was going on. Had my firing and RJ’s bribe been lies? Or was this more of their cruelty?
“Wait,” I said. “Is Fairyland building another theme park or not?”
The Queen dabbed her eyes with a doily. “Oh, there was a PUD:1,001 once upon a time. But that project was jettisoned years ago for environmental reasons. Since then we’ve been using those files for the Final Exam, which you passed with flying colors when you decided against giving RJ the progress report. Brava!”
I glanced from RJ to the Queen to Andy, who was busily helping himself to coffee and breakfast laid out on the side table. “In other words sending me to get the PUD:1,001 report had been a setup.”
The Queen said, “We prefer to think of it as a test.”
“A test?” None of this was rational. “What for?”
“To win the Dream and Do, silly.” Andy shook his head. “Seriously, Zoe, are you just caffeine-deprived? You took the test. You passed. And now you’ll win the Dream and Do. In other words you are now twenty-five thousand dollars richer.”
They were messing with my mind. “I couldn’t have won the grant. I did so many things wrong.” There had to be a mistake. My litany of grievances was huge. “I picked flowers and crossed into the Forbidden Zone.”
“Twice, I might add.” The Queen nudged RJ. “You remember the quicksand? Oh, dear lord, I was on the verge of sending the trolls out there myself if Ian hadn’t happened along.”
RJ nodded. “That was dicey. I was a little worried, too.”
“Don’t forget her confrontation with Jake the Hansel,” Andy added. “I thought Jake was about to lose it for a minute there, and I must admit that staying in costume was a particularly delightful touch.”
“That reminds me.” The Queen grabbed her cell, the one she’d loaned me, and rapidly texted like a teenager. “I need to put something extra in Jake’s final stipend check. He did a superb job.”
“He’s going to be very disappointed when he finds out he didn’t win the grant,” RJ said.
The Queen lifted a shoulder nonchalantly. “He’ll live. Now come here, Zoe, I want to give you a hug.”
I went stiff as her bony arms awkwardly wrapped around me. “Do you know why I picked you to be my assistant, Zoe? Because, as a young girl, I’d also lost my mother, and I knew when I read your essay about Storytown that you not only had the potential to meet my highest expectations, but that without a maternal figure you were desperately in need of nurturing female guidance.”
Now I was the one laughing, since nurturing was not the word I would have associated with a woman who sent me into the dark woods at midnight to fetch a sleeping potion she hadn’t needed. “Thank you, ma’am. . . .”
“Helen,” she clarified, clasping me tighter. “Helen Reynolds McNeil.”
HRM. It said so right outside her door, though I’d assumed the initials had stood for Her Royal Majesty.
“Ma’am,” I said, unable to break the habit. “I mean Helen. What about Marcus?”
She twirled me around so we were face-to-face. “Listen, don’t you worry about Marcus. He was a disaster from the get-go and sent home in the interests of his own safety. That boy was destined to break his back, but, if you’re still unsure, you should know that I received an email that he’s surfing and doing fine.”
“And Dash? And Valerie? Were they in on the joke, too?”
After all, Dash had snagged Jake the Hansel’s report from the Box of Whine. Had he been trying to earn my trust by stealing Jake’s letter? Or maybe I’d been wrong about that, too.
At the mention of Dash and Valerie, the Queen allowed a glimpse of her chilly former self. “No.” Her tone was clipped. “I’ve made it a policy not to discuss the performance of current cast members, but perhaps it will help if I explain something.”
She sat me down and perched herself on the desk. “This internship serves a dual purpose. Providing rising high school seniors with experience acting in the park is one, but it is not the primary reason Fairyland runs the program. The internship is the best way for us to identify young talent who will go on to become loyal and dedicated team players as Fairyland executives, either here or in the parent company in Düsseldorf.”
Andy and RJ nodded in agreement. “Helen’s right,” RJ said. “Almost all the executives at Fairyland are former interns. That’s why we take the Game and, especially, the Final Exam very seriously.”
The Queen said, “As a result we enjoy working here because—aside from a fantastic benefits package, including an impressive retirement savings plan—we know that we’re more than employees. We consider ourselves members of the Fairyland family, with all the support and encouragement commonly found in such societal groups.
I’m afraid that in the case of some interns . . .”
Meaning Dash and Valerie.
“. . . the competitive spirit eclipsed that bonhomie, and they allowed their personal ambitions to surpass their moral underpinnings for a truly Machiavellian dynamic of the ends justifying the means.”
She might have been slightly nicer, but with that SAT vocabulary she was still the Queen.
“I think I get it,” I said. “Undercutting isn’t really showing that Wow! spirit.”
The Queen rewarded me with a pat. “You showed that Wow! spirit by putting yourself last, Zoe, and your cousin Jess and Fairyland first. You could have turned over the progress report to RJ—heck, I would have been tempted to myself, after his bleeding-heart speech—but you didn’t, because you consider yourself a member of our family, and you know what we say in Fairyland?”
“The slipper always fits?”
“Exactly.” She held out her hand. “Now where is that progress report?”
I was reaching into my bag to get it when a noisy scuffle erupted in the hall. The door slid open, and Michelle—Sage’s mother/manager—burst in, her red corkscrew curls flying in every direction. “You lost my son! He didn’t come home last night, and he’s still missing!”
I slapped my cheek, alarmed. Sage hadn’t returned, and that would be the end to all this bon vivant, bonhomie, bon-whatever stuff. The one thing I wasn’t supposed to do—take Sage to Storytown—and I’d bombed that, big-time.
“Forget it, Mickey,” the Queen said with a wave. “Zoe knows.”
Michelle blinked. “Oh, shoot. I’m too late.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Boy, that was fun. I hope you’ll let me do it again.”
The Queen handed her a cup of coffee. “You have to be the bitchiest stage mother ever.”
“Coming from you, that is high praise.” Michelle or Mickey or whoever gave me a wink.
“Even you and Sage were part of the exam?” I asked. “How did that happen?”
Michelle placed her cup in its saucer. “When we were negotiating the spokesperson deal this spring, Helen told us about the Game and the Final Exam, and Sage insisted on playing a part. We had to rearrange his schedule to squeeze this in, but he was adamant.”
I thought about this. “He was adamant about being part of my Final Exam?”
The Queen bit into a cheese Danish, wiped her mouth, and said, “Not your Final Exam, my dear. Ian’s.”
I watched the monitor on which the Queen, back in character, and Andy and Michelle stood on the stage outside the Princess Palace waiting for the trolls to haul Sage and Ian from Storytown.
Enough of the initial shock had worn off, so that I had calmed down and was beginning to enjoy myself, though you might say I was waiting for the other glass slipper to drop. I was sure the Queen would say I’d really been fired and that the Game and the Final Exam had all been pranks.
What bothered me were the princesses. They’d been weighed nearly every day to make sure they had stayed the same sizes. When I’d mentioned the sexism of that to the Queen, she’d brushed it off with some statement about corporate policy being set in stone. Personally that didn’t seem very “family-friendly” to me. Then again it was my understanding that the Mouse did the same with its princesses, so perhaps this was standard for fairy-tale theme parks. Didn’t make it right, though.
“How do you think Ian’s going to react when he finds out Sage intentionally kissed you just to get him mad?” RJ asked. “Should I have my fists up in case he takes a swing at the nearest male?”
I gave him a look. “Ian’s not like that. And you people did provoke him, admit it.”
RJ went back to the monitor. “Yeah, well, he was supposed to lash out at Sage, not Dash. That turned out to be an added bonus.”
I now knew that RJ really didn’t like the guy, and I couldn’t blame him. Apparently Dash had been filing regular mini reports in the Box of Whine ratting on each of us, including RJ for hooking up with Jess (a violation of Fairyland Rule #103). But Dash hadn’t acted alone.
Much to my shock, Valerie had been scheming with him, too.
That’s how Dash learned I’d been in the Forbidden Zone and that I knew Marcus wasn’t the real spy. It had been Valerie who’d been in the bathroom eavesdropping on my discussion with Jess. And she ran right back to tell her boyfriend, so they could trash our reputations with the Queen.
I watched monitor #22. “So Ian and I will be the only ones who know?”
“Yup. Otherwise, even with all the confidentiality agreements you interns sign, it would get out, and the Game would be ruined.” RJ swiveled to inspect monitor #19, the one in the Haunted Forest, where a group of figures were gradually coming from the shadows. “You and Ian will keep it a secret, because you’ll have an incentive.”
Incentive?
Was that Adele? I moved closer to the screen. “What’s she doing with Ian and Sage?”
The trolls were bringing the three scofflaws to the Queen, who greeted them with her royal disapproval. Michelle looked like she was throwing a hysterical fit, ranting and raving about the outrage of it all. Andy pretended to act anxious, wringing his hands and pacing. Now they were being led to the office, Ian with his head down and Adele trying really hard not to smile
RJ pumped his fist. “Adele’s awesome, isn’t she? It was her idea to play a temperamental princess who runs off to hide out in Storytown. And being away from the park gave her a chance to work in the off-site studio recording new songs and dances for the parade. That’s her major at Barnard, you know, music.”
I didn’t, of course. Up until two seconds ago, I’d thought she was a farm girl from Wisconsin. “So you and Adele . . .”
“Won the Dream and Do last year, just like you and Ian are going to win it this year. And then, come next summer, you two will return to the park as RAs to train a whole new set of interns.”
The door slid open, and the group stumbled in. Ian took one look at me hanging out with RJ and with a booming Texan shout exclaimed, “I knew it!”
Ian would later claim that, from the get-go, he’d suspected something was up. As proof, he noted that the Queen did not flip out when he confessed that he’d been the one in the Forbidden Zone so Marcus wouldn’t be unfairly sent home to California, an act of selflessness that Her Majesty considered the ultimate example of Wow!™ spirit.
“Obviously it was some sort of test,” he said. “I have a sixth sense about these things. Legit.”
My response to him was, “Oh, yeah? Then if you were so convinced this was a game, then why did you go to Storytown after saying good-bye to me last night to convince Sage that he should sign the contract to be a spokesman so I’d get my job back?”
“CYA, Zoe. Pure Cover Your Ass.”
I had my doubts. Anyway, by returning to Storytown and begging Sage to ask his mother to reconsider canceling the deal, Ian had passed the Final Exam and won the boys’ Dream & Do. So, as they say in Fairyland, All’s Well That Ends Well and It Always Ends Well.
The most difficult part, actually, was that Ian and I couldn’t tell anyone about the Game, not even Jess, which was ridiculous since Jess and I shared everything. Worse, she kept saying how bad she felt that I’d been treated so unfairly and how she was going to do something to set things right.
She even went to the Queen to plead my case, and the Queen had snapped that Jess had overstepped her position and that whatever happened to me was none of her business. Then she ordered Jess to work a double shift as punishment for her insolence.
Broke my heart.
For seven whole days until the Dream & Do ceremony, I had to go around pretending that the only reason I’d been allowed to stay until the end of the internship was because the Queen didn’t want to cover a sixty-dollar bus ticket to send me back to Bridgewater.
Every morning I walked Tinker Bell and dressed in my dove-gray gown and brought my boss her tray of newspapers and tiny food as if nothing had changed. At night Ian and I would sneak off to swim at the old gristmill and make out on the beach under the stars. When we weren’t kissing—and we did a lot of kissing—we would lie back on the sand and plan the next summer. Everything was perfect, except for one major glitch that I needed to fix ASAP.
On my second-to-last day at Fairyland, I summoned my nerve to take the Queen aside. “I have something to ask you,” I said, anxious not to appear disgraceful in any way. “It has to do with the Dream and Do—”
She stopped me. “I know what you’re going to say, Zoe. I had the feeling you might change your mind. That’s why we want you to be part of the Fairyland family.”
It will always be a highlight of my life when the two winners were announced and Jess, crying and laughing for joy, gave me a huge hug. “You did it, Zoe.”
“You did it,” I said, hugging her right back. “Now, quick, you’d better get up there before Valerie climbs over everyone and grabs your money.”
With one last smile of gratitude, Jess took her spot next to Ian, who gave me a thumbs-up, even though only a half hour before he’d told me that turning down the grant, while kind and sacrificial and all that, was just plain stupid.
“It’s not like you don’t need the money, too, you know,” he’d said when we’d managed to steal a minute alone. “What about your mom’s leftover medical bills and your college tuition?”
I knew what really had him worried: that because I hadn’t won the Dream & Do, I wouldn’t join him here next summer to corral a new herd of interns, and I thought that was really sweet.
“Got it covered,” I’d said, slipping my arms around his neck and pressing his nose to mine. “Since Jess doesn’t know how all this works, she doesn’t expect to come back. It’ll be you and me next June, Ian, so be good until then.”
He’d grinned. “But it’s so much more fun being bad.” And then he’d kissed me in a way that was absolutely wicked.
That’s what I was thinking about—kissing Ian and how great next summer would be—as the Queen presented the twenty-five-thousand-dollar checks and awards. Afterward she gave a speech praising Ian’s upbeat attitude, his excellence as Puss ’n Boots, his willingness to help “a certain prince” learn how to ride horses on his off-hours, his stellar performance as Prince Charming, and, finally, “going above and beyond” to insure that Sage Adams signed on as the Fairyland spokesman—which was a little white lie, since Sage had already signed, but whatever.
Turning to Jess, the Queen applauded the “indomitable Wow! spirit” Jess displayed in her gripping portrayal of Red Riding Hood and, later, as Cinderella, a role she embraced with “unprecedented enthusiasm,” working both the morning breakfasts and tuck-in services at the resort, always cheerfully and willingly, never a complaint.
“Last,” the Queen said, zeroing in on me, “there is an unsung heroine here who gave of herself so willingly that she insisted I not publicly afford her credit. This girl requires no Dream and Do grant, because she is already a doer who, I am certain, is fully capable of making all her dreams come true.”
Well, maybe not all my dreams, I thought, smiling to Ian, who was smiling back. But most. Which was fine, since I’d learned that getting most of what you wish for in life is often just as good as getting it all.
Excerpt from Sarah Strohmeyer’s
SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT
I’ve decided Halloween when you’re sixteen pretty much epitomizes the concept of adolescent purgatory.
On the one hand, the kid in you can’t believe the days of harassing neighbors for sugar loot have swiftly come to an end. And yet, the prospect of beating aside four-year-olds for the last Giant Pixy Stix on the block seems somehow wrong.
For years, Neerja, Bea, and I have managed to deal with this moral dilemma by getting together to watch The Blair Witch Project, which is good for a laugh because inevitably Bea, hopped up on a mega-mix bag of Tootsie Rolls and Starbursts, will yell, “Follow the river. Follow the river, you idiots. Seriously, just how stupid are you?”
I’d so miss that this year.
This year, because Halloween fell on a Saturday, the day before her brother’s birthday, Bea’s parents were taking her and George out to dinner at Legal Sea Foods. I’m sure this is exactly how Bea’s brother wants to celebrate the big two-oh, by listening to his father bicker with a waitress over the price of oysters instead of going with his friends to a Halloween party on campus. But, when you’re Harry Honeycutt’s kid, you tend not to disagree.
Neerja, meanwhile, was stuck babysitting The Things while her parents, attired in matching clown suits, attempted to cheer up/frighten to death Dr. Padwami’s elderly patients. After that, the whole Padwami clan was off to a party of doctors—which left me to celebrate Halloween alone, with Marmie.
Anyway, with nothing much to do, I was updating my status on Facebook from “in a relationship with Petunia Dubois” to “it’s complicated,” when Mike’s chat screen appeared at the bottom of my page.
Mike: U going to Ava’s party?
I thought, Ava’s having a party and she didn’t invite me?
Me: Nope
Mike: Aren’t u 2 friends?
Me: Guess not
Mike: U can come w/us
Right. Just what I wanted, to tag behind Mike and his equally tall and beautiful girlfriend, Sienna, as the slightly irregular but intelligent third wheel? Um, pass. Though it was thoughtful of him to ask, I’d give him that.
Me: Thanks, but I have plans
Mike: OK. Bye!
I logged off and lay on my bed, staring at my ceiling as I fought an existential crisis.
See, this is the problem with Facebook. If I hadn’t gone on, I would have remained blissfully ignorant about Ava’s party. I might even have had fun by myself knitting the scarf I was making my mother for Christmas and watching Blair Witch and teasing the cute trick-or-treaters. But now, I couldn’t shake the insult of total rejection.
Ava and I might not have been as close as before her Rolf days, but at least she could have included me in her first-ever Halloween party. Apparently Mike thought so too, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked me so casually Aren’t u 2 friends?
Exactly.
The doorbell rang again, sending Petunia into a crazy tailspin of barking and baying at the latest round of trick-or-treaters. It was the Brezinski brothers dressed up as ninja warriors/pirates/Star Wars Stormtroopers. They lived three doors down and their front yard was dirt from all the damage they’d inflicted on the grass by digging, scraping, and wrestling like maniacs.
I held out the bowl of candy and they whined in unison, “Not Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. EVERYONE gives out those.”
All righty then. I put the bowl back on the table, crossed my arms, and said, “Trick.”
Stuart Brezinski, the youngest of the gang at about age six, said, “What do you mean, trick?”
“It’s trick-or-treat, right? So you guys have to do some tricks ’cause you dissed my treats.”
The oldest, Marcus, gave him a light punch. “Come on, Stewy. Let’s go.”
But Stuart was intrigued. “Like magic tricks?”
“Like egging her house,” his other brother, Andrew, said. “Toilet-papering her car.”
“I dare you.”
Their faces lit up. Even under their masks, you could tell their greedy eyes were shining with delight at the prospect of actually being encouraged to commit minor acts of vandalism. Now, this was Halloween!
They hopped off our front steps and ran down the walk, heads bent together. I had to laugh at their evil glee. What a bunch of little thugs.
“That’s a bit dangerous, don’t you think?”
I hadn’t even noticed Will standing there in a red-lined black satin cape, hands in jeans pockets. I’m not a diehard vamp fan, but IMHO guys should wear capes 24/7. With his jet-black hair, he looked like an Edward Cullen fantasy come to life.
“Don’t you think you’re a little old to be begging for candy?” I said, my blood suddenly pulsing as I remembered his comment on Mike’s Facebook page. “Or is this how they do things in California?”
“This is how they do things in Massachusetts when you have a seven-year-old brother who’s new to the neighborhood.” He nodded to his left, where a vampire in miniature was skipping toward him down the sidewalk. “I’m waiting at the end of the street to give him a sense of ‘independence,’” he said, making air quotes around the word.
I couldn’t help but be touched. I also couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been invited to Ava’s party too. Bet he had. “That’s very sweet.”
“That’s what big brothers are for. By the way, I forgot to ask Mike. How did it go with Schultz?”
“We were acquitted. That’s the good news. The bad news is we have to do a project together and we still get letters in our permanent files saying we were referred to the principal for cheating.”
He made a face. “That’s not right.”
“Word.”
The miniature vampire came to a skipping halt and, after flashing me a questioning glance, tugged on Will’s cape. Will kneeled down and let him whisper into his ear. This was too darned cute.
“Ah,” Will said, smiling. “So my man Aidan here”—he ruffled his brother’s hair—“would like to know if he could use, um, your facilities.”
It took me a second to define facilities. But then I got it. “Oh! No problem.”
I waved them inside, trying to remember if I’d removed the spare emergency Tampax from its place of honor on the top of the toilet tank. I’m kind of lazy about leaving that stuff around, seeing as we don’t get much call for menfolk in these here parts.
“But you have to be careful,” I said to Aidan. “There’s a killer basset inside.”
Petunia howled and Aidan shrank into Will.
“She’s kidding.” Though Will himself didn’t seem so certain. “Right?”
Petunia howled again. “You’ll just have to take your chances.”
Aidan seemed pretty scared when he went through the vestibule into the house, until he saw my fat, elongated, stub-legged dog, a mass of wiggles and wags, so incredibly overjoyed to see a real live kid approaching her with a bag of chocolate that she was drooling.
“Bayooooo!” Petunia bayed happily as Aidan shyly extended a hand to pet her pointed head.
I took his candy bag and placed it high on the bookshelf out of her reach. If dogs could curse, Petunia would have rattled off a blue streak.
Will leaned down to pet her. “What is this thing? It almost looks like a dog, and yet it’s totally distorted.”
“That, my good man, is an eating machine. Hamburgers. Cookies. Entire chickens. Spare auto parts. Doesn’t matter, she’ll eat it, especially if it’s coated in sugar.” I gave her a kiss. She smelled like corn chips.
“Her ears are long.” You could tell Aidan was dying to touch one.
“And soft. Go ahead. She loves to have her ears stroked.”
He did so gently. “Why come they’re so long?”
“Supposedly, so she can sweep more smell toward her nose. But really it’s so she’ll be able to collect the last bits of food from her bowl.” And I showed him how Petunia could easily suck on their ends.
Aidan chortled. “I want a dog like this.”
Petunia bayed in approval.
Will said, “I thought you wanted to use the bathroom.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” And hopping up, Aidan followed my directions to the end of the hall.
“Close the door!” Will yelled. Then, as way of explanation, said, “We live in a house of men.”
“Oddly enough, I live in a house of only women. My grandmother, mother, and me.”
He smiled, his teeth a blazing white. Which was when it hit me that this guy, who was by far the hottest member of the male species I’d ever seen off a screen—J.Crew looks, square jaw, gorgeous bone structure, and those eyes—was also standing in our kitchen, where I frequently whipped up my disgusting creations, like pizza-bagel egg sandwiches with hot sauce and salsa.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Nah, thanks. I snuck some of Aidan’s candy.” His gaze drifted to Marmie’s half-open bottle of wine and leftover cheese and bread from dinner. “So, where’s your father?”
Adults cringe when they hear this question because they feel sorry for me, the half-orphaned child. But having known nothing but a brilliant absentee dad with zero directional sense, it’s really no big deal. I find it kind of funny.
“My parents broke up before I was born, though since they’re both scientists, I’ve long held suspicions that I’m indeed an alien.”
Will laughed.
I said, “And your tale of woe?”
“Mom’s in L.A.”
“Oh. Okay.” Kind of odd. “Permanently?”
He stroked Petunia under her flabby chin. “We don’t know. My parents separated last year when Dad got this offer to teach at Tufts. Mom didn’t want to shut down her interior decorating business in California and Dad wanted to return to the East Coast, so we’re doing a test run. Can the three Blake men survive on their own?”
Already I had a million questions. Why didn’t he and Aidan stay with their mother, for starters. But I didn’t think it right to ask, considering we’d talked maybe twice.
Will stood, shook Petunia hair off his cape, and lowered his voice. “Aidan doesn’t know this, but actually it was Mom who wanted the break. From us.”
Geesh. That was harsh. I mean, my mother also lived thousands of miles away, but that was because she worked as an internationally renowned nerd, not because she was in need of some “me” time. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s L.A. It does weird things to people sometimes. Dad and I are hoping that she’ll snap out of it.”
The toilet flushed and I decided it might be wise to change the subject. “And how’s Aidan liking Boston?”
“So-so. He really misses our home and his buddies. He hasn’t been sleeping in his own bed since we got here, so he’s been sleeping with me.”
A vision of Will Blake in bed popped into my head and I blushed, rushing back to the safe, neutral subject of his brother. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Mostly a bad thing. He kicks constantly and tends to wake up with the sun. Then he drags me out of bed to watch cartoons. I’m seriously sleep-deprived.”
I could not be held accountable for my actions if someone dragged me out of my bed at dawn to watch cartoons. “May I just be so bold as to say that sucks?”
“You may. But if sleeping with me helps Aidan adjust, then it’s worth it. That’s one reason why I’m going to Denton instead of a boarding school—so I can be here for him. That said, I’m majorly bumming about leaving L.A. and . . .”
Here comes the part where he mentions a hot girlfriend.
“. . . anyway, it’s kind of weird going to a school where you don’t know anyone and you’re used to being in a place where it’s always sunny and warm and you’ve got tons of friends. It’s a serious culture shock.”
“I bet.” And the girlfriend . . . ?
“I’m trying to get psyched about being here. I know Boston’s an awesome city with lots of history and funky hangouts and—”
“Let me give you a tour!” I had no idea where that came from. I’m not normally in the habit of boldly asking out strange boys. Okay, to be technically correct, any boys. It’s just that Will really got me with the story about his mother, and Aidan not sleeping. Or, maybe, Will really got me with his blue eyes and that sexy jaw. “I’d be happy to show you around.”
“For real?” He looked taken aback, and I remembered what Henry said about Lindsay, how it’s awkward to ask out someone you hardly hang with. “Well, you know . . .”
Fortunately, the powder room door opened and there was a brief sound of water being turned off and on as my hero Aidan emerged to save my self-respect. “I’m done!” he boasted.
“We can take Aidan to the science museum and the aquarium!” I slapped my thigh like this was exactly what I’d had in mind. “Has he ever seen a seal before?”
“We, uh, lived in California.”
Moron. “Okay, then a lobster. I bet he’s never seen a live New England lobster.”
“Restaurants? You know those tanks?” He wiggled his fingers to imitate lobster crawling.
“I’ve never seen a moray eel except on The Discovery Channel,” Aidan said. “They’re mega poisonous.”
“Wicked,” I corrected. “Now that you’re in Massachusetts, young man, your preferred hyperbolic adjective is ‘wicked.’ As in, Petunia is a wicked fat dog. Or, Gigi, you’re a wicked gorgeous creature.”
Aidan gamely played along. “Moray eels are wicked poisonous.”
“Atta boy. Actually the moray isn’t that bad, though all eel blood is poisonous to humans—a fact that won Charles Richet a Nobel Prize for determining that you could die from an allergic reaction to a toxic substance. Isn’t that fascinating?”
Aidan was blunt. “Not really.”
Ah, the refreshing honesty of youth. I switched tacks. “However, if you want to see something really cool, there’s a thirty-foot octopus named Truman in the aquarium’s center tank.”
“Awesome!” Aidan clapped. “I love octopi. Do they have blue-ringed? Those are my favorite.”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”
Will gave Aidan a slight push toward the door. “Great. I’ll text you and we can work it out. Weekends are kind of”—he nodded in the direction of Aidan, who was on tiptoe, trying to reach the bag of candy—“hard.”
“Gotcha.” I fetched the bag and hooked my finger around Petunia’s collar so she couldn’t follow them home. Aidan toddled out the door and Will hung back, letting him go. Taking my elbow, he looked deep into my eyes and said, “Thanks. That was really nice of you. Means a lot.”
I got all warm, though I tried to act like it was nothing. “Sure. It’ll be fun.”
“For me, too.” He smiled and then jogged to catch Aidan from crossing the street alone. They waved good-bye and turned the corner as I shut the door and realized something. Now I knew why Halloween takes a backseat as you grow up, because there are so many sweeter things to look forward to than Snickers bars.
Like Will.
Not so much that giant octopus.