Four
Shortly after Jess and I had received our “Wow!™ You’re a Summer Cast Member!” acceptances, my grief counselor, Ari, asked if I’d have been as excited about working at a fairy-tale theme park if Mom were healthy and alive. Talk about raining on the proverbial parade.
But that’s Ari’s job, to urge me to “be mindful” of my actions so I’m “acting in the best interests of Zoe” instead of simply “acting out.” At least, that’s the party line. Anyway, after I’d quit silently cursing him for being a stinker, I’d tried to think if I would have applied to Fairyland if I’d had a normal upbringing. Really, though, that’s like asking a cat if she would have preferred to have been born a dog. I only knew one reality—mine.
Well, mine and Karolynne’s from Teenage Pregnant Nightmare, but I guess that doesn’t count.
Mom got sick when I was eight and died when I was fifteen, so most of my growing up involved emergency trips to the hospital and chemo weeks where all our plans were put on hold while Dad and I tiptoed around the house to keep quiet. Neighbors had to shuttle me back and forth to field-hockey practice. Sleepovers were rare, if ever, except at Jess’s.
Meanwhile, Mom got weaker and weaker, and it got harder and harder to remember when she’d been the most popular English teacher at our high school, bopping around her classroom in heavy Doc Martens and flowing skirts, her blond hair flying as she passionately discussed To Kill a Mockingbird and quoted Dylan (Bob, not Thomas).
I wished I could have taken one of her classes, because everyone who had her claims she was one of the most fun teachers. There’s a plaque now on the blue tiled wall outside her old office dedicated to Mrs. Lisa Kiefer with one line underneath—It ain’t me, babe. That always tears me up, not just because of the oblique reference to overcoming death, but because I’m reminded that strangers knew her better than I did.
Jess tells me that’s not true and prods my memory with stories about strawberry picking and how Mom once literally sewed me into a mermaid costume for Halloween and how we Christmas caroled out of tune. Still, I draw a blank.
That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to work at Fairyland for the summer, because Mom used to take me here when I was little and I have this strange feeling that if I stick around, I just might run into her. Not in a ghostly way, more like in a spiritual sense.
Naturally I didn’t tell Ari that. I’d just said, “Yes, I’d be excited to work at a fairy-tale theme park, even if Mom were healthy and alive.”
And we left it at that.
Jess and I leaned against our door and gave it a shove, practically tumbling over each other when it finally gave way. Our white-painted dorm room was tiny, not much bigger than my walk-in closet at home, and hot and stuffy, with one window that clearly had been locked since last year’s interns left in August.
“Oxygen!” Jess panted from her spot on the floor.
Climbing over one of the two beds, I undid the latch and with a Herculean push managed to unstick it. We pressed our faces to the screen, inhaling the sweet, fresh air wafting up from Fiddler’s Green below.
“We should have brought a fan,” Jess said, taking another breath. “This place is going to be sweltering in July.”
I’d see if I could wheedle one out of maintenance. Or maybe Jess’s parents could bring one when they stopped by next week to retrieve the Bobmobile, because she was right. No way would we survive a heat wave in these conditions.
The room was barely big enough for a closet and two single beds with drawers underneath. Amenities were few—an electric alarm clock, an overhead light, a smoke detector, two sets of stiff white sheets, two scratchy green blankets, and two rather lumpy pillows. So much for the glamour of living in a wing of the Princess Palace.
“I’m surprised it’s not air-conditioned,” I said, claiming the bed against the wall so Jess could have the window. Having suffered from asthma as a kid, Jess needed all the extra ventilation she could get.
Jess got down the sheets and blankets from the top shelf in the closet. “It’s only the Ordinary Cast Members dorms that don’t have air. Every other building in the park does, including the royal turrets. I was talking to Simone at lunch, and she said her room was huge, with a window seat and even her own TV.”
“That hardly seems fair,” I said, trying to decide which sheet to use on the bottom, since neither was fitted. Already, I could picture us tossing and turning as the sheets bunched around our ankles while the princes and princesses slept soundly in the cool comfort of sixty-eight degrees.
“They have maid service, too. People who pick up their socks and make their beds. Also, huge bathrooms with cut flowers and free hair spray and great lighting.”
Jess kept her head down, neatly tucking in the corners of her blanket just so. She was trying to be a good sport about not being a princess, but I could tell that even after RJ’s motivational speech, she was still bummed. Not exactly the joyful kickoff I’d hoped for.
I said, “Don’t give up. There’s still a chance that you could be promoted. Someone could drop out or bomb or decide being a princess is too much work.”
“Not likely.” Jess slid on a pillowcase.
I’d essentially given up on the whole settling-in thing and was lying on the one sheet staring up at the cracked ceiling. “You never know.”
“Yes, I do. During the tour of Our World this morning, I overheard that the only way to be cast as a prince or a princess is by going to one of those Fairyland summer camps as a kid. The closest one costs more than five thousand dollars per session.”
I let out a whistle. “What a rip-off.”
“Not if you win the twenty-five-thousand-dollar grant. Then you come out twenty thousand dollars ahead. But you can’t win the grant unless you spend five grand on camp so . . .” She threw up her hands.
“The rich get richer.”
“Exactly.” Jess threw the pillow on her bed. “All I can do is what RJ suggested: pump so much Wow! spirit into playing Red Riding Hood that Management has no choice but to give me that freaking grant.” Then, catching herself, she quickly added, “Not that you don’t deserve it, too, Zoe.”
“It’s okay,” I said, because it really was. And I resolved that somehow, some way, I would use my new connection to the Queen to make sure Jess got her wish, since there had to be some fringe benefit to waiting on an obviously crazy woman 24-7.