One
The day after we finished our junior year at Bridgewater-Raritan High, Jess and I hopped into her dad’s 1998 Honda Bobmobile and hightailed it down the Garden State to Fairyland with the windows open and our hair flying, Springsteen blaring at full volume. Personally I’m not a big fan of the Boss, but I’m pretty sure it’s a state law that if you’re on a road trip in Jersey, “Thunder Road” is de rigueur—even at 6:00 a.m.
I know, crazy. Who gets up that early the first free day of summer? Fairyland interns, that’s who. Everyone had to be at the park by eight. It said so in the thick, sparkly welcome packet we’d received along with the official letter congratulating us on being selected as Fairyland Kingdom Inc. summer cast members from thousands of rising high school seniors.
I still couldn’t get over that we’d been accepted or, rather, that I had, since Jess had been acting since she was a kid, so she deserved an internship. Me? I’m a disaster on stage, going left when everyone else is going right, forgetting lines, and, in the case of my debut as an ant in our second-grade performance of Aesop’s Fables, projectile vomiting.
In fact, I was so convinced my acceptance had been some sort of clerical error that I was prepared to be rejected as soon as we arrived. This was why I’d made Jess borrow her dad’s car, so I could drive it home after the inevitable.
“Stop putting yourself down. You kicked butt in the auditions,” Jess said, gripping the wheel at two and ten like a little old lady, her seat pushed all the way forward so her short legs could reach the gas pedal. God forbid we should get in a fender bender because, if the airbag deployed, she’d have been shot straight through the rear.
“You should sit back more, or your head’s going to pop off in an accident,” I said, applying the last strip of purple shellac to my pinkie toe that was propped on the dashboard.
“If I sit back, I can’t see over the wheel.”
Jess is petite like that. Tiny nose. Childlike fingers. Wispy, pale blond hair that she usually yanks into a ponytail so it doesn’t fly into her clear blue eyes. All her life people have been telling her she’s a little Cinderella, sweet and kind. (Yeah, right. They haven’t seen her spike a volleyball with seconds on the clock.) Often these same people find it kind of hard to believe that we’re cousins.
“Really?” I remember our neighbor Mrs. Coughlin exclaiming, when she’d learned Jess and I were related. “But you’re so different, Zoe.” Meaning, I suppose, that I was tall with brown hair and green eyes and not so delicate, since I liked to noogie her son, Curtis, on whom I had a huge crush.
“That’s why we’re best friends!” Jess had piped up in her cheerful way. “Because we’re opposites!”
I was so relieved we both got internships. Can you imagine how awkward it would have been if I got in and not Jess, or vice versa? I didn’t even want to think about it, and we weren’t out of the woods yet, since we hadn’t received our cast assignments. That was fine by me, but for a variety of reasons, some practical, Jess had her heart set on being a princess.
If they made her Elf #6 or any of the “lesser” characters like Goldilocks or, shudder, a furry, for which she’d have to wear a hot bear or wolf costume and run around in ninety-degree heat, she’d be crushed. At her size, almost literally.
We got off at exit 52, and as soon as we took a right, there were the purple turrets of the Princess Palace flying banana yellow flags with the Cow Jumped Over the Moon roller coaster behind it. Jess and I squealed like we used to when we were little kids and her mom, Aunt Nancy, and mine—twin sisters—would take us for the whole day. Our families were too broke to afford a week at the shore, so Fairyland was the highlight of summer vacation, and Mom spared no expense. She bought us crowns and fairy wings and pink tutus that we held out to curtsy when Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty passed by with one of their Prince Charmings.
I shouldn’t have let myself think about those sparkly, blue-sky days that smelled of coconut sunblock and popcorn that would never, ever be again, because I immediately plummeted into one of my funks. Jess, catching me fingering the single-pearl necklace that used to be Mom’s, shifted the Bobmobile into park and said, “You okay?”
I said, “Uh-huh. I’m fine.”
But Jess knew. She’d been there with me from the beginning, when Mom came clean about the diagnosis after admirably trying to pass off her nausea and exhaustion as stress. It was Jess who’d looked up all the reassuring survivor stories online and showed up on my doorstep with bags of barbecue potato chips, ice cream, chocolate sauce, M&Ms, those chemically questionable maraschino cherries, and whipped cream, plus Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Legally Blonde (1 & 2) to keep me distracted.
Jess had stuck with me to the bitter end—unlike Derek James, the crappiest boyfriend ever, who didn’t break up with me before the funeral only because his parents insisted that would have been cruel. Or so his subsequent girlfriend, Zara Cavalerie, couldn’t wait to tell me.
Meanwhile, I had been so caught up in the day-to-day slog of sickness and losing Mom and generally feeling sorry for myself that I hadn’t noticed that Jess’s family was falling apart, too. Not healthwise, thank god, but, rather, financially. One day her parents were gainfully employed at the local pharmaceutical company; the next thing I knew they’d been out of work for six months, and Jess was getting nervous.
Not that she complained—that’s the thing about Jess: she hardly ever does—but all of a sudden she couldn’t go shopping, and a trip to the movies was too expensive when, before, we didn’t think twice. She even had a job scooping Häagen-Dazs at the mall and still didn’t have a penny to spare. It was weird, and when I’d finally asked her what was up, she’d admitted that she was handing her paychecks to her parents, who’d already blown through her college fund.
I mean, there was nothing left in their savings. Not even five bucks for a measly spiral-bound notebook. And now Jess was looking at living at home after graduation while maybe taking a course at the Raritan Valley Community College instead of going to her dream school, Tisch, for drama at NYU.
“What are the chances of me actually breaking out as an actress, anyway?” she asked as we drove to Fairyland. “My money—that is, if I had money—would be wasted. Better to be practical and learn something useful. Like accounting.”
Jess could not count out change on a ten-dollar bill for a $6.79 Banana Split Dazzler down at the Dazs, so I couldn’t imagine her holed up in a cubicle doing people’s taxes. If she refused to have an honest discussion with her parents about money and college, because she didn’t want them to feel guilty for spending her NYU tuition, then I’d take charge.
After all, Jess had saved me from falling to pieces a year and a half ago. The least I could do in return was to help her now.
Oddly enough, that’s where Cinderella came in.
It came as no surprise that Fairyland Kingdom—where even the trash cans are spotless—had planned a super-organized orientation for the interns. There was a place for us to stash our car for a week, until Jess’s dad came to pick it up, and a place for our luggage (two bags, max) and a special gate where we had to check in.
There a scrub-faced Keebler Elf type named Andy the Summer Cast Coordinator crossed out our names (I was on the list—relief!) and handed us matching T-shirts that said Wow!™—the rather uninspired one-word motto of Fairyland.
We pulled those on over our tops, slapped on white name tags, and proceeded to the orientation table, where we were each given a book entitled Fairyland Kingdom Internship Handbook & Rules and our room keys. Jess and I were thrilled that Fairyland had honored our requests and made us roomies, though we were kind of disappointed to learn we wouldn’t be in one of the turrets. Those, apparently, were reserved for princes and princesses.
Jess went white.
I said, “It doesn’t mean you’re not a princess.”
“Yes, it does.” She looked like she was about to faint. I panicked.
Turning to the orientation lady who’d just given us our room keys, I said, “I’m sorry to be a pest, but can you check if Jess Swynkowski has been cast as a princess?” The woman had our files right there, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal.
“You’ll get your cast assignments after breakfast. We have to keep the line moving.” She waved toward a tall, dark-haired guy behind us. “Next!”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I can wait.”
“Rules are rules,” she snapped. “And Fairyland has them for a reason, so you kids better get used to that. Now, what’s your last name, son? Did you say Davidson?”
I smiled to thank him for trying. He shrugged, like he hadn’t done anything.
Maybe some breakfast would help, since even as a little kid Jess had been the type to get woozy if she didn’t have her beloved apples and peanut butter by recess. I led her under the white banner that said Welcome, Fairyland Kingdom Summer Interns . . . Wow!™ to a grassy slope and, suddenly, I was starving, too. Glorious breakfasty aromas of coffee, waffles, and hot chocolate wafted from a huge, white tent where lots of the summer cast were milling about in their Wow!™ T-shirts.
Let me state for the record that I have never seen so many beautiful people my own age in real life. Seriously, it was like stepping into an A&F catalog without the preppy bright green shorts. The girls were mega pretty, with long red, blond, or brunette hair conditioned to Pantene perfection. The boys were tall and slim, with sculpted muscles and perfect skin. They stood with their legs slightly apart, flipping their bangs every two seconds in a way that would have been annoying if they hadn’t been so cute. I wanted to kidnap one and take him back to Bridgewater as a pet.
Jess went, “Wow.”
“I know, right?” That Fairyland motto might have been less than original, but it certainly was apt.
Too bad Ari, my grief counselor, had made me promise to give up guys for a while. The way he saw it, I was still too needy and hurting from Mom’s passing to be in a romantic relationship. One of his last pieces of advice before the end of school was: “Let’s make this the summer when Zoe grows out of her cocoon and emerges as a fantastic butterfly.”
The cocoon reference was because I’d been spending most of my days holed up in our wood-paneled TV room sipping iced soy lattes, knitting cotton washcloths, and watching a slew of reality TV shows, my favorite being Teenage Pregnant Nightmare with which I was completely obsessed. It wasn’t the healthiest of addictions, I’ll agree, but it got me over a rough patch, and on some level Karolynne and her baby daddy Hunter Boxworth provided a fascinating lesson in sociology. Anyway, I could see the value of healing before opening my heart again for love, so I’d told Ari okay.
But that was before I saw him.
He was thoughtfully selecting an orange to go with his grapes and strawberries. His jeans were faded, and his tanned wrists were bedecked with various bracelets in worn, brown hemp. He obviously was into hiking or something equally granolaish, because his hair, naturally brown, was sun-streaked, and his shoes were beaten and muddy.
Have I mentioned that I’m a sucker for earthy, outdoorsy guys? That may seem ironic, considering my leanings toward the hermit lifestyle. Guess Jess was right: Opposites really do attract.
Jess followed my line of sight and said, “Hemp bracelets, Zoe. Need I say more?” She had a thing against guys who wore hemp bracelets. Also, dusters.
I grabbed a hot white china plate at the buffet. “I don’t care. I’m going in.”
Considering that I hadn’t done anything with a guy since my funeral-era boyfriend, Derek James, I was feeling rustier than a seventh grader caked in Clearasil at her first dance. I just stood there holding my plate and trying to sneak a glance at his name tag—Dash. When he handed me the tongs to the fruit bowl and said, “Man, I could eat a horse,” the best I could manage was a witty, “Yeah.”
At that point in my suavity, I knocked a strawberry to the ground, picked it up, dusted it off, and ate it just to show I could be hard-ass that way. Dash regarded me in amusement. “You ate that?”
I ignored the questionable crunch of grit and swallowed. “Uh-huh. It wasn’t too bad. Better than a horse.”
“You know, I wouldn’t really eat a horse,” he said. “Seeing as how I’m a vegan.”
“Hey, me too!” This wasn’t exactly true when it came to chocolate, ice cream, and pizza, three of the four essential food groups, but I didn’t feel like footnoting.
“Then we’ll have to stick together,” he said.
“One in two-fu.” Inwardly I groaned.
He winced. “That was awful.”
“Thank you.” I bowed. “I’m here all summer.” We grinned at each other, and then he said, “Bye,” and I said, “See ya.”
Not too bad for a shut-in, I thought, giving myself a mental pat on the back.
“Vegan, huh?” The dark-haired guy who’d been behind us in the orientation line now stood on the other side of the fruit bowl, picking out all the watermelon. The rest of his plate was filled with various meat products.
I really didn’t want to get into “the vegan thing” with someone I didn’t know, so I gave him my standard line. “It’s a personal choice.”
“I get that. I just don’t know why.” He studied his watermelon supply and went for a few more. “I mean, I understand vegetarianism. Don’t want to kill animals. Sure. But vegan makes no sense. I can’t really see the harm in milking a cow or eating eggs that won’t ever grow up to be chickens.”
“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you,” I said, trying not to get heated, because he’d been nice to me with the orientation lady and everything.
He put down the tongs. “I really want to know.”
“Okay, well, for starters, the whole poultry industry is evil. Do you know how those chickens live? Cooped up in the same cage their entire lives, not getting out once. It’s criminal.”
He boldly bit into a sausage, not even pausing to consider how I might have been offended. “Have you ever been around chickens?”
“Have you . . .” I checked his name tag. “Ian?”
“My dad has ’em on his ranch in Colorado. Man, do they smell.” He wrinkled his nose. “And talk about nasty personalities. They’ll peck each other to death, you know. They’re cannibals. Swear to god, cannibal chickens. Sounds like a Gary Larson cartoon, but it’s true.”
“No, it’s not.” Sheesh. The pro-poultry propaganda some people believe.
He took me by the arm and moved me outside, since, apparently, we were hogging the fruit table. “If we were allowed to go online here, I’d tell you to search Wikipedia for chickens plus cannibals so you could verify.”
“Wikipedia’s your source?” That was laughable. “Oh, please. The poultry industry probably paid big money to get chicken cannibals on there. It’s an urban myth.”
He grinned and his eyes crinkled. All of a sudden he looked really familiar—the mop of black hair, the prominent jaw, the constant half smile—though I was almost positive I’d never met him before. “Why would the poultry industry spread a myth that chickens were cannibals?” he asked.
“So you wouldn’t feel bad eating their eggs.”
“I wouldn’t feel bad eating their eggs if chickens were the sweetest things on earth. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because they’re . . . chickens!” He threw up an arm. “And where I’m from in Texas, chickens are a vegetable.”
Even I, the die-hard semi-vegan, had to laugh. “I thought you were from Colorado.”
“My dad’s in Colorado. My mom’s in Texas.” Having finished his sausage, he forked a piece of watermelon while I had yet to take a bite of my own food due to certain insecurities about masticating near guys. “Long, complicated, and, ultimately, boring story.”
A girl who’d been hanging in our periphery stepped forward all goo-goo-eyed. “Hi, Ian,” she said softly. She was very feminine in a princessy way—wavy, long, auburn hair, big green eyes, perfect figure. The whole girly, curvy enchilada.
“Hi, Miranda. You feeling better?” To me, he explained, “We came in on the same flight from Dallas.” And he undulated his hand to indicate crazy turbulence.
“Thanks for not telling everyone about . . .” She reddened, unable to finish whatever it was she wanted kept secret. That she got sick? Was doing two-to-ten in Texas? That they’d made out?
Ian mimed a zipper across his lip. “What happens at thirty-five thousand feet stays at thirty-five thousand feet.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You want to eat with us?”
He hesitated, possibly out of courtesy to me, so I said, “My cousin Jess is waiting. Gotta go,” and started to leave.
Ian reached for my hand, giving it a firm, warm shake with dazzling eye contact. “Sorry if it seemed like I was getting on your case, Zoe. I don’t care if you’re a vegan, but may I say, on behalf of the Texas Beef Council, that you should never trust a dude who doesn’t eat steak.”
With a slight lift of his chin, he indicated Dash.