“I guess,” I say. Rabbit succeeds in pulling the pot from Pooh’s head, making the crowd cheer. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t think
we
could win.”
“I think it was more that she didn’t think Luke could win. I mean, he’s not the most motivated person in the world.” I can tell from his voice that Mark is just making an observation and isn’t trying to be petty or mean, but it makes me bristle all the same.
“Why do you say that?” I ask, but it comes out a little harsher than I intend.
“He just doesn’t seem to care about his job all that much.” I sigh loudly, making Mark shift a little. He’s not much for confrontations.
“Want to walk again?” he asks. I shrug. I was thinking that a walk around the park would be better than staying in my room and reading the letter from my parents again, but I’m beginning to have second thoughts. We walk in silence for a few minutes, passing the quartet performing in front of the barbershop and the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor. Mark stops in the shade of a tree.
“My father used to bring me here when I was little,” he says, pointing at the store in front of us. “Of course, that was when it was the House of Magic and not the Main Street Athletic Shop.” We watch as a man comes out of the shop carrying two baseball caps and leading a crying boy. “There was this magician who used to do his act outside.”
I think about not answering, but realize I’m being nasty to Mark for no reason. “Like the disappearing ball and the taking coins out of kids’ ears?” I ask.
“Exactly.” Mark smiles at me. Confrontation averted. “He’d do the same tricks every time we came, but I never got tired of watching him. My favorite one was when he’d make flowers grow from a cone of paper.” I turn and look at Mark. Somehow, hearing him talk about when he was young makes me really look at him for the first time. There’s something in his eyes that is so genuine, so
there
, that it’s sometimes hard to look at. Like at any moment someone is going to come along and try to take that away from him. I take another sip of my lemonade, draining the cup. Mark keeps looking at the front of the shop. “There was just something about it, you know,” he says, looking over at me. “He made it look so real.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not,” I say, stirring the ice with my straw. I look up at Mark to find him staring at me.
“But it was just a trick,” he says. “It was just spring flowers all folded together and secured with a rubber band.”
“But you
thought
it was real.”
“No. He made it look real. I mean, the trick was in a book that they had for sale inside.” He tilts his head at me as if he’s trying to see past whatever is blocking his way. “It was the illusion that was magic.”
“But what if there wasn’t a book, and all you had to go on was what you saw? What if you didn’t even
know
it was a trick? Didn’t know it was an illusion?”
“Ella, I’m not sure what you’re asking.” I can tell that he’s trying to figure it out, but it’s like he’s trying to figure out what I’m saying when I can only speak Russian and he only knows English.
“I guess I’m just asking how you know what’s real.”
“The same way you know everything else,” he says.
“That’s what I was afraid of.” He keeps watching me, but I look up at him and smile. “Want to walk some more?” I ask, and he smiles and takes my hand. Behind us I can hear Winnie the Pooh and Rabbit start up again. Another performance. Another audience. Another show.
Aunt Sara said she would forward anything that came for me, but until today all I’d gotten was something from the alumni association at Vermont College addressed to “The Parents of Eleanor G. McKenzie,” outlining the various ways they could stay involved in “the life of your college freshman.” The letter in the blue envelope is on official Whole Heart Inspired Missionaries (WHIM—as in my parents decided to go halfway around the world on one) stationery and was signed by someone named Judith Reynolds. It outlines the various ways that I, too, can contribute to their organization. For just three dollars and ninety-nine cents a week (less than the cost of a glow-in-the-dark necklace or a pair of mouse ears), I can buy enough food to feed a whole village for a year. Different levels of contributions entitle me to different gifts. For a fifty-dollar contribution I get a WHIM mug. A hundred-dollar contribution would get me a WHIM T-shirt to wear to bed. I wonder as I refold the letter and slip it back into its envelope what gift my contribution of two parents entitles me to.
I feel bad about the way I treated Mark. Half picking fights with him and half asking him questions without real answers. He kissed me again before leaving me to go and meet up with Cassie to get to work on their list. “She’s really eager to get going,” he told me, letting his hand slide down my arm.
“I’ll bet,” I said.
“You aren’t jealous, are you?” He leaned down to give me a kiss on the nose.
How cute, the princess is jealous.
And something inside me jumped a little, but it wasn’t really jealousy, but more protectiveness. Something about Mark and Cassie together made me think of those inspirational calendars with a lamb sleeping peacefully with a lion.
“Just be careful,” I said, reaching up for his cheek. I knew Cassie was just into Mark for his knowledge of all things Disney. Mark, with his earnest looks, was so trustworthy. I just didn’t want to see Cassie gobble him up. So I let him kiss me again, making myself think about it.
Lip, tongue, lip, lip, fingers, cheek, lip, lip.
But I couldn’t get past the biology of it, the anatomical description of it. I tried to think about it less, letting myself drift in the kiss, but that didn’t work, either. I just ended up thinking about how damn hot it was even in the shade and how after all that lemonade I needed to get upstairs fast. And it wasn’t because I didn’t like the kissing. I did, but something about it just made me feel like I was holding my breath, waiting for something. Like if I tried hard enough, it could be right, feel right, but there was this little quiet voice that kept saying that it wouldn’t. That no matter how many times we kissed or hugged or touched, it would feel exactly like this.
“Same time tonight?” I asked, more to make him stop kissing me than anything. He nodded and smiled before turning to head over to the other side of the park, where I’m sure Cassie was tapping her foot and staring at her black Timex.
I lean back against my pillow and will myself to take a nap, but I can’t get the image of the magician out of my head. Rabbits tumble out of hats. Flowers grow in thin air. Coins appear behind ears, and cards fly by themselves. There’s a knock on my door, and I push myself to standing.
“Did you get stood up?” I call through the door before opening it to see Luke standing there.
“Stood up by who?” he asks, smiling at me. “Want to get to work on our list?” he asks.
“Only if you answer one question,” I say, turning to push my feet back into my flip-flops.
“Depends on what it is,” he says. I step into the hall and pull my door closed behind me. “Wait,” he says, putting his hand on my arm. “I’ll answer it.”
“Okay,” I say, sliding my sunglasses down over my eyes. “Luke S. Krause, do you believe in magic?”
8
Luke
After a day and a half of searching, we find the drawing of Mickey shaped like a piece of broccoli, and that same afternoon we track down the Bluebeard tomb outside the Haunted Mansion.
“We are kicking ass,” I say. “And the broccoli Mickey is the only vegetable-related thing on the whole list. Unless you count Pinocchio, who’s vegetable, I guess, in the sense of animal, vegetable, or mineral, since he’s made of—”
“Would you
hush
,” Ella says. “I’m trying to take a picture.” We lean our heads together by the tomb and she holds the camera at arm’s length and clicks it. When we look at the screen, most of my head is cut off.
“Nice job,” I tell her.
“It’s Bluebeard’s memorial,” she says. “Head-cutting-off is appropriate.” We delete that photo and try three more before one finally works.
“Well, that’s two,” I say, scanning our list. I glance at my watch; we only have an hour until we have to be back in costume. “Maybe we should look more tonight, after closing.”
“I think we have dates,” she says. We both sit, shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the tomb. At least it’s in the shade.
“I think we don’t,” I tell her. “Cassie’s feeding Matt intravenous coffee and NoDoz until their list is finished.”
“It’s Mark,” she says. “You do that on purpose.”
“No, he really is forgettable.”
She elbows me. “I think Bluebeard is a little racy for Disney, you know? I mean, what with the serial killing of spouses and all.”
“Yeah, but the colorful beard makes it seem fun. You know, whimsical.”
“Was he even real? Did he exist?” She yanks the list from my hand and looks over it, drawing her finger down the page.
“Matt? No, he was just a bad dream. It’s all okay now.”
She tries not to laugh. “God, you are such an ass. You remind me sometimes—”
She stops like someone has slapped her, the smile vanishing from her face. She looks away for a moment, almost like she is talking to herself.
“Of ?” I say. “Ella, what’s wrong?”
She swallows. “Nothing.” She shakes her head, smiles like someone is holding a gun on her and telling her to smile. “You just remind me of a multitude of other asses I’ve known. It’s hard to choose.” She studies our list like it suddenly contains the secrets of the universe. I watch the side of her face for a minute, wondering what it can be, what’s in there creating a sadness she is scared even to acknowledge.
“Anyway,” I say, “the answer to your question is no.” I click the button on the camera, looking back over the pictures we’ve taken, thinking how much I like seeing us together in them.
“That was the have-you-ever-met-anyone-cooler-than-me question, right?” She stands and holds her hand out to yank me up.
“Not quite,” I say. Her hand might as well be electrified, sending currents and waves all through me.
“Oh, then it was the have-you-conquered-the-bed-wetting-issue question. Thanks for your honesty.” She laughs out loud as she slaps the dirt off the back of her shorts.
“Be glad
smart-ass
isn’t on our list,” I tell her. “Everyone would be coming up to take pictures with you.” We walk off toward Frontierland, where we figure to find “whiskey bottle,” number 127 on the list. We could probably just look under Robin Hood’s bunk, but Frontierland sounds like more fun, with fewer smelly socks.
“Everyone already
does
take their picture with me, silly,” she says.
“Well, I guess a healthy ego is a good thing.”
“Luke, I’m
Cinderella
, remember? I’m like photo central.”
I nod. “Yeah, I forget that. Not too many people are clamoring for pics of Dale.” We stop at one of the kiosks, trying to figure out how to get to Frontierland.
“I bet Chip is,” she says. “Naked ones, even. Then she’ll sell them for a profit, invest, and you can both retire at twenty-one.”
I ignore the little dig at Cassie, the way she ignored mine at Mark. Actually, since all of this started, I spend my time with Ella pretty much pretending that Cassie doesn’t exist, but then when I see Cassie, she smiles at me, kisses me, and I feel guilty, like I abandoned her. She pulls me in close to her and whispers that she missed me, and when I really look at her, I realize I missed her, too. Beautiful Cassie. But the weird thing is that it feels like I miss her more when she is standing there holding me than when she is gone all day. So I hold her tighter and close my eyes, smelling her hair, and she will make a little sound in her throat, and I hold on to those things, the little sounds, her smells, thinking they might be enough to fall in love with. Is that how it works for everyone? But all the while some part of me is wondering if I will open my eyes and find her not there at all, my arms embracing nothing.
“Well,” I say to Ella, “
all
the photos of Dale are naked, since he doesn’t wear any clothes, so I don’t think there’s that big a demand.”
She briefly takes my wrist to tug me down an asphalt path to our left. Electric currents again.
“Yeah, what is
up
with that?” she says.
“With what?” We move past groups of people, whole families, and I notice how many of them seem just worn-out with too much heat and too much mandatory enjoyment. They always look like they’ve been mugged, forced by vandals to have a nice day.
Ella tugs me again, and for half a second I think I feel her hand linger on my wrist. But no, it’s just me, some kind of wish. And despite what it says on all the information kiosks, wishes don’t always come true.
“Okay,” she says when the crowds thin out a little, “what is the deal with Disney pants? I mean, the most obvious example is Donald Duck. He wears a sailor shirt, so he has some combined sense of fashion and modesty—but no pants? If you had to choose, shirt or pants, what would you leave the house without?”
“I understand your position,” I say, as though we are two philosophers arguing phenomenology, “but you’re missing the larger point—that I’m not a duck. Your question is moot, professor.”
She tries hard not to smile as she continues. “Yes, point taken. But Donald is anthropomorphized to have human, not duck, qualities. I mean, he speaks, he’s married, he has anger issues, and so on.”
We pass through the upward-pointing sharpened logs that indicate a Wild West fort, and suddenly we are in Frontierland, crossing over this little bridge across a pond. In the middle of the bridge, kids are buying food out of a gumball machine to feed to the fish.
“Why would they put a goldfish pond in a fort?” I say.
“Hush, we’re discussing cartoon clothing, remember?”
“Or the lack thereof.”