“Hey, you,” I say.
She nods. “Luke, how was it today?”
“Same. You?”
“Mostly the same. A radical feminist fifth-grader wanted to know if I wasn’t reinforcing negative female stereotypes with my dependence on Prince Charming.”
I laugh and sit beside her, kicking off my flip-flops. “How’d you explain that one?”
“I think I said something along the lines of ‘get away from me.’ It seemed to satisfy her curiosity.”
“Well, it’s a good answer. It has layers.”
“Thank you. I thought so, too.”
“So are you?” I step on the back of one of the flip-flops, so it tilts upward.
She frowns. “Am I what?”
“Starting to depend on Prince Charming. He’s around you all the time,” I say with more force than I’d meant.
“Um, that’s kinda how the story goes? Anyway, he’s cute, I’m told.”
“You don’t buy it?”
She slaps a mosquito on her shin. “Yeah, I guess so. How’s the girlfriend?”
I shrug. “She’s fine.”
She leans forward, and I look at her. “It’s weird. This place feels haunted at night,” she says, “but it’s like reverse haunted.”
I think about that one. “Reverse haunted?”
She nods. “Yeah, like when it’s empty and quiet, all the life flows back into it. Haunted by life. The death is all the noise and chaos during that day. Does that make sense?”
I nod. “I was just thinking that, something like that. It seems almost hopeful at night, you know? Like it’d be a great place to visit if no one was here.”
She nods again, as if she’s just found the one other person who speaks her language. “Yes, exactly. You mix every color together, you get black. Daytime here is every color.”
“You should have this conversation with Prince Charming. He can do more tricks with his lighter.”
“You know,” she says, “you have the saddest eyes I have ever seen.”
For a moment I can’t breathe. “Is that bad?”
“I don’t know, Luke. You’re in there, not me. Is it?”
“Let me ask you a question. If you went to the beach, and it was dusk, and you were looking in the tide pools, and you just sat there watching all the life swim around in there, what would be your beverage of choice for such an outing?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Hot chocolate.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be cool outside because it’s late fall, and because this particular tide pool is in New England somewhere, on a rocky beach instead of a sandy one, and you have to wear fleece jackets, and the wind whips your hair around, and you sit on a blanket to watch the tide pools, watch the sun sink lower until the cold is trying to push you inside, and right then, Luke S. Krause, you are going to thank me for bringing that thermos of hot chocolate.” She smiles, but it’s a smile like she is far away from here.
I nod, and the clock on the tower edges toward two. “Good answer,” I say. “You’re just full of them, aren’t you?”
“Well, I do what I can.” She looks up at me again. And just then I think that her face is reverse haunted, too . . . when she smiles, there is a sadness to match whatever it is she sees in my eyes.
3
Ella
My parents lost it when Ash died. Some people thought it was because it happened so close to the holidays. The Christmas tree blinking while the trooper talked with my father. The scent of balsam fir forever the smell of grief. There were those who decided it was because he was the firstborn, the son, that they took it so hard. Named for our grandfather. The spitting image of our father. I thought it was something else. I thought it was because there was no cause to join, no petition to sign, no law to support, no one to blame. I thought it was because no matter how many hours you spent thinking about it, no matter how many ways you tried to get your head and your heart around it, there was no way to explain why it happened. What happened—that was easy. An icy road. A dark December night. Ash was probably tired. His first semester of college was behind him. Finals were over, and he was anxious to get home. A duffel bag full of dirty laundry was found in a creek bed alongside the road. Three packages wrapped in the same shiny green foil were found in the snow. A Styrofoam cup, stained brown from coffee, was still wedged in the cupholder.
“We just didn’t expect to get an assignment so soon,” my mother said, the day they decided to go. “It’s only for a few months.” She pulled at the zippers on my duffel bag. We were all taking off in different directions, leaving the empty house behind us.
“Six,” I said, tracing the initials on my suitcase. HRM, not mine. I bought it at the L.L. Bean outlet, left by someone who changed his mind.
“It’s not forever, Ella. And you’ll be in school before you know it.” The letter from Vermont College lay folded in the bottom of my backpack. “Meanwhile, you’ll have an adventure,” she said, already turning away from me to walk down the hall toward the kitchen. “Who wouldn’t want to live in Florida during the winter?”
“I think I figured out slugs.” I take another bite of watermelon. Plain, not the one doused in vodka that everyone else seems to be eating. I lean back against the brick wall, letting the juice drip onto the concrete between my feet.
“You mean their psychology?” Luke asks, biting his own wedge of watermelon, also plain.
“No, I mean why they exist.” I find myself saying strange things to Luke, things I would never say to anyone else. The thing is, he seems to get it. To get
me
. The music thumps behind us, making the sliding glass doors that lead into the basement vibrate. Everyone else is inside, hunched around the folding table, bouncing quarters into a glass Donald Duck mug or bumping against each other to
Dance Party! Volume IV
.
“You mean what their mission is in life?” From where we sit, we can see only the glow of the park and an occasional flash from the shifting castle spotlights.
“I’m serious,” I say, dropping my melon rind onto the cement and pulling my knees into my chest with sticky hands.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I think God ran out of ingredients.” I can see Luke out of the corner of my eye, smiling. “He started to make some other type of snail, but when he went to the pantry to get more shells, he realized he was out.”
“So why didn’t he go to the store?”
“Maybe he was busy. You know, like he thought he’d bust out a couple million snails before lunch, and he didn’t have time to drop everything.”
“So he decided just to make slugs and call it a day?”
“Maybe he thought no one would notice.”
“I don’t know, Ella.” Luke leans his head back against the bricks and closes his eyes. Another of the reasons I like talking to him is that Luke’s smart. And not in that I-can-add-four-digit-numbers-in-my-head smart or I-can-tell-you-the-chemical-equation-of-peanut-butter smart. Luke’s smart in the way that I like. In the funny, kind of irreverent, maybe-smarter-than-me smart.
“So, you have a better idea?” I say, making my mouth stay neutral. This is part of our game. Never act too impressed with what the other is saying.
“I think it was more like he had this idea for a new creature, but then when he made the slug, he realized it didn’t have any protection.”
“So, you think the slug was just the prototype. That the snail is the finished product.”
“Exactly,” Luke says, turning his head to look at me.
“So why are slugs still around then? Why didn’t God just say, ‘Whoops, I made a mistake.’”
Luke sighs in an overly dramatic way. “Ella, this is God,” Luke says. “He has an image to protect. He can’t go around letting everyone know he makes mistakes. ‘My bad,’ sayeth the Almighty.”
“Do you think he does?”
This makes Luke look at me. “What? Make mistakes?”
I’m aware that I’m holding my breath. Luke leans his head back against the wall and stares up into the sky. The castle spotlight swerves back overhead, illuminating his eyes for a moment. The noise behind us gets louder for a second as someone steps out onto the porch.
“Am I interrupting anything?” Cassie asks, and I can tell from her voice she doesn’t care if she is or not. Luke turns to look at me for a moment, watching my face.
“Nah,” I say, “just taking a break from all the noise.” We stay like that for a moment—Cassie glaring at me, and me staring at the lights and willing Luke to get up and go back into the party with her. “So,” I say, and it sounds awkward even to me, “where does Jesse get all this stuff?” I point to the beer bottle that is hanging from Cassie’s hand. She tilts her head at me as if considering something, then smiles a bit.
“Oh, he has some source in Tomorrowland. Jack something.” Luke pushes himself to standing, blocking my view of her for a minute. “He sells it to him at about a twenty-five percent markup. Apparently he has other stuff, too, but I told Jesse no way. With this we might get fired, but I’m not going to risk getting arrested.” She presses her lips together, as if willing herself to be quiet.
I don’t look at Luke the whole time. I know how this works, and I’m not about to get into a pissing contest with her. As Luke allows himself to be led back inside, I stare straight ahead, watching the beams of light dance. I count slowly between each one, like Ash and I used to do during thunderstorms, marking the seconds between lightning flashes and the first rumblings of thunder. But unlike thunderstorms, where you can estimate their distance, transferring seconds into miles, charting their course, here the lights never vary. Their paths never alter. Their distance never changes.
“It’s weird that you can’t seem to remember his name,” Amy says, wiggling her fingers up under her wig to scratch her scalp. “I mean, you’re with him all the time.”
“I can remember,” I say, and I can, but not right away. Not until I say some names in my head. “It’s Matt.” But the look on her face tells me I’m wrong. “Mark.”
“I wonder what a psychologist would say about that?” Amy asks.
“Yeah, we work for a place that’s run by a giant mouse whose best friend is a duck who doesn’t wear pants. I’m thinking forgetting the name of someone I’ve only known for like three days is not that high on the scale of psychological abnormalities.” I’ve given up being modest, pulling my skirt up to let the fan blow on my legs.
“Nine,” Amy says, standing and extending her hand to me.
“Nine what?”
“Nine days. He’s been Prince Charming for two more than anyone else.” Amy pulls me to standing, and I let my skirts fall back down around my ankles.
“Is it time already?”
“It’s already three,” Amy says, handing me a water bottle. “You’re late for your wedding again.”
“Why in God’s name are these people here today?” I push aside the curtain that separates the castle staging area from the gardens. Hundreds of people are pressed into the roped-off section. “It has to be a hundred and ten degrees.” Outside I can see Mark walking along the roped-off VIP seats. He bends to check the glass slipper he is holding against a girl’s foot, making her giggle. He stands and puts his hand to his eyes, scanning the crowd. “Where could she be?” he asks, his voice, magnified by the microphone hidden just beneath his ascot, bouncing off the castle walls.
“That’s you,” Amy says, fluffing the back of my dress so that it won’t stick to my sweaty legs. “See you in a few minutes.” Inexplicably, Snow White and Belle are my maids of honor. I have the right to change it up, but only within reason. When Amy wasn’t feeling well, I asked if Ariel could stand up for me. Stacy, the princess handler, looked at me like I had just asked if maybe we could sacrifice a live animal during the ceremony. “Ella,” Stacy said, her patience obviously at an end, “she’s a
mermaid
. She can’t be out of the water. She would die.”
“Ah, another fair maiden,” Matt (no, Mark) says as I step out into the gardens. He pauses as the audience claps, and some guy in the back of the crowd shouts, “Hey, Cinderella, nice rack.” To his credit Mark never steps out of character. He
is
Prince Charming. He doesn’t have to remind himself to talk vaguely British or not to pull on his pants no matter how much his tights give him a wedgie. “Would’st thou like to try the glass slipper?” I nod slightly and sit on the edge of the rock planter. I don’t speak much in these large forums, hating the sound of my voice and the echo it makes. I don’t think it matters. No one comes wanting to listen to what Cinderella has to say.
I extend my left foot, letting Mark pull off my shoe. He holds up the glass slipper, which is really made out of a heavy-duty Lucite, for the crowd to see. As he bends to place it on my foot, which I have doused liberally with baby powder so that it will actually go on and not stick on my sweaty toes, the crowd grows quiet. It is in these three or four moments, as everyone is waiting to see if the slipper will fit my foot, that I can see the thing that Walt Disney was trying to get at. The thing that he was trying to box up and portion out for a fee of seventy-five dollars a day. The thing that makes hundreds of thousands of people every year lock up their houses, kennel their pets, freeze their newspaper delivery, and travel hundreds of miles to try and find. It is in the one moment just before my heel slips into the shoe that I, too, pause, watching and waiting, wanting to believe.
“Hey, Cinderella, I got something that’ll fit you!”
Mark takes my hand and pulls me to standing. The crowd begins clapping as he drops to one knee to pantomime asking for my hand in marriage. I nod again, this time trying to remember to smile. “This is the happiest day of your life,” Stacy reminds me every day as she helps me out of my peasant dress and into my wedding gown.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the head of a giant chipmunk bobbing over the crowd. As I let Mark lead me toward the castle, where we will prepare for the ceremony, the chipmunk begins waving furiously with both paws. I have to press my hand to my mouth to keep from laughing aloud.