One Good Wand

by Grace McGuiness

  The parking lot in front of the factory was only half full, with the front spaces labeled with cheery signs for Dreamers and Underdogs and Guests of All Sizes. Score! I fit all three of those categories, at least until I got the job.

  My hands shook with the dissolving adrenaline rush of my accidental off-roading even as the lesser rush of pre-interview jitters grew. I checked my reflection in the window, smoothed my black-brown hair and pulled it over my shoulders. Straightened the aquamarine pendant my mom had lent me for luck below my throat. Tugged my suit jacket into better lines (as ‘better’ as such a cheap garment could manage, anyway) and made sure my eggplant blouse was tucked neatly into my black pencil skirt. Then I headed inside (with a quick detour back to the car to grab the folio containing my resume and other paper gear for a successful job hunt).

  The heavy door at the entrance opened with a happy chord that sounded more like a real set of harmony chimes than a buzzer. Beyond it lay a long corridor done in soft lavender. Pictures in delicate white frames over the wall on my left showed the employee of the year stretching back to 1956. Every single one was female.

  On the opposite wall at the other end of a plush waiting room, a set of black and white photos showed a small woman in cat’s eye glasses at a variety of functions. Shaking hands with a man in a suit at the opening of the factory in 1956; ribbon-cutting on an expansion in the ‘70s; serving cake from a delightful little bakeshop counter in the ‘80s; and many others that I glossed over before I came to one that struck me right in the stomach gremlin.

  Someone had captured a distance shot of the factory during a major flood sometime in the ‘50s. Sandbags stood like a military blast wall a few feet from the front of the building, keeping out the worst of the waist-high water. But the composition of the shot drew my eye immediately to a young woman in a third-story window, reaching down to a young man balanced precariously on the sandbags at the base of the wall. Their hands were nowhere near touching, and yet somehow, the photographer had captured the yearning of the moment so well I could feel the connection between them as surely as if she had been holding a rope.

  “1958,” a soft voice said from behind me. “We added the back entrance after that, once we discovered no one could get in or out in water that high.”

  I smiled. “I bet it never flooded like that again, did it?”

  Amusement colored the woman’s voice. “Not so far. But better prepared than not.” She paused, and I finally managed to pull myself away from the striking picture. “Miss Hargitay, I presume?”

  “Yes. And you’re…Maysie?” She wasn’t what I expected. The woman featured in most of those photos should have been nearing ninety, yet Maysie appeared no more than sixty-five at most. Since the photos hadn’t been captioned, I figured the original founder must have been her mother with a striking resemblance.

  “Maysie Browning Fife, owner.” She shook my hand gently, the way a person would expect from a woman her age, wearing the sort of dark blue dress she was, complete with pale pinafore on top. She looked like she should be baking cookies, not running a factory. “Welcome to Fairytale Endings. Shall we adjourn to my office?”

  It wasn’t really a question. At least, she didn’t wait for my response before she led the way up a narrow staircase at the back of the waiting room. The second floor was done in eggshell white, with little to break the monotony except a plaque on the wall that read, Where dreams are made. Windows lined the hall at even intervals as we progressed, though they were covered by simple wooden slat blinds, the kind with a vertical stick in the middle to open and close. All were closed. I fought the urge to peek, knowing I would get caught. Plastic blinds I could snatch a glimpse past; these wooden things meant business.

  A door at the end of the hall led into a small reception room with a single desk in the center. A blue shag rug beneath it pulled out the soft blue in the wall paint, but even here there was little else to look at. Behind the desk sat a pixie-ish sort of girl with short red curls shot through with aqua. Other than her hair, she looked like a complete professional, from her subdued makeup to the sensible pumps left beside the desk. Her blouse might have been a little bright for a receptionist, but that might kind of be a pot and kettle issue.

  I made certain my jacket was still buttoned discretely over my eggplant blouse and followed Maysie through the only other door in the room.

  The change from one room to the next staggered me.

  Where the rest of the rooms and hallways were bare, Maysie’s office looked like someone’s knitting basket had thrown up all over it. Needlepoint pictures decorated the walls in country charm, swirling from one to the next to the next. The antique couch below a high bank of square windows in the corner dripped lace and even lacier pillows. No fewer than six rugs vied for dominance across the wooden floor. Four lamps - one on the wall behind the ornate desk and three standing in the unoccupied corners of the room - had been draped or upholstered or whatever the proper word was for lamps that were half fabric. Happy sayings littered the office like leftovers from one helluva scrapbooking party.

  Wishes really do come true. And Bubbles, berries, and a glass of warm milk—that’s what babies are made of!

  Beauty is only skin deep sat next to One woman’s prince is another woman’s frog in swirly calligraphy.

  “I’m sure it all looks corny from where you’re standing,” Maysie said as she settled in behind her desk.

  “Actually,” I said, taking the funky ‘70s chair she gestured to, “I was thinking how much my mother would love this room.”

  She picked up a long, wooden pen and dipped the nib in ink. “Do you get along well with your mother?”

  I smiled my best kind of professional-yet-enthusiastic smile. “Absolutely. I mean, we have our moments like any parent and child, but she’s always there when I need her.” Unless she’s out back, gettin’ it on with her Sasquatch of a spouse. I suppressed a shudder.

  “That’s lovely.” She began filling out what looked like an interview sheet, so I unzipped my folio and gave her a copy of my resume. “Thank you,” she said, but she barely glanced it before setting it aside. “What about your father? Any siblings?”

  Not exactly standard interview fair, but Maysie was old enough I thought maybe family values might be more important to her than, say, the fact that I could type eighty words a minute. That meant dancing around the truth a bit. “My father is following his dream of seeing the world. He sends postcards every month or so. I only have one sibling, a brother. He works in Silicon Valley so we don’t see much of each other.”

  “Do you get along well when you do?”

  Stomach gremlin scratched its head. “Um, sure. Like normal siblings, I suppose. We’re not exactly close, but we’re closer than we were as teenagers.”

  “And your grandparents?” She hadn’t looked at me once since we sat down. Her round face stayed focused on the paper in front of her.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Fife--”

  “Browning Fife,” she corrected, then glanced at me over the top of her glasses without moving her head. “But please, call me Maysie.”

  “Maysie, then. Um, may I ask what these questions have to do with filing?”

  She clasped her hands in her lap and sat straight as an arrow. “Simply, Miss Hargitay, I’m assessing your likelihood of fitting in with our company culture. Filing isn’t a difficult business for a woman with a basic education, which I see you have surpassed. Fairytale Endings is a family as much as it is a business, and it’s more important to me that you are able to be happy here without disrupting the…the family flow, we’ll call it.”

  Stomach gremlin hid in a corner. For some reason, I felt like there should be a dunce cap on my head. I nodded, half expecting to feel it fall off. “I understand. That’s an admirable way to run a business.”

  “Your grandparents? Unless you’re not comfortable answering such personal questions, which I would of course understand. You aren’t required to answer them.” But I won�
��t be required to give you the position, said her unspoken words.

  “I don’t mind, I was just curious.” Did employers like curiosity in a file clerk? Or should I be content with dull work without being a set of prying eyes? “I didn’t really know my grandparents. My dad’s parents immigrated shortly before he was born, but they both died before I was born. My mom’s parents passed away when I was a teenager.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. Were you close?”

  A tightness tried to close up my throat. I worked past it. “Yes. They weren’t the warmest grandparents, all hugs and cookies and things, and they had really high expectations for people. But their pride in their family went beyond the norm to match, and they would do anything for their family.”

  She made a soft humming sound in her throat, then dipped her pen in the ink again. “What about step-family? I assume from what you’ve said that your parents are divorced?”

  Despite the lack of malice in her question, it irritated me. “Step-father. He’s new. We don’t get along yet.”

  Maysie glanced at me again over her glasses, paused, and then picked up my resume. “Tell me, Miss Hargitay, why a photographer wants to organize my file room?”

  I racked my brain in search of a way to turn my photography into an asset of organization, or vice versa. “My photography is…” I started to say a hobby, but I stopped myself. That wasn’t true. Maybe I’d never made serious money from it, and maybe the government - and Kyle - were only interested in that as the definition between hobby and business, but it wasn’t just a hobby. Not some frivolous art I wasted my time on, even if that’s how it felt looking back on my life from the cold floor of my bank account. “Photography is who I am. I can’t look at the world without seeing it as a measure of components, of light and shadow, of depth and timing. Colors are…” I was getting carried away. With a deep breath, I reeled myself back in. “Like that photo downstairs from the flood. The person who took that photo didn’t see the flood or the building. They saw the humanity, the connection between the woman in the window and the man outside. It’s a photograph of human emotion. Of love. That’s what my photography is. It’s me, my humanness.” I traced the edge of my folio with a finger, hesitating. “Or at least, it was. Now, I would very much like to pay my bills.”

  Maysie’s face softened, her wrinkles seeming to deepen. “There will be no one in that room but you, all day every day. I’m afraid it’s a tremendous mess. My husband was the organized one. Me, I tend to fill up every corner I can with whatever fits in it.” She waved her hand to encompass the room with the kind of grace my mother had, the kind that came from long years of moving fingers through repetitive practice.

  “I can survive in an empty room just fine,” I said, swallowing the bitterness that came with them.

  “Because you’re used to it?” she asked, as if she knew exactly what was in my head. When I nodded but kept my eyes fixed on a little gnome figurine on the edge of her desk, she went on. “I assumed you’re a miss, probably because most of the girls who come through here are. Was I mistaken?” The gentleness in her voice made me focus all the harder on the gnome.

  “I’m an MS, I guess. A mizz, not a miss.”

  “Is that a recent change?”

  I nodded.

  “How long?”

  “Four months, give or take a couple weeks. About six weeks since it was official. And ever since, I just…I can’t seem to make anything work right. I took a few photography gigs for friends. I think it was just pity money, really, and they made everything worse instead of making it better.”

  She put down her pen and leaned forward on her desk. “Tell me about that.”

  For some reason, I did. Even though this was a job interview and not a therapy session. She just seemed so…engaged. “Back in high school and college, they were my best friends. But all they’ve done since I got back is gossip about me behind my back. I gave them professional photos and they gave me charity money. For most of them, it was the week’s coffee money but I used it to pay bills. Parts of bills, anyway.”

  “They’re all successful, then?”

  “Every last one of them.” I hated the envy I heard come out of my own mouth. Despised the tiny spark of loathing setting my stomach gremlin on fire. “The ones who wanted kids are already on number two, and I couldn’t…” I fell silent, unable to continue. Tears were in my eyes. I was so tired of always being ready to cry, but how did a girl go about drying them up?

  Her voice softer than ever, sounding more like a kindly grandmother than a business owner, she asked, “What about your ex-husband? Is he successful?”

  Yes—anger was so much better! It burned away the tears stuck in my throat, if not the ones in my eyes. “He wasn’t. He’s an actor, but he’s always been lazy, getting by on his looks rather than doing the work. We made enough money together, with our art, to make ends meet. Usually, anyway. Not always. We sold practically everything of value in our apartment to buy food during the hard months.”

  “And now?”

  I zipped up my folio with particular zeal. “Now, he’s all over the celebrity magazines with Serabella Angelique. All of his dreams came true overnight.”

  “And you’re still having to sell your most valued possessions to make ends meet,” she said, and I got the feeling she wasn’t talking about my camera. At least, the lump in my throat felt that way. So did my suddenly lost voice.

  Silence filled the office, but it wasn’t awkward. Somehow, it climbed inside me, turned a few circles, and laid down to snuggle with my stomach gremlin. About the time I felt like I could take a deep breath without risking a total breakdown, Maysie stood up and said, “Come with me. I’ll show you the factory, and you can decide if this is truly somewhere you wish to work.”

  Out in the reception room, she gestured to the pixie girl. “This is Robin. Robin, Tessa.”

  Robin blew a gum bubble and popped it before she said, “Hey. And before you ask, no, I shouldn’t be in school. I just look young for my age.”

  “Would you get the new hire paperwork ready, please, Robin?” Maysie requested, with more than a hint of grandmotherly suffering.

  “Sure thing, Maysie. Then can I go on lunch?”

  “Did you schedule that meeting like I asked?”

  “Friday at two. He’s bringing a whole delegation.”

  Maysie smiled, folding her hands in front of herself. “That sounds like him. Yes, you may go on lunch.” As the girl started slipping her shoes back on her feet, Maysie reinforced, “After you get the paperwork.”

  “Right.” She clicked her tongue and winked. “Consider it done.”

  Maysie sighed as she led the way back down the front stairs. “She’s a good girl, but easily bored. Better to have her upstairs where I can keep an eye on her than down on the floor. Washrooms are here,” she said, pointing to a set of doors outside the stairwell. “The break room is at the end of the hall. Our baked goods department keeps it stocked with donuts and sandwiches, so you needn’t worry about bringing your lunch if you don’t want to. They are in the detached building in the back. The bakery used to be here in the main building, but I found most of the workers were too distracted by all the delicious smells to perform their jobs adequately. Through here is the factory floor. I shouldn’t let you in without proper training, but…just this once. Don’t touch anything, or my head technician will fill my voicemail for a week.”

  “No touching,” I agreed, clamping my hands around my folio like a good girl.

  We moved through a set of heavy, fire-proof doors and stepped out into a giant room filled with equipment I had no names for. There were vats and conveyor belts and presses and gears and gauges. The noise wasn’t quite deafening, but it wasn’t far off. Still, every woman we passed waved and greeted us with at least a smile. Some chatted with Maysie for a few minutes before she urged them back to work and walked on.

  “Can I ask you something?” I finally said, keeping an eye on a particularly fiery-l
ooking piece of machinery.

  “Of course.”

  “What is it you make here, exactly? I know you said fairytale accoutrements, but what does that mean?”

  Maysie drew up short, stared at me for a minute, and then laughed. “Sometimes I think I would forget my head. My apologies, Miss Hargitay.”

  “Tessa,” I said with a smile.

  “Here at Fairytale Endings, we make dreams.” She said it with such love and delight that I had no trouble believing she wanted the best from and for her business. Not because it was a business, but because it was her heart. Her passion, even if that pinafore made it look like cookies and grandbabies should be her passion. “Our inventory changes regularly, but we make most of our income from fairytale toys. Crowns, wands, gowns—princess paraphernalia is very big right now. Not that it’s ever small, but it seems to have crowded out all the lesser categories in the last decade or so. There’s the bakery, of course, and the next operations room over is our bottling facility. It’s relatively new. We’re expanding into soda pop this month.” She stepped through another fireproof door and picked up a bottle from a display case on the wall. “We’re marketing them as party favors in the first stage, but hope to go wide by the end of our second year.”

  I had no idea if that was quick or slow. All I knew was that the bottle she handed me, with its curly lettering and fancy design, was the most adorable soda bottle I’d ever seen. It looked like a potion, all vibrant green that promised mana restoration. “Frog prince?” I asked, reading the label.