by Aidan Wayne
“Glad my little sis is havin’ such a good time,” Brandon said.
“The best time,” Ashlee said, moving into a different stretch. She loved being able to use her earbuds to talk on the phone while she moved around. “Maya and I are in the same group tomorrow too, so we get to meet up then.”
“It’s great you’re making friends so fast. Not as if that were ever a worry. Are you and your roommate inseparable yet?”
Ashlee sighed. Dana hadn’t gotten back yet, which was one of the reasons Ashlee felt comfortable stretching in the living room. “Not really. I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“What’s she like?”
“She’s… okay. Quiet, I guess? She likes to cook. I think. She knows how to, anyway.”
“Maybe she could teach you a thing or two. Wouldn’t be a bad way to bond.”
“Don’t know how willing she’d be, honestly. Like I said, I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“Why not? What’d you do?”
“Nothing!” Ashlee swallowed. “Well. Maybe not nothing. But that’s just because I’m not totally comfortable with her yet. It’s perfectly reasonable.”
“Ash, you make friends in three seconds flat and you’ve never been uncomfortable with other people in your life. What’s up?”
Ashlee moved to a new position. “Um, well, I told you before that she’s transgender.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s weird to be living with someone who is. I’m used to other girls.”
“I thought that the point was that she is a girl? Isn’t that what it means?”
Ashlee blew out a breath. “Yeah. I know. And I’m trying, I am. But still. I….”
“Ash. Spit it out.”
“She’s got a penis, okay? And I’m sorry, but that freaks me out a little bit, even if I don’t want it to!”
“Okay. Yeah, okay it’s a little weird. But you already knew that. She told you. You could’ve asked for a different roommate.”
“There’s no way I could have done that without sounding like a bigoted asshole.”
“But being around her freaks you out.”
“But I don’t want to be a bigoted asshole. I want everything to just be normal. If she were normal, we’d probably get along!”
There was a slam, and Ashlee looked up to see Dana in the doorway, clutching her key and glaring at her.
“Sorry I’m not normal,” Dana spat, before turning right around again and walking out.
“Shit,” Ashlee groaned, dropping her head after the door slammed shut again.
“What?” Brandon asked, voice still in her ear. “What happened?”
Ashlee flopped to the floor and stared at the ceiling.
So much for her plan to apologize for last night.
DANA WALKED around the apartment campus for almost an hour before she calmed down enough to try to go back home. Stupid Ashlee. Stupid entitled blonde-haired, blue-eyed, perfect-bodied cheerleader. Dancer. Whatever.
She opened the front door cautiously and breathed a sigh of relief that Ashlee wasn’t in the living room. Which meant she was probably in their bedroom, but Dana would take what space she could get right now.
She banged around in the kitchen for a little while, trying to decide what to throw together for dinner. On the one hand, she sort of didn’t feel like doing anything involved, and she did have the pea soup she’d made. On the other hand, the distraction would probably be good for her, and if she made enough to have leftovers, that would take care of lunch and dinner for tomorrow too, if she wasn’t in the mood for soup. Besides, she could always freeze the soup.
In the end she decided to make stir-fried rice. She let the rice cook in a pot—she was going to have to buy herself a rice cooker so she didn’t have to make rice in a pot like someone who shunned the future—while she chopped up some vegetables.
She combined her rice, veggies, and egg in a pan, seasoned it (she’d only bought salt and pepper to start; she needed to get more spices too. And here she was, making another shopping list in her head), and tried to decide what to do for the night. She’d eat out here, duh, and she could watch something on her laptop with her earbuds in. Check to see if her syllabus had been posted for the college course she’d signed up for. She could also sneak into the bathroom from the outside door that connected it to the main apartment to brush her teeth and wash her face and stuff.
But her actual pajamas were in the bedroom. With Ashlee.
Dana sighed. She’d just have to suck it up and face her down. They didn’t have to like each other or get along. They just needed to be civil enough to live together.
And if it ended up being terrible, Dana could request to be moved and cite transphobia as the reason. They probably wouldn’t say no to that.
She already sort of knew she wouldn’t ask to be reassigned, though. Dana was not a fan of giving in. And asking to be placed somewhere without Ashlee felt a little too much like letting her win the apartment. Why should Dana have to be the one to move?
No, she’d deal. They’d each live their lives and barely interact (if Dana could help it), and things would be fine.
Sure.
Dana ate her dinner and spent time on her laptop, and then she decided she should get ready for bed. If only because she got the feeling that Ashlee being an early bird was going to be a thing, and Dana was not about to lose even more sleep over it.
With this in mind, she closed her laptop, packed up her leftovers, and put the dishes into the dishwasher. Then she went to open the bedroom door.
In hindsight, she thought dully, as Ashlee screamed and pulled her shirt back over her head, she probably should have knocked, even if this was her bedroom too.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, hunching her shoulders as she stared at the floor.
“It’s okay,” Ashlee said, sounding just as unhappy. “I was, um, I was just changing? So. So, uh….”
Dana rolled her eyes and walked completely into the bedroom to grab her own pajamas. “Don’t let me stop you,” she said before going into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her.
She did her best not to think too much about it. She’d surprised Ashlee; it was only fair to give her that. And it was fine if she wasn’t comfortable changing in front of Dana—Dana wasn’t too comfortable changing in front of other people either.
So it was fine.
She went about her nightly routine and opened the bathroom door slowly this time to give Ashlee some sort of warning.
Ashlee was sitting up on her bed, arms wrapped around her knees. She was wearing the pajamas she’d slept in yesterday, and her hair was braided. She was watching what looked like an old Donald Duck cartoon, and she glanced up when Dana came farther into the room.
“Bathroom’s yours,” Dana said.
Ashlee nodded. “Thanks.” She hopped up out of bed and went into the bathroom, door shutting behind her.
Dana mutinously turned off the TV before climbing into her own bed and closing her eyes, trying to will herself to sleep. She already knew it was a lost cause; her regular insomnia coupled with being uncomfortable and sharing a room? She was going to have to get used to a lot of sleep deprivation for the next few days, at least.
Relax. You’re at Disney, and roommates aside, you had a pretty good day. You got to see the backstage of a park and that was pretty cool. You made a friend, and you exchanged numbers and have plans to see each other tomorrow after you’re both done with training. You still have all four parks to explore. Your training looks like it’ll be interesting, and you already have retail experience, so you’ll be good at it.
Tomorrow has a lot of opportunity to be a good day. And you barely have to spend any of it at your apartment.
Relax.
Chapter Five
“HEY, ASHLEE.” Maya smiled. “How’s it going?”
Ashlee’d woken up early for her exercises, and Dana had woken up with her and gotten upset again. Annoyed, Ashlee had gone into the l
iving room to stretch, and by the time she was done, Dana was already in the bathroom taking a shower. At least this time, Ashlee hadn’t needed to do her hair. They’d all been told that with their training starting today, they’d be doing a lot of moving around, trying on costumes, and generally getting sweaty and gross. Her hair was twisted up into a bun and that was that. Then had been the totally awkward time where they ate breakfast together at the kitchen table. Ashlee had cereal while Dana had this oatmeal thing she’d made, and Ashlee spent the time on her phone while Dana watched something on her laptop. They’d barely spoken at all. They’d barely looked at each other at all.
And really, Ashlee thought sourly, that was fine. So what if she and Dana didn’t get along? She was planning on using the apartment to sleep, stretch, and maybe eat, when she wasn’t eating out. She could deal with an unpleasant roommate.
“Fine,” she said. “Still, y’know, settling in. How’re you?”
“Pretty good. I get along with the other three girls I’m with, which is great.”
Yeah, Ashlee thought, must be nice.
“The only problem is that we were up kind of late talking.” Maya laughed. “So I might fall asleep at lunchtime.”
“I’ll poke you awake.”
“Aw, I appreciate that. How about you? How many are you rooming with?”
“Just one,” Ashlee said. “One’s enough for me.”
“Yeah? That doesn’t sound so good.”
“We don’t exactly get along,” Ashlee admitted.
“Well, it’s only the third day, right? You’ve got some time, even if you didn’t hit it off at first.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Yeah, right. “Anyway, how did your homework go?”
Maya huffed a laugh. “I’m going to be the worst fur character ever. My signatures were so bad! I basically don’t have a single artistic bone in my body, so even trying to trace the letters was hard.”
Ashlee nudged her. “That’s why you’ve gotta impress everyone with your stuff and get promoted to parade performer. You don’t have to sign autographs.”
“Right?”
The morning passed quickly. They were led through a basic warm-up and then taught an easy dance routine for “movement practice,” and then they were separated by height again to get measured and sized out for costumes.
Ashlee was waiting her turn to try on Max, Goofy’s son, when a man with a clipboard came over to her. “Ashlee Smith?”
“Yes?”
“Hi there. I’m TJ. I’m one of the character coordinators.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Same. If you’ll follow me, please?”
“Um, okay.” What was going on? Maya mouthed a question to her as Ashlee was led away, and she shrugged in response as she followed TJ to a small group of people: four other girls and three guys.
“So first of all, congratulations. All of you have been chosen to be trained as face characters, as well as fur characters.”
What?
“What?” Ashlee squeaked.
TJ smiled. “You will still be trained in fur and will have to learn the same movements and signatures as all our fur cast members, but you will be trained as face characters too. Keep in mind, being a face character is a privilege. You will get the chance to interact directly with our Guests in a very special manner, and it is not one you should take lightly. Each of you will have to learn vocal effects and mannerisms for the characters you will be cast as, as well as their signatures, and will get special training to ensure that you are able to really make our Guests’ moments with you magical.”
Ashlee couldn’t believe it. This was happening. This was happening!
TJ began to hand out sheets of paper. “Stephanie, you are going to be Alice and Wendy. Neil, Prince Naveen. Adriann, you’re going to be trained as Tinkerbell.” He went through each person, handing out the papers with the basic information about their characters, as well as the signatures they would also have to learn. Some people, like Neil and Adriann, were only given one character, but the other two girls were both “princess height” and were assigned as many as a possible three or four, though they were started with a main two. Ashlee was about to vibrate out of her skin as he went in alphabetical order. Figures, with her last name being Smith.
Finally, finally, TJ got to her. “And Ashlee, you are going to be—” This is it, this is it! “—Rapunzel and Anna from Frozen, to start with.”
Ashlee took her paper with shaking hands. “Thank you,” she said, beaming down at it. It had little pictures of Rapunzel and Anna clipped to it, with their signatures underneath. “I can’t wait.”
Oh god, oh god, oh god, she was going to be a princess! Two of them even.
Best day ever.
IT WAS kind of fun going through the merchandise training. Dana and her group stopped at Costuming to get their in-training uniforms and to attach the “earning my ears” ribbons to their nametags, and then they went to a location full of cash registers, so they could get familiar with the POS system Disney used and to practice counting out change to each other.
Dana got paired with a boy named Samuel, from France. English wasn’t his first language, and he was a little unfamiliar with American money, so he stumbled a bit over the counting out change part.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, sounding frustrated. “Why does all American money look the same? It’s all—it’s all green.”
He sounded so affronted that Dana had to laugh. “Sorry. I can’t really say much about American money, except that I like to have it.”
Samuel sighed. “Can’t blame you there. Can I count this out again?”
“Yeah, sure.”
After POS training they went back to the parks in their uniforms and got taken around their area again, to shadow cast members already working. Samuel had been assigned to Sunset Boulevard, so they parted ways there.
Everything was pretty much the same as the bookstore Dana worked at in Ohio: learn where and how to stock things, talk to customers (Guests), ring up purchases—basic stuff. The PhotoPass part was new, but it wasn’t that hard to learn. Everything was an easy touch screen, and by the end of the shift, she was able to do a couple Guest orders on her own.
“You’re catching on so quickly,” Laura-from-Australia said, voice envious. “I’ve never worked retail before.”
“Did you do something in Australia?”
“I volunteered at an animal sanctuary. I want to be a veterinarian, and I’d been hoping that I would get assigned to Animal Kingdom.”
“Oh.” Hollywood Studios was pretty much the exact opposite of Animal Kingdom. “I’m sorry.”
Laura sighed. “Thanks. But at least I can go there all the time. And I’m hoping I’ll be able to meet people backstage and ask about doing some work there too.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Yeah, I hope so.”
Laura was nice, but there was another girl from Australia, Amber, in their group, so when they broke for lunch, they kind of separated out with each other. Dana shrugged it off. Laura was friendly enough that they’d be able to work together fine. She didn’t need to be best friends with her coworkers.
“Dana, over here!” Dana turned around to find Isabella waving her over. She was seated with a couple guys, and they were all decked out in the quintessential Tower of Terror outfits, complete with cap. Dana grinned and made her way over.
“Hey,” she said, sitting down. “You guys look fancy.”
“Don’t even,” said one of the guys, a curly-haired redhead with about a million freckles. “I’m dying. This outfit is so hot.”
Dana laughed. It was September in Florida, so it was still pretty warm, even if all their summer costumes had short sleeves. Having to wear black pants didn’t help.
“This is Eddie and Bolin.” Isabella pointed first to the redhead and then to the Asian boy sitting next to him. “Guys, this is Dana.” Bolin smiled and waved at her.
“Nice to meet you,”
Eddie said, holding out his hand.
Dana took it. “Hi. Where are you guys from?”
“Montreal,” Eddie said.
Bolin grinned. “England. But I’m not quite melting, like Eddie here.”
“Oh, shut up. Where are you from, Dana?”
“Ohio. So yeah, I feel Eddie’s pain.”
“See?” Eddie told Bolin, pointing at Dana. “She understands me!”
Lunch ended up being a lot of fun, with all of them talking about how training was going so far.
“What’s your schedule for tomorrow?” Eddie asked.
“Tomorrow I’m going to be training for outdoor sales,” Dana said. They’d been given their schedule for training week that morning. “So I’m going to learn how to move the rolling carts and selling stuff outside, and then I’m working to sell glow in the evening.”
“Glow?”
“Yeah the”—Dana waved a hand—“the stuff that lights up? That kids always beg their parents for because it’s shiny?”
“Gotcha.”
“Mm-hm. Apparently there are three different ways to sell it? There’s tray, rolling cart, and static cart. That’s all I really know. I’ll learn more about it tomorrow. But since I’m doing Fantasmic, that means I’m working in the evening until like nine, so I don’t have to meet up with my training team until one.”
“Nice!” Isabella said. “Means you get to sleep in.”
“Ha, I wish. My roommate’s got the unfortunate habit of getting up early. And I’m a light sleeper. I predict a lot of sleep loss in my future.”
Bolin frowned. “That sucks. Any way you could compromise over it? Like, I had to talk over chores and stuff with my roommates. I’m used to being quite neat, and I got the idea that the three guys I live with… aren’t. But Mike’s doing the culinary program, and he’s apparently a great cook, so we’re all sort of figuring out how that’ll work. He cooks, the rest of us figure out cleaning, and then we pool for groceries.”
“All four of you guys pool for groceries?”
Bolin shrugged. “Within reason. We all get our own snacks. It’s just for, you know, meals. Mike’ll make dinner.”