The Truth About Happily Ever After

by Karole Cozzo

  My mouth falls open in disbelief. “Did you honestly just flick me?”

  “Yeah.” Kelly’s chin juts out. “I did.”

  She’s glaring at me, paws on her hips, the crowd is watching in silent anticipation of what’s going to happen next, and I … well … I have no idea how the heck to retreat. I’m pretty sure Kelly’s two seconds away from suggesting we step outside and settle the score once and for all, and I have no desire to roll in the dirt in my pristine white gown. Yet I can’t look away first, because I just can’t concede this one to her. So I’m stuck there, aware of nothing but the second hand on the loud clock overhead ticking by at snail speed. Crap.

  Craaap.

  “Whoa. Hey! Ladies … what’s up?”

  A loud voice cuts into my stupor, muffled as it is beneath a large kangaroo’s head from across the room. Then said kangaroo actually hops over to the table in record speed, long tail thumping the ground behind him as he goes. He shoves the table to the side so he has room to make his way toward us and insert his body between mine and Kelly’s.

  Only then does he remove the kangaroo head and toss it out of the way, and Miller’s face appears before me, cheeks flushed, his damp wavy hair matted to his head.

  He looks at me. He looks at Kelly. He looks at me again. Then he grins, his eyes going wide. “Seriously? Are you two seriously doing this? How did I just walk in on a character standoff?”

  “Miller.” Kelly shoots him a pleading look. “You get it. These girls are obnoxious.”

  “C’mon now, Kel,” he says, keeping his voice light. “Relax. I doubt they did anything that egregious.”

  Yael pushes her chair back, stands, and shoots Miller a look. “You are unbelievable, bro.” She shakes her head, looks at me, and looks back at Miller. “I give up on you.” She turns and leaves. I can’t say I’m sorry to see her go.

  “Look,” Miller says. “We all know management has a very strong zero-tolerance policy about staff altercations. Kelly, I seriously doubt you want a mug shot on record that’s half girl, half meerkat.”

  Shockingly, I see her biting her lip, trying to keep from smiling.

  “And Lys, it would tarnish the Enchanted Princess image for years to come and traumatize scores of little girls if they have to haul Cinderella out of here in handcuffs.”

  Now I’m smiling, too.

  Miller circles his paw in the air. “So let’s all just dial down the drama a few notches, step away from each other, and get on with our days.”

  Kelly stares at me for another minute before finally dropping her head. “Yeah. Whatever,” she mutters. She sits back down and finally starts eating her lunch.

  Miller claps me on the shoulder. “I gotta grab something to eat. I only have ten minutes.” He takes a step closer, winks at me before leaving. “See if you can stay out of trouble for a while, okay, Princess?”

  I give him a rueful smile. “I’ll try.” Making sure Kelly’s not looking, I mouth a quick “thank you.”

  Miller leans toward my ear. “You’re welcome. She would’ve pummeled you.”

  He bounds off toward the food line, and when I look down at Harper, she stands up quickly and we walk toward the door.

  “Thanks for trying.” Harper frowns. “I wouldn’t have expected that to get so … um … intense.”

  I have to giggle. “Trust me. Me either.” I shrug. “I guess she thought she was making up for all the ‘special treatment’ we princesses get by treating you like garbage. But it’s not right. I had to have your back.”

  Harper glances over her shoulder. “Really didn’t think I was going into a gang war…”

  She’s joking, but she sounds dejected and she still looks like she could keel over at any minute.

  “Are you okay to go back out there?” I ask.

  “I’ll survive. Three more hours,” she sighs.

  But I’m far from convinced as I watch her go. Her energy level is reading in negative numbers and she drags her feet, seeming a bit off balance as she walks. She’s about to walk out into the most grueling part of the day, and her lunch was far from rejuvenating. I hope these last three hours pass quickly.

  * * *

  THEY DON’T, NOT really, at least for me.

  The heat does nothing to dampen the spirit of the crowd, and the lines to meet me never let up. A little boy with a concealed red lollipop gets it stuck in my hair. My real hair. I have to find a way to untangle it, while the boy wails about his ruined treat, all while keeping a smile on my face. The fur characters may have their trials, but at least they get to hide their expressions when dealing with something like this.

  And last but not least, I get propositioned by a Creepy Grandfather, with just about the lamest line ever, something about how I must be Cinderella, because he could “definitely see that dress disappearing by midnight.” Eww.

  When my day shift wraps, I sprint to the tunnel entrance faster than the real Cinderella ran from the ball. My eyes struggle to adjust from the glaring sun to the dim tunnel, but when they do, I see someone up ahead of me, staggering as they approach the top of the stairwell. They’re listing like crazy, and I swear they’re about to take a tumble.

  “Are you okay?” I call, running again to catch up with them.

  And just like that, they drop. Luckily they fall backward rather than down the steep stairwell, but my heart reacts as if they had. I lose my shoes and spring toward them, and as I approach, I realize it’s a life-size meerkat splayed out on the ground before me. I’m pretty sure I know who it is.

  I struggle to wrench her headpiece off. She’s no help—she’s out cold.

  “Oh my God! Harper!”

  Hands shaking, I fumble around to find the concealed walkie that’s pinned beneath my skirt for emergencies. I twist the dial to the 9-1-1 channel and scream Jake’s name into it.

  Thank God he’s close by.

  “Jake! Jake! I need your help in the B tunnel. Something happened to Harper!”

  At once I hear a burst of static. Then, “We’re en route.”

  I put my hand to Harper’s cheek. It feels like it’s about a thousand degrees, but I have no idea what I should do first.

  Am I supposed to cool her down? With water? Should I pour water on her face? What if that makes it worse?

  I consider taking the rest of her costume off, since it can’t possibly be helping. But what if I do some type of damage by moving her? What if she hurt her neck when she fell?

  I fall back on my heels, feeling helpless and useless, wondering why the heck I never took a first aid course. When I put my finger to her wrist, I’m a smidgen relieved that I can at least feel a pulse, and I keep calling her name, hoping beyond hope that she’ll wake up and answer me.

  “Harper! It’s Alyssa. I’m here. Wake up, Harper! Help is coming!”

  And eventually, thank you sweet Jesus, her eyelids flutter. Then her eyes open all the way and she glances around, still groggy. “Where am I?” she asks hoarsely.

  “Harper. Thank God.” My hand goes to my chest. “I think you passed out from the heat. You’re in the tunnels. You passed out and fell.”

  She looks confused. And a little bit scared.

  “But I paged Jake. He’ll be here any second. With the first aid team.”

  Suddenly she’s trying to sit up, but she topples to the side. “What? No, that’s okay. I can…”

  Before she can protest further, I hear people approaching from outside, and when I look up I see Jake and Ron, his partner today, running toward us, heavy first aid kit in hand.

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy to see you!” I greet him.

  Jake ignores my greeting entirely, dropping to his knees beside Harper. His partner does the same. Jake takes her pulse while Ron slaps something on her forehead to take her temperature.

  Now that someone else is on the scene, I drop her hand and finally have the wherewithal to reach for a spare bottle of water.

  I extend it in her direction, but Ja
ke practically bats my hand away. “Don’t give that to her!”

  I recoil as if I’ve actually been slapped. “I’m sorry, I was just trying—”

  “Didn’t mean to snap,” he mutters, eyes still on Harper’s wrist. “But we have to get her temperature down with cool cloths. Externally. Not internally. Water can make it worse.”

  I go back to feeling helpless and useless, a bystander, as Jake gently inquires about her symptoms—Does she have a headache, is she dizzy or light-headed, is she experiencing any muscle cramps, has she felt nauseous or vomited?

  He still has her hand in his, and he’s attentive as always, saving the day, the knight in shining armor.

  An uncomfortable awareness dawns—it’s like watching an even more dramatic reenactment of our very first encounter, and although I’m sort of ashamed to admit it to myself, it cheapens the memory in some way I don’t like.

  Jake looks at Ron and me. “We need to get her to a cooler area. Grab some ice packs to help cool her down.”

  I follow as they move Harper into an air-conditioned office and place some ice packs against her arms and neck.

  “Oh my God,” she whimpers. “That feels so good I could cry.”

  “What happened out there?” Ron asks.

  Harper, on the floor and propped against the wall, closes her eyes and covers them with her hand. “Kelly was just … still riding me pretty hard about the princess thing. I felt like absolute crap at lunch, but she was just so … cutting. I was even more intent on proving her wrong.” She shakes her head. “But she had us running all over the park. She wouldn’t let go of my arm, and I had to keep up. She wouldn’t let me take water breaks.”

  “She needs to be reported,” Jake snaps.

  Harper lifts her hand weakly. “I don’t want to cause a problem. I’m okay now. I’ll be okay.”

  Jake raises one eyebrow, unconvinced. “You need to take better care of yourself on days like this, okay?”

  Harper won’t meet his eye. He is a little intense.

  “Seriously, Harper.” He’s gentler this time, and when he says her name, she finally allows her gaze to meet his. “This isn’t a joke. Heat exhaustion, heatstroke, it can cause serious damage to your organs.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she concedes. She stares up at him, biting her lip. “Thanks, Jake,” she whispers.

  I find myself looking back and forth between them. I swear I just introduced the two of them the other night, yet they’re talking to each other like they’ve known each other forever, or something. Maybe it’s just that weird intimacy that automatically comes about when someone is providing another person with physical care, leaving outsiders to feel weird standing there watching them.

  I clear my throat. “Is she going to need to go to the hospital?”

  “Yes”—Jake nods decidedly—“she does.”

  Harper struggles to standing. “Please no. I’m sure I’ll be okay. I feel better already.”

  “You should be monitored,” Ron tells her. “Looked over by a doctor at the very least. And it’s the safest and quickest way to make that happen.”

  “The ambulance is already on its way, anyway,” Jake informs her.

  Harper’s entire body sighs, and she turns toward me. “Shit.” Then she glances down at the remaining portion of her costume. “Help me get this off?” she asks me glumly.

  Happy I can finally contribute something, I walk around behind her and unzip the outfit. As she pulls it off, I realize her thin white tank is nearly see-through from sweat, her bright pink bra clearly visible. Jake’s cheeks color, and he turns his back at once.

  I dig around in my bag and quickly find an old Zeta charity softball game T-shirt and press it into her hand. “Here.”

  She looks down, her face colors anew when she realizes how exposed she is, and she tugs it overhead. “Thanks.” Her lips twist wryly. “Never thought I’d be a sorority girl.” Then Harper looks around, first at Ron, then at Jake, and finally back at me. Her eyes are serious. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  “For what?”

  “For holding you up. I’m sure you want to get out of here.”

  “No worries. I’m working tonight. I’m not going anywhere, anyway.”

  Harper looks toward the boys. “Alyssa’s been my savior in more ways than one today.”

  She’s relaying the lunchroom story when the ambulance crew—invisible most of the time but never more than a moment away—comes swiftly into the office, hoists Harper onto a stretcher, and carries her away as quickly and quietly as they appeared.

  Just before she disappears with them, she sits up and grabs my forearm. “Don’t you dare tell Kelly what happened.”

  I smile. “I won’t.”

  I look at Ron. “Thanks for your help.” I turn toward Jake and squeeze his arm. “You were amazing,” I tell him.

  “It was nothing,” he says tensely. “It’s just what I do.”

  Jake doesn’t ask to hear the end of the story about what happened in the cafeteria. He stares down the hallway in the direction of his retreating patient. I’m just really not sure what to make of his level of concern. Or the constant weirdness that seems to come about whenever he and Harper end up in the same room.

  chapter 6

  My doorbell rings the next morning at 8:58 a.m. I’m still in my room, zipping up my white shorts, so a second later it rings again. Jogging in that direction, I hear voices calling my name, loudly, from the other side, then fists pounding against the door impatiently.

  Inside my apartment, I’m grinning. I’ve missed my ZTA sisters—their camaraderie, their energy, their noise. Growing up in a house with three younger sisters, moving into a sorority house was a natural choice.

  Flinging the door back, I see Lauryn “Y” first. “What up, bi-otch?” she greets me.

  Then all four of them burst through, shrieking and sweeping me up in hugs like it’s been three years rather than three weeks.

  Lauren “E,” my “big,” which is an oxymoron given the fact she’s a shrimp-o, presses her head of springy blond curls against my chest. “I miss you, love!”

  “Seriously a lot,” Caroline, a member of my pledge class, echoes, moseying across my kitchen in her ever-present cowboy boots. She’s from Tennessee. Plus, she really likes how they make her legs look.

  “And we brought pressies!” Blake adds, hoisting a white wicker basket onto my counter.

  “You guys didn’t need to bring presents.”

  “You have a new apartment,” she protests.

  And you have more money than you even know what to do with! I think.

  I smile at her, reminding her, “It’s just a sublet.”

  “Still, still.”

  Blake, our newly elected chapter president, has a generosity problem. Which is really very sweet. I peer into the basket—it contains a ginormous candle from Anthropologie, some expensive Philosophy bath products, and a new navy Vineyard Vines baseball cap with the ZTA letters embroidered across the front and my name across the back.

  “Aren’t the new hats fetch?” Lauren “E” asks.

  “Stop trying to make fetch happen!” I respond on cue. “It’s not going to happen.”

  We laugh together at our running joke about the line from Mean Girls, and then I tell her, “But, yes, they’re supercute.”

  Lauryn “Y” impatiently pushes the strands of her short, trendy haircut off her forehead. “Aren’t you going to come visit at all? Sigma Nu had this bad-ass slip-and-slide party last night. You’re missing all the fun.”

  “Weekends are the busiest days here. Most weekends, I’m working several shifts a day.”

  And I’m not really willing to give up what precious little time I have with Jake to drive back and hang out with the girls I get to see the rest of the year. Truthfully, though, it wouldn’t be very sisterly of me to say so, so I don’t.

  Lauryn “Y,” however, former pledge chair, total Zeta devotee, isn’t above getting a jab in. With one eyebrow raise
d, she comments, “I’m glad you didn’t demonstrate that kind of lackluster loyalty while you were pledging freshman year.”

  Lauren “E” turns so her back is to her and rolls her eyes. “Wait till you see what we brought to wear to the park,” she interjects, taking the hat out of my hands and sticking it back in the basket. She waves at me. “Turn around. Close your eyes.”

  Smiling at her silliness, I do so, and when I turn back toward them a minute later, the sight almost brings tears to my eyes. All four of them are wearing crowns with the Zeta emblem, and Caro’s holding one out for me to take.

  “It’s my day off from being a princess, you know,” I point out as I accept mine, even though I actually love the concept.

  “Yeah, but we’re going to the Enchanted Dominion,” Caroline says. “We have to wear tiaras.”

  Lauren “E” is bouncing about in a way that reminds me of a Jack Russell terrier, her wild curls returning to her shoulders a few seconds after her feet hit the ground. “Can we go now? Please? What are we waiting for? Normally I spend three days at the park, and we only have one!”

  Blake slings a heavily bangled arm around her shoulders. “Come on, mama,” she says fondly, “we won’t make you wait any longer.”

  We head down the stairs and toward Blake’s white Lexus SUV in the lot. It’s easy to spot. Not only is it huge, but its rear is covered in colorful ZTA and Vineyard Vines stickers. There’s a Hilton Head parking permit stuck on the bumper.

  I can barely get a word in edgewise during the drive to the park. My sisters are talking over one another in their attempts to fill me in on campus gossip and personal dramas. I pick up only snatches of stories.

  “… I mean, is he kidding me with that?… Put his shit on blast on Instagram before he could even…”

  “Literally, I can’t even … I mean, it’s summer, does she really think we’re going to read twelve novels in three weeks?”