Dream Factory

by BARKLEY, BRAD

  “That’s all I’m saying,” Cassie says. “I don’t want to see life as a freak show. Least of all my life.” She curls into me, slipping her arm around me, and whispers, “It’s not bad to want things, baby. For example . . . I want you.” She moves her hand along my thigh, just the tips of her fingers. She kisses me then, and I kiss her back, still thinking about what she’s just said.

  She pulls back and looks at me. “Luke?” she says. “I know I don’t have to ask, but you wouldn’t take that deal, would you?”

  I glance into her blue eyes, the way they search my face, half hopeful, half testing, then look away. Part of me is trying to think of how Ella would answer that question, or how she would ask it. But Ella isn’t here. After ten minutes with Bernard, she ran out, scared of something. Maybe she wouldn’t see Bernard’s life in that trailer as a coin flip, not a heads-or-tails that you have to call in the air. But that’s how everyone treats things—parents, teachers, bosses—if your life is not one thing, it will be another thing. I know that must be right, know Cassie is right, but I keep trying to make one correction in my head: If your life is not one thing, it be can anything. How much do you gamble? Once I was in Mr. Forrester’s office, in trouble for something else, and his desk calendar said “If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail.” Maybe that’s all that happened to Bernard, and maybe that’s what happens if you fall in love with some girl from Maine when you’ve never even been to Maine, a girl with something hidden so deeply inside of her that she may never let you see it. If it’s a gamble, then I know everyone’s money is on Cassie. She’s the safe bet. The sure thing.

  I look at her, really look at her, and she smiles. “No,” I tell her. “I guess not.”

  The next day I go by Fantasyland on my break and have a chili dog with Bernard. Now I have the opposite problem— when he’s in costume, I have trouble thinking of his character name. Bernard the Fox doesn’t sound so terrible. And I think the same thing I did the other night—after almost three and a half decades inside that costume, he seems more comfortable when he’s wearing it than when he’s not. His steps are more agile, more alive, his gestures more certain, is maybe the best way to think of it. More full, more confident. All the shyness of Bernard eaten up by mean old Foulfellow.

  On my way back I feel a tap on my shoulder, which usually means a dad wanting a photo, except I’m not Dale right now, just me. It’s Ella, also on break, though her hair is still swept up on top of her head (her Cinderella hair, she calls it). She’s eating a funnel cake on a paper plate.

  “Hey, listen,” she says, falling into step beside me. “Amy and I thought maybe we could all go in together and take a dinner over to Bernard’s. You know, like we can make him some mac-and-cheese and cut up some lettuce and do some slice and bake cookies. I mean, we have more stuff in that dorm kitchen than you realize—”

  “Ella . . . maybe that’s not such a good idea,” I say.

  “Why?” She takes a bite of the cake, then breaks off a piece to give to me.

  “I dunno.” I take a bite and chew. Funnel cake always tastes like the carnival when you’re eight years old. “Maybe it’s like we’re a church, and he’s our shut-in, our charity case.”

  “You just had lunch with him, ding-dong,” she says.

  “That’s different.”

  “Because it didn’t involve doing anything nice?” She licks powdered sugar off her finger. “Sorry to break it to you, buddy, but your company is nice all by itself, even if he did pay.”

  “‘Nice,’ huh? Next I’ll catch poison ivy and turn into a prince.”

  “There are worse things than nice,” she says, though her voice makes it sound like she’s having trouble thinking of any. “Besides, I’m kinda changing your status as we speak.”

  “To?”

  She throws her plate into a Mickey trash barrel. “I will keep you updated.”

  “Look, Ella,” I say, “you were the one who ran out of there the other night, not me. I’m just saying that whole thing was a little weird, and maybe we don’t need to go back.”

  She looks away. “I wanted to leave because I was uncomfortable for a minute. Big deal.”

  “That’s my point. It’s not comfortable. We’re going there for bad reasons. I mean, what are we, his friends all of a sudden?”

  “Man, this doesn’t sound like you at all. Yes, all of a sudden. That’s how it works, Luke. You know, like five weeks ago you didn’t know me at all. Now, oh my God, all of a sudden we’re friends.”

  I nod as we stop in front of the dorms. “Yeah . . . friends,” I say. I look into her face, her eyes, the depths of her eyes, like I could fall into them and keep falling, and that would be enough. You could fall forever and never worry about where you land.

  “What is your problem? First you are anti-mac and cheese, and now you’re upset that we’re friends?” She turns from me and shakes her head, and I want to say that no, I’m upset because it feels like with us it’s just a starting place—Step One. Become Friends. And there are eight hundred steps left, or a thousand, or an infinite number, but we—she—will always be stuck at one.

  13

  Ella

  “I can’t believe they added in another meal.” I stuff my hair back under my wig, still slightly damp from lunch. “And why don’t they have a Disney Prince lunch?” Mark smiles up at me from where he’s sitting eating his apple. “It would be way easier,” I say. “Forget finger sandwiches and punch. Throw some hot wings on a plate and pass a bowl of popcorn around and call it a day.”

  “Football and a keg?” Amy asks. “For the dads,” she says, seeing the horrified look on Mark’s face.

  “Exactly.” I swap out my pink headband for a lavender one to match my dress. “Think sports bar with royalty.”

  “Except that in most sports bars, guys in tights would get the crap beat out of them,” Amy says.

  “So what is the deal?” I sit down by Mark, who offers me a bite of his apple.

  “The deal?” he asks, wiping at the apple juice running down my chin.

  “None of the stories would work without the princes,” I tell him. “Snow White and Aurora would still be in comas. Cinderella would still be a peasant. Belle and Ariel would be unhappy and lonely. Jasmine would be married to an evil magician.”

  “Aladdin isn’t a prince,” Mark says.

  “Still,” I say, poking him in the thigh. “You see where I’m going here. What’s the deal with little girls and princesses?”

  “I think it’s the whole ever-after thing,” Amy says, stepping into her black ballet slippers. “Boys don’t think like that. Boys want to be space rangers or archers or cowboys, or swing around the jungle on vines.” Mark nods, taking another bite of his apple.

  “Okay, but Tarzan has Jane and Buzz Lightyear has Jessie and Robin Hood has Maid Marian. Those are all love stories,” I say.

  “Only because they’re trying to make them cross over so girls will like them, too,” Amy says. “If their audience were just boys, they’d just blow more things up or have more sword fights.” I look over at Mark, hoping Amy is wrong, but he’s still nodding. I take the apple from him again and bite into it, chewing and thinking.

  “See, they figured it out. All this Disney princesses thing. They don’t even need the movies or the stories or the books,” Amy says. “All they need is a princess. And if one princess is good, then three or four or seven is better.”

  “Love in the economy size.” I look down at the apple core in my hand, and suddenly, I feel like crying.

  “I’m so thirsty,” Mark says, putting his hand on my knee. The same spot that Luke had his hand. “Can I get you anything?” he asks, squeezing my leg.

  “Orange juice.” I don’t look up at him, afraid that if I look anyone directly in the eyes, I actually will start crying. “Please,” I say. I keep staring at the core in my hand, trying to figure out what to do with it. Mark walks back from the snack table with two paper cups.

  “They didn�
�t have orange. I got you apple, but juice is juice, right?” He hands the cup to me and sits down again, putting his hand back on my knee.

  “Right,” I whisper. I look up and see Amy looking at me as she ties the ribbons on her bodice. I just shake my head at her, and she looks away.

  When I was seven, I fell out of one of the apple trees at the back of the field behind our house. I wasn’t that high up, maybe five feet off the ground. I probably could have just landed on my feet had my boot not gotten caught in one of the branches. I remember hanging there for a few seconds while my foot slowly pulled free from my boot, a little at a time. I could see everything upside down—our house resting on the clouds, Ash running toward me from where he was collecting apples around the base of one of the other trees, a couple of old blankets flapping on the clothesline. It seemed like I hung there forever; then suddenly, my foot pulled free from my rubber mud boot and I began falling. Still in slow motion. Still upside down. Cats always land on their feet. Something in their inner ear always tells them which way is up, which way they should twist, which way is safe. Not me. The doctor at the hospital said I was lucky when Ash told him what happened. I held Ash’s free hand as they put the cast on his wrist. He’d hit his arm on a rock. The rock I would have hit my head on if he hadn’t caught me under the shoulders, letting me fall against his chest.

  “I’ll give you a million dollars,” Robin Hood says from the doorway.

  “No, yuck,” Amy says.

  “Two million.”

  “I’m not doing your laundry.”

  “I didn’t say do it. I said help me do it.” He leans against the doorjamb, watching as Amy and I sort through the secret cards. “Wait, what’s that one say?”

  “I think there’s something wrong with me,” I read from the card in my hand.

  “That’s it?” he asks. “Man, those are lame. ‘I think there’s something wrong with me.’ Who doesn’t?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I ask, leaning back against my bed.

  “Oh no. I know how you two are. I’m not getting dragged into that conversation. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me my inner little boy needs love or asking me about my relationship with my father.”

  “Is that why you’re with Anna? Because she’s . . .” Amy looks at me for help.

  “Uncomplicated?” I say.

  “No, because she’s hot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, both of you are pretty smokin’, too.”

  “So suave,” Amy says, flipping two more cards.

  “Want to know what I think?” I ask, leaning my head back against the bed. I don’t bother looking over at him. “I think you’re with her because she’s safe. She doesn’t challenge you.” He’s watching me, his arms folded, still leaning against the doorjamb. “I think you’re with Anna because there’s no chance you’re going to fall in love with her.”

  “I think you may be right,” he says, making Amy and me look at each other. “Don’t act so surprised. You two walk around here like you’re untouchable. Like the rest of us are somehow beneath you. Like we’re too base or immature or oblivious, but the truth is, the two of you are just as clueless as the rest of us. We’re just smart enough to know we don’t know shit.”

  “Okay, smart guy,” Amy says, tossing her stack of cards back into the Mickey hat. “Tell us, then. Tell us what we’re missing.”

  “Oh no. Dr. Love’s advice is not for free.”

  “Since when are you Dr. Love?” I ask, stacking my cards and dropping them back in the hat, too.

  “Since now,” he says, smirking at us. “Tell you what. You ladies help me with my laundry—”

  “You mean do your laundry,” Amy says.

  “Semantics. Okay, you two do my laundry and I’ll tell you.”

  “How do we know you’re not just working us so that we’ll do your laundry?” I ask, pushing myself off the floor and sitting on the edge of my bed.

  “Ella, I say we do it. Who cares if it’s all a scam. At minimum it will be entertaining.” Amy pushes herself off the floor, too, and walks over to where Robin Hood is still standing in the doorway. “You have yourself a deal,” she says. “But I’m not touching any of your dirty clothes with my hands. God knows what they have on them.” We follow him up the stairs to the boys’ floor, the sounds of loud music and laughter getting louder as we approach the landing.

  “Careful,” Robin Hood says, putting his arm out in front of Amy to stop her from going through the door. A Frisbee flies past, ricocheting off the walls. “Incoming,” he yells down the hall. We step through the ongoing Frisbee golf game and into the room that he and Jesse share. “Give me two minutes to sort these.” We look around, taking in the “beer-amid” that’s grown by several layers since we’d been up here and the large purple stain in front of his dresser. “Kool-Aid,” he says, seeing Amy eyeing it. “Don’t ask.”

  “So,” Amy says, looking over at the neater side of the room, “where’s Jesse?”

  “Lunch,” he says, holding up a red-and-white striped polo shirt. “Lights or darks?” he asks me.

  “Darks,” I say, watching Amy’s face. She keeps looking at Jesse’s bed, its spread tucked in tightly, the pillow plumped, a folded pair of khakis and a button-down shirt and a tie lying across it. “So, what’s with the tie?” I ask. Robin Hood looks over his shoulder, then back at the heap of laundry on his bed.

  “He couldn’t decide whether a collared shirt was okay or if he should wear a tie. I told him no tie. ‘Relaxed and confident’ is my motto.”

  “I thought ‘Loud and vulgar’ was your motto,” I say.

  “That, too.”

  “So, who’s he having lunch with?” Amy says, her voice coming out much softer than before. Robin Hood looks over at her.

  “Some chick in Epcot.” He keeps watching the side of her face, then raises his eyebrow at me.

  “Hey, this laundry thing has an expiration date,” I say.

  “Keep your panties on,” he says. “Or then again, don’t.”

  “Eww.”

  “Okay,” he says, pushing the last items into the two duffel bags. “Done.” Amy and I each lift a bag and head out into the hall, careful to watch for flying objects. “Hey, light starch on the shirts.” We listen to his laughing as we walk back toward the stairwell.

  “I’ll light starch him,” Amy says.

  “You do know that doesn’t make any sense,” I say, letting the bag bump against the steps in front of me as we descend to the basement.

  “Okay, how about this? I’d like to give him a good spin cycle.”

  “Nope, too sexual.”

  “Ironing?” she asks. I shake my head and pull the door to the laundry room open, and she follows me inside. “Okay, I’d like to pop him in the mouth.”

  “Better,” I say, “although a little on the violent side.” I hear a noise that sounds like a wasp, and Amy reaches into her pocket.

  “It’s my mom,” she says, looking at her cell phone.

  “Take it,” I say.

  “You sure?”

  “You can switch to the dryer in half an hour.” She smiles at me and pushes back through the door. I hear a faint “hello” on the other side and then a laugh. I focus on dumping the laundry into the two washers, trying not to think about the phone calls that Amy gets from her family nearly every day and the ones I get—never. I pour a scoop of soap over each of the loads and twist the dial to EXTRA SOILED and close the tops. I don’t feel like going back to my room and trying not to listen to Amy talk with her family, so I head to the TV room. I drop into one of the chairs facing the television and begin flipping channels until I hear voices outside.

  “I am so dead. I could kill her.” I flip the television off and walk toward the sliding door leading out into the courtyard. I can see Luke there talking to Anna. “I can’t believe she spaced this.” He sees me and lifts one of his hands and smiles a little before looking back at Anna. “We are already on suspension because she blew it at the campfire tw
o nights ago, showing up nearly half an hour late.”

  “Is everything okay?” I ask, shielding my eyes against the sun. Anna just smiles at me and says nothing.

  “It’s Cassie. She’s not here. One guess where she is,” he says.

  “With Mark.”

  He nods and looks back at his watch. “We’re supposed to be at the jamboree in ten minutes.”

  “What jamboree?” I ask, worrying that I missed something.

  “It’s just for fur characters. Something Estrogen dreamed up so that we wouldn’t feel left out of the Cinderellabration festivities.”

  “As if,” Anna says. I look at her for a moment and then back at Luke.

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  “You’ll do what?” Luke asks.

  “I’ll be Chip,” I say. “I’m free until the parade.” Luke tilts his head at me. “I mean, how hard could it be? Just wave a lot and make I don’t know and after you gestures. I can totally handle it.”

  “Other than the fact that you’ve just managed to dismiss my current life’s work, are you sure?” he says.

  “Totally,” I say.

  “Yay,” Anna says, and she actually claps her hands together cheerleader style.

  “Well, come on, then,” Luke says, taking my elbow. “Let’s get you suited up.” I feel the warmth of his hand on my arm, and it begins flooding through me again. We walk like that for a bit, not talking, just listening to Anna chatter on. I can feel a tingle way deep inside me as we walk, which only gets more intense when he smiles at me.

  “Okay. Most of the stuff you already know, but there’s a couple of things that are specific to fur characters.” Luke helps zip up the back of my costume. I can already feel myself begin to sweat, even though we’re still inside in the air-conditioning. “First, your center of gravity is way higher in the costume; so if a little kid comes barreling at your knees, bend forward to keep from falling on your tail.”