Dream Factory

by BARKLEY, BRAD

  “It’s just amazing, you know?” she says, looking at me. I nod and smile slightly. I do know. “I mean, until about two weeks ago he was just Jesse, and then suddenly one day he was Jesse. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about him, looking at him. It was as if the whole world just collapsed down into a single point. Does this make any sense?” I nod again, trying to stay focused on Amy and Jesse, but it’s hard.

  “What’s the deal with the interview at Epcot?” I ask.

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Amy says, looking back down at her hands. “He got offered this internship here for the fall.”

  “And you’re supposed to go back home for school.”

  “Yeah,” she says so softly it’s almost like she breathed it instead of spoke it. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “What does Jesse say?” I ask.

  “He wants me to stay, and thinks I can land an internship, too. But he said it was up to me. Told me we’d do the long-distance thing.”

  “Yuck,” I say, but part of me thinks that even long-distance would be better than this. At least with long-distance, there’s someone at the other end of the rope tugging gently every once in a while, so you know he’s still there. With this it’s like the rope got cut and I’m slowly falling backward into thin air.

  “I guess we have some time to figure it out. I mean, it’s not like we have to make up our minds right now,” she says, but the catch in her voice tells me she wants something more solid than maybe and later to stand on. “So, about you,” she says, turning toward me. “Tell me.” I close my eyes.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I say, but when I say it out loud, I hate the words. Hear them repeating inside my head, but instead of getting softer like an echo, they get louder until all I can hear is nothing again and again. And I wonder how it is that nothing can make you feel like this.

  “It’s the best cure,” Robin Hood says, passing a glass of orange juice in my direction.

  “What’s in it?” I ask. I sniff the juice, trying to smell something other than citrus.

  “Orange juice,” he says slowly, like I’m not quite there, and to tell the truth, I’m not. Amy dragged me out, saying I had to eat something, that I couldn’t just hide away for the rest of the summer.

  “Orange juice and what else?” I ask, tilting my head at him.

  “Look, Ella, vitamin C is one of the best cures for a broken heart.”

  “I thought that was beer.”

  “That, too,” he says, forking another triangle of pancakes into his mouth. “But maple syrup and beer do not mix. Trust me on this one.” I take a tiny sip, not quite trusting him. “Ye of little faith.” He smiles at me, then continues. “So do you want me to kick his ass?” he asks. I can’t help but smile at him. Solidarity through vulgarity. We both look over at where Cassie is sitting with an empty chair beside her. “He’s not worth it. I mean, Cassie is smokin’ for sure.”

  “Is this you trying to cheer me up?” I ask, taking another drink of the juice. Robin Hood puts his fork down and looks at me.

  “You ready for your laundry payment?” he asks.

  “I thought Mark did that for you.” I pick up my toast and take a tiny bite of it.

  “He half did it.”

  “So, what’s the rest of it?” I ask. I look over again at the empty chair, then back at Robin Hood, feeling the toast stick at the back of my throat.

  “It’s simple, Princess. You have to jump back in the water. Stop standing on the dock and watching.” He bites into a piece of bacon. “I mean that metaphorically,” he says.

  “I got that.” I take another sip of orange juice.

  “Look, you got dunked this time, but next time it’ll be different,” he says. He shoves the rest of the piece of bacon into his mouth and stands up. He nods once and walks over to dump his tray.

  “Next time,” I say softly, standing up to throw away the rest of my breakfast. I keep repeating it to myself, trying to make it drown out the echoes already filling my head. But instead of muting each other, they get all mixed up. Next time nothing. Nothing next time. Then it’s quiet.

  It’s funny, really, all the ways we tell ourselves every day that things are going to be okay. That things are going to get better, or that things can’t possibly get any worse. We all have these elaborate mechanisms to take care of our disappointments, our sadness, our pain. We build these walls around ourselves, placing bricks between us and everyone else, telling ourselves that we’re just protecting ourselves, just staying safe. Sometimes the bricks are easy to see, hard things that you bump up against when you try to touch someone. Sometimes they’re subtle. A slight turn of the head, a fast good-bye, a faraway look in the eyes. Sometimes I wonder why Disney never took to Rapunzel, why they never tried to take that story and put it on lunch boxes and in video stores and on pink sweatshirts. Maybe it’s that some fairy tales don’t need to be computer animated. Maybe Randy New-man doesn’t need to sing their songs. Maybe some fairy tales don’t even really need to be told, because they live inside of us, scaring us with their witches and their evil spells, making us wonder if maybe this time the prince won’t come in time, the princess won’t wake up, and maybe for once there won’t be any happily ever after. Maybe some fairy tales are just too scary to even think about.

  “There’s a meeting,” Amy says, stepping into the tent, where I am busy trying to push my pink dress into the laundry bag. An overzealous mother managed to knock a whole pitcher of red punch into my lap during the Princess Brunch.

  “When?” I ask, blotting at the red stain that somehow made its way through the seventeen layers of tulle and onto my shorts.

  “Now. Mr. Tubbs told me to come get you and Mark. Most everyone else is already in the conference room.” I raise my eyebrow at her, but she just shrugs. “They didn’t say what it was about.”

  “Do you think they . . .” I don’t even bother finishing my question. The thought of leaving here now makes me panic in about fifty different ways. Amy walks over to the table at the back of the tent and pulls three water bottles out of the cooler.

  “Here,” she says, handing me one of them. “We’ll wait outside.” I don’t have a chance to ask who “we” is before she walks out, letting the flap shut behind her. I give up on the stain on my shorts and reach into my backpack for my other pair before remembering that I didn’t replace the spare ones last night after a little boy threw popcorn and blue Gatorade all over me after the Electrical Parade. I pull my pack over my shoulders and walk outside, lifting my hand to shield my eyes. Amy and Jesse don’t even look up until I am almost on top of them.

  “Ella,” Jesse says.

  “Jesse.” I nod at him and smile, making him smile back at me. We start walking toward the conference center. Amy and Jesse holding hands. Me holding my water bottle.

  “As I was saying . . .” Estrogen begins, but the noise in the room is too loud to hear the rest of what she is trying to say. A loud squeal of the microphone as she taps it makes everyone quiet down a bit. “We are happy to announce that as of ten o’clock this morning, union representatives and management have reached an agreement . . .”

  “Only because the maintenance workers threatened to walk,” Robin Hood says, leaning back in his chair.

  “Garbage could bring this place to its knees,” Amy says, making me look over to where Luke is sitting with Cassie, but he isn’t paying attention to her or to us; instead, he’s working on something, bending it back and forth in his fingers. Cassie looks up at me and smiles, but only with her mouth.

  “I guess that’s it,” Robin Hood says, giving Anna a squeeze. “Fun while it lasted.”

  “Again, we want to thank all of you for your efforts this summer,” Estrogen says. “You are welcome to stay on for the remainder of the week until you get your plans firmed up, but we would like to have the hotel back online by Monday.”

  “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out,” Robin Hood says. Around me I hear people alr
eady making plans. Cell phones are taken from pockets and packs, and suddenly people are all talking into them and not to each other. Already away from here. Already gone.

  “So you’re staying,” I say, dropping bottles of shampoo and conditioner into Ziplocs before pushing them into my duffel bag. Mickey smiles up at me from everything. New backpack, new sweatshirt, new makeup bag. All courtesy of Disney. “Thank you for a job well done,” the notes all said.

  “I am,” Amy says. “Dr. Phoenix gave us the name of one of the professors who’s going on sabbatical this fall. She said he might need a house sitter.”

  “What did your parents say?” I ask.

  “They were all freaked-out at first, but then I told them I might be working in the digital animation studio as an intern, and that calmed them right down.” She smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back. “Listen, I told Jesse I’d meet him at three to go over to the house.” She turns her wrist to look at her watch. Snow White’s arms twist in impossible directions as they wind their way around the face. “Will you be here when I get back? It should only take an hour.”

  I shake my head. “My bus is at four. Robin Hood is giving me a ride to the station.”

  “Back to Aunt Sara’s?” she asks.

  “Just for a couple of weeks.”

  “Then it’s up to Vermont?”

  “I guess,” I say, but somehow it doesn’t seem that exciting anymore. “I almost forgot.” I reach into my pocket for a card and hand it to Amy. “Mark’s card. He told me to give one to you.”

  She holds it up and reads aloud: “Assistant to the Manager of Special Productions.” She looks up at me. “What does that mean?”

  I shrug. “They just told him that he was the best Prince Charming they’d ever had, and they didn’t want him to get away. He seemed really excited. He also said Luke had been by and gave him something, but he wouldn’t tell me what.” Just saying Luke’s name makes it hard to breathe. I look down at my duffel and pull at the zippers, closing it tight.

  “Well, I have something for you,” Amy says, reaching into the front pocket of her backpack. She pulls out two index cards and hands them to me. “These are the last ones. I gave back all the others when I figured them out.” I flip the first one over, seeing my own handwriting slanted down to the right, uneven letters marching downhill. “It’s weird that they’d both be the same,” she says. “Exactly the same.” I nod, reading the second card. “I want.” Just two words, the same two I printed on my secret card. But these are smaller and off to the left. Lots of room for the rest. I look up at Amy, and she shrugs. “I have something else for you, but it’s not from me.” She reaches behind her bag and pulls out a bundle of tissue paper and hands it to me. I know what it is before I even fold my fingers around it. “He left it here this morning. Said you’d understand.” I nod and place the bundle on my bed before hugging her.

  “I’ll call you,” I say into her hair.

  “You better,” she says, and then she pulls back and looks at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Jesse’s right,” she says. “You do look like her.”

  “Like who?” I ask, but she just shrugs and squeezes my arm. She smiles again briefly before walking to the door. A quick wave and she’s gone. I walk over toward the bed, past the bundle leaning against my pillow and to the window. I start packing again, until the sound of a loud muffler makes me look down into the parking lot. An orange car makes a wide arc before stopping in front of the entrance. I hurry to push the rest of my things into my backpack, sliding the cards into my visitor’s guidebook. Also courtesy of the Disney Family. I lift the bundle on my pillow and shift the paper down until I can see the glass top. I turn it over and shake it until all of the snow collects on the top, then flip it, pulling the paper down farther so I can watch it swirl. I hear footsteps walking toward me down the hall, then pausing in the doorway. I keep watching the globe, trying to see in between the flakes. Trying to catch a glimpse of the dancers. Cinderella appears, her blond hair caught up in a white band, her arms outstretched holding the prince’s hands. But not like any prince I’ve ever seen. Instead of Prince Charming, she’s dancing with something much furrier. Something resembling a tiny chipmunk.

  “Jesse is right,” a voice says from the doorway. I look up to see Luke standing there, his keys dangling from his hand. “You do,” he says.

  “I do what?” I ask, tilting my head at him.

  “You look like her. Just like Cinderella.”

  18

  Luke

  “I have to say,” Ella says to me, “this is one of the ugliest cars I have ever seen.”

  I nod and glance over at her through my sunglasses, not taking my eyes off the road for too long. The traffic is heavy this time of year. “Thanks,” I tell her, and squeeze her hand, which rests inside mine on the seat between us.

  “Why orange?” she says. Her own sunglasses are made for little kids, bright green with smiling Mickeys perched over the corners.

  “Well, there were important aesthetic considerations to think about,” I say as I head north down a two-lane black-top. “I mean, before I started to paint, I had to think about color organically, deciding exactly what shade the perfect 1993 Subaru would be in a perfect world, and so—”

  “You are so full of it,” she says. “And wait, you painted it? You know how to do all that auto shop stuff?” She absently turns over the snow globe in her lap, making the snow move around inside.

  “I painted it with spray cans I bought at Wal-Mart,” I tell her, and she laughs. My dad has always been the work-for-what-you-get type, and after a summer of mowing every lawn in town, this car was the best I could do. “You know how many cans it took? Two hundred.”

  “So orange was the color of the perfect idea of the perfect Subaru, huh?”

  I nod. “Absolutely. And orange was on sale.”

  She laughs again and slips over closer to me, holding my arm in her hands, resting her head against my shoulder. The radio plays hits from the ’70s and ’80s while the air-conditioning blows the salt smell of the ocean through the car. She turns her face toward me long enough to kiss my shoulder. “I like you,” she whispers. I smile, then reach up to stroke her hair.

  “I like you, too,” I say.

  “I just have one question,” she says, still whispering. “How did you replace Prince Charming with Dale?”

  “Well, Ella, you know Mark was never really right for you, and so I just waited patiently, and after a time—”

  She smacks my thigh. “No, goofball, how did you replace him in this?” She holds up the globe and shakes it, then turns the key and watches Cinderella and Dale dance around in the snow. She holds it right up to her eyes so that, she says, they look life-size.

  “The usual hard work and perseverance,” I say. “I had to run the stuff through a coffee filter to save the snow, then break off the Prince without breaking the glass, then cover the base of the Prince with a Dale pencil topper.”

  “Wow.”

  “I spilled some of the liquid, so then I had to find out the right mixture of water and glycerin, then find the glycerin, and then put it all back together.”

  “You’re amazing,” she says.

  I shrug. “I just thought you would like it.”

  “I love it. One more question?”

  “One?” I say. “We have lots of time ahead of us. You’d better have thousands of questions.”

  “One for now? Amy said you gave something to Mark?”

  “Yeah, I gave him the snapped-off Prince Charming . . .” I look at her. “I’m kidding. I gave him Bernard’s keys.”

  She nods. “That seems right. Man, he must love you. That’s like Christmas and birthday in one shot.”

  “Unless he gives them back. Rules are rules if you’re him, I think.”

  She moves her thumb across the palm of my hand. “I know, but I don’t think he will. I think he will think no one else in the world can be trusted with those k
eys.”

  “In that case, I think he’s right.”

  Ella opens a Disney bottled water and tips some into my mouth before drinking some herself. “I don’t want to spoil the morning,” she says, “but what about Cassie?”

  “What about her?” I shrug. “She won the contest. Right now I suspect she’s at the Old Key West lounging by the pool, checking out the lifeguards. She’s not much of one for altering her plans.”

  “You scared me the last few days,” she says, her voice quieter. I slow down and look at her, watch her fingers wind the key again so that again, we hear “When You Wish Upon a Star” while the snow swirls in a slow circle.

  “Scared you how?”

  “I thought you’d gone over to the dark side,” she says, and smiles a little. Then the smile fades and she looks out the window. “I can’t lose somebody else,” she whispers.

  I squeeze her hand. “I can’t go over to the dark side,” I tell her. “I’m Luke Skywalker. It would screw up the whole story.”

  She nods. “So Cassie went to the hotel by herself?”

  “Can you think of anyone else she’d rather be with?”

  She shakes her head, then pulls something from the back pocket of her shorts. She holds up a pair of wrinkled index cards. “Remember these?”

  “Amy the All-Powerful,” I say. “Why do you have them?”

  “Well, one is mine.” She holds it up so I can read it: “I want.”

  “Hey, wait a second,” I say. I look again at the card, but it’s not my handwriting. “You won’t believe—”

  “And the other one she can’t figure out. The weird thing is, it says the same as mine.”

  She holds it up, and this time I do recognize my own handwriting. Just then it starts raining those fat Florida rain-drops that hit the windshield with a splat. I pull off my sunglasses and look at Ella, and she does the same. “That’s my card,” I tell her.