How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True

Prologue

There was no getting around the fact that Tinker Bell was a little bitch.

The tiny, white powder-puff bichon frise with professionally manicured toenails scampered under the thornbush and out of sight. Aghast, I stared at her diamond-studded collar swinging perilously from her leash like a noose swaying from the gallows. It was way after curfew. We were deep in the forest, and my evil boss’s perfumed purse ornament had just taken off after an imaginary squirrel.

Tink! I hissed, trying to catch glimpses of white in the murky undergrowth. Come back here, you spoiled-rotten little Q-tip. You’re going to get me fired!

I was so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open, having been up since dawn to walk the dog and then in the Fairyland salon by six thirty, dressed in my silver gown and ready to start my day. Trish the stylist had twisted my long, brown hair into a tight updo topped with a delicate pearl headpiece; after which Helga had lined my green eyes in purple and my less-than-pouty lips in glossy pink.

At 7:02 I delivered to my boss, aka the Queen, her usual breakfast of three raw almonds, two grapefruit slices cut into thirty pieces, one hard-boiled egg (miraculously yolk-free), a pot of Earl Grey tea with precisely two drops of honey, and the morning’s newspapers—edited to remove all references to the Mouse—before sorting through her mail, reading the customer-feedback forms in what we in the Fairyland front office jokingly referred to as the Box of Whine, polishing her Magic Mirror, sorting her pencils according to length, and feeding Tinker Bell two spoonfuls of Russian caviar.

At ten I had to raid the kitchen to steal several bright red apples, since Snow White’s poisoned ones were all rotten. At noon I was called to the Haunted Forest, where Hansel and Gretel (aka Brendan Borowitz and Stella McPherson) had been caught making out behind the Candy Cottage. (Gretel was applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to save her brother after the witch had tried to kill him. Isn’t that touching? I told the traumatized children, pale from witnessing their first pseudoincestuous atrocity.)

Mac Weintraub as Jack took a post-lunch snooze and accidentally rolled off the beanstalk around two. I had to check if anything was broken before I called the insurance company. Oh, and did I mention Miranda Clark? She was playing Rapunzel when the air-conditioning broke in her hot, cramped tower, and she fainted. Fortunately I’d thought to bring along some spirit of hartshorn to revive her, along with serious contraband, an ice-cold can of Red Bull.

You’re a lifesaver, Zoe, Rapunzel whispered, popping it open and guzzling it in one swallow.

Not a lifesaver, actually, more like a psychic lady-in-waiting working behind the scenes to save my fellow Fairyland cohorts from imminent disaster while trying to anticipate my boss’s every whim. Though, at midnight, maybe not so much.

The iPhone in my pocket trilled the strains of Every Breath You Take right as Tink’s furry butt slipped out of my hands. Where are you, Zoe? Her Majesty inquired in her nasal voice. I want to go to bed, and I need my Tinksy Winksy. There was an ominous pause. I hope you haven’t lost her.

I shivered at the veiled threat in her icy tone. No, ma’am. Not yet. Tinksy wants to stay out longer.

The Queen yawned. Very well, then. I’ll wait up.

Oh, please don’t, I thought as she hung up. Tink. Where are you? Come back here!

We weren’t supposed to leave the park perimeter. It was strictly forbidden. Did I dare go farther?

Either that, or lose the dog.

Right. I did not want to think of the punishment that would await me if I returned to the palace without Tinker Bell.

Summoning my courage and keeping my ears cocked for the pitter-patter of tiny, manicured doggy toes, I padded across the soft forest floor, ignoring the distinct feeling that several sets of eyes were upon me. Owls, perhaps. Night creatures. Carnivorous plants. Security patrols. With only the bright moon overhead for light, I negotiated fallen trees and rotting logs, and the occasional nasty root and pricker bush, until I almost smacked into something hard. A wall.

It wasn’t Fairyland’s outside wall. That was lit from above, its granite stones regularly polished to a brilliant, toothy whiteness. This wall was dark and mossy. This wall was old.

I was running my hands over the dips and valleys, trying to figure out where I could be, when all of a sudden my right foot went through the ground and I was up to my hip in cold, damp sand.

Crap!

Profanity was prohibited in Fairyland, but it wasn’t like anyone was there to bust me. I was trapped in a sinkhole, alone in the forest, and worst of all, Tinker Bell was long gone. I tried pushing myself out and found, much to my dismay, that the more pressure I applied, the more the ground gave way.

There was another rustle in the bushes. Tinker Bell? If I could nab the dog, that’d be half the battle. The two of us could huddle in the hole until morning, when the Queen sent someone to find her precious baby.

Tink? I called, stretching out my hand, hopeful for the wet nose, the rough lick of her tiny, pink tongue. I have caviar!

The rustling got closer and louder. My heart started to beat harder. This was no bichon frise. This was a much larger animal—like a human.

I detected a whiff of cologne that only the Prince Charmings were allowed to wear, spicy and so aromatic, it made you swoon. Then I heard someone say, Gotcha! and I was eye-to-eye with a pair of hiking boots. I looked up, but all I could see was a ball of white wriggling in some boy’s arms.

Seems as though you’ve dug yourself into quite a hole there, Zoe, he said, sounding amused.

Not for the first time did I curse the fact that, like the princesses, all the Prince Charmings had been taught to speak in the Queen’s English—complete with upper-crust British pronunciation—so visitors wouldn’t be able to distinguish one from another. He could have been any one of eight hot guys, and it didn’t help that his face was shadowed by the moonlight above.

I said, I’m stuck. Can you give me a hand up?

I could, he taunted. But then, as the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, you’d report me for being outside the park after curfew, and I would be fired and . . .

No, I won’t. Honestly, I’d never do such a thing. I will be forever in your debt.

Really?

Really.

Forever in my debt, you say?

Yes. Please just get me out of here.

"I’ll hold you to that, you know. So when I come to collect, you can’t back out and claim the whole thing never happened. Or that it was all a whole big mistake."

Fine. Whatever. Here I was, slipping deeper into this pit, and he was making puns. Typical cocky prince.

Tinker Bell emitted a mewling sound of annoyance.

All right. Hold on. He placed Tinker Bell in my arms. But we’ll have to do it the right way. Wait here. He gave another laugh and trudged off, returning minutes later with a long branch. I’m going to stand clear of the sinkhole so I don’t fall in, which won’t do either of us any good. You hold tight and try to claw your way out.

It seemed like an impossibly tall order, clutching Tink and a branch while extricating myself from what essentially amounted to quicksand, but I did my best, scrabbling and clawing as Tink kicked in protest. At last we were free. I stumbled to where he’d been standing and leaned against a tree, breathing hard.

Thank you! I said.

No sound.

Hello?

He was gone, except for a sizable swatch of black flannel dangling from a thornbush. I picked it off and held it to my nose, inhaling the unique scent of the Prince Charming cologne. Yes, definitely his.

Stuffing the torn piece of shirt into my back pocket, I found my way to the path and ran as fast as I could, Her Majesty’s royal fluff ball bouncing in my arms. Had this been a real fairyland and I had been a real lady-in-waiting to a real evil queen, perhaps a pumpkin carriage or a knight on horseback might have come to my rescue.

But this wasn’t a real fairyland. It was Fairyland Kingdom, a destination fairy-tale theme park in the Pinelands of southern New Jersey, and I was a seventeen-year-old cast member interning for the summer in an exclusive program that thousands of teenagers from across the world auditioned for every year. I was lucky to be here—everyone said so—even though I was fast learning that behind the sweetly smiling princesses and dashing princes, there was a secret world that wasn’t oh-so-innocent.

That night, I showered off the sand and slid under my own sheets, slipping the prince’s shirt swatch beneath my pillow for safekeeping. Home at last.

As I drifted off to blissful sleep, I tried to recall my rosy expectations when Jess and I had arrived at Fairyland only a few weeks before, how we’d looked forward to a pleasant summer of dressing up in costumes and entertaining children, while in our off-hours getting to know the extremely cute princes.

Oh, how wrong I’d been. Fairyland was nothing like I’d imagined, except maybe for the princes.

They were even better.

One

The day after we finished our junior year at Bridgewater-Raritan High, Jess and I hopped into her dad’s 1998 Honda Bobmobile and hightailed it down the Garden State to Fairyland with the windows open and our hair flying, Springsteen blaring at full volume. Personally I’m not a big fan of the Boss, but I’m pretty sure it’s a state law that if you’re on a road trip in Jersey, Thunder Road is de rigueur—even at 6:00 a.m.

I know, crazy. Who gets up that early the first free day of summer? Fairyland interns, that’s who. Everyone had to be at the park by eight. It said so in the thick, sparkly welcome packet we’d received along with the official letter congratulating us on being selected as Fairyland Kingdom Inc. summer cast members from thousands of rising high school seniors.

I still couldn’t get over that we’d been accepted or, rather, that I had, since Jess had been acting since she was a kid, so she deserved an internship. Me? I’m a disaster on stage, going left when everyone else is going right, forgetting lines, and, in the case of my debut as an ant in our second-grade performance of Aesop’s Fables, projectile vomiting.

In fact, I was so convinced my acceptance had been some sort of clerical error that I was prepared to be rejected as soon as we arrived. This was why I’d made Jess borrow her dad’s car, so I could drive it home after the inevitable.

Stop putting yourself down. You kicked butt in the auditions, Jess said, gripping the wheel at two and ten like a little old lady, her seat pushed all the way forward so her short legs could reach the gas pedal. God forbid we should get in a fender bender because, if the airbag deployed, she’d have been shot straight through the rear.

You should sit back more, or your head’s going to pop off in an accident, I said, applying the last strip of purple shellac to my pinkie toe that was propped on the dashboard.

If I sit back, I can’t see over the wheel.

Jess is petite like that. Tiny nose. Childlike fingers. Wispy, pale blond hair that she usually yanks into a ponytail so it doesn’t fly into her clear blue eyes. All her life people have been telling her she’s a little Cinderella, sweet and kind. (Yeah, right. They haven’t seen her spike a volleyball with seconds on the clock.) Often these same people find it kind of hard to believe that we’re cousins.

Really? I remember our neighbor Mrs. Coughlin exclaiming, when she’d learned Jess and I were related. But you’re so different, Zoe. Meaning, I suppose, that I was tall with brown hair and green eyes and not so delicate, since I liked to noogie her son, Curtis, on whom I had a huge crush.

That’s why we’re best friends! Jess had piped up in her cheerful way. Because we’re opposites!

I was so relieved we both got internships. Can you imagine how awkward it would have been if I got in and not Jess, or vice versa? I didn’t even want to think about it, and we weren’t out of the woods yet, since we hadn’t received our cast assignments. That was fine by me, but for a variety of reasons, some practical, Jess had her heart set on being a princess.

If they made her Elf #6 or any of the lesser characters like Goldilocks or, shudder, a furry, for which she’d have to wear a hot bear or wolf costume and run around in ninety-degree heat, she’d be crushed. At her size, almost literally.

We got off at exit 52, and as soon as we took a right, there were the purple turrets of the Princess Palace flying banana yellow flags with the Cow Jumped Over the Moon roller coaster behind it. Jess and I squealed like we used to when we were little kids and her mom, Aunt Nancy, and mine—twin sisters—would take us for the whole day. Our families were too broke to afford a week at the shore, so Fairyland was the highlight of summer vacation, and Mom spared no expense. She bought us crowns and fairy wings and pink tutus that we held out to curtsy when Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty passed by with one of their Prince Charmings.

I shouldn’t have let myself think about those sparkly, blue-sky days that smelled of coconut sunblock and popcorn that would never, ever be again, because I immediately plummeted into one of my funks. Jess, catching me fingering the single-pearl necklace that used to be Mom’s, shifted the Bobmobile into park and said, You okay?

I said, Uh-huh. I’m fine.

But Jess knew. She’d been there with me from the beginning, when Mom came clean about the diagnosis after admirably trying to pass off her nausea and exhaustion as stress. It was Jess who’d looked up all the reassuring survivor stories online and showed up on my doorstep with bags of barbecue potato chips, ice cream, chocolate sauce, M&Ms, those chemically questionable maraschino cherries, and whipped cream, plus Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Legally Blonde (1 & 2) to keep me distracted.

Jess had stuck with me to the bitter end—unlike Derek James, the crappiest boyfriend ever, who didn’t break up with me before the funeral only because his parents insisted that would have been cruel. Or so his subsequent girlfriend, Zara Cavalerie, couldn’t wait to tell me.

Meanwhile, I had been so caught up in the day-to-day slog of sickness and losing Mom and generally feeling sorry for myself that I hadn’t noticed that Jess’s family was falling apart, too. Not healthwise, thank god, but, rather, financially. One day her parents were gainfully employed at the local pharmaceutical company; the next thing I knew they’d been out of work for six months, and Jess was getting nervous.

Not that she complained—that’s the thing about Jess: she hardly ever does—but all of a sudden she couldn’t go shopping, and a trip to the movies was too expensive when, before, we didn’t think twice. She even had a job scooping Häagen-Dazs at the mall and still didn’t have a penny to spare. It was weird, and when I’d finally asked her what was up, she’d admitted that she was handing her paychecks to her parents, who’d already blown through her college fund.

I mean, there was nothing left in their savings. Not even five bucks for a measly spiral-bound notebook. And now Jess was looking at living at home after graduation while maybe taking a course at the Raritan Valley Community College instead of going to her dream school, Tisch, for drama at NYU.

What are the chances of me actually breaking out as an actress, anyway? she asked as we drove to Fairyland. My money—that is, if I had money—would be wasted. Better to be practical and learn something useful. Like accounting.

Jess could not count out change on a ten-dollar bill for a $6.79 Banana Split Dazzler down at the Dazs, so I couldn’t imagine her holed up in a cubicle doing people’s taxes. If she refused to have an honest discussion with her parents about money and college, because she didn’t want them to feel guilty for spending her NYU tuition, then I’d take charge.

After all, Jess had saved me from falling to pieces a year and a half ago. The least I could do in return was to help her now.

Oddly enough, that’s where Cinderella came in.

It came as no surprise that Fairyland Kingdom—where even the trash cans are spotless—had planned a super-organized orientation for the interns. There was a place for us to stash our car for a week, until Jess’s dad came to pick it up, and a place for our luggage (two bags, max) and a special gate where we had to check in.

There a scrub-faced Keebler Elf type named Andy the Summer Cast Coordinator crossed out our names (I was on the list—relief!) and handed us matching T-shirts that said Wow!™—the rather uninspired one-word motto of Fairyland.

We pulled those on over our tops, slapped on white name tags, and proceeded to the orientation table, where we were each given a book entitled Fairyland Kingdom Internship Handbook & Rules and our room keys. Jess and I were thrilled that Fairyland had honored our requests and made us roomies, though we were kind of disappointed to learn we wouldn’t be in one of the turrets. Those, apparently, were reserved for princes and princesses.

Jess went white.

I said, It doesn’t mean you’re not a princess.

Yes, it does. She looked like she was about to faint. I panicked.

Turning to the orientation lady who’d just given us our room keys, I said, I’m sorry to be a pest, but can you check if Jess Swynkowski has been cast as a princess? The woman had our files right there, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal.

You’ll get your cast assignments after breakfast. We have to keep the line moving. She waved toward a tall, dark-haired guy behind us. Next!

I don’t mind, he said. I can wait.

Rules are rules, she snapped. "And Fairyland has them for a reason, so you kids better get used to that. Now, what’s your last name,