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It was Lexi who had come to my rescue. She had approached me at recess, where I stood alone, not knowing what to do, and said, “Do you love Chase Covington? Because I love Chase Covington more than anything in the world, and if you love him, too, we’re going to be best friends.”
“No,” she said, her teeth slightly chattering. “He has to get the full effect. I want him to see me like this. He can’t fall in love with me if I’m all covered up.” It was not the time to have the love-versus-lust conversation with her again. “Unless he has a Smurf fetish, he’s not going to think your blue skin is attractive.”
“I will tell him all about you. Maybe I can get him to come out here! Love you!” Without further hesitation Lexi went through the gate, and the guard locked it behind her. I watched until they’d entered the building, then decided to wait for her in my car. I turned it on, running the heater and wondering what was happening. Obviously I was disappointed, but if it couldn’t happen for me, I was glad it was finally happening for Lexi.
And all the gushing ones about how much I loved him.
It’s a good thing we were at a stoplight, because I slammed my brakes. Hard. That must have been the link he’d clicked on to find my name. I had linked to an article about a bowling fund-raiser that I’d helped organize for the Foundation. I could see how it would have caught his eye, because he’d spoken out repeatedly about our need to protect marine life. It was his pet cause. I’d never quite been able to figure out if I came by my love of the sea naturally because of where I grew up, or if I loved it because Chase loved it.
She leaned her seat back as far as it would go. “Not yet. But I have time now, right? My heart was pumping so hard. You don’t even understand. He was even better-looking in person. I am seriously in love.”
I was a font of useless information. The only thing that had ever rivaled my Chase obsession was my love of all things trivia. Trivial Pursuit games ended with me drinking the tears of my fellow players and leaving a trail of their bloodied hearts all over the board. After my grandparents left the Amish in Pennsylvania and moved out to California, one of the first things they bought was a TV. When I lived with them decades later, they still had that same television. The only program they ever watched was Jeopardy!, and I remember sitting on their uncomfortable couch in between them as they
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And how do you say to your best friend, “Hey, know that famous star you’ve been in love with and dreaming about since you were nine? Yeah, he likes me and not you.” I didn’t want to hurt her. And I didn’t want her to feel like I had somehow betrayed her or the Girl Code.
I somehow managed to get all their hands washed and everyone sitting at the table and eating in a reasonable amount of time. Zane was obsessed with superheroes and had on his Spider-Man costume. I convinced him it was okay to take off his gloves and remove his mask in order to eat. Zia happily got more of the mac and cheese on her face than in her mouth, Zander was more interested in his iPad than eating, and Zelda kept trying to give noodles to Mr. Wriggles, her purple panda.
“I love you, too.” I sighed, carrying her at arm’s length into the bathroom. I got her cleaned and rinsed and in her pajamas fairly quickly, but it wasn’t quickly enough.
“My four-year-old sister barfed on me. She got into some chocolate chips. Which she’s kind of allergic to. Leaving me with this lovely candy-coated shell.” Great. Another watermelon-carrying moment. He hadn’t asked, but I had to overshare.
The knowing look in Chase’s eyes made my cheeks turn pink. “Yes, I heard about your great love for Captain Sparta. How you were telling them all about him earlier.”
Chase laughed, that same real laugh, and I felt it in the lower part of my stomach. “I love that you know random stuff like that.”
“It was on those forms you filled out for One-F.” Right. I’d had to provide previous addresses and emergency contacts. He could have put two and two together. That seemed like a lot of effort, though. He must have really loved that tuxedo.
“I’d love some water.”
One-F must have put me on a list. “I have directions on my phone. Thanks.” I considered telling him how much I loved him in Guardians of the Galaxy but decided against it.
I definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I mean, I loved my quaint beach town, but this was like another universe.
“I get that. My mom wants me to watch her show, but I’m not up for scouring my retinas after I see her in a love scene.” Chase’s mother was the star of a long-running daytime soap opera, one of the last few still left on the air. She’d joined the show as a teenager and had been the star ever since. Her character was never without romance and a leading man.
I had a momentary fantasy of standing up to announce that Chase Covington would also be attending, since I totally knew him and we might even be dating. In part because I’d never liked Francisco and would have loved to steal his thunder, but also because it would have been nice to let Noah know I had done so much better and I didn’t care if he ghosted me.
“Just to let you know, I’m a little concerned about Zane. He’s been talking about how Captain Sparta is his new best friend. And Zia won’t stop talking about how much she loves cheese.”
“I’ll get it later!” I called over my shoulder. Translation? I don’t trust myself to behave right now, and I’d rather not permanently traumatize my younger siblings. In fact, at this moment I would love to dig a deep hole in the sand, bury myself in it, and not come out until I can learn to control my reaction to you.
Lexi left me daily notes about her love for Chase Covington, but that wasn’t pertinent to the story.
“In the notes, he said all the things he loved about me. How beautiful I was, how smart and nice, and at first I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke, but after a while it felt real, and I looked forward every day to a new note. I remember watching the boys in my class, trying to guess who it was. To see if anyone would sneak glances at me or give me a secretive smile. Something that would indicate who was responsible. It didn’t happen.”
We got everybody situated at the table, and I wrapped the cones for the two youngest kids in enough napkins to soak up an oil spill. Chase seemed completely entertained by how much the kids loved their ice cream.
As we watched them play, some joggers ran past us on the boardwalk. “I used to love running on the beach. I miss it.”
I suddenly flashed to the part in his most recent rom-com where he thanked his love interest after a date. When she’d asked why, he said, “For the kiss.” Only he’d never kissed her.
He pointed to a cabinet next to his stove. I set the oven to 350 degrees. I admit it took me a few minutes to figure it out because it had more buttons and dials than NASA’s Mission Control Center. I quickly found cinnamon, and it surprised me when I found cloves as well. “I can’t believe you have cloves.”
“The point is to see if we like each other. What we have right here is supposed to be about having fun and getting to know someone. Maybe even falling in love. And we can experience intimacy that has nothing to do with the physical. It’s about you and I feeling safe enough to be open and vulnerable with each other. Being honest and sharing pieces of ourselves. That’s what I’m looking for right now. Someone I can connect with on a different level than I have in the past. I’m still in.”
I used the spatula to take two cookies off the sheet, and I put them on the counter so I could eat them. “They were. My grandmother loved to learn, but once Amish kids turn fourteen, they don’t go to school anymore. She asked to go to a regular school, but her parents didn’t want her to fill her head with English ideas. They wanted her to meet a boy and get married. But the boy who caught her eye was Zev Miller, the son of her family’s sworn enemies. I don’t remember what the feud was about. Like, stolen cows or something. He liked her, too, but Hannah Yoder was off-limits.”
This was probably what it was like to date a chef and have him say, “You choose the restaurant.” I didn’t want to pick one of his, because that would be weird, right? And I didn’t want to go total romantic comedy on him, because even though I loved them and thought we were in a place where romance was a possibility, nothing was happening. Did I pick a stuff-blowing-up movie? Depressing one with subtitles? Sci-fi? Fantasy? What if I selected something he thought was terrible and it totally changed his opinion of me?
I felt slightly pathetic that I was so easily swayed. I used the speech-to-text feature on my phone to reply. Without hesitation, I replied:
Then we were in Anaheim, and I could see Space Mountain, and suddenly I was six years old again, going to Disneyland for the first time with my grandparents.
“You’re going to love this. Come on.”
We were in a dim hallway, and I saw a light up ahead. When we reached it, I was hit by the smell of seawater and realized we were in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We were at the beginning, where the old man in the rocking chair plays his banjo across from the Blue Bayou restaurant just after you’ve boarded. The tunnel we were in ran along the top of the banjo player’s cabin. Patrons were eating and laughing while boats carrying guests launched beneath us. I wondered if people could see us up here. If they would wonder who we were.
“Since we’re here, Pirates and then Haunted Mansion. And then Small World.” Then the best thing in the entire world happened. Braden walked us onto Pirates of the Caribbean. I’d had this brief moment after we arrived where I’d worried about what would happen if Chase waited in line, but now I realized why we had Braden. Because Chase would get mobbed if people recognized him and he stayed in one place for too long.
Deciding to get out in front of my roller-coaster phobia, I explained to Chase that I didn’t like the drops on Pirates. I was a serious wuss when it came to fast rides and big drops. When Lexi and I went to Grad Night (once a year, high school seniors go to Disneyland after it closes and spend the whole night), everybody wanted to be on Splash Mountain, the Matterhorn, and Space Mountain. And they’d thought those rides were tame. I could force myself to go on them, but I closed my eyes and didn’t like them, which Chase seemed to find amusing. But rides like Pirates? This was what I loved about
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Having been to Disneyland at least twice a year for the past sixteen years, I thought I knew everything there was to know, see, and do in the park. I found out very quickly how wrong my perception was. When we got to the Haunted Mansion, Braden took us around back to show us a pet cemetery I’d never known existed. We also got death certificates when we finished the ride that said, “I survived the Haunted Mansion.”
When we rode on It’s a Small World, I told Chase about when Lexi and I had gone on the ride on Grad Night. Since it’s considered a kid’s ride, we were the only ones in line and literally had the place to ourselves. Lexi got out of the boat several times to dance with the animated dolls. At one point she messed around for so long that she missed our boat. She’d had to jump in one behind me, hop over the rows, and climb across the boats until she got back to where I was. I didn’t have the guts to run amok like she did, but I was thoroughly convinced that when we got to the end of the ride, we
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I considered it when we were given a ride on a private train car called the Lilly Belle, named after Walt Disney’s wife. Braden said she had helped design the car, and it remained just as she’d decorated it. The inside was full of dark hardwoods, red plush armchairs, and Victorian end tables and lamps. It was totally closed in, unlike the other cars, which were open on all sides. It was a nice break, but we couldn’t say or do anything because we weren’t alone. There were some other people with guides dressed similarly to Braden, and Chase’s distinctive voice would have given him away. As it
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We went up Main Street USA and slowed down once we reached the Sleeping Beauty Castle. I veered off to the right, over to the Snow White Grotto. It was an area that people usually just passed through, but it had special meaning to my family.
“Yep. They were right here at this wishing well, watching the swans in the moat and listening to the Snow White music. Duncan was kind of goofy. He dramatically pointed to the castle and said, ‘Oh, Zerah, will you come live with me in my castle?’ Keep in mind it was only their fourth date. So my mother decided to screw with him and stayed silent for a second, then very seriously answered, ‘Yes, I will.’ Which freaked Duncan out, although he tried to keep his cool. But instead of scaring him off, it changed things between them, and they went from being casual to seriously dating.”
When I mentioned I liked the Mark Twain riverboat, Braden, who had wisely hung back during our exchange, told us to follow him.
“Anybody can hire a VIP tour guide. Some celebrities choose to; some don’t. We recommend that they do because it makes it easier on everyone. A celebrity sighting can really gum up the works for foot traffic in specific areas.” Despite the fact that we’d been walking around for hours, Braden remained relentlessly upbeat and professional and knew more about Disneyland than anyone I’d ever met. Like how the purple-flowered teacup on the Mad Tea Party ride spun the fastest. A fact I could now personally attest to, given that I’d nearly puked afterward.
“That puts you in charge of the bell and whistle,” the captain told him. She instructed him to ring the bell four times, pull the whistle for five seconds, and then ring the bell again to let the boiler engineer below deck know we were setting off. Chase asked her questions about the other boats in the water, and she told him about their system to slow down or reverse if necessary. I loved how interested he was in everything. Like the whole world just fascinated him. When she mentioned the steamboat being on a track, I realized my steering was largely ceremonial, but I was okay with that.
“The maiden voyage of the Mark Twain was on July 13, 1955. It was four days before the official opening because there was a private party to celebrate Walt and Lillian Disney’s thirtieth wedding anniversary. Story goes that Disneyland’s construction supervisor found Mrs. Disney sweeping the decks before the party, and he helped her out.”
He sounded . . . proud of me. Which made my pulse dance. “Obviously not about Disneyland.”
“Zoe, that’s Splash Mountain. I know what you said about rides like that, but it’s my favorite. Would you go on it with me?”
I got another certificate from the captain, but all I could think about was what I had just agreed to. And before I knew it, we were settling into the Splash Mountain canoes. Which had no seat belts and no straps of any kind. Chase asked if I wanted to sit in the front and laughed when I violently shook my head. The ride operators asked us to put away anything that could fly off—hats, sunglasses, etc. Braden promised to meet us at the exit.
“You have nothing to apologize for. That’s not what I meant. None of this was your fault, either.” Having composed himself, Chase pushed off the wall. “I probably need to buy a new shirt, but do you want to head over to California Adventure?” That was the Disney park directly across from the Magic Kingdom. My phone started beeping frantically. I had forgotten I had set up a Google Alert with Chase’s name. It sent me link after link of pictures and posts on social media about how he was at Disneyland. Everyone in the world knew where he was right then. He wouldn’t be able to keep a low profile
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“It’s not weird. I do that, too. But I almost died watching Finding Nemo.”
