We exchanged stares, and I saw this wasn’t a prank. RJ was being totally straight. He really was outraged by the 1,001 project, and he really wanted the plans that were currently burning a hole in my bag.
Every breath you take . . .
I shuddered and snatched my phone.
“Where are you, Zoe? This is embarrassing.” The Queen was beyond peeved.
“Coming!” I slid the phone to Off. “RJ, I’ve got to—”
He took the phone out of my hand and started inputting numbers. “Here,” he said, handing it back to me. “This is the number to my secret cell phone. If you change your mind, call me, and I’ll take care of everything.”
I gaped at what he’d done. “I can’t believe you just did that. Do you know what will happen if the Queen sees this? She’ll stroke out.” I tried deleting it but couldn’t. RJ must have locked it somehow.
“The Queen is not your friend, Zoe.”
“Uh-huh.” I started riffling through my bag looking for a hairbrush or lip gloss. If RJ wasn’t going to let me pass, then at least I could make myself presentable until he did. “The Queen might not be my friend, but she’s treated me just fine. Look, as a favor to me, she made Jess a princess!”
RJ chuckled knowingly. “As if that matters. To the Queen, Jess is a joke, and so are you—except that you’re a joke who does her bidding, which is why she keeps you on. When you’re gone she laughs behind your back at how she can make you do anything she wants with just the snap of her fingers.”
I slapped my hands over my ears, wishing he would quit saying all these nasty things. The Queen was a tough customer, sure, but deep down I liked to believe she had a good soul.
“She wants you to think that you’re in the running for the Dream and Do, but that’s a lie,” RJ continued. “She knew from the get-go who was going to win. . . .”
I quit brushing. “Dash and Valerie?”
He nodded. “Dash and Valerie have been bred for Fairyland corporate since they were children. They’re out for themselves, and they don’t give a damn about who they have to step on to get ahead. Not like you, Zoe. You look out for Jess, and Jess loves you. It’s touching, your relationship. That’s why you two don’t stand a chance. You guys are too soft.”
It can’t be true, I thought, so unnerved that I was getting a headache. I didn’t even hear my phone blaring “Every Breath You Take” over and over again until RJ plucked it out of my hand and put it on mute.
“Look, as soon as I have that report, I’ll call the Mouse, and within an hour a limo will arrive to whisk you away from here. You and Jess will be compensated with double the Dream and Do money so that Jess can go to college and you can pay off your mom’s medical bills. In the process you’ll have saved a precious part of the Pinelands for generations of wildlife to come, while sending a message to Fairyland and the Queen that they can take their corporate mind games and shove ’em.”
He handed me back the phone. It felt cold and hard and, suddenly, powerful.
“It’s the right thing to do,” RJ said softly. “And you, Zoe Kiefer, are the right person to do it.”
Twenty-five
The Queen greeted me with her warmest smile yet. “Ah, here is my loyal assistant,” she announced as I rushed from the elevator to where the group was assembled.
She slid an arm around my shoulder, and I felt repulsed.
She laughs behind your back at how she can make you do anything she wants with just the snap of her fingers.
Those words kept playing over and over in my mind like a bad Billy Joel song in the mall. My headache was growing worse.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I mumbled. “I was held up.”
“We’ll discuss it later,” she murmured out of the side of her mouth. “Meanwhile, Zoe, I’d like you to meet our two most special guests.” She cleared her throat as a reminder that I was under no circumstances to use Sage’s real name in public. “This is Michelle.”
Michelle, who was on her cell, was a rather frumpy woman with brassy, red corkscrew hair who’d made the unfortunate choice to wear all black on this sweltering day. She waved a finger and rudely kept on talking.
“And this,” the Queen said, directing me to a guy in aviator sunglasses, a Phillies baseball cap, black T-shirt, super-skinny jeans, and his signature red-and-black-striped scarf that he’d worn during every one of his American Idol appearances, “is our VIP.”
Sage Adams. The Sage Adams. Even though I was not a fan, I couldn’t help but be so starstruck that all the horrible things RJ had said about Fairyland faded away.
He took my hand and in a super-sexy voice said, “I’m Sage. You are?”
“You’re not supposed to say,” I blurted out.
He tilted his head. “Now that’s an interesting name. I thought you’d be more like a Jane or an Ashley. . . .”
“Zoe.” God. What was wrong with me? Get a grip. “My name is Zoe, but we’re not supposed to say yours.”
“Ah, yes.” He dropped my hand and thumbed toward Michelle. “That would be Mother’s suggestion.”
So Michelle was his mother, and from the looks of her, a holy terror. She and the Queen probably got along like peas in a pod.
“Shall we proceed?” the Queen suggested. “Don’t keep them out long, Zoe. It’s a hot day, and I’m sure our VIPs would like to enjoy all the amenities of our fine resort after such a spectacular performance last night in . . . Where was it again?”
Sage said, “Boise. Boise, Idaho.” He grinned. “Potatoes, you know.”
And despite the Queen’s disapproving glare, I giggled. Well, she’d only be laughing at me later, I decided. Who cares?
Sage, Michelle, and I headed out into the bright light, and I knew without asking that guests were noticing our odd troupe. Sage—in his “celebrity casual” outfit of hat and sunglasses and the telltale red-and-black wool scarf—would be a paparazzi magnet while Michelle, whose hair in the sunlight shone a brilliant orange, huffed and barked orders into her cell.
Sweat began to bead between my shoulder blades even though I was wearing the equivalent of cotton Kleenex. I headed toward the Haunted Forest, where it was shadier.
“I thought we’d start off with the underground roller coaster in the Seven Dwarfs’ Mine and end on Mr. Toad’s Wild Slide,” I said, though I doubted Sage had brought his swimsuit.
“This is inexcusable,” Michelle crowed behind us. “I will not agree to those terms.”
I thought she was referring to the tour and was relieved to find she was yelling at someone on her phone. Valerie and Dash strolled by in costume holding hands. I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in Valerie’s eyes when she saw Sage in his scarf. If not recognition, then an instinctual awareness that he was someone different and that I, in my civilian clothes, was different, too.
“Do you know them?” Sage asked.
“Of course. There are only forty of us in the program.”
Sage went, “Hmm. Lots of drama?”
I thought I wasn’t supposed to be conversing, but I said anyway, “You have no idea.”
He laughed.
We got to the Seven Dwarfs’ Mine, where I flashed my badge and moved Sage to the front of the line. Several people who’d been waiting for probably more than a half hour grumbled, and I had to placate them with coupons for free ice cream. Sage stepped to the first cart, and Gary, a troll on duty, reminded him to remove the scarf.
“But then my head will fall off,” Sage quipped.
I should have told him that trolls were not exactly famous for their humor. “You’ll be a guy strung up by his neck if you don’t give me that scarf,” the troll said.
Sage gave him a salute and unwrapped the scarf.
I’d forgotten how scary that ride was, especially with all the flashing lights and sudden drops. My stomach, already in turmoil from my run-ins with Dash and RJ, didn’t appreciate the upside-down parts, either. But when I looked over to Sage, I found him with his chin in his chest,
asleep. He woke only at the end, when the train surfaced to arrive at Snow White’s Cottage.
“My. That was thrilling.” He yawned.
I said, “You’re pretty tired, aren’t you?”
“After performing in twenty cities in as many days, you’d be, too.”
I guess I hadn’t thought that being famous would be grueling. It seemed like so much fun. All the attention, the photographers, the clothes, and the parties. But here was Sage practically sleepwalking, and I was half tempted to tell him to forget the tour and just go back to the hotel room.
Michelle was waiting on the platform, still on her phone. “It’s a matter of the right branding,” she barked. “The question is: Do we want Sage associated with a theme park that has seen better days?”
Yowza!
“I think this is a fine little theme park,” Sage said, by way of apology. “I wish I could live here.”
His condescending tone rubbed me so wrong that, despite my current lack of Wow!™ spirit, I ruffled in defense. “Actually it’s a pretty cool place.”
Sage smiled thinly. “I’m sure it is, if you say so.”
A couple of witches jumped out at us from trees, and Sage duly pretended to be scared. We passed Hansel and Gretel’s Candy Cottage, where we broke off candy from the fence and watched Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.
“I don’t get why the Wolf is carrying a purse,” Sage said.
“Because he’s a grandmother.”
“Yeah, but he’s in a nightgown. And how come he’s in heels?”
I started to laugh, but Michelle poked my back. “Not so close,” she hissed. “My client needs his space.”
I could see Sage roll his eyes beneath his aviators. I took a couple of steps to the right just to be polite, but Sage whispered, “Don’t listen to her. I call the shots.”
I snuck a glance at Michelle, all puffed up over being a big shot in the entertainment world, and felt vague disgust for the way she was exploiting her son. Before Sage’s American Idol success, Michelle had probably been one of those stage moms dragging him from audition to audition, and now that he’d won some success she was determined to cash in on every last bit of his fame.
Just then Ian galloped across the green and leaped from his horse to come to Red Riding Hood’s rescue. Seeing me with Sage, he cocked his head in curiosity and then recited his standard line: “Is there a problem, good maidens?”
“Who is that?” Sage asked.
“Ian Davidson,” I said levelly. “He’s one of the Prince Charmings.”
“No kidding.” Sage waited a beat. “I can tell he’s charmed you.”
My cheeks went hot, and I reminded myself to be professional. “We’re friends.”
“If I were Prince Charming, I’d be your friend, too,” he said, loud enough for his mother to hear. He slid an arm around me and winked.
I knew he just wanted to piss off Michelle, which was why I didn’t shrug him off, though I wished I had, because at that moment he pushed it too far, planting his lips firmly on mine . . .
. . . right in front of Ian.
It all happened so fast, yet in slow motion, too. There was Sage with his arm around me, moving in for a kiss, and then there was Ian gaping at us in disbelief.
I pushed Sage away. “Not funny.”
Michelle got off her phone. “How dare you!”
“It was nothing,” said Sage, though I couldn’t tell if he was referring to his kiss or my push.
Ian glared at Sage. For all Ian knew, Sage was an old boyfriend, and that’s why I was in civilian clothes. He had no idea that Sage was a celebrity VIP and that I was just doing my job.
Completely stepping out of character, Ian left the Red Riding Hood set, dismounted his horse, and strode toward us. “Something you forgot to tell me, Zoe?” he asked angrily, giving Sage a dirty look.
Sage bowed. “If I have offended thy good prince by kissing his fair wench, then I apologize.”
I winced. Cinderella’s Prince Charming was only supposed to have one wench—Cinderella—and I prayed no kid had been close enough to hear. Fortunately, Jess was working in the park and, having caught wind of the growing tension, had moved swiftly across Fiddler’s Green to my rescue.
As were Dash and Valerie, who was whispering excitedly, probably because she’d recognized Sage. Dash, meanwhile, was grinning and not in a good way. It was the same evil grin he got when Ian kissed me.
What happened next took, at most, ten seconds, but it seemed like hours as everything exploded when I said to Ian, “He’s just a friend.”
Ian said sarcastically, “I can see that.”
Jess arrived breathless, right when Sage whipped off his sunglasses. She would have blurted, “Oh my god! You’re Sage Adams!” if I hadn’t given her the Look.
“We’re on Fairyland business,” I said, under my breath. “On the down low.”
Michelle got off her phone. “What’s going on here?”
Dash unhooked himself from the gawking Valerie and slapped Ian on the back. “Don’t take it so hard, bro. You’re not the only one to get screwed over by Zoe. She hooks up with every guy here.”
If Ian hadn’t swung around and socked him in the jaw, I would have. All it took was one hard blow from Ian’s fist and Dash teetered backward like a Weeble and went down for the count, a Prince Charming in his noble navy coat laid out on the green. The trolls came running, along with Karl in his wolf costume.
Valerie screamed. Sage said, “Wow! Impressive,” while Jess cursed, “You freaking liar!” and gave Dash a kick with her faux glass slipper.
Michelle yanked me to her side and tore off her sunglasses to reveal beady eyes rimmed in bloodred. “You have just totally blown it, Lady-in-Waiting. Take me to the front office, so I can personally inform your boss that this deal is dead.”
Twenty-six
I was fired.
“The facts are indisputable. You allowed a situation to get out of control, and because of that we lost the opportunity to sign on Sage Adams as our spokesman.” The Queen reclined in her chair and petted Tinker Bell, who was snuggling in her lap. I expected they would both be looking for new quarters after this summer, since Her Majesty’s long tenure as overseer of Fairyland had ended with Ian’s single punch.
“You have displayed a shocking lack of Wow! spirit.”
That really got to me, even though I’d been telling myself nothing mattered, that the Queen thought I was a simpering lackey for whom she had no respect. The sad truth was that I had come to like the Queen. Not in a cozy, best-friend way, but in the way you’d appreciate a chemistry teacher who’s been hard on you all year and, as a result, you ace the AP chem exam because you really do understand covalent bonds.
“There are steps that must be taken,” she said, placing Tinker Bell back on her doggy bed. “Though Michelle has made it evident that no contract will be in the offing, simple courtesy, Zoe, requires you to appear at Mr. Adams’s room with an apology and an explanation.”
I failed to see how this was entirely my fault. If anything, competition for the Dream and Do grant was to blame, since it brought out the worst in us. Ian wasn’t a violent guy, and maybe, in another setting, Dash wasn’t a total jerk. I certainly wasn’t the type to play two guys off each other at once, and if Jess had ever kicked, punched, or in any way physically harmed anyone before, it was news to me.
Still, because I’d been so well-trained, I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Then you are to return to your room, pack your bags, and make arrangements to be transported to the bus station tomorrow morning, which is when you will also relinquish your master key and the telephonic device that I have trustingly placed in your possession.”
The phone was in the pocket of my dress with RJ’s number just begging to be pressed. Once the Queen was finished with me, I could use it to call him and tell him to get the PUD:1,001 progress report that was still in my bag, since I’d been too busy with Sage and his mother to deliver it to the Q
ueen. How sweet would it be to pull out of Fairyland fifty thousand dollars richer in a big black stretch limousine?
So long, suckers!
I said, “Yes, ma’am. I will pack, make arrangements for the bus, and turn over the key and phone tomorrow.”
“I may still require your services in the interim.”
I nodded.
She flicked me off with her fingers. “Be gone.”
The door slid open, and I was excused. Evelyn at her desk regarded me over her half glasses. “I’m so sorry it ended this way, Zoe.”
“So am I.” What else was there to say? Everything I’d worked so hard for—including Jess’s role as Cinderella—was a total bust.
I headed for the resort and to room 505. My only hope was that Michelle was out, because she was the last person I wanted to face. What a horrid, horrid woman.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. “It’s me, Zoe. Your escort.”
I waited as someone came to the door. When it opened I was relieved to see it was Sage in a gray T-shirt and jeans. Reading my mind, he said, “Don’t worry. She’s not here. Come in.”
He waved me in, and I stepped inside feeling slightly nervous. After his performance in the park, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
“My apologies.” He clapped his hands together prayerfully. “I was trying to annoy my mother and, unfortunately, other people were harmed.”
I appreciated the sentiment, even if it was too late and directed at the wrong person. “Actually I was sent here to apologize to you.”
Sage shook his head and sighed. “Adults. I mean, what can you say?”
I smiled as he opened the fridge that I had personally stocked with all sorts of expensive water and organic fruit juices to see he’d slipped in two Cokes. Cracking one open, he handed it to me sheepishly. “All that other stuff’s for show. I’m a total sugar addict.”
We moved over to the table by the window that, incidentally, Sage had opened, despite the threat of paparazzi. I didn’t really know what my role was here. I’d apologized. I’d been fired. I was done.
How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True Page 17
