Chris Mitchell (25 page)

Through the window of the Monorail, I could see a small crowd gathered around a wedding party. The bride and groom were standing in front of the Disney Chapel, waiting to get into Cinderella’s horse-drawn carriage. Mickey and Minnie flanked the happy couple. The BGM was “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes.”

I nodded toward the scene. “What would you do differently?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Put the groom in black leather, the bride in barbed wire.”

“Artsy.”

“Or dress them in meringue and hose them down during the vows.” Calico gave a dark chuckle. “What’s the point? They’re doomed anyway.”

Everything went suddenly dark as the Monorail went around a corner and into the Contemporary Hotel. My head ached from the crush of the pressure change. “You’re not going to be a very popular wedding planner.”

Calico’s smile was without joy. “Wedding planners don’t have jets.”

That weekend, I made reservations for us to stay one night at Universal’s Portofino hotel, a five-star resort with spa treatments and gondola service to their theme parks. I told her to take Saturday and Sunday off, but I didn’t tell her why. I wanted it to be a surprise.

It was noon when I rang her doorbell. Check-in time. I smiled to myself, imagining her delight at a mud treatment and body exfoliation. Would she be in a frisky mood or would she be sweet and gentle? Lately, it was kind of a coin toss. I rang the doorbell again and checked my watch. It was 12:05 and clouds were just beginning to darken the sky, so I retreated to my Jeep and left a message on her voice mail. An hour later, I still hadn’t heard from her.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that she might be with her mom. Calico had been there a lot recently, helping her plant new rose bushes in the garden. Her phone didn’t get service at her mom’s house, so I couldn’t call, but I remembered the address. Calico’s mother was wearing gardening gloves and sunglasses, talking on her portable phone when I pulled up.

“So good to see you!” she said when she finished her call.

“Hi, Sandra. How are the roses?”

“Wonderful!” she said. “I just clipped a dozen perfect Dutch Centifolias. Would you like some iced tea?”

“No thanks. I was just looking for Calico.”

“Oh,” Sandra pulled a strand of hair away from her face. “Let’s see, if I remember correctly, she is working today.”

“Really?” I said, chewing on a fingernail. “Because I could’ve sworn she had today off.”

“Well,” she laughed gaily. “I’ve been wrong before. My memory isn’t what it used to be, and we see her so rarely these days.”

“Is that right.”

“I’ve hardly seen her since she got the part as that dog lady.” She pocketed her gardening shears and smiled. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come in and have some iced tea? I’d love to hear what you two have been up to.”

As I sped away from her parents’ house, I could hardly breathe. Nothing made sense. Calico told me she had been over there at least three times in the past week. Either Sandra was in the middle of a full-blown delusion or Calico was lying to me.

What did I really know about my girlfriend? In the few months we had been together, I had learned that she was a Method actress and a box of Godiva could pretty much get me out of anything, but beyond that, it was hard to describe her personality.

Most of the time, Calico was the perfect princess, sensitive and genuinely sweet. She said “please” and “thank you” and blushed when she heard an off-color joke. She called everybody by a pet name, nothing creative, usually “baby” or “honey” worked for people she had just met. For me, she reserved “sweetie” or “sweetheart,” a term of endearment that comforted me because nobody else got that one.

She was vivacious and hungry for experience. If you knew how to say “I’ll have the chicken, please” in Catalan, she wouldn’t let you go until you taught her the exact pronunciation. She commanded attention whenever she spoke and took no more than half an hour to become acquainted with an entire room full of strangers. She was pretty—not cover-girl beautiful, but possessing a very confident aura of sexual awareness. She knew her strengths and didn’t waste time covering her naturally attractive features with makeup—unless she was rehearsing a new part.

There was something else there too. When she talked to you, she made you believe that you were the only guy who understood her and that for the first time in her life, she was baring her soul to a kindred spirit. You got so caught up with the hidden tumultuousness of her life and the secret camaraderie of her confessions that you began to think of yourself as her personal savior, as the
only person in the world
who could offer sanctuary from her tragedies.

The catch was, she had this effect on everybody: the busboy who poured water at her dinner table, the shoe salesman at the outlet mall, the gas station attendant. No encounter was too distant or too brief for her to weave a total stranger into the tapestry of her charms.

I didn’t hear from Calico that night or the next day. At sunset, I drove back over to her apartment and waited. I felt like a stalker, but I didn’t care. I had to know what was going on. I downloaded some phone apps. I switched my ringtone from “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat” to “Be Prepared.” Eventually, her car pulled in to the parking lot. I was standing there when she stepped out.

“Did you get my messages?”

“Oh! Sweetie, you startled me.” She put her hand to her chest and took a couple of breaths.

“I waited for you all day yesterday.”

“I am so sorry. I tried to call you from my mother’s house, but I couldn’t get any signal and—you’re not gonna believe this, but her power line went down, so I couldn’t even call you from her phone.”

“Really?” I fought to keep my voice even. “That’s funny because when I went over there yesterday, the phone was working fine.”

Her lips tightened around her smile. “You saw my mother?”

“She was gardening and making iced tea. She wanted me to tell her about all the things we’ve been doing lately, since she never sees you anymore. What’s going on, Calico?”

Calico’s chin began to tremble, and she put her hand up to her face. Before I could react, she collapsed into her car seat.

“Oh God,” she moaned, her eyes moist with tears. “I can’t do this. It’s just too much.”

“What’s wrong?” I was confused, caught between loving consolation and righteous indignation.

She sniffled and blew her nose. “I don’t know,” she wailed. “I don’t know if I can talk about it yet.”

I had already imagined the worst. She had met someone. She wanted to break up but didn’t know how to tell me. I had had two days of solitude to work it all out in my head and it wasn’t pretty, but not knowing was far worse.

“Try,” I urged.

She took a deep breath and looked up at me through the tears. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

“I have cancer.”

The ten months that I had been hiding out in Orlando did nothing to soften the blow of those words. Ten months of fireworks shows, of following the Rules and providing immediate recovery. I had traveled across the country. I had chased the Disney Dream and caught it by the tail, only to find myself confronted with the very thing I had struggled so hard to escape.

Now, however, I didn’t feel like running.

“Oh Calico.”

“I’m not even thirty.” Her words were barely audible through the sobbing.

“Shhh.” I put my arms around her and told her as many comforting things as I could. I assured her that modern medicine was practically unbeatable. I reminded her about my mom, how she was bravely fighting lymphoma, how if she could confront cancer in her seventies, a healthy twenty-something woman would have no problem. “What kind of cancer is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said between sniffles. “That’s where I was this weekend. I had to spend the night at a hospital in Tampa while they did a biopsy. I should know the results in a couple of weeks.”

I held her close and stroked her hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She wiped her face on my shirt and looked me in the eyes. “As of now, you’re the only other person who knows.”

A silent agreement passed between us. I carried her bags up to her apartment and left her alone to get some rest. She said she would call me if she needed to talk.

The next week, everything was back to normal. We visited each other at work with little gifts and rented romantic comedies. She didn’t mention her illness, so I didn’t push her on the subject, but I wouldn’t let her do her own dishes. And when she pulled out the vacuum cleaner one day, I made her sit down while I vacuumed the carpets. We were redefining our relationship, and I had never been happier.

“H
ow is everything in the Sunshine State?” My father’s voice sounded unfamiliar over the phone.

“Supercalifragilistic, Dad,” I said. “But this hammock’s facing the wrong way and I can’t quite see the sunset.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right.” His tone suggested that he was struggling to align his worldview with a place where hammocks and sunsets weren’t fantastic, imaginary creatures. “Well, I hadn’t heard from you in a while. I just wanted to make sure everything was going well.”

“Yep,” I said. “Things are great.” I felt a chill like a cloud passing in front of the sun. There was a long silence.

“Okay. Well. I guess that’s about it. Feel free to call whenever you like.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Dad!” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

“Yes?”

“How’s Mom doing?”

He took a deep breath, and for the first time, it occurred to me that he was crying. “It’s been a hard week, I’m afraid, not much sleep—not really sleeping at all. But she’s eating a little more now, so that’s good. The thing is though, that, well, she…she decided to stop the treatments. She said she can’t do another one…and I don’t blame her. Not really. They’re awful…they’re just…But Michael says she should continue, just for one or two more. Just one more. But I don’t blame her. And she says if it comes back, she’ll just let it take her.” He sniffed. “Every day, I ask myself what’s the right thing to do.”

Hot tears were streaming down my cheeks. I tried to think of something decent to say, but my whole body was shaking and I was afraid to open my mouth.

He took a deep breath. “We just have to keep our fingers crossed.”

He had opened up to me. Finally, after a year of secrecy, he had broken the silence. “Dad, I’m sorry,” I said through the crying. “I am so, so sorry.” For his pain. For leaving. For not being there at that very moment. We talked for a while longer, and promised to talk again soon.

I hardly slept that night, and the next day, when I clocked in, Orville was quick to pull me aside.

“Take this to the bathroom,” he said, pressing a bottle of Visine into my hand, “And for God’s sake, tuck your shirt in. Today is Thanksgiving, not casual day.”

I stumbled through my photo sets in a daze, mechanically loading and unloading film while my father’s words echoed through my head. He had opened up. After a year of silence, he had dropped the pretension of the game and spoken honestly about my mother’s condition as if I were somebody who could handle the truth. And all I had done was ask the question.

I wasn’t trying to fool myself. I understood that his honesty was less a reflection of my actions and more an indication of his own condition. He had simply reached a critical crossroad in his life, a place where he needed to talk about what he was going through despite decorum or consequences. Still, it was a step. I was worried and terrified and utterly disoriented.

Mom couldn’t quit her treatments, not after coming so far. Michael was in touch with her oncologist—she needed to heed his advice, even if the chemo was rough. Did Mom know something that we didn’t know? Maybe cancer was the kind of illness where you could feel yourself getting better, like a hangover or a sprained ankle. Or maybe she was just giving up.

Many times throughout the day, I made up my mind to move back to LA. But then I would remember Calico, who was scheduled to start chemo treatments later that month. How would I break the news to her? Was it possible to go back to my mother in LA without abandoning my girlfriend in Orlando?

All through the afternoon, as I stood in the character kiosk, snapping pictures of giddy Newlyweds, giggling Japanese girls, and Wish kids, I tried to imagine what my mom looked like, what she was going through, how she felt. Every time an older woman put her arms around Mickey and Minnie, I imagined
her
smile, her courageous eyes. I performed my job with Rule Book aplomb. I put on a Disney face like a big cartoon head, and I smiled and I waved. And when I went to the bathroom or got a drink or left the kiosk between character sets, I walked down a forgotten path behind the hibiscus shrubs, and I wept like a frightened child.

Near the end of the day, Orville showed up at Camp Minnie-Mickey where I was shooting the mice. He was smiling his big onstage smile, but I could see concern crinkling the corners of his eyes as he watched me stumble through my duties. The mouse greeter that day was the elderly gentleman who had been there the day Sunny was kidnapped by the Brazilians. He was as forgetful as ever, picking his nose and admiring hibiscus flowers in the back of the kiosk, but on this day, I didn’t have the energy to cover his job duties. When it was time to switch the mice, Orville announced a cheese break, then pulled me into the back of the kiosk.

“Why don’t you clock out, go home, and get some rest,” he said under his breath. “I’ll finish up the rest of the day here.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him through a forced smile. “I only have an hour left anyway, but thank you. Seriously.”

“Here come Mickey and Minnie!” announced the old greeter, suddenly alert. As he ushered two fresh mice into the kiosk, a pair of Newlyweds rushed forward to receive the holy blessing.

I stepped forward to get their photos, but Orville grabbed my arm. “Keep an eye on those two,” he nodded at the Newlyweds. “They’re Collectors.”

They couldn’t have been more in love, standing there, grinning in their mouse-eared top hat and veil. “Those aren’t Collectors,” I said. “Look at the wedding bands.”

Orville didn’t take his eyes off them as he moved out of the background of my shot. “Everybody smile,” I announced with as much brio as I could muster. “Say Mickey.”

The Newlyweds had their left hands on Mickey’s shoulder, showing off their wedding bands, which I thought looked nice, so I made them pose for a couple of extra photos. Everybody smiled and hugged, and the Newlyweds disappeared out the gate as I reloaded my camera for the next set of guests.

“Oh no, Mickey,” the old greeter said under his breath. “What happened to your wardrobe?”

Sure enough, the sleeve of Mickey’s safari shirt was tattered, a gaping hole where his Camp Minnie-Mickey scout badge used to be. Before I knew what was happening, the elderly greeter shot through the exit gate and was sprinting after the couple.

I handed my camera to Orville and ran after him, dodging greasy children and sweaty parents, vaulting a bench as I narrowly avoided a battalion of wheelchairs, but it was no use. The couple had disappeared into the crowd. I saw the old greeter by the restrooms, leaning against a wall. He was wheezing, a froth of spittle on his chin, his face Jafar red.

“Are you alright?” I asked. “You want to sit down?”

He nodded and sank down on a nearby bench, in the shade of a blooming jacaranda tree. The BGM was “Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah.” “You should get back to the kiosk,” he rasped. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said. I grabbed a Styrofoam cup from a coffee cart and filled it at a water fountain, then ran back to the bench. “Drink this,” I offered.

He took the cup, then froze. He made a few gasps for breath, then looked over at me, and as he did, the color drained out of his cheeks and he smiled. His eyes glazed over and his head rolled back. And then he stopped breathing.

I shouted for help, and slapped his face. I couldn’t believe how cold he was all of a sudden. I had no CPR experience whatsoever, but I had to do something. I knew I had to try to force air into his lungs, so I pounded on his chest. I held his nose and put my mouth over his, trying to push air through his throat. It wasn’t working; I couldn’t find a pulse.

Crowds were beginning to form now, but nobody stepped forward or offered to help, so I kept going. I pushed his body into a lying down position on the bench. As I raised my hands above me to pound his chest again, I was pulled away. Three medics in blue jumpsuits moved in. They quickly set up a stretcher and transferred his limp body onto it, then pushed through the crowd to a Cast Members Only door.

Orville had disappeared from the kiosk, and my camera was nowhere to be found, so I stood in as greeter until a pimply kid came to relieve me. I walked back to the photo lab with my hands in my pockets. The old greeter couldn’t die—not at Disney World. There were statistics. Nobody had ever died here. No way could he be the first.

Marco was the only one in the lab when I arrived. He sneered when he saw me. “Your shirt is untucked,” he said. “That’s at least one reprimand.”

“Fuck you,” I said.

His sneer faded into mortified shock. “Excuse me?”

The little trailer rumbled. The door opened and Orville walked in. “Marco, will you excuse us.” It wasn’t a question.

Marco hissed. “Do you have any idea what he just said to me?”

“Marco!” Orville snapped, then his voice changed. “Honey. Please.” A signal more intimate than workplace camaraderie traveled between them, and Marco left without another word.

I dropped into a chair, and Orville pulled up a seat next to me. The walls of the little lab suddenly felt very close. I was choking on the smell of development chemicals. “You and Marco…?”

“Please. I need to talk to you about what just happened.” Orville removed his spectacles and ran a wide hand down his face. “As I’m sure you know, the character department has a new manager. What you may not know is that she was in Camp Minnie-Mickey today giving her boss a tour when that whole scenario went down. As I’m sure you can imagine, they weren’t pleased that one of my photographers was assaulting an old man in the middle of the character kiosks.”

“Assaulting him? I was trying to save him.”

“That’s not what it looked like,” he scowled. “To the children in the park, it looked like you were beating and kissing him, and that is very difficult to explain to a child.”

“No, it’s not, Orville.” I was fighting an impossibly strong current, and I had no hope of winning, but I had to put up a struggle. “Tell them I was doing my best—”

“A Cast Member may never
ever
perform a medical operation onstage.” His voice swelled. “Do you remember Guest Guideline 6? Preserve the Magical Experience! And let me tell you about that experience. Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on a spindle and fell
asleep;
Snow White ate a poisoned apple and fell
asleep.
As far as they know, that man fell asleep too, until you started in.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Plus, the medics were right behind you!” he shouted. “Now, I’m going to have to provide a lot of immediate recovery. A LOT!” He leaned back in his chair and put his spectacles back on. “I’m sorry. There are just some things that are out of my control…. You understand what I’m saying, right?” The collar of his khaki shirt was dark with sweat and one of his shoelaces was untied, but still he was a Disney Cast Member with management responsibilities.

When a wave crashes over you, and you’re being tumbled under hundreds of gallons of water, your immediate instinct is to struggle against the forces holding you down, to fight your way to the surface where there is air to breathe and a board to keep you afloat, and to prepare, most likely, for another wave coming. But your instinct is wrong. In this situation, you don’t know which way is up, and all the struggling in the world will only wear you out. You have to relax and let the wave take its course. Eventually, the water will settle and you will rise to the top.

“How did you know they were Collectors?”

Normally, he would have delighted in the clever chain of deduction that led him to his discovery, but on this day, there was no mirth in his eyes. “The wedding rings,” he said. “They’re replicas from the Haunted Mansion…. One from here, one from Paris.”

I unclipped my nametag, and set it on the counter next to the cameras. “What happened to the old greeter?”

Orville shook his head and lowered his eyes. One two three. But he didn’t say anything.

There was nothing more to do. For the last time, I clocked out and crossed the Cast Member parking lot. My Jeep was unbearably hot, but I sat inside, sweating, trying to process everything that had just happened. I was no longer a Disney Cast Member, no longer a part of the Magical Machine. And what about the old greeter? The unthinkable had happened; I had watched a man die at Disney World. I vowed to watch the news for details of this momentous story.

By the time I pulled in to the Disney Ghetto, it was dark, and the moon was just peeking over the treetops. I was exhausted, emotionally drained, and dirty. I wanted a shower and a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.

The apartment was blazing hot, pounding with the overproduced rhythms of some boy band phenomenon. Every light in the place was on, including the floor light from my bedroom, which had been angled over the bar and draped with red silk. And there, standing on a chair, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a backward Jeff Gordon racing cap, was my roommate, Johnny. He was pointing a disposable instamatic camera at a pile of young men who were writhing around on the kitchen floor, completely naked save a headband, a plate of French toast, five stuffed tigers, and a pirate flag, in no particular order.

“Hey!” came a startled shout from the linoleum. “Shut the fuckin’ door!”

Johnny stepped down from the chair. “Hi, roomie. You’re just in time. Ah want you to meet Boy Banned.” He ran through a roll call of names and then presented me. Sure enough, Jazz was right in the middle of the stack, the pirate flag draped casually over his thighs.

“Johnny,” Jazz pouted. “Can we keep this moving please? We still have to do individual head shots, and I have a thing.”

“Ah’m out of film in this one.” Johnny shook the little instamatic as if it were an empty light bulb. “So, like, take five, kids,”

As Boy Banned stood up and stretched, I kept firm eye contact with my roommate, who appeared to be in charge here and who, not incidentally, was the only guy in the room besides myself wearing at least a couple items of clothing.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Johnny’s eyes were rheumy with Scotch. “Guess what. We recorded our first single today. “Love Is a Four-Letter Word.” It’s a bit rough, but—you wanna hear it?”