Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar (36 page)

“Yesssss!” Sal says, under her breath, dipping her corn dog into the little container of ketchup. Out of the corner of my eye, I see some dubious-looking fortysomething guy standing alone against the facade of a building, watching her as she eats her corn dog. I decide to put my fear of creepy molesters to bed for the rest of the day. Even if I continue to check bathroom stalls before allowing my kids to enter them, I will NOT let myself worry about weirdo single men in the Happiest Place on Earth, not today.

“Sal?” I say. “Turn around and face the castle when you take a bite of corn dog. I heard it's good luck.”

The crowd throughout Disneyland is thick and 85 percent gross. You have the locals (deadpan), the socks-and-sandals crew (Europeans), and the people dressed like they just walked off the set of
Roseanne
(small-town Americans and Canadians). Our group is the “normals,” which makes up, perhaps, 15 percent of the herd. Of course that 15 percent can then be divided further into different subsets: overprotective parents, neglectful parents, teens on dates, adults on dates. It's just a LOT of people. We can't even get into the ticket area for the Indiana Jones fast passes without waiting in a line.

“I'll stand over here with Bea while you get the passes,” James says, a continuing absence of Disneyland excitement in his voice.

“James, you should totally go on this ride with them, though. Indiana Jones is, like, meant for you. I'll stay with Bea.”

“I don't want to do any rides.” Crowd stress is really fucking ruining this for him.

“I don't want any rides either,” Bea says, putting her hands on her hips briefly before taking James's hand again. “Dad and I are just gonna check stuff out and find Belle.”

“Let's get on the ride!” Henry shouts, taking the final bites of his second corn dog and punching his fist in the air.

“We can't—look!” Sal points to the sign saying that the wait for the ride is thirty minutes. “We're getting the fast passes, so we can skip the line later.”

“I'll be over there.” James points to a wall.

“Dad and I will be over there!” Bea says, dragging James off through the crowd.

I pull out a bottle of water. “Here, Henry, stop punching the air and drink.”

Henry pulls his fists in, loses the goofy smile, and shoots me his “Oh my God, Mom” squinty eyes. “Mom, I JUST DRANK.”

“You're never thirsty. If I listened when you say you have no thirst, you'd be dead ten times over.”

He grabs the bottle, takes a tiny sip, and our line moves forward.

I print out three fast passes from the machine. “Okay, let's go to the front of the line!” Henry punches the air again.

“Oh my God!” Sal spins around, a full spin on one foot. God, I miss involuntarily spinning around like an idiot. “Henry, the pass is for later,” she clucks. “We come back to get on the ride, we get to skip the line—then and then only.” Sal knows what a fast pass is. Like me, she's a researcher. She's my Cliff Clavin when I'm too lazy to deal. She's constantly schooling us with facts:

•   
“Did you know that palm trees aren't native to California?”

•   
“Did you that
Cali
means ‘hot' and
fornia
means ‘oven'?
California
means ‘hot oven.' ”

•   
“The orange scent on Disney's Main Street? They pump it into the air.”

“Hen, we have to come back at eleven
A.M.
That's when these passes get us in. We'll come back then and go right to the front of the line.” We all walk to the middle of the park, not really knowing what to do next. Unlike families with ride missions and preplanned outfits and preparedness, we've found our way into this like we always do: by winging it.

Looking around, it seems like the most popular ride at Disneyland today is obese ten-year-olds riding in strollers. At times, the crunch sound of kids pushing candy and dry cereal out of Tupperware containers and into their mouths is louder than the Disney theme music coming out of hidden speakers. Adults leaning on benches throw back cups of cola as big as toilet bowls.

“Okay, James, I have a plan.” I do have a plan, but James is focused on someone else's child, who's chasing a duckling that's following its duck mother. The child is about to catch it, and the happy parents are recording the whole thing.

“Hey!” James shouts, expressionless. The family looks at him. “If he catches that duckling, the mother will abandon it. So your kid may as well step on it too.” James loves helping people.

He turns to me. “What's the plan?”

“Okay. If you don't want to go on any rides, I'll take Henry and Sal to Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted House. You can take Bea to Fantasyland. I'm sure you'll find a ride to go on.”

He nods. “Hey, Henry, you okay?”

Henry is holding his stomach. He nods, then lets out a huge burp. “Now I'm totally fine.”

Twenty minutes later:

“Mom, I'm going to puke.”

In the darkness of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, I can see Henry's glassy puppy-dog eyes. I've seen those eyes before. Henry vomits, a lot. At every party, every movie, everywhere he should be having a good time, he manages to vomit. I should have brought a bag.

“I don't have anything for you to puke in,” I whisper, rubbing his back. “Lean over the side.” Thankfully, with all his puking experience, he's gotten pretty professional about it. Never any noise or crying. It's 100 percent business. Also, it helps matters that we're in the back row of the boat and it's fairly dark. He leans over. I see his back heave a couple of times.

“Is Henry puking again?” Sal asks. “He really needed to puke at Disneyland. It's pretty much his destiny.”

Henry sits back up. “She's right.”

“Those corn dogs really were magical.” I pass him a hand wipe for his face and give him his water bottle. “You're gonna be totally dehydrated now if you don't drink this.”

“Mom?” Sal turns around. “This is kind of boring. Jack Sparrow is just around every corner making dumb faces.”

“True.” Henry nods.

Wow. When I was a kid, I was thrilled by this ride—and that was pre–Jack Sparrow. Now, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool “I used to play with rocks and had the time of my life” type. God, I'm old.

We make our way back into the sun and heat and people.

“CHURROS!!!” Henry leans back in his wide stance and punches the air again.

That air punch is getting a little tired. “Got any other moves?” I dare him, and he starts in on the robot. He does a mean robot. At least I birthed one dancing monkey.

“Mom, can we
pllllllease
have churros?!” Sal begs. It's a low whine, like she's asking me for the right to vote or the right to choose her own husband.

“Henry just barfed.”

He turns his robot move on me. “I'm empty now. Clean slate. I can start all over again.”

“Like when you shake an Etch A Sketch?” I ask.

“EXACTLY.”

A text from James comes in on my phone. The kids edge closer to the churro stand, I follow as I text. Total text-walking asshole move.

“Mom? Churros?”

I look over at the kids standing in front of the churro stand. Henry is miming eating a churro. Sal is rubbing her stomach, giving me a thumbs-up, and smiling.

“Guys. Wait. We have to save Dad.”

James is standing beside Bea. He's pale and it's 95 degrees and he's in the sun.

“Drink this.” I'm already passing him his water as I approach. “What's wrong?”

“This place. This place is wrong.” He keeps his voice down, for the kids, as Bea goes up against Sal and Henry on a “Who had a better twenty minutes in Disneyland?” conversation that will most definitely end in yelling in less than forty-five seconds. James puts the bottle up to his lips, and I notice a man staring at him. The perverts are out in full force today.

“Are you freaking out?” I ask James, because he's prone to just shut down when things get too stupid. Like when my mom had a “game party” and invited all of our extended family? Great-uncles, cousins, grandparents, and Risk, Jenga, Monopoly? After an hour I found him in the fetal position in Henry's twin guest bed, before anyone had to mortgage a railroad or anything.

James nodded. “This is just SO DUMB. The wait for the ride for Tangled is SEVENTY-FIVE MINUTES. There are families waiting in line with crying babies to go on an eight-minute ride. This place is like sports for fat people.”

“James, that isn't even a ride. It's a line to meet Tangled.”

“By God.”

The kids are yelling.

“You are stupid! And YOU won't get a churro, EVER!” Bea shouts.

“Bea,” I say. She looks up. “Don't call people stupid.”

“Henry did it first,” Sal says.

“Let's make this clear, you guys are
all
stupid. Just don't call each other stupid. Okay?”

James doesn't even notice. He's more upset now than he was this morning when he couldn't use his credit card at the gas pump because Canadians don't have zip codes.

“AND . . .” He points at the castle. “And that castle is
bullshit
!! It isn't even a castle! It's just an entrance to get into Fantasyland!” He sighs.

Aha! So he's
disappointed
.

I can see it all clearly now. James was
excited
to walk into the castle, until it let him down. Now I know there's hope for him. He just has to be wowed by something, or see the kids excited about something that's Disney-specific. Buying them more shit in the park will not count.

Then we notice Bea, who's standing there looking past us all into the middle distance.

“
Belle.
”

We turn. There she is, five hundred feet away, in her yellow dress and tall, dark bunhead hair.

“James.” I hug him. “It's going to be fine. Let's go get in Dumb, Handicapped Parent Line to see Belle.”

Bea is the only girl toddler who's not in full princess gear. But this doesn't seem to upset her. “Look at these kids,” she says, too loud, in a kind of mocking wonder. “They are dressed like princesses in front of the princesses.”

One of the moms, who's shamelessly wearing a professional-looking Snow White costume, totally breaks character to give me the evil eye. Henry agrees with Bea. “It's embarrassing!” he says to her, as one mother gets in line behind us, carrying a baby who doesn't even realize she's dressed like Cinderella.

We watch moms and dads fix hair and dresses as they make their way, one at a time, to meet Belle. And she doesn't even look like the real Belle. I mean, she has a dark wig on, but she isn't nearly as pretty. Bea doesn't mention that.

“We're next,” Sal says to Bea, getting her excited. We push Bea forward, so that Belle knows who her target is. We've watched the films, but we have no idea how Method these theme park actors might possibly get. None of us wants to get trapped having a fake conversation with Belle about her crazy dad, or her favorite books, or how Gaston could get pretty gropey, or anything really. I can see that James has calmed down. This line wasn't so horrible, and we're about to make Bea's dream come true. It's our turn.

“Hello!” Belle says to Bea, and the four of us move forward with her slightly, then fan out, giving her space.

“Hi,” Bea says.

“What's your name?”

“Bebe.”

“What a cute name! How old are you, Bebe?”

“I'm two.”

“Are you having fun today?”

“Yes.”

Belle looks at us, and I suddenly realize we aren't meeting parenting protocol. I pull out my phone to take a picture of Bea standing beside Belle like a normal parent would.

“Would you like to come stand beside me and give me a hug so your mom can take a photo?”

Belle opens her arms wide and smiles warmly at Bea, like she isn't the thousandth kid she's hugged this week. I think about the germs on her dress, from all of the gross princesses who have wiped their hands and noses on her. I know she only has that one yellow dress. Belle was poor.

“No,” Bea says. “Actually, I don't want to hug you . . . I want to meet the Beast.”

“What did she just say?” I ask James. He puts his finger to his lips. International sign for “Not you. Not now.”

“
The Beast?!
” Belle squeals, covering her O mouth with her white-gloved hand. C minus. Totally overacting.

“Yes.” Bea repeats herself like Belle is a two-year-old. “I want to meet the Beast.”

I can see that the other parents are getting annoyed with how long our photo session is taking. We definitely aren't following princess protocol at this point. They can fuck off.

“Well, Bebe, you are very brave, aren't you?”

“No.”

“You must be, if you want to meet the Beast.”

Bea gives her her best Gaston. “Bring me the Beast.”