“You don’t want me to play because I’m too good?”
“Larry said tennis is a major sport here,” Dad said. “That means the players get featured in the newspaper. As good as you are, you’re a shoo-in to make it to State and, for all we know, maybe to Nationals as well. The last thing our family needs is national publicity.”
“Nobody’s going to recognize ‘Val Weber,’” I protested. “Isn’t that the whole reason we changed our names?”
“This Vamp guy knows a lot about us,” Dad said. “He’s sure to have been supplied with all pertinent information. He won’t recognize your name, but he’ll recognize you. He’ll know I have a daughter who plays championship tennis. He’ll know your age, what grade you’re in, and what you look like. We can’t stop people from taking pictures at meets, and we can’t stop a newspaper from publishing one on the sports page.”
“My tennis ability is all I have going for me here! Are you telling me all I can do is bop a ball around?” I was trying to keep my voice under control, but it seemed to be getting louder of its own accord, as if some invisible hand were turning up the volume. I whirled upon Mom. “Are you going to let him do this?!”
“As I already said, my opinions don’t seem to matter. Your father’s decided we all have to give up everything.” Mom got up from the sofa and headed unsteadily for the kitchen, trailing her fingers lightly along the wall. “I’m going to get myself another glass of orange juice.”
“No, you’re not,” Dad told her sharply. “You’ve had enough. Come back here and sit down so we can discuss this.”
“There’s nothing left to discuss,” Mom shot back at him. “You and Tom make the rules, and the rest of us follow them. I gave up my career, and April will give up tennis, but you can’t expect either one of us to be happy about it.”
“Our daughter’s name isn’t April, it’s Valerie,” Dad said. “We can’t afford to make slips like that, even when we’re alone. In a town this size, everybody overhears everything. It doesn’t take much to make small-town people suspicious.”
That was the point when I should have told him about Abby and that Larry had seen my brother without his contacts. At that moment, however, I was too angry to trust myself to speak. I turned on my heel and, leaving my parents to finish their battle in private, went into my bedroom and shut the door behind me.
CHAPTER 11
That night I cried myself to sleep, but once I let go of consciousness I slept like the dead, too emotionally exhausted even to dream. When I awoke, it was not of my own volition but because there was somebody shaking me by the shoulder. I reluctantly opened my eyes to find my father standing by my bed in a room that was just beginning to take on form in the pale pink glow of dawn.
“Wake up,” Dad said. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us. Your mom and I have decided it’s time for a mini-vay.”
“You’ve what?” It was the last thing I had expected. I made no effort to keep the contempt from my voice. “What kind of mini-vay can we have in Grove City?”
“The best,” Dad said. “Disney World and Epcot Center. It’s a two-hour drive, so if we want to spend a full day there, we need to get started.”
“I don’t feel like driving two hours to meet Mickey Mouse,” I said. “The rest of you do what you want, but I’m staying here.”
“Look, I know you’re disappointed about the tennis,” Dad said. “Sulking won’t change things. If I could, I’d go back and reshuffle the cards, but I can’t, so we’re stuck with playing the crummy hand I’ve dealt us.”
“How could you have gotten us into this mess?” I demanded.
“I’ve asked myself that a million times,” Dad said quietly. “I’d like to think I was being a responsible citizen. That’s what I’ve tried to tell myself for the past twelve months. The real truth is, I wanted to be a hero. As a kid I was one of those wimps other kids beat up on, and I only survived my teens because Max looked out for me. I was grateful for that, but it didn’t do much for my ego. I met your Mom when I was working at a shop at a ski resort, and she was there on vacation with her college roommate. Her friend was into partying, and your Mom wasn’t, so she started hanging out with me in the evenings. We fell in love, and I talked her into eloping. When her parents found out what we’d done, they nearly disowned her.”
“But wasn’t it Grandpa Clyde who got you your job?” I asked.
“Yes, he eventually rallied round and took care of us. Clyde didn’t want his daughter married to a ski bum, and he had some sort of connection at Southern Skyways. Later he pulled some strings to have me made manager, and he and Lorelei bought us our home in Norwood. Then, out of the blue, your Mom’s career took off like a skyrocket, and I was left riding along on everybody’s coattails. When Max came up with this chance for me to achieve something—” He paused. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to explain this. The bottom line is that I wound up doing something stupid. That can’t be changed, so we’ve just got to make the best of it.”
“Talking mice aren’t my idea of fun,” I said.
“What is, then?” Dad asked patiently. “I’m willing to negotiate. Where would you rather go? Cypress Gardens isn’t far. Or we could drive over to the beach at Sarasota.”
He was trying so hard to please me that I felt guilty. I was struck by the sudden memory of a playful man with a gentle face, who had held me on his lap and told me stories at bedtime. If he saw I was becoming frightened by the violent parts, he would change the endings so everything came out as I wanted, with the three little pigs and the wolf eating dinner together and the Billy Goats Gruff playing games with the troll in the pasture. In other areas of life, however, he was powerless. There was no way he could alter our real-life story.
“I guess Disney World might be fun,” I said softly, ashamed of myself for my earlier reaction. “Who are you going to get to run things at Zip-Pic?”
“Nobody, and I’m not going to worry about it,” Dad told me. “Nobody left any film for processing yesterday. It’s little wonder the business was up for grabs; the previous owner probably died of starvation. But not to worry, the program will continue to take care of us. Tom Geist drove over last night and brought us more money.”
He left the room, and I got out of bed and got dressed. Then, after a hurried breakfast, we set off for Disney World. When we first got into the car we were like a troupe of actors playing the parts of a family on a carefree vacation trip. It was obvious my parents had talked things over and made a decision to make the excursion a happy one. They both seemed chipper and cheerful, chatting amicably as we drove, and appeared to be looking forward to the day’s activities. Jason, who had not been awake to witness the scene the evening before, must somehow have absorbed the vibes that preceded it, for he seemed bewildered by the change in the emotional atmosphere and kept glancing back and forth between Dad and Mom as though he was trying to figure out what was different about them. Soon, though, he appeared to relax and accept the situation at face value, and before a half hour had passed he was bouncing up and down on the seat, asking every mile or two if we were almost there yet.
In an effort to calm him down, Mom suggested we play word games, so we played Twenty Questions and a game where you try to find all the letters of the alphabet on road signs. The closer we got to Orlando, the more signs there were, and before we had reached the outskirts of the city we had even managed to find the elusive “Q” on a billboard that advertised a motel with queen-size beds.
The game had just ended with the “Z” in La-Z-Boy Furniture when we passed a hedge shaped like the Seven Dwarfs on parade, and Dad started singing “Whistle While You Work.” After a moment Mom began to sing with him, her soft, sweet voice blending easily with his strong one. It had been so long since I’d heard my parents sing together that I had forgotten how good they could sound when they harmonized. They finished one Disney song and went on to another, extending the medley to include “Someday My Prince Will Come” and “When You Wish Upon a S
tar.” Then they did a rendition of “It’s a Small World,” and Jason and I joined in on the chorus. We continued getting louder and more rambunctious until by the time we pulled into the parking area outside the gigantic amusement park we had become what we had started out by only pretending to be, a lighthearted family having a wonderful time together.
“There it is! There’s Disney World, just like on TV!” Jason cried ecstatically as the golden spires of Cinderella’s castle came into view. When he caught sight of a huge Donald Duck ambling along with a cluster of balloons in its hand, it was all I could do to restrain him from throwing open the car door and setting out at a run across the parking lot.
Despite my initial reservations about a world filled with animated creatures, the Enchanted Kingdom did, indeed, turn out to be enchanting. When we stepped through the magical gates, dreams became reality and all the stress of the past few months evaporated. The Pirates of the Caribbean fired their cannons with gusto, but no one was hurt; ghosts danced in the spooky ballroom of the Haunted Mansion, but no one was frightened. My parents and brother and I worked our way from Frontierland all the way to Tomorrowland, humming along with singing bears, cruising a river on Tom Sawyer’s raft, gliding beneath the ocean in a miniature submarine, all of us acting like children on a holiday.
It was almost two when we finally sat down to lunch at a table overlooking a swan-studded lake and began to discuss how to spend the remainder of the day.
“What do you say we go over to Epcot?” Dad suggested. “We can spend the afternoon looking at the exhibits there and then have dinner at one of the foreign restaurants.”
“We can’t leave yet! We just got here!” cried Jason. “I haven’t even been on the Jungle Cruise!”
“Your Mom wants to see the 3-D movie,” said Dad. “You’ll like that, son, it’s supposed to contain some incredible effects. Epcot should be a great educational experience.”
“I don’t want to get educated!” Jason insisted stubbornly. “I want to go on a boat and ride in a teacup.”
“I’ll stay and keep an eye on him,” I offered, mellowed out by all the morning activity. “Why don’t the two of you go on to Epcot? You haven’t done anything alone together in ages.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” asked Mom. “There are so many things to see there, it seems dreadful to come all this distance only to miss them.”
“Let the kids stay here if they want to,” Dad said easily. “It’s not as though we’ll never be coming back. The point of the day is for all of us to enjoy ourselves, and if Jason’s idea of joy is to make himself sick in a spinning teacup, so be it.” He turned to me. “Let’s meet at the gate at six. Then we’ll stop somewhere for dinner before we head home.”
Predictably, the instant our parents were out of sight and earshot, Jason burst into a spell of hyperactivity, jumping around like a frenzied cricket and demanding to go on all the rides Mom had forbidden because she considered them too stimulating. He also somehow managed to take out his contacts. One minute he was Jason, with two brown eyes—the next, he was Bram, with one brown eye and one blue one.
“Go into the restroom and put those back in,” I told him. “You know you’re not supposed to keep taking them out. You weren’t wearing them when Larry came over last night, and he noticed your eyes and commented on them.”
“I hate wearing contacts,” Jason whimpered pathetically. “How can I have a good time if my eyes feel gross?”
We finally agreed on a compromise, and I bought him Mickey Mouse sunglasses, which he promised to wear until we were back in the car. With those in place, he went dashing off like a small tornado, and from that moment on my time was devoted to following him from one wild ride to another and wishing that it was possible to keep him on a leash.
The afternoon crowds were heavier than those in the morning, and the heat of the day kept increasing as the hours passed. By late afternoon I gladly would have settled myself on a bench by the lake and remained there, people-watching, until the time came to meet our parents. That was impossible, of course, with a pint-sized dynamo to keep track of, so I trotted along in the churning wake of my brother, wondering how I could have been crazy enough to have volunteered to be his keeper.
I was standing wearily at the foot of one of the rides, sipping a Coke and watching Jason whirl dizzily around in a teacup, when suddenly I heard someone call out, “April?”
Instinctively I started to turn in the direction of the voice, and then got a grip on my reflexes and held myself rigid. It had to be a coincidence, I assured myself, struggling to still the pounding of my heart. April is not a common name, but it isn’t unique. In a complex the size of Disney World, overflowing with summer visitors, it would have been strange if there hadn’t been more than one April.
That comforting thought was dispelled when the voice called, “April?” once again. Then to my utter horror, again, “April Corrigan?”
Hearing the name in its entirety was so unexpected that for a moment the shock of it nailed me to the ground. Then self-preservation took over, and with a hasty glance to reassure myself that Jason was safe in his cup and still wearing his glasses, I began to walk rapidly away from the Alice in Wonderland ride as though I had just remembered important business elsewhere.
“April! April, wait up! April, it’s Jodi!”
The voice clicked into place, suddenly dreadfully familiar. I increased my pace until I was almost running, ducking and dodging, plowing a path through the crowd, shoving my way past people standing in line to get into Space Mountain, and nearly knocking over an elderly woman with a white-tipped cane who had not been able to see me rushing toward her. For a moment I thought the blind woman would be my salvation, for she started thrusting the cane out defensively, first on one side and then on the other, inadvertently blocking the path of the people behind me. Ironically, then, I found that my own path was blocked as well, for a gigantic Pluto, surrounded by a circle of children, seemed to materialize out of nowhere, taking up not only the walkway directly in front of me, but enough space on either side that I was stopped in my tracks.
“April!” The voice was upon me now, and a hand clamped down on my arm. “April, didn’t you hear me? I’ve been screaming my lungs out! I was sure it had to be you the moment I saw you, even from the back with that new short haircut!”
Reluctantly, I allowed myself to be spun around and embraced by my tennis partner, Jodi Simmons. So much had changed in my life in the weeks since I’d seen her that it startled me to find her exactly as she’d always been. Her eyes were bright with pleasure at having found me, and her nice, wide mouth looked as though it would never stop smiling. I suddenly felt a million years old, the last person on earth who belonged in Happily-Ever-After Land.
“I just can’t believe this!” cried Jodi. “It’s so great to see you! Are you here by yourself ? April, what are you doing here?”
“The same thing you are,” I told her, keeping my tone light. “I’m pretending to be ten years old again. This has to be the most fabulous place in the world.”
“I can’t believe it!” Jodi repeated, continuing to cling to my arm as though she were afraid I would disappear if she let go of me. “The last thing I ever expected was to run into you here! Do you have any idea how worried we’ve all been? Sherry said you were called to the counselor’s office, and from that point on no one ever saw you again!”
“My parents decided they needed a vacation,” I said. Even to my ears the statement sounded ridiculous. Apparently it had the same effect upon Jodi, for she raised one eyebrow in an expression of disbelief.
“Oh, come on!” she exclaimed. “Who do you think you’re kidding? Nobody goes on vacation two weeks before finals! Even your grandmother doesn’t know where you are. I stopped by her condo one day to drop off your tennis racket, and she told me she didn’t even have an address to ship it to.”
“There’s a reason for that,” I said, “but I’m not free to talk about it. How is ev
erything back home? Did the tennis team do well in the state competition?”
“State was a disaster,” said Jodi. “Since you weren’t there, I had to play with Cynthia, and you know what a waste she is at the net. We lost the first round of doubles, and that threw my game off so badly that I ended up not making it to finals in singles either. But enough about me, I want to know about you. You’ll be back before school starts, won’t you?”
“No, but I’ll be there for the second semester,” I said. “Tell Coach Malloy to hold a place for me on the team. Look, Jodi, it’s been wonderful seeing you, but I’ve got to split. I’m supposed to be meeting my brother at the Haunted Mansion.”
“But you can’t run off without telling me what happened!” Jodi protested. “Everybody’s going to freak out when I tell them I saw you. It’s been like you just disappeared off the face of the earth! I saw Sherry and Steve at Ashley Steinmetz’s pool party last weekend, and they said neither one of them had heard one word from you. There are all sorts of crazy rumors going around, like you had to move because your dad testified in that drug case.”
“Sherry and Steve were at Ashley’s party together?” I asked her. “You don’t mean… you can’t mean the two of them have hooked up!”
“Not seriously, of course,” said Jodi, obviously embarrassed. “You know how it is with guys when their girlfriends take off somewhere. I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything, so don’t let it bother you. Steve will be leaving for college in a few weeks anyway, and of course you’ll be back to go to the Christmas parties with him.”
“Of course,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss the bash at Sherry’s house. I had such an awesome time at that party last year.”
Without further comment, I jerked my sleeve from her fingers and set off at a run in the direction of the Haunted Mansion. I must have crashed into a dozen people on my headlong flight into nowhere, for I carried no cane to warn them I was blinded by tears.