How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come Tr - By Sarah Strohmeyer Page 0,4
but can you check if Jess Swynkowski has been cast as a princess?” The woman had our files right there, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal.
“You’ll get your cast assignments after breakfast. We have to keep the line moving.” She waved toward a tall, dark-haired guy behind us. “Next!”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I can wait.”
“Rules are rules,” she snapped. “And Fairyland has them for a reason, so you kids better get used to that. Now, what’s your last name, son? Did you say Davidson?”
I smiled to thank him for trying. He shrugged, like he hadn’t done anything.
Maybe some breakfast would help, since even as a little kid Jess had been the type to get woozy if she didn’t have her beloved apples and peanut butter by recess. I led her under the white banner that said Welcome, Fairyland Kingdom Summer Interns . . . Wow!™ to a grassy slope and, suddenly, I was starving, too. Glorious breakfasty aromas of coffee, waffles, and hot chocolate wafted from a huge, white tent where lots of the summer cast were milling about in their Wow!™ T-shirts.
Let me state for the record that I have never seen so many beautiful people my own age in real life. Seriously, it was like stepping into an A&F catalog without the preppy bright green shorts. The girls were mega pretty, with long red, blond, or brunette hair conditioned to Pantene perfection. The boys were tall and slim, with sculpted muscles and perfect skin. They stood with their legs slightly apart, flipping their bangs every two seconds in a way that would have been annoying if they hadn’t been so cute. I wanted to kidnap one and take him back to Bridgewater as a pet.
Jess went, “Wow.”
“I know, right?” That Fairyland motto might have been less than original, but it certainly was apt.
Too bad Ari, my grief counselor, had made me promise to give up guys for a while. The way he saw it, I was still too needy and hurting from Mom’s passing to be in a romantic relationship. One of his last pieces of advice before the end of school was: “Let’s make this the summer when Zoe grows out of her cocoon and emerges as a fantastic butterfly.”
The cocoon reference was because I’d been spending most of my days holed up in our wood-paneled TV room sipping iced soy lattes, knitting cotton washcloths, and watching a slew of reality TV shows, my favorite being Teenage Pregnant Nightmare with which I was completely obsessed. It wasn’t the healthiest of addictions, I’ll agree, but it got me over a rough patch, and on some level Karolynne and her baby daddy Hunter Boxworth provided a fascinating lesson in sociology. Anyway, I could see the value of healing before opening my heart again for love, so I’d told Ari okay.
But that was before I saw him.
He was thoughtfully selecting an orange to go with his grapes and strawberries. His jeans were faded, and his tanned wrists were bedecked with various bracelets in worn, brown hemp. He obviously was into hiking or something equally granolaish, because his hair, naturally brown, was sun-streaked, and his shoes were beaten and muddy.
Have I mentioned that I’m a sucker for earthy, outdoorsy guys? That may seem ironic, considering my leanings toward the hermit lifestyle. Guess Jess was right: Opposites really do attract.
Jess followed my line of sight and said, “Hemp bracelets, Zoe. Need I say more?” She had a thing against guys who wore hemp bracelets. Also, dusters.
I grabbed a hot white china plate at the buffet. “I don’t care. I’m going in.”
Considering that I hadn’t done anything with a guy since my funeral-era boyfriend, Derek James, I was feeling rustier than a seventh grader caked in Clearasil at her first dance. I just stood there holding my plate and trying to sneak a glance at his name tag—Dash. When he handed me the tongs to the fruit bowl and said, “Man, I could eat a horse,” the best I could manage was a witty, “Yeah.”
At that point in my suavity, I knocked a strawberry to the ground, picked it up, dusted it off, and ate it just to show I could be hard-ass that way. Dash regarded me in amusement. “You ate that?”
I ignored the questionable crunch of grit and swallowed. “Uh-huh. It wasn’t too bad. Better than a horse.”
“You know, I wouldn’t really eat a horse,” he said. “Seeing as how I’m a vegan.”