Roller Coaster Romance Page 5

  The crew member said she was. With a wary glance at Vanessa, she left the break room.

  “Hi,” Vanessa said to Thomas.

  “Hi, yourself.” Clever, Thomas. Really clever.

  “I’m doing a walk-through this morning. Checking out the lay of the land.”

  “Really? Did you ride Gold Rush again?”

  She laughed. “Not this time.”

  “Missed opportunity,” he chided. “You know you want to go see that ghost horse again.”

  “I did like the ghost horse,” she said. “I’ll have to do that again sometime.”

  “Did you already go to American Dream?”

  “Went there first. Bob told me not to miss the parade.”

  “Tall Bob or Short Bob?” asked Thomas.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “There’s two Bobs. One of them is called Tall Bob, one of them is called Short Bob. So we know who we’re talking about.”

  She looked utterly confused. “The Bobs don’t mind being called ‘Tall’ and ‘Short’?”

  “Nah. When you get a nickname here, you know you’ve made it. For better or for worse,” he said.

  “I think it must have been Short Bob. He was eating yogurt and asked me if I wanted some.”

  “That’s the one! That’s Short Bob, for sure. Yogurt fiend.”

  “Now I know what to get him for Christmas,” she said.

  Thomas pictured her in a Santa hat, and had to admit the image was not unappealing. He smiled at the thought—and at her joke.

  “How about you? What are you up to today? More training?” she asked.

  “Me? No training today. Just a carriage wash later.”

  “What’s a carriage wash?”

  “Some of us stay late and wipe down all the Ghost Factory carriages after the park closes.”

  “That’s a lot of carriages to wipe down,” she said.

  “We try to make it fun. We put some music on the PA system.” Thomas did the twist without a hint of embarrassment.

  “Sounds like a party. Count me in,” she said.

  What? “You wanna stay late and wash carriages?”

  “I sure do.” She lifted the curtain out of the way, then looked over her shoulder at him. “The best way to learn how this place works, is to work here.”

  The curtain fell into place as Vanessa exited the room.

  After she left, Thomas sat alone in the Ghost Factory break room. The muted cacophony of the attraction soundtrack vibrated through the walls. To the uninitiated, it might have been distracting, but to Thomas it was as familiar as the white noise from an old washing machine.

  He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them.

  Vanessa’s attendance at the carriage wash held both promise and danger. Thomas felt the knife-edge of his dilemma, sharp and bittersweet, as he contemplated the night ahead.

  In front of her, he must be careful not to speak of the union. There would be no opportunity to reach out to his fellow crew members tonight.

  Despite that discouraging thought, pleasure crept over him at the memory of spending time with her. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed someone’s company so much.

  He stood up. A lazy smile touched his lips.

  Danger and promise.

  Vanessa

  “Legacy 2 to Legacy,” the walkie-talkie squawked with Dirk’s voice.

  “Legacy here,” she responded.

  “What’s your 20, Legacy?”

  Vanessa remembered the phrase from where she used to work. “What’s your 20?” meant “Where are you?”

  “Outside Ghost Factory, Legacy 2,” she replied.

  “Can you return to base?”

  “10-4, be right there.”

  It had been a busy morning, running from American Dream, to Gold Rush, and then to Ghost Factory. The heat of the sun on her back made her view the trip underground more favorably.

  At least she could cool off.

  Dirk awaited her in the office with a stack of papers. “Here’s ‘Union-Free for You and Me,’ and here’s ‘Union-Free Toolbox,’” he said, handing over each bundle. “And here’s today’s parade group.” He passed over a single sheet of paper.

  She examined the two packets from the head office. This should make interesting reading. “Thank you, Dirk. Can you handle any radio calls that come in? I want to go over these materials.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  She turned to Charlotte. “Charlotte, is there anywhere underground I could sit and read for a while? Just for a change of scenery?”

  “There’s an underground break room down the way. You want me to walk you there?”

  “That’d be great.”

  The tinny “Voice of Destiny” echoed overhead as Charlotte led her along a different route through the corridor than Vanessa had used before. This particular corridor dead-ended in a large room filled with beat-up tables, mismatched chairs, and a few sagging sofas. She thought of the glittering castle overhead. Very different from upstairs. Televisions set to the local 24-hour news channel perched on stands on opposite sides of the room.

  Vanessa sat down on a sofa not currently occupied by a sleeping crew member and paged through one of the packets.

  “Know your TIPS and your FOE! Managers may not Threaten, Interrogate, Promise, or Spy on employees. Managers may share verifiable Facts, Opinions, and Examples.”

  Did I ‘interrogate’ Thomas when I asked him about this? Horrified at the thought of having said the wrong thing, she quickly scanned the text and read the pertinent part aloud to herself: “Managers may not ask associates about their position on unions.”

  Damn. I shouldn’t have said that. She put her head in her hand and kept reading. She stopped only to quiet her rumbling stomach with an oatmeal creme pie from the vending machine, which allowed her to collect her thoughts as she nibbled the tasty junk food.

  There’s an awful lot of nudging and winking in this stuff. You can’t fire someone for union organizing, but you can fire a union organizer for something else as long as you can back it up with documentation. That must be what Dirk was alluding to with his mobster impression.

  Unlike the oatmeal creme pie, it left a bad taste in her mouth.

  She gathered up her things and returned to her office, depositing them in a heap on her desk, before making her way upstairs.

  The parade route thronged with visitors, many of whom were already claiming front-row seats by laying down towels or using a stroller to block off their very own makeshift VIP section. Vanessa dodged through the crowd and into the American Dream lobby to find her parade crew waiting in the break room.

  They crowded around the bulletin board, reading a flyer pinned to the middle. She recognized Bob, the yogurt fiend—she refused to call him “Short Bob,” even in the privacy of her thoughts—though “Bob the Yogurt Fiend” was hardly an improvement. The others she did not know.

  “Good afternoon, everyone.”

  Bob and the rest of the crew turned away from the bulletin board to face her.

  “I’m Vanessa, the new area manager, and today I’ll be supervising our section of the parade route.” She unfolded the list of parade route stations and pinned it to the bulletin board next to the flyer. “You’ll find your assignments here.”

  Before turning back to face the crew, she read the neighboring flyer.

  We said the Gold Rush costume was dangerous.

  Why hasn’t management listened?

  Vote YES to unionize and make safety a priority!

  As soon as she read it, she realized the crew would be watching for her reaction. She adopted a bland expression before facing them.

  They looked at her with unabashed curiosity.

  She cleared her throat before speaking. “I’ll come
around and check in with you once you get set up. Any questions?”

  No one spoke, although they did steal a few glances at one another.

  Good thing they already know what they’re doing.

  “All right, let’s head out. Meet back here after the parade.”

  After checking for their assigned area, the crew filed out of the break room.

  Vanessa followed them out and watched as they took up positions along the route.

  One applied masking tape to the concrete to create temporary walkways and barriers while another directed visitors in wheelchairs to a special roped-off viewing area. Bob moseyed along the route chatting with visitors. The last few crew members held a rope across the parade route to block visitors from wandering into the path of the oncoming parade.

  The afternoon heat poured from the sky and reflected from the ground. Vanessa realized the costumes must be scorching in the heat. Even without her jacket on, she felt sweat accumulate and drip down her spine. She worked her way down the parade route station by station, helping out with the responsibilities of each position, until she heard the parade fanfare.

  The music preceded the parade, blaring over the sound system before the parade itself turned the corner from Discovery into Legacy.

  Journey to Destiny, live your Fantasy,

  Build a Legacy. It’s all here for you.

  A new Discovery awaits

  In a Galaxy of adventure.

  Journey to Destiny, where dreams come true.

  Just as the music reached a high note, the parade came into view. Vanessa helped the crew members clear the route of the last remaining visitors, who, for unknown reasons, were attempting to cross in front of the oncoming parade. With all of the visitors safely corralled, Vanessa retreated to watch the parade.

  The first float, representing the Galaxy area, glittered with hundreds of tiny paillettes worked into a pattern of stars and swirling rainbow space dust. Atop its platform, dancers clad in Mars red or Neptune blue whirled their crystal-encrusted hula hoops like rings orbiting a planet.

  On the Discovery float, four tree trunks held aloft a canopy thick with oversized flowers that opened and closed. The dancers wore fanciful stylized animal suits, including a silver-scaled fish and a brown bear who pursued it around the perimeter of the float.

  A massive dragon curled in the middle of the Fantasy float. It appeared to be sleeping until it slowly lifted one heavy eyelid and hissed a thin trail of smoke from its nostrils. Around the dragon, a court of belly dancers dressed as shimmering peacocks fluttered their skirts in time to the music. A fountain at each corner of the float burbled a constant stream of water.

  Vanessa instantly recognized the final float.

  Decorated with four white columns connected by lengths of red, white, and blue bunting, the Legacy float featured a tableau of living statues posed on a set piece crafted to resemble a craggy mountain overlook. The living statue of a miner held his pickax aloft and unmoving for an impossibly long time. Every so often, the statues eased into different positions before freezing in place again.

  Only as the final float passed by were the shadowy silhouettes of ghosts visible on the back of the Legacy float, ending the parade with an unsettling stinger.

  Released from the viewing area, the visitors milled in all directions.

  Vanessa pulled up tape with the rest of the crew until every piece had been removed, then led the way back to the break room.

  Everyone collapsed into chairs to recover from the intense heat.

  Vanessa took a closer look at the Gold Rush neckerchief around one young woman’s neck. “May I borrow that for a moment?” she asked, indicating the accessory.

  The young woman regarded Vanessa with surprise. “Sure,” she said, removing her hat and peeling the neckerchief off. “It’s kinda sweaty,” she said, passing it to Vanessa.

  Vanessa pulled the neckerchief over her head.

  The crew stared.

  She tugged on the neckerchief from several directions, feeling it press against her neck as she did so. “It’s that it won’t come free when pulled, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Only Bob answered. “Yup. Stupid thing dangles all over the place.”

  “And what if it got caught in the machinery, right?”

  He didn’t say anything. He just nodded, which seemed to prompt the owner of the neckerchief to pipe up.

  “It should have a Velcro fastener instead of a knot,” she said.

  Vanessa handed the neckerchief back to her. “I see what you mean.” She addressed the group. “Okay, everyone, that’s a wrap. Head back to your attraction and I’ll see you next time.”

  The strength of her feelings increased her pace as she strode out of American Dream. Such a simple, sensible request. Why didn’t management address this before?

  She vowed to ask Mr. Destiny as soon as possible.

  Chapter 6

  Vanessa

  Unsure of what the carriage wash would entail, Vanessa retrieved a spare set of casual clothes from her car and used the locker room to change into jeans and a lightweight plaid work shirt. She checked with Charlotte about ordering pizza for the carriage wash crew and was relieved to find out that pizza delivery would make it unscathed through the park security gate, as long as there was someone to meet the driver in the manager parking lot.

  She ordered a pile of cheese and pepperoni pizzas, then fed quarters and bills into the underground break room vending machine until it spit out a sufficient number of sodas. She hauled them back to the office and ran upstairs to receive the pizzas, then staggered downstairs under their weight, her arms heating up uncomfortably from the stack of pizza boxes.

  With the pizza safely deposited on the office counter, she unclipped her radio and called Ghost Factory. “Legacy to Ghost Factory.”

  “Ghost Factory here.”

  It sounded like Thomas.

  “Ghost Factory, can you send someone down to the office to help transport some carriage wash supplies?”

  “10-4, Legacy. On my way.”

  She straightened and re-straightened the stack of pizza boxes. She wiped and re-wiped the condensation that dripped from the sodas. She leaned against the counter, trying to feel calm, until the door finally opened.

  “Hey!” said Thomas. “What’s all this?”

  “Hey, yourself,” she said. “I got us some pizza. Thought you all might be hungry.”

  “Or you and I could just eat it all, right now, and they’d never be the wiser.” He rubbed his hands together and laughed like a villain in a movie.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes and laughed. “Don’t tempt me.” She reached for the pizza, but he stepped in front of it.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  “What?” She looked down. “It’s just red from carrying the pizza.”

  He pulled a handful of paper towels from the nearby dispenser and ran them under the cool water tap in the sink. “May I?” he asked, waiting for her assent before he cradled her forearm in one hand and applied a wet paper towel to the redness with his other hand.

  Their eyes met.

  “Hold that there,” he said.

  Vanessa felt the hair stand up on her arm. Must be the cold towels. She shivered.

  He let go. “Does it hurt?”

  “I’m fine, really,” she said.

  He gave her a skeptical look. “Don’t sacrifice a limb just to get us some pizza.” He rummaged in a cabinet under the counter and found an old grocery bag, then loaded the sodas into it.

  “Let me get that,” she said, reaching for the bag.

  “Not with your scorched arm,” he said.

  “Only the good one, I promise.”

  He relented and handed the bag to her.

  “I have an idea. Take off your jacket,” she said.

 
He raised his eyebrows and complied.

  She took the Ghost Factory jacket and laid it out on the counter. “Now stack the pizzas on it. That way, your arms will be safe.”

  They carried the pizza and sodas up to Ghost Factory and laid them out in the break room.

  Thomas

  Still there. The flyer he’d pinned to the bulletin board in the Ghost Factory break room remained, just visible behind the stack of pizzas. He didn’t need to read it to know what it said.

  He’d written it.

  We arrive early to put on a costume and stay late to take it off again.

  Why aren’t we paid for this extra time spent working?

  Vote YES to unionize and stand up for fair wages!

  Short Bob had written the other one. He took the Gold Rush neckerchief personally—not surprising, considering he’d nearly been caught on a ride vehicle just as it was about to launch.

  The velvet curtain swung aside and three more crew members crowded into the room.

  “Oh, look, the Blondes are here,” he said. “Where’s your charge, ladies?”

  Paulina, Laura, and Claudia giggled in unison. “We left him to find his way,” said Paulina.

  “Or not!” said Laura.

  “Vanessa, this is Paulina, Laura, and Claudia,” said Thomas. “Don’t get too attached to their names,” he said. “They trade name tags constantly.”

  “Did I hear you call them ‘The Blondes’?” Vanessa asked, in a tone that teetered between disapproval and amusement.

  Claudia rescued him. “It’s our nickname for ourselves.” She linked arms with her yellow-haired compatriots. “Right, girls?”

  “Right!” they chorused, then doubled over in laughter.

  Ah, the energy of youth. Thomas snuck a glance at Vanessa, who was smiling, before addressing Claudia again. “Where’s Marco? Did you leave him to wander the underground forever?”

  “Who’s Marco?” Vanessa asked.

  “He finished training last week,” Thomas replied. “These three talked him into the carriage wash today.”

  “We took him on a tour,” said Paulina.