The Probability of Miracles (31 page)

“No reason,” Alexa whispered.

“Well, it was nice catching up with you, Cinderella. Tell the prince I said hello,” Cam said.

Alexa composed herself, cleared her throat, and in her best Cinderella voice said, “Yes. I shall send your regards to the prince.” She lifted up her skirts and floated away toward the China Pavilion.

While Asher rode the speedway with Grey, Cam and Perry did all the things they used to do together as kids while their parents were performing and they had run of the park. Space Mountain, the Country Bear Jamboree, Pirates of the Caribbean. They bought egg creams at the soda fountain on Main Street and made their way to the Haunted Mansion.

The two sisters sat on the stone wall in front of the spooky old house and waited. They'd asked the rest of the group to meet them here at nine, so they could show everyone how they climbed up the wrought iron latticework of the mansion and watched the fireworks from a secret perch on the roof.

“So maybe you should give me some sisterly advice before school starts up again,” said Perry. Her face was flushed from spending the entire hot day trapped in the polyester “dress,” which was now splotched with chocolate and ketchup.

“Um. Okay.”

“You've never given me any before.” Perry stirred her egg cream viciously in between her tiny staccato sips. She always made the drink last longer than Cam's, so she could taunt her with it.

“You never seemed like you needed it,” Cam said. “That's the thing about being the youngest—you come out relaxed and cool and knowing exactly how to get what you want.”

“That's true. But you can give me some advice, anyway. Just so you feel like you've fulfilled your role as an older sister.” Perry held out her glass to measure it against Cam's and make sure she had more egg cream left.

“Well, let's see,” Cam said. “How about, ‘don't be like me'—that's good advice. Like in high school, you should join something. Not color guard like Autumn and Sunny. God. That doesn't teach you any applicable skills. But something. The tennis team might be cool.” Cam thought for a minute. “Be yourself,” she continued. “And be kind.”

“Kind?”

“Yeah. Being kind is one of the hardest things to be in high school because you're so terrified of being cut down yourself that you're always on your guard. But don't be like that. Be kind and you will be truly different. A standout. Unique and happy.”

“That's it? Be kind. All the dangers out there lurking in the mist, and you give me ‘be kind'?”

“I think it's good,” Cam said confidently with a final slurp of her egg cream. “It's better to be kind than to be right.”

“All right,” said Perry. “I'll try it.”

“Good.”

Cam looked up as, suddenly and right on time, the catalog kids ambled toward them giddily from every direction. Sunny and Autumn held bright pink mouse-shaped balloons that bobbed up and down as they skipped in from the east. Grey and Royal—in their preppy striped shirts, boat shoes, and leather choker necklaces—came at them from the west.

“Boo!” Asher startled them from behind.

Cam jumped. “I hate when you do that!” she lied.

“What? It's the Haunted Mansion.”

Cam led them to the back of the gothic structure, where they climbed one by one up the sharp black metal vines. They found a flat part of the roof behind the main turret and hid themselves beneath the branches of a spooky weeping willow. Grey started up a game of Would You Rather while they waited for the fireworks to begin.

“Keep it PG, mister. This has to be the Disney version,” Cam pleaded, pointing at Perry not so subtly behind her back.

“Okay,” Grey said. “Would you rather make out with Jasmine or Cinderella?”

Cam shot him a look.

“What? I said ‘make out,'” he said innocently, but Cam shook her head. “Okay, fine. Would you rather ‘hold hands'”—he made air quotes—“with Jasmine or Cinderella?”

“Definitely Jasmine.” Autumn giggled. She tilted her head forward, hiding her face behind her curtain of thick auburn hair.

“Yup,” Royal agreed. “I would love to hold that woman's hand.”

“Hey.” Sunny slapped him weakly on the thigh.

The August air sat on top of them like an ancient sea that had only somewhat evaporated. It was hot and humid and heavy, and they barely had enough energy to swat away the mosquitoes that swirled around them in the dusk.

“Here ya go,” Sunny said, spritzing Cam with her portable Mickey Mouse fan, complete with spray bottle. She put her arm around Cam and laid her head on her shoulder. Her hair smelled like vanilla. “Thanks for bringing us here,” she said.

“You're welcome,” Cam replied.

“I have one.” Autumn was tracing the lines of Grey's palm, pretending to read his future. “Would you rather . . . know your destiny or spend a lifetime figuring it out?”

“That's an easy one,” Royal answered. “I feel so bored already knowing. As if my life is already over. As if I'll never again be surprised.” Royal was enrolled in premed at UMass and had promised his mother he'd become a doctor.

“I'm full of surprises, though,” Sunny exclaimed, lifting her head from Cam's shoulder.

“That's true,” Royal admitted. He gave her a hug and said, “Life with you is never boring.”

“I don't know,” Autumn said. “I wish I knew what I wanted. It would make things so much easier. Sometimes I don't even know if I want chocolate or vanilla.”

“I like not knowing,” Perry said. “It's exciting. Maybe I'll be a pilot.”

With that, the first of the fireworks shot into the black night. It was a golden one. Metallic and bold as if they had just won a prize.

Asher pulled Cam closer. “You are my destiny,” he whispered. And then they kissed, oblivious to their friends on the roof.

“Hey, who's the one who said to keep it PG?” Grey laughed.

“It's okay, I've seen them kiss before,” Perry said, completely unfazed.

Cam felt like she
had
won a prize. Not only the person sitting next to her, but the friendship of the catalog kids. That was something she didn't even know she'd been craving. Teenagers run in packs. And for too long she'd been trying to go it alone.

When the last pyrotechnic popped and fizzled, leaving smoke snakes hanging tangled in the air, the group climbed back down the latticework. They made their way to the park's exit and Cinderella's castle. Make-A-Wish had arranged for them to stay in the Royal Suite.

The faux opulence was spectacular. Marble columns, vaulted ceilings, canopy beds draped in thick velvets and brocades, a parlor room, a magic fireplace with fiber-optic fireworks display, a sunken Jacuzzi tub with a waterfall faucet surrounded by stained glass windows.

As they approached the castle now, Autumn, Grey, Royal, and Sunny kidnapped Perry. They grabbed her and pulled her toward the monorail to sweep her off to her first under-twenty-one dance club in Downtown Disney.

“Wait,” Cam tried to protest, reaching for Perry's hand. “You don't need to take her.”

“We've got this,” Sunny insisted as she shoved Cam through the heavy door of the private elevator that led to the Royal Suite.

At the top, a carpet of red rose petals covered the floor and formed a candlelit path to the bedroom. Asher waited in his new Mickey Mouse boxer shorts, holding two glasses of sparkling apple cider. Asher, the perfect, did not drink alcohol.

Cam laughed. It was so unbelievably corny. “This isn't really my thing, you know.”

“I know, but I figured, when in Rome.”

“Are we in Rome?”

“No, I think we're in medieval France.”

“Cinderella was French?”

“
Oui
,” he said, and he clinked glasses with her, downed his cider, and then threw her, full glass and all, onto the impossibly large bed covered in slippery golden silk sheets.

“I'm a little intimidated,” she said as he kissed her ear, her neck, her chest. He lifted her shirt and ran his tongue in soft loops down the center of her stomach.

“Just go with it. You are a princess.”

“What does that
mean
, though?” Cam asked. “How—”

“Oh, my God, Campbell. Be quiet!” He laughed.

Later she realized she could be a princess. Not really a princess, but something other than a cancer patient. She could choose the cancer and the misery or the other, more wonderful parts of her personality. She was a dancer, a scholar, a sister, a veterinary assistant, a girlfriend. She could make the cancer into a much smaller part of her being. For the first time in a long, long time, the cancer was not everything.

“DO WE HAVE TIME TO SEE THE WORLD TODAY?” ASHER ASKED AS HE stretched and yawned when they finally got up around noon. The girls had already left for their royal spa treatments, and the guys were on the golf course. They were all going to meet up at five for the “Spirit of Aloha” show at the Polynesian.

“The Small World, maybe,” Cam answered, running her fingers down his fabulous front. After the show, they'd get on the next plane to Portland. Alicia had texted Cam about seventy-five times, begging her to come back, and Cam promised her they'd leave tonight. But they couldn't go without seeing the world first.

The wait time at It's a Small World was twenty-five minutes, which actually wasn't bad. As they wound through the snake of a queue, fanning themselves with their maps of the park, Asher peppered her with questions about “Spirit of Aloha,” the bizarre subculture of a subculture in which she was raised.

“It's so weird to me that instead of living your culture, you perform it,” he said.

“Well, it's like Sly Stallone described preparing for
Rocky
,” Cam explained. “Some people work from the outside in, and others work from the inside out. He had to get Rocky's body and dress like Rocky and talk like Rocky before he could feel who Rocky was. Another actor would feel who Rocky was and then start dressing like him. So some people feel Polynesian, and it moves them to dance. And others, like me, dance to feel more Polynesian. It doesn't matter how you do it—the end result is the same.”

“Now I need to see
Rocky
again,” Asher said.

“I know. Me too. You didn't hear anything I said, did you?”

“No. I was just thinking about
Rocky
.”

They made the queue's last turn. Cam winked at a little boy in front of them who kept swinging on the railings in spite of repeated warnings against it. Finally it was time for them to board the boat. They pushed through the turnstile, stepped onto the moving dock, and slid into an open bench. They were off to travel the world. The sickeningly sweet world. It was as if the whole thing were made of candy. As soon as they entered the tunnel, they were assaulted by bright pink, orange, glistening gold, and drizzling glitter. It was a wonderland of papier-mâché. An über-diorama with life-size moving parts.

As a kid, Cam was enchanted by the idea of children in different countries wearing different clothes and eating different foods and speaking different languages. It really was magical to her. The ride's strange stereotypes of the shirtless African kids playing drums on the back of a giraffe, or the South American women carrying baskets of fruit on their heads, or the French women lifting their skirts to cancan, seemed like a celebration of the world's fabulous colors.

Stereotypes work for kids
, Cam realized,
because they still have intact that basic understanding that no one could possibly be less human than anyone else.
And this ride brought you back to that notion.

They were in India, and a row of saried women tiptoed their way home from the glowing, white, bulbous Taj Mahal made of sheets. Asher was grinning, completely one with the spectacle. He didn't notice the exit signs above the hidden back doors of the warehouse or the repairman in the corner changing a lightbulb.

“Awakening your wanderlust, Batman?” Cam asked him, sliding her palm into his.

“A bit,” he answered. And then, “I did get a scholarship, you know.”

“I knew it,” Cam said as they moved from the enormous shadow puppets of Indonesia to the geishas of Japan.

“Ayuh. BC.”

“Are you going to take it?

“It feels like a life-or-death decision for me.”

“It's not. You can always go home again. You should try it.”

“It is a small world,” Asher said.

“After all,” Cam answered.

But as she said it, she had a vision of Asher's life at college. Watching his teammates open their care packages sent from their mamas and how that would reinforce his own loneliness. It was sad. “Elaine will send you care packages,” she mumbled.