I was sure that it was the lack of Jack that had her feeling down. I can’t explain it, but the older man seemed to have cast some kind of spell on my cute wife. Emily was usually immune to the charms of guys like that. But something about Jack had her in his thrall. It was adorable, sort of, seeing her with this schoolgirl crush. A little worrisome though, too. As you can imagine, then, I was less upset that Jack wouldn’t be joining us.
“Cassie’s going to text us when she gets to the park,” Mike said. I noticed he’d perked up now that his high school ‘it’ girl was going to join us for the day.
“Cassie fucking Summers,” Allison said, shaking her head overdramatically. “That woman’s stalking us, I swear.”
“It’s Cassie Wolffe now, remember?” Mike said.
“Oh yes, that’s so much better,” Allison said.
*
We arrived at Hollywood Studios, right when it was opening. We went through the aqua-colored, art deco entrance gate and joined the throngs of people getting ready to take on their day. Allison had said we needed to get to the park early to avoid all the crowds. The place was so busy, I couldn’t imagine how many more guests were going to show up.
We strode down what looked like an old-timey street from the golden age of Hollywood. Everything around us was themed to that place and time. Even the traffic lights (for the non-existent cars) had those flipping stop and go signs.
With everything that had happened the day before, it felt like we’d already been at Disney for weeks. But in reality, this was our first real day at the park, and it was nicer than I’d anticipated. I hadn’t expected the cheap look of a Six Flags, exactly, but this felt almost more like stepping onto a living movie set. I never thought I’d want to stroll around a theme park, but I could feel the urge to do so here.
Unfortunately, a lazy saunter was the last thing that Allison was going to let us do. Instead, she grabbed my hand (notice: my hand, not her husband’s) and pulled me along the street. I half expected her to start knocking over old ladies and kicking small children as she surged toward the recreation of Grauman’s Chinese Theater at the end of the street.
“We have to hurry if we want to do the good rides,” Allison said, yanking me forward like a petulant pre-teen. I noticed Mike was dragging Emily along similarly. My wife gave me a sympathetic look as Mike pulled her past.
It was too early for this. My only breakfast had been a granola bar that Mike had unceremoniously tossed on my bed that morning. We passed a Starbucks on a grassy corner and Emily and I both eyed it longingly. The other couple did not relent. A Disney death march, that’s what we were on.
“If you wanted coffee, you should have woken up earlier,” Allison said.
“And not wasted all your time ogling my naked wife,” Mike said.
I had to concede, I’d have traded quite a bit of coffee for more naked Allison time. Fortunately, my habit of keeping quiet kept me from making such comments aloud. Silence really did save me trouble most of the time.
We raced past Grauman’s and went under an archway with pictures of Mickey and Minnie on it. Then we hung a sharp left past a theater for The Little Mermaid. Again, we saw a couple coffee carts and blew them by. Again, I felt my caffeine-craving soul crack at such callous treatment.
As we went, though, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by what seemed like a very obvious revelation. This was Disney World. I know that sounds dumb — I’d been in Disney World since the day before. But staying at a nice resort hotel was very different than passing bright images of mice and princesses. Now it was all very real, and it was captivating.
Finally, we came up to a bunch of giant statues of Toy Story characters. Behind the massive likenesses there was a bright red track, looping and diving dramatically. The music of the movies filled our ears. I was not a huge Disney guy, but even I recognized the songs immediately, like they’d been implanted in my brain.
“That’s Slinky Dog Dash,” Mike said, pointing at the red tracks. “Our first ride of the trip.” He rubbed his hands together, eagerly.
This seemed like a great place to stop and take a photo (or a breath), but Allison wasn’t having it. She dragged us around the oversized tinker toy fencing and queued right up for the ride. While it seemed like the majority of people had walked the same way we did, the crowds had thinned quite a bit. Perhaps, they were unable to keep pace with Allison.
The evidence around us agreed: a sign above us said the wait for the ride was only 10 minutes.
“That’s really good if it’s true,” Allison said.
The line took a little longer, more like fifteen. We wandered through a tight labyrinth of oversized game boxes: Twister, dominoes, and the like. We kept a brisk pace, and it wasn’t long before we were at the ride, itself. I climbed in next to my wife and Mike sat with his. Just two normal couples that hadn’t been kissing other people the night before.
As I pushed down on the lap bar, Emily gave me a nervous look. My wife was no coward, she loved adventures, but she got motion sick fairly easily.
I pointed a few rows in front of us to where a clump of children no older than 6 was sitting. If the tykes could handle this, my wife could too.
“I hope so,” Emily said, dubiously.
But then, whoosh, we were off. It was a cute little ride, swinging and twirling us around. The rails were much smoother than I was expecting, and it felt more like gliding. Slinky wasn’t a thrill ride, but it was fun and a neat way to get started (for real) at Disney. It was certainly closer to what I’d anticipated doing on a trip to Orlando, rather than the rather different ride we’d been on so far.
After the giant, toy penguin serenaded us (seriously), we got off the coaster and raced to the other side of the Toy Story area, past a character meet with Woody, for a ride called Toy Story Mania. By now, the crowds were starting to catch up; the sign said it would take 20 minutes to get to the front.
I looked over at Emily as we queued up. She grinned back at me, but I’ll be honest, she looked a little green.
Allison seemed to notice, and she grabbed her friend’s skinny arm, convivially.
“You’ll like this one,” Allison told her, “It’s more like a video game.”
“I might need a break,” Emily said, “That last ride was a lot.”
“You’re fine,” Allison said, as if her dismissal of Emily’s symptoms could simply set them aside. “Trust me, if you skip out of everything that seems scary, you won’t have any fun.”
Emily looked to me for help.
“We’ll take a rest after this one,” I said.
Mike agreed. “We’ll probably hear from Cassie by then, anyway,” he said.