Chapter 4
IT TAKES APPROXIMATELY FIFTEEN minutes for Monte’s Magic Castle to descend into chaos.
Waiters are running around, lighting candles on the center of each table, as if this is a five-star restaurant and not a three-star business on Yelp with a review that literally just says “Absolutely not.”
Monte Jr. frantically tasked me with assembling the woodland crew and greeting all the guests at the door, which is exactly what I do. Kind of. As we wait for everyone to arrive, I drift off to the arcade area and open iDiary . I’m about to type out a new text post when a tiny red number catches my eye. I have three new notifications! Which is kind of a big deal, considering I usually have zero.
Clicking on the alert, I see that three people have interacted with my heartbreak-expert post. Two people liked it, and one person commented, Share the knowledge!
Not me being validated by strangers online and instantly feeling my ego swell.
I’m typing out a response to the comment when I hear my name being called.
No— screamed .
“Oh, no,” I whisper.
Monte Jr. has returned to the megaphone.
“OUR GUESTS ARE ARRIVING. ALL WOODLAND CREATURES REPORT TO THE FRONT DOOR TO GREET OUR GUESTS. AND GET OFF YOUR CELL PHONES THIS INSTANT. I AM SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO YOU, JACKIE MYERS.” His voice booms through the building, practically making the floors shake.
I run to the front door and stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Dozens of cars are pulling into the parking lot. It’s a never-ending stream of Lexuses, Mercedes Benzes, and Porsches, with a shiny black Rolls-Royce leading the way. In seconds, the entire parking lot is full. Car doors pop open and slam shut. A mob of humans walks toward us. I have a random flashback to when Suzy and I watched Shrek last week. More specifically, when the village people charge Shrek’s swamp in full outrage, armed to the teeth with pitchforks and torches.
“SHIT.” Monte Jr. forgets his megaphone is on and says exactly what we are all thinking.
I stand beside Anita the squirrel, Olivia the beaver, Shauna the rabbit, Paxton the fox, and Davis the bear. We all share the same look of terror.
The bell chimes, a cute little ding !
Then the rest is a blur of Chanel perfume and the sound of heels click-clacking against linoleum. In seconds, Anita has turned into a coatrack and Paxton is rocking a newborn baby in his arms.
Anita peers up at me from beneath a brown fur coat. “Help,” she gasps.
They won’t stop coming.
Cousins and nephews and nieces and great-aunts and regular aunts and great-uncles and family friends and This Person’s second cousin and That Person’s mother-in-law and the wife of Some Man and the ex-husband of Some Other Woman. Monte Jr.’s family pours in like a freaking dam on the verge of collapsing. There are so many of them, and we barely manage to get a “Hello!” out of our mouths before they are storming past, ignoring us like overlooked statues in a museum.
Throughout all of it, I search every face, every group of people, waiting for Wilson. I need to be prepared for his entrance. I need to know the exact moment to run .
Finally, the last members of Monte Jr.’s Largest Family in the Entire Freaking World pile into the building, and the door shuts. I feel a slight pang of guilt for whoever broke their back cleaning these floors overnight. All that hard work, demolished in seconds.
“He’s not here yet,” I say to Anita. All the other woodland crew members have dispersed, leaving the two of us standing like weirdos by the door.
“Cool, cool,” she says. “Great observation. Hey—could you help take these insanely heavy and very inhumane jackets off of me?”
“Right. Yes. Of course. Who even wears a coat in this weather?” I have never seen this much fur in my life. I begin piling them in my arms. “I hope this is faux.”
“We both know damn well these are real,” Anita says, looking utterly disgusted.
“If Jill was here, she’d call PETA.”
Anita holds up a cropped fur coat that looks hauntingly like a zebra. “Where are we even supposed to put these? Other than the dumpster.”
“Definitely not that. I can stash them in the break room?” I offer.
“Great idea,” she says. I hold my arms out, and Anita piles the rest on. “I’ll stay here and continue greeting. Go, Jackie, go!”
I quickly disappear through the Employees Only door and head straight for the break room. I dump half the coats on the table, covering it entirely, then stumble down the hall with the rest to Monte Jr.’s office. A large wooden desk takes up most of the space, with two armchairs positioned in front, and floor-to-ceiling shelving that’s covered in mostly black-and-white photos of Monte Jr. shaking hands with various men and a few photos of Monte’s Magic Castle back in the day, before it crushed the hopes and dreams of so many young teens. Ugh— I take a moment to pay my respects.
The moment ends with a thump! My arms finally fail me, and the coats pile onto the top of Monte Jr.’s desk like an avalanche. With that, I decide I’m due for a little break. After making myself cozy in Monte Jr.’s chair, I pull out the Twix bar and my phone. I’m mid-bite when the office door is pushed open. I shriek, my phone crashes to the floor, and Wilson stands in the doorway. Once again, catching me in a bad situation.
Can this day get any worse?
Then Wilson steps into the office and— Yup, turns out it can , because behind him is the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen. To my absolute shock, she’s holding Wilson’s hand.
“Hey, Froggy,” he says, because calling a gal by her legal name is apparently overrated.
I eye their intertwined fingers.
No. That can’t be right.
“Hello, William,” I say, purposely using the wrong name to both annoy him and undermine his authority. “Step into my office.”
“You know my name is Wilson,” says the worst person in the world.
“Whatever, Wilfred. What are you doing here?”
Since we are openly staring at each other, I take a moment to note how different he looks. His usual wavy hair that falls both this way and that has been tamed with gel, and he’s wearing dark denim and a black polo. He looks a bit better than normal. Like, if I had a gun to my head, then, yeah, I’d admit that.
His girlfriend easily outshines both of us, looking like a young Halle Berry. She stares at my costume, grinning. But not in the mean way Wilson does.
“Does my uncle know you’re in his office?” Wilson blab-bers on.
“I thought this was your—” his girlfriend begins before he cuts her off.
“Jackie?” he prompts.
I ignore him entirely and take the liberty to introduce myself to this girl. “I’m Jackie,” I say, smiling. “I’m the assistant manager here.”
“No she is not ,” Wilson says.
I ignore his frustration. Annoying him is just so fun . “No, he’s right, I’m not. I declined the position because it was just too easy, you know? Good thing Wilson was the second pick.”
Wilson’s face is a fantastic shade of red. “That’s not true,” he says, forcing each word out between clenched teeth.
“Is true,” I chime, taking another bite of the Twix. My teeth sink into caramel chocolatey goodness.
“Is not ,” he fires back.
We are children on a playground, fighting over who gets to go down the slide first.
Wilson’s girlfriend laughs. Even her laugh sounds like it should come out of a Disney princess. “Woah. The infamous Jackie. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
That... Well, that entirely catches me off guard. From the look on Wilson’s face, I don’t think he ever intended for me to know that.
I smile sweetly at him, basking in his discomfort. “You talk about me outside of work? I’m so flattered, Willy.”
“I complain about you outside of work,” he corrects.
“Doesn’t matter. My presence still takes up a tiny part of your brain at all times. How sweet,” I say.
“See what I mean? She’s impossible,” he says, shaking his head.
The girl’s smile doesn’t waver. “He definitely didn’t overexaggerate. I’m Kenzie, by the way,” she says, giving a wave. “Wilson’s girlfriend.”
“You can blink twice if you need help,” I say. “There must be a panic button in here somewhere.”
When she actually blinks twice, we both laugh out loud. “Kidding,” Kenzie says.
No—she’s amazing.
What on earth is she doing with him ?
Wilson looks as if he is witnessing the downfall of society. But when he turns to Kenzie, his entire face softens, like an ice cube melting in the sun. The tension is gone, replaced by a look filled with so much adoration it’s entirely foreign on his face. “Could you let my uncle know I’ll be out there in a minute? He’s probably looking for me.”
“Sure.” Kenzie says goodbye to me, pressing a quick kiss to Wilson’s cheek before leaving. He watches her go, a tiny smile playing on his lips. It’s like in the movies, when the monster takes their mask off and there’s a real person underneath. Who knew that beneath Wilson’s cruel remarks, superego, and tyrant-like tendencies, he actually had a heart.
“Have you walked along a yellow brick road lately?” I ask.
When he turns to me, his entire face has hardened right back up. “What? No. What are you talking about?”
“Just wondering if you’ve run into any wizards? Perhaps behind a curtain? That give out hearts...”
I see the moment the joke clicks. “ The Wizard of Oz. Hilarious.”
“I watched it last week,” I say. Suzy and I made our usual popcorn concoction—a bowl of popcorn with a minimum of two sour candies and two chocolates mixed in—and spent the night on the couch.
“Let me guess,” Wilson says, leaning against the doorframe now. “Did you watch it on your phone in the storage room? On company time?”
“That’s so rude of you to say. I watched it in the break room on company time, obviously. The lighting is way better in there.” Wilson rubs at his eyes, like I’m a strange hallucination that will disappear in three, two, one...
“If you’re so annoyed by me, feel free to leave at any time,” I say.
“I’m not leaving you alone in here,” he fires back.
I’m fully aware that his entire family is a few feet away. There are definitely a dozen people he should be talking to, and yet he chooses to be in here, heckling me.
“So...” I continue. “What else do you say about me to your girlfriend?”
He bangs his head against the door.
“I only ask because you apparently talk about me so much —”
“How does so much sarcasm fit in such a small person?” he asks, looking genuinely confused.
Hey, I’m only five three. I shrug. “No idea. I’m, like, fifty percent Diet Coke and fifty percent wit.”
Wilson walks toward the desk, and the entire space seems to shrink. I don’t like the way he towers over me, looking down on me. “You really shouldn’t be here.”
I ignore that. “Your girlfriend is gorgeous.”
“I know.”
“She’s way out of your league.”
At that, he actually laughs. “I know that, too.”
“Where’d you two meet?” I’m not entirely sure why I’m asking about their relationship. Probably because I’m so shocked there’s someone out there who could actually tolerate him, so, naturally, I need to learn all the details to see exactly how this pairing happened.
“School,” Wilson says. “Can you get out of that chair?”
Instead, I do a little spin on it. “How long have you been together?”
He sighs, like he is resigning himself to my questioning. “Seven months.”
I whistle. Dang, that’s a good chunk of time. “And she hasn’t gotten sick of you yet?”
“Apparently not.”
“Does she live here?”
“No,” Wilson says. “But Kenz has some family here that she’s staying with for the summer. Why do you care?”
Kenz . Every attempt I make to imagine Wilson not only coining a nickname for his girlfriend but maybe whispering it gently in her ear before kissing her, comes up empty. It’s like if you threw Wilson and romance into a math equation, the answer wouldn’t exist.
Yet here I am realizing that, somehow, it does.
“No reason,” I answer.
“What are you doing in my uncle’s office?” he asks again. He shoves his hands into his jean pockets, probably to hide his fingers as he flips me off.
I’m starting to think there’s a specific reason he doesn’t want me in here. Something to hide, maybe? I lean back in the chair, cozying up. “I don’t know,” I say. “I could be working. I could be taking a break. I might be hiding from your family— Hey, maybe I’m planning a hostile takeover.”
“Hostile takeover? That means you’d be spending even more time here,” he says.
“Oh, gross. I definitely don’t want that.” Even with every aspect of my life feeling like a gigantic question mark, the one thing I know for certain is I am not making a home out of this job.
“What do you and Kenzie do for fun?” I ask, digging my nose a little deeper into their business. “Color-coordinate files? Rank your coworkers from most to least hated?”
“Yeah, and guess who’s at the top of the list?”
“Justin?” I joke. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell him.”
After a pause, Wilson huffs out, “We go on dates.”
“I’d hope so.” With a girl like that, Wilson better be pulling out all the stops to keep her eyes on him.
“Nice dates,” he adds.
“Are you trying to prove something to me or yourself?” He looks completely exasperated with me. Welcome to the club, buddy. “Anyway, planning a cute date in Ridgewood must be a pain in the ass. This town is impossible to romanticize. You know what I would love? A cute picnic in a park or something. Have you guys done that?”
“Isn’t there a mosquito warning in effect?”
Ah, shoot. “There is. I forgot about that. By the way, your family turned me into a human coatrack,” I say.
Wilson’s gaze searches the room, taking in every inch, like he’s analyzing the square footage. “Sounds like something they’d do.”
“Any chance those coats are faux?”
He snaps back to attention, his eyes landing on the coats. “Unfortunately, no.”
“Don’t tell Anita,” I say.
He hits me with a confused look. “Why would I tell Anita?” This man has the sense of humor of a brick wall.
The fluorescent office lighting is beginning to give me a headache. I give up my power position in the chair and strut past Wilson, hitting him with a heavy amount of side-eye. “If anyone asks, I was never here,” I say.
“I wish that were true,” he grumbles.
After lunch is served, the chaos begins to dwindle. The second the last plate is cleared, Monte Jr. stands up and asks for everyone’s attention. I feel the nervous anticipation build up in my bones. This is the moment when he announces our new boss—the person who can get me out of this frog costume and into my brand-new car.
When we have all gathered in a circle around Monte Jr.—Wilson, weirdly enough, stands at his side—he begins his speech by thanking everyone for coming. “As you all know,” he continues, “my time managing Monte’s Magic Castle is being put on hold. I have prided myself on running this business for the past decade. When my father, Monte Sr., passed away”—his mother, an older woman with a tuft of white hair, begins crying at the mention of her husband—“he trusted this business to my brother, and then to me. In the past ten years, we have taken Monte’s Magic Castle and grown it into more than a business. It’s a pillar in this community, where memories are made and life’s biggest moments are celebrated. Today, I’m saddened to be taking a step away from the company, but I believe it is being left in great hands while I’m gone.”
A hushed murmur falls over the crowd. Everyone scans the room, trying to spot the new boss. But my eyes land on Wilson, who looks like he’s about to take a step forward.
And just like that, the events from today click into place. I understand why Wilson’s family was so happy, why Wilson was showing Kenzie his uncle’s office—he was showing her his future office.
“While I step away for an indefinite amount of time, my nephew Wilson will be taking over as the acting manager of Monte’s Magic Castle.” What Monte Jr. says next is drowned out with applause. People are standing up, cheering, clapping, whistling. I stand frozen, watching an unstoppable series of catastrophic events play out in front of me.
Beside Monte Jr., Wilson takes that step forward. His hair is perfectly in place, his face stoic and ready. In a room of seventy people, his eyes find mine. His smile is ruthless, like the first shot being fired.
I gasp. Wilson was right—this is a hostile takeover. Only it’s not mine.
It’s his.