“Good morning,” she said to the woman at the entrance, whose eyes widened upon being addressed. Her name tag read “Maribel.”
“Good morning,” Maribel said.
“How’s it going over here?”
“Oh, fine!” She glanced over her shoulder to survey the queue, sending her thick brown braid swinging. “Going to be a busy day for sure. See the line?”
“I sure do,” said Vanessa. “Were you at the meeting a few days ago? I don’t think we’ve met. I’m the new area manager.” She held out her hand to shake.
Maribel shook it. “I wasn’t at the meeting, but I heard about it when I came in. Thomas mentioned it.”
“Thomas did? Is he here today?”
“No, he’s not here today.”
Vanessa must have looked visibly disappointed, for Maribel quickly added to her statement. “I mean, he’s not here today. At Gold Rush. But he’s probably at Ghost Factory.”
“Really? That’s where I was headed next. Thank you, Maribel. You have a good day.” Thomas at Ghost Factory? I wonder if he’s training someone. Her steps quickened.
Outside Ghost Factory, she stopped at a distance to study the exterior. The spiked fence and red brick drew the eye first, but there were many more details if one looked closely. The red brick framed a large clock with Roman numerals and two pointed hands. There were glass windows divided by frames into multiple rows of squares, each pane too opaque to see the interior. The line of visitors wound through the gate and under the clock, looking for all the world like a motley crew arriving for work, albeit dressed in clothes unbefitting a Victorian factory worker.
She dodged the line and entered through the side door. The transition from the bright morning sun to the dark interior of the building made her momentarily blind. She groped along the passageway until her eyes adjusted. There’s the break room. She reached for the door handle and was just about to pull open the door when she heard a voice.
She froze.
“You’ve worked here for ten years, but they’re giving the new people better shifts than you?”
Thomas.
Someone responded too quietly for her to hear.
Determined not to eavesdrop, she pulled open the door and pushed aside the velvet curtain.
Thomas
Thomas looked up as the curtain whipped aside and revealed Vanessa.
Oh.
Determined not to be caught flat-footed, he turned back to his coworker with the blandest expression he could manage. “Happens all the time. You jumping back in now?” he asked, using crew member lingo for going back to work after your break.
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?”