Then the door opened.
Thomas entered wearing tailored slacks, a starched white shirt, and a vest of some satiny material underneath an elegant knee-length coat with wide velvet lapels. Whereas Vanessa’s Ghost Factory costume was modeled to look like a factory worker, his costume was styled to look like a factory owner.
“Good morning,” he said.
All he needs is a top hat. Would a cane be too much?
She made a mental picture of the full ensemble.
“I already asked her to iron my shirts,” said Dirk, who couldn’t let a bad joke go unrepeated.
Thomas didn’t even look at him. Instead, he addressed Vanessa. “Shall we?”
Vanessa, who had been utterly lost in thought, collected herself just in time to answer in the affirmative before leading the way out.
She came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the corridor as the door closed behind her. “I’m sorry, Thomas, I know we’re on a schedule, but if I don’t get a cup of coffee, I’m going to die.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to apologize to me. Do you want to go back to the office?”
A vehement “No!” escaped her before she could stop it. “I mean, isn’t there somewhere else we can go?”
“What, you don’t want the pleasure of Dirk the—” He cleared his throat before continuing, “Dirk’s company?”
It would be too easy to give in and banter with Thomas. She had to remind herself to be diplomatic without breaking ranks. “I’d like to breathe some fresh air, to be honest.”
Thomas led her upstairs and around a corner to a tiny backstage cafe. Coffee in hand, they returned underground to walk the distance across the park before emerging upstairs in a deserted alley next to the Ghost Factory ride.
Vanessa could hear the ride soundtrack faintly through the walls of the building. The orientation of the alley created a funnel effect, which kept a light breeze moving through the area.
Thomas gestured with the hand that held his coffee. “Fresh air, right?”
She faced into the breeze and let it push the loose tendrils of hair away from her face as she sipped her coffee. “Lovely.”
He leaned against the building.
“Thomas, you’ve been here a while, right? Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“We had a meeting yesterday about the Destiny Park employees who are trying to unionize.” She paused, trying to choose the right words. “Can you fill me in, at all, on what’s going on?” She watched his face closely while trying not to be too obvious about it. He appeared to be gathering his thoughts.
“What do you want to know?” He met her gaze. It felt strangely intense. She looked away and took a sip of her coffee.
“How do people feel about it?”
“People?” he asked.
“You know what I mean.”
“Like, manager people? You’re a manager, you should know what they think,” said Thomas.
She gave him a look. “I’m not asking about managers.”
Thomas exhaled slowly. “Why don’t you ask Charlotte?”
“Charlotte works in an office. It’s not the same,” said Vanessa.
“True. The secretaries aren’t organizing. Yet.” He tipped back his coffee cup for the last drop. “You could ask me how I feel about it.”
I was, you infuriating man. “How do you feel about it?”
“I’m not sure if I like talking politics,” he said. He turned and tossed his cup into a nearby trash can. “Wouldn’t you rather be a ghost in the factory?” He leaned against the wall and grinned at her.
“A haunting answer,” she said.
But not a real answer, and you know it.
Thomas
She knows. She’s on to me. My God, I’m actually sweating. He touched the back of his neck lightly and came away with moisture on his fingertips. He turned his head to see her walking behind him, following him to Ghost Factory. He noticed that her eyes were green, but in doing so, failed to watch where he put his feet, then tripped on a cobblestone and fell over.
She was beside him in an instant, one hand under his forearm and another behind his shoulder, stabilizing him as best she could.
Thomas colored. If I’m going to get fired for union organizing, it’d be nice if I didn’t fall on my face first.
“Are you all right?” Her eyes were kind and filled with concern.
Thomas nodded and got to his feet. If I get fired by her, it will be like being murdered by an angel. He shook his head to try to clear it. “Never better!”
He thought fast. “Why don’t we go on a ride-through first? I can recover, and you can see the ride from a visitor’s point of view before we get into the technical side of things.”
He took a shortcut to the loading area through a side door. They stepped onto a moving walkway lit with simulated gas lamps, then into a ride vehicle resembling a small open carriage.
As the carriage moved forward into the darkness, Thomas tried to impose logic on the thoughts tumbling through his mind. I am a crew member trying to start a union in a hostile environment. She is a manager.
She is my natural enemy.
Just as that thought passed through his head, his natural enemy happily exclaimed at a life-size ghost horse appearing to draw the carriage forward.
Thomas squeezed his eyes closed. The soundtrack, so faint from outside the building, was deafening within it. He felt a headache coming on.
They proceeded through one show scene after another. Vanessa attended to it all with apparent pleasure while Thomas, normally immune to every phantasmagorical effect, fervently wished it would all just go away.
It was the longest ride he’d ever been on.
Afterward, he escorted her to a tiny triangular break room wedged into a corner of the attraction building.
The crew members in the break room became noticeably uncomfortable in the presence of the almighty area manager, so Thomas and Vanessa didn’t linger long before they slipped back through the velvet curtain and into the public area of the attraction. Thomas wondered, with some relief, how she would manage to get any intelligence on what was happening if all the crew simply clammed up around her.
They spent the rest of the morning practicing each station in the attraction. His favorite duty by far was to entertain the visitors entering the building. Thomas whipped open the attraction entrance door from the inside, startling the visitors closest to the entryway. “All right, you lot, any person coming in late shall pay a fine. Step lively, that’s the way!” The first visitors in line hesitantly stepped over the threshold. “I hope you washed yourselves today?”