It’s A Plunderful Life Read online

  Ah, home.

  Grabbing my purse, I slid out of the car. The castle did have a drawbridge, although as I drew closer I saw that the chains weren’t even attached to the door, but rather to spikes in the ground on the parking lot side of the moat. Because of course there was a moat, a narrow band of water that ran between the parking lot and the castle and was home to impressively large catfish, dark, sluggish shapes moving around in the water.

  I stepped into the castle, giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the cool, dim interior. Speakers piped in prerecorded calliope music, and the scent of popcorn and roasted hot dogs washed over me. I found myself in the large, open lobby, the ticket sales counter running along almost the entirety of the far wall despite the fact that I’d only ever seen two, maybe three at most, sales stations open. A young man with fawn-colored hair was in the middle of reviewing a park map with the family that I’d seen in the parking lot. He was too young for me to know him, but I glanced at his name placard anyway—Peter, it read.

  To my left, through a massive arched doorway, was the entrance to the park itself.

  To my right was the gift shop, and I turned in without thinking.

  At forty-nine, I knew that most of the stuff in the gift shop was pure junk. Plastic swords and pirate hooks and cheap princess costumes and plush unicorns with off-center horns. But even though I knew that, beneath the soft, multi-colored lights inside the castle, everything in the gift shop sparkled and glowed, whispering promises of magic. My fingers itched to touch an adult-sized emerald-green gown with an empire waist and a metric ton of gold braid trim.

  Yeah. Because that was something I needed.

  “Can I help you?” a gruff voice asked.

  I looked up and grinned in sheer delight. “Mr. Mancuso! You’re still here.”

  The older man behind the gift shop register narrowed his eyes, studying me with some confusion on his face. Then recognition dawned, and he bustled around the counter toward me. “Cassandra! Look at you! You’ve gotten so…” He reached out to pat my head, his traditional greeting for me, but then stopped himself. “Mature,” he finished lamely.

  Old. He’d been going for old.

  Well, at least he’d thought better of saying it.

  “You look exactly the same,” I said. It was true. I’d been gone for almost thirty years, and yet Mr. Mancuso still had the same wispy fringe of gray hair circling his head, the same age spots in the shape of the constellation Orion on his right temple and cheek, the same dark eyes shining with warmth and wisdom, the same white crosshatch of scars on his jawline from an unfortunate run-in with a windmill.

  That’s the story he’d always told me, anyway.

  Growing up, it was Mr. Mancuso who watched me while my mom was off handling the day-to-day responsibilities of running the park and putting out the inevitable fires. I had a little nook behind the gift shop counter where I could read or listen to music on my Walkman. But usually I set aside my books and cassette tapes, eating popcorn from a red-and-white striped bag, while Mr. Mancuso regaled me with stories about the park and the magic creatures who lived there when no humans were around to see them. After an afternoon with Mr. Mancuso, I was seeing gnomes behind every rhododendron.

  “You’re finally back for a visit,” Mr. Mancuso said. “Did you bring the little one with you?”

  I felt a stab of guilt. I should have brought Margot here at some point, but there had never been a good time. And whenever I’d brought up the idea to my mother, she’d told me that it made no sense for me to go to the trouble of traveling with a young child when she could just come to us.

  “She’s not so little anymore,” I said, pulling out my phone to show off Margot’s graduation photo. “She’s twenty-two, if you can believe it.”

  He smiled, although there was a touch of sadness there. “Honestly, I can’t believe you’re older than twenty-two.” Then he cleared his throat. “But you must want to see your mother. She’s out at one of the guest cottages. Let me call her for you.”

  Moving back to the counter, he grabbed a bright pink walkie-talkie. “Evelyn, I have a surprise in the gift shop for you.”

  There was a sharp crackle, and then my mother’s voice came through. “Joe, I swear, if it’s vomit again, I’m going to wring your scrawny neck.”

  He winked at me. “You’ll just have to come see for yourself.” Then he set the walkie-talkie down. “Now, would you like a snow cone?”

  I laughed. “Mr. Mancuso, I’m forty-nine.”

  He waited.

  “Can you make a rainbow one?”

  I was leaning against the gift shop counter, scraping the bottom of my snow cone cup with my spoon and catching up on the last twenty-eight years with Mr. Mancuso when my mother walked in.

  “Cass, you’re here!” She came toward me, sashaying along with those wonderful, mincing little steps of hers, both hands held out in front of her to grasp mine. That was how she greeted everyone, from park guests to her granddaughter to the guy at the DMV. She pulled me closer, kissing my cheek, and she smelled exactly the way I remembered: a little Chanel, a little mint, and a little candy corn. “Oh, baby girl, I’m so happy you’re home.”

  She was in her seventies but looked like she could be my sister, with her brilliant blue eyes, barely lined face, tea-colored hair, and that wide, generous, easy smile. Of course, I inherited none of my mother’s glorious good looks. Instead, I took after my father, with stick-straight brown hair—brown, not chestnut or mahogany or chocolate—and brown eyes and a round face and elbows so dry that no amount of lotion would ever make them supple.

  My mother wrapped me in a hug, her coral silk suit rustling like a whisper beneath my cheek. I relaxed against her for a moment. I was home, with my mother, and now everything was going to be okay.

  I mean, a girl could dream, right?

  “I’m glad to be home too, Mom.”

  She drew back and patted my cheek with one hand. “You’ll get through this,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I meant what I said on the phone—you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Although let’s be honest—I was really, really hoping to figure out what I wanted for the rest of my life sooner rather than later. Because as nice as it was to be back home, there was something just a tad depressing about the thought of living in my mother’s house for the next thirty years.

  “Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.”

  I turned to see my stepsister, Toni, strolling into the gift shop. She was eight years younger than me, with strawberry-blond hair and freckles and skinny elbows. She looked a bit like Anne of Green Gables, even down to the frilly but threadbare white dress she wore, half buttoned over hot pink spandex leggings and a white tank top. Her cool, assessing gaze reminded me of the way she’d looked the last time I saw her, the day after I married Brad.

  She hadn’t been my biggest fan that day. It didn’t look like time had improved her view of me.

  “Hey, Toni,” I said.

  She smiled, but it wasn’t exactly a nice smile. If a pit bull had smiled at me like that, I would have pulled my hands as far as possible from it and slowly backed away. “Taking a break from starring in internet videos to spend some time with us?”

  Behind me, Mr. Mancuso coughed in a way that told me he knew exactly what Toni was talking about. How great was it that my breakup video had reached people even here?

  Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t great at all.

  “Toni,” my mother said. Her voice didn’t change in any pinpointable way, but there was a warning there, just the same.

  My stepsister’s smile just grew more rabid. “We’re super happy you came. After all, we’re fans of larger rear ends around here.”

  Ah, another reference to my painful experience with internet fame. So that was how it was going to be. Got it.

  I eyed her pink spandex shorts. “Clearly,” I said. But she was still as slim as ever, so the barb only made her roll her eyes.


  “Girls.” Mom clasped her hands tightly in front of her. “Let’s try to get along.”

  “Oh, wasn’t it obvious? This is me trying,” Toni said.

  Before I could rethink this whole thing, my mom grabbed my elbow. “Let’s get you settled in. Kurt will be thrilled to see you.”

  I waved goodbye to Mr. Mancuso, tossed my snow cone cup in the recycling can, and followed my mother out of the castle and along the narrow path that connected my childhood home to the park.

  I’d forgotten the flowers, although now that I saw them again, I couldn’t imagine how. A good part of the path passed under a massive tunnel of a trellis dripping with wisteria blooms, and there were the peonies, creamy white and shell pink and lemony yellow, and the blue-violet hydrangea, and snapdragons in every color of the sunset, and spikes of lavender crawling with bees, and…and…and…

  Everywhere I looked, there were more flowers, thanks to my mother and her legendary green thumb. It wasn’t something I’d inherited from her. For Mother’s Day one year, Margot had given me an orchid she’d bought with her own allowance from the floral department at Kroger. The poor flower had fought valiantly to survive until Brad took pity on it and took it to work, where one of his coworkers ran something of a one-man orchid rescue in his office.

  Last I heard, my orchid was still thriving under his care.

  So, doing better than my marriage.

  The path ended at my mother’s backyard, and I looked up at the house, a Wedgewood blue Victorian with gingerbread trim painted dusty rose and cream. It was a little shabbier than it had been the last time I’d seen it. The exterior paint was flaking in spots, and a brick was shoved beneath the bottom porch step to keep it from sagging. But it was still a lovely house.

  It felt like home.

  I hadn’t expected Toni to come with us, but she trailed after me as Mom led me into the cool shade of the house. It was just as I remembered it, small and comfortable and perfect. The scent was somewhere between a floral fragrance and something from a bakery, sweet and comforting and still warm.

  “Kurt should be in his study,” Mom said, heading for the staircase at the front of the house.

  My stepfather’s study was at the top of the stairs. It was an inviting room with sunlight filtering in through a big bay window and two walls of built-in bookshelves. Kurt sat behind the desk, his chin on his chest, snoring softly. “Kurt?” my mother said softly, placing one hand tenderly on his shoulder. He awoke gradually, his eyes soft and unfocused until they fixed on my mother’s face. Then they lit up.

  “Hello, there,” he said. “Aren’t you pretty?”

  My mother’s smile was tight as she nodded in my direction. “Cass is here, Kurt. Remember Cass?”

  And that’s when it hit me—no, he did not remember Cass. He smiled at me politely, but there was not a trace of recognition in his gaze when he turned to me. “You’re very pretty, too,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “This is Cass,” my mother said. Behind me, I heard Toni reach the top of the stairs and keep right on going down the hallway. I couldn’t blame her. It would have been heartbreaking to see my own father like this.

  “Cass,” he said. “I think I know that name.”

  My mother rubbed her hand in a circle over his back. “That’s good, sweetheart.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Cass,” he said, standing up. He was tall and lean, even leaner now than I remembered, and his dark eyes twinkled above smooth-shaven cheeks. I could picture my mom shaving him every morning, and my heart squeezed with pain for her.

  I hadn’t known. No one had said anything. Sure, I’d noticed that Kurt had come to the phone less and less when I called every Sunday, but I’d assumed he was busy.

  A brown tabby cat with gold eyes and a rapidly twitching tail wound its way around Kurt’s ankles, and he reached down to pet it idly. The cat turned that gold gaze on me.

  “Who’s this?” I said, holding out a hand to the cat. The animal took one look at my outstretched fingers, shot me a disapproving glare, and then slunk toward one of the bookcases, slipping beneath it and disappearing into a space I would never have guessed a cat could fit into.

  “That’s Squashi,” my mother said with a sigh. “She was a sickly kitten, so I brought her inside to give her a place to recover. Now she won’t leave this office.” She gave the tabby a baleful look. The Enchanted Forest also served as something of a stray cat refuge, a place where feral cats could, once spayed or neutered, live out their days in relative safety. But the cats weren’t supposed to be in the house, so I could imagine that Squashi’s desire to stay put had not been met with enthusiasm.

  “She’s a nice cat,” Kurt said, lifting a hand and resting it over my mother’s.

  “She is.” Mom patted his shoulder. “Do you need anything, sweetheart?”

  He shook his head, smiling up at her.

  At least he seemed happy.

  My mother inclined her head toward the door, and I told Kurt I’d see him later, slipping back out into the hallway. Toni was waiting in the alcove before the bedrooms, her face tight. I opened my mouth to say I was sorry about her dad, but she shook her head sharply. “Don’t say anything,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  Was she mad that I hadn’t been here while her dad declined? I wanted to ask her, but Mom was moving along down the hallway and Toni’s stern glare made me decide it was better not to poke the bear, so to speak. Besides, I was looking forward to a moment alone in my room, without my mother’s barely veiled concern and Toni’s not-at-all-veiled hostility.

  And there it was. My old room. First door on the left, and straight on ’til morning. I reached out for the doorknob, but a hard hand clamped down on my wrist. “That’s my room,” Toni said. I hadn’t heard her get that close, and I jumped a little at the unexpected contact. It took a moment for her words to fully sink in.

  “But…”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I should have thought to tell you before,” Mom said, swishing toward me in the hallway. “You know that room is bigger than Toni’s old room, and it seemed silly to leave it empty after you left.”

  She took hold of my shoulders and gently guided me down the hallway toward Toni’s old room. “Of course,” I said. “It would have been silly.”

  I don’t know why I felt so stung. Hadn’t I been fantasizing about turning Margot’s room into a craft room? And I wasn’t even sure what kind of craft I might like to do yet. It just seemed like the thing to do.

  “But we have a lovely guest room,” she continued, her voice soothing the pain of this new and utterly foreseeable loss. “Here we are.” She nudged the last door on the right, and it glided open, revealing a very pretty—albeit very bland—guest room. Lots of grays. A little bit of white. Some quotes from Maya Angelou framed on the wall, as well as a big print of the Enchanted Forest castle at sunrise. On the wall across from the bed was a motivational poster with an illustration of a doughnut and the words, “Donut Give Up.” There was a queen-sized bed, a white dresser—was that IKEA?—and a reach-in closet with what I would swear was a closet system from The Container Store inside. It could have been any room in any Pinterest blog ever.

  “It’s very pretty,” I said, even though the plush gray carpet was for some reason threatening to suck up all my remaining joy. No, I don’t know what was wrong with me. The room was nicer than anything I’d had for the first half of my marriage.

  Let’s just chalk up my disappointment over the room to first world problems, okay?

  “Mrs. H?” a deep male voice called from downstairs. “I need you to sign off on the new windows for the Gingerbread Cottages.”

  My mother’s eyes sparkled. “That’s the head of park maintenance. Wait until you see who it is,” she said, grabbing my hand and starting to tug me along. Then she paused and turned, surveying me. She reached out to fluff my hair a little. “You look wonderful, baby girl. And I’ve been using that box you sent for Chri
stmas.”

  Had I not sold my business, I would have begged my mother to let me use her picture in ads. Looking like that in her seventies? Sure, it was mostly good genetics and a dedication to daily sunscreen, so it would have been a bit misleading, but…damn, she looked good.

  “Mrs. H?”

  “I’ll be right down,” my mother called. “And I have a surprise for you.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what had gotten into my mother until we reached the bottom of the stairs and I got my first glimpse of the man standing there, just inside the front door. It took me a moment to reconcile that lean, angled face with the one I’d known so long ago. “Wilder?” I asked, my breath practically leaving my body.

  It was a familiar feeling, one I’d experienced every time Wilder O’Shea had come around. Two years older than me and effortlessly cool, he’d been my childhood crush from the very first moment my hormones woke up and said, “Hey, why don’t we see what boys are doing?” until the day I met Brad.

  Okay, maybe even a little bit after that.

  He cocked his head to one side, studying me like I was a windup clock with a spring that needed fixing. Then the corner of his mouth kicked up on one side. “Cass?”

  OMG. Wilder O’Shea remembered me.

  Look, a girl can have a broken heart and still find comfort in the fact that her crush knows her name. These things are not mutually exclusive.

  “Yeah,” I breathed. The irrational part of me hoped that he was going to set down that toolbox in his hand and say, “Hey, Cass, I lost you once. I can’t lose you again. Let’s run away together like the dish and the spoon, and I’ll do all the things to you that these hands look capable of.”

  The rational part of me just wondered if every trace of makeup had indeed sweated off my face between the drive and the walk over from the park or if, by some miracle, there was a teeny bit of lipstick left.