Now It’s Time to Say Goodbye
IF I WERE A clipboard-carrying checklist-maker, I might use some sort of military term to imply our time was running out. As it was, I understood the truth of my dad’s statement, “It’s go time,” that I didn’t cringe.
Bert glanced at his broken watch. “Hey, according to my time we still have two hours together,” he said.
“Your watch lies,” I blurted before thinking. I am such an idiot. “Oh, I’m sorry, Bert.” Bert rubbed the worn band and nodded at me, looking down, but he didn’t check it again.
“Okay, Casey, we’re going to take a spin on the teacups,” my dad said brightly. That snapped me out of regretting my idiocy. I turned from watching Bert’s face to staring at my dad. It was a known fact that my parents had never enjoyed the teacups. I opened my mouth to ask if they’d gone crazy, but caught my mom’s eye and said a silent thanks that she didn’t actually wink at me. I understood: They were giving me permission to go off with Bert on our last night. And they were actually being kind of cool about it. Maybe trying too much, I noticed, looking at my dad who actually winked at me, but still.
“But, um, Mom,” I started. Maybe I should actually spend some time with them on this trip.
She nodded her head to the side, away from Bert, and I walked over, baffled. She said quietly, “Casey, I know this has been a...different kind of vacation. But your dad and I realize that it is special for you”—she smiled at Bert and waved; I blushed, and she pretended not to notice—“and we can see you’re old enough to have your own vacation time, too.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry for before, Mom....” My voice broke, and she started tearing up again. “I’m sorry I ignored you and Dad and made you worry and messed up your trip.”
She pulled me to her and hugged me. I could smell our laundry detergent from home. “I am so sorry, too, Casey. Your dad didn’t—we didn’t realize you had grown up. We do now. That doesn’t mean you get to go out and not tell us where you are.” I nodded. “But we are sorry for not seeing it sooner.” She sniffled and I gave her a Kleenex she had tucked into my pocket a minute ago.
I couldn’t comprehend this. “But, it’s our last night. Don’t you want to...” The four of us could all go on rides together. I’d been doing it with Bert’s family, after all.
“Exactly. It’s our last night here.” She took a breath, and had a smile that she couldn’t hide. “Go with Bert tonight.” Then she patted me on the back, sending me off into this weird new world where we understood each other.
“Uh...okay.” I said. “Um, yeah. Thanks, Mom.” I shook my head a little, grinning myself now, and turned to Bert and my dad. “Well, Bert, we can go wherever. Where should we go?”
“New Orleans Square,” Bert said.
My parents played it pretty cool and waved us goodbye as they headed off, not even remotely in the direction of the teacups, but I saw them smile at each other with raised eyebrows as they left us. They could see that Bert was thoughtful and knew my favorite spot in Disneyland and that he wanted to go there because I wanted to. And maybe they could see that I would be able to make good choices at home, too. I stared at them as they walked away, and saw them grab hands as they trailed off into the crowd. I’d never seen my parents holding hands, other than my own. I guess having some time by themselves wasn’t so bad for them, either.
I took Bert’s hand and we swung our arms together as we set off toward my favorite place in the world. But we slowed down as we crossed the secret threshold of Frontierland, past where my Bra-Strap Girl encounter had been. They had cancelled the second showing of Fantasmic! tonight, so I got to see the peaceful New Orleans Square I loved: the Mark Twain, aglow at the dock, retired for the night, its paddlewheel mirrored in the dark water; the reflection of the old-fashioned streetlamps curving around the river. Yes, it was a reproduction of some other setting—but that didn’t mean my love for this place was any less real.
“I don’t know if we’ll have time for many rides,” Bert said, as we approached the crowds once more.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
“How about one trip through the bayou?”
The way I got over my fear of Pirates of the Caribbean when I was little was to ride with a (usually newly purchased) stuffed animal over my eyes. Now, I couldn’t think of a better way to end this vacation than to sit close to Bert on a dark ride for fifteen minutes, and maybe I would close my eyes.
“If I have a garden at my future house, I want to have a fountain just like that one,” I said as we walked by the stone lion’s head in the queue, spewing water.
Bert laughed. “Seems kind of fancy. How come?”
“It will remind me of right now.” We walked through the rest of the nearly empty queue in silence, with Bert’s palm pressed to mine.
As we were boarding our boat in the last row, he said, “You know, Case, I hear you can’t live in the past.”
The boat surged forward on its tracks, then bobbed peacefully. “I guess not. But maybe you can visit sometimes.” We both hummed “Yo Ho” to each other. I leaned against Bert, closed my eyes, breathed in the humid Pirates air and Bert’s smell, and tried to fix in my memory every second of feeling him next to me.
After walking through my beloved streets and passing by courtyards, stepping out of the way of running kids and fast-walking adults who wanted to run, we made our way around the Rivers of America.
My eyes were blurry with chlorine, and cast a soft-focus halo around lights and the people illuminated by them. Bert looked fuzzy and bright. I suddenly remembered my camera, and wondered if I could find a way to make him look like this in a picture, and adjusted the focus for a half roll of film. He stared intently into my lens, looking alternately flirtatious, mischievous, and sad, and I finished off the roll, hoping that one frame had captured exactly what I saw and felt. I didn’t know if that was possible, but finding out was part of why I liked taking pictures.
We heard the announcement that the park was closing in ten minutes. I had a perfectly functional watch, but it didn’t keep an unexpected panic from stabbing me.
“Ten minutes!” I said. And we had been so peaceful, leaning on the green wrought iron railing, looking out at the water next to us.
“We could hang out on Main Street?” Bert suggested. It closed an hour after the park.
Tempting, but... “Main Street after closing is nuts. Everyone’s crazy, running around, buying anything.” This reminded me of my own grown-up gift I’d purchased. My heart hammered as a bolt of adrenaline shot through me.
Bert was looking off at Splash Mountain, where distant shrieks of delight were coming from across the river. I rifled through my bag in the dark, and grasped the box. “Bert...this is for you.” I held it out, feeling awkward. “I wanted to give you something. To help you remember...your trip.” And me, I added privately. You have to remember me.
Bert looked more surprised than I thought seemed reasonable. I was still holding the box out to him, and he was staring at it.
“What’s wrong? It’s too weird that I’m giving you a present, right? Look, don’t worry, it’s no big deal, I just thought you’d like it. Please take it, okay?” I was starting to feel dumb standing there.
He reached into his pocket and held out a Disneyland bag, tightly folded around a rectangle shape. “Casey, I did the same thing! I have something for you.” I laughed with relief, and we traded presents.
I dug into the bag, and for a second I could only feel crinkly plastic and hard layers of tissue paper. After unwrapping it, I could finally see a crystal picture frame, gleaming up at me and reflecting the streetlamp overhead. I held up the frame to the light, and out of the darkness, an etching of our initials and the date appeared, carved into the frame, beneath a photo of us. We were grinning at each other, holding hands across the small table on Main Street, near the Blue Ribbon Bakery. Viv must have taken the picture. I looked up quickly, mouth open, and saw Bert, with a matching expression of surprise, staring at his new Mickey Mouse pocket watch.
“Ah, Case—”
“Bert, I—”
I giggled so I wouldn’t cry, but I couldn’t speak. I was staring too hard at the photo and the shining frame, cradling it in my hand. He must have bought it and had it etched at the crystal shop in New Orleans Square, where I’d been so obsessed with debating about the still unbought earrings that I hadn’t even noticed what he was looking at.
We were quiet, studying our prizes. I folded the tissue around the frame carefully, hugged it to my chest, and unwrapped it again to study the picture more. Bert was holding up the shiny new pocket watch, studying the embossing of the train on its cover in the glow of the light.
I hesitated, but said, “I thought that maybe you can wear this new watch and your grandpa’s watch at the same time.”
He still hadn’t looked at me yet, but he cleared his throat in an overly loud way and I thought maybe he was kind of teary, too. He understood. I helped him undo the clip, and looped it around his belt loop. He looked so handsome with the shiny chain glistening against his hip. He touched the face lightly and slipped it into his pocket, but kept his hand on it, looking up at me with his eyes shining. “Case, it’s the best present I ever got. Especially from someone who’s only known me for two days. Actually, it’s the only present I’ve gotten from someone who’s only known me for two days.” I laughed and tears fell down my cheeks, and I wiped at them with my sweatshirt’s sleeve.
“I’m so glad Maggie marked up my jeans,” was the only thought I could get out. “I love my picture frame. I love the picture. Thank you so much,” I added, when I realized I had been too stunned to say it when I first saw his gift. “Did Viv take that picture? How’d you get it printed so fast?”
“The wonders of digital cameras, Miss Allison. It turns out, there are some advantages to moving into modern times,” he said, and checked his pocket watch. I’d set it so it matched my watch, which was still on Tiki Room time. I told him so, in case he wanted to reset it, but he shook his head and said that was perfect.
We leaned against each other, listening to the water lapping against the edges of its giant pool. The lamps dotting the water’s edge sparkled back at us in the river, like hundreds of flashbulbs going off.
“I can’t wait until we can see each other again, Case.”
“I can see you every day,” I said, elbowing him and slipping the frame back into its bag, then tucking it safely into my purse. I scooted back on the railing, and tried to adopt a casual, carefree, perched-on-the-railing posture. But I kept shifting. It wasn’t entirely comfortable, sitting on the fence.
“Well, it’s still not exactly the same as seeing me in person,” he said, “but I’m glad you like it.” He stood close to me, and held my hand in his. “Maybe we’ll see each other in person on your next Disneyland trip?”
“You are my Disneyland date,” I said.
“I would love to be your Disneyland date,” Bert smiled. “And maybe your date for other places too...if we ever can.”
“Deal.” I pushed aside my usual worries about the next time I might be able to swing his hand or smell his hairspray. It would be sometime, it had to be, and that was enough for now. I threw my arms around him, and he swung me off the railing and we spun around. “Now, I have to take one picture here with my old-fashioned camera.” He posed, holding up his watch, and then we took ten more shots of the two of our faces together, with my arm extended as far as it could go to release the shutter.
“Thanks,” I said, and took a deep breath. “Now let’s go home.”
We linked arms and walked out along the path as it wove around the Rivers of America and the ground changed from smooth cement to horseshoe-stamped “dirt”. I couldn’t resist looking back for a last view of the river lit up—the next time I’d see this would be next summer, after I’d finished my first year of high school. It would be over with—the beginning, at least. I wondered how I’d be different when I saw this again, and if I’d be with Bert or my parents or by myself or with someone I hadn’t even met yet. I didn’t know what was going to happen this year. But I knew I would come back here again when it was done, and everything in between trips would be OK.
“Casey, you’re making us walk sideways,” Bert said, and I turned around to face the direction we were headed—out, onto Main Street, then out to Anaheim, I-5, home, and high school. I could understand why all these people were flocking into the shops, delaying their return and needing something to help them remember their time away from home. This vacation especially wasn’t an escape from “real life”, I realized now—because I’d been thinking about my real life waiting for me the whole trip—but it was a time where I didn’t have to face it just yet.
“We can do this,” I said, as we stopped in front of the train station’s right exit tunnel.
“You will do great in high school. Just don’t let your underwear hang out to please other people,” Bert said, touching my shoulder. “And be nice to your mom and dad. They’re trying.”
“You will do great at home. Just tell the truth. And hug your grandma. And wear your new watch sometimes. And your old one other times. Or wear them at the same time.”
We headed into the tunnel, quiet until we reached the turnstiles. “Souvenir?” I said to Bert. We stuck out our fists for returning hand stamps, which a Cast Member nicely granted us.
Bert read the stamped dwarf’s name on his hand and laughed. “Happy.”
I smiled into his face, studying his perfectly arched eyebrows, which I had captured on film and now had preserved in solid form, on paper and under glass. “Yes.”
We stood in the esplanade, on all those anonymous but permanent names, and leaned into each other. I hugged him tight. His neck was still glowing with the light from our necklaces, and I imagined I smelled the chlorine from the pool the first night, along with churros and cinnamon rolls.
“Send me pictures,” he said.
“Of course.”
“We’ll be okay,” he said, squeezing me.
“I know. See you real soon,” I said, and we grinned.
“Why? Because I like you,” Bert said, skipping to the important line from the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. I hugged him hard and kissed him.
We finally had to face each other and then make ourselves turn away, like the duelist portraits in the Haunted Mansion. I waved goodbye, and Bert waved back, sending a glow of streaking light from his neon bracelets over his head. I smiled and turned toward home, with the image of Bert’s light burned into my eyes. As I walked to the hotel, I adjusted the strap on my green bag, which held countless, undeveloped photos of Bert and my trip, and still held Kiley’s Tinker Bell pin, buried underneath my new souvenirs. Whatever else would happen with us, Bert was a real friend—and I would look for more of them from now on. If I could make such a good friend on vacation, I had to be able to meet someone at my new school.
As I walked through the end-of-day blur of tired people around me, I could hear the train chugging into Main Street Station behind me with its bell dinging, the kids crying, and thousands of sore feet shuffling toward the parking lot trams. But, for the first time at a trip’s end, I felt like I could easily make my way home.