Page 2 of The Brave and the Reckless

It’s all for show.I had to remind myself of that. The farmhouse seemed to have been here for centuries and looked ready to crumble, but that was the point. Bravetown was meant to look like it belonged in an old Western movie. Apparently, the theme reached past the amusement park’s entrance and included the adjoining admin buildings.

The inside only looked marginally more modern thanks to phones and computers. The decor was still veryLittle House on the Prairie. A receptionist closed her fist over her headset’s mic just long enough to throw me a visitor’sbadge and send me to an office upstairs to find Renee Barlow. I tiptoed past closed doors with little name plaques beside them, inscribed with important-sounding job titles, and my eyes roamed over the wood-paneled walls and all the framed articles on them: Bravetown’s grand opening twenty-four years ago, expansions and changes to the park as its popularity grew, and apparently a TV show based on the park that came out in the early 2000s. I’d have to look that up.

“You must be Esra!” A chipper blue-haired Bravetownee pulled me from my exploration back to the real world– or as real as it seemed to get in this place.

“Yep,” I replied and blinked past her to the office door beyond her desk. Renee Barlow. Perfect. “I’m here to see Renee. It’s my first day.”

“You’re a little early, but that’s okay. I have some papers for you to sign right here.” She beamed at me as she handed me a clipboard. “Can I get you anything while you wait?”

“I’m good. Thank you.” I scanned the papers, expecting an NDA or something, but finding a work contract instead. Huh. I knew scooping ice cream wasn’t exactly rocket science, and Sinan had probably vouched for me, but I’d expected a bit more formality. The contract said something about visible tattoos, face piercings and unnatural hair colors being forbidden for employees in the park, and I dragged my eyes back up to the young woman in front of me. She was dressed in a white blouse and a plain blue maxi skirt with buttons down the front, looking ready to be whisked away by an Old West cowboy, but the hair was definitelyunnatural. It brought out her piercing, icicle-blue eyes though. “I love the hair, by the way.”

“Oh, thank you. I won’t lie, I was aiming for a light gray, but it’ll wash out.” She shrugged.

“If you have a pool at home, that’ll do the trick. I had a pink clip-in streak as a kid, and the chlorine turned it salmon beige real quick.” I wasn’t sure how much of a luxury pools were around here, but my parents had always insisted on getting the best money could buy. That included anicecondo in aniceapartment building, with a pool, in anicepart of the city.

“Thank you! I’m Vivi, by the way. It’s really good to meet you. Sinan has told us so much about you.”

“He has?”

“Well, more about you coming to Bravetown than about you, really. He’s so excited for you to start here.” Vivi dove behind the counter and produced a huge canvas tote with the theme park’s logo embroidered on it in pink and purple. “Your official welcome pack. If you wear your staff shirt or jacket around town, you’ll usually get a discount when you grab coffee or something, but you’re not allowed to wear it around the park. There’s a strict dress code, but Renee will—”

The door to the office swung open, cutting Vivi off mid-sentence.

“… really. I swear, any of them would be great as Annie. I’m so sorry. Genuinely. So sorry.” A blonde girl backed out of the office, then dashed past us without a second glance.

“Sure you are, and I’m Britney Spears,” someone, presumably Renee Barlow, replied, barely loud enough for me to hear, let alone the girl already jogging down the stairs at the end of the hallway.

Vivi tucked a stray blue lock behind her ear with one hand and shooed me toward the door with the other. I left my signed contract with her alongside the tote bag. I’d pick that up later.

Inside the office, a middle-aged woman with a ginger bun and a freckled, tanned complexion sat behind a simple wooden desk, pursing her lips at the papers in front of her.

“Hi,” I said and closed the door behind me. Hopefully that blonde girl hadn’t soured her mood to the point of making this harder for me than it had to be. “I’m Esra Taner. I’ll be working in the ice cream parlor this summer. I was told to come see you first.”

“Who told you to come see me first?” She raised her brows without looking up. As I stepped closer to the chairs by her desk, I could see that the papers weren’t just papers at all; they were full-page photographs of women’s faces, their pearly-white smiles beaming off each one.

“My brother, Sinan, and the guy at the entrance to the staff parking lot. Peter. His name was Peter. I think.”

“Right. You’re Sinan’s little sister.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply before finally blinking up at me. Her eyes roamed up and down, and I regretted not bringing a more suitable shirt. “Green.”

“What?”

“You’re getting a green costume. Come with me.” She breezed past me, and I had to jog to keep up with her long strides. We went up to the next floor, where half the hallway was taken up by overflowing clothing rails, some labeled with names, others with sizes. She pushed through a door into what looked like an actual costume warehouse. The walls were lined with clothing up to the ceilings.

“You can either be in the park in regular clothes and act like any other visitor, or you’re in costume and stay in character. That means you pretend it’s the Old West. You don’t know what phones are, or words like ‘yeet’ or ‘rizz’ or whatever else is trending online at the moment.”

“Sure, okay,” I muttered and let my eyes travel over a row of corsets. Isodidn’t want to spend my summer stuck in one of those.

“Stand there.”

I climbed on to a little round pedestal. Renee walked over a second later with a tape measure and started circling me to get my sizes.

“So I put on a costume, pretend it’sye olden daysand I scoop ice cream all day. That’s it?”

“You’ll get three costumes,” Renee explained while scribbling my measurements on to a tiny notepad one after another. “You get at least one full day off every week, so that’s when your costumes get taken care of. That means if your day off is on Wednesday, you bring your clothes to the costume department on Tuesday after your shift, make sure to tell Gina if there’s anything that needs mending, and you’ll get them back fixed and washed Thursday morning.”

“I gather that you’re not the costume department.”

“No, I’m the park director, have been for ten years. So all of this is my vision. I know who wears what, goes where, plays which role, and it’s all cohesive.” She narrowed her eyes at the notepad in her hands. “How tall are you?”

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