Page 14 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
‘Not voluntarily.’ His mouth is set in a hard line as he gives me a serious look. ‘One might think it prudent to ensure their new boss isn’t in the vicinity before talking about them behind their back.’
‘You’re not my boss.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘My company owns this building and I’m the lead on the redevelopment project. I’d like to hear your thoughts on what that makes me if not your boss…’
‘Oh, trust me, you wouldnotlike to hear my thoughts on anything about you.’ I smile such a falsely sweet smile that it makes him laugh, and I feel something ease a little that he doesn’t seem truly angry about what he’s just overheard.
He glances between me and Mickey. ‘And for the record, I’m not a “no” guy. I’m a “maybe, if it’s a sensible allocation of budget, usage of time, and expenditure of effort” guy.’
‘He’s also a laugh-a-minute guy,’ I say to Mickey, but my deadpan tone makes it sound more sarcastic than it was intended to.
‘Clearly,’ he says good-naturedly, poking fun at himself as his laugh gets stronger and it sounds genuine, and I find myself giggling too, a mixture of nerves and embarrassment. Until now, I hadn’t realised that hecouldbe funny or not take himself too seriously, and I catch his gaze across the expanse of Yellow Brick Road, and for just one moment, nothing exists apart from his blue eyes, brighter with the twinkle of merriment shining in them, and something fluttery stirs inside me. He dips his head towards me and a weight momentarily lifts.
Maybe we’re not that different after all. We don’t have to like the same things to find common ground and compromise, and knowing he has the ability to laugh at himself and not takeeverythingtoo seriously is a good place to start.
The unspoken truce lasts for a matter of seconds before he sobers up and straightens out his suit. ‘Oh, I can laughmanytimes a minute, I just don’t find failing museums very funny. You’d do well to remember that.’
‘Failing museum, you’ve got a nerve!’ Mickey shouts after him as he stalks out, and I let out a long groan.
‘That wasn’t embarrassing at all.’
My best friend giggles. ‘Oh, come on. There’s plenty worse he could have overheard. He took it pretty well.’
‘Yeah, until he realised he was lightening up for a moment and got quickly back on form.’
‘I don’t know, I saw a little something there.’ She waggles her eyebrows at me. ‘He didn’t seem evil. He seemed… disconnected, like he wastryingto be antagonistic rather than actually being antagonistic. When I spoke to him in the kitchen, he didn’t seem to know what to say. He seems a bit lost. Maybe it’s more of a… misalignment than being a soulless evil chinchilla.’
‘Whatever he is, he’s my only chance of saving this place.’
‘He’s not your only chance, Liss, he’stoldyou he is. He wants you to believe he is. But he doesn’t know Ever After Street. He doesn’t know the community around here and how much we love and support each other. If he messes with one of us, he messes withallof us.’ She’s holding another gumdrop in place on the gingerbread roof while I’m still over by Dorothy’s house, trying to get the dead witch’s legs to look right.
‘I am 100 per cent confident that there isnothingthe Ever After Street shopkeepers can’t do if we put our heads together, including turning Mr Suity Uptightness into a magic-believing Mr Darcy who wants to snog Bridget Jones.’
I deliberately ignore any insinuation she’s placing on snogging and concentrate on theimportantpart of this conversation. ‘He seems to be immune to Ever After Street magic. It was all I could do to get him to make a wis?—’
She cuts me off with an excited squeak, and then stops herself, runs to the door to double-check we’re not being overheard, and then comes back and whispers to me. ‘You got him to make a wish? Liss, that’s fantastic! You’ve got to go down there and get it and we’ll grant it like we grant other wishes. Make him believe in magic. If he finds out for himself that wishes from that well come true, he can’t demolish this place.’
I give her my most sceptical look. ‘What could a guy like that possibly wish for? Especially that I can afford to grant for him. A new sports car? New high-priced suits to add to his extensive suit wardrobe? We grant wishes for kids, not multinational company execs who undoubtedly already have everything their tiny little hearts desire. And whatever it was, it’ll probably be a joke. He wasn’t taking it seriously.’
She grins. ‘Not then, maybe, but he will do when he realises that magic really does exist on this street – and it might not be from magical wishing wells, but itisfrom how much we all love and care for each other. No one is shutting down Colours of the Wind on my watch.’
I swallow hard because it’s such a lovely sentiment, but it hammers home how devastated I’ll be if I end up having to vacate this building. There’s nowhere else on Ever After Street, or even nearby, where my exhibits could possibly fit, with rent I can dream of affording, and the thought of having to leave my friends here is soul-destroying. The wishing well will be wiped out too. Who else will grant wishes that children drop into a well and make them believe in magic?
After my mum died, our family struggled. I watched my younger sisters complain about hand-me-downs and not being able to afford the toys their friends had. I tried to make life a little bit nicer for them, and now I try to make it nicer for the children who visit here, who wish for something that the Ever After Street shopkeepers can grant between us, and it makes my life better in return.
But if everything Warren’s said is true, it’s not just about proving the museum’s worth. I’ve also got to find enough customers to cover the cost of triple-increased rent, and whatever other surprises they’re likely to throw my way, and I suspect Berrington Developments is the kind of company thatalwayshas a few surprises tucked neatly up its sleeve.
‘I don’t know what to do, Mick. This is bigger than me. He’s got all these facts and figures and reports. So many reports that I thought were private. I’m not business-minded. I don’t care about cold, hard numbers. I care about how peoplefeelwhen they visit here. I want children to believe in the magic that my mum brought into my childhood, that was sorely missing from my sisters’ lives after she died, and he’s never going to understand that. Our visions are never going to align.’
‘This is exactly what I’ve just said. You don’t need children to believe in magic – children believe in magic anyway, buthedoesn’t. If he did, this would be different. He just needs to see this place the way you do. And I’ve got an idea…’
‘What?’ I ask at her cryptic connotation.
She grins and strokes her chin in a scheming way that would be mildly concerning if she wasn’t my best friend. ‘You’ll see, my friend, you’ll see.’
4
The following day, when Warren comes down the stairs, there’s a mum at the front desk trying to wrangle a ten-pound note out of her purse while simultaneously attempting to keep her excitable young boy out of trouble. He’s around four years old, and she’s got a grip on his wrist but he’s bouncing and wriggling and jumping up and down so hard that it shakes coins out of her purse and they clatter onto the smooth wood of the reception desk.
