I try to go back to eating my food but I can’t. I’m just so overwhelmed. Giddy. Maybe just as excited as my daughter. Later, when Ava is playing in her room and we’re in the kitchen putting the dishes away, I turn to him, grabbing him by the wrists and pulling him close.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him, my guilt seeping in.
“I know I don’t have to do anything.” He kisses me on the forehead. “I want to. I can’t wait to see you act like a kid.”
And I can’t wait to have him there with me. “How did you know that I’ve always wanted to go to Disneyland with someone I’m…with?” Eep, almost said something else there, got to keep going. “The last time I was there I think I was eighteen and with a girlfriend and everywhere you looked there were couples making out. I’ve always wanted to be one of those annoying couples.”
“We can annoy the shit out of the whole park,” he murmurs, kissing me lightly on the lips. “But, perhaps, I need some practice first.”
I sink into his kiss, letting it fuel me, feeling the need swarm over my bones. I nearly forget that he was being a cheeseball. I break away, placing my hands on his chest, feeling his hard muscles underneath. “Thank you,” I tell him softly. “Ava has always wanted to go…I’ve never been able to take her.”
He nods. He knows. “Good thing is that, by waiting, she’ll not only remember it more but she’ll enjoy it more too.”
“So when are we going?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he says. “Bright and early. So get your arse packing.” He places a wide hand on my ass and squeezes. “Or I’ll get your arse spanking.”
I grin at him. “Maybe I can have both?”
He grabs me by the bottoms of my ass cheeks and lifts me up in the air until my legs are wrapped around him. He then takes me to the bedroom and we lock the door, hoping we can at least steal a few minutes with each other.
***
When Bram says early, for us it actually means the crack of dawn. It’s just about 6:30 am when he knocks at my door. Ava is in the bathroom brushing her teeth with her new bubblegum toothpaste after it took about ten minutes to rouse her awake. She only perked up when I mentioned the word “Disneyland.” I can’t blame her though. You know those old Disneyland commercials with the kids bouncing around in their pajamas in the middle of the night, yelling, “I’m too excited to sleep!” Well, that was pretty much last night in a nutshell. Zero sleep was had in the Price household.
I tuck my shower-damp hair behind my ears and open the door expecting to see Bram.
My mouth drops open.
It’s Bram all right, dressed in jeans, boots, and a simple tee with a sleek leather duffel bag at his feet. But it’s what’s in his hands that has me practically swooning.
Okay, I’m totally swooning.
“Is that for Ava?” I ask, almost breathless.
He nods proudly, maybe even a bit sheepishly. In his hands is a child-sized princess dress, the pink Sleeping Beauty one that Aurora wears at the end of the movie. It even has the crown and veil attached. I think I might just die right here.
“I hope it fits her,” he says. “It’s hard to find those Disney Stores anymore.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” I tell him, my heart thumping around in my chest. “That’s the nicest, cutest, sweetest thing I think anyone has ever done for her.”
“Well,” he says, rubbing his hands along his jaw. “I did it for her and I did it for you.”
I swallow hard, surprised at the burning in my eyes. No lie, I’m this close to crying. It’s crazy how such a simple and somehow ridiculously romantic gesture undoes me. No one has ever thought of my girl with such regard.
And there goes a tear, rolling hot down my cheek.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Bram murmurs, stepping into the apartment and enveloping me into a hug. “Don’t cry. It was nothing. I just thought she’d like to dress up as a princess on the ride down.”
“But you remembered Sleeping Beauty and the spindle and the needle and it’s soooo pretty.” I’m a blubbering, incoherent mess as I cry into his arms.
He puts his hand at the back of my head and holds me there. “Well, I’m glad you like it.” I know he sounds so breezy about the whole thing but, then again, how can he understand what this means to me? So many years and no one has done something like this, no one has ever thought of me and Ava that much. It’s then that I realize how tired I am, how much I’ve been pushed to the side, how much I’ve pushed myself to the side. It feels so fucking good to have someone care about us.
Just then, Ava comes out of the bathroom. She slowly walks over to us, her head tilted. She points at the dress.
“What’s that?” she asks, hope sparking in her eyes.
Bram crouches down to her level. “Who is your favorite princess?”
“Aurora,” she says smartly. “She pricked her finger on the spindle, just like I do.”
“That’s because you are a princess,” he says, displaying the dress in front of her in a shimmering waterfall of magenta, pink and gold. “And this is your princess dress.”
Her mouth makes an O and her eyes widen comically. “What?” She looks at me, almost begging for it to be true. I wipe away a tear with my hand and nod.
“It’s all yours, angel.”
She carefully takes the dress from Bram’s hands and examines it. “It must be made out of cotton candy,” she muses, absolutely dazzled by it.
“Can you go try it on yourself or do you need my help?” I ask her, knowing full well she needs my help.
“I can do it!” She runs off to her bedroom.
“Say thank you to Bram!” I yell after her.
“Thank you, Bram!” I hear her say from the other room.
A half an hour later the three of us – with Ava dressed as a princess – are in Bram’s car and we’re making our way down the 101, lucky that the traffic jam is on the other side. The three of us can’t stop smiling and the day is full of such promise that it almost makes me dizzy.
Six hours later, after countless toilet breaks and pit stops and the never ending, “Are we there yet?” we pull off the freeway and onto Katella Avenue. This is Ava’s first glimpse at Disneyland and I’m pointing out the top of the Matterhorn and Space Mountain, the Monorail and the Ferris Wheel and California Screaming Coaster in the distance. She looks absolutely terrified at those rides but I assure her there are many of them that she’ll love and at that she starts boogying in her seat.
Bram didn’t spare any expense and got us a suite at the Disney Grand Californian Lodge, located right in Disney’s California Adventure Park. When I was young the park didn’t even exist, so it was as much fun for me as it was for Ava to step inside the hotel and have everything be brand new. And let’s face it, even if the park was here when I was younger, there was no way we could have afforded to stay there. The same goes for the Disneyland Hotel. Though it’s dated now, it’s still an arm and a leg for a room and when I was young, my parents believed in spending as little on the hotels as possible. Who cares if you were sleeping in a Super 8, as long as you were spending all day and evening at the park.
But Bram cares, and in turn, I care. The beds are clean, fresh and comfortable, the room tastefully decorated in the style of some grand lodge near Yosemite or Mammoth Lakes and we have a view through ponderosa pine and over the bear-shaped rock peak of the Grizzly River Rapids.
I’m pretty much exhausted because I’ve been on a six-hour road trip that has drained me like nothing else but Ava slept for a lot of the drive and now she’s bouncing around the room, losing her goddamn mind.
“No rest for the weary,” I say to Bram, feeling bad since he had to drive the whole way.