Twenty-Nine
Josie would certainly not be thanking Peter for scheduling her photo shoot for early on a Sunday morning. She kissed Toby on the temple before sliding carefully out of bed to begin a day that she was sure would be too long. Luckily, all she had to do that morning in the way of preparation was shower and get dressed in any ol’ thing she wanted to wear. Wearing pink Adidas running pants and a white and pink Blink-182 t-shirt, her wet hair piled messily on top of her head, she got into Peter’s Avalanche and slept all the way to the Destin Airport. Once they had boarded a small, private jet, Josie put her head on Peter’s shoulder and went right back to sleep. When she woke up, they were at the Orlando International Airport and Peter was walking towards the airport entrance with her slung over his shoulder.
“Well, I suppose you can sleep through anything,” he said when he realized she was awake. “Do you want me to carry you all the way in or should I set you down?”
“You can carry me,” she said groggily, vigorously rubbing her eyes as she watched the pavement go by. When they reached the entrance he set her down and opened the door as she smoothed down her clothes. “Is Josh coming?”
“He flew in earlier this morning with the clothes,” Peter said, holding Josie’s hand as they made their way through the busy airport. “He’s meeting us at the hotel.”
Josie took in a deep breath and looked around with widened, happy eyes. Now that she was awake, she was more than thrilled to be in Orlando. Despite the fact that it was only a six and a half hour drive from her house, she hadn’t been since she was fourteen years old. The last time, she had been on Spring Break and was in town with her parents to do tourist-y things, but being there on business didn’t take away the excitement. Perhaps it was because of the venue they were headed to; business or not, it would be much more fun than anything she could have done in Destin that day.
“When is Toby coming?” she asked as Peter paid for the iced coffees they stopped to get on their way out. She licked the whipped cream off the top of hers, getting some of it on her nose that he wiped away as he laughed. “Toby is coming, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Peter said, taking her hand again and pulling her through the crowd, “He’ll be here right around the time we get done with pictures.”
“Does he have a VIP pass, too?”
Peter gave her a look over his shoulder that helped her to realize what a ridiculous question she had asked. “Honey, you know that, if anything, I over-plan,” he reminded her as they stepped out onto the sidewalk where a limousine was waiting for them.
“People are going to think we’re celebrities,” Josie said as she got in, noting the people along the walkway who were squinting at them, trying to figure out who they were.
“And soon they’ll be right,” he said, cuddling up against her and putting his head on her shoulder affectionately. “You’re my little star, Josie. I love you so much!”
“Aww, I love you, too!” she replied, kissing the tip of his nose and bouncing happily in her seat.
On the way to the hotel where they would be staying that night, Josie sat on the floor of the limo painting Peter’s toenails Tinkerbell green and giving him a foot massage. Every time they stopped, she would tumble backwards and the two of them would laugh like gleeful children, particularly suiting considering their destination. When they reached the hotel-Disney’s Polynesian Resort-Josh was sitting on the rock wall in the lobby, his back turned on the room as he stared at the waterfall.
“It’s my Boo!” Peter yelled, his eyes lighting up at the site of Josh. Josh didn’t respond. Peter sighed, shaking his head as he said to Josie, “He can’t hear worth a damn. Josh!” Nothing. “Watch this, Josie... All it takes is faith and trust. Oh, and something I forgot-dust. Just a little bit of pixie dust!”
Josh spun around so fast that for a moment, Josie was afraid he was going to fall and hit his head on the rocks. “How long have you two been standing there?” Josh asked, hugging Josie and giving Peter a hello kiss.
“Too long,” Peter said as he and Josie followed Josh to their suite. “You need to get your hearing checked, old man.”
As Josh insisted that he wasn’t an old man, Peter and Josie giggled behind his back, both of them being five years younger than Josh and both knowing how much he resented when either of them called him old. It seemed to Josie that they had been walking forever before they finally stopped and Josh pulled a room key out of his pocket. “We’ve got the King Kamehameha suite,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows as he opened the door.
“What does that mean?” Josie asked as Peter darted in ahead of her to use the bathroom.
“It’s a two-story suite. I mean, it costs nearly two thousand dollars a night, but it’s company money, so who cares?”
“Um, Josh, you are the company.”
“Well, it’s still different than spending our own money,” Josh said, motioning for her to go in ahead of him. “And besides, we figured that since Toby will be joining us, it would be best to get two rooms…on two separate floors.”
Josie stopped gawking at her surroundings and turned to glare at Josh. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, honestly,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, “He’s my twin brother. You think he doesn’t tell me things like that? And, I mean, it’s you, Josie. You’re the be all and end all for that guy, he gets excited over everything about you. You should have seen him when you were gone on Thanksgiving. It was pathetic, really.”
“It wasn’t pathetic, it was cute,” Peter corrected, rejoining them. “We’ve got to go, though, or we’re going to be late.”
The most exciting part of the photo shoot for Josie wasn’t that she was being photographed throughout the Magic Kingdom wearing the Tinkerbell-inspired spring line, but the fact that her dressing room was in the top of Cinderella’s castle where they had been building an apartment for Walt Disney himself before he died. For four hours, she, Josh, and Peter traipsed around the Magic Kingdom with the photographers they had hired as she posed with characters, on rides, and in front of major Disney World landmarks. As excited as Josie was, Peter and Josh seemed twenty times more thrilled. They clapped every time they thought a good shot was taken, and on the golf carts between locations they both babbled on about how perfect they thought she was as their Tinkerbell.
They were finished by lunchtime, and Josie was so exhausted that Josh had to carry her on his back. “What do you want for lunch, Tink?” Peter asked, shaking Josie’s arm to make sure she was awake. She groaned in response. “How about if we eat at the Liberty Tree Tavern? Hmm? They have roast turkey. I know how much you love roast turkey.”
Josie didn’t respond so the boys continued heading towards Liberty Square. When they entered the restaurant, they immediately spotted Toby sitting at a table in the back with his gimp leg propped up in the seat across from him. “Oh, my poor baby,” he said, standing up and lifting the listless Josie off of his twin’s back. He put her over his shoulder much the way Peter had that morning and gave her a very warm hug. “Did they wear you out?” he cooed as she wrapped her legs around his waist and began to fall asleep.
“Yes,” she said groggily, her bottom lip poking out.
“Well, Toby’s going to take care of you, alright?” He sat sideways in his chair with Josie still clinging to him and put his foot up in the chair beside him. Looking accusingly across the table at Josh and Peter, he asked, “What did you two do to her?”
Josh shrugged. “She seemed fine up until the end. We took a golf cart everywhere; this is the first place we’ve walked to and I carried her all the way.”
“Poor thing,” Toby said, rubbing her back as he continued looking at the other two with narrowed eyes. “It’s because you woke her up so early. I don’t see why you couldn’t have waited until this afternoon.”
“Because there are less people here when they first open,” Peter explained before turning to the waiter who had just appeared and giving him everyone’s drink orders.
“Right,” Toby said sarcastically, “Because Disney World is so crowded at the end of November. Regular tourist season and all.”
“Well, it’s not exactly empty this time of year, is it?” Josh asked, gesturing towards the other people in the restaurant.
“I gave autographs today,” Josie informed, suddenly joining the conversation.
“She did,” Josh said, grinning at her and speaking as though she were five years old. “People kept asking what we were doing, and when they heard she was modeling for us, some of them asked for her autograph.”
“Was it fun, Butterfly?” Toby asked softly, brushing the stray hairs out of her face and tucking them behind her ear.
“Lots of fun.”
“She’s so cute,” Toby said, looking at his brother and Peter with a happily wrinkled nose. “Can I keep her?”
Peter and Josh smiled slyly at each other but didn’t respond. The waiter returned with their drinks and Peter once again did the ordering for everyone else. Josie sat up and rubbed her eyes before sitting back on Toby’s legs and drinking her root beer. “What did you do this morning, Tiger?” she asked, finally waking up again.
“Got up, took a shower, got dressed, flew here. Exciting stuff,” he said, stirring his straw around in his Dr. Pepper before drinking it. “Did you know that they don’t serve alcohol anywhere in Disney World? It’s a travesty if you ask me.”
Peter nearly choked on his tea before sputtering out, “Toby, it’s barely past noon! What do you care if they serve alcohol?”
“When has time of day ever been a problem for my brother?” Josh asked, giving Peter an exaggerating look of surprise.
Josie laughed but Toby seemed entirely unamused by their jesting, so she leaned forward and kissed him, hating the thought of anybody being unhappy in Disney World. He brightened up immediately and rubbed his nose against hers for a second before saying, “I also had some free time when I got here, so I bought you something, Josie.”
“What did you buy me?” she asked, her eyes lighting up at the thought of a surprise gift.
Toby reached under the table and slid a paper bag up close to his chair. “First, there’s this,” he said, pulling a white box out and handing it to Josie.
Inside was an intricately sculpted jewelry box covered in Peter Pan themes and characters, and when she lifted the lid, Tinkerbell pirouetted in the center as “You Can Fly” played. Next he handed her a long, flat box that held a blue leather watch with “Butterfly” written beneath a picture of Tinkerbell.
“How’d you do that?” Josie asked, pointing at her nickname on the watch face.
“One of the shops on Main Street sells custom watches,” he said, still leaned over with his hand in the bag. “I’ll buy you more souvenir-type stuff if you want. You know, shirts and stuffed animals and all. I didn’t know what you’d want, so I didn’t get anything like that. That’s actually all the stuff I bought here.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Toby sat up with a ring box in his hand and Josie couldn’t remember ever being more terrified. It was one thing to secretly call herself “Mrs. Toby Hudson” in her head all the time, but it was quite another for him to be proposing when they had only technically been dating for a week. “Don’t look so scared,” he said, laughing as he opened the box to reveal a princess-cut diamond ring. “It’s not an engagement ring, I promise.”
Without meaning to, Josie sighed with relief, which got a laugh from her bosses across the table who obviously knew what was going on. “I don’t know what you call a rock like that then,” she said, looking at Toby as though he were crazy, something that seemed very likely at the moment.
“It’s for your right hand, silly,” he said, taking it out of the box and picking up her right hand. “I got it because, well…no, it’s not an engagement ring, but it’s supposed to say that I love you very much and I want to marry you eventually. See, the difference is in the ‘eventually’.”
“A promise ring?” she asked, trying not to giggle. “How very high school of you.”
Peter had to turn his head and cover his mouth to keep from guffawing loudly as Josh patted him hard on the back to help calm him down. Toby cut his eyes at them before looking back at Josie and saying, “Well, I suppose it’s kind of the same idea, but that’s not what this is.” He paused for a moment, his expression conveying that he was thinking very hard. “I’m not sure what the difference is exactly, but there is one. Let’s say…this is far more serious than a promise ring but less committal than an engagement ring. How’s that?”
“That’s lovely,” she said, smiling brightly as he slipped the ring onto her finger. “Of course, now I’ll have to wear this other ring you gave me on my left hand so I don’t look tacky, and then we won’t match anymore.”
“Beat you to it,” he said, holding up his left hand to show that he had already thought of that particular dilemma.
Their food arrived and Josie got off of Toby’s lap to avoid her messy eating habits having an adverse affect on their closeness. Throughout the meal, Peter and Josh explained that once they got the pictures back, they would be placing ads in magazines like Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone because they had gotten financial backing from the Disney company to expand their store into a national chain with the potential of becoming international. This was by far the most exciting news that Josie could remember ever receiving, not only for the publicity involved for her but also because this was the goal Josh and Peter had been working towards since the very beginning.
“That’s…that’s bloody brilliant!” Toby exclaimed as a chunk of lobster flew out of his mouth and landed very close to Peter and Josh’s entwined fingers.
“No British at the table, please, Toby, ” Peter scolded, winking at Josie.
“Well, I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his napkin across his mouth, “But there was really no other way to phrase it that would have expressed the extent of my jubilation.”
“Sod off, wanker,” Peter replied jokingly in a heavy English accent, picking up the chewed-up bit of lobster and throwing it at Toby. With his face screwed up in agitation, Toby threw it back.
“Children,” Josh said in a very threatening voice that made both of the other boys freeze right away. Peter shrugged and tossed the food over his shoulder, not caring where it landed.
“What next?” Josie asked as she drank the last of her root beer.
The three boys grinned fiendishly at each other and said in unison, “Rides.”
“Well, I suppose you can sleep through anything,” he said when he realized she was awake. “Do you want me to carry you all the way in or should I set you down?”
“You can carry me,” she said groggily, vigorously rubbing her eyes as she watched the pavement go by. When they reached the entrance he set her down and opened the door as she smoothed down her clothes. “Is Josh coming?”
“He flew in earlier this morning with the clothes,” Peter said, holding Josie’s hand as they made their way through the busy airport. “He’s meeting us at the hotel.”
Josie took in a deep breath and looked around with widened, happy eyes. Now that she was awake, she was more than thrilled to be in Orlando. Despite the fact that it was only a six and a half hour drive from her house, she hadn’t been since she was fourteen years old. The last time, she had been on Spring Break and was in town with her parents to do tourist-y things, but being there on business didn’t take away the excitement. Perhaps it was because of the venue they were headed to; business or not, it would be much more fun than anything she could have done in Destin that day.
“When is Toby coming?” she asked as Peter paid for the iced coffees they stopped to get on their way out. She licked the whipped cream off the top of hers, getting some of it on her nose that he wiped away as he laughed. “Toby is coming, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Peter said, taking her hand again and pulling her through the crowd, “He’ll be here right around the time we get done with pictures.”
“Does he have a VIP pass, too?”
Peter gave her a look over his shoulder that helped her to realize what a ridiculous question she had asked. “Honey, you know that, if anything, I over-plan,” he reminded her as they stepped out onto the sidewalk where a limousine was waiting for them.
“People are going to think we’re celebrities,” Josie said as she got in, noting the people along the walkway who were squinting at them, trying to figure out who they were.
“And soon they’ll be right,” he said, cuddling up against her and putting his head on her shoulder affectionately. “You’re my little star, Josie. I love you so much!”
“Aww, I love you, too!” she replied, kissing the tip of his nose and bouncing happily in her seat.
On the way to the hotel where they would be staying that night, Josie sat on the floor of the limo painting Peter’s toenails Tinkerbell green and giving him a foot massage. Every time they stopped, she would tumble backwards and the two of them would laugh like gleeful children, particularly suiting considering their destination. When they reached the hotel-Disney’s Polynesian Resort-Josh was sitting on the rock wall in the lobby, his back turned on the room as he stared at the waterfall.
“It’s my Boo!” Peter yelled, his eyes lighting up at the site of Josh. Josh didn’t respond. Peter sighed, shaking his head as he said to Josie, “He can’t hear worth a damn. Josh!” Nothing. “Watch this, Josie... All it takes is faith and trust. Oh, and something I forgot-dust. Just a little bit of pixie dust!”
Josh spun around so fast that for a moment, Josie was afraid he was going to fall and hit his head on the rocks. “How long have you two been standing there?” Josh asked, hugging Josie and giving Peter a hello kiss.
“Too long,” Peter said as he and Josie followed Josh to their suite. “You need to get your hearing checked, old man.”
As Josh insisted that he wasn’t an old man, Peter and Josie giggled behind his back, both of them being five years younger than Josh and both knowing how much he resented when either of them called him old. It seemed to Josie that they had been walking forever before they finally stopped and Josh pulled a room key out of his pocket. “We’ve got the King Kamehameha suite,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows as he opened the door.
“What does that mean?” Josie asked as Peter darted in ahead of her to use the bathroom.
“It’s a two-story suite. I mean, it costs nearly two thousand dollars a night, but it’s company money, so who cares?”
“Um, Josh, you are the company.”
“Well, it’s still different than spending our own money,” Josh said, motioning for her to go in ahead of him. “And besides, we figured that since Toby will be joining us, it would be best to get two rooms…on two separate floors.”
Josie stopped gawking at her surroundings and turned to glare at Josh. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, honestly,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, “He’s my twin brother. You think he doesn’t tell me things like that? And, I mean, it’s you, Josie. You’re the be all and end all for that guy, he gets excited over everything about you. You should have seen him when you were gone on Thanksgiving. It was pathetic, really.”
“It wasn’t pathetic, it was cute,” Peter corrected, rejoining them. “We’ve got to go, though, or we’re going to be late.”
The most exciting part of the photo shoot for Josie wasn’t that she was being photographed throughout the Magic Kingdom wearing the Tinkerbell-inspired spring line, but the fact that her dressing room was in the top of Cinderella’s castle where they had been building an apartment for Walt Disney himself before he died. For four hours, she, Josh, and Peter traipsed around the Magic Kingdom with the photographers they had hired as she posed with characters, on rides, and in front of major Disney World landmarks. As excited as Josie was, Peter and Josh seemed twenty times more thrilled. They clapped every time they thought a good shot was taken, and on the golf carts between locations they both babbled on about how perfect they thought she was as their Tinkerbell.
They were finished by lunchtime, and Josie was so exhausted that Josh had to carry her on his back. “What do you want for lunch, Tink?” Peter asked, shaking Josie’s arm to make sure she was awake. She groaned in response. “How about if we eat at the Liberty Tree Tavern? Hmm? They have roast turkey. I know how much you love roast turkey.”
Josie didn’t respond so the boys continued heading towards Liberty Square. When they entered the restaurant, they immediately spotted Toby sitting at a table in the back with his gimp leg propped up in the seat across from him. “Oh, my poor baby,” he said, standing up and lifting the listless Josie off of his twin’s back. He put her over his shoulder much the way Peter had that morning and gave her a very warm hug. “Did they wear you out?” he cooed as she wrapped her legs around his waist and began to fall asleep.
“Yes,” she said groggily, her bottom lip poking out.
“Well, Toby’s going to take care of you, alright?” He sat sideways in his chair with Josie still clinging to him and put his foot up in the chair beside him. Looking accusingly across the table at Josh and Peter, he asked, “What did you two do to her?”
Josh shrugged. “She seemed fine up until the end. We took a golf cart everywhere; this is the first place we’ve walked to and I carried her all the way.”
“Poor thing,” Toby said, rubbing her back as he continued looking at the other two with narrowed eyes. “It’s because you woke her up so early. I don’t see why you couldn’t have waited until this afternoon.”
“Because there are less people here when they first open,” Peter explained before turning to the waiter who had just appeared and giving him everyone’s drink orders.
“Right,” Toby said sarcastically, “Because Disney World is so crowded at the end of November. Regular tourist season and all.”
“Well, it’s not exactly empty this time of year, is it?” Josh asked, gesturing towards the other people in the restaurant.
“I gave autographs today,” Josie informed, suddenly joining the conversation.
“She did,” Josh said, grinning at her and speaking as though she were five years old. “People kept asking what we were doing, and when they heard she was modeling for us, some of them asked for her autograph.”
“Was it fun, Butterfly?” Toby asked softly, brushing the stray hairs out of her face and tucking them behind her ear.
“Lots of fun.”
“She’s so cute,” Toby said, looking at his brother and Peter with a happily wrinkled nose. “Can I keep her?”
Peter and Josh smiled slyly at each other but didn’t respond. The waiter returned with their drinks and Peter once again did the ordering for everyone else. Josie sat up and rubbed her eyes before sitting back on Toby’s legs and drinking her root beer. “What did you do this morning, Tiger?” she asked, finally waking up again.
“Got up, took a shower, got dressed, flew here. Exciting stuff,” he said, stirring his straw around in his Dr. Pepper before drinking it. “Did you know that they don’t serve alcohol anywhere in Disney World? It’s a travesty if you ask me.”
Peter nearly choked on his tea before sputtering out, “Toby, it’s barely past noon! What do you care if they serve alcohol?”
“When has time of day ever been a problem for my brother?” Josh asked, giving Peter an exaggerating look of surprise.
Josie laughed but Toby seemed entirely unamused by their jesting, so she leaned forward and kissed him, hating the thought of anybody being unhappy in Disney World. He brightened up immediately and rubbed his nose against hers for a second before saying, “I also had some free time when I got here, so I bought you something, Josie.”
“What did you buy me?” she asked, her eyes lighting up at the thought of a surprise gift.
Toby reached under the table and slid a paper bag up close to his chair. “First, there’s this,” he said, pulling a white box out and handing it to Josie.
Inside was an intricately sculpted jewelry box covered in Peter Pan themes and characters, and when she lifted the lid, Tinkerbell pirouetted in the center as “You Can Fly” played. Next he handed her a long, flat box that held a blue leather watch with “Butterfly” written beneath a picture of Tinkerbell.
“How’d you do that?” Josie asked, pointing at her nickname on the watch face.
“One of the shops on Main Street sells custom watches,” he said, still leaned over with his hand in the bag. “I’ll buy you more souvenir-type stuff if you want. You know, shirts and stuffed animals and all. I didn’t know what you’d want, so I didn’t get anything like that. That’s actually all the stuff I bought here.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Toby sat up with a ring box in his hand and Josie couldn’t remember ever being more terrified. It was one thing to secretly call herself “Mrs. Toby Hudson” in her head all the time, but it was quite another for him to be proposing when they had only technically been dating for a week. “Don’t look so scared,” he said, laughing as he opened the box to reveal a princess-cut diamond ring. “It’s not an engagement ring, I promise.”
Without meaning to, Josie sighed with relief, which got a laugh from her bosses across the table who obviously knew what was going on. “I don’t know what you call a rock like that then,” she said, looking at Toby as though he were crazy, something that seemed very likely at the moment.
“It’s for your right hand, silly,” he said, taking it out of the box and picking up her right hand. “I got it because, well…no, it’s not an engagement ring, but it’s supposed to say that I love you very much and I want to marry you eventually. See, the difference is in the ‘eventually’.”
“A promise ring?” she asked, trying not to giggle. “How very high school of you.”
Peter had to turn his head and cover his mouth to keep from guffawing loudly as Josh patted him hard on the back to help calm him down. Toby cut his eyes at them before looking back at Josie and saying, “Well, I suppose it’s kind of the same idea, but that’s not what this is.” He paused for a moment, his expression conveying that he was thinking very hard. “I’m not sure what the difference is exactly, but there is one. Let’s say…this is far more serious than a promise ring but less committal than an engagement ring. How’s that?”
“That’s lovely,” she said, smiling brightly as he slipped the ring onto her finger. “Of course, now I’ll have to wear this other ring you gave me on my left hand so I don’t look tacky, and then we won’t match anymore.”
“Beat you to it,” he said, holding up his left hand to show that he had already thought of that particular dilemma.
Their food arrived and Josie got off of Toby’s lap to avoid her messy eating habits having an adverse affect on their closeness. Throughout the meal, Peter and Josh explained that once they got the pictures back, they would be placing ads in magazines like Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone because they had gotten financial backing from the Disney company to expand their store into a national chain with the potential of becoming international. This was by far the most exciting news that Josie could remember ever receiving, not only for the publicity involved for her but also because this was the goal Josh and Peter had been working towards since the very beginning.
“That’s…that’s bloody brilliant!” Toby exclaimed as a chunk of lobster flew out of his mouth and landed very close to Peter and Josh’s entwined fingers.
“No British at the table, please, Toby, ” Peter scolded, winking at Josie.
“Well, I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his napkin across his mouth, “But there was really no other way to phrase it that would have expressed the extent of my jubilation.”
“Sod off, wanker,” Peter replied jokingly in a heavy English accent, picking up the chewed-up bit of lobster and throwing it at Toby. With his face screwed up in agitation, Toby threw it back.
“Children,” Josh said in a very threatening voice that made both of the other boys freeze right away. Peter shrugged and tossed the food over his shoulder, not caring where it landed.
“What next?” Josie asked as she drank the last of her root beer.
The three boys grinned fiendishly at each other and said in unison, “Rides.”