Princess of the Retention Pond

The costume was heavy, made of fifty yards of blue nylon tulle that smelled faintly of dry-cleaning fluid and the cheap vanilla perfume she used to cover the scent of her own sweat. Becky sat on a green plastic crate behind the employee cafeteria, her silver wings propped against the concrete retaining wall of the retention pond. The water was still and green, its edges bordered by a line of grey plastic rocks that had been painted by some assistant scene designer from Ohio. A small alligator, no longer than her forearm, sat on a half-submerged white bucket, its golden eyes fixed on her shiny shoes.

Her lunch was a turkey sandwich in plastic wrap and a warm bottle of diet soda that tasted of the tin can it had been stored in. Behind the artificial mountain where she performed four times a day, the roar of Interstate 4 was a constant, grey rumble, a river of diesel and hot rubber that never stopped flowing. Becky stretched her toes inside the stiff, gold slippers that had begun to pinch her arches during the noon parade. She had three more sets before her shift ended at eight, three more times she would have to smile until her cheeks were stiff as wood.

The alligator didn't move when she threw a crust of bread near its bucket; it only blinked once, its third eyelid sliding across its eyeball like a sheet of wet parchment. Becky watched the smoke from a distant tourist resort rise into the white Orlando sky, its white towers looking like fairy castles from this angle, though she knew they were made of stucco on steel frames. She stood up, smoothing the tulle down over her knees, her silver wand catching the harsh Florida sun, and walked back toward the gate where five hundred children were waiting for her to wave her hand and make things real.