Happily Ever After, Ltd. - 2. Happily Ever After, Ltd

For years, the children’s entertainment market had been dominated by brainless cartoons and violent video games. By the time most children had started school, they’d already simulated machine gun-fire, watched real-life decapitations on the internet, and seen videos of Japanese anime women kissing. During this time, horrified parents watched their children transform. The boys became mini-thugs, drawing pencil tattoos on their arms and pretending to slit each other’s throats with plastic knives. The girls became mini-supermodels, wearing heels as soon as they could walk and spending their tooth-fairy money at tanning salons.

But then a publishing company called Happily Ever After, Ltd released a series of children’s fairytales. These books were a perfectly-timed return to wholesome storytelling. Children turned away from television and computer screens and, in the years that followed, literacy rates surged. Happily Ever After, Ltd gained a global monopoly over the children’s book market. The Happily Ever After books were translated into twelve languages and the company ballooned in size.

The head office of Happily Ever After, Ltd had expanded to occupy an impressive nineteen-storey building. Even the foyer was an elegant polished marvel. In its centre, there was an enormous fountain, where a golden goose spouted water high into the air. Against the back wall, there was a large crescent-shaped desk, where a receptionist answered the phones and directed foot traffic. Her name was Fiona and, although she had a demanding job, she did it effortlessly, always with a winning smile and a flick of her blonde hair.

“Happily Ever After, Ltd,” Fiona said. “How can I help you?”

Fiona always listened attentively, no matter how unusual the call – and there were a lot of unusual calls at Happily Ever After, Ltd.

“I’m afraid Humpty Dumpty won’t be in today,” she might have to say. “You see, he’s not an actual person. He’s an egg. Well, yes, you can try the supermarket, but something tells me you won’t find him in a carton of twelve, either. But at any rate, sir, we wouldn’t be able to assist you. Mr Dumpty is a nursery rhyme, not a fairytale. And after all, he certainly didn’t have a happily ever after, did he? Oops, crack, splat – omelette anyone?”

Or perhaps she would have to be a sympathetic ear. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, how long had you been married? Nine years? And he cheated? With your sister? Oh, that’s terrible. Well, no, we’re a publishing firm, but I could certainly give you contact details for counsellors. Oh. Oh, I see. Well, as it happens we do have a database of male escorts – er, I mean, Knights in Shining Armour. No, I’m not sure if any of them come with horses. You would have to negotiate that with the individual men.”

But apart from the occasional oddball, Fiona liked her job – and she liked all her colleagues.

Except for one.

*

Once upon a time, Dorothy Weaver had been a wide-eyed, witty undergraduate. One afternoon, she decided to take a break from her essay (eight-thousand words on re-workings of Beowulf in contemporary culture) to spend a relaxing afternoon browsing second-hand bookstores. It was in the darkest, dustiest bookstore, right at the back of the shop, that Dorothy found a nineteenth-century edition of Rapunzel, its yellowing pages loose in their binding. Dorothy was turning the pages with great care when a glossy leaflet fell out. Dorothy picked it up and examined it. It was a recruitment brochure, for a publishing company called Happily Ever After, Ltd.

Dorothy went back to the library, where she went onto the company’s website. Her pulse quickened. There was an application form, which she downloaded immediately, and completed right there and then. After an anxious three weeks, Dorothy received an email response advising her that she had been short-listed for interviews. She was interviewed by three panels before being offered a summer internship. And so, while most of her university classmates spent their summers working in juice bars and getting sunburnt, Dorothy spent hers at a desk in a windowless office, doing regulatory work for the less popular fairytales, like Puss in Boots and The Emperor’s New Clothes. She made sure Puss’s nails didn’t get too long and that the Emperor’s anatomy was always hidden from the reader’s view by a spectator’s elbow or a conveniently-placed bunch of flowers.

After graduating with Honours in Literature, Dorothy took a full-time position in Little Red Riding Hood, as an assistant to the division manager, Walt. Walt was an embarrassing old man who became smitten with Dorothy’s sharp wit and buttoned-up blouses. Dorothy reported all of his awkward advances to Human Resources until he was “transferred” to marketing.

Dorothy was soon promoted to the Hansel and Gretel division. She was rostered to night shifts, which meant nine hours of staring at computer screens, checking the Core Book for irregularities, and surviving on bad filter coffee. Most of the night staff (known as “night owls”) didn’t take their jobs too seriously. Most of them spent their shifts texting their girlfriends, surfing the net, and playing spider solitaire.

But Dorothy never relaxed on the job, not even for a minute. She took her job extremely seriously. She was constantly re-reading and reviewing the Emergency Manual, despite being mocked by her colleagues, who thought she was a paranoid kook. Every night, she was fully prepared for a disaster to strike.

But then disaster did strike.

It was a Tuesday night and Dorothy had only been on Hansel duty for fifteen minutes when a warning flashed across the screen.

ERROR

ERROR

ERROR

A virus was infecting and corrupting the story. Suddenly Dorothy’s obsession with the emergency manual did not seem so laughable. Within seconds, she had activated the anti-virus software, but it was too late. The Gingerbread witch herself was ejected out of the story and into the control room. Dorothy’s nightly revision of emergency procedures had not covered this.

After all, it was only the fourth time in the history of Happily Ever After, Ltd that a character had been ejected. First, it had been the woodcutter from Little Red Riding Hood. He had been polite and cooperative, waiting patiently to be returned to the story, so he could rescue the little girl and her grandmother. A few years later, it had been the genie from Aladdin, who allowed the company one wish, so they wished for him to return into the fairytale, and everything was smoothed over rather neatly. Then, during Dorothy’s first summer as an intern, Rumpelstiltskin had come out of the story and tormented the staff for days by making them guess his name before they were able to return him to the story.

But now the Gingerbread witch was standing in front of Dorothy and, as grotesque as she was on the page, the witch was an even ghastlier sight to behold in person. Her body was bent and withered under her black cloak, but her eyes were mad and bulging, and her teeth were barred in a demented yellow grin.

“Where’s the boy?” the witch demanded.

Dorothy opened her mouth but no sound came out.

“The boy!” the witch repeated. “THE BOY!”

Dorothy managed to find her voice. “There’s been a slight glitch with our system. I’ll call the technicians and get you back to Hansel as soon as we can.”

But the witch was not designed to understand patience. “The BOY!”

“I’m going to call the technicians.” Dorothy could feel panic taking hold of her. “They’ll have you back to him in no time at all.”

“I’ve fattened him up like a pig, I have!”

“I understand what you’re saying,” Dorothy said, reaching for the phone with trembling hands, “but please make yourself comfortable and I’ll do my best to get you back to the boy as quickly as possible.”

“I need to eat,” the witch said, her nostrils twitching, “and if I can’t feast on him, I’ll have to feast on YOU.”

Dorothy was a small woman who had never really done any physical activity, let alone combat. Even at school, she had been excused from P.E. lessons and had instead spent those classes in the library doing extra assignments that she had asked her teachers for. But there would be no note from her mother to the headmistress tonight. She was on her own.

The witch leapt through the air with surprising agility. She came crashing down on top of Dorothy, who nearly gagged from the stench of stale ginger and the witch’s foul body odour. Dorothy looked up in horror as the witch lifted her hands to her mouth and, with a snap, unhinged her jaw. The witch was going to try to bite Dorothy’s head clean off her neck.

Dorothy screamed and shoved the witch as hard as she could. The witch slid partway off Dorothy, who quickly got back up on her feet. Dorothy grabbed the closest thing to her – a stapler – and threw it as hard as she could at the witch’s head. This stunned the witch for a further second or two, but this was enough time for Dorothy. She snatched up the phone and dialled for the night operator, six floors down.

“Witch ejected from Hansel!” Dorothy screamed. “Call security and get the techs—”

That was Dorothy managed to say. The witch snatched the phone from her hands and snapped it in two.

It then became a game of cat-and-mouse, with the witch chasing Dorothy in a circle around the Hansel control room, running around tables, crawling under tangled wires, jumping over chairs. This went on for five harrowing minutes, before two security guards burst in. They were followed by the on-call technician, who rushed to the closest computer. The guards eventually cornered the witch and managed to pin her to the floor. She screamed at them but her words were mostly incomprehensible, due to her dislocated jaw.

Dorothy sank into her chair. The younger of the two guards pushed a plastic cup of water into her hand. She sipped at it, too stunned to notice that he kept looking at her. His name was Burnham and although he was a large man, he was also very handsome. The women in the office tended to blush whenever he was around but Burnham tended not to notice them. He had, however, been noticing Dorothy, for the better part of a year. Ironically, the only girl that Burnham had noticed had not noticed him at all. They had never even spoken. Dorothy always walked past him too quickly, and she never came out for an after-work drink with the others on Friday evenings.

This was Burnham’s first chance to speak to her. After the witch had been restrained and had her rights read to her, Burnham came over to Dorothy, who was uncharacteristically dishevelled and understandably shaken.

“You all right there?” he asked.

Dorothy barely looked at him. “Yes. Thank you.”

“She could’ve killed you,” Burnham said. “You did a good job, Dorothy.”

She looked up then, surprised that he knew her name. They looked at each other for a long moment, neither of them able to think of anything else to say.

“The tech says she’ll be gone in a few minutes,” Burnham said eventually. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Dorothy watched him walk away. She was surprised that a handsome man knew her name. It didn’t occur to her that he had known her name ever since his first week at Happily Ever After, Ltd, eight months ago.

Nor did it occur to her that they would be married in less than three years, and that they would be divorced in less than eight.

*

Following the Gingerbread incident, Dorothy was promoted to assistant manager of Hansel and Gretel, where she worked for a year, tightening security protocols against the witch. Dorothy was then put in charge of Snow White for two years, where she handled everything from mirror maintenance and skin-whitening to apple poisonings and dwarf homicides. She was then promoted once more, this time to her current position as manager of the Cinderella division. Dorothy was considered one of the company’s best assets, although it was generally agreed that the harder Dorothy worked, the less likeable she became.

On this particular morning, Dorothy came to work in one of her many charcoal suits, her face severe. Over the last five years, her features had hardened, her mouth now permanently set in a tight frown. As Dorothy passed the front desk, Fiona called out to her. “Mrs Weaver? I’ve got Mr Kobayashi from Brothers Grimm on hold. He’s called three times already today even though I keep telling him what you said I should tell him!”

Dorothy nodded, but did not say anything – her blackberry calendar was already pinging with reminders. She summoned an elevator and hit 12. The elevator shot upwards like a bullet leaving a gun, but came to a premature halt.

“Ninth floor,” the elevator announced. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

The doors slid open. Franklin and Lionel stepped in. They were consultant biochemists, both white-haired and jowly, who had come out of retirement to work on various projects for Goldilocks. They had always been extremely friendly towards Dorothy and loved to talk shop with her, even though she tried her best to discourage this. This morning, Lionel was holding a beaker of steaming hot porridge.

“Morning, Weaver!” said Franklin. “Did you hear? Somehow, Goldilocks has developed an allergic reaction to oatmeal! So we’ve had to come up with a porridge without oats in it! Did you ever hear anything so deliciously absurd? It’s going to really throw off Mother Bear’s digestion! All that cold porridge has been hell on her intestines as it is. Have you had breakfast? Would you like a taste?”

“Twelfth floor, Cinderella.”

The doors opened and Dorothy walked briskly through the smaller Cinderella foyer which, with a wall-to-wall aquarium, resembled a dentist’s waiting room. She strode past her colleagues without a word – but the editors, printers, accountants, and technicians were all used to her. In fact, they preferred it. Whenever Dorothy did need to speak to them, it was usually to demand an explanation for their most recent mistake.

At the end of the corridor was Dorothy’s office. It was the biggest on the floor, with bookshelves lining the walls, tables with plastic fruit and flowers, and a basin for Dorothy’s constant hand-washing. Best of all, the office had a stunning view of the city all the way out to the bay. The view, however, was behind Dorothy and she rarely had time to appreciate it.

*

“You’ve got mail!” Maria shouted.

Maria came into Dorothy’s office, her arms stacked with files, envelopes and faxes. Maria was Dorothy’s assistant and the only Cinderella staff member who wasn’t scared of her boss. Everyone liked Maria but there was no denying that she was an odd-looking girl, with wide earnest eyes and never-ending bundles of energy. Dorothy considered Maria to be a mostly competent assistant, although Dorothy was always slightly suspicious of anyone who seemed too happy.

“Maria, please don’t shout,” Dorothy said.

Maria laughed. “I’ve had four cups of coffee this morning and my caffeine tolerance is, like, zero, so I’m buzzing. But have you read Henry’s sales report from last month? It’s looking good. Like, we-might-get-a-bottle-of-champagne-from-the-nineteenth-floor-again good. Oh, and another letter from Grimm, their fifth this month.”

“Yes, Fiona said Mr Kobayashi called three times this morning alone.” Dorothy sighed. “Grimm is weeks away from being forced to declare bankruptcy. I personally don’t see why they don’t get it over with. What does his letter say this time?”

Maria scanned it. “Same offer. Asking us to consider a buy-out.”

“Still out of the question,” Dorothy said. “The Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella doesn’t only have violence, it has sadistic violence. Pass me the Grimm file. Here, look at these illustrations.”

Dorothy found two sketches from the Grimm file. They did indeed make for macabre viewing. One depicted a stepsister cutting off pieces of her foot in order to squash it into the glass slipper. The other depicted a flock of birds pecking out the stepsisters’ eyes in the final scene while Cinderella watched gleefully.

“Our stories are anti-violent and pacifist,” Dorothy said. “No exceptions. We’re not marketing those gruesome torture films, like Drill or Hotel.”

Maria knew better than to point out that the movies were called Saw not Drill, and Hostel not Hotel. Maria also knew better than to admit that she had seen both movies, and all their sequels, and had actually quite enjoyed them. Watching innocent characters being tortured to death was definitely not in line with the company’s values.

Maria held up another envelope. “This one came in through internal mail, which I thought was a bit strange, because the watermark on the envelope says it’s from a law firm, Gallagher Marsh. Do you want me to open it?”

“No, it’s nothing.” Dorothy grabbed the envelope from Maria.

Maria was curious but by now she knew better than to ask questions. “Well, I’ve marked the rest of the mail non-urgent. I’ll leave it on your desk.”

When Maria had gone, Dorothy opened the envelope from Gallagher Marsh. Her fingers were trembling as she pulled out the contents of the envelope.

They were, as she had suspected, the divorce papers. She flipped through pages and pages of small print. She saw that Burnham had already signed his name on every second dotted line. The lawyers had thoughtfully drawn little X’s so Dorothy knew exactly where she needed to sign to end her marriage once and for all.

*

Dorothy could trace the beginning of the end of their marriage to the shoe.

She had known it was their wedding anniversary that night. Of course she had. They’d had their evening planned for weeks. Burnham was getting off work early to start the roast duck and, on her way home, Dorothy was going pick up a bottle of her favourite wine and two chocolate tarts from Bernetto’s. She had not forgotten. So it did not surprise her when she came home, at the stroke of midnight, to find Burnham sitting alone, the bird stone cold and the candles melted into puddles. It was a depressing sight to see the big man crouched over a sad little table. To add insult to the injury of her lateness, Dorothy had neither the wine nor the dessert. Bernetto’s had closed many hours before and the corner shop only had a liquor licence until ten.

"It was mayhem in the office," Dorothy said. "Please don't be mad."

“Doesn’t matter,” said Burnham.

“We can still have our anniversary dinner,” said Dorothy, who could imagine nothing worse at that moment. When Burnham said nothing, Dorothy said, “I said I was sorry.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said.

“I just said I was sorry,” Dorothy said.

“No. You said you said you were sorry. You said it twice, in fact. But you never actually said it.”

“Are you six years old?” Dorothy snapped. “We lost the shoe today.”

Burnham looked up at her. “What?”

“We lost the shoe. Cinderella’s shoe.” Dorothy collapsed into the chair opposite her husband. She slid off her own shoes, her feet aching. She wanted nothing more than to have a hot bath then go to bed. “Charming had it then he lost it. You know what that means. I’ve had the Dragon breathing over my shoulder all day. Not to mention parents and teachers and booksellers, they’re all absolutely livid and they have every right to be. I’ve been at the end of my rope and – what? What are you looking at me like that for?”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“I don’t have any energy left to feel guilty, alright? I’ve said I was sorry – or I’ve said I’ve said I was sorry – but I can’t deal with you being in a bad mood right now. We can still have the night we planned but if you’re going to spend it making me feel even worse, then I’m going to bed.”

Yes, that evening had definitely been the beginning of the end.