Swim to Me by Betsy Carter

Buttruly, the costumes looked as discouraged as she felt. What with the new Disney World doing booming business less than ninety miles away, attendance was dwindling. Even Dick Pope down in Cypress Gardens was feeling the pinch, and, rumor had it, he was spending thousands of dollars to beef up his show. She dreaded the small turnout for “Frostie’s Snowland.”
    Dutifully, the girls and Lester ran through rehearsals every morning as Thelma watched in silence from the director’s booth. The show was dated, she thought; it looked like some amateur high school production. She’d read about the Audio-Animatronics, or whatever they called it, over at Disney World. There were eighty-six automated figures in the Mickey Mouse Musical Revue alone. Mickey himself had thirty-three functions built into his forty-two-inch frame: he could tilt his head, wave his baton, turn around. There was a six-foot-four-inch replica of Abraham Lincoln, which could stand up and deliver one of his famous speeches, though it still had some kinks: occasionally, it would double over in a bow, or its knees would buckle. But compared with “Frostie’s Snowland,” Disney World was the future, its feet firmly planted in the Space Age. “Frostie’s Snowland” was over, yesterday’s news.
    Thelma watched as Adrienne languidly negotiated an incomplete backflip and watched as Helen lip-synched three beats behind the “Frosty the Snowman” record. She could feel the life ebbing out of her. The air seemed thinner, she felt light-headed. These people are eating up my life, she thought, nibbling away at it day after day. If I stay here any longer, I will be nothing, just the detritus of what used to be Thelma Foote.
    She rose to her feet and picked up her microphone. “Attention, attention,” she shouted. “I want everyone to come to the surface immediately. Meet me inside the theater; I have an important announcement to make.”
    The shivering cast sat wrapped in towels waiting to hear what Thelma had to say.
    â€œI’m not going to waste any words,” she began. “This show is crap. It’s stale and boring and not particularly attractive. Frankly, I’m not interested in doing a Christmas gala this year. If you all want to put your pretty little heads together and come up with a show, be my guest. But don’t expect me to have anything to do with it. Good luck.” She zipped up her windbreaker and headed straight out the door.
    Lester shot Delores a look, as if to say, “See, I told you about the Christmas thing.” And Lester, who rarely opened his mouth in a group, was the first to speak as they stared at one another in stunned silence.
    â€œPeople come here just for the Christmas show,” he said. “We’ve got to come up with something.”
    They sat down at one of the picnic tables and started talking about what they might do. Several weeks earlier, on a Friday night, they’d all piled into the Weeki Wachee van, and Thelma had driven them to Tampa, where they’d seen the movie everyone was talking about,
The Godfather.
On their way home, they couldn’t stop talking about it: innocent Kay, fiery Sonny, spooky Michael, loyal Tom Hagen, and tragic Apollonia. They played back scenes to each other. The one in which Sonny nearly kills his sister’s husband, Carlo, because Carlo beat up Sonny’s sister, Connie, was a favorite. All of them had come from families where a Carlo and a Connie were real possibilities.
    Of all people, it was Adrienne who came up with the idea first. “Maybe we should do a show in honor of
The Godfather.
Maybe we could do the opening wedding scene.”
    â€œOh my God,” said Sharlene, shoving a hunk of hair off her face. “That is the most brilliant idea I have ever heard.”
    â€œThat’s great, Einstein,” said Helen, “but did it ever occur to you that we’re all girls