If We Were A Disney Movie

breaking snow white

It had been three days and four hours and Payton still hadn't stopped using her Snow White voice. You'd think that she would have dropped the act when the mailman greeted her or when the pizza boy came to deliver. Any reasonable person would have stopped the high-pitched voice and giggling while cashing a check or going to the DMV to update her photo.

Ha. Not Payton.

Payton was not a reasonable person.

She was an actress.

"Do you talk like that around Jason, too?" Molly had asked her the other day during dinner. Jason was Payton's boyfriend. A twenty something law school student with the personality of a dry cucumber. "Dude, can you imagine calling your girlfriend and Snow White picks up the phone?"

"Don't do it," Evie begged, taking her cup of ramen out of the microwave.

"Hello, Jason?" Molly began with that high-pitched voice.

"She's gonna do it," Sloane said, bored and scrolling through her phone.

"Payton can't come to the phone right now," Molly continued, "Why? 'Cause she's dead. I killed her with my poison apple. Muahaha!"

"Okay, technically that's the witch," Evie said.

"Nice Taylor Swift reference, though," I replied.

"Don't encourage her," Sloane said, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, baby. Want to chat with single Disney princesses? Just call the number below—" Molly added, giggling maniacally. If you closed your eyes, you'd really think she was Snow White.

"Too late," Evie said with a snort.

"Could you please pass the salt, Molly?" Payton asked politely, not once breaking character. She was like the Daniel Day-Lewis of Disney princesses. It was incredible. You can imagine how confused the telemarketers always were when she answered the phone.

"Let's mess with her," Molly said as we all watched Payton—in her Snow White costume—greet kids and parents at the entrance of the park. Each of us had an hour or so to kill before we had to get to work and this is how Molly wanted to spend it. She wanted to break Snow White.

"You're horrible," Evie said, shaking her head. "C'mon, I want to get breakfast."

"Here, have this," Molly said, handing Evie a protein bar that looked like it had been in her drawer for a while.

"I don't want your abandoned protein bar!"

"I do," I said, grabbing it quickly. Food was food and if I could save a couple of dollars, all the better. It was four dollars for a water bottle alone at Disneyland.

"I want to stick around to see this," Sloane said, actually smiling. And she never smiled, unless it was for a paycheck. Or a cute guy with a lot of money.

"You guys are gonna get her fired," I said, tearing the portein bar wrapper apart. "Just let her do her job."

"We are, Briar," Molly said, adding an innocent bat of the eyelashes. "We're helping her. Think of it as an acting exercise. We're challenging her."

"Yeah, challenging her to kick our asses," I said, before biting into the bar. It tasted like old sugar covered cardboard, if there was such a thing. "This is not a good idea." Evie nodded in agreement.

And yet we got in line anyway. I told myself it was to make sure that Molly didn't take it too far, but honestly it was mostly because we're all just horrible human beings who don't deserve Payton's love and friendship.