The Disney Cure by Elizabeth Sowden

3:34 AM. Roxie lay awake staring at the ceiling. The blue LCD display on her alarm clock glared. She only had three hours before she was supposed to get up to go to the gym and then work, and she hadn’t slept at all. When she got home from the club there was a message on her answering machine from Allison. Something about Sunday brunch so that everyone could meet her new dog. Roxie couldn’t help wondering if this was going to be like a baby shower, and if they were going to have to bring presents like designer booties and novelty chew toys.

But that’s not why Roxie couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t believe Graciela. That wasn’t a set up–that was a sting. Sure, Javier was nice, and good-looking, but now they were both going to have to see if they liked each other, and Roxie did not like boys. And she couldn’t just tell him that, because “I’m not interested in dating” was code for “I’m not interested in you” even when the former happened to be true. So now Roxie had to go out with Javier, on the requisite three dates at least, before she could legitimately say that there was no “spark”. Or maybe he would do it. Maybe he would do the guy thing and just never call again….no, he wouldn’t, Graciela wouldn’t let him….

Roxie turned and buried her face in the pillow. She thought about how Javier’s muscular arms looked as he stood on stage playing his bass guitar…dammit! Roxie had no desire to get interested in any guy. Her last boyfriend was Ted and that was in college. He was skinny and pasty and had a nasal voice, not to mention the fact that he was completely obsessed with his mother in a totally creepy way—your typical overgrown toddler with a chronic Oedipus complex. But Roxie fell in love with him. Chalk it up to being young, to being naïve and away from home, from wanting to fit in….whatever it was, she thought Ted was something spectacular, and when he began seeing another girl on the sly and dumped Roxie in an email, Roxie couldn’t get out of bed for an entire semester. Graciela and Noëlle were at a loss at how to comfort her.

Then, one day, Roxie was reading a biography of Susan B. Anthony while sitting in the sun under a tree in the courtyard, and she had an epiphany: what a waste of time it had all been. Not just feeling bad about the breakup, but all the flirting and the dating…Roxie could have written a novel or learned a new language in that period of time! That day, Roxie decided she was done with dating. Over, finito, that’s all folks. Graciela tried to show her she was wrong, and Noelle thought it was a joke, but Roxie held fast to her decision.

But in all that time she’d never met anyone like Javier…Javier had nothing in common with Ted. Javier looked like the sun had kissed him all over, and that Michelangelo himself had sculpted his arms. The way his eyes glittered when he talked about his students….no, Roxie thought, she would not let Graciela dupe her into falling in love with this guy. He was probably more interested in Graciela anyway, all the guys were. Graciela was the hot one.

Roxie looked at the clock: 4:00 AM. There was no way she was going to get any sleep at this rate. She reached under the bed and took out her portable DVD player. She bought it so she could take it with her on long flights but she also found it doubled as an insomnia cure. She propped open the DVD player next to her on the bed and put in “The Little Mermaid”. (This was Roxie’s dark secret: when she couldn’t sleep, she watched Disney movies).
Roxie had a hard time concentrating on the movie. She kept picturing Javier on stage moving his fingers up and down the neck of his bass guitar. When Ariel shouted to her father, “Daddy I love him!” just before he destroyed her statue of Prince Eric, Roxie felt a strange feeling come over her. She didn’t feel like saying, “He’s not worth it” or “Listen to your dad”. (Roxie’s dark secret #2: when she watched Disney movies by herself, she always talked back to them). Instead, she felt…before Roxie could formulate another thought, she fell asleep.

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