Willow clutched her bag as the plane came in for a landing on the island. It was a ridiculously small plane, and she would much rather have come by boat. But if the tour operator was to be believed, the resort was in a valley surrounded by impassable mountains, so flying in was the only way to get to the Fantasy Island estate. Faced with losing her deposit if she turned back, she had nervously climbed into the small prop plane with the other passengers. The ride had been as smooth as it could be, but her stomach was a little queasy - probably as much from the prospect of her week on the island and what it would offer her as from the transportation method.
On the ground, Xander heard the approaching whine of the Cessna Skyhawk's propeller and bounced up and down, ringing a bell he held in his hand.
"Hey boss, the plane, the plane!"
"You don't have to shout, Xander. I'm right next to you, and I can hear the plane perfectly well. I hate it when you shout."
"Sorry, boss. Would you mind calling me 'Tattoo,' by the way?"
"I most certainly would mind. And don't call me 'boss,' it's provincial. Call me Giles."
"Sorry, Giles - it's just more authentic."
"You're not even a native here, so it's the most egregious form of cultural appropriation."
"I'm just trying to get into my job, flex that creative muscle."
"If you spent as much time on your duties as you spend on flexing your - er - creative muscle, this resort would be a lot more successful. And stand up. You look ridiculous down there on your knees."
"I just thought it would be unique if the island host's second-in-command was a midget."
Giles looked up just long enough to see that the plane's passengers had disembarked and were now standing around watching him bicker with his assistant. He sighed, making a mental note not to let this go with Xander. Sometimes the reality of finally realizing his life dream of retiring to a tropical Pacific island where he could use his magics to help make people's dreams come true was a little...off from how he had imagined it. He thought, and not for the first time: the resort needs something...spicing up, maybe? New energy? I wish it was that easy.
"Well, it's not unique," he hissed out of the side of his mouth. "Get up. Welcome to Fantasy Island!" he addressed the group of three passengers who stood at the base of the plane's ladder.
The group looked dubiously at him and Xander, who was still on his knees - except for the redhead. She looked a little green around the gills and seemed to be concentrating on not losing her lunch.
"You all are the last group of guests to arrive this week. Ms. Jenkins, Mr. Osbourne - my assistant Xander will take you and your luggage to the veranda, where I will join you shortly. Ms. Rosenberg, if I may offer you a glass of ginger ale?"
He led Willow to a small table flanked by two chairs and covered by an umbrella. Droplets of water ran down the side of an icy cool pitcher of ginger ale that sat on top of the table. As they seated themselves, he heard Xander speaking to the other two guests as he led them to the main house.
"Welcome, welcome! My name is Xander, but most of the people at Fantasy Island call me Tattoo. If you need anything - anything at all, don't hesitate to call me. Especially you, Ms. Jenkins."
Giles sighed and removed his glasses, polishing them on the lapel of his blinding white suit. Ms. Rosenberg, seated across from him, was rummaging in her purse. She removed a pair of sunglasses, which she donned.
He poured her a glass of ginger ale. "Is the sun too bright for you, Ms. Rosenberg?" She accepted the drink gratefully. "Not exactly. It's...your suit," she said, apologetic. "It reflects the light a little too much."
Giles frowned. Not content to trust the resort's laundry to get his trademark white clothing bright enough, he often applied a little extra whitening magic to his suits. Perhaps he had gone overboard in this last batch. Oh well, it was a testament to his skills with magic, if that was the case - which made him all the more confident that could help this woman.
"Now, Ms. Rosenberg - in your letter, you wrote that you were coming to Fantasy Island because you are unlucky in love?"
Willow nodded, sipping her beverage. "I just can never seem to meet the right person. And I read your brochure, and I thought - I'm doing so badly on my own, that it certainly can't hurt to give this a try. Do you think you'll be able to help me?"
Giles cleared his throat. "Definitely. Here on Fantasy Island, we specialize in making dreams come true. I can guarantee that you'll fall in love while you're here - or your money back. Just relax, and be open to the experience."
She smiled, seeming a bit nervous. "I'll try. And thank you for the ginger ale - it was just what I wanted."
I know it was; I divined that from my afternoon tea leaves before your arrival.
Giles stood up and picked up Willow's bag. "I'll walk you to the main house."
They made their way across the lush green lawn toward the white mansion that was surrounded by a richly deep tropical forest. As they walked, Giles muttered some barely audible words under his breath. A bright cloud of sparkly white ethereal mist formed behind Willow's head and settled onto her shoulders. She didn't notice, but Giles did.
That's a fail-safe love spell. I wouldn't be surprised if you fell in love before the night was over, Ms. Rosenberg.
Giles stood in front of his staff, Xander at his side, as he addressed them. Each week when a new crop of guests arrived, he felt obliged to remind the staff of the importance of professional behavior, especially since so many of the guests were there looking for love.
"And remember - no fraternization with the guests. Understood?"
The staff gave slightly bored nods. Most of them had worked at Fantasy Island for several months, and had long before grown tired of Giles' little pep talks. They knew the rules. But one didn't argue with the owner-operator, no matter how stuffy and repetitive his speeches were.
"Smiles, everyone - smiles!" Giles concluded his speech with the same phrase each week. The servers scattered into the dining room to take drink and dinner orders. Tara Maclay, the head chef, herded her team of cooks back into the kitchen to work on that night's specials and appetizers. She had been working at the resort since the beginning and took her job seriously. For some reason, tonight she felt compelled to make extra sure that all the dishes were cooked to perfection. As she bustled around the kitchen checking oven temperatures, adding a dash of rosemary to the soup, and testing the consistency of the puddings, neither she nor her staff noticed a sparkly white ethereal mist that drifted into the kitchen and settled about her neck and shoulders.
Willow sat across the table from Daniel Osbourne. Could this be the man she would fall in love with? She wasn't sure, but she couldn't deny feeling flattered when he had approached her in the bar and asked her to dinner.
The feelings had rapidly diminished, however, when he ordered his dinner. "Steak. Extra rare."
Willow, a vegetarian, had been slightly grossed out at the sight of his steak, bright red and seeming to ooze blood from the middle. She could have handled it, but for the voracious way he tore into it, chewing with gusto as the steak juice ran out of the corners of his mouth pushed her over the edge.
"Excuse me - I'm the head chef, and just wanted to say hello and see if your food is all right?"
Willow looked up to see a blonde woman in a white chef's coat and hat standing by their table. She felt an unaccountable warmth spread through her body to match the smile that spread across her face.
"It's great," she said, gazing up into the biggest blue eyes she had ever seen.
"And your steak, sir?" the chef said, reluctantly breaking eye contact with Willow.
"It's great!" Daniel said, flashing the chef a winning smile. Shreds of meat were stuck between his teeth and a smear of grease clung to his chin.
"I'm very pleased that you agreed to dine with me this afternoon," said Wesley Wyndam-Price to Willow as he pulled out her seat in the dining room. "After last night when I saw you with that other young man, I thought I might have...missed my chance?"
Willow shifted in the chair and murmured something noncommittal. Truth be told, she had never been very into being on the receiving end of chivalrous gestures, and Wesley was overflowing with them. He had insisted on opening the outside door for her, and then scurried past her in the anteroom to open the inside door. When she had tried to protest that she was capable of opening a door, he had fallen all over himself to apologize while clinging stubbornly to the door handle. Finally she had given up and just walked into the dining room.
The server approached their table. "Take your order?"
Wesley glanced at the menu. "Yes, indeed! I'll have a Tom Collins, and an iced tea for the lady. I'll start with the barley soup, and she'll have the vegetarian vegetable soup. For the main course, poached salmon for me and a tofu club for Ms. Rosenberg here."
Willow spoke up. "Hold on, I don't like tofu."
Wesley looked astonished. "But you're a vegetarian!"
"That's right. It's possible to be a vegetarian and not eat tofu, you know. Anyway, I'd prefer to order for myself."
"Ex-excuse me?" interrupted the blonde chef, who had noticed the disagreement from the kitchen and had crept out to see if she could lend a hand. "If I could suggest something, we have an excellent portabella mushroom quesadilla today that you might like."
Willow looked up, her annoyance at Wesley dissipating as she took in the sight of the blonde's flushed face that was capped by a slightly askew chef's hat. Tendrils of hair had escaped the hat and clung to her face and neck in a way that almost begged for someone to reach up and tuck them back behind an ear...
"The portabella mushroom quesadilla it is, then," Wesley declared.
Willow snapped out of her reverie in time to give him a decidedly annoyed glance.
"So I jacked up my truck an extra six inches and put on some brand new shocks. And what do you know, the chassis never scraped a curb again. Of course, my buddy Angel said that it probably wasn't the chassis scraping anyway, that it was the exhaust pipe. But better safe than sorry, is my motto, and anyway it's okay either way because with the truck jacked up it calls more attention to the new rims I put on. They spin backward, and they're chrome so they look retro but also shiny, and..."
Willow slumped back in her chair, increasingly unhappy as she stifled a yawn. Her dinner date with Gunn, a man she had met while walking along the beach this afternoon after her disastrous lunch with Wesley, was turning out to be a bust.
"And then I said go ahead and put the 10W-30 oil in, because my truck can use either. The only reason anyone would put 5W-30 in the kind of truck I have is if they live in a cold climate, but I live in L.A. It hasn't snowed there since, well, ever. But if it did, I'd still be okay since I installed the new radials last spring. Talk about traction!"
"Coffee?" said a voice behind Willow's left ear.
She turned. It was the blonde chef again, holding a coffee pot. They really go all out with the service here.
"Yeah!" said Gunn. "I think Red here could use some."
Willow couldn't bear the thought of spending even five more minutes hearing about Gunn's truck.
"Actually, I think I need to call it a night," she said, standing up. "Any more coffee and I definitely won't sleep at all tonight."
She didn't miss the look of disappointment that crossed the blonde's face as she nodded, then turned and walked away.
"Hey, she didn't refill my coffee! That reminds me of a time when I ran out of gas on the highway, but shifted into neutral and coasted all the way into a gas station because I had lubricated the axle that morning..."
With a hurried word of thanks for the dinner, Willow beat a hasty retreat back to her room.
"Hello, room service? I'd like to order a pot of coffee."
The voice coming from the other end of the phone was slightly surprised, but pleasant.
"One pot of coffee, a-anything else?"
Willow twirled the phone cord around her finger. "No, thank you."
"Which room should this go to?"
"Willow Rosenberg, room 245."
A pause on the line. The reply, when it finally came, sounded slightly...sultry?
"I'll deliver it personally."
Giles wrung his hands together as he stood out on the lawn. In the three years he had owned Fantasy Island, he had never sent a customer away unsatisfied. But today, he thought, that enviable record would be broken. Despite his best efforts, he had failed Willow Rosenberg. She had not fallen in love with any of the men he'd seen her with over the last week - his divinations confirmed it.
"Don't worry, boss," Xander said at his elbow. "At least you know Ms. Jenkins is going away satisfied."
"Spare me the sophomoric locker-room comments, Xander," Giles said morosely, but his heart wasn't in it. Trading barbs with his irascible assistant just didn't have the same luster it used to, when he knew he was a failure.
How could he have failed? He had gone over his spells again and again, trying the first love spell he had cast on Willow two more times, and then finally resorted to more desperate measures. He had tried several other spells - Aprodite's Last Kiss, Horatio's Hot 'n Heavy Hoodoo, and even Love Potion Number 9 - but none of them had had any effect. Indeed, he had seen less and less of Ms. Rosenberg as the week went on. The only thing that had prevented him from seeking her out apply a divination on her was a crisis in the resort's kitchen - the head chef, Tara Maclay, had gone AWOL and was nowhere to be found.
The aforementioned Ms. Jenkins sashayed out of the mansion and planted a kiss on Xander's lips. It lasted slightly longer than was socially acceptable, meaning Giles had harrumphed, shifted from one foot to the other, and removed his glasses for a thorough polishing before the kiss broke.
"See you, Tattoo," Ms. Jenkins said, and strutted across the lawn toward the waiting Cessna.
Willow emerged from the front doors, then, and immediately walked over the few steps toward Giles. He steeled himself, and spoke.
"Ms. Rosenberg, I'm terribly sorry. Terribly, terribly sorry. It seems...that Fantasy Island has failed you, for the first time in its existence. I can assure you, you'll receive a full refund."
Willow blinked, nonplused. "What?"
"And reimbursement for travel expenses, of course," Giles hastily added.
"What do you mean, Fantasy Island has failed me?"
Giles wrung his hands. Willow was a tougher customer than he had expected. Flustered, he blurted out, "You didn't fall in love, and it was your wish that you would!"
Willow's brow furrowed. "But I did fall in love! I was coming outside to thank you. I've had a...GREAT week."
Giles was floored. How could his magics have been so off? They had assured him that Willow had not fallen in love with any man during her stay on the island.
Tara peeked her head out of the front door, and then walked over to stand by Willow. "Told you he wouldn't get it, sweetheart."
Giles looked from Willow to Tara, and back to Willow. Slowly, comprehension dawned on his face at the same rate that fluster spread throughout his demeanor.
"So that's where the head chef has been all weekend," Xander interjected helpfully. "Must have been the Love Potion Number 9 that did it, boss. That stuff is killer."
"Anyway," Willow said, "I was coming outside to tell you that I'm not going home today."
"Oh?" Giles said weakly.
"No," she said. "I've found my one true love, and she's your head chef. So I'll be staying here with her, of course. And consulting for you."
"Consulting?" Giles was kerflummoxed.
"Yes," she replied. "Fantasy Island is wonderful, don't get me wrong! But with you two in charge, it's not like it's exactly clued in about lesbians. And there's no greater growth market than the lesbian community, trust me. Talk about a bunch of sappy romantics who need a little help finding each other. With just a few modifications and the right advertising, the sky is the limit!"
"It could help to spice up the resort, too, Giles," Tara interjected. "I mean, no offense, but you've been doing things the same way for all the years that I've been working for you."
He considered this, and began to laugh as his thoughts from the beginning of the week came back to him. The resort needs something...spicing up, maybe? New energy? I wish it were that easy.
"Normally, I tell my guests to be careful what you wish for - but it seems that this week, my fantasy has also come true! Ms. Rosenberg, you're hired."
Willow shook his hand as Tara beamed.
On Fantasy Island, your troubles were truly all erased!