Cinderella (A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes)
Chapter 2
Summary: Oliver Queen arrives in Starling Town for the shoot.
"Thank you so much for doing this, Mr. Queen," said Mayor Lance. "It's not every day that Starling Town gets a celebrity visitor as famous as you."
Oliver Queen took Quentin Lance's hand and gave the town's mayor a firm handshake. "Call me Oliver. It really is my pleasure to be here, Mayor Lance. Plus, I couldn't say 'no' to my sister. It was her idea, actually. She fell in love with this place when she came over for the winter last year. She somehow managed to convince her top bosses to feature your lovely town in their show."
"Glad she did! The entire town is grateful," said the mayor. "Is it okay to ask how you did that, Ms. Queen?"
"Oh, I got them on board the moment I dropped my brother's name as the celebrity guest," replied Thea Queen.
"Smart young lady," Lance remarked, giving Thea a wink.
Thea Queen was one of the show runners of H.E.A. Today, and it had been her idea to feature Starling Town in one of their summer episodes. Starling Town had been fast becoming a tourist destination during the winter season because of the mountainside skiing resort that opened three years ago just a few kilometers from town proper; however, tourism was down during off-seasons, especially in the summer. Improving the income of the town through tourism had been among the campaign platforms of Quentin Lance when he ran for mayor, and even when he had assumed office, he had wanted to maximize the town's potential all-year-round. Thea had met Mayor Lance when she vacationed at the ski resort last January. They struck up a conversation that led to a friendship, which made possible a deal that was a win-win scenario for both the show and the town.
That day, the TV show's crew had gone ahead on a road trip from Central City and arrived at noontime. Thea and Oliver had caught up with them in the afternoon by helicopter.
The sun shone brightly from where the three of them were standing near the open-air deck of the resort's restaurant. The panoramic scene called for a perfect photograph taken on a perfect day.
"So, what is your impression of our little town, Oliver?" the mayor asked the handsome movie star.
"As I said, the town down below is lovely. Loved the old-fashioned country homes that line the main street. And the folks are all so friendly," Oliver replied. "But the view from up here? It's absolutely breath-taking! I could look out from the restaurant's deck and breathe in fresh, pine-scented mountain air all day. That alone is reason enough to pick Starling as a relaxing get-away. This resort has a lot of potential, especially when it's all dressed up so elegantly like this."
"Thank you for the compliment," Mayor Lance responded. "We are trying our best to develop the town, including the main access road leading up to this resort. I've also been working closely with the owner of this place, Mr. Bertinelli, whom you are about to meet in a few minutes. He has invested a lot over the years. First, he transformed and expanded his family's spacious, three-story mountain cabin into a vacation lodge for tourists, and then later on he got some big-shot investor to sign in on a business deal, developing this mountain lodge into a miniature skiing resort. When the resort opened three years ago, people started coming in droves during the winter time," Mayor Lance explained.
Thea was quick to add in her comments. "Well, I'm glad that I discovered this beautiful place. I'm sure that after the show airs this episode we're making, more people would come here even during off-season. Summer in the city can get pretty hot at times. Coming up here just might be the better option. Fun in the sun and getting a tan on some beach resort somewhere seems to have become cliché, if you ask me. Starling Town is the perfect destination to cool off in the summer. Didn't you mention something about mountain climbing and rappelling, too, Mayor Lance?"
"Oh, yes! Mr. Bertinelli has been trying to negotiate a lease on the property on the other side of this mountain, not too far from here. He and his business partner would like to venture on something like that," Lance answered.
"Then, I guess I'll be coming back to Starling very soon, too, Mr. Mayor," Oliver said. "You know, I am a big fan of the great outdoors, and I love extreme sports. I'd like to try those things when they're ready. Who knows? We might even be able to film here when the time comes."
"That'd be great! I'm so looking forward to that," the mayor replied enthusiastically.
A few minutes later, Frank Bertinelli stepped into the room to meet them. Mayor Lance did the introductions, and Thea thanked Mr. Bertinelli for granting permission to shoot an episode of the show in his resort. Likewise, the proud businessman thanked her for selecting his resort and lodge as the location for their shoot. Mr. Bertinelli also thanked Oliver for agreeing to be the celebrity guest on the show, flattering him with many flowery words and saying that this episode would bring in more revenue not just for his business, but also for the town.
"Well, good luck on your first shoot tomorrow morning," Frank Bertinelli told Thea and Oliver. "Thank you, Mr. Bertinelli," Thea replied.
Mr. Bertinelli added, "I regret I won't be around to witness that, as I have an important meeting with my contractor in my house in town, which I was unable to reschedule. But I will be back in the late afternoon. I was told that Mr. Queen here will be choosing the winner of the dinner date in the evening shoot. Am I right?"
"Oh yes," Thea answered. "It will all go down pretty fast and smoothly, I hope. We're shooting all the individual interviews with the contestants in the morning, and then we're shooting each girl's first meet with Oliver in the afternoon. Oliver's reveal of his choice will be shot in the evening right out there on deck, under the stars and the moonlight. We wanted a more romantic ambience."
"Good! It seems like you're all set," Mr. Bertinelli said. "If you'll excuse me now, I'll be doing an inspection of the premises to make sure everything is fine, beginning with your accommodations."
"The accommodations are just fine, Mr. Bertinelli," said Oliver. "I love the suite I was given, by the way. View's fantastic! But is there something that can be done about the WiFi? There seems to be something wrong with it. I'm getting a strong signal in my room, but there doesn't seem to be any connectivity or something. I just need to get some work done on my laptop and download the prompts for the shoots tomorrow."
"Oh?" Mr. Bertinelli sounded surprised. "I'm very sorry about that. But not to worry. I'll send our resident technician up to your room as soon as she can. She takes care of the Internet here and everything else related to technology. She's really got the smarts for things like that. She's just finishing up installing additional CCTVs in the resort for better security while you're here."
"Thank you so much. I appreciate it," said Oliver.
Mr. Bertinelli excused himself from the group, while Oliver and Thea carried on a casual conversation with the mayor a little longer. Mayor Lance expressed gratitude to Thea for putting his two daughters, Laurel and Sara on the shortlist for the episode's contestants, in addition to Mr. Bertinelli's own two daughters, Helena and Isabel. Their daughters were die-hard fans of Oliver Queen, and as Mayor, he had asked Thea for the favor way back when the deal for the show was finalized a few months ago.
By the time Oliver made it back to his room, it was almost dinner time. At first, he was a bit alarmed to find that the door to his room was unlocked. But when he remembered that Mr. Bertinelli had promised to send someone to check his Internet connection, he relaxed a bit. He figured that the technician must have gotten in using the lodge's master keys to do the task while the room had been unoccupied. So, he turned the door knob and push the door open slowly.
"Hello?" he said with a modulated tone of voice, so as not to startle anyone who might be in the room.
He stepped into the room and looked around. The curtains were still drawn, and sunlight was still illuminating every corner of the room. Everything seemed to be in order, just like he had left the room earlier to meet Mayor Lance in the restaurant. His bags were untouched, and his windbreaker still lay on the quilted bed just as he left it. But when he looked to the left side of the room where the sliding door to the balcony was, what he saw instantly amused him.
Oh, it wasn't the pair of shapely legs wearing dark blue, ripped skinny jeans that amused him, nor was it the glorious bottom of a young woman that was sticking out from underneath the pinewood desk. What amused him tremendously and caused his face to break out with a wide grin was the pair of ballet flats adorned with pandas, which had come off her feet in her clumsy attempt to crawl underneath the said desk to reach something. Her pink-painted toes wiggled as she worked while awkwardly humming a familiar pop tune.
Oliver approached the crouching woman slowly and cleared his throat. "Uhm, excuse me, miss? How much longer is this going to take?"
He clearly heard the woman gasp, and he regretted having startled her this way, because along with the single yet substantial intake of air was heard the loud sound of her hitting her head against the wooden desk. "Ow!" Oliver winced. That must have hurt. Getting down on all fours and crawling underneath a desk as low as the one in his suite was already a difficult, uncomfortable task; hitting her head like that just made it even more uncomfortable for her.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Uhm, do you need help getting out of there?" Oliver offered.
"It's okay. No need to apologize. It's not your fault that the idiots who installed the cables had to run them along the wall so low behind this very heavy desk that I couldn't move an inch!" the woman babbled rapidly while slowly crawling backwards to get out from under the desk. "It's just… Ugh! It's amazing how I always manage to embarrass myself this way, especially when I'm only trying to help. The view of me from out there must be less than appealing right now, and I just wish that-"
When she finally made it out from underneath the desk, put her shoes back on, and stood up to see who the stranger that had witnessed another of her humiliating feats was, she was completely flabbergasted to find the man of her dreams standing in front of her. Oliver Queen! She could not believe her eyes. She knew that he was arriving at her step-dad's resort today, but she did not know that she had been sent to his room, of all places.
Oliver, on the other hand, had found her reaction even more amusing. How could he not? Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened, and her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. Her dark-rimmed glasses were askew, almost falling off the bridge of her nose. Strands of her blonde hair that had been tied up in a ponytail were sticking out. And yet, he still thought that no one had looked more adorable than she did at that moment. She had the perfect pair of blue eyes, a cute nose, and the sweetest pink lips ever. The light blue open sweater she wore on top of a plain white camisole that wasn't thick enough to hide the patterns of the blue lace underwear she wore underneath. Her babbling did not even turn him off. On the contrary, Oliver thought that her personality suited her physical features, as well as her get-up. He wondered how a computer and Internet technician could look so pretty despite the eyeglasses and the messy ponytail. It was the panda flats that completed the look.
Oliver decided to end her misery by introducing himself politely. "Hi, I'm Oliver Queen."
When she finally managed to find her voice and move her jaw once more, she replied, "I… I know who you are. You're Mr. Queen."
"No. Mr. Queen was my father," Oliver replied with a warm smile. "Call me Oliver."
"Oliver…" She loved how his name rolled off her tongue. Actually, he did too.
"You must be the girl Mr. Bertinelli sent over. To fix the WiFi. Right?"
"Uh-huh…"
Oliver thought she became even more amusing and adorable by the second, especially when she stood there fangirling and staring at him in a dreamy daze. And yet, he could not shake off the feeling that there was just something about this girl that was special.
"Well, is it fixed?" he asked nicely, unable to wipe off the smirk on his face.
"Uh-huh…"
"Thank you. For your help."
"Uh-huh…" She was still staring, star-struck. Not finding words to say was most certainly unprecedented for Felicity Smoak, but a situation like this called for being fashionably speechless.
There was a knock on the door, which snapped her out of her daze. It was Mr. Bertinelli. "Did you get it done?" Bertinelli asked her.
"Yes, Frank. Internet should be up and running. There was just something wrong with the cables. Fixed it already," she told him, as her smile faded upon seeing her stepfather at the door.
Felicity remembered well the conversation they'd had at home a couple of weeks ago, when she had expressed how much she wanted to be a contestant on the reality TV dating show. Helena and Isabel had only laughed at her, telling her to forget all about it since she'd never get the chance like they did, thanks to Mayor Lance's connections. But when she had told them that she had received a call from the show informing her that she had made it to the shortlist, her stepsisters had been dumbfounded and had looked to their dad for a stern response. Her stepdad had smirked in a sarcastic kind of way and said to her, "Well, that's too bad, Felicity. The production staff have already called and informed me when they're going to shoot the episode at the resort, and I'm afraid the lodge will be very busy accommodating the cast and crew. I will need you for tech and IT support the whole time they're shooting. That's all you're good at anyway, right? I'm sorry, dear, but playing Cinderella just isn't really for you, I guess." She had walked away utterly frustrated and sad.
Turning to Oliver but avoiding eye contact because of embarrassment, Felicity said, "Excuse me, Mr. Queen. I have to go now. You shouldn't have any problems with the Internet now." A light blush had blossomed on her face once again as their eyes met briefly.
"Thanks again. It was very nice meeting you," Oliver said to her. He was going to offer her a handshake, because he wanted to know how the palm of her cute little hand felt (and he would have found them a bit course and rough because of all the chores she had done at home while growing up), but she was quick to say, "You're welcome," as she left the room in haste.
Oliver thought positively, hoping he'd run into her again while they stayed at the lodge since she worked there. But his biggest regret was that he hadn't even been able to get her name. Next time, he would.
A/N: So, they've met! :-) Your thoughts on this one? Would love to hear from you.
Next update will be the shoot and how Oliver is going to make his choice. But I'm afraid that you, awesome readers, will have to wait four weeks to get it. I really hope that's okay? I'll be off with the whole family on a month-long (and much-deserved) vacation out of the country, the first real vacation I'm getting in five years. It's a much-needed break especially since my family and I are still grieving over Papa's loss. So excited! I hope you'll still be there when I pick up from here.