by Jen Klein
“He had the same routine last summer. And he actually was joking, although he might have let you get all the way outside before saying you could stay. It’s not a great joke.”
“Yeah, he could stand to work on his material.” I almost wore heels tonight—cute ones with peep toes to match my short green sundress—but then Ella wanted to walk, and I didn’t want to spend the night in pain. Therefore, I’m in black Vans, so I have to look up to see Milo. “Whatever, it’s fine.”
“It’s not.” Milo shakes his head. “But he doesn’t get it. The best villains and all…”
“They never know they’re villains.” I consider that for a moment. “But you said the best villains have at least one redeeming quality. What’s Logan’s?”
We turn to look toward the living room, where Logan has rejoined the party and is taking off his shirt in some sort of bad striptease while the crowd cheers him on. Milo leans against the counter, watching. “He has nice…I don’t know…taste in socks? Good diction?”
I settle against the counter next to Milo, our arms touching. “Maybe he’s amazing at crochet.”
“Or miming. He could be an excellent mime artist.”
I shake my head violently. “I have a hard time imagining Logan’s gift being a silent one.”
“Good point.” Milo assesses for another moment. “Mini golf. I bet Logan is killer at mini golf.”
“Or maybe Frisbee golf.”
Milo and I say it at the same time—“Mini Frisbee golf!”—and then we both burst out laughing.
“He’s basically throwing drink coasters at trees,” Milo says after we’ve settled down.
“That sounds about right.”
“There you go.” Milo gestures at Logan, now naked from the waist up and dancing with Gretchen. “His redeeming quality is mini Frisbee golf.”
The rest of the party is more of the same. I talk to Milo while Ella dances a little and drinks a little. Then she pulls me out onto the floor so I’ll dance with her, which I do (a little). At some point, Tuck arrives. Gretchen’s atop yet another chair when he walks into the living room. She nearly knocks him over by launching herself at him. Ella and I move out of the way just in time to avoid being clobbered by one of her arms.
As Tuck swings Gretchen around, he makes eye contact with me and winks. I’m so startled that I wink back…kind of. It might look more like an eye twitch, because Tuck frowns, confused.
Ella witnesses the exchange and shakes her head at me. “Smooth.”
“Shut up,” I tell her.
Later, after I’ve finished roughly a third of my beer and poured the rest down the sink, after I’ve laughed at many jokes—a few are even funny—and danced with Ella some more, after I’ve eaten a slice of lukewarm pizza and exchanged more looks with Tuck, I make two realizations in quick succession:
1. There’s a lot to like about these people. They’re fun and engaging and entertaining. However—
2. I could use a break from them. For weeks now, we have been up each other’s butts 24/7. Frankly, I could stand to crawl the hell out.
Which is why, on our walk home when Ella asks if I want to go shopping or hiking on Monday, I tell her “neither. I’m going to take a ‘me day.’ Cool?”
Ella doesn’t answer.
Sunday’s performance goes well. Not spectacularly, but well. There’s a technical flub in the final scene that earns us all—even though most of us have nothing to do with it—an extra half hour of squawking from Nikki at the end of the show. What’s supposed to happen is that after the clashing of wooden swords and the booming of unseen cannons and the death of Achilles, Paris stands alone at center stage. He’s all exhausted and triumphant, surrounded by the spoils of war: dead bodies and dropped props. Across from him, Pollux makes a final kill and then casually strolls toward Paris, presumably to hug it out, bro-style. However, before he can get there, Zeus appears on the upstage boulders—otherwise known as Olympus—and shouts, “For Achilles!” before letting a lightning bolt fly at Paris. After that, Paris falls, Pollux delivers a stirring monologue about the travesties of war, and then the entire cast does our trudging and mournful dirge bit.
Tonight, however, someone’s off their mark. Everything goes fine through the battle sequence until that final revenge lightning…which unfortunately happens just before Zeus yells his line. Tuck wavers and crumples to the ground somewhere between the flash-boom and the “For Achilles!” but surely the audience is confused about what actually caused the death of Paris: a bolt of lightning or Hugh Hadley’s gravelly voice.
•••
In every other era of my life, Monday morning has been my least favorite day of the week. The end of the weekend, the start of school…nothing about it is good. However, now that I’m part of a theater group, it means something entirely different. It’s “dark day,” which is theater speak for “no show today.” It’s my first true free day since arriving in the mountains. No performance, no rehearsals, no company meetings.
Glorious.
I wake up early because I’m excited to savor the freedom. Ella is still asleep, so I grab the clothes I laid out last night and stealth my way out of our room. I keep it simple—jeans, plain V-neck tee, Adidas. After a quick brush of hair and teeth, I head out. Since I already told Ella I didn’t want to shop or hike, I feel okay leaving the apartment without a farewell. After all, I have a key and she has a life. We’ll both be fine.
Also, it’s not just the other company members I could use a break from. I wouldn’t mind a day without Ella too. Yes, she can be fun, and we’ve gotten past the blackmail thing, but sometimes she’s a little…passive-aggressive. Or cranky. Or bossy. Or something. I don’t want to second-guess my entire day based on what mood she’s living through at any given moment. I don’t want to plan my day around her, to make decisions with her. In fact, I don’t want to plan my day at all. I just want to go with the flow.
My own flow.
However, just as the little bell is ching-chinging over my head as I walk into the coffee shop, I get a text. It’s from Milo. I’m not surprised that he has my phone number, since a contact list was emailed to everyone at the beginning of rehearsals, but I am surprised—shocked, in fact—at what he says.
Milo here. Hitting send before can change mind. Am off to create, wanna come?
As I’m reading his text, a second one pops up:
Look, I hit send.
And a third:
Shit, if I’m waking you up, sorry.
I stand there in the entrance to the coffee shop, half in and half out—story of my life—staring at my phone. Because I specifically did not want to plan my day, I now have no real plans. Left to my own devices, I’ll probably dork around downtown before ending up back at the apartment, probably with a new hemp outfit or some beaded jewelry, and then I’ll have to endure Ella being all mad at me because I shopped without her.
But…
But I’m attracted to Milo.
There, I’ve said it. At least to myself.
He’s cute and he’s nice and he’s really funny and…I absolutely cannot like him. I can’t like him for about a million reasons, but the top two are Tuck and Ella. Except maybe I should reverse the order. Ella first, then Tuck.
Milo and I have to be friends.
Just friends.
Of course, one morning of hanging out with Milo doesn’t have to mean anything. It can be a morning with a friend, the way these theater kids are with each other all the freaking time. I’m starting to fit in now, that’s it.
That’s what this is.
That’s all it can be.
Which is why I type back to him:
@coffee shop. Pick me up here.
Milo writes back immediately:
You’re in charge of coffee.
Except get me hot choc instead.
You allergic to anything? I’ll get lunch.
A half hour later, I’m in the passenger seat of Milo’s car. It’s a navy-blue Impala that has to be at least t
wenty years old, but, as Milo tells me, the gas and brakes work, so it’s fine.
What’s less fine is our conversation. It starts off stilted, makes a pit stop at awkward (the high note is a discussion of Olympus’s weather conditions), and then heads swiftly to nonexistent. Which, metaphorically speaking, is where we are as we wind southwest through the Appalachian Mountains.
It’s not that I don’t want to talk to Milo—I do. It’s just that I’m not sure what we should talk about. In the Venn diagram of our new supposed friendship, I don’t know where we overlap…beyond Ella. And that topic of conversation is already weird, so I’d rather not enhance the weirdness by expounding upon it.
With both our windows down, a warm wind blows into the car. It’s not too loud for conversation, but I can pretend it is. I kick off my sneakers and pull my knees up to my chin, folding my arms around my denim-clad legs and watching the spruce pines blur by.
“You ever been down there?” Milo points at the sign for Linville Gorge, just ahead of us.
“No.” We drive past the turnoff, and I cast desperately through my brain for something else to say, but I’m tapped out. Apparently, I’m not even remotely interesting when I’m with Milo.
“A bunch of us camped down there last year.” Milo runs a hand through his shiny black hair, pushing it out of his eyes. “Best night of the summer.” He glances at me. “From the look on your face, I’m guessing it’s not your thing.”
“I like walls and ceilings,” I tell him. “Besides, your parents let you do it? You weren’t even a junior.”
“Your parents are letting you overnight in Olympus for a whole summer.”
“Yeah, but that’s different. I’m staying with Ella’s older sister.” Never mind that Annette isn’t even remotely paying attention to either one of us.
“We had a whole bunch of people. It was safe. And my parents trust me here. It’s kind of like having a family reunion for an entire summer.” He pauses for a moment. “I mean, not exactly like a family reunion.”
Suddenly it’s weird again. I think because the implication was that it’s not exactly like a family reunion because you don’t hook up with people at family reunions. So, basically, we’re talking about Ella again, and since I don’t want to do that, I don’t say anything. I just watch the spruce pines for another ten minutes until I remember something.
“Milo!” He jumps, and I lower my voice. “Sorry, eyes on the road…but guess what I saw at Barney’s?”
“A dude in overalls hawking organic produce?”
“No—”
“A girl carving goblins out of handmade soap?”
“No, although I’m open to buying some of those.”
“Interesting,” says Milo.
“Actually, it was a notice about a show in the back gallery. They’re looking for local artists.”
Milo nods. “Cool.”
But he doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s cool. He sounds somewhere between irritated and embarrassed. I’m about to question him about it when I’m interrupted by a buzz from my phone. It’s a text from Ella.
Where are you?
In all truth, I have no idea. “Milo, where are we?”
“About an hour outside of Tennessee.”
I start to thumb-type that to Ella, but my signal is fading in and out. I slide my phone back into my pocket. “It’s not important.”
Milo nods and we slip back into silence.
It’s killing me.
“Want to play a game?” I watch his dark eyebrows rise at my question. “To pass the time. Like a trivia game or the license-plate game or…” I trail off, feeling like an idiot.
“That song game?” Milo doesn’t sound like he’s mocking me, but still—
“Just a guess here, but does the song game involve singing?”
“Yes.” Now he sounds amused.
“I don’t sing.”
“I don’t either, but I will if you want.”
Of course. Because the theater people don’t have a filter the way I do. Wait—did I say “filter”? Mine is more like a suit of armor. A protective bubble. The Great Wall of China.
“How about truth or truth?” Milo asks. This time, the glance he slides toward me is more tentative.
“Like truth or dare?”
“Yeah. Except we’re in a car. And we’re not twelve. So we won’t be running outside in our underwear or anything.”
Second time I’m picturing Milo in his underwear. This is not good.
“I’ll start,” he says. “Truth or truth?”
“Do I really have to answer that?”
“It’s part of the game.”
“Really.” I shift so my back is in the corner where my seat meets the passenger door. “How often have you played this game?”
“Never.” He slides the Impala into a passing lane so a muscle car can roar by us on the left. “Come on, say the word.”
“Truth.” This is absurd, but I’m intrigued by what Milo might want to know about me. And by what I might find out about him.
“Do you have any siblings?”
“Nope. Do you?” I wait. Milo also waits. “You want me to say the thing, don’t you?” I’m rewarded with a wide grin, even though Milo keeps his eyes on the curvy road ahead of us. “Fine. Truth or truth?”
“Truth.” He sounds smug. “And yes. One sister, three years older than me. Her name is Cat. Goes to Chapel Hill. This is the first summer she’s not here.”
There’s something in his voice that makes me ask the question. “Do you miss her?”
Milo nods. “Although she’d call me a liar if she heard that. We don’t have a lot in common. We’re pretty much the opposite of each other.”
“Wait, let me guess.” I think about what would be opposite of Milo. I decide not to say the first things that come to mind—that his sister must be ugly and boring and dumb—and instead go with something safer. “She knows sports?”
Milo looks offended. “I know sports.”
“Really? I mean…sorry. You don’t seem like a sports guy.”
“I used to play soccer. Now I mostly just watch it on TV. And I go to the school football games.” He raises his chin. “Also, you might recall that I’m amazing at darts.”
“I recall you being mediocre at darts.” I gaze at his profile, still trying to figure out what his sister is like. Mostly because I’m trying to figure out what he is like. Here I am, driving through the mountains of North Carolina with a guy I don’t know. “Does your sister love math or something?”
“No.” Milo smiles. “What I meant is—she’s always in trouble. Not like drugs and parties, but she’s constantly in an argument with someone. She’s all about civil rebellion and fighting the establishment and righting the injustices of the world. Whatever her thing is at the moment, she’s a million percent in.”
“And you’re not?” I thought it was a rule that you had to be filled with passion if you’re in the theater world.
“Not like that. Not like Cat. She’s…she’s a bomb waiting to go off. She and my mom—” Milo shakes his head. “One time Cat slammed her bedroom door so hard that a hallway picture fell down and smashed on the floor. Later, when she was gone, Mom took her door off the hinges and put it behind the garage.”
“That’s kind of brilliant.”
“I know, right? Cat was so pissed.” Milo shakes his head. “But it makes me crazy. She got suspended from high school, like, five times. When I was a freshman, people were always asking me why my sister was in the principal’s office.”
I can see how that would be annoying. “So you’re the good one?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It makes life easier because they let me do whatever I want. I think they figure no matter what I do, I’m not going to get in trouble the way Cat does.” He reaches over and taps me on the knee. “How does that work when there’s only one of you? Do you have to be the good one and the bad one?”
“Yeah. I guess so.” I pause for a moment befor
e saying more. “Actually, I’m the neither one. I’m never really in big trouble, but I’m also not—”
The focused one.
The passionate one.
The interesting one.
“—the good one,” I finish lamely.
Milo doesn’t say anything. He just drives.
We pass a sprawling Christmas tree farm, a gas station advertising CASH ONLY on a hand-painted piece of cardboard in the window, and a wooden fruit-and-vegetable stand. Finally, as we’re passing a sign that tells us we’re thirty-two miles from the Tennessee border, he speaks again. His voice is mild. “It seems like you’re a good friend.”
Images of Marin and Sarah flash through my brain: stealing fries from each other, smiling at me over cups of coffee, pulling me into a bathroom at school to whisper gossip.
But Milo’s never seen any of that. The only thing he knows is me trying to fit in, me living with Ella, me mooning over Tuck.
All I say is “Maybe.”
“Truth or truth?” he asks.
This time I answer definitively. “Truth. Absolutely truth.”
We play the game for the rest of the drive. I find out Milo’s favorite food (Italian, especially manicotti), which countries he’s visited (Canada, Mexico), and when and where he had his first kiss (youth group lock-in, thirteen years old). He discovers that my favorite animal is the platypus, that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little, and that if I could take a vacation anywhere in the world, I’d pick New Zealand. Once he and I are through the awkward part, it’s fun. And easy. I’m not trying to impress him. I’m just being…me. We’re in the middle of a spirited debate about barbecue—wet ribs versus dry—when Milo hits his turn signal and pulls off the two-lane highway. We curve around to the right, onto a smaller road, and then into a parking lot. “Pit stop,” he tells me.
I step out, looking at the two-story building before us. Narrow white wooden slats cover the front, broken by windows with bright green frames. The double doors are painted the same color, and so is the sign that hangs above them: Round Wheel General.
