What Happens Now

by Jennifer Castle

  In my half sleep, I thought about the “Ferris Wheel” episode of Silver Arrow. It was my favorite of the whole third season, where the Arrow One explores a portal that sends them to 1950s Earth. It lands in a cornfield outside a fair somewhere in the Midwest. The ship creates a temporal anomaly where people get on the Ferris wheel, and by the time they get off, they are much younger. Satina and Azor have to figure out how to fix it before word gets out among the locals.

  I loved this episode because of what it said about aging and lost youth, and because it was one of the few where Satina and Azor have a lot of screen time without Atticus Marr around.

  Eliza thought I could pull off Satina. Camden did, too. If I didn’t believe them, what did it say about me?

  I grabbed my phone and pulled up Camden’s name in my contacts. Letter by letter, I deleted the “Armstrong,” and with each backward stroke it was like I was claiming a little more of him.

  Then I called.

  “Ari?” he said, sounding very much awake. I wondered if I was just “Ari” on his phone.

  “I’m saying yes to the cosplay,” I announced. “Tell Eliza before I chicken out.”

  11

  The plan fell into place pretty quickly.

  We picked three scenes from the “Ferris Wheel” episode to cosplay at the county fair. Accuracy was everything. My job was to look at Eliza’s sketches for all the characters—Satina, Atticus, Azor, and Bram—and make sure they were as spot-on as possible. Over the next two days, Eliza texted me constantly with photos of items or fabric she’d found, asking for my thumbs-up. Every time she shared a new element of Satina’s costume, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being rebuilt piece by piece.

  At the end of the second day, Camden called me while Danielle and I were doing the dinner dishes.

  “Hang on,” I said as soon as I picked up. I went into my room and locked the door before Dani could follow me in. “Okay. I’m alone.”

  “I can say hi now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi,” he whispered, and in the fleeting solitude of my room I crawled inside his voice.

  “Hi,” I practically sighed back.

  “What did people buy at the store today?”

  “Origami paper. Blank canvases. Fancy pens.” I paused. “Did you get any calls at the hotline?”

  “A few. I was on the phone with one kid for an hour.”

  “And you helped him?” I knew Camden wasn’t allowed to talk about the details.

  “I think so. God, I hope so. He promised he’d come to the teen support group this weekend, so we’ll see.”

  “He’ll come,” I assured him. “You seem like the kind of person whose advice is worth taking.”

  He laughed a bit, surprised. “I do?”

  “Yeah. I mean, your friends all look up to you. That’s obvious.”

  “It is?”

  Was it? I flushed with panic that maybe I’d gotten it wrong. Why was I telling this boy about his life, instead of shutting up and listening to that voice talk about . . . well, anything it wanted to.

  But then Camden added, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they do.” He cracked up again.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I’m remembering this thing that happened last winter.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, Eliza, Max, and James decided they were going to put on a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Dashwood. Eliza was doing the costumes, of course. Max and James thought they could direct it together, but that was a total disaster. Max wanted to make the play shorter by rewriting some of Shakespeare’s lines, and James was like, completely outraged by that.”

  “Um, as he should be,” I said.

  “I know. But then James kept changing his mind about where one particular tree on the set was supposed to go, which drove Max crazy. I’d never seen him that annoyed. Seriously, I thought the whole show was going to implode. I had to step in and tell them how to fix it.”

  “And they listened to you?”

  “I was Oberon. Who’s going to mess with a badass Fairie King?”

  I laughed, sensing myself falling toward two things at the same time: Camden, of course, and also this group of people who were so important to him becoming part of my life, too.

  I’d started telling Camden about a big Mock Trial team fight we had during our biggest competition when Richard rapped on the door and told me that Dani was ready for me to kiss her good night.

  “I have to sign off now,” I said.

  “Want to go swimming tomorrow?”

  “I’m with Danielle all afternoon.”

  “Here’s a shocking concept: you can swim with both of us at the same time. I think I can coexist with your sister and not rip a hole in the space-time continuum.”

  “She’ll blab to my parents.”

  “Let her blab.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “You, too, Ari.”

  We were quiet, listening to each other breathe.

  Finally I said, “Okay.”

  I hung up and left my room, and everything looked different. The hallway a slightly deeper color beige, the light fixture refracting tiny diamond shapes I’d never noticed on the ceiling. It was as if every conversation with Camden was taking me another few inches farther from the person I’d been.

  I was in the water with Dani when Camden appeared on the beach. The faraway Camden from last summer: the hair and the shoulders, the heartbreaking tilt of his head.

  Then he came closer and became the new Camden. My Camden. The one whose stories I’d been learning, who I’d kissed twice so painfully briefly, I almost wished I hadn’t at all. Because it was torture, the more more more and the when when when and also the if if if.

  This Camden walked onto the dock and smiled at me. I smiled back, unafraid to offer up how happy I was to see him, that phone conversation still echoing between us. Then he suddenly dove into the lake, coming up a foot from Danielle.

  “Squash!” he yelled as he broke through the surface.

  Danielle laughed hysterically. “Why did you say that?”

  “I don’t know, I felt like I should shout something when I came up. That’s the first thing that popped into my head.”

  “You’re weird,” said Danielle.

  “I try,” said Camden, and they beamed at each other. He’d already won her over. She’d been almost as easy as I was.

  We swam together for a while, and I was glad to have Danielle there between us. Without Dani to distract me, I would have drowned in the more when if. Instead, my sister and I showed him the Garbage game and he threw her, higher and farther than I ever could. When we finally stumbled out of the water and I wrapped Danielle up like a burrito, Camden watched us, then asked, “Who does you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who wraps you up like a burrito?”

  I shrugged. “Nobody. I don’t really need to be a burrito.”

  Camden flashed a devilish smile. “Don’t be silly. Of course you do.” He turned to Dani. “Am I right?”

  Dani nodded energetically, eyes wide, eager to please him.

  He picked up my towel and shook out the sand, then stretched it wide and flat across his long, beautiful arms. We locked eyes. I stepped into it and he wrapped me tight, one side of the towel and then the other. I felt his chest against mine, the quickest sensation of a heartbeat thudding, a precious squeeze as he tucked one corner of the towel at the back of my neck. Then he stepped away.

  “What do you think, Ari?” said Dani. “Isn’t it the best?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, feeling my own pulse speed up as my eyes and Camden’s found each other again. “There is nothing better.”

  “Does your mom know?” asked Kendall from behind her window at Scoop-N-Putt. It framed her perfectly, like she was a talking portrait.

  I’d brought Dani straight here from the lake. I told Kendall about the swimming but not about the burritos.

  “No,
” I said, turning to check on Dani, who was talking to the rabbit on Hole 3, a cherry-dip cone already melting down the back of her hand.

  It was 98 degrees and too hot even for ice cream, so we were the only customers. Kendall’s boss was taking a nap in his air-conditioned office upstairs.

  Kendall took two sugar cones from the sugar cone tower. She took a bite out of one, handed the other to me. “Why not? She would be jazzed that you’re hanging out with other Arrowheads.”

  “Do you think so?” I asked, and bit into my cone.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Haven’t decided,” I said, chewing. Which was the truth.

  Part of me thought, yes, jazzed is the right word. Maybe she’d embrace it as something that proved yes, we were connected in ways that can never be broken. Especially now, when her presence in our house was about to become even more shadow-like.

  Another part of me thought: mine. All of this—Camden, Eliza, Max, Silver Arrow, and Satina Galt—belonged to me.

  I couldn’t think of anything else that did.

  “This is nervous eating,” said Kendall, crunching another bite. “I’m seeing James—Jamie—tonight.”

  “What? You wait until now to tell me this? Where are you guys going?”

  “Movies. Maybe the diner after.”

  “That sounds like a date. Kendall, your first date!”

  She shrugged, but I could tell she was trying to contain her excitement. “It sounds like a date. Looks like a date, smells like a date. But it might not, in fact, be a date.”

  “But you like him.”

  Kendall bit her lip and nodded. “A lot.”

  “Then you’ll have fun, whatever it is.”

  Kendall nodded again, as if I’d given her instructions. Maybe she’d needed them.

  “Are you coming with us to the fair?” I asked.

  “You’re definitely doing that?”

  I gave her a look.

  “It’s going to be weird, Ari,” said Kendall. “I mean, really weird. We’re going to see people from school there. They might laugh or give you a hard time.”

  “I’ve thought about that.” I had. In my mind, all I had to do was grab Camden’s hand and then everything at the fair would be okay. “But the less I worry about what they’re going to think, the happier I am.”

  Also, the more I’d learned about Camden’s friends, the more everyone else faded into the background. Lukas, Brady, the girls at the school newspaper. They were like movie extras who didn’t need names or even identities. They had no bearing on me.

  “If I go with you, what will I do?” asked Kendall. “I don’t want to be some tagalong who’s just there for you, and for Jamie.” She paused, then seemed to brighten with a brainstorm. “Can I bring my camera?”

  “Oh, good idea! You can be the second photographer. I’m sure Eliza would be okay with that.”

  Kendall gave me the raised-eyebrows look. “You sure? Don’t we have to submit some kind of proposal to her first?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “I know. She’s bossy. But a cool bossy, don’t you think? And she does have mad costuming skills.”

  “If you say so,” said Kendall. “Okay, count me in.”

  Richard never asked who I was talking to on the phone each night. He knew he should. He also knew he shouldn’t.

  This little problem got solved one day at the store.

  I was ringing up a woman and her kids buying coloring books. It had been a slow morning. They stepped away and I looked down for a moment, then up again, and there was Camden. He planted his hands on the counter and leaned forward with a smile. Like he was glad to see me. Like that could be a thing. (When would I stop thinking this way?)

  “Hey, Ari,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, glancing at Richard, who was now coming down an aisle to see who’d said my name.

  “Hi,” said Richard to Camden. “Are you the guy?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I picked up a paper bag and held it in front of my face.

  “Yup, I’m him,” I heard Camden say. “Are you the awesome stepdad?”

  “I hope so,” said Richard. He pulled the paper bag out of my hand. “It’s okay, Ari. I don’t think I’m required to ask you any embarrassing questions. At least, not here.”

  The door chimed and we all looked up to see Eliza and Max come in.

  “We have some work to do,” said Eliza, holding up a laptop computer case, “but you said you couldn’t get away today. So we came to you.”

  She pulled out her laptop and Richard looked at me quizzically.

  “It’s sort of an art project we’re doing together,” I told him.

  “And this will all make sense in the end?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He jerked his head toward the office. “Go in there. If it gets busy and I need you, I’ll holler.”

  I kissed him on the cheek and led Camden, Eliza, and Max into the back room, where there was a cracked leather sofa and a desk before you got to the shelves of boxes.

  “Oooh,” sighed Eliza when she saw some of the supplies in storage.

  “So what do we need to do?” I asked.

  “We need to watch the episode,” she said.

  In all of our talk about Silver Arrow, we’d never actually watched the damn thing together. It was like we were retracing the separate paths of our fandom, and now we’d finally reached a point where they all started. The actual, you know, show itself.

  Max put the laptop on the desk and fed it a DVD. It caught the light from the anemic overhead bulb and I thought of my mom. How she was the only other person I’d ever watched it with.

  Mom was always very serious about the viewing experience. If I was confused about the plot, I could ask her questions (after we paused the episode), but otherwise she asked for silence until it was over. Then we could talk about it.

  Mom, why does Captain Marr do things he knows are wrong? This was my introduction to ethics and morals, and also how people can be assholes sometimes but still mostly good.

  Mom, Bram drives me crazy. He just doesn’t get it! That was how I first learned about being tolerant of those who were different from myself.

  I grew to love the silence of our watching. I knew she was beaten up from her day and this was her downtime. I knew it doubled as our time, too, that I never felt closer to her than when we were sitting next to each other on our Salvation Army couch, sharing this thing.

  So it unmoored me now, to watch it with Camden, Eliza, and Max. To hear them make jokes and snarky comments. For Eliza to say, “I love this part. Notice how Satina moves around the room while the men stay still? It’s her way of checking her power over them.”

  It wasn’t better or worse than watching it with Mom; it was simply a different Silver Arrow. A joyful thing, worth celebrating. Worth having your fandom out loud.

  We’d reached the scene where Satina and Azor were trying to find their way out of the carnival fun house when I finally had the nerve to turn to Eliza and ask, “So if Camden will be Marr and Max is Bram, who are you dressing up as?”

  Eliza paused the DVD. “I’ll be Azor.”

  “You’ll be Azor.”

  “I’m actually really excited about it. I’ve never crossplayed before.”

  The hardcore Arrowhead in me bristled. Eliza was short. Way too short to be Azor. Azor was quiet and mysterious and repressed, and even though I didn’t know Eliza well, I did know she was none of those things. But her dark, hint-of-exotic features were right, from a purely physical standpoint. And I knew she had plenty of confidence and creativity to pull it off.

  “I know,” she said, breaking into my silence. “You’ve been hot for Azor for years. It’ll be a little weird for us.”

  “Is that true?” asked Camden, shifting his position on the sofa so he could face me.

  I looked at him, then back at Eliza, then up at the highest shelf of the tallest bookcase.

  �
��No,” I lied.

  “Why are you embarrassed?” teased Eliza. “Sure, the guy is trained as a Zendian Nocturne monk and all that. But there’s that episode where Satina learns about the rumors.”

  “Okay, stop,” I said, still unable to look at them.

  “What rumors?” asked Camden, his voice electric with curiosity.

  “That the Nocturnes have amazing sexual abilities, and take the vow of celibacy in order to protect others from a pleasure so pure, it leads to addiction . . . and death.” Eliza echoed the memorable, overdramatic way that line had been delivered on the show.

  “Oh,” said Camden. “Yeah. That’s pretty hot.”

  I felt my face flush.

  “A pleasure so pure. Guys never remember that line,” said Eliza. “But trust me, the girls do.”

  “There is definitely some tension between Satina and Azor in this episode,” said Camden. “I always thought it was there for comic relief.”

  “Can we please watch the rest of the episode now?” I asked, finally looking at them. I didn’t want Camden to know how hard I crushed on Azor. It felt like I was cheating on him.

  Eliza studied me for a moment, her finger hovering over the Play button on the keyboard. “It’ll be okay, Ari. We’re going to have an epic time with this.”

  We finished watching in silence, but even our silence was different from the Mom silence. When it was over, Eliza and I made some notes about the costumes, then I let them out through the back door.

  Camden lingered on the step for a moment, his face searching mine. Was he going to kiss me? Were things forever awkward now that I’d been outed as an Azor girl?

  “Call me tonight?” he whispered, although I wasn’t sure why.

  My hand reached out of its own volition and touched his shoulder. “Can’t wait,” I said. He smiled and jumped down the steps to the alley. It took all my self-control not to follow him.

  When I came back into the store, Richard raised one eyebrow at me.

  “All will be revealed?” he asked.

  “In time, my friend. In time.”

  On my next afternoon off two days later, when I knew Camden was working at the hotline, Eliza summoned me to the Barn. I drove there through a thunderstorm, wondering what could be so important.