He pushes his hair back and blinks at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean all this lovey-dovey stuff with my cousin. You used to barely pay attention to her and then it was like a switch flipped in you. I don’t get it.” I know we’ve been through this before, but I need to hear it again.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Guess I fell in love.”
“When?” I ask.
“It just sort of happened,” he says.
I shake my head. “No, it didn’t.” I realize that I sound mad. “One minute you were standing under the streetlight at the park with Briar screaming at you, and then an hour later you were running across the field madly in love. What the heck happened in between? Was it the dance?”
Kenji thinks about this for a moment. He eyes scan back and forth as if he’s reliving that day in the park when everything changed. Then he lights up. “Yeah, it was. When I saw her dancing it was like she reached inside of me. It was the way she moved,” Kenji says. “Like she was calling to my soul.” He blushes. “Sounds goofy, I know, but that’s the truth.”
I sigh. Maybe it’s not some sort of magic, I think as he and I sit quietly. Maybe Kenji was ready to fall in love with her and seeing Briar do the thing that she loves to do most made everything click into place. But then Kenji looks at me again.
“And that chant,” he says. “There was something about that chant. It got inside my head, you know? Which is weird, because I don’t know what it means, but I’ve never been able to shake it. Even when I go to sleep, I hear it.”
My heart revs up. Maybe it is magic, some incantation Briar and I stumbled on, and maybe it could work again if I tried. But when?
My cousin comes bopping across the floor again. “Come with us, Zeph,” she says, reaching toward me. “Let’s dance some more.”
Kenji snaps his phone closed. “I just got a text from Timber. He’s heading over here.”
“Oh my God!” I say, feeling like I might barf. “What am I going to do?” I look at them with panic in my eyes.
Kenji smiles at me. “You should dance,” he says. Then he winks. “Worked on me.”
Even though dancing is the last thing I feel like doing right now, I follow Briar and Kenji to the floor. I position myself toward the door and force my feet to keep time with the beat of the music while my head spins through all the possibilities of how to work this out with Timber. I’m so caught up in working out scenarios for what I’ll say that I don’t see when he comes through the door. It’s not until Briar grabs my arm and spins me around to face him that I realize he’s already here.
I understand now what it means to melt. My heart thaws, my eyes water, and I feel a gush from the pit of my stomach to my toes. He’s not even looking at me. He’s too busy talking to everyone who’s holding out their hands for high fives and pulling him in for chest bumps. I turn my head and look for Bella. I find her standing in the doorway between the back room and the bar. I see how she cocks her head and studies the situation, like a cat plotting her attack on an unsuspecting bird. At that moment, my chest swells with something fierce. I won’t let her have him. I won’t let her do this to me. I’m going to get him back.
I turn to Briar. “I want to dance,” I tell her.
“Good!” she says, spinning.
I grab her arm and pull her close. “I mean, I want to do the elf circle again,” I yell into her ear. She steps back and studies me. I look over my shoulder at Timber then I turn back to her. “For him,” I say. “Here.”
A slow smile spreads over Briar’s face. “Don’t move.” She scurries off the dance floor.
I keep time to the music, dancing just behind Kenji so that Timber won’t see me if he turns this way. I don’t know what Briar and I conjure when we dance, why people fall all over themselves for us, or why it worked on Kenji, but right now I don’t care. This is my chance and I’m not going to throw it away.
The music fades until it’s just a drum and bass rhythm under Dawn’s voice over the speakers. “Hey, Red Hook! Holla!” she yells, and everybody yells back. “Y’all having a good time?” The crowd whistles and screams. “Check it out, Brooklyn. We’ve got something special for you tonight. Two gorgeous girls are here to dance for you.”
Briar is at my side, tugging on my arm. “Come on,” she shouts in my ear, and drags me toward the stage.
“You’ve got to see this dance,” Dawn shouts. “It’s sick.”
Briar and I climb up two steps to the side of the little stage.
“Give it up,” Dawn shouts, “for Briar and Zephyr!”
I don’t know if the crowd goes nuts or stays quiet because the drum and bass swells to fill the room. Before I can change my mind or think about what I’m doing, Briar and I stand across from each other, bouncing on our toes to the beat. She nods at me and then we start the chant over the rhythm of the music. Once again, I insert Timber’s name. “Sha we no, hallenschor, um triden fayre la dolly. For maden kling um shaden flang, um TIMBER fayre la dolly!”
I dance in a way that I’ve never danced before. I’m lost in the music, in the rhythm, in my movements, in the sound of my voice mingling with Briar’s under the heavy drums and bass, but mostly I’m consumed by thoughts of Timber. He fills my mind, and every time I spin around the stage to face the front, I find him, standing in the center of floor. I feel as if he’s in a spotlight, that he’s all alone, that the entire room has cleared out except for Timber in the middle of the floor and me on the stage dancing for him. I feel a connection to him, like Kenji described, as if I’m reaching into his soul and pulling him toward me. My heart is full, as if my chest will burst and a hundred birds will fly free. I harness that feeling and put it into my body, dancing, spinning, jumping, chanting. Over and over again I chant his name until his name becomes my name.
“Sha we no, hallenschor, um triden fayre la dolly. For maden kling um shaden flang, um TIMBER fayre la dolly!” I pull him into me, and slowly he steps closer and closer to the stage. I lock my eyes with his. I lose the room, the sound, the smell of the club until I’m in a meadow with Timber under a blue sky, dancing for him for all eternity. I feel a white-hot rush burst through me until I know what I have to do. I rush to the edge of the stage. Timber stands at the foot, looking up, eyes connecting to me and on the last chant, “For maden kling um shaden flang, um TIMBER fayre la dolly!” I rush forward. I spread my arms and I leap.
chapter 16
TIMBER’S MOM’S APARTMENT in Brooklyn Heights is closer and quieter than my house, so we catch a cab from outside the club. I cannot keep myself away from him. I want to devour him. I kiss his lips, his cheeks, his neck, and behind his ear. I drink in his slightly musky, fresh piney scent. “You smell so good,” I moan into his ear.
“I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid,” he says. “How come I never realized how I feel about you?” He covers my neck with kisses.
“I thought this would never happen,” I say, burying my face in his shoulder.
He unwinds my scarf. Unzips my coat. Presses his lips against the flesh on my neck. “I can’t believe you wore this outfit. I love this outf it.” I have goose bumps all over my body, half from the cold and half from the excitement of Timber’s touch.
“Hey, lovebirds,” the cabbie says, and knocks on the Plexiglas partition between the front- and backseats. “Which side of the street you want me to let you out on?”
Without glancing up, Timber says, “Left side, please,” then he attacks my earlobe, sending me into a fit of giggles and squirms.
“Sheesh,” the cabbie says. “Take it inside, would you?”
Timber shoves a twenty-dollar bill at him. “Keep the change,” he says, and pushes the door open.
Timber wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me up. The streets in his neighborhood are quiet, with only a few people walking dogs or hurrying up stoops with their keys ready to take them out of the cold. “I’m so glad I came tonight. I’m so glad you were there. I can’t believe how sucky yesterday
was.” He holds me tight against his body and I press myself against him.
“I know, it was horrible and I’m sorry that I ever acted like—”
“Shhhhh,” he says, pressing his hands against my lips. “I should have never walked away from you yesterday. It was so stupid. It wasn’t until I saw you up there tonight that I realized it.”
We kiss as he unlocks the front door to his building. We kiss in the foyer. We kiss in the elevator going up to his mom’s apartment. We kiss so much that my lips begin to ache, but I don’t want to stop kissing him or feeling his hands under my coat, exploring my back, squeezing my waist. He fumbles to put his key in the lock and we continue kissing. “Don’t worry, Mom’s not here.”
“Is it okay if we’re here then?” I ask as we step into the dark apartment.
“Sure, why not? I live here, too.”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be at his apartment without his mom, but what am I going to do? Go back out in the cold and hail another cab? There’s no way I can do that, especially not now that we’re here, alone. “Seeing you dance up there,” he says. “I felt like you were only dancing for me.”
I hold his face in my hands and look straight in his eyes, those gray-blue wolf eyes that make me shudder with fright and excitement. “I was,” I tell him.
“Wow,” Timber says, settling down now. “Wow, wow, wow.” He steps back and takes off his coat. “I’m so glad you’re here. Do you want something to drink? Some tea or something? You like tea, don’t you? Your family drinks a lot of tea.”
“We do drink a lot,” I say and laugh because he’s never noticed little things like that before. I hand him my coat, which he drops on a chair by the door. “But I’m fine for now.”
“Let’s go sit on the couch and talk. I want to talk. I have so many things to ask you. There’s so much I don’t know about you and ...” As I follow him into the living room, his phone beeps. “Who could be texting me?”
My stomach tightens. It’s probably Bella. After I jumped off the stage into Timber’s arms, almost everyone in the club burst into applause. Timber swung me around, hugging me, and we kissed. One of the last things I saw as we gathered up our coats and headed out the door was Bella staring after us. The very last thing I saw, though, was Briar, standing between Clay and Dawn, her arms wrapped around their shoulders and all of them smiling, giving me big thumbs-up. I think I’ve misjudged Clay and Dawn. If it weren’t for their letting us dance, I wouldn’t be back together with Timber.
“That’s weird,” Timber says. “There are three messages from Kenji, but I don’t understand what he’s talking about.” He holds the phone out to me. I scroll through the three messages:
Tell Z 2 come bck B went w/ c&dcant find
smthng wrong B missing come bck to club
Need HELP!!!!
I roll my eyes. “Kenji is way too into my cousin,” I say. “She can’t even go to the bathroom without him freaking out.”
“Yeah, but this is weird,” Timber says as he dials Kenji. “He’s not usually panicky like this. It’s going to voice mail. Probably can’t hear it ringing. I’ll text him.”
As soon as Timber punches in the message, the phone beeps again. “It’s from Ari,” he says.
Where r u? K freaking out!
“Something’s wrong,” I say.
The phone beeps again. “Mercedes,” Timber says.
We need Z.
As soon as we’ve read that one, another one pops up from Kenji.
COME BACK NOW! B in trouble. Need help.
“Oh my God!” I say, jumping up from the couch. “We have to go.”
Timber’s ahead of me. We grab our coats and bolt out the door.
It’s so late and the neighborhood is so quiet that we can’t find a cab. Nobody at the club will answer their phones, so Timber texts everybody that we’re heading back.
“Can we take the train?” I ask.
Timber shakes his head. “There’s no subway to Red Hook. I’ll call a car service.”
“It’ll take forever!” I’m starting to panic. “We should have never left.”
“It’ll be okay,” says Timber as he dials.
“I should call my parents.”
“Not yet,” he tells me.
“Look!” I see a black town car bumping down the street. I jump off the sidewalk and wave my arms.
The car pulls over and the driver rolls down his window. “Where you going?”
“Red Hook,” we both say in unison.
He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m off duty in fifteen minutes, I don’t want to go that far.”
“No!” I bark, and grab the door handle. “You have to take us. It’s an emergency. My cousin’s in trouble.” I try to open the door but it’s locked.
“Sorry.” He rolls up the window.
I zap the window and jam it, then I stick my head inside the car as the guy messes with the controls, confused by why his window won’t go up. I whisper, “Don’t mind, change mind, mind the mind to change.” I draw back and say, “Open the door now, please.”
The man shakes his head, bewildered, but he says, “Yeah, okay. I can do that.”
I grab Timber’s hand and pull him into the car behind me. “Hurry,” I tell the driver.
As we cruise over the bumpy side roads leading down to Red Hook, I take Timber’s phone and call Grove’s cell. “I’ll feel better if he comes,” I tell Timber.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” he tells me, and pats me on the knee.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. I can’t understand what went wrong and if something is really wrong why I haven’t already sensed it, which could mean that nothing’s wrong and Kenji is freaking out because Briar went off somewhere without him. Then again, Kenji isn’t the type to freak out and he’s even freaking out Ari and Mercedes, which has me worried. Grove’s phone goes straight to voice mail, which must mean he’s asleep. I leave him a message to call Timber, and then I think about calling my house, but I don’t want to wake my parents yet. By then we’re back at the club.
“Wait here,” I tell the driver.
Timber looks at me. “He’s going off duty, Zeph.”
“He’ll wait,” I say.
“I’ll wait,” the guy says.
“Wow,” says Timber as we pile out of the car and go running for the club door.
Inside is more jam-packed than when we left. Now the place is totally jumping, wall-to-wall kids on the dance floor grooving to the ear-blowing music. The flashing red, blue, and green lights immediately give me a headache, and I have no idea how we’ll find anyone in here. Timber’s punching in a message to Kenji as we push through the crowd looking for anyone familiar.
I spot Chelsea’s flame-red hair where she’s sitting on the couches chatting up some guy in a blue jumpsuit. “Have you seen Kenji or my cousin?” I lean down and shout in her ear.
She shoots me a nasty look but says, “No!” then ignores us.
We work our way through the crowd until we see Bella and Gunther at the bar. Bella’s sitting on a stool nursing another Diet Coke. As soon as she sees us, she opens her arms and squeals, “Oh the happy couple!” Then she slaps Gunther on the arm and snorts. From what Timber has said, I’m guessing that Diet Coke has some secret ingredients.
Timber sidles close to her and shouts into her ear. I do the same to Gunther. Bella shakes her head but Gunther nods. He points toward the back. “I saw her go with those two nut jobs who run the place about an hour ago.”
“What about Kenji?” I ask.
“You mean the little Japanese dude with the hair?” Gunther asks. I nod. He shrugs. “Dude’s whipped over that girl. He’s probably with her.”
I don’t have time to explain or to take issue with how rude Gunther is, so I yell thanks and yank Timber away from Bella, who’s taking this opportunity to talk to him way too long, way too close to his face.
I push through all the bodies to the back room, where another crowd gather
s around a large flat-screen TV. Levi stands on a platform playing an electric guitar while everyone else chants and shouts at his avatar. I don’t see Briar, Clay, or Dawn, but I do see a beaded curtain leading to another door in the back of the room. I squeeze past the bodies, pulling Timber along behind me. I part the curtain and see a short, dark hallway with a door at either end. Both doors are marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. I head toward one door, but Timber pulls me back and points to the sign. I don’t care. If Briar’s in there, I want to find her.
I turn the knob. The door pops open. Inside is an office. A large, green metal desk sits against one wall cluttered with a computer and three small TVs showing different parts of the club. Grainy black-and-white images rotate around the screens. First the dance floor, then the bar, the back room, outside the front of the club, an empty stairwell, a small storage room where I see lots of boxes and a small kennel cage, the back parking lot of the club where a group of people are smoking glowing cigarettes, then another room with a couch and two chairs. I see a shadow move toward the couch, but then the image changes to the dance floor. I keep watching those screens, trying to catch a glimpse of Briar or Clay or Dawn as the images rotate. I see the storage room again and look closely at the kennel. It looks like a small animal is in the cage, but I can’t make it out, then the image switches to the parking lot. I look closely for anyone we know, but all the people are strangers. The images switch. We both watch carefully.
Then the room with the couches comes back around. I see someone slumped on a sofa. I press my face close to the screen, but the pictures switch again. I scan the other screens until that couch comes back. “I think that’s Briar!” I say, pointing at the person who’s wearing a skirt and has long hair like her.
“But where is that?” Timber asks.
Selfish Elf Wish Page 15
