I laugh until it turns to hiccups and more tears.
“Kiss me,” he whispers, and I do.
The room fades to black. The bed under us disappears. His heart slows to a stop.
— — — —
The water rushes under me. It’s cool and salty, waking my limbs. I sit up. My hair is a tangle of sand and water and frizz. The moon winks down at me.
“Sebastien!” I holler.
I hear his hearty laughter just a few feet away. I race over to him.
“You okay?” I say.
He looks me over once. “Never better.”
“You’re not afraid of what we just did. Of what we just saw?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” he adds with an infuriating smile.
“You saw your death.”
“I saw that I lived. We will all die at some time. And I have time, despite what all the doctors and specialists have told me my whole life.” He sits up and reaches for me.
I inch closer. He smooths back my tangle of curls, and I let him without hesitation.
“There’s a future where you get everything you wanted,” he says.
I close my eyes and think back to what I’ve seen. The possibility that I get to go to school. That I get to leave the island. I get to be an artist and paint other sunsets. I wonder which, if any, of the visions are real possibilities, real paths, real futures. I want them all to be true.
“But what about you?” I ask.
“Don’t you turn into the others and start worrying. You’ve got that look in your eyes.”
“I don’t.”
He chuckles. It feels like we’ve had this argument before, and will have it many times again.
“There are so many directions for things to go in. Just knowing that made me feel . . .” His voice quavers.
A door slams shut and a shadow stretches along the beach. “Viola!” my name cuts through the wind. “And just what do you think you’re doing out here? And with a strange boy.” Momma storms toward us. Her hands are crossed against her chest, and her freckly brown cheeks hold an angry color. “I’ve been calling out to you for close to an hour. Do you know what time it is?”
The wind catches her scent and wraps it all around me. She’s made fresh honey biscuits and brand-new lavender soap for the inn’s bathrooms.
I gaze to the left at Sebastien. He looks terrified. I burst with laughter.
“I don’t think anything I just said is funny,” Momma barks.
“No, ma’am,” I say, trying to stop the hiccupping laughs from bubbling up and out. “This boy drowned and I saved him.”
“She did,” he says, grinning at me.
She clucks her tongue. “This is private property, you know. You aren’t supposed to be out here. Let alone swimming.”
“I’m really sorry,” he replies, ducking his head in the type of shame that appeases Momma.
“Do your parents even know where you are?” she says.
“I suppose not,” he admits.
“They must be worried sick. You come on up to our inn and phone them, you hear?” She sweeps him forward. “And, Viola, you’ve got double chores tonight. I need the salt bags brought in, and the rooms on the fourth floor need fresh linens. The dogs haven’t been bathed or walked.”
We pad through the sand, each step sinking us a little farther in.
“Maybe I can help,” Sebastien offers. And I hope this means he might stick around for a little while. Even if that means he might not be here forever. I’ve seen three versions of my future tonight. I know, deep down, that all will end in sadness for us. But for the first time, it doesn’t scare me that my life could also include love.
“Hmph. By the look of you, boy, you couldn’t lift a feather. When’s the last time you ate?”
“I’m stronger than I look.”
I smile. That he is.
Oomph
— — — — — —
EMERY LORD
I BLAME IT on being the oldest child. I also blame it a little on my parents, who moved my family to the contained, drivable suburbs of Indianapolis. I definitely blame whatever genetics wired my dad to be an Olympics-qualifying worrier.
“Hi again, Dad,” I say into the phone. My throat is relaxed, the pitch of my voice cheerful. I am the picture of not annoyed.
“I can hear you rolling your eyes, Cass.”
I throw one hand up in the air, though there’s no one with me to acknowledge my exasperation. And that—my aloneness—is exactly why he has already texted me four times since I got in the cab. Once was to make sure I was going to JFK, not LaGuardia. C’mon, Dad. New York is intimidating, but I do have basic capabilities.
“Cassidy. Are you there?”
Deep breath. I’m a trained actress, but it takes a toll, pretending I am fine for my parents when I am internally freaking out. “Yes, Dad. I’m walking into JFK right now. I still have my driver’s license and my boarding pass.”
“Well, I just looked up your flight again, and it’s delayed now.”
“I know. But only an hour.”
“I’m looking at the weather, honey, and I think you should expect more delays.”
It’s been a sloppy April so far, rain kicking up slush. For me, a pull-your-coat-tighter spring break in New York instead of the South Carolina beach trip some other seniors took. “I know, Dad.”
I imagine his frown, lit by his tablet, as he switches between the airline website and the weather app. My mom is almost certainly nearby, with an online crossword pulled up and maybe the Anthropologie website, cruising drapey sweaters in the Sale section.
“I’m just saying, keep an eye out for changes, okay? And maybe eat a proper dinner since you’re delayed now. I know airport food is expensive, but—”
“Dad, I’m getting into the security line.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll let you go.”
Will you? I wonder, and I can almost hear it—the distant clang of the next phase of my life, hurtling down the tracks. It’s coming. Six months away. And that phase will carry me right back here, for college. Supposedly.
“Bye, Dad,” I say, quiet now.
This was a trial run for them, letting me travel to New York alone. Last summer, we did a family road trip to Manhattan, all five of us crammed in a hotel room in Times Square. The second time, it was just me and my mom, for my audition.
It all seemed terrifying and magical, until about three days ago when I realized, sitting at a party in my best friend’s dorm, that I have made a terrible mistake. Now it is simply terrifying.
I spent the rest of my trip secretly Googling whether or not you can get deposit money back from a university. Ivy kept asking, “What’s goin’ on, Cass?” and I didn’t even lie. I said, “Just thinking about next year.” Then she’d loop her arm through mine and chatter excitedly about how we’ll be in plays together just like at home, only at NYU this time.
I settle into the security line behind a tall girl with a long ponytail, as deep red as autumn leaves burning. And I am maybe staring a little bit, because the TSA agent nearby startles me.
“Take this,” she says. I automatically accept a piece of red laminated paper. Again, I blame the oldest-child thing. I tend to follow rules.
“Okay. Uh. What is it?”
“Just give it to the agent who takes your boarding pass.” She walks away before I can ask for clarification.
Heat snakes up my spine. It has the TSA logo printed at the top and the current time written in dry-erase marker on one of the lines. Did I get randomly chosen for extra screening? My heart thuds like a timpani. See? I’m panicking. I am not equipped for life in New York City. I am not equipped for life, period. Who let me apply for college in the biggest city in America?
No one else is holding a red paper. Not the guy behind me—a man in a navy suit playing a game on his phone. Not the redhead in front of me. Everything about her—the olive-green duffle bag, her fleece jacket, her tall boots�
�makes her look like an advertisement for REI. Or like someone who rides horses.
She glances back, perhaps feeling my laser-beam attention.
“Busted?” the girl says, smiling. She nods toward my paper.
“Sorry?” I ask, even though I heard her. I need a moment to collect myself. These outdoorsy girls intimidate me. They always have very clear skin.
“I mean, you’re literally holding a red flag. They red-flagged you.” She leans in, stage-whispering with a smile. “What kind of intrigue are you part of?”
“Oh, nothing, really.” I try to say this in a bored voice. This is my instinct, to switch into a character when nervous. “It’s just procedure for those of us in the CIA. We work in conjunction with TSA.”
God, why do I have to be so weird? Why couldn’t I have just said, in a sultry voice, “I’ll never tell.”
The girl gives me a businesslike nod, thin-lipped. “Huh. Interesting. They don’t make us jump through hoops like that at the FBI.”
We smile at each other, and it’s the strangest thing. Our mouths curling up in such synchronicity that they seem linked. Pleased with our little joke, at the precise same time.
My hand lifts into a wave. “I’m Margaret, by the way. Margaret Carter. You can call me Peggy.”
She laughs, a single ha! that rings out in surprise. “Oh, sure. I’ve heard of you, Agent. Thought you’d have a British accent. I’m Natasha.”
It takes me a second, but the red hair clues me in. “Romanoff, right? Black Widow. Working with the FBI, huh?”
“That’s classified.” She pretends to flip her ponytail back.
“Next in line,” a TSA agent calls. The girl steps forward, smiling back at me as a farewell.
And I already know: I will replay this short exchange the whole way home, every frame of it. The way she tilted her head toward me, conspiratorial. The mischievous grin. It wasn’t really anything—I know that. But sometimes I get glimpses that it might be possible for me. That someday, I’ll find someone who gets my sense of humor without a single confused look. Someone who is so beautiful that my hands feel twitchy.
When I step up to the podium, I hold out the mystery paper. The agent accepts it without a reaction.
“I was supposed to give that to you.”
“Thanks,” she says, taking my ID. I scan my boarding pass, relieved that it beeps right away.
“What was it?”
“Oh,” she says. “Just us gathering data about how long it took you to get through the line. Have a good flight.”
When I glance over to the other line, the girl has her boots off. I’m relieved to see that she’s wearing mismatched socks. They’re not woolen hiking socks, either. One has a pattern made of pizza slices. She turns over her shoulder, perhaps feeling my scrutiny again. But she only smiles, as if we’re both in on a secret.
Once I’m through the scanner, I look for her once more. She’s in full Vitruvian Man, arms and legs wide, as a TSA officer pats her down.
Busted, I mouth at her.
She grins, pressing her wrists together to mime being handcuffed. The agent notices, frowning, and the girl’s smile drops. She attempts a solemn look, and I can’t help but laugh.
Bye, pretty woodsy girl, I think, wistful.
I grip it, this feeling—so tightly that my fingers ache. It’s like trying to hold smoke.
But that’s that. Or so I think, as I pick up some snacks and decide on a seat at my near-empty gate. I’m settling my headphones into my ears when I hear it.
“Oh my gosh! Margaret? Margaret Carter?”
It’s not the name but the loudness of her voice that gets my attention. Sure enough, the girl from the security line is at the gate across from mine. Going to, per the lit-up sign behind her, Denver. There’s an older man beside her, watching as she waves to me. And the girl is giving me a meaningful, wide-eyed HELP ME look.
“Hey, Natasha!” I call, looking surprised. It’s a neutral enough response.
She’s gathering her things, moving—I think—to come sit by me. Yep, she’s hauling her stuff over, but with a look on her face that I can’t read. Definitely trying to communicate something with gritted teeth.
“You are my savior,” she whispers, sitting down beside me. “That guy smells like whiskey and wanted to tell me all about how nervous he gets to fly.”
“Get out of town!” I say loudly, with a practiced stage laugh. Hoping the drunk guy can hear me. Trying to sell that we know each other. “I should have known we’d run into each other here!”
“Thank you.” She relaxes into her seat, not facing forward but angled toward me.
“So,” I say. “They didn’t make you go to airport jail?”
“Oh, please. The joint could never hold me.” She glances around. “So, Margaret, who are you here investigating?”
She elbows me gently, nodding stage left toward a chic woman in a trench, hair blown out into shiny curls.
“Please. Too obvious. The real villain is the little one.”
“That small child? With the unicorn backpack?”
I nod solemnly. “Master of disguise.”
We guess at what the middle-aged married couple is bickering about. We speculate that two pilots wheeling luggage past us are sleeping together. We debate the relationship between an older man and a beautiful younger woman. Colleagues? May-December romance?
“Curmudgeonly old spy, training the new generation of beautiful, badass spies,” I suggest.
“Agreed. You’re good at this.”
I should hope so, after nearly four years at the Indianapolis School for the Performing Arts. “You are, too.”
She offers up a style of shrug I wish I could perfect—dismissive but elegant. “Art nerd.”
Before I can ask what she means, she gestures to the crowd we’ve been watching. “It’s like trying to figure out a painting. Maybe you have a little context—the year it was painted, or maybe you’ve seen the artist’s other work before. But you’re largely inferring. It’s just paying attention to detail and an educated guess. Why this angle? What was going on in the artist’s life? Sometimes, I think, knowing that for sure takes the fun out of it. I like to speculate.”
I don’t like to speculate about anything. I like call times. I like a nice, set tempo in a musical number. But before I ask more, she leans away, examining me. “Okay. I’m going to do you.”
My heart swells like a balloon, just moments before a pop! It takes me an embarrassingly long time to realize that she means she’s going to guess what I’m doing here in the airport.
Am I misreading her? Her body language is so comfortable and open. She elbowed me before, like we’re old pals who touch all the time. And she brought up Natasha Romanoff. I mean.
I take a deep breath, trying to keep my cheeks from turning pink.
The girl squints at me, and I realize I have had seventeen years to become a cooler person. What have I been doing all this time? According to Ivy, I dress like a movie star playing a 1950s professor. I guess that’s her way of summarizing that I like blazers and slim-fitting pants but also lipstick. Sometimes I add a silk scarf, and I don’t really care what’s trendy or not. After you’ve seen enough Katharine Hepburn movies, whatever is currently in fashion just seems fleeting.
It doesn’t help that I keep my regular brown hair at my shoulders, so it can be styled easily for whatever show I’m in. I could have at least gotten some shaggy, French-girl bangs, on the off chance a pretty girl would someday be scrutinizing my appearance for clues.
“You are coming home from”—she pauses, still considering—“A national convention of Model UN. Where you represented . . . Ireland. Small, but complex. Lots of history.”
My laugh, which was supposed to be light and airy, sounds like a distressed bird. “Nope.”
“Wrong? Okay. You were . . . doing a college interview. At Columbia. Where you plan to major in”—she taps her fingers against her lips—“materials engineering.”
“The thought process had to do with your lipstick,” she says, gesturing at her own mouth. “I was thinking, okay, you also look like a fairly precise person. I can see you revolutionizing makeup packaging. Making it recyclable, eco-friendly. But still sophisticated.”
“Spring break,” I confess. “I was visiting my best friend at school, where I’m supposed to be next year.”
“I’m a senior, too,” she says, excited. “You’re going to Columbia?”
“NYU. Tisch.”
“An actrice?” She says it in an easy French accent, the r sound from the back of her throat. “Huh. You don’t seem like the type.”
“No?”
“Well, you don’t seem like a ham, you know? Always breaking into song at a party, not realizing it makes everyone uncomfortable.”
I laugh, loudly, because I go to a performing arts school. I know those types. I am surrounded by those types. I am best friends with that type. “I just like taking on other mannerisms. Other identities. Studying how to be someone else.”
“Huh. When did you get into it?”
“I guess I was . . . eleven.”
Just tell her, Cass. What’s the worst thing that happens? She’s like: I’m out of here? I mean, she’s out of here—by necessity—in half an hour anyway.
But, before I can speak, the girl glances down at her phone. “Sorry, hold on one sec. Hi, Mom. Yeah, I’m on time. Okay.”
She’s placating her mom just as I did my dad, and I know I missed my window.
What I would have told her is that I started summer theater camp in elementary school, and I loved it. Loved the boxes full of costumes, loved the total commitment to roaring like a lion or standing totally still as a tree. I liked memorizing lines, knowing what I was supposed to say and when.
But I knew I was good at it in sixth grade. Annabel Warren’s birthday slumber party, to be exact, when we all had to go around and say who our celebrity crush was and why. And I sat there, in my pink-striped pajamas, acting my ass off. I said Kellan James, boy wonder of our favorite tween show. The key to my performance was seeming embarrassed to admit it. I stumbled on my words. I said “like” a lot. I glanced at the carpet.
Meet Cute Page 14
