Chapter 130
So?” Freddie asked, looking over at my cup. For the first time, I’d tried his rocky road. It wasn’t my favorite ice-cream flavor, but Freddie was always so enthusiastic about it, I’d thought that the time had come to finally give it a shot.
I took a bite and considered it, then gave him a smile. “Not bad.”
“Are you kidding?” he asked, his voice jokingly indignant. “It’s marvelous. It’s not as good as the Sweet Emporium in Croydon, of course.”
“What is?”
He grinned. “Well, exactly. But this is excellent rocky road.”
“It is good,” I conceded as I took another bite. And it was—it just wasn’t as good as a lot of the other flavors at the parlor, all of which I’d now sampled. But I didn’t know how to tell Freddie that without freaking him out.
He grinned at me. “Told you.”
“Want to walk over there?” I asked, nodding toward the pier.
We didn’t always walk this way—we sometimes meandered past the arcade, or swung by the Ferris wheel, or backtracked toward Grizzly Peak.
But for whatever reason, tonight I wanted to walk over by the pier and see the light reflecting on the water.
I wasn’t sure if it was always the most romantic spot in the park, or if it just felt that way because I’d been there with him.
“Sure,” he said, giving me an easy smile.
We walked in silence for a few moments, and I steered us to one of my favorite secret spots in the park—the walkway underneath the Silly Symphony Swings.
It was quiet there, and almost always deserted.
You had a perfect view of the water, and the neon lights of the Ferris wheel.
“Here’s a question,” I said, as we walked up to the railing.
“If you were living the same day over and over again—like a loop—what would you do with it?”
“You mean like Groundhog Day?”
“Sure. Or, I don’t know, Pettigrew’s Loop.”
Freddie stared at me, and I took a bite of ice cream to hide my smile. “You know Pettigrew’s Loop?” he asked, his voice going high in excitement.
“I mean, it’s a classic,” I said, striving for a nonchalant tone.
“Right? But hardly any Americans have heard of it, which is just such a tragedy.”
I shook my head. “Some people just don’t have any culture.”
“So—you were asking what would I do?”
I nodded. “Yeah. If you were in a situation like Bernard Pettigrew. But, I don’t know, let’s say here. At California Adventure.”
“Oh wow, okay,” Freddie said, nodding. His eyebrows drew together, and I knew that he was thinking this over—the same way he always did when I asked him a question, taking it seriously. “Well, first, I’d probably ride all the rides, just over and over again.”
“Obviously.”
“And then I’d eat all the food…and buy all the souvenirs I wanted….”
“This all checks out.”
“And then…” His voice trailed off. He leaned his elbows on the railing, and looked out over the water. “Hmm. I’m not sure.”
“Yeah,” I said, coming to stand next to him, leaning on the railing as well. “That’s where it gets tricky, right?”
He looked out at the water for a long moment, then said, “I guess—then, I’d help people.”
I turned to look at him. “Help people?”
“Well, yeah,” he said with a small laugh.
“Because that’s what those movies are about, right?
You go through the same day over and over again, so you get to see things nobody else does.
It’s almost like a superpower. And you can help people have the best day ever, because you’ve seen all the versions of it. Right?”
“Right,” I said slowly, nodding. The wheels had started to turn in my head. I had tried to help Eton Mess—and then, when that hadn’t worked out, I’d just given up. But maybe I needed to think bigger.
Before I could say anything else, Freddie’s phone beeped. “I have to get going,” he said, his tone genuinely regretful. “But maybe I’ll see you again, Cass?”
I nodded. “You can count on it.”
Freddie gave me a smile and then jogged off toward the theater. I took another bite of the rocky road. My thoughts were spinning, with Freddie’s words echoing in my head. All at once, I remembered Tabitha Keith, sobbing in the bathroom. Maybe there was a chance I could do something to help her?
I checked the time, and realized I could just make it. I tossed the rest of my ice cream in the trash and hurried away.
I ran into the bathroom, my heart pounding, wondering if I’d gotten the timing right. But then a second later, I heard a snuffly sob.
I tried to think what I’d done the last time. I couldn’t tell Tabitha I knew she was the one crying in the stall. After what happened with DitesMoi and her presence here getting blown up, someone recognizing her from her shoes was probably the last thing she wanted.
“Um…Amy?” I called, remembering this was what I’d said before.
A second later, the stall door swung open and Tabitha Keith stepped out, her eyes puffy and bloodshot. “Who’s Amy?”
“Just a friend,” I said, waving it off. “Never mind. Sorry.”
I saw Tabitha wince as she looked at herself in the mirror. “God,” she said, shaking her head. She splashed some cold water on her face, then blotted it with a paper towel. “I look pretty bad, huh?”
“No,” I lied, hoping I pulled it off this time. “Just like you’ve been crying, maybe.”
“Well, that’s true,” she said with a sigh as she shook her hair back from her face.
“Are you okay?” I asked, taking a step closer to her. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Not unless you can turn back time.” She ran a hand over her eyes. “Could tonight get any worse?”
“Is this because of the DitesMoi thing?”
Tabitha whipped around to stare at me, her blue eyes wide. “You know about that? It’s already out there?”
“Oh,” I said, trying to backtrack, willing my brain to go faster. “Maybe? I kind of heard something….”
She dug through her designer bag until she pulled out her phone. “I just can’t believe this,” she said. “I really thought I could trust my friends, you know? I didn’t think they’d sell a picture of me to a gossip site.”
“And you’re sure that’s who did it?”
Tabitha sighed. “Yeah. The picture that got sold was one with me and my friends. Nobody else would have had it. Just me and Em and River. There’s no other explanation.
I just…” Her voice cracked. “I just wanted one night, you know? One night when I get to be a regular person and nobody treats me different or stares at me…”
“When did this happen?” I asked, wishing once again that I had the ability to write any of this down and take it with me. “Like, what time?”
“I mean—we took the pictures pretty soon after we got to the park? By the Mater in the graduation cap by Cars Land, did you see him? It’s—”
“So what time exactly?”
“Uh—nine forty? I don’t know,” she said, sounding taken aback. “And then I got a call about thirty minutes ago—telling me this was about to break. So something must have happened in between, I guess.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “I’ll try to help if I can. No promises, though!”
“What?” She stared at me and folded her arms across her chest. “What do you mean—help? It’s already happened.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed.”
“But—” Tabitha started. Just as she spoke, I heard the crackle of a speaker.
“Make your way over to the stage,” the voice on the loudspeaker said. “Eton Mess will be going on in just a few minutes!”
“I should go,” I said, heading for the door. The last thing I wanted to do was to see Eton Mess crash and burn once again. Unless…
All at once, I realized that I might be able to do something about that, too. Not right now, of course. Or even in the next loop. But a plan was starting to form in my head, threads coming together in unexpected ways.
“Wait,” Tabitha said, sounding thoroughly baffled now. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I called behind me as I pulled the door open. “You won’t remember this!”