Chapter 18 Do the math. #2
I send a kissy face emoji her way and then switch over to my ongoing text chain with Miguel.
Savannah: órale.
Miguel: órale, wey.
Savannah: I heard you were nominated for an award. Congratulations! I’m really happy for you.
Miguel: Thanks! How are things going with that Shane guy?
Oh, yeah. I mentioned that to him, too, didn’t I?
Savannah: I’m probably going to break up with him. He’s too high profile.
Miguel: I thought you liked him?
Savannah: I do. But some things are more important.
Miguel: Like what?
Savannah: Like your award! The last thing Castillo Studios needs is an old scandal resurfacing.
Miguel: Listen to me, Sheet. You’ve got to stop punishing yourself. Go out with this guy again, if you like him. Nobody’s going to take away our award over something that happened twelve years ago.
Miguel calling me by my old nickname (sábana sounds like Savannah and means “sheet” in Spanish) gives me a flash of nostalgia so sharp it hurts. Juan Ernesto and Lupe used to call me that, too.
Savannah: It’s just better not to risk it. I couldn’t live with myself if I screwed things up for you guys again. And Juan Ernesto would have a stroke.
Miguel: Your mom has him on a low-salt diet, so he’d probably be okay. But it’s true, our parents aren’t getting any younger. Go, girl, and be happy. We all want that for you.
I don’t ask how Miguel knows about Juan Ernesto’s diet.
Maybe because he’s been complaining about it at work.
But something else in Miguel’s message hits me harder.
My parents aren’t getting any younger, that’s true.
Are we going to go on the rest of our lives like this?
Surface-level chats with my mom. No contact between Juan Ernesto and Lupe and me.
What do I do if something happens to one of them?
I tell Miguel I have to go and then take another couple of swigs of beer to help my nervous system cycle down. That’s when I notice the lump under the blanket beside me.
It’s too small to be a person and too big to be a book. I live here alone, so there shouldn’t be any mysterious lumps. The fact that Netflix has been plying me with horror movies all week doesn’t help, either.
I pinch the edge of the blanket between my fingers, my beer bottle brandished at the ready. If it’s a basketball-sized spider or a reanimated severed head under there, they’re about to get a rude awakening. I throw off the blanket and stifle a scream.
It’s a doll. A horrible, plastic doll with dead eyes and a broken mouth and a smudged face from years of love from Jason’s son, who never did figure out how terrifying she is.
I’d almost prefer the spider. Or the severed head.
I consider putting Mattie’s doll in time-out the way Jason does, but a terrible thought occurs to me: What if dolls are part of the collective puppet consciousness, too?
If that’s the case, the charred remains of Chuy are probably whispering to her right now.
Any minute now, her plastic arms will take on flesh.
Her face will stretch into a hateful grimace.
Her freakishly strong baby hands will lunge for my throat.
Every second it doesn’t happen makes it seem more likely to happen the next, especially since it’s Friday the thirteenth. In October.
I might have to trek over to Emmy and Jason’s after all.
I’m already on edge from my conversation with my mom, and there’s no way I can relax with this thing in here.
Call me superstitious or downright chickenshit, but Possessed Baby’s gotta go.
I can quickly drop her off and come back home. No sweat.
I stuff my socked feet into a pair of Crocs and begin the short walk up the manicured lawn to Emmy and Jason’s house. Golden light in the windows gives the house a warm, friendly glow. In the driveway, I spot Amanda from Lost Star’s red BMW convertible and Sean’s glistening black electric Fiat.
I halt in my tracks. Sean’s here?
When did they start inviting him to game night? Or have they always been inviting him, and he turned them down until now? If so, why did he change his mind? Was it because of me? Was he expecting me to be there?
My swirling thoughts are stupid, every stupid one of them.
Sean doesn’t need to come to game night if he wants to talk to me.
We work together. Yes, I avoided him on purpose, but he’s Sean O’Sullivan—he’s only avoidable if he wants to be.
Not to mention, maybe it’s not even his car.
There’s more than one black electric Fiat in Santa Monica. Do the math, Josie.
Then Sean’s silhouette crosses the dining room window, and my heart lodges in my esophagus so deeply that I have to swallow twice to get it back down.
So much for my multiple Fiats theory. I glance down at Possessed Baby, seriously pondering whether I can make it one night with her in the trailer.
The crack in her mouth has surprisingly sharp edges—perfect for gnawing off my fingers in my sleep.
“Guess what?” I tell the doll. “You’re getting a new home. It’s called the garbage can.” But, of course, I’m not going to break a little boy’s heart because of my own cowardice. With a resigned sigh, I trudge up to the front door and ring the bell.
“Josie, you changed your mind!” Emmy seizes me in a hug, dragging me inside at the same time.
I stumble over the threshold. “I’m just here to return Mattie’s doll.”
“Hmm. I wonder how that got out there?” Emmy muses, shutting the door behind me.
The pieces are falling into place. “You put her out there on purpose.”
“Tía!” Peyton rounds the corner from the kitchen. The house is warm and smells like bacon-wrapped somethings.
“I’m really glad you’re here. Jason and I have something important to ask you,” Emmy says with a grin.
“Can’t it wait?”
“No,” she chirps.
Peyton folds herself into my arms. “Plus, we’re playing Firefly.”
I rock her in a hug. “I thought that was a TV show.”
“It is, but it’s also a board game,” Emmy explains. “Nathan Fillion gave them out as Christmas gifts last year.”
In the next room, Sean says something that makes Amanda laugh, and my gaze automatically flicks in their direction. “I can’t stay. I left an open beer in the trailer. And I’m in my pajamas.”
“I got you, girl.” Jason appears with a Corona in hand, a sliver of lime bobbing inside the bottle. What is he, my personal bartender? “And when have pajamas ever stopped you from coming over?”
I’m about to make up another excuse for why I need to beat a floppy Crocs retreat back to my trailer when Emmy hooks my arm and Oompa Loompas me over to the dining room without my consent.
Amanda pauses setting up the game to greet me.
Sean reclines at the table, dressed like it’s the 1940s with a white button-down shirt, suspenders, and an Irish tweed driving cap.
I saw him wearing this exact outfit in a Giorgio Armani ad.
His emerald gaze cascades over my attire. “Is it bedtime?”
“It could be,” I reply.
We exchange a clandestine smirk. It is fun to flirt with him, I’ll concede that.
“Josie and Sean can play as a team,” Emmy announces.
“Uh-uh,” Jason objects. “Putting Sean O’Sullivan and Josie Days too close together might create a sarcasm singularity.”
“That’ll suck all your whining into it,” Sean adds.
Emmy ignores them. “Peyton and I will be a team. Amanda and Jason, you’re on your own.”
“That’s right! Fear me!” Amanda growls. I’d heard she could be competitive.
The Firefly game takes up almost an entire ten-seat dining room table with a board that rolls out like a yoga mat, little colored ships, and many stacks of playing cards.
“Filming a sci-fi TV show eight hours a day isn’t enough nerdiness for you?” I tease.
“I know, right?” Sean jumps in. “They forced me to come here. Nerds! Weirdos!”
“It’s not weird. It’s really fun,” Peyton says. She flips through a deck of cards and pulls one out with a picture of Adam Baldwin wearing a knitted hat. “Look! It’s Jayne’s cunning hat from the show. It counts as influence.”
“I have that!” Sean waggles his finger at the card. “I have that exact hat!” When we all stare at him, his face shifts. “I mean, I have a knitted hat that looks surprisingly similar.”
“Awesome,” I reply.
Sean’s phone buzzes, and he gives it a quick look before tucking it away.
“Seamus?” Jason asks.
“That’s probably what Siobhan’s calling about,” Sean says, with a sad, “We-Don’t-Talk-About-Bruno” kind of vibe. “But it can wait.”
Despite Sean being my celebrity crush, I’ve never dug up information on his family—I wouldn’t have wanted fans doing that to me. I do know that he has a sister and a brother, though. I wonder what’s up, and if there’s anything I can do to help, but I don’t want to be intrusive.
Jason slaps a player board in front of us. He and Emmy explain the rules as we settle in for an evening in Joss Whedon’s fictional Wild West galaxy. Sean and I do okay as partners, mostly because Jason and Emmy tell us what to do. It’s fun, I have to admit. Nathan Fillion is a good gift giver.
“So, did you pick up your package in Ojai?” I ask Sean while we wait for Emmy and Peyton to take a particularly long turn.
“I did,” he replies.
“Was there a time machine in it?”
He looks confused until I reach out and pluck one of his suspenders. It snaps back against his pec, and he feigns pain. “It’s newsboy chic. You know you like it.”
“I do like it. It brings back fond memories of my grandpa.”
“He must’ve been a right sexy bastard.”
“He was a funeral director. But he turned a widow’s head or two.”
“I knew it.”
“Seriously, though”—I reach out and flip cards for Amanda on her turn—“what did you drive all the way to Ojai for?”
“You guessed it back at the restaurant. Bioweapon. I sold it to that spy you dumped me for for a billion trillion dollars.”
I bite my lip. So he did care. “Sorry about that.”
He puts a hand over his heart. “I’ll never heal.”
“It’s your turn,” Emmy interrupts us. “Do you two aim to misbehave again?”
“Yes!” we cry in unison. Through a combination of skill and luck, we manage to pull off a heist for an interstellar crime boss and collect a bunch of oversize fake bills.
“You two are way too lucky,” Amanda complains as we fist bump.
“Sean’s not lucky. He’s just good. He’s good at everything,” Peyton says, and then blushes when we all look at her.
Oh, snap. Does Peyton have a crush on Sean?
“That’s right, kiddo,” he says with a wink. “You tell ’em.”
“Speaking of being good at everything…” Emmy’s eyes are shining as she looks between Sean and me. She glances at Jason, who’s beaming, too. “Sean and Josie, Jason and I were wondering if—”
Sean’s face breaks into a huge grin, and he jumps to his feet. “Yes! Yes, I’ll deliver your baby! Thank you so much for this opportunity.”
“—if you two would plan our gender reveal!” Emmy finishes.
Sean sits down and pretends to look disappointed. “That makes a lot more sense.”
“Will you do it?” Emmy asks. She’s grinning like a fool.
“Of course we will!” I say, thrilled.
“Yeah, man, absolutely!” Sean agrees.
“If it’s a girl, we’re going to name her Boba Tea,” Peyton says. “And if it’s a boy, Chai.”
“Very cosmopolitan,” Sean says.
Emmy tells me she’ll give the radiologist my email, and from there, it’s up to us to plan the reveal. When the game is over (Amanda won, so maybe she’s not all talk), it’s late. I’m about to excuse myself to head back to my trailer when Sean stops me with a touch on my elbow.
“Want to take a ride?”