Chapter Thirteen #2
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.” I don’t normally sing when I’m getting dressed, but I like the Fourth of July.
I don’t mind fireworks when I know to expect them, and I love baking myself darker on the beach.
It also turns the entire continental United States into an unlimited hot dog dispensary for twenty-four hours, which was more of a plus for me when I wasn’t staying in New York, where hot dogs are legally considered a food group.
“Happy birthday, dear America. Happy birthday to”—an aggressive tap on my door cuts off the big finish—“Almost ready!”
“It’s me,” Cass calls from the other side. Odd. Team Vision is meeting in the lounge again at noon, but Cass has never come up early to see me first.
“Hey!” I open my door and step back so Cass can see I’m wearing the purple dress.
It’s not very patriotic, but it’s the prettiest shade of plum I’ve ever seen and Kavi said to come looking cute.
Which is really suspicious, now that I think about it.
We agreed not to make #content on a holiday, so why did I put this dress on again?
“Hey-yowza.” Cass stands up straighter. “Sorry, I’m looking for my friend Zora? I know you’re a supermodel and everything but if you see her, tell her that Kavi asked me to ask her if she’s ever played Overcooked!”
“Overcooked!? The co-op cooking game? That you play with a partner? And have to team up and work together?”
“That is what co-op means, yes.”
“Well,” I poke my head out of the door to see if I can spot Kavi at the end of the hall.
Yup, there she is. Futzing around with the lounge TV again.
Hopefully not trying to screenshare a stream this time.
“I haven’t seen this ‘Zo-rah,’ but I feel like she’d answer that question with a request for Kavi to take a wild fucking guess!
” I shout the last few words loud enough for her to hear me—almost no one else is hanging out in their dorm rooms around noon on a holiday so I’m not worried about disturbing the peace.
“I figured!” Kavi shouts back with a laugh. “Just checking.”
“So that’s her plan, huh?” I grab my summer academy tote bag on my way out the door. “Making me and Ivan play co-op?”
“Not exactly,” Cass answers. That perks me up.
“Making you and me play co-op?” I ask.
“Hard pass.” Well, now I know how Kavi felt two minutes ago.
Ivan and Trieu are already assembled in the lounge when Cass and I make it down the hallway.
Kavi’s “look cute” memo must have applied to Ivan as well, since he’s lightly dolled up in a patterned short-sleeve button-down and shorts.
I lean forward to see what the pattern is—oh my god it’s tiny flamingos, that is adorable—but snap back when I realize I’ve leaned right into Ivan’s personal space.
I can tell because I’m smelling him again, and I’ve been trying not to do that as much, because. Just because.
“Hi to you too, Zora,” Ivan says with a smile I would classify as shy if I didn’t know him.
“Right. Hi.” I wave. Is it weird to wave when you’re standing right beside someone? I did it without thinking but now I’m wondering if a wave is more of a faraway greeting. Is there an optimal distance between the two waving human points of a line that unlocks better social outcomes?
Ivan waves back.
“All right, love birdies, enough,” Trieu calls from the kitchen table. “You two have a lot of work to do.”
“We do?” Ivan asks. “I thought we were crushing this. Or at least I was.”
“You crushed the trial run.” Kavi feels around the back of the TV for a place to plug in an HDMI cord. “It was the first meet and greet, everyone was a little off their game. But the two of you—got it.” The TV screen bursts into a riot of cutesy colors that form the menu for Overcooked! 2.”
“What,” Ivan asks flatly. “This is the secret plan? I thought we were going somewhere.”
“It’s a multi-phased plan,” Kavi says. “This is just phase one. Also I didn’t finish my thought,” Kavi reminds us.
She pulls two Switch controllers out of her bag and tosses them to Cass one after the other.
“Calibrate, please. Make sure there’s no drift.
” Cassius begins to calibrate the controllers.
“The two of you need to get on the same page. You slipped up on Wednesday with the ‘how did you meet’ thing. And by the end of the meet and greet both of you looked like murder was on the menu.”
“So we’re taking it off the menu,” Trieu adds. “And putting something new on the menu. Food, if you can believe it.”
Ivan takes a deep breath, like he needs to calm down before he speaks. “Kavi,” he begins politely. “Could you perhaps enlighten me as to what exactly I’m doing wrong?” He looks over at me. What, for support?
“Sure.” Kavi takes the calibrated controllers back from Cass and begins setting up a new co-op campaign while she talks. “Ivan, you’re overcompensating. As for Zora, you are overthinking.”
“I don’t know what those words mean in this context,” I whine.
“I’m only overcompensating because she—”
“She,” I defend myself, “can barely get a word in edgewise whenever he decides to—”
“To what? Carry this grift on my back like Atlas?”
“Does anyone else hear this?” Kavi interrupts. “It’s the diner all over again. Am I the only one paying attention to the tools we have at our disposal?”
The room is silent; neither Trieu nor Cass look up from their phones. “Anyone. Nobody? Cassius?”
Cass frowns at her. “Yes,” he says very deliberately. “You are the only one.”
Kavi rolls her eyes. “Lie to yourself, Cassius,” she says. “Not to me.”
“Fine.” Cass points to Ivan and me like he’s picking us out of a police lineup.
“You two have been literally obsessed with each other from day one. The only thing you talk about when the other one isn’t around is the other one.
You even finish each other’s sentences. But none of that is coming across on camera because Ivan never shuts up and Zora always has this look on her face like she’s solving a Rubik’s Cube at gunpoint. ”
“Because it’s all lies!” I argue. “It’s really hard to control my face when I’m too busy staring slack-mouthed at the part where nobody notices Ivan doesn’t mean a word he says, ever.”
“Hey!” Ivan protests, but Cassius talks right over him.
“Zora, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: Who cares if he means it?”
“Zora, we talked about this before,” Trieu adds. “Just because you think Ivan doesn’t mean what he says doesn’t mean you can’t pretend it’s not nice to hear it. Did that make any sense? Did I double my negatives?”
“I do mean what I say, by the way,” Ivan says quietly. “Sometimes.”
“How am I supposed to tell the difference? We only know each other through this whole, you know …” I wave my arms frantically around at the people in the room, hoping they’ll get what I mean so I don’t have to say fake dating emotional fraud team alliance that’s actually working out loud.
“Exactly,” Kavi interrupts with a smile. “Hence: Overcooked! 2. The only game out on the market that’ll either forge bonds stronger than iron, or make you hate someone with the heat of ten suns.”
“I have a question.” I raise my hand.
“Yes, Zora?” Kavi answers.
“What if it’s the ten suns?” A younger, more na?ve Zora might’ve thought there was no way a game with such cute little cartoon animal chefs on the case could incite that much rage, but I’ve been burned enough times to know the cutest games are the most infuriating.
“Then we keep trying,” Kavi says with a casual shrug, eyes narrowing. “Even if it takes all night.”
“Seriously?” Ivan asks with a choked laugh. “It’s the Fourth of July; shouldn’t we—”
“Did anyone here have plans for tonight?” Kavi interrupts again.
Trieu looks up from his phone long enough to shrug.
Cass doesn’t even bother going that far, just shaking his head as he returns his attention to power-washing a jungle gym on his OLED screen.
I didn’t have anything going on today, I literally just want a hot dog.
And even though Ivan was the one who protested in the first place, he doesn’t have a rebuttal. Or plans, apparently.
Kavi grins victoriously before settling back down on the couch and picking the controller back up. “I rest my case.”
“If we’re playing Overcooked! by ourselves, what are you guys going to do all day?”
Kavi walks over to the kitchen table, where Trieu has set up three gaming laptops. She reaches down and yanks a headphone cord out of its jack. The bass notes of the GLR theme buzz loudly against the tinny speakers. “Take a wild fucking guess.”
I prepare my final argument. “Shouldn’t we be … I don’t know … playing The Newlywed Game, or something? Asking about each other’s favorite colors and social security numbers?”
“More relevant references, Zora!” Cass calls from the couch.
“Fine. Never Have I Ever?”
“Accepted.”
“I’m not giving you my social security number,” Ivan whispers out of the corner of his mouth.
“I’ve had it for months,” I whisper venomously, clocking the slight tugging at the edge of Ivan’s lips that means he’s trying to smother a laugh. Well, I’m glad at least one of us thinks this is funny.
“Wait a minute—Cass.” I’ve just realized something doesn’t add up. “I asked you point-blank if the plan was for me and Ivan to play Overcooked! and you said no.”
“Mm, not exactly,” Cass answers.
“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”
“That’s what I said, ‘not exactly.’ I didn’t say no. Because what you actually asked was ‘Is this Kavi’s plan, to make me and Ivan play Overcooked!’ And that’s not true.”
I groan. “Are you really going to Um, Actually me because we’re technically playing Overcooked! 2?”
“Um, actually,” Kavi pushes an invisible set of glasses up her nose. “He’s going to Um, Actually you because this was not my plan. It’s Cass’s.”
“It was?” I whip around to face Cass. I’m not surprised that he thought playing a video game would be the cure to all wounds, but I am thrown off by the fact he came to Kavi with a suggestion without talking to me about it first.
Cass shrugs, finally turning his Deck off to look up at me with an unreadable expression and a tone that feels both playful and chilly. Like a snowman. “Had to pull my weight in the party somehow.”
“I was lobbying to send you skydiving,” Trieu interjects from the kitchen. “Because I think neither of you will live a happy life unless you get to kick each other out of a real plane at least once.”
“But that shit’s expensive.” Kavi hands us both our controllers. Ivan’s is watermelon green and pink, mine is classic Switch gray. A peacock and a goat. “Now go make me some digital sushi.”