Chapter 24
Little Do You Know
Aria
For days Aspen’s been blanketed by snow. Today is no exception. Wyatt and I are walking next to each other in silence, nothing but the crunch of the snow beneath our feet.
The bell tower tolls eight o’clock as we cross the street and walk past the open doors of the dance school. A horde of kids dressed up like white swans is whirling around. They bow their heads respectfully when Vaughn steps into the middle. Wyatt and I stop to watch.
“Why is Vaughn wearing a full-body condom?”
“He is so nasty,” I say. “Look at him lying there.”
“He reminds me of Gregor Samsa. This here is his painful, unsettling metamorphosis into a bug.”
“I still don’t get how you’re so stuck on Kafka, Wyatt.”
“He’s a true artist.”
“He’s weird. His books freak me out.”
Vaughn curls up like an embryo and starts moving around like a fish out of water.
The swan children dance around him with ballet steps while Spirit Susan leads them on with a count of “one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.” But then her eyes drift over to Wyatt and me, and the children trip over their own feet when Susan interrupts the whole affair.
“You two?” she says. Her voice is dripping with disbelief. Her look is, too, but I can’t understand how she finds the sight of the two of us more upsetting than Vaughn rolling around on the ground in that neoprene outfit of his.
Wyatt seems to be thinking the same thing, for he gives Vaughn a quizzical nod. “What’s all this about, Susan?”
She fiddles with her stole and looks from him to Vaughn before she gets what Wyatt means. “Oh! We’re preparing our Christmas show! It’s going to be magical.”
“And what’s the piece?”
“A new version of Swan Lake,” she says proudly.
Wyatt coughs. “A real unsettling…”
“What did you say?”
“All good.” He laughs. “We’re looking forward to it, Sue. Have a nice evening.”
“You, too.”
After a few steps, Wyatt lets out a soft laugh.
“What?”
A snowflake lands on his upper lip. He runs his tongue over it, which makes my stomach warm. “Nothing. Just thought of something.”
“Tell me.”
He puts his fingers around my elbows as he pulls me to the side and keeps me from walking into one of the gas lanterns. “We were in Susan’s dance group once upon a time, too, remember?”
“Oh.” I smile. “Vaguely. How old were we?”
“Seven.” He casts me a quick glance. “We had to hold hands for a few steps.”
“You still remember that?”
Wyatt scratches his throat and nods. “You were the highlight of my year.”
Oh, Wy. How much I’d like to tell you that you were the highlight of my life.
We reach The Old-Timer. Wyatt opens the door for me.
It creaks. The bell echoes through the room.
A few seconds later I’m enveloped by the pleasant warmth from the fireplace.
I haven’t been here in two years, and I didn’t realize how much I had missed this place.
Whenever I’m here in William’s shop at the front of the vintage movie theater with its wobbly walls, colorfully tossed-together furniture, and countless books and records spilling off the shelves, I’m filled with an overwhelming feeling of coming home.
“Aria,” Will says, a reproving edge to his voice. “The film’s about to start.”
Wyatt steps up next to me. “Sorry, Will. Susan and her weird Kafkaesque bug show held us up.”
William’s eyes grow wide. He grabs at the antique popcorn machine from the forties, looking for support. “Susan had to turn in a form, and it said that she would be doing Swan Lake; that’s WHAT SHE WROTE!”
I have to bite my lips to keep myself from bursting out laughing. “Yeah, well… She’s pushed the rules a bit.”
William’s scalp turns bright purple. He’s going to explode at any second, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see smoke coming out of his ears.
“My rules are straightforward and clear.” Droplets of spit fly through the air.
“No disturbing content in Christmas productions! That kind of stuff scares me, and everyone in town knows I get nightmares easily.”
From behind one of the shelves, Aaron’s red hair suddenly appears. “Who’s playing the bug?”
Wyatt tilts his head. “Who else?”
“Vaughn,” Aaron’s boyfriend Levi responds immediately. He’s sitting on a worn leather executive chair, a big bowl of chips balancing on his thigh. “Vaughn’s the only one interested in embodying Susan’s ideas about art.”
That was it. The flame that had been lacking to light William’s fuse.
For years he and Vaughn have been at loggerheads because Vaughn often says he finds William’s rules to be crap.
William’s head is turning redder and redder; I think it’s even starting to swell, and I’m sure he’d be proud seeing his old jack-o’-lantern now—they look so similar.
Then he smacks his hand down on the popcorn machine and says, “She will not get away with this!”
Knox raises his fist into the air. “Go for it, Will.”
Will grits his teeth. “I’m going to go see her.” He casts his eyes through the room and lands on Paisley. “You’ll keep an eye on everything?”
Knox makes an indignant face. “Why is she receiving the honor though the rest of us have been longing for it for decades?”
Will narrows his eyes as he shuffles into his insulated Dockers. “Because you all are weird, and Paisley hasn’t lived here long enough to be infected.”
Levi opens his mouth in shock. “Will, how dare you speak about us so!”
“You of all people! I asked you to help out here one time, just one time, and what did you do, young man? You didn’t even show the film that was on the calendar!”
Levi rolls his eyes and tosses a handful of chips into his mouth. “It was the end-of-the-year party for the ninth grade, Will. No one, and I mean no one, wanted to see Gone with the Wind.”
Enraged, William puffs out his chest. “It is an important film; it’s meaningful and…”
“Depressing,” Aaron completes his sentence. He comes from around the shelf, a book in his hand, and sits down next to Levi. “We wanted to celebrate our lives and not sit in the corner feeling shitty about how terrible people were in the past.”
William raises his brows. “That’s exactly why it matters. So we don’t forget. So we never forget.”
Levi groans. “We didn’t forget, dude. We just didn’t want to cry over it during cake.”
“Don’t worry, Will. I’ll make sure that everything goes okay,” Pais says.
An imaginary boulder slides off William’s shoulders. I see them collapse before he says goodbye and steps out into the snowy night.
“You’re too nice, Pais.” I smile at her as I squeeze past all the furniture and fall onto a beanbag. “Just five more minutes and William would have exploded. That would’ve been something.”
Knox gives a raucous laugh. I can see that he’s still wondering why Wyatt and I showed up together. But he skillfully plays it off. He pulls Paisley over to him and she puts her head in his lap, and he begins to stroke her hair.
“She hates PowerPoint and is terribly afraid William will ask her to make a presentation on how to make the town more attractive.”
Aaron swings his legs over the back of the chair, leans back, and wiggles his feet. “I can’t believe you would ever have something selfish in mind, Pais.”
“Garlic bread and lemon iced tea, Ari?” Wyatt’s head appears behind the counter, highlighted by the light from the fridge.
“Yeah. And…”
“M this is what your words just did to me, every one of your syllables a dagger.