Chapter Twenty-One
On Tuesday, it finally happens: Julian asks Sam to prom.
At lunch, he scribbles PROM WITH ME? on the inside of her mini pizza box with an arrow pointing towards where he sits smiling across the table from her. Sam pretends to play it cool, but her hands shake under the table as she accepts with a laugh.
By Wednesday, I’ve heard the story no less than fourteen times, even though I was sitting right next to her when it happened.
The two of us are stretched out on my bed, opened bags of Sour Octopuses, Peanut Butter M Sam’s just excited, and I’m happy for her – I am.
She’s getting everything we wanted. But right now, the last thing I want to hear is another mushy prom story.
‘And I mean, you know Julian,’ says Sam, evidently not taking the hint. ‘He’s never like that. Elliott swears Julian cried in the Star-Spangled Banner exhibit at the American History Museum last year, and I didn’t believe him, but now I’m like, yeah, I can see it.’
Little Women has been playing for more than an hour, but I’ve barely been able to hear anything over Sam’s constant talking. It’s a good thing I basically have all the dialogue memorised.
‘Quiet, quiet, quiet,’ I say anyway, patting Sam’s arm.
On my laptop, Jo and Laurie are standing beside a fencepost, Jo with a bouquet of wildflowers and Laurie staring at her with a look that’s nothing short of worship.
Sam shoves an orange-and-yellow Sour Octopus in her mouth.
This is our favourite scene, when Laurie finally confesses his love for his childhood best friend.
We both suck in a sharp breath when Jo and Laurie kiss, exhaling at the same time as she starts to sputter her rejection.
‘Jo, you absolute idiot,’ Sam says, shaking her head. ‘How do you say no to a baby-faced Christian Bale? How?’
Christian Bale, the actor that plays Laurie, scrunches up his forehead as he tries not to cry.
Sam and I used to love him so much, we’d celebrate his birthday every year by watching Newsies and baking brownies.
But I can’t deny I feel a tiny twinge of satisfaction as a heartbroken Laurie grabs his coat and flees.
Where love is concerned, I’m not the only miserable one.
‘Elliott said you might come to the prom afterparty at his house,’ Sam says, still watching the screen. But from the way she says it, slowly, delicately, I can tell she’s been wanting to talk about it for a while.
‘I said I’d think about it.’ The Peanut Butter M I dump the five or so that are left in the bag straight into my mouth. ‘How is that even gonna work, now that you’re going to prom with Julian?’ I say, chewing. ‘Is Elliott just gonna be your weird third wheel?’
‘He’s going with Maya Lincoln,’ Sam says. ‘He asked her today – they’re partners in physics.’
‘Oh.’
I glance down at the empty M the gala is just over three weeks away, and once it’s done, Max will have no reason to come back to the zoo F’resh.
And aside from reinforcing my hatred for Austin Taylor, my conversation with Laura convinced me of one thing: I need to find his spell book.
There’s a chance Austin got rid of it as part of his no-magic disguise, but something tells me that a guy like him would never willingly give up something that once gave him so much power.
But I can’t exactly invite myself to Max’s house – not when we’ve barely hung out beyond F’resh and the cave.
We need something in between, something normal. Something real friends would do.
Indie
Maybe we need to take this thing beyond Tyler
Indie
Try and figure out who might’ve cursed him
Indie
We could go to Breakneck tomorrow???
It’s risky suggesting Max start digging into the why of the curse, but there’s no way he’ll make the connection to his dad, not when he thinks Austin Taylor is Mr Logic. And Instagram confirmed this morning that Tyler is in New York City this week visiting his sister. It’s the perfect scenario.
Max
You think?
Max
What could be at breakneck tho??
I swallow hard. Shit. Max has been so gung-ho on the whole Tyler plan, I didn’t expect him to push back. Biting my bottom lip, I rack my brain for some kind of excuse. Something incriminating.
Indie
I was gonna tell you this when we got there but
Indie
My friend knows someone else that works at Breakneck, and she said they all just found out their boss has been stealing from their pay checks
Indie
What if Tyler found out before everyone else???
Indie
His boss would have a motive to keep him quiet with a curse
God, motive? I cringe at my use of the word, but try to push the embarrassment away.
Desperate times. The excuse doesn’t even make sense; why would Tyler still work at Breakneck if he found out his boss was stealing from him?
Unless Tyler’s boss was using the curse as leverage to keep Tyler not only quiet but under his thumb.
But maybe Max won’t question that part. I hold my breath, eyes trained on the three dots that appear in our text chain.
Max
Holy SHIT
Max
THIS IS HUGE
Max
We have to go to breakneck!!!!!
The air rushes out of me in one long sigh, my stomach doing that same swoop again. But it’s because the plan is working, not because I actually want to hang out with Max.
‘I know, right?’ Sam says, her eyes trained on Laurie and Amy as they flirt in Paris. Sam bites the leg of a Sour Octopus and stretches it until it snaps. ‘Christian Bale with a moustache is tragic.’
Max
We could do a recon mission!!!
Max
I’ll distract whoever’s working and you snoop around the back of the store for clues
He wants to – what? I was thinking we’d just talk to whoever’s behind the counter, not break into the office of a guy who’s, as far as I know, totally innocent.
Indie
Or we could do something kinda less … insane?
Max
We’re gonna have to do some serious digging
Max
This guy’s not just gonna leave his journal on the front desk where anyone could find it
He’s not wrong, exactly. It’s just not the right place.
And I guess technically if I’m the one who does the ‘snooping’, I can just stand in Breakneck’s back office and not touch anything.
If I get caught, I’ll just play dumb. I was lost!
Is this not where you keep the Motown? And that’s if I can get into the office in the first place.
But that’s not even the point. The point is that Max and I hang out. That he thinks we’re friends.
Indie
Ok fine, let’s do it
Indie
Also, do you seriously expect this guy to have a journal detailing his magical exploits??
Max
100000%
Max
“Dear journal, today Tyler tried to out me to the cops for being a creepy jerk but I cursed that mofo muahahahahahahaha!!!”
A laugh erupts from me before I can choke it down.
Sam sits up straight, a couple Skittles raining down from her hair as she leans across me to look at my phone.
Even though I try to hide the screen, I can tell she’s already seen Max’s name by the sound she makes, just a stream of air from her nose.
‘Oh my God, he’s texting you?’ she exclaims as she pulls my phone to her lap. Her eyes widen as she looks down at the screen. ‘And you’re hanging out?!’
It’s obvious Sam is fighting every impulse she has not to hold on to my phone when I snatch it back from her. Sure enough, Max has replied, asking if I want to meet him at the coffee shop a few doors down from Breakneck tomorrow so we can go to the store together.
‘I’m just helping him with something,’ I say as I press the side button on my phone, darkening the screen. ‘He’s planning this huge event at the zoo and asked if I could help him pick out some tablecloths, or something.’
The lie sounded dumb enough in my head, but downright idiotic out loud. Just another one for my list.
‘And he couldn’t have asked anyone else?’ Sam says, clearly agreeing. ‘For example, someone that hasn’t only been working at F’resh for two weeks?’
I slip my phone back under my thigh. ‘You clearly did not get a good look at my colleagues.’
‘You could always ask him to prom,’ she says, arching an eyebrow.
The thought is so ridiculous, I almost choke. ‘I – I absolutely could not.’
Though Sam says nothing as she lies back down, she doesn’t have to. I can read every thought streaking through her dark eyes as her mouth curves into a mischievous smile.
‘We just work together,’ I insist.
The way I pictured holding Max’s hand in the cave, the weird dip my stomach does whenever his name appears on my phone. None of it means anything.
She quietly drops a few more Skittles into her mouth, but her expression is glazed, faraway, as though she’s not actually watching the movie any more.
‘What’re you thinking about?’ I say nervously. ‘Are you scheming?’
I know that look. Sam always gets it when she’s trying to piece something together, like when we were eleven and she was trying to figure out how she could convince her mom to let her stop taking piano lessons.
Sam laughs and says, ‘Nothing.’ She glances at my thigh, where my phone presses into my jeans like an accusation. ‘What’re you thinking about?’
It’s obvious what she really means: who are you thinking about?
Max’s face appears in my mind. His expression in the lantern light, hair spilling over his forehead.
But I shake my head, clearing the image.
It’s kind of hilarious, the irony. Max is probably the safest guy on the planet, the one person whose hand I can hold without having to worry about him growing horns, or wings, or poisonous claws.
Because I could never, ever love Max Taylor.