23. Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle Dandy
An open portal shimmered in the alley behind CastR headquarters.
On one side was SoHo, all exposed brick and expensive sneakers.
On the other was Oak Haven, land of gas lamps and cobblestones.
Luna stood at the threshold, steadying her leather satchel with one hand and reaching for Elias with the other.
“Come on,” she said. “Mama’s waiting.”
But Elias had stopped moving. He stood back from the portal’s edge, hands in his pockets, that careful expression on his face that Luna was starting to recognize as trouble.
“I should stay.”
Luna’s hand dropped. “What?”
“Keep an eye on CastR headquarters. Make sure Burke doesn’t get suspicious about our little performance.”
His tone was reasonable. Far too reasonable. Shaw had to be up to something, but Luna couldn’t reckon what.
“Smart money says he’ll want to do some digging, figure out who those consultants really were. That could lead him back to Oak Haven, giving him the jump on us. I should stick around to handle things, just in case.”
Tactically, it made sense. But something about the way he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes made Luna’s stomach twist a bit.
Oh gods. He’s regretting it. The Oyster Bar. The table. Him, hands in her hair. Her, grabbing his chest like she’d wanted to climb inside it. The world narrowing down to just them.
Heat flooded her face.
“Shaw, we need to stick together—”
“Trust me on this, sweetheart.”
There it was. His favorite word: sweetheart.
But it hit differently somehow. Like he was already backing away, making things casual, pretending nothing had happened.
And before Luna could argue, before she could grab his arm or demand some clarity or do literally anything except stand there like a dope, Shaw stepped forward, placed one hand on her shoulder, and gently pushed.
She stumbled backward through the shimmer, confusion mixing with a hurt she didn’t want to admit. The portal snapped shut like a door slamming in another room. She found herself alone on Oak Haven’s town green, one hand still outstretched toward empty air, feeling irretrievably stupid.
He regrets it. He kissed me and now he regrets it and he can’t even stand to travel through a portal with me because of the Awkward.
I’m such an idiot.
A breeze from the closing portal tugged at her hair.
The satchel pressed heavier against her ribs.
And mingling with her embarrassment—because she was definitely embarrassed, mortified actually—was something else.
Something that felt uncomfortably like missing him, which was absurd because he’d only been gone for four seconds, and besides, he clearly didn’t want to be near her, so why should she miss him?
Luna forced herself to take a breath and shove all of that into a mental box labeled “Deal With Later” or possibly “Never.”
She looked around.
She’d expected the town green to look normal. Maybe Mama by the gazebo. Maybe Scarlett pacing with her phone, orchestrating social media chaos. Maybe kids playing tag, oblivious.
But there was a parade float in the middle of the green.
Not near the green. Not passing through the green.
Dead center, as if someone had airlifted the whole thing and dropped it on the grass.
Red, white, and blue bunting smothered every surface.
Papier-maché eagles spun their wings in the nonexistent breeze and American flags jutted from every corner.
It was like the Fourth of July had thrown up all over it.
Atop the float stood an eight-person brass band.
They were playing “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Loudly. On repeat.
A faint, acrid scent lingered in the air, out of place amid the summer freshness. A hint of burnt rubber. The shadows beneath the float were distorted, twisting along the grass in unnatural shapes.
Luna’s eye twitched.
Then there were the children.
There were five of them, all around ten years old, dressed in elaborate colonial costumes.
Little Ben Franklin with wire-rim glasses perched on his nose, clutching a kite.
Little George Washington with a powdered wig too large for his head.
Little Thomas Jefferson. Little John Adams. Little Alexander Hamilton.
And they were throwing candy.
They threw the candy methodically, little arms moving in repetitive arcs: reach into bucket, grab candy, throw candy; reach into bucket, grab candy, throw candy.
Faces blank and porcelain, unblinking, ignoring the real kids scrambling for candy below.
They just kept on. Reach, grab, throw. Over and over.
A pile of candy had accumulated at their feet. It spilled over the edge of the float, creating a cellophane-wrapped drift on the grass below.
Townsfolk had gathered, about a dozen or so, most looking bemused. Some were taking photos. A few stood with arms crossed, trying to reckon whether this was Oak Haven’s usual level of weird or if they should be calling someone.
The brass band hit a crescendo. The children threw candy. The papier-maché eagles spun.
Luna’s eye twitched again.
“Luna!” Her mother’s voice cut through the noise. “Luna, thank the gods . . . You need to meet Chuck!”
Kelly Melrose stood beside the float, flanked by Scarlett and Delilah. All three looked like they’d been there a while and were deeply, profoundly tired of “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
But it was the man dressed as a revolutionary war general who made Luna stop walking.
He was excessively handsome. Absurdly, almost violently so. Square jaw. Bright blue eyes. Teeth so white they could serve as emergency road flares. Every feature perfectly symmetrical. He was, in fact, so handsome that he went around the horn and back to ugly.
When he saw Luna, his face lit up like she was an old friend returning from the Battle of Yorktown.
“Luna Melrose!” He strode forward with his hand extended, and Luna had no choice but to accept his overly aggressive handshake. “Chuck. Chuck Harrison. I’ve heard so much about you! That pitch in New York—magnificent. Truly inspired work.”
Luna blinked. “How do you—I mean, that was this morning—”
“Word gets around.” He shrugged. “I’m highly connected. I do venture capital . . . you know how it is. When she told me about your operation, I said to myself, I said, ‘Chuck, this is the revolution to back!’” All this with the breathless energy of a golden retriever finding tennis balls.
Luna looked at her mother. Kelly’s features were deliberately arranged in a neutral expression, which generally meant she was about two minutes away from hexing someone.
“Chuck is Louise’s investor friend,” Scarlett said, her tone suggesting this explained everything but also nothing.
“That’s right!” Chuck beamed. “And let me tell you, I’ve been doing this a long time. Earned my first real cheddar in ’76, actually. We’re talking big bucks, major scratch, real lettuce, and serious bread. I bring home the bacon, I make the dough, I’ve made enough moolah to choke a horse.”
He’s like the Inuit, Luna thought, with their supposed thousand words for snow. But the only thing falling from Chuck’s sky was money.
“What can I say, Chuck Harrison just has a nose for investments. I bought Apple at thirteen cents! Can you believe it? Watched those shares turn into major cabbage.”
Luna couldn’t help imagining what deeply confused comment Elias would’ve made about an “apple” costing a dollar and a half. It broke her heart a little not to hear it.
“Hang on,” Scarlett said skeptically. “Thirteen cents? When was Apple stock that cheap? Like, over forty years ago?”
“Give or take!” Chuck’s goofy grin didn’t waver.
“Also got in early on Microsoft. Later , Google, Facebook—every time the next big thing came along, Chuck Harrison was there with his wallet open. You develop a nose for it, you know? Where the green’s going to be.
Where the coin’s going to land. Where the bread gets buttered. ”
Delilah studied Chuck and didn’t bother pretending she liked what she saw.
Ignoring her, he gestured broadly at the green, the float, the world entire.
“Magnificent! It’s all magnificent. This CastR thing has great potential!
And not just the magic, either. No, I’m talking about the audience.
See, most investors, they think about revenue.
Market penetration. Bo-ring! What matters, truly matters, is attention.
It’s the attention economy, ladies! Attention is worth more than cash, more than gold, more than every cryptocurrency combined.
Gotta get me those eyeballs, get them gathered together, all focused on one thing?
Eyeballs are power. Eyeballs are America. ”
Scarlett frowned. “You haven’t asked if the app even works.”
“Doesn’t matter!” Chuck said this with such cheerful confidence that Luna almost believed him.
“Maximum attendance, maximum energy—that’s where the real value is.
That’s the revolution! That’s what the Founding Fathers fought for!
” He gestured at the float behind him, where mini George Washington had just beaned a local kid in the head with a Tootsie Roll.
“I’m pretty sure,” Kelly said dryly, “there was more to the American Revolution than that.”
“Not much more!” Chuck laughed like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“Oh, history teachers love to yammer on about ideals. But you know what it really came down to? Capital. Freedom has always been about capital, ladies. Men like me got sick of paying taxes to some George fella, all the way across the sea. I mean, who died and made him king, know what I mean?!”
Little Ben Franklin’s candy bucket abruptly ran empty, and he began to cry.
It wasn’t a normal child’s cry—no slowly building whimper, no gulp of air before the wail.
Just instant, high-pitched sobs, as though someone had flipped a switch labeled “DISTRESS.” But the brass band kept playing.
The other children kept mindlessly throwing candy, their movements uninterrupted.