by Tash Skilton
I give a quick glance down the hallway where the entire HR department sits. “Er, Sean. Do you have to be the one to judge this contest? Isn’t there someone else at the company who could go in your stead? Someone who might even be a fan?”
He shoots me a withering look. “I don’t think ‘interim social media coordinator’ is going to impress our sponsors much.”
“I didn’t mean me,” I say.
“Oh no. You are definitely co-judging with me because I know absolutely nothing about the Kingdom of Six . . .”
“But that’s right!” I say beaming. “It is the Kingdom of Six.”
He shoots me another look. “Yes, that’s what the boxes of wine staring me down from the corner of my office tell me. As I was saying. You’re the real judge. I’m just the suit and the title and the person who is probably going to have to call out sick because of a fabric glue–induced migraine for the rest of the week.” He gets a buzz on his phone and looks at it. His face falls. “Oh my dear God. There’s a line around the block. That is a lot of pale skin and chest hair for ten a.m. on a Monday morning.”
He shows me the photo. Apparently, the Caveman Tal contingent—a minor character who appeared on a three-story arc involving a whole lot of spelunking—has come out in full force. When I glance up at Sean, he looks as if he’s about to burst into tears.
“This is probably a stupid question,” I start.
“Probably,” Sean agrees.
“But . . . do any of the sponsors know what you look like? Because I know a guy, an actor . . .” Not technically a lie. He just came off an acting gig, after all. “Who’s a huge fan. He’s got a suit. And he can totally pretend to be Sean Delaney, SVP of Digital, for a couple of hours.”
Sean stares at me for a second and I think I may have totally stepped over the line. But then he lets out a huge sigh of relief, and gently puts a hand on my shoulder to keep himself from falling over. “If that’s true, Nina, you’d be my hero.”
I grin. “Really? I can call him?”
“Book him. Offer him a case of wine if you have to.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I say, but Sean has already turned away, an extra jaunt in his step as he heads toward his office.
“Good,” he replies as the elevator opens. “Because I was kidding. We don’t have that in the budget.”
He steps into his office as I step onto the elevator, then take out my phone, press some buttons, and wait for that British-tinged “hullo?”
“What are you doing today? Actually it doesn’t matter what you’re doing today. Drop it,” I say through a huge smile. “I just booked us the gig of a lifetime.”
* * *
“Your tippets were better,” Sebastian whispers to me as we sit behind a black desk a few feet away from a small stage. We look like we’re the stern headmasters of a performing arts school about to crush some dreams, except that we have an assortment of corsets, chainmail, and centaur tails in front of us. “Fame but make it medieval” might be a good TV show pitch, I think vaguely.
I look at the brothel denizen twirling before us. “Yeah, but the knife wound on the back is the real star of the show. That is some exquisite scar work.”
“You’re right.” Sebastian jots something down on the score sheet in front of him.
“Thank you,” I say into the microphone. “Next.”
A veiled girl steps forward. I’d tried to mentally prepare for this; after all, Queen Lucinda’s wedding dress is a popular enough costume to be mass-produced. Not that this girl’s costume is. The lace looks too fine and too accurate to the detailed design of the original, down to the tiny seed pearls that I’d seen up close at the traveling CoRaB museum exhibit a few years ago; Sebastian and I had blown class to go down to New York City to catch it. Even I hadn’t reproduced all those details when I’d worn the dress. Which, in retrospect, was a good thing since I tore the thing trying to get it off as quickly as possible on the night of the costume party.
Atypically, Sebastian doesn’t turn to me to make any comments about the dress, just quietly jots down some notes on his scorecard. I stop myself from making some biting remark about how this version is better than Heather’s.
“Thank you, next,” I tell the girl, after we’ve had enough time to take in her costume.
But before the eager twin centaurs behind her can move ahead in line, I hear someone yell out, “No live animals!” It’s the poor, frazzled freelancer hired to help run the contest. “Honestly, doesn’t anyone read the rules?”
And then we hear a bleat.
Sebastian and I stare at each other, me nearly choking on a bite of devil’s food cake I’d just stuffed in my mouth courtesy of our sponsor. We crane our necks and can see, far down the line, the telltale horns of a goat.
Sebastian stares back at me and we both burst out laughing.
Our CoRaB finale party is being re-created right in front of our eyes. It’s another sign that the universe is giving us a second chance. And this time, I will not screw it up.
“Hey, so, did you make official plans with Heather?” I ask Sebastian casually while a contestant is setting up her papier-mâché Mount Signon backdrop. “When are you guys going out?”
“We haven’t set a date yet,” Sebastian replies.
“Well, you’d better get on that,” I say, as I take out a fresh scorecard. “Beautiful girls won’t wait around forever, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sebastian responds, as he clears his throat and squints up at the stage. “Oh my God.” He points at our contestant, who has just whipped out two enormous containers of baking soda and vinegar. “Do you think she’s about to make that mountain erupt?”
CHAPTER 17
SEBASTIAN
That. Fucking. Wedding. Dress.
Maybe it’s pathetic to blame a cosplay outfit for what happened the night of the finale party, but in my defense, I wasn’t thinking straight and hadn’t eaten much that day. More to the point, my heart was a battering ram, lurching frantically inside my chest as I surveyed the lounge for Nina, desperate to know if we’d come as corresponding scene partners. Desperate to know if our shared brain had worked its magic again.
When I saw a masked girl in a wig and a veil wearing Lucinda’s wedding gown, I felt dizzy with relief.
If I’d been paying closer attention, I would have noticed the lack of detail on the gown. Christ, the family crest wasn’t even the correct house colors, the blood splatter looked more like pink lemonade, and a biodegradable spork from the cafeteria was duct-taped to the outside of the dress, as a pathetic representation of Lucinda’s dagger. Which—I mean—it’s unforgivable. (Of me, obviously, for not noticing those details.)
Also unforgivable: trying to slot Nina into a role that wasn’t meant for her.
The CoRaB books and Westingland were clear on the issue. “When you kiss a friend, the friendship dies.”
Nina wasn’t any old friend. She was my best friend.
If I’m being completely honest . . . my first friend.
Back up. So. My family’s originally from Sherborne, in northwest Dorset. There’s an abbey in the middle of town, two castles—“New Castle” and “Old Castle,” the latter of which is in ruins, and was my favorite—a high street, pubs and shops. It’s also home to the boys’ school where John le Carré spent an infamously miserable couple of years, but my childhood memories were an idyllic blend of treehouses, netball, and secondhand bookshops.
When I was seven, halfway through the school year, we moved to Upstate New York. Elmira. My accent was one most of the kids hadn’t heard live-and-in-person before. That first day at recess, classmates circled me, calling out words and demanding I repeat them back (“Say this! Say that!”), and laughing at the result. After several days of this, the school librarian invited me to spend recess in the library whenever I wanted to, which turned out to be most days. I was a dreamy kid, lost in fantasy worlds, with little interest in team sports, though I loved running and hiking.
/> My parents were proud that we lived in the same town for a decade, taking me from seven to seventeen. They thought it gave me stability and security. What it really meant was spending grades two through twelve with the same group of people, ostracized as “that weird Brit.” By middle school, some of them felt bad about the way they’d teased me, and by high school, some of them tried to befriend me, but I preferred the company of stories, films, telly, and like-minded people I’d met online.
I taught myself how to cook. Turns out you can spend half of every Saturday at a farmers’ market, and the other half preparing a meal from scratch. No time to feel lonely if you’re always busy. My parents provided a meal budget and I repaid them with three-course dinners on the weekends. Starting at age four, Millie drew the week’s menu in crayons and served as the perilous water refiller.
I experienced all the “American school system milestones” of Senior Ditch Day, the SATs, prom (in a group of eight), and a slightly inebriated graduation. My yearbook was signed with bland aphorisms. One anonymous person wrote, “Sorry we gave you so much shit.” Realizing that the message could have come from literally anyone in my graduating class was a gut punch.
The August after high school ended, my parents moved back to England with Millie. I stayed in Upstate New York to attend Ithaca College for a degree in film/TV. A merit scholarship provided more than half my tuition and it seemed easier, somehow, to stay put. I may never have belonged in Elmira but that didn’t mean I belonged in England. Not anymore.
I knew how to survive, socially: head down, do the work, don’t smile too hard at anyone, don’t draw attention, don’t let anyone look too far down into the gaping maw of your personality. Don’t take up too much of anyone’s time or expect anything from anyone.
Form only the most superficial of friendships.
And then I met Nina.
* * *
The night of the CoRaB costume party, I never intended to blurt out what I blurted out. I’m not a writer; that was always Nina’s forté. I can appreciate good writing and I can tell when something works for me, and sometimes even why, but I can’t create like that.
When I saw her in the bloody wedding outfit, though, a speech formed in my head, so rapid-fire and vital it overrode my circuitry. I’m not saying it was award-worthy or anything, but it happened to be true, and when you’re twenty-two years old, and a self-conscious late bloomer, sometimes true is the most you can hope for.
Throat tight, I tugged on her hand and drew her through clusters of people to a quieter section of the lounge. Seeing what’d we built together—a community, a room full of friends—gave me strength.
What I thought: Hey. You look great.
What I wanted to say: I’ve never fit in anywhere, but I fit with you, and this proves it for the millionth time. The best part is I didn’t have to change who I was, I didn’t have to pretend to be anyone other than who I am. Except for one thing. I’ve hidden a part of myself, the part that’s crazy about you. I’m so crazy about you. That is . . . I think you already know I think the world of you but what I’m asking is . . .
What I actually said: “Do you want to spend the summer together?” Nina and I were already planning to stick around and get catering jobs after graduation, so I quickly clarified: “Like, really together. Together as a couple.”
As I said, it wasn’t award-worthy. Just pure and unfiltered.
“Yeah, okay,” Nina said, before shifting her opaque veil a little to the side, stretching upward, and kissing me. If I hadn’t been horrified/proud of myself for laying everything on the line, I might have noticed she didn’t smell quite like Nina. But all I could think was, I am kissing Nina. Nina is kissing me. This is actually happening. She’s kissing me and—
What I saw: Nina was also, somehow, at the entrance to the lounge, in the same Lucinda wedding dress, only a thousand times more accurate and detailed and thought out. A veil covered her face, too, but I’d know her anywhere.
So who the hell was I kissing?
I ripped my mouth away from the mystery kisser to gape at Nina. Was that a guy with her? Did she bring a date?
In that instant, everything became clear to me, in a way it never really had before.
She will never show up to a party with you.
“I’ll meet you there,” she’d said earlier in the day.
She will never be your girlfriend.
She will always be someone else’s girlfriend.
“Sebastian, are you okay?” The mystery kisser removed her veil. Heather. An attractive theater major who hung out with us in a group sometimes for Sunday-night CoRaB viewings. She’d gotten into the party because she’d provided a bugle horn. The idea was that someone posted at the door would blow on it and announce each guest as they arrived, but it was such an eardrum splitter and conversation destroyer that after the first four people, the instrument was abandoned in the corner.
In retrospect it would’ve been goddamn helpful!
“I didn’t think you remembered about me being a few credits short,” Heather marveled, eyes sparkling. “It’s so funny we’ll both be here this summer.”
“Yeah! Ha ha! Right!” My teeth hurt from smiling. They were tiny daggers trying to stab my own mouth.
“I like you, too, by the way. If it weren’t already obvious.”
“Cool, that’s—yeah, very cool.”
I wasn’t in the room anymore. I was up on the ceiling, looking down at myself in the bloody wedding suit, wondering how I’d gotten there. To anchor myself, I leaned down and gave her another kiss. Heather pulled me closer and deepened the kiss, and the feel of her body against mine was irresistible. She might not smell like Nina, but she smelled nice all the same, like a ripe summer peach. I was tired of being alone, of watching Nina date other people. It was my turn, dammit.
When you offer a dehydrated man a bottle of water, he doesn’t often check the label. It was exhilarating to be desired.
It didn’t matter that the guy I’d seen walk in with Nina had planted himself beside someone else shortly afterward, or that Nina disappeared for most of the night; my epiphany remained. What a relief I hadn’t made our friendship awkward! What had I been thinking? This way I got to keep Nina as a friend and date someone.
My nervous stomach settled, and I focused on the girl who was to become my first girlfriend.
“Have you been to Cornell Dairy Bar yet?” I asked Heather, already concocting a list of summer fun activities for us.
I couldn’t take them back, the things I’d said to her. There was no point in taking them back. Besides, I didn’t want to.
Wasn’t it time I stopped pining for someone who didn’t want me and gave it a shot with someone who, apparently, did?
Or who was happy to give it a try, at least, for the summer?
CHAPTER 18
NINA
On Saturday, I make a point to set my alarm so that I’m up before Sebastian. After three days in a row of him making me breakfast before work, the man deserves an omelet at least.
I work as quietly as I can in the kitchen, chopping up some green peppers, tomatoes, and onions. Sebastian definitely has some fancier ingredients available in his refrigerator (one looks like . . . a cactus?), but I decide to stick with simple and therefore (likely) edible rather than try to out-gourmet-chef him.
By the time the eggs are sizzling, he’s up. He walks over to me, groggily mussing up his hair. “What’s going on?” He’s so confused at the sight of his electric stovetop that he looks like a time traveler frantically wondering how the devil created fire without flames.
“You . . . made me breakfast?” he asks with such wonder in his voice that I have to laugh.
“You do it for me all the time!”
“I know, it’s just . . .” He stares at the omelet again. “I don’t think anyone’s ever made me breakfast before.”
“That can’t be true. I’m sure your mom’s made you breakfast.” I take a spatula and carefully flip over t
he omelet.
“I think she poured some milk into a cereal bowl for me once,” he says as he stares off into the distance. “Froot Loops, if I remember correctly. We had just moved to the States and were trying to assimilate the local cuisine.”
“Well, this isn’t much fancier,” I admit as I slide the omelet onto a plate. “But . . .”
He places a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, Nina. I love it.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet!”
He grabs a fork from his silverware drawer, quickly puts a bite into his mouth, and then closes his eyes in pleasure. “Thanks, Nina. I love it,” he says slower and more emphatically.
“Okay, okay,” I say, putting my hands up. “Don’t get all ac-tory on me.”
“Not acting,” he says as he takes a much larger forkful. “This is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in months.”
I frown. “And why would that be? Don’t the guys ever do anything for you?”
“Oh, of course they do.” He waves his hands dismissively. “I’m just the only one who really knows how to cook. You know that. And I like doing it,” he adds quickly.
“Sure, but it doesn’t mean someone can’t order a pizza once in a while. Or . . . make eggs.” I gesture to the counter, trying to indicate the whole ten minutes it took to do so.
“It’s no big deal. Anyway,” he says, changing the subject, “one guess as to what I woke up thinking about.”
“Caveman Tal winning the cosplay contest.”
He nods at me vigorously. “I mean, I know it’s been three days, but . . .”
“It’s all anyone’s been talking about on the socials, too,” I say. “But you know we had to give it to him. Anyone who brings in his own stone enclave . . .”
“. . . and does live cave painting . . .”
“. . . photorealistic live cave painting . . .” I amend.
“Deserves to win. I know,” Sebastian concludes.
My phone buzzes. My face falls as I read the message. “Oh noooooo.”
“What?” Sebastian says. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s from Celeste.” I show him the text message, her response to my text the night before, asking when would be a good time to pick up my furniture. You wanted them back? I’m so sorry. I thought you left them for the Salvation Army. They came to pick everything up yesterday.