The Odds of Lightning

by Jocelyn Davies

“No,” Nathaniel said. Lu elbowed him.

  “We could have lied,” she said through her teeth.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you in. Due to the storm conditions, we’re restricting access to the main lobby for the safety of our guests. Please find somewhere else to . . . carouse.”

  “No, no, she’s a performer,” Will said. “She’s performing here tonight.” Cleo’s face grew red. She coughed.

  “We weren’t actually, like, hired to perform,” she said. “Technically. This is more of a guerilla theater experience.”

  “So how are we going to find Jasper?”

  “Please,” Cleo said to the doorman. “My Romeo is in there.”

  The doorman shook his head. “All the girls say that. What is it about a storm that makes people so dramatic? Listen, miss, it’s for the safety of the guests.”

  Cleo’s shoulders slumped. A single tear slid down her cheek.

  “But what if I never find him?”

  The doorman’s face softened just a little. “There, there. He’s out there, princess. You know what they say. You’ll meet him when you least expect it.”

  “I’ve just”—her lower lip trembled—“been searching all night.”

  While this was happening, Will turned oh-so-casually around. He looked at Lu. Lu looked at Nathaniel. Nathaniel looked at Tiny. Maybe they could use what was happening to her to their advantage. Tiny looked a little like a TV ghost, pale and see-through.

  He looked meaningfully at the front doors, then back to her. Tiny nodded.

  She took off through the revolving doors, spinning around and around.

  “What the?” The doorman jumped back.

  “It’s the wind!” Nathaniel shouted.

  “It’s a ghost!” Lu said, pointing.

  “It’s a security hazard, is what it is!” he shouted. A luggage cart from inside came rolling through the door, and the doorman took off after it. Nathaniel, Will, Lu, and Cleo hurried through the door when the doorman wasn’t looking. On the other side of the lobby, Tiny jumped out from behind a potted palm.

  “Boo!” she said.

  “Nice work,” said Will. “To you and Cleo.”

  “Why, thank you,” Cleo said, bowing deeply. “Do you even know how long it took me to learn how to cry on cue? I use it every chance I get. It comes in so handy.”

  Inside the lobby of the Plaza was as grand as the movies made it seem. The old-fashioned lamps and plush red fancy carpets felt cozy and warm in the middle of the wild storm. Huge green palm fronds cast tropical shadows across their faces.

  “That’s the Palm Court,” Lu said. “I recognize it from Eloise.”

  “I’m going to look for him,” Cleo said. “I’ll meet you guys back here.”

  Will heard thumping bass coming from the Palm Court. “Do you hear that?” A smile spread across his face. “Come on.”

  The enormous room was lined with arched windows, and above them was this cool geometric glass ceiling. True to its name, the Palm Court was studded with palm trees. Round dinner tables were set up across the room for guests, and on the dance floor in the middle of the tables, a group of younger kids were dancing to some hip-hop song from a couple of years ago. A spangly banner read HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN!

  “Uh, Will?” Lu said.

  “Yeah?” He looked down. A group of younger girls were standing in front of him, giggling.

  “Are you the guy who does Shakespeare on the street?” one of them asked. “I recognize you from Instagram.”

  “Me?” Will almost laughed at the thought. Then he remembered he now looked like Jasper. “Er. Yeah. I guess I am.”

  “Will you perform for us?” The girl batted her eyelashes.

  “Oh no, not tonight. I—”

  “Please! It’s my birthday!”

  “And a very happy birthday to you,” Will said, “but I don’t know any—”

  The girl crossed her arms over her chest. The girls behind her did the same. All of Will’s old girls-are-scary instincts kicked in. They were wearing a lot of makeup and short dresses. These were definitely the kind of girls who would maul you in your sleep.

  “Okay, okay,” said Will. “Shhh.” He cleared his throat.

  “You have to stand at the front of the room.”

  “Um—I—okay.” The girl was already pulling him to the front of the dance floor by the arm. Will stood there awkwardly and looked out at the crowd, which had fallen to a hush. “Okay.” He didn’t even know that Romeo and Juliet died at the end—how was he supposed to recite an entire monologue? “Uh, but soft, er, what light, um, is shining through that broken window . . . ?” The girls were looking at him dubiously. And then he caught sight of Lu watching him. There was a smile on her face. Not a teasing smile, but a real one. Suddenly the right words began to pop into his head, falling into place like dominoes. He got down on one knee. “It is my lady, O, it is my love! O, that she knew she were!”

  When he looked up, he met Lu’s eye. Her cheeks were red.

  “Ay, me,” Lu said, her breath catching in her throat. She coughed to try to cover it up.

  “She speaks! O, speak again, bright angel.”

  “’Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” Lu whispered. Her eyes flickered in the strobe light still flashing on the dance floor. Will put his hand on his heart.

  They recited the rest of the balcony scene, right there as if they were the only two people in the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel. The room was silent. The world had fallen away around them, and it was just him and Lu. Staring at each other.

  The girls burst into applause. “Oh my god,” the birthday girl gushed, clutching her chest. “Did you guys feel that? Look—I have goose bumps.” She held out her arm. “You must have practiced that, like, a hundred times for it to be so good.”

  “Yeah,” Will said, still looking at Lu. “We’ve had some practice.”

  The hip-hop music came blasting back on.

  “Ladieeeees, and gentlemen, let’s get Romeo and Juliet and their friends up here on the dance flooooor!”

  “Oh no, thanks,” Will said. He and Lu, Tiny and Nathaniel began to back out of the room. But the birthday girl and her friends were already grabbing their arms and pulling them back. The music pumped through the speakers.

  “Dance! Dance! Dance!” the girls chanted. Will and Lu looked at each other. Will took a step toward her.

  “Guys!” They turned around. Cleo stood in the doorway, waving and shaking her head. “He’s not here!”

  “Gotta go!” Will shouted, smiling and waving. “Thanks for letting us perform. Good night!” He bolted for the door, Lu, Nathaniel, and Tiny behind him.

  “I don’t see him,” Cleo said sadly when they reached her.

  “We’ll find him,” said Tiny. “Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t think this was the right party after all.”

  “Then we’ll go to the museum,” said Will, with a glance in Lu’s direction.

  He was determined now to reunite them.

  He owed her that.

  “We won’t give up.”

  He shot a side-glance at Lu. She was watching him thoughtfully.

  Nathaniel

  Outside, the wind was howling. Just blowing everywhere. It was blowing the flaps of the great awning this way and that. It was blowing the horses and carriages lined up alongside the park, making the horses whinny and jump. It almost blew over Lu, who lost her balance in her platform booties, but Nathaniel used his newfound strength to stop her from falling into the street.

  They all piled back into the aging Jeep Wagoneer. Cleo was behind the wheel, Tiny next to her this time. Will and Lu shared the backseat, Nathaniel sandwiched between them. They kept looking at each other over his head. He was not pleased.

  “I’m so curious,” he said to Cleo, to distract himself. “How do you get this car to run on vegetable oil? It’s a great alternative fuel source.”

  “Well,” Cleo said, turning the key in the ignition. The engine roared,
then sputtered, then squeaked out. She tried again, but it didn’t even squeak this time. Just wheezed. “That may be true, but it’s not the most reliable.”

  “Well, what do we do now?” Lu crossed her arms.

  “I have an idea,” Nathaniel said. (Thanks, superbrain.) “They were lining up the horse-drawn carriages on the side of the building, probably to keep them safe or to lead them back home for the night. We can take one! We’re not that far from the museum; the carriage could get us there pretty fast.”

  “Nathaniel,” Tiny said. “Do you know how to drive a horse-drawn carriage?”

  “No,” he answered. “But how hard could it be?” He could use his intuitive new brain to figure it out. Secretly, though, Nathaniel was worried. So far tonight, he’d been all show—pushing people out of the way of cars and stopping falling trees. But he hadn’t done anything to fix their problems. He didn’t even know where to begin. He was still relying on his brother for the things that mattered.

  They approached the line of carriages on the other side of the street, and stopped in front of the first one. The horse was one of those massive Clydesdales, with a glistening chestnut coat and white legs that flared out in furry bell-bottoms. A plaque on the side of the carriage said, WILD BLUE YONDER.

  “I bet that’s her name,” Nathaniel said, reaching out to pet the horse’s soft white muzzle. The horse bucked and kicked her hooves up. She flicked her thick white tail and stomped her hind legs. Nathaniel suspected that animals were particularly susceptible to electric currents. The horse had probably felt a shock when he’d touched her.

  “Whoa,” Nathaniel said, knowing, somehow, not to make eye contact. He held out his hand for her to smell and then stroked her muzzle gently. “Good girl. You’re okay. We’re your friends. We just want to take you for a quick ride. Is that okay?”

  The horse looked skeptical. Nathaniel could tell; horses were very intelligent.

  They climbed aboard.

  “Come on, Wild Blue Yonder!” Nathaniel said, somehow knowing exactly how to gently guide the horse across Fifty-Ninth Street to the West Side.

  They trotted along briskly. Nathaniel, as he’d predicted, was easily able to figure out how to steer the horse, who soon seemed to grow a liking to him. Nathaniel even thought he could see her smiling.

  “You guys,” he called back. “I think she likes me!”

  “Cool!” Lu called from the carriage, where she, Will, Tiny, and Cleo were snuggled under a furry throw blanket. “The previous passengers left champagne back here!” Nathaniel couldn’t turn around, but he could hear the sound of popping and fizzing behind him. He couldn’t ask for a sip; he was the designated horse driver, after all.

  Still, he wished he could have one.

  Nathaniel always felt a little left out of things, a little bit on the outside. At first, after that summer had ended and high school had begun, he was always turning down plans to hang out with Will or Lu or Tiny so that he could stay in and study. And eventually he wasn’t turning anything down, because the invitations stopped. He always had to remind himself why he was working so hard.

  It wasn’t easy. There were moments when he lost his conviction and wondered if he should give the whole thing up. His parents would understand. They knew they couldn’t expect to have two geniuses in the family. His bubbe would understand. She always said Nathaniel needed to have more fun.

  The one person who wouldn’t, who couldn’t understand, was Nathaniel. He felt responsible. He’d kind of started the whole thing. He owed it to everyone to finish it. He owed it to Tobias most of all.

  Tonight he was finally proving to himself and to everyone else that he could be just as good as his big brother. Even—he dared to hope—better.

  Still, was it so bad that he was jealous of everyone drinking champagne in the backseat? Maybe he didn’t want to be super, really. Maybe he just wanted to be himself—whoever that was.

  The dark shadow of the park flew by on their right side, the glittering hotels along Central Park South on their left. The stalwart horse pushed bravely against the wind. At Columbus Circle, she veered right, and the carriage sped right up Central Park West. They passed the Dakota, the famous building where John Lennon was shot. They passed the place where Drunk Santa fell out of his sleigh in the original Miracle on 34th Street. Driving up this part of the Upper West Side reminded Nathaniel of the old Woody Allen and Nora Ephron movies his parents used to make him watch with them on weekend nights when everyone else was out having fun. People in those movies were always falling in and out of love and having miscommunications, and New York was like its own character too.

  Finally Nathaniel came to a stop in front of the American Museum of Natural History. Banners advertising an exhibit on biodiversity flapped violently in the wind (which was funny, because the banners had butterflies and birds all over them, and it looked like the wings themselves were flapping). On the front steps, the huge bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt riding a horse stared bravely into the park, as if he was about to ride off into the apocalypse.

  Nathaniel wasn’t sure what to do with Wild Blue Yonder, so he locked the brakes on the carriage wheels and gave her a carrot he found under the front seat. “Be good, girl,” he said, petting her nose. She nipped him playfully.

  See? He could be social when he wanted. The horse liked him.

  They all ran two at a time up the massive majestic front steps of the museum. Someone had tied white and silver balloons to the handle of the front doors, and they were bopping around in the wind.

  “Weather balloons,” Nathaniel said knowingly.

  “Actually,” said Tiny, “I bet the balloons are for the wedding.”

  A security guard just inside the door stepped outside and stared them down. “We’re here for the Swanson wedding,” Will said, jumping in before Nathaniel could stop him from lying. But Nathaniel was impressed. Will looked and sounded like the epitome of cool. “We were inside earlier; we just stepped out for some air.” The guard looked down at his clipboard.

  “Name?”

  “Cleo Wasserman,” Juliet stepped in. “I was hired to perform some classic works of the Bard for the Swansons in honor of their special day.” The guard leafed through the pages on the clipboard. He eyed Lu’s Shakespeare T-shirt and black skinny jeans. “And them? There’s a dress code.”

  “Hello,” Lu said. “It’s storming out here. Can you just let us—”

  “They’re my stage crew,” Cleo said quickly. “My acting partner is already inside.” She smiled coyly. “He’s the Romeo to my Juliet.”

  “Go on,” the guard said, smiling.

  Nathaniel smiled back. Maybe the facts didn’t matter so much. Maybe he was too focused on the answers, and not enough on the questions. They were awake in the city in the middle of the night, and they were alive. And though they hadn’t made it to their real destination yet, the journey itself was proving almost worth it.

  For the first time in a long time, he was out in the world, and he was living.

  3:00 A.M.

  (5 HOURS LEFT)

  CREATURES OF THE DEEP

  Lu

  In the main lobby, a gigantic skeleton of a barosaurus stared down at them. A raptor skeleton tagged along at his side. They looked like pals. It made Lu feel kind of nostalgic for the way things used to be, with Tiny.

  Music wafted through the hall from somewhere else in the museum.

  And there, standing under the majestic creature from the late Jurassic period, was Jasper.

  The real Jasper.

  “Bae!” Cleo cried, leaping across the great hall like she might take off and fly. Lu watched her fling her arms around Jasper and open-mouth kiss him in front of one of the most majestic creatures to ever roam the earth, like it was no big deal.

  “That takes balls,” Will said appreciatively.

  The couple turned around. “Thank you for helping me find my other half!” Cleo smiled at them. “Thank you, especially, Will.”

&n
bsp; Will blushed. “I’m just glad you two found each other.”

  Jasper stared at him. Will stared back. It was like looking into a mirror. “Uh. Cool hair, man,” Jasper said.

  “Thanks,” said Will. “But I’m thinking of changing it back.”

  “Good luck tonight!” Cleo said, taking Jasper’s hand. “I really owe you guys. And I hope you find a way to fix whatever is going on with you.” She smiled. “But if you ask me, I think you’re pretty cool as you are.”

  “Thanks,” Lu said, and, weirdly, meant it.

  “And if you decide to apply to Tisch, I’ll show you around!” She and Jasper waved, and ran off through the great hall.

  “Want to hear a cool dinosaur fact?” Nathaniel said. He was staring up at the giant skeleton. “Did you know the brontosaurus is no longer considered a legitimate scientific classification? What scientists have always classified as brontosaurus is actually the apatosaurus.”

  The four of them looked at him.

  “What?” he said. “I think it’s cool.”

  “That’s a barosaurus,” Tiny said.

  “I know.” He blushed. “It just made me think of that.”

  Lu studied Tiny. Did she look a little less transparent than she had before she threw her poems to the wind? She even looked less ghostly than she had back at the Plaza. Maybe Tiny was right—maybe she could stop disappearing just by being herself.

  Lu tried to piece together what that meant, but it was three a.m. and she was tired. She yawned. She had been awake for a lot of hours. They all had.

  “You want to know what else is cool?” Nathaniel continued. “The first dinosaur I ever learned about was the megalosaurus. But I used to think it was called a megasaurus.”

  “Maybe you should be a paleontologist instead of a geophysicist,” Tiny said. Their voices got fainter as they moved on to another dinosaur.

  The sounds of high heels clicking on the shiny floor echoed from somewhere far off. “Hey.” Lu tugged on Will’s arm. “Come on.”

  “What? Luella, are you trying to sneak off with me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Now let’s go before I change my mind. Or Nathaniel makes us go to school.” She made a face.