“Like it? I love it. It’s a very struck-by-lightning motif you’ve got going.”
Perhaps he wants to say more, but we all turn our attention to the characters gathering in the parking lot. Gerry and I help Davey into Guinevere, which makes him clank like cans behind a wedding car. (Guinevere had been one of my art disappointments until now.) Gerry applies makeup to Davey’s face while I adjust the suspenders holding Guinevere in place. For good sport, I let Gerry attack my face as well. The powder smell makes me gag, the additional eyeliner tickles my lids, but I like the way she clips my hair in the exact same way she has clipped Davey’s. Twinsies.
We’re not known characters, but we’re characters all the same.
Audi Thomas arrives on the scene. He’s dressed as a mash-up of Han Solo and Chewie. Our formal meeting goes something like this:
“You’re Billie.”
“You’re Audi Thomas?”
Fake scowl. “You burned down a church.”
“You should burn down that outfit.”
“Says the girl dressed like David.”
Gerry butts in. “I kissed her.”
“You kiss everyone.”
Audi Thomas and Gerry share a peck.
Audi Thomas offers to marry me. I ask for a rain check. Everyone laughs. We all go inside. Understated conclusion of the year: I am not in Otters Holt anymore.
We stroll into a coffee shop whose patrons are part Marvel Universe, part J. J. Abrams, part anime with a sprinkle of Disney. Even in costumes, some very elaborate, Thomas recognizes everyone. There are a few “normal” prep students in chinos and dress shirts. He knows them too. The barista is Johnny. Johnny lifts a large mug in the air and yells, “Americano, David? Thomas?”
Davey asks what I want. No clue. We don’t have coffee shops in Otters Holt, so I suggest that he rich-pick me something. He claims he’s not rich. I claim he has purchased enough five-dollar drinks that Johnny the Barista knows his order by heart. And then to make a point, I tap a large, square, expensive-looking ring on his finger. I win.
Davey lifts two digits in the air, and Johnny gives him a thumbs-up. Davey knows how to coffee shop, and I attempt to adopt his comfort. After twenty straight minutes of playing the meeting game, I ask, “How come you don’t know everyone?”
He sips his Americano, hiding behind the mug. “Thom’s branched out since I moved.”
We—Thomas, Gerry, Davey, and I—have been a comfortable, revolving foursome. I’m not saying we would dog pile now, but I think we might dog pile before the night is over. Here, Davey’s a watercolor with smeared edges and paint running down the page. Loose. At home, he’s a pencil drawing. I like this Davey better.
“What’s with all the formality?” I ask, after Thomas calls him David for the third time tonight.
“Davey’s a Vilmer family thing,” he explains.
Thomas kicks his head back, grins wickedly, eyes gleaming with something more than laughter. “His old man wouldn’t let us call him Davey.”
“Not in a million years,” Davey agrees.
The two of them sound drunk on caffeine. I can’t blame them. The Americano spiked my pulse too. That doesn’t stop them from wanting round two. Thomas and Davey steal away to the coffee bar for Johnny’s miracle brew, which leaves me with Gerry, who is readjusting the hoop in her nose. She’s older than I am. Maybe nineteen or twenty. From all her stories, she is a vagabond wrapped in a mystery inside a costume. There are unasked questions hanging off her lips.
I beat her to the punch. “Do you really kiss everyone you meet?”
“Will you sell me those boots?” she asks in return.
I’m on one barstool. My boots are propped high on another. I swivel and place one foot on each of her thighs so she can see what she’s missing in the boot department. “I would sell you my beating heart before I’d sell these boots. Now, the kissing. Explain.”
Gerry chews the nail of her pinkie—eats some of the scant black polish. “I don’t kiss everyone. I kiss the people who have the little pieces of my soul I’ve been looking for.”
Gerry’s explanation makes a degree of sense. My soul has always felt like a big game of Where’s Waldo? Most days I go about life and see no signs of a red-and-white cap. But sometimes, there among the ordinary, I discover misplaced pieces of self. She’s saying she’s one of them. Honestly, it’s a relief to know that pieces exist beyond the Hexagon. Without safe people, I would climb a tree and never come down.
I’d tell Gerry that she’s my people, but if I had to say it aloud, she wouldn’t be.
“Please say you’re coming back for LaserCon?”
“Should I?” I ask, without having a clue what LaserCon is.
“In my opinion, everyone should. But I’m guessing David could use your company. His granddad’s death hit him pretty hard.”
It’s difficult to hear about Davey’s emotional health from someone who exists outside of Otters Holt. All those outgoing text messages. This means Davey is hiding in old sanctuaries rather than leaning into the Hexagon. I glance over my shoulder at him. He’s demonstrating a leprechaun-looking toe-tap for Johnny and Audi Thomas. All of the recent tension in his shoulders has relaxed, and he’s clanking like a proper aluminum Guinevere should. He’s electric.
Then it hits me: Davey Winters is in love.
He’s got Audi Thomas graffitied all over his face. Thom may very well be with Gerry, but long before there was Gerry, there was something with Davey.
No wonder he’s been so tentative with the Hexagon. His mom didn’t move him from Nashville to Otters Holt; she moved him from love to absence.
The timing of this realization coincides with the band taking the stage. Everywhere in Nashville is a live music venue. The Ryman plus the Grand Ole Opry plus a rinky-dink coffee shop filled with rich high school kids. The drummer pounds her sticks—“One, two, three”—and the leader, a punk girl Davey says goes to their sister school, puts a lung into the mic.
We are invited to set down our coffees and power up our feet.
As soon as Davey shucks Guinevere, he tugs me by the index finger to the middle of the dance floor, Gerry and Audi Thomas on our heels. Those two lean and lean and lean until their foreheads touch. Gerry collects another piece of her soul from Audi Thomas’s mouth. We watch them for a moment, waiting for a dance style to emerge. Just after the stillness, they jump.
We all jump.
Just like that, my heartbeat is a kick drum. My hands punch the air. Davey and I leap like we’re on a trampoline. Spring. Sproing. Spring. With total abandon. From our neck movements to our toes striking the polished concrete, we’re timed perfectly. My god, his eyelashes are long. We land on each other’s feet. We hurl ourselves toward the ceiling.
Around us, everyone I’ve met, from Captain America to Princess Jasmine, lets go of something they’ve been holding on to.