I don’t have a retort to that, but for some reason I stop walking. For some reason those words hold me there like a stun gun, and I can’t wake up my muscles fast enough to wriggle out of them.
He lets out a breath, and weirdly, there isn’t any meanness to what he says next. He just says it like it’s a fact that he’s come to terms with. “You’re just—you just need people to like you. Like, all the time.” Before it can fully land, he adds, “And you’re good at it. You’re good at making people like you.”
Usually being annoyed with Oliver is more recreational than not. But this just pushed it somewhere ugly.
“Obviously not,” I mutter.
“And that’s fine, for what you do. For what you want to do. But I want to do this,” he says, evidently not even realizing how hard his words hit. “And now you’re using your Millie witchcraft to butt in on it. Is there really no other place for you to intern this summer?”
I dig the heels of my boots into the steaming-hot sidewalk. “Did you ever consider the world doesn’t revolve around you, Oliver?”
He actually laughs out loud at this. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “It’s just—hearing that—from you—”
“Laugh all you want.” I’m back now, and in full motion, all of me swinging—my hair, the bag, the sleeves of my dress, the too-long laces of these boots. This outfit may not fit into any of my Millie phases, but it feels like there’s an extra oomph to me, like I get to blow past him twice. “We’ll see who’s laughing two weeks from now.”
Oliver catches up to me in an instant, likely because people on the sidewalk are giving us a wide berth. “So you’re really doing this.”
My nostrils flare. “I’m really doing it.”
“Fine,” he says. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not going to last a week.”
I turn to him, and I can tell from the way his eyes widen that he wasn’t expecting me to look as steely-faced as I am. “Wanna bet on it?”
“Betting implies that I care, and I don’t.”
“Good. That makes two of us.”
He stops again, and then so do I.
“Aw, loosen up, would you?” I say. “Maybe this could be fun.”
I reach up and mess up his hair, unleashing it from its swoop. I meant for it to be annoying, but there’s this moment where my hand’s on his head and his eyes are on my eyes and we both go so still that other people have to weave past us like we’re a mismatched two-person island.
Then he reaches up and takes my wrist, pulling my hand down with this measured kind of gentleness, like he knows exactly how his hand will fit there and exactly how little pressure he needs to move me.
“Good luck, Millie.” His eyes are gleaming. He knows you’re not supposed to say “good luck” in the theater world. It’s a jinx. “You’re gonna need it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“So here’s the plan,” I say, laying upside down on the ratty old armchair that, legend has it, has been in my family since my great-grandparents bought the place. It certainly smells like it, at least.
Teddy throws a Twizzler at me from the couch, where he is currently splayed like an oversize, sweats-clad starfish. Heather has already headed down to the Milkshake Club to work out scheduling with Carly, the booker for the venue, so we’ve got the place to ourselves.
“What plan?” says Teddy, his words gummy from chewing. “You walked in there to meet a potential mom and walked out with an internship. That feels like the opposite of a plan.”
I take the Twizzler, which landed conveniently in the crook of my elbow, and yank off a bite with my back teeth. “The plan is to get to know her while I’m at the internship.”
“So you think she’s the one?”
I stop chewing for a moment so I can chew on that instead. I don’t want to think about it too hard, because it gets close to thinking a thought I’ve been trying to avoid. I should probably just know, right? Like, my eyes should clap on my mom’s and hers on mine and there should be some weird biological key that fits into a lock.
That didn’t happen with Steph. But it didn’t not happen, either. Which means I’m probably going to need to restrategize.
“Inconclusive,” I say, before the Twizzler turns into drool in my mouth. “I think I’ve got to figure out a way to spend actual time with each of these random ladies.”
“Well, I’ve been hard at work with my human geocaching, and apparently Beth lives like three blocks from here.”
I un-pretzel myself from the chair, sitting upright. “Wait, legitimately?”
“Yup,” says Teddy, scrolling down on his phone. “Down by the tea place you kept dragging us to when you went through your British phase.”
“Their scones were amazing. Also, shit.”
“Yeah. Your mom could have been, like. Living a rock’s throw away the whole time.”
I try to wrap my head around that. At first it won’t compute, and then it computes a little too well: the idea that I might have been in the same aisle of Trader Joe’s, or listening to the same musician in Washington Square Park, or simply walking past my actual mom any day of the week without even realizing it.
“So … stakeout?” I ask.
“Or we could go the significantly less creepy route of going to the musical theater enthusiast meetup she hosts at her apartment building’s rec room every two weeks.”
Now Teddy has my attention. I yank Heather’s laptop from his lap, and sure enough, there’s a public event for the “Broadway Bugs,” which happens to be tonight. I skim the text, catching on the most recent update, which Beth posted an hour ago: A reminder that today’s meetup is Newsies-themed! Light bites and nonstop streaming of baby Christian Bale provided, costumes encouraged. Can’t wait to Seize the Day with y’all!
“Oh my god.”
“I already RSVP’d for us.”
“Us?”
“It’s weird,” says Teddy. “Her Facebook is like, locked down like nobody’s business, but she’s inviting a ton of nerdy strangers to her building.”
“Musical theater isn’t nerdy.”
“Oh, it is. I’m allowed to say that because I self-identify as a nerd. You guys are nerdier than actual nerds, you just fly under the radar because you’re all hot.”
I flip my hair back. “Shucks.”
Teddy rolls his eyes. “Anyway, yes, us. I’m coming with you.”
I know his interest in musical theater is zero percent, if not in the negative percent, so he’s only doing it because he thinks I need moral support. And he’s not wrong. I might be more extroverted than the sun, but after this morning, I know better than to walk into another Potential Mom situation on my own.
“You might have to put on actual pants,” I warn him.
“I will. But only because I love you. And also because there’s free food.”
Which is how we find ourselves, approximately three hours later, standing outside Beth’s building, with me in a newsboy cap I stole from Teddy’s dad and Teddy clad in a pair of suspenders that I accidentally-on-purpose stole from the school after playing the role of “Male Stripper” in Cabaret. (Yet another casting decision I blame on Oliver, and in my defense, I more than earned them.)