“Girl after my own heart,” says Heather, flashing her a grin. “And you?”
She turns to Oliver, but he has angled himself toward the door and looks ready to bolt.
“Uh…” He looks away from Heather, his eyes skimming the theater kids before landing on me. I’m so used to seeing Oliver in his element this summer that it doesn’t occur to me until just now that he’s very much out of it. I don’t know if he’s really ever interacted with a ton of the theater kids outside of rehearsals. He tends to run with the tech and band crews.
So I snap my fingers at him. “Ice cream, Oliver,” I command. “You’re stuck here now.”
He tilts himself back toward us a few degrees, and I try to pretend I don’t notice the other rising seniors who have watched us duke it out for three years staring at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“Mint chip, if you have it?” he asks.
“Finally,” I say, throwing my hands up in the air. “Something we can agree on.”
This earns me a sliver of a smile from Oliver, enough of one that I know he’s going to stay. It softens some of the disappointment from earlier. In fact, I probably just imagined it in the first place.
Heather salutes us. “Coming right up.” Then she bops me on the nose. “Happy early birthday, punk.”
I smile at her, my heart rate finally at a normal-enough human rhythm again to appreciate how much work she must have put into this—getting Teddy to corral our friends, keeping this all a secret, exerting enough self-control over last weekend to save one of the confetti cannons for me.
“What about Teddy?” Chloe asks as Heather walks away.
“Oh, he’s got his own milkshake,” I explain. “Heather just dumps whatever ingredients we have the most of into a vanilla milkshake and swirls. We call it ‘The Teddy.’”
“Last time there were gummy worms,” Teddy says cheerfully.
Chloe, to her credit, doesn’t gag. Instead she glances over at the cluster of theater kids and asks, “Do they all go to Cornelia?”
I’m about to cut in and introduce Chloe, but Teddy raises his hand just slightly at his side to stop me. I look up at him and he tilts his head for me to let Chloe do it herself. I narrow my eyes at him teasingly, because it definitely seems like I have missed some kind of memo about the two of them in the last twenty-four hours, and I’m absolutely going to rib him for it when we’re alone.
Sure enough, I’ve got nothing to worry about. Chloe joins the group in the middle of someone’s rant about off-Broadway shows not releasing cast albums and after a few awkward beats, introduces herself just fine. Judging by our department’s mutual affection for newcomers and habit of showing off how much we know whenever we can, they’ll have her up to speed in no time.
“Wait, so … your aunt works here?”
Before I even turn to Oliver, I realize I’m about to get busted.
“Her aunt owns here,” says Teddy, one eye on us and the other carefully trained on the milkshake bar, watching the progress of the milkshakes.
Oliver’s eyes widen. “So when the Four Suns got fast-tracked…”
My first impulse is to lie, and I’m not even sure why. It’s just a gig, really. It’s not a big deal.
“I may have nudged the booker,” I admit.
“Millie, I…”
For the first time in recent memory, Oliver appears to be speechless. His mouth opens and then closes and then opens again, and in those brief seconds my stomach drops. He’s furious. And he’s probably right to be. He’s spent the last three years ragging on me for being a busybody, and what did I just do if not become the busiest body of them all?
“Thank you,” he says. “I … wow, Millie. Just—that was a really nice thing to do.”
I don’t even realize how much I care until the relief surges through me. “Yeah, well.” I clear my throat. “It was chill of you to send over Chloe’s audition, so.”
He smiles despite himself. “Look at us, looking after our clients. I guess we’re both good manager material after all.”
I smile back, nudging him with my elbow. “Georgie would be proud.”
“Speaking of—isn’t that the girl from the video?” says Oliver.
“Yup. That’s Chloe.”
“She really did a great job,” says Oliver. “I’d say you should watch your back, if you weren’t ditching Cornelia.”
I beam like a proud older sister, which there’s a 33-ish percent chance I very well may be. “If I’ve got a mini me starting at Cornelia, I’m pretty sure you’re the one who should be watching their back.”
“There’s no such thing as a mini Millie,” says Oliver, shaking his head. “You’re one of a kind.”
I brace myself for the snarky remark that’s supposed to follow, only it doesn’t. Oliver’s eyes are so sincere that for a second time tonight I’m worried I’m going to lose the silent game and look away first.
“That video we sent was literally the first take!” Teddy brags on Chloe’s behalf, sparing me the awkwardness.
“One take, huh?” I say out of the corner of my mouth. “Then what were you two up to the rest of the day?”
I’m expecting Teddy to flush at least a little bit, but it seems that Teddy is every bit as guileless about potential crushes as he is about all things in life. “Turns out she has a real knack for GeoTeens. And finding good bodega snacks.”
Heather comes back with ice cream then, in bright pink plastic cups with tops and glitter straws so we can hit the dance floor with them. Right on cue, the volume of the music kicks up, and the sound of Stevie Nicks’s “Edge of Seventeen” thrumming through the walls. I scan the room to find my dad, and he’s already looking over at me, anticipating it.
He jerks his head toward the dance floor. “Go get your groove on,” he says, doing an attempt at what may or may not be the robot. “We’ll catch up.”
I grab a few of our friends by the hands and holler at the rest of them to follow. I’m shameless and Teddy basically dances like a drunk noodle, so between the two of us everyone loosens up pretty fast. By the second chorus we’re all jumping up and down and using our milkshakes as fake microphones. The next song that comes on is Alessia Cara’s “Seventeen,” and by then I’m extremely onto Teddy, who must have curated this aggressively on-theme playlist. Sure enough, “Dancing Queen” comes on next, and we all collectively lose our marbles—there’s this moment when I’m breathless and sweating and jumping surrounded on all sides by my friends, and I’m both in it and on the outside of it at the same time. In the here and now of this happy little bubble, and somewhere just beyond it, trying to bottle it so I can make it last after it’s over. After summer ends and I leave them behind.
The song finishes, and we all stop jumping to catch our breath. “A little preview for when you knock Donna out of the park,” says one of my friends. She notices the frown starting to crease on Oliver’s face and quickly adds, “Not that, uh, we have the rights to Mamma Mia or anything.”
Oliver shrugs. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, since Millie isn’t—”