“Oh, dear god,” says Oliver, stopping short.
He looks between me and David, and only then do we realize we’re wearing identical NYU sweaters. David just wrapped up his first year at Tisch, and last week met up with Steph so they could give me an actual tour of my future school, and not the brochure-friendly, parent-pleasing one Heather and my dad and I got the day I auditioned.
Well, as much of a tour as Steph was able to give without saying “I’m so excited for you” about a thousand times. I guess that was more than merited, seeing as she helped me pick my audition songs and tirelessly coached me during the break she got before the pilot of her new show, Like Mother, got picked up. Between her singing help and Farrah’s intense dance help the first half of senior year, I was thoroughly prepared for anything college auditions could throw at me.
“Nice,” says David, reaching his hand up to me for a high five.
I oblige, and Oliver pulls a face.
“Okay. New rules,” he says, pointing a finger at his older brother. “No matching outfits with my girlfriend.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” says David, puffing out his NYU-clad chest.
“I’m your manager; I’m fully the boss of you,” Oliver reminds him.
David opens his mouth to protest, but before he can I pull Oliver in, kissing him hello. That tense part of him loosens the way it only ever does when he’s with me. I feel the slow smile blooming on his face through the kiss, fully there by the time we pull apart.
“What held you up?” I ask.
“Georgie let me sit in on a phone call where she was negotiating a client salary. It was nuts,” he says, his eyes shining like he’s still caught up in the rush. He also hands me what appears to be a Ziploc with several tea bags in it. “We also met up with Gloria. She said to give this to you.”
“Uck.”
As much as I profoundly, deeply, and infinitely respect Gloria Dearheart—landing a spot in her workshop and getting to work with her over the past year has done more to prepare me for the industry than all sixteen years before it combined—she insists in her ability to mix her own “mojo” teas to drink on performance days. Unfortunately most of them are about as intolerable as the already infamously bad Throat Coat tea singers swear by, but at least hers gets the job done.
He takes my hand and squeezes it. “The coffee will still be there the other three hundred sixty-four days of the year.”
“I suppose.” I glance behind him. “Where are—”
“Georgie and Steph are on the way, they just had to pick up the flowers for Beth first.”
A sentence that would have made no sense being put into the universe a year ago but is par for the course now. Another weird consequence of my Millie Mia is that Steph, Georgie, and Farrah are all loyal members of Broadway Bugs and now that the four of them are all reunited from their college days have started a book club with Heather on the side. From what I can tell, though, it’s mostly an opportunity for them to drink rosé and relentlessly tease my dad whenever we host them at our place. I have yet to see one book.
“We were going to leave earlier, but Steph thoroughly distracted us all with Goth Millie’s newest upload,” says Oliver, pulling out his phone.
I preen ever so slightly. I took Oliver’s advice last summer, and once I had time freed up from the internship started using my past Millie personas for actual good. We launched a TikTok account and right now I’m rotating between 1950s Housewife Millie (her hits include a cheerful rendition of “Totally Fucked” from Spring Awakening), Jock Millie (who recently dribbled a basketball while performing “Memory” from Cats), and Goth Millie, who sings Broadway’s most iconically peppy songs in monotone.
We’ve had a few of them go semi-viral, and one that landed on the main feed for a full day. Enough that the account now has around thirty thousand followers and is pretty well-known among the theater set. It helped that we had a bit of a hook to get them invested—the name on the account is listed as Little Jo.
“Oooh, was it the one where she sings ‘Tomorrow’ from Annie?” says Farrah, peering over Oliver’s shoulder.
Chloe perks up from her own phone screen, where the little dot that is my dad and Beth is getting closer and closer to the park. “I watched that one like ten times after school.”
“It was more like twenty. I’m gonna have that song stuck in my head until the end of time,” says Teddy, which may very well be the case, since he’s the one who’s been editing the videos before they go live. “Also, Georgie and Steph better step on it. Coop’s getting close.”
Right on cue, Georgie and Steph spill out of a taxi, roses in hand.
“We’re not too late, right?” says Steph, still managing to outpace Georgie even though she’s in a pair of three-inch heels in the late-spring chill.
“Just in time,” says Farrah, taking the flowers from her so she can add the musical notes on sticks she ordered online.
“Look at you in your little NYU sweater,” says Steph, pinching my cheek.
“Hands off the merchandise; opening night of Mamma Mia is tomorrow,” Georgie reminds her. She leans in and gives me a quick tight hug. “I brought the camera.”
“Ooh, the fancy self-tape camera?”
“The very one,” she says, pulling it out of her purse. “I figure if we’re going to embarrass Coop with the video on his wedding day, it’d better be in HD.”
I beam, knowing full well that the aforementioned fancy camera Georgie has on hand for clients doing remote auditions will also be capturing my run as Donna and Chloe’s stage debut as Sophie tomorrow in our months-delayed production of Mamma Mia. Mrs. Cooke ended up taking maternity leave in October, making the usual fall musical a spring one. Chloe and I have basically spent the entirety of second semester in ABBA land.
“I see them!” Chloe pipes up.
Hunter straightens up his bongo. “Ready, team?”
David runs a hand through his hair. “As we’ll ever be.”
Elliot jumps up and down, his version of “yes.”
Over on the sidewalk I can see them making their way over—Beth laughing about something, her hair and fluttery skirt blowing in the wind, and my dad staring at her with that same quiet affection he must have had for her for years. He’s so enamored with her that despite being the one who’s proposing, he fully forgets to look up over at us until he’s practically at the arch, which is why his shock is every bit as apparent as Beth’s.
The thing is, my dad agreed to a treasure hunt proposal that ended with me and Chloe giving him the ring to give to Beth. He was not so much counting on this veritable parade of humans, or the Four Suns breaking into a heartfelt rendition of—be still, early 2000s Cooper’s dweeby LiveJournaling heart—Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing.”
In our defense, they both have theater kids for daughters. He should have seen this coming.
The Four Suns start the opening chords to the song, and Chloe grins at me, pulling the ring out of her back pocket. Beth and my dad both look around in various degrees of pleased and alarmed, until Beth’s eyes snap on to the ring box and her hands clap over her mouth. Chloe half skips to my dad to hand it to him. My dad looks over her head at me, his eyes wide.