“For the love of god, Zelda . . .” Will shook his head but the corner of his mouth curved into a small smile. “You’re really lucky I kind of like you and stuff.”
“I know,” I said, bumping his shoulder with mine.
My phone buzzed, and I flipped it over.
AR: Hey. Question for you.
My heart beat a little faster. Alex was the latest improv guy I had a minor crush on who I was pretty sure did not think of me in that way. Like, as a girl-person he could have feelings for.
ZBC: Fire away.
The ellipses danced on my screen as his typed his response. I waited. A question for me. It was probably just about the rehearsal schedule . . . But it could be something else.
AR: Jenn’s starting rehearsal again on the 25th?
I grimaced. Or not. But then again, maybe absence would make the heart grow fonder . . .
ZBC: Yup . . . I’m with Jonas and Will on our way to improv camp in CO! Back in 2 weeks!
The ellipses again. Responding right away to my text . . . good sign . . .
AR: Oh, that’s right! Have fun, dude!
Dude.
What is that saying? Always a bridesmaid, never a bride? For me it was more like always a friend, never a girlfriend. And at least up until now, Will had been in a similar boat. But suddenly I was the only one in the family who wasn’t in a boat built for two.
Mom always says you can let yourself drown in self-pity, or you can choose to swim away.
So fine.
I flipped my phone over, closed my eyes to regroup, and front-crawled toward the shore: Boyfriend-schmoyfriend, Zelda. You’re going places: Jane Lloyd’s improv camp. Second City. Then Saturday Night Live.
CHAPTER TWO
The car had barely come to a stop in the parking area when I threw open the door and jumped out, skidding a little on the gravel because I was too busy looking up at the breathtaking mountains. “Breathtaking” is a doubly accurate description, actually. Breathtaking, because up close, the Rocky Mountains are aggressively beautiful—rocks and trees jut into the sky at impossible angles. But breathtaking as well because it’s really hard to breathe.
Seriously.
“We’re at 9,200 feet above sea level,” Dad told us, pointing at small print on the Rocky Mountain Theatre Arts Summer Camp sign in front of the Main Lodge. “That’s nearly two miles!”
“No wonder it feels like there’s a vise on my lungs,” Will complained, pulling his backpack out of the car.
“You’ll feel a lot more acclimated in a few days,” a deep voice called out.
I loaded up a joke about needing to be carried around until then, but when I turned to fire it off at the owner of the deep voice, I choked.
It was Thor.
Thor minus the hammer, plus flip-flops.
A six-foot-tall, tanned, blond Scandinavian god stood before us clad in dark jeans and a baby blue long-sleeve T-shirt pushed up at his elbows.
“Ben,” he said, shook hands with my parents, then Will, then Jonas, then me. At least he probably shook hands with me. I was a little busy trying to remember how talking worked. Mouth open? Then words?
“Welcome to RMTA,” he said. “I’m one of the coaches.”
Coaches? He didn’t look that much older than Will and Jonas and me.
“You look so young!” Dad exclaimed, adjusting his baseball cap back on his head to get a closer look.
Even though I had just been thinking the same thing, I stared hard at Dad until he met my eyes. Seeing my reprimand, he shrugged. “What? He does. How old are you?”
Thor/Ben smiled. “I’m twenty.”
“Are the other coaches this young?” he pressed.
“We’re all in our early to midtwenties,” he said, folding his arms.
“But you’re the earliest of early twenties,” Dad countered. “They put you in charge of people only a couple years younger than you?”
I tugged on Dad’s elbow to get him to lay off, but Ben took it in stride.
“It’s experience in the professional world they look for,” he said smoothly. “I’m an actor in LA. I’ve done some film and TV and have been teaching and performing at UCB for two years.”
“Upright Citizens Brigade,” I translated for my father, “It’s an improv theatre.”
“I know what UCB is,” Dad said, swatting my hand away. “I listen to you when you talk.”
Ben raised his eyebrows at me. “You know your stuff.”
Unable to respond with human verbal language, I smirked and shrugged at Ben and tried to catch Will’s eye to exchange the Uh-Are-You-Seeing-How-Cute-This-Cute-Guy-Is? look. But Will was pulling his suitcase out of the trunk. I took out my phone to text him, because seriously, but Ben interrupted me, lifting my phone between two fingers.
“No cell service up here.” I melted a little as he slid my phone into a pocket of my backpack. Then I glanced at Will again. Was he seeing this?
But now Will was hauling Jonas’s suitcase out of the trunk. Jonas protested and tried to take it from him, but Will insisted. There was a lot of smiling. And hand touching. And gagging.
Wait—that last part was just me.
Mom must have noticed their “fight,” too. “Uh, Ben, just one little development since these guys applied . . .”
“Sure,” he said easily, unfolding a packet of papers he retrieved from his back jeans pocket. “Who is this concerning?”
“William Bailey-Cho,” she began.
“Mom!” Will abandoned the suitcases and sprinted toward her.
“And Jonas Eikenberry,” she said, ignoring him.
“Yes?” Ben asked, ticking off their names.
“They’re—”
“Mom,” Will pleaded, nearly bowling her over. “Please.”
“We’re together.” There was Jonas, holding the suitcases. His quiet voice was proud. There was finality to it.
“So . . . different cabins then?” Ben asked, skimming his lists.
Will was too busy basking in the glow of this admission from Jonas to counter Mom and Dad’s insistence of “yes.”
“You got it.” Ben made a notation on his sheet and turned to me. “And you are?”
“Nobody who needs to be separated from the boyfriend I suddenly made in Wyoming,” I blurted.
Ben’s lips twitched.
I blushed.
“That makes things easier then,” he said, meeting my eye. “What’s your name?”
“Zelda.” I swallowed, trying to get saliva flowing in my mouth again. “Zelda Bailey-Cho.” I nodded at Will. “Will’s my brother.”
Ben paused. He looked at Will, who was now leaning with Jonas against the car, pointing at some nature thing, then at Dad, then at Mom, then back to me.
“We’re like a Korean/Scottish Brady Bunch.” I smiled.
He grinned. “Okay. Parents, this is where you say goodbye. It’s an all-improv zone from here on. The cabins are down that path.” He pointed away from the Main Lodge. “Eventually, you’ll move into a cabin with your team, but for tonight, Will, you’re in Bill Murray, Jonas, you’re in Dan Aykroyd, and Zelda, you’re in Gilda Radner.”
Dad laughed. “The cabins are named after comedians?”