“You will,” she says, sounding so sure.
But I think about Dad being here in Highbury all alone, and what if something else happens with his heart and Izzy and I are both in California? I swallow back the metallic taste of panic. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I only got accepted to Rutgers. Then at least I’d still be close by to Dad.
“And even if you don’t go to Palo Alto—” I realize Jane is still talking “—then you’ll go somewhere. Not high school. I’ll be stuck here for another year.”
“You can be president of coding club,” I say brightly, like it’s something to look forward to. But really, I’m not sure it’s been as great as I’d thought, to be in charge. I kind of enjoyed myself more last year when coding club was all about coding, only about coding, without the extra pressure to succeed, or the feeling like it’s all on my shoulders because the project is and was my brainchild.
“Look,” she says, switching subjects, pointing toward the hot chocolate stand. “There’s Robert and Ben.”
Ben grabs two hot chocolates from the booth, and hands one to Robert, and then they hold hands and start walking back toward the display. They stop in front of the closest one, take it in, turn to talk to each other and sip their hot chocolates.
“Is that Snoopy on top of his doghouse behind them?” Jane asks, her eyes drawn to the display. She tilts her head and squints.
“Yeah...I think so?”
She walks over to get a closer look, and I follow her. Ben says something to Robert, and he laughs, his face looking much more animated in the bright twinkle of the Christmas lights than I’ve ever seen it in coding club.
Robert turns and notices me and Jane. “Oh, hey, guys,” he says, and Ben lifts up a hand to wave. I wave back.
“Emma and I came to track data.” Jane cuts right to the point. “You two sure look happy. Check.” She makes a checkmark in the air with her finger, and Robert’s face turns red. Ben laughs, and says Jane is right, they are happy. “Have you seen any other couples we’ve matched?” she asks them.
Robert nods. “Yeah, a bunch. We just saw those two girls from cross-country.”
“Mara and Liz?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, I think so. And that guy in my geometry class...Ian. But I don’t know the girl he was with. I just know you helped him at lunch last week,” he says to Jane.
“Ian and Brianna,” Ben offers, and he points them out to us. They’re standing over by the next display, which appears to be birds—three doves, maybe—in a lit-up tree. Ian is really tall, and so is Brianna—though not quite as tall as him. Still, I’d bet she’s almost six foot. She leans her head on his shoulder.
“Bri and I play in youth orchestra together,” Ben says. “She’s really nice. And Ian’s a good guy.”
Jane and I thank them, and wander over to that display. We stand there, observing them for a moment. Their arms are linked; her head is still on his shoulder as they wander over to the next display: reindeer. It appears they are having fun, that they like each other. That their match is successful. Check, as Jane said. But it’s also a hard thing to quantify just from looking at two people from a little ways back: happiness, love. How can you really tell what two people are thinking and how they’re feeling, just by looking at them from a distance?
“E, is that you?” I turn at the sound of Sam’s voice. So does Jane. “Janie, you’re here, too?” His voice is thick with surprise. And...Janie? I’ve never heard anyone call her that before, and it sounds much too unserious to suit her. But Sam breaks into a smile and so does Jane. Or Janie. He gives us each a hug.
“Where’s Laura?” I say, looking behind him.
“Oh, she just left. She has to study. But I wanted to stay and see all the displays. Highbury does Christmas way better than Phoenix. Our mall did fake snow and carols. No lights like this.” Because Sam seems super impressed by the lights, I swallow back my instinct to tell him how stupid I think the whole thing is. Jane tells him how we came here to observe our matches, observational data and all that. “Oh!” Sam says. “I just saw Lance, from choir, with his match. I think her name’s Helen?” I nod. Her name is Helen. I paired them up a few weeks ago in our very first test batch. Lance had asked Sam about a match and Sam had sent him to me. Helen is in my AP Physics class. She’s quiet, with curly black hair and tortoiseshell glasses. Lance is painfully shy, to the point he refuses to talk in class. But for some reason, he’s totally different when he opens his mouth to sing. I’ve heard him sing at assemblies before and his voice is deep and velvety.
“How’d they look?” Jane asks.
“Good? Here, they were back this way near the big tree.” We follow Sam around the displays, back toward the front where we saw Izzy and George and Hannah when we first got here. And on the way there, we spot a few more matches that we point out to each other. They’re all here together. Some are holding hands, some aren’t, but they still seem to be enjoying one another’s company. When we finally do spot Lance and Helen, they’re standing under mistletoe, kissing, which seems like a very good sign to me.
“What do you think we should be looking for exactly?” I ask Jane, interested in her opinion, as we stop and watch Helen and Lance move out from under the mistletoe, hold on to one another’s arms and move on to another display. “How are we quantifying any of this, really?”
She frowns, like maybe she’s not sure. Then Sam says, “If our matches are here, spending time together and appear to be having fun, then we can call that a success, yes? We’re just telling people who they’re compatible with, mathematically. Everything else is up to them.”
“Yes,” Jane agrees.
But is it really just that simple? George and Hannah have caught my eye again. They’re sitting on a bench together now, sharing a cup of hot chocolate. George blows on it, before handing it over to Hannah for a sip. She takes it, and whispers something in his ear, and then he smiles. Until he notices me watching them, and he hands the cup back to Hannah, says something to her and walks over to us, alone. Is that happiness? Or not?
“I thought we were taking the night off coding club, but I guess I was mistaken,” George says with an easy smile, so I don’t think he’s annoyed, more curious what we’re doing and why he doesn’t know about it.
“We need data on our matches,” Jane says with a shrug. “This seemed like an easy way to get it.”
“I knew you had plans,” I add. “And I didn’t want to interrupt them.”
“We can help you,” George says quickly.
“No need. You’re here on a date,” I say. “So technically, you’re already doing your part to help, aren’t you?” My voice is supersweet, saccharine, and the words sound all wrong as they come out, even to me.