There’s a candlelight vigil for Colleen and for Gretchen, who is still unresponsive. Now that people know she’s alive, though, there are mean jokes whispered back and forth about how Gretchen’s such an awful person that maybe it’d be best if she can’t talk back for a little while longer. Gretchen might not be the nicest, but it all makes me uneasy to think what people would say about me if I ever disappeared.
Rumors circulate about the possibility of a curfew for everyone under the age of eighteen, but by Thursday morning all that’s old news.
Dr. Bryner gives me the day off because she has to close the shelter early, so I make plans to meet up with Matt and Ches at Starfish and Coffee, a Prince-themed coffee bar. (We Minnesotans take our love for Prince very seriously.)
The three of us sit in plush purple velvet armchairs by the window, Matt claiming the one with the perfect view of the barista with a blue streak in his hair and a double lip ring.
“How old do you think he is?” he asks.
“Nineteen?” Ches guesses.
I shrug. “Honestly, the lip ring and hair are really throwing me. He could be like our age or he could be thirty-five.”
Matt nods. “And do I want to date someone who’s thirty-five and still working at a coffee shop in Glenwood?”
“I think the better question is, would it actually be a good idea to date someone who’s thirty-five?”
Matt swats a hand in my direction. “Details.”
Ches rolls her eyes. “Tell that to my twenty-year-old brother who dated a fifteen-year-old girl who lied about her age.”
I let out a hissing sound. “Not good.”
“Yeah, her parents were going to press charges until the girl finally fessed up to lying.” She shakes her head. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. My brother’s an idiot. But dating high school girls isn’t really his thing.”
My phone pings.
DAKOTA: Hey
My toes wiggle inside my Converses as I send back a short hi. Dakota and I are in the habit of texting back and forth every day and even saying good night every night, but I still get a little rush every time she texts first.
Grant Vincent strolls past us and sinks into a neighboring sofa.
Ches’s whole body tenses, her back arching, and I think she might very well growl at him. “Such a tool,” she mutters.
“Ignore him,” says Matt. “He’s total scum.”
My phone pings. Dakota again.
DAKOTA: We’re shooting at the corn maze tonight. Thought you might want to come by and say hi. I’ve always felt like it’s a good idea for me to revisit places where traumatic things have happened so I can make new memories.
DAKOTA: That probably sounds silly.
I respond immediately.
ME: No, no. Not at all silly. I’ll be there.
“I’ve gotta go,” says Ches, shooting to her feet abruptly and grabbing her bag.
“Wait,” says Matt. “We were supposed to go back to my place, I thought.”
“Too much studying to do,” she calls over her shoulder.
“But don’t you at least need a ride?” Matt asks, but she’s already gone. He looks to me. “That was weird, right? Was that weird? She’s been, like, impossible to pin down lately.”
I reach for my bag. “Probably just school stress.”
He takes the other strap of my bag and catches me in a tug-of-war. “You’re not ditching me too, are you?”
“I’m sorryyyyyy,” I tell him. “I thought going to your house was more of an abstract plan. Like, I didn’t know we actually committed to it, and then I forgot.”
He sighs and drops the strap of the bag. “It’s for Dakota, isn’t it?”
I stand and nod. Matt’s warmed up to Dakota a bit, and the way she literally swooped in and saved me at the corn maze helped a lot.
“Can you just decide if you want to kiss her or not?”
Blush burns my cheeks. “Could you be a little more discreet?”
He guffaws. “Uh, yeah. No. Me? Discreet? Never.” Then he sighs and waves me off. “Fine! Have fun.”
I give him a quick kiss on the cheek and run out to Grandma Lou’s car, which I sort of parallel parked on the side of the road. I say sort of, because it took me about ten minutes too long and I’m a foot or two into the street, but luckily no one clipped the side-view mirror.
I feel bad leaving Matt, but I think there’s something to what Dakota said about making new memories. I wonder how many times she’s found herself in this position, having to cover up old scars.
I follow the roads to the corn maze until they turn from paved to gravel to dirt. There are signs directing all cast and crew to park in the same parking lot where we did on Saturday night. After I park, I text Dakota, and minutes later she shows up in a large Mercedes van, swinging the door open for me.
“Whoa,” I say as she swings the door shut behind me.
“Faith, this is Benita,” she says, introducing me to the driver, a short Latinx woman with bouncy curls. “Benita is our on-set driver. So when we’re on location, we usually park our cars a little ways away off-site, and we’ve got Benita here to shuttle us back and forth.”
“Nice to meet you, Benita.” I lean back and buckle my seat belt, but the moment it clicks into place, Dakota announces that we’re here.
“Oh, okay. That was fast.” And sort of pointless, if you ask me.
As I’m hopping out of the car, Dakota whispers, “Margaret likes keeping people employed as often as she can, even when their job isn’t entirely necessary.”
And after all the crazy crud that’s happened in the last few weeks, that just makes me happy to know—that not only are there good people left in the world, but Margaret Toliver, one of my idols, is one of them.
“Come on,” says Dakota. “You made it just in time for lunch.”
“So late?” I ask.
She laughs. “Not really your average nine-to-five job.”
Dakota leads me into a tent and to the back of the line of crew members, extras, and even a few actors I recognize from the show.
She sighs. “I’m so glad I’m not on camera today.”
“You’re so good, though,” I tell her.
“Oh, it’s not that. It’s that I just kind of have to psych myself up to be on camera and watch playback of myself. No matter how many times I see myself on TV, it never gets any easier, and I always find new things to be annoyed by. My voice. The way my hair is styled. You name it.”
Hearing that even Dakota suffers from days when she doesn’t like the look or sound of herself makes me feel like maybe achieving your dreams doesn’t always fix all your problems. The thought is both comforting and disappointing.
At the front of the line, Dakota hands me a plate. “I really like the craft services team we hired out here,” she says.
There are all kinds of options—vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan—but the general theme seems to be a taco bar.
I pile two tortillas with portobello mushrooms, peppers, onions, sour cream, cheese, and salsa. At the end of the food tables, a woman fills whatever spare room is left on my plate with chips and guacamole.
“I feel bad eating this food,” I say. “I don’t actually work here.”