One To Watch(41)

“Bea and Sam, welcome to your very first one-on-one date!”

“Thanks, Johnny!” Bea said brightly.

“Now, tell me,” Johnny said smoothly, “do you two have any idea where you are?”

“We drove for about an hour,” Bea started, “and without traffic at freeway speeds, that puts us maybe sixty miles from the compound? But it’s much sunnier and hotter than it was when we left, so that would mean we drove inland, and probably south, too, and if you account for—”

“Okay,” a producer broke in, “that was a rhetorical question. Bea, Sam, can we take that again and have you guys just shake your heads?”

“Damn,” Sam whispered, “remind me to take you with me if I ever actually get kidnapped. What are you, a secret agent?”

“Or a superhero whose primary power is having spent half my life in L.A. traffic,” Bea whispered back as they both shook their heads solemnly, per the producer’s instructions.

“All right,” said Johnny grandly, “on the count of three, go ahead and remove your blindfolds. In three, two, one—”

“Holy shit!” Sam blurted in the same second Bea shouted out, “We’re at Disneyland!”

“I can’t believe this!” Sam guffawed.

“Right?” Bea laughed. “Happiest Place on Earth!”

“You can say that again.” Sam grinned as he wrapped Bea in a tight hug and gently kissed her cheek.

“Worth getting up for a date so early in the morning?”

“Bea, I’d hang out with you anytime. But is the park even open?”

“Technically,” Johnny explained energetically, “the park won’t open to the public for another three hours. But you two get to go in now.”

Sam cheered and hugged Bea again. She couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely into her or just swept up in the thrill of the moment, but Marin’s voice echoed in her mind: Try.

Okay, Mar, she thought. It’s just one date. I can do this.

The first hour inside the park was a mad rush from one attraction to another—Bea and Sam could have quiet conversations in tucked-away corners of the park once other visitors were allowed in, but this private time was the producers’ only opportunity to capture footage of Bea and Sam on the bigger rides, and they weren’t going to squander it. They screamed their faces off on Space Mountain and made spooky noises in the Haunted Mansion—Bea shrieked when Sam aimed a well-timed poke at her middle just as an animatronic ghost appeared beside them.

“I can’t believe you poked me again!”

“Too soon?”

Bea laughed, and Sam threaded his fingers through hers. It was the first time she’d held hands with a man since Ray grabbed her hand in the Lyft home last summer, and she was surprised by how easy and uncomplicated it felt, by how carefree the vibe was on this entire date. After they’d been on a few more of the big rides (and narrowly averted catastrophe when Bea’s mic pack got stuck in the safety bar of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad), they went to the Jungle Cruise to slow the pace down a bit and build in some time for conversation.

“Have you ever been to Disneyland before?” Bea asked as they drifted past a bamboo forest.

“Just the one in Florida. I grew up in New Jersey, so that was closer.”

“New Jersey, really? You don’t have an accent.”

Sam raised an eyebrow at Bea. “When’s the last time you heard a Black guy talk like Snooki?”

Bea laughed. “Touché.”

“Nah, my parents were really into the whole prep-school thing, not a lot of kids with accents where I’m from.”

“Really? Like you wore a blazer to school every day, the whole bit?”

“Oh, big-time. The blazer, the polo shirt, the loafers.”

“No.”

“Yes. When I finally got to college, I was so happy I didn’t even know what to do with myself. People wearing sweatpants! To class! All my dreams were coming true.”

“And, um, when did you graduate from college?”

Sam laughed. “Okay, I see you. Yes, I am the youngest guy in the house. I graduated from college two years ago.”

“Which makes you …”

“Twenty-four. Six years younger than you, right? Is that so much?”

Bea shook her head, but truthfully, she wasn’t sure.

“And what have you been doing for the past couple years?”

“I went right to Teach for America after college, I taught fifth-grade math and coached the girls’ basketball team, which was basically the best thing ever. So I finished that up last summer, and now I’m figuring out what comes next.”

“And you think what comes next might be a wedding? A family?”

Sam shrugged. “My whole life, my attitude has been to say yes to everything. In college, a professor of mine recommended me for an internship teaching English in Cambodia, and it turned out to be the best summer of my life. That’s what made me decide to apply for Teach for America. A few months ago, I was walking through a mall when I saw they were recruiting guys for Main Squeeze. My buddy told me I should apply, and I was like, ‘Sure, why not?’ I thought it would be funny. Now here I am. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.”