Call the Shots (Swim the Fly #3)(53)

“The problem: Two of Swords.” Nessa thumbs through her book. “Okay, now. The Two of Swords. It means a stalemate situation. A conflict between what your heart wants and what your brain is telling you. Between female energy and male energy. This is your problem. You find yourself paralyzed and unable to act. Even though your situation”— Nessa taps the first card —“demands that you take action on a new opportunity.” She lowers her tarot guide. “Isn’t that interesting? Are you finding yourself stuck right now? Like you can’t make up your mind about something? Or someone?”

But I have made up my mind. Leyna. I like Leyna. So what if my divining rod seems to say otherwise? A guy can’t help what happens to his body around a pretty, half-naked girl. “No, I’m not feeling stuck,” I say. Then I remember Evelyn. Ew. Talk about salt on a slug. “Well, I guess maybe . . .”

Nessa smiles sympathetically. “I thought as much. Unfortunately, this card cannot say how long the problem will last. Or which side will win. Female or male. Heart or brain.” She places the book aside and gazes at me. “So tell me, Sean, what’s your mind saying that your heart doesn’t agree with?”

It’s not my mind I’m worried about. “Look, I don’t think this is really helping,” I say again. “Can we stop, please?”

“Come on, now. Don’t turn away. What comes to mind?”

“Nothing,” I lie. “Nothing comes to mind.”

The disappointed-teacher frown again. “Okay. You don’t have to tell me. That’s fine. But let’s at least take a look at the solution.” Nessa flips the last card over, revealing . . . Death.

A Grim Reaper wearing purple robes sits on top of a large skull. In the background, a single white rose sprouts from the scorched landscape.

“Great,” I say. Whatever this card is referring to — my horny thoughts about Nessa, my love for Leyna, my desperate desire to break things off with Evelyn — it can’t be good.

“Don’t worry,” Nessa cautions. “This card rarely means an actual physical death.” She quickly searches for the page in her guide for an explanation. “Except when it does. All right. Here we are. Death. You are facing a major change in your life, Sean. But you’ll have to let go of your old self first. And it might be very challenging. Even painful. A tearing away. But”— she turns the page —“if you manage to get past all of this and allow the end to come, however horribly agonizing and excruciating it might be, there is a new and better you waiting on the other side.”

I gulp. “It actually says that —‘agonizing and excrutiating’?”

“It’s a rebirth, Sean.” Nessa snaps the tarot guide shut and smiles. “Your rebirth. And that’s never easy. But it’s your path right now. And that’s what you want your movie to be about: death and rebirth. The world is being overrun by lifeless, soulless creatures that must be defeated so that a new and better world can rise from the ashes. It all makes perfect sense.” She leans forward, giving me an even closer look down her shirt. Sweet mother of Thor. “Don’t you see?”

My eyes bounce between her amazing cleavage and the Grim Reaper. Boobs or death? Boobs or death? What’ll it be, Seanie boy?

“Can we . . . ? Can we get back to the screenplay now?”

Nessa smiles. “Sure, Sean. Now that we know what it is we’re writing about, there’s nothing standing in our way. Is there?”

I do my best to smile, but the specter of the Grim Reaper looms large.





“WE’RE NEXT!” LEYNA CALLS OUT, taking my hand and pulling me up to the front of the room.

“All right.” Mr. Nestman looks at his Mickey Mouse watch. “But you guys are the last ones. I’ve got a commercial audition at eleven thirty, which means I need to be out that door the second the bell rings. The Discount Meat Warehouse waits for no one.”

Ever since the auditions last week, Leyna has wanted to partner up with me on almost every exercise we do in Drama. And since she’s one of Mr. Nestman’s star students, I’ve had to embarrass myself in front of the entire class on an almost daily basis.

Leyna plucks the black blindfold off Mr. Nestman’s desk. “You’ll be the blind man, okay? And I’ll lead.”

“Sure,” I say.

If this were anyone but Leyna, I would be making every excuse in the book to beg off. But I am her devoted Jedi, and I would battle the entire evil Empire for her. Besides, I did betray her honor with Nessa — if only in my mind — and so I feel like I need to make amends.

I take a glance at the obstacles — chairs, tables, traffic cones, broomsticks, boxes — that have been laid out around the room. Of course, they’ll all be moved around once I’m blindfolded, but still, it’s good to have a general idea of the sizes and shapes of things.

Leyna is going to have to try and guide me safely through the course with only the tips of her ten fingers touching the tips of mine. Mr. Nestman has offered a prize — a ten-dollar gift card to DeLuca’s Coffee Corner — to the first team that can successfully navigate the entire path without touching a single object. Five teams have tried so far and only one of them — the surprising tandem of Douchebag Dan and Voluptuous Victoria — has made it even halfway through.