Look Both Ways(15)

I can’t tell if he’s flirting with me or not, but he’s much cuter than I realized from my brief glimpse yesterday, so I force a smile, and I’m gratified when he smiles back. “I’m pretty sure I showed them who’s boss,” I say.

“Glad to hear that. Seriously, though, do you need help with something?”

I don’t want to look stupid in front of this guy, but there’s no way I’m going to find the equipment I need on my own. “Actually, yeah. I need two ten-foot jumper cables, or something? And two feds, and a…sidecar?”

The guy puts down his stuff and picks up a foot-long bar with a clamp attached to the end. “This is a sidearm. A sidecar is a drink.”

“I think I’d rather have a sidecar, then.”

The guy laughs. “Rough morning?”

“I’ve been on the lighting crew for all of fifteen minutes, and I almost killed someone already.”

“By accident or on purpose?”

This time my smile is real. “By accident.”

“Cool. You don’t look like a murderer, but it never hurts to check.”

“I mean, if I were a murderer, it’s not like I’d tell you.”

“Damn. Good point. Maybe I’d better hang on to this.” He clutches the sidearm and strides over to a shelf full of thick black cables. “Jumpers are extension cables; that’s these guys. They’re color-coded by length, and these ones with the yellow tape on the ends are the ten-footers. And this”—he holds up a small device with different kinds of plugs on each end—“is a fed. That’s short for ‘female Edison to male stage-pin adapter.’ Cool?”



“Thank you so much,” I say. “Nobody upstairs explains anything to me.”

“You’ll get it,” he says. “I’m Russell, by the way.” He puts down the sidearm and holds out his hand. It’s so enormous that when I take it, I’m reminded of that scene in Beauty and the Beast where Belle’s dainty little hand is engulfed by the beast’s giant paw. It makes me feel tiny and delicate.

“Brooklyn,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

“Wait, are we already at the ‘where are you from’ part of the conversation? I’m from Needham, Massachusetts, but I go to NYU.”

“No, sorry. Brooklyn’s my name. I live in Manhattan.”

“Well, that’s…unnecessarily complicated,” Russell says, but he smiles. I’m pretty sure he is into me, which is kind of awesome. Having someone to flirt with this summer would improve things a lot. I wonder how long I can draw out this conversation before Zach gets pissed and comes looking for me.

“Hey,” Russell says, like he’s just remembered something really important. “Did you know that there are more than eighty-five thousand Elvis impersonators in the world?”

I blink at him, certain I’ve heard him wrong. “I…What?”

“You could have a city the size of Duluth, Minnesota, made entirely of Elvises,” he says. “How great is that?”

I didn’t even realize what a big knot I had in the center of my chest until I burst out laughing and feel it start to dissolve. “Why do you even know that?”



“I collect weird facts.”

“And what made you think of that now?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I thought you might be interested. Was I wrong?”

“No, I definitely feel like a more well-rounded person now that I know that,” I say. I gesture to his drill. “So, you do…set stuff?”

“Yup. We’re building today, but I mostly do scenic design. I get to assist Olivier von Drasek on Midsummer and Dreamgirls. Have you seen him around?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. What does he look like?”

“Here.” Russell pulls his phone out of his pocket, taps it a few times, and holds it out to me. Smiling up from the screen is a guy a little younger than my dad with a roguish, dimpled smile, an artfully scruffy beard, and a dashing swoop of silver hair. He’s wearing a perfectly fitted suit and a purple tie, and he looks like he’d be more at home walking red carpets than designing sets.

“Pretty sure I haven’t seen him,” I say. As I hand the phone back, I notice the picture’s not up in the Internet browser; Russell has it saved in his phone. That’s a little bizarre.

“The man’s a complete genius; his work is so freaking stunning, I can’t even deal. I applied to Allerdale the second I heard he was going to be here. I don’t even believe I get to spend six weeks with him. Being near him is, like, inspirational, you know? I wish I could staple myself to him and soak up his amazingness every second of the day.” He gazes down at the photo. “And look at his hair. How does he even get it to do that?”



Russell’s face has taken on a whole new quality, like someone has plugged him into one of those jumper cables and lit him up from the inside, and the picture on his phone starts to make sense. I guess he wasn’t flirting with me after all. Well, that totally sucks.

“That’s really cool,” I say. I hope he doesn’t hear the disappointment in my voice.

“If I impress him here, I’m hoping he’ll let me assist him on shows in the city this fall. Can you even imagine? I would die to get inside that man’s studio.” The way he says it, it kind of seems like the last word of that sentence should be “pants.”