What Happens Now(35)

“You should check on her in a bit,” I said. “I’m taking off. Thanks for the car.”

“You’re going out with Kendall?”

“Yeah. To another friend’s house.”

He paused. “I’m supposed to ask you if there will be parents there, right?”

“Yes, you’re supposed to ask.”

There was another pause. Leave it at that, leave it at that.

“Have fun,” said Richard’s knowing voice through the door. “Back by eleven.”

“Of course. See you then.”

I was glad to be the one driving tonight. It was Kendall’s night off from Scoop-N-Putt and that felt like kismet, that we could go back to the Barn together under completely new circumstances. It didn’t seem possible that Camden’s party had been only four days ago.

“How many emails have you and James sent back and forth since Sunday?” I asked Kendall after I picked her up.

“Four. No, five. He signs off as ‘Jamie.’ Should I call him that now?”

“Yeah, I think you could live on the edge and start calling him Jamie.” Kendall punched me in the shoulder. “So, is this, like, a romantic thing? Or a friend thing?”

“I can’t tell,” said Kendall.

“What do you want it to be? Considering you’re leaving for Europe in two months.”

“Well, duh, of course I’m taking the romantic option. I don’t need a boyfriend per se. I just need something to happen to me for once, and a freaking lot can happen in two months.” Kendall paused, and her demeanor changed. “What about Camden?”

“What about him?”

“What do you like about him, now that you actually know him a little? Now that you semi-kissed.”

I pictured Camden. Lying in his room, his arms behind his head, staring at his skylight. He looked small in my mind, like something I could pick up and hold.

“He’s different from anyone I’ve ever met,” I said.

“Well, that much is obvious. But in a good way?”

“It feels like a good way. I mean, aren’t you tired of meeting basically the same person over and over again? We’ve been talking forever about finding something new and fresh. And now, here it is.”

I could feel Kendall examining my face as I drove. I didn’t turn to look at her.

“I’m happy for you, Ari,” she said after a while. But I sensed it was something she felt she was supposed to say. It had been hard for her, when I got together with Lukas. That I was inching ahead in some imaginary race. I knew it was one of the reasons why she’d drifted away toward her newspaper friends.

“You’re next,” I said. That was the thing I was supposed to say.

“Hope so,” sighed Kendall. “I’m not going to hang out with these weirdos if you’re wrong.”

“In here,” called a voice I recognized as Eliza’s.

We walked into the Barn to find her sitting at the farmhouse table in front of a sewing machine. James was sitting across from her with his laptop open.

“Hey,” Kendall said to him.

“Hey,” he said, and pulled out a chair for her. “I’m editing some photographs I took yesterday. Come see.”

She did.

I sat down next to Eliza to watch her work. She was sewing feathers onto something that looked like it was going to be a wing.

“Is this for a cosplay outfit?” I asked.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“What else do you cosplay, besides Silver Arrow?”

“I have some favorite characters from a graphic novel series. Three completed. Another in progress. Another two sketched out for the future.”

Eliza opened a notebook and slid it toward me. I flipped through the pages, which were full of well-drawn figures with no hair or faces, just clothing. I didn’t recognize the characters until I got to several different versions of Satina Galt. One was from the infamous episode where Satina got trapped in an ancient Greek brothel and had to wear a sheer white, flowing gown.

“‘Temple of Love, Temple of Death,’” I said to Eliza.

She smiled. “In the cosplay world, this here is known as ‘See-Thru Satina.’ No convention is complete without at least one of them.”

“Blech.”

“Most guys who attend these things feel differently.”

“I hated that they made her so sexy in that season.” My mother had felt this way, too. She was a purist.

“I guess that was ‘character development’ back then,” said Eliza.

“Are you going to dress up like that?” I asked.

“I was thinking about it. But then I got a better idea, from the creek yesterday.” She looked down at my feet and indicated my boots. “And from those.” Eliza then grabbed her notebook and flipped through the pages until she found the sketch she was looking for.

It was a drawing of the Season Three Original Satina. The Satina who had finally come into her own, powerful and quick and courageously honest, always. She wore light brown shimmery leggings and a white shirt under a purple tunic-length vest that tied together with a belt. And the boots, of course.

“The Ulster County Fair’s coming up,” said Eliza.

“Next week, yeah.”