Page 28

THE YETI COSTUME , or Power Jam , Season Three

The next week disappeared into a blur of yarn scraps—white and gray and icy blue. They stuck to my clothes. I found them in my bed. Merino and acrylic and nylon, shedding fibers. And glitter. So much glitter. There was glitter everywhere. It clung to Jacques’s fur, gave his misery some pizzazz. Phoebe shook it from her scalp and called it fairyland dandruff.

If we weren’t working with art supplies, I was walking in the woods while Phoebe did the more complicated sewing, searching for treasures the same way that Ros and I used to. My best find was a bough from the white tree in the woods back behind the Hidden Fern (I thought about going in to talk to them, but couldn’t quite strike up the courage). Phoebe almost cried when I showed it to her.

We brought all our treasures into the costume shop, lined them up on the windowsill, and taped a big sign over them that said IMPORTANT—PLEASE DO NOT CLEAN .

Between the two of us, we averaged a case of LaCroix a day.

Benna told us she was happy to see we were onto something, but she was worried about our tooth enamel.

We were absolutely punchy. We cried. We swore. We laughed. We sweat into the fabric. We bled into the yarn, scratched it out with fingernails, left it because we thought it looked better that way. Was this a health-code violation? Most certainly. But this was metal. We were doing it. We were making the yeti costume.

And finally— finally —a week before the show went up, when the actors were deep in tech, we had something for Oliver to try on.

If you ever want a lesson in professionalism, look no further than one Oliver Teller. He came to the fitting all business—friendly but distant, speaking mainly to Phoebe but not ignoring me entirely. You’d never know that the last time I saw him, I was near tears outside the cabin, barefoot, trying to persuade him to stay at a dinner party he wanted desperately to escape. You’d never know there was history between us, except that seeing him felt like cleaning up glass in bare feet, tiptoeing around, waiting for something to slice your heel.

“How you doing in there?” Phoebe said. “Do you need help?”

“I think I’m okay,” called Oliver. “It’s just—heavy.”

“That’s the point,” said Phoebe. “It’ll make your walk more beastly.”

“I’ll take all the help I can get,” Oliver said.

He went quiet—on the other side of the door there was just fussing, heavy breathing. Phoebe crossed her arms and looked at me nervously. At this point, the backup plan was putting him in sunglasses and a fur coat and calling it avant-garde. That, or ordering a prefab yeti Halloween costume online for $12.99, which certainly wasn’t going to impress Benna.

“Okay,” Oliver said, “I’m coming out.”

The second he opened the door, I knew it was going to work. I’d always known Phoebe was going to make it work, but I didn’t know it was going to work this well . Now I understood why Phoebe had kept saying more —more yarn, more branches, more pom-poms—because he—the monster—was absolutely massive. He was like a walking mop. A gentle walking mop made of a million different kinds of yarn, yarn that had been threaded with treasures from the forest.

“How do you feel?” Phoebe asked.

“It’s a bit warm,” Oliver admitted.

“Don’t be such a snowflake,” Phoebe snapped. “The actor who played Godzilla had to literally pour the sweat out of his boots at the end of the day . Margaret Hamilton’s makeup caught on fire during The Wizard of Oz ! The first Tin Man was poisoned by his own makeup !”

“You asked how it was! I’m just saying!”

“I’m not sure those are good comparisons, Phoebe,” I said. “Sorry—she’s, like, mostly coffee and LaCroix at this point.”

“I’m sure I’ll be okay,” said Oliver. “Maybe we can, like, tape an ice pack to my body or something.”

“Can you walk?” Phoebe said.

Oliver took a few steps. I’d found in the woods a single rusted bell. It rang when he walked, but it did not sound joyful. It sounded mournful. Eerie. Foreboding.

“I’m getting chills ,” said Phoebe.

Oliver stood in front of the mirror, giving himself a careful look. He seemed the perfect mix of beastly and graceful; a big Muppety monster who loved to decorate his coat with treasures he found in the forest.

“It’s funny. I feel like I get him more now. Like—the loneliness. And the human parts. There’s, like, this sweetness to him.” He admired himself, turning this way and that in the mirror. Jacques darted out from Benna’s office, hissed, and turned and ran.

“That’s how you know it’s going to work,” Oliver said.

“It was all Phoebe,” I said.

“That’s, like, 75 percent true,” Phoebe said. “But I had a really good sous-chef.”

“You did a good job,” Oliver said, looking and speaking only to Phoebe.

“Okay—Celia—I think we need something on this hind quarter—and maybe more pom-poms over here? Oliver, how mobile can you be? Like—how fast can you go? Can you move your arms? Can you twirl?”

Oliver attempted a clumsy pirouette; the abandoned bird’s nest that I’d found in the woods fell from his shoulder; I hustled to retrieve it, cradled it in my hands.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit,” Oliver said.

“No—it’s fine! It’s fine,” said Phoebe. “That’s what we were testing. It’s an easy fix.”

“And honestly, if they fall off onstage, it kind of works?” I said. “Like, he just leaves a trail of breadcrumbs wherever he goes.”

“The director’s going to want to kill me,” Phoebe said.

“I honestly don’t think so,” Oliver said. “I think she’s going to be psyched.”

Oliver went to change out of the costume, and Phoebe brought the bird’s nest back to her station. Even across the room, I could feel her staring knowingly at me.

What , I mouthed.

Talk to him , she mouthed back.

And say what , I mouthed back.

Literally anything , said Phoebe.

Oliver emerged, holding the pelt in his arm, like something skinned.

“I can take that,” I said.

He placed it into my arms gingerly. It was heavy and warm. If there was a time to say anything, it would have been then. But no words came to me; all I could think about was what he’d said to me the last time I’d seen him—how I’d treated him like a prop. I doubted he ever wanted to speak to me again after that.

“Thanks,” he said. “Well. See you.”

I ferried the costume back to Phoebe and went back to my yarn-covered station, ready to immerse myself in crafting yeti pom-poms.

“Dude,” she said finally, “what are you even doing?”

“Pom-poms?” I said.

“Fix that,” she said, nodding out the door toward Oliver. “The pom-poms can wait.”

And so, at her urging, I hustled after him. It felt like an episode of Power Jam , the one where the music swells and Kenna chases Louisa out into the pouring rain, finally ready to profess her love. But the thing was—I wasn’t trying to profess my love. Mostly, I just wanted my friend back. I didn’t know what I’d say. I just knew that couldn’t be the end of it all—him handing me the yeti pelt, nodding at me, and leaving.

I caught sight of him heading up the trail toward the spot in the woods where we’d first met.

“Oliver!” I called.

Mercifully, he slowed down, waiting for me to catch up with him.

“Reception time?” I asked, gesturing toward the trees.

“I’ve got to call my agent,” he said. “I think we’re getting a season three.” 23

“That’s great ,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m glad it’s going to be renewed.”

I stood feeling awkward. There were so many scripts for professing your love— Power Jam was absolutely chock-full of them. Always in the rain, or before or after finals, or even midmatch before the big try. Always epic, always heartfelt. Less common was the script for someone who had treated their friend badly and, on an otherwise normal day with normal weather, wanted to put it right. I’d gotten a little practice with Touchstone, but I still wasn’t sure I’d be able to find the words I needed to convince Oliver of how sorry I was.

“Thank you for bringing the deviled eggs the other night,” I said. As openers went, deviled eggs weren’t the strongest, but for better or worse, it was what I came up with.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“And for taking me to see the falls,” I said.

“Celia, I’ve got a call at twelve.”

Here it was. My turn.

“I wanted to say that you were right.”

Oliver nodded. “Andrew came to talk to me, you know. To set things right between us. It was nice, actually. He showed up with a bunch of stuff from the Dropped Acorn.”

“Oh. That is nice,” I said, even though I hadn’t been talking about Touchstone at all. I was impressed with all the effort he put in.

“Yeah. I don’t think we’re going to be, like, best mates anytime soon, but I did appreciate that he made an effort.” He paused.

“Um. I’m really glad that he came to talk to you. But I was actually talking about you. You were right. Like, when you said the thing. About me using you as a prop.”

“Oh,” he said.

“That was really, really mean,” I said.

“It didn’t feel great,” he said.

Was this how apologies went? This was horrible. I wanted to shrivel up and die. I wanted to run the other way. I wanted to be eaten by the yeti.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said.

“And I also wanted to say—you know the thing you said about—something happening between us?”

“Oh, God, do we really need to relive that?”

“I just wanted to say that it wasn’t all in your head. But, I just…”

“What is it?” he said.

“There was someone else,” I said. “That’s why I could never really… I should have told you earlier. It’s stupid, I know. I wish there were some magic potion I could take, or some way I could just, change my mind, because like, you’re you , you could have literally anyone, and I’m me, and I don’t understand why I can’t just… I want to want…”

“Celia,” he said gently. “It’s okay. Hey. We had a good summer, didn’t we? Maybe in another life.”

“What if for now, we say we’re friends?” I said.

“Friends,” he said, and he smiled, like that wouldn’t be the worst fate in the world. “I wouldn’t mind being friends with you, Celia Gilbert.”

“I wouldn’t mind being friends with you, either,” I said.

It wasn’t how the big Power Jam speeches ended, with a big kiss to punctuate everything, confetti shot from a cannon. It wasn’t even an ending, really—it was more a bend in the road. But it was ours, and it was real.

“How’d it go?” Phoebe said.

“Okay, I think. You kind of expect apologizing to fix everything, but to be honest, I still don’t feel very good.”

“I’d be shocked if you did,” said Phoebe. “But it went okay?”

“He said he wants to be friends.”

“That sounds ideal,” said Phoebe.

“I think it is,” I said.

“You ready to make stuff?”

I was. I couldn’t make everything perfect, but at the very least, I could make enough pom-poms that the yeti would look wondrous.

Footnote

23 Season three would turn out to be the best season yet. Blade’s murder attempt on his brother is revealed to be a dream sequence; Kenna and Louisa break up only to get back together with Blade’s help in fabulously dramatic fashion during a match, as in, while they’re on skates trying to crush the other team; and Eva, of the season-two premiere, shows back up and turns out to be a great match for Blade. She manages to bring out his human side even as she conducts an underground drug ring using her rugby for cover. Blade proves himself to be instrumental to the team’s success, and they all lift him onto their shoulders after the championship match, celebrating the man who was a villain not two seasons ago.