Page 5

GO, SOUL CRUSHERS , or My Mother’s Take on Power Jam

Arden dancers in soft leggings and high buns; directors and designers with pencils tucked behind their ears, clipboards clutched importantly. Touchstone went to meet the other members of the Young Company at the black-box theater, while I reported to the costume shop, which was housed in the same building as the main stage. The building was a sweeping spaceship of glass and steel, modern and sleek, totally at odds with the woods. It was so intimidating that I began to wonder if I’d been given the internship by mistake. Sure, I could thread a needle and use it just fine—somebody needed to sew up all the rips in Ros’s clothing, patch the knees of their favorite jeans—but I’d never worked on a sewing machine and couldn’t tell you what a bobbin was (though I knew it was a thing). I was, quite honestly, shocked I had gotten the job, and more shocked still when I saw that Arden maybe, I thought in my most desperate, painful moments, I could drink from the spring and it would cure me of my feelings for them.

Somehow, we’d emerged back in the costume shop, where Phoebe gave me a brief rundown of its particular spaces and introduced me to the other shop employees. A handful of names went in one ear and out the other—a jumbled mix of Saras and Kiras and Alexes I worried I’d never be able to retain. The shop should’ve been easier for my brain to manage than the whole theater, but there was still so much, even contained in one room: drawers full of buttons and bobbins and pins, ribbons, strings, muslin cloth, sketches.

“I’m a little overwhelmed,” I said to Phoebe.

“Of course you are,” she said. “It’s overwhelming. Don’t worry; I’ll teach you how to do everything, and we’ll start small. Like today, I’m going to have you repair scuffs on black shoes. There’s no way you can mess it up. It’s basically coloring.”

I smiled, relieved. Coloring was in my wheelhouse.

“We’re happy to have you, Celia,” she said, handing me a pair of black shoes and a marker. “Any questions, just ask.”

At lunch, I started to worry again about Ros. I’d texted them but gotten no response. I knew that Touchstone was right, that they were probably fine, but I couldn’t get that image of them in the river out of my mind: the water closing up over their head, the whole of them disappearing in a gentle gulp.

Phoebe had told me reception was spotty all over campus—most everyone there communicated via walkie-talkie, which would have been very exciting to eight-year-old Celia—but she told me if I followed any of the “scenic trails available to visitors” deeper into the forest, there was a big tree where you could reliably find some bars. She wished me luck, and I set off across campus.

I followed the signs past Café Trapdoor and the black-box theater to the campus’s edge, where the paved walkways gave way to trails that led into the redwood forest. Even for someone who grew up in California, the forest trails were incredible—once you walked into the trees it was about ten degrees cooler than it was on campus. The path wove through giant, moss-covered trees that stood as tall and majestic as pillars in a temple. Everything smelled clean and vaguely of lemons, and it was so peaceful that I began to think that maybe all those studies I’d cited about neuroplasticity were actually true.

The longer I walked in the forest, the more it seemed like a fairy tale, like an enchanted place where anything was possible—the sort of place you might run into fairy spirits or gnomes. A ways off the trail there was a tree with a hollow big enough for two, exactly the sort of place that Ros and I would’ve loved as kids. I made my way to it and ducked inside, running my hands over the smooth black insides, marveling at the sheer size of the tree. I couldn’t believe it. Not twenty-four hours ago, I’d been in my bedroom, listening to Buckets snore himself awake. We’d done it. We’d found our way to another world.

And the real magic? The real magic was that here, standing in this tree, there was cell service. I took a selfie and had just sent it to Ros when I heard the yelling.

“ Fools , I’m telling you, fools . This was supposed to be different; that was the whole point—but the script is horrible, unrivaled rubbish—I can’t even begin to tell you how stupid it is, incomprehensible, and long , audiences are going to revolt—”

That voice. It was British. And weirdly familiar.

“—not even honest , at least our show is honest , and the director , don’t even get me started on the director —I’m meant to be here as a favor to them, but so far they’re totally preoccupied with their own mess—”

I peeped around the corner of the tree, doing my best to be covert. Whoever it was, it seemed best not to interrupt them, since it seemed highly likely that they might throttle the next person they saw.

“And the title keeps changing; did I mention that?”

It’s lucky I didn’t gasp out loud. Because there in the woods, yelling into his phone and looking like he was about to punch someone in the face, was Oliver Teller, aka Blade Mendoza, the sexiest Rollerblading villain of all time and the smokingly hot, maybe fish-eyed, star of the greatest show ever made, Power Jam .

Oh.

My.

God.

This was why you shouldn’t neglect discussion boards 2 —because then maybe I would have known that Oliver had landed an acting role at a local theater festival. I could have prepared myself for the possibility that I might run into him. While I was inside a tree. You know how it goes.

“Ronnie was right; this is a waste of time, and I can’t get out of here quickly enough—”

Honestly, he looked like a villain: storm-darkened eyes; a muscle in his jaw that twitched with anger; arms cut from daily skating workouts. His skin was deep olive and practically glowing—I knew they had to hydrate a lot on Power Jam , but this seemed like a whole ’nother level. And he was my age! Oliver was the sole teenager in a group of actors who were playing teenagers but were actually in their twenties. 3 The fact of the matter was, it was hard to look sexy and scary in a helmet and elbow pads, but Oliver somehow pulled it off, gave his character this gritty, rough-and-tumble vibe that you couldn’t look away from when he was on-screen, even when he did horrible thing after horrible thing.

“—and someone was outside my window this morning trying to get my autograph. I thought no one would know me here. Do you know where I am right now? I’m in the middle of the woods , like some godforsaken hellhole, and I’m not even sure that’s safe enough—”

Ah. Ah. This was very bad. I ducked back into the tree, tried to make myself as small as possible.

“Hold on—I’m losing you—”

I heard him walking around, his footsteps growing closer, the do-you-hear-mes getting more and more agitated the closer he got. I flashed briefly on a scene where Oliver’s character threatens to strangle someone—obliquely, but still—with a pair of laces. Sure, it was a TV show, but he was physically strong and angry. I’d heard he was actually very nice in real life, but I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being discovered, especially when he’d already encountered one stalker today.

Mercifully, though, he passed right by the opening of the tree, and I shrank back into the darkness. I couldn’t believe how close I was to him, this character that I’d loved to hate for a year and a half of my life, this character who’d prevented the jammers from falling in love, who bullied the fresh meat and said things like, “If you’re not here to get hurt, get out of my rink.” I could see the acne scars on his cheeks and the brow I’d watched sweat drip down so many times—and then he was gone, past the tree, still trying to make sure the person on the other end of the line could hear him. He was far enough away that my body relaxed.

And then. And then. And then.

A text came through.

Later, I’d marvel at the precision of it, the just-rightness of the timing. The writers of Power Jam couldn’t have scripted it any better. I think about how much hinged on that text that came in at just the right second, just the right place, for a very furious Oliver Teller to hear it and return and find me crouched in a tree like some deranged superfan, which was admittedly half true, and we could argue over which half. Ros would’ve called it fate, but I knew the truth: The sound of the text arriving was nothing more than impossibly bad timing.

Oliver Teller whirled back around.

And I—stunned by that camera-ready face, by the shock of seeing my first celebrity up close, disturbed by the piercing light gray of his eyes—I cried, “ Go, Soul Crushers! ”

Oliver’s face contorted into disgust and hatred, which was a look I knew all too well, but I had to say, it felt different to have it directed at you rather than observing it on a screen.

“Un-fucking-believable,” he said.

Then he stalked off into the woods, leaving all the cell reception for me.

Footnotes

2 I had taken a break from them while preparing for our trip out here, but the general thrust was this: The show had just finished its second season and, due to low, if passionate, viewership, there was some question as to whether there would even be a third. WHICH SUCKED, because last season alone, Blade Mendoza and Kenna had had a pregnancy scare; he’d gotten his nemesis addicted to drugs; he’d thrown a Rollerblade through a storefront window; and he’d conspired to kill his brother (though fans were convinced that was a dream sequence). Needless to say, we JAMMERS HAD QUESTIONS THAT NEEDED TO BE ANSWERED.

3 “I feel uncomfortable watching this show,” my mother said. It didn’t help that Oliver was often shirtless.