Page 14

Chapter 14

Grace

Before our next stop, we had to return to the car to unload our souvenirs. The Cruz Tesla was exactly where we’d left it, safe and sound and visibly un-keyed. “See, Isa?” I smiled. “Spick-and-span!”

She nodded, unlocked the doors, and lobbed her tricornered hat into the backseat. Hmm. Had that come off as an I-told-you-so moment? I hadn’t meant it to; I was just excited (and relieved) that nothing had happened to the car.

I tried to backtrack. “How about we move it to a garage, then Uber or walk everywhere else?”

Because finding a street-side parking spot for each stop would eat up some serious time.

Isa considered, then shook her head. “No, that’s okay,” she said. “You were right—this is a secure area. We should just leave the car and Uber from here.”

I gave her a look. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said. “Who knows how long it’ll take to find the right garage. We need to move as efficiently as possible. I also don’t want to drain its battery.”

As always, my best friend was thinking of detail, organization, and speed.

Oh, how I adored her!

“Okay, sounds like a plan. Do you want…” I trailed off, about to ask if she wanted to order an Uber, but Isa was already in the process. I had revealed our next destination on our walk back here, and she’d grinned like I knew she would.

I rounded the Tesla and popped its trunk to grab something. “What are you doing?” Ev asked.

“You’re going to need this at some point,” I told him, and handed him James’s only-worn-on-holidays blue blazer. “Just hang on to it.”

Ev pretended to whine. “But I don’t like carrying things, Mom.”

“Too bad, young man,” I replied, crossing my arms when he tried handing the blazer back to me. “I don’t have room in my purse, and you’re old enough to carry your own stuff.”

Ev casually tossed the blazer over his shoulder and smirked at me.

I swallowed hard.

The whole effect was…

Well, incredibly hot.

“Uber will be here in two minutes!” Isa announced, looking up from her phone and smiling at us.

“Great!” I smiled back. “Now, um, Ev…” My throat was dry. “Get rid of the Mets hat, for real this time.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not going to hide my heritage.”

Isa sighed, but I could tell it was for show. “Everett, we covered this in seventh grade. Being a Mets fan is not the same thing as being Jewish.”

Ev whistled. “Don’t let my mother hear you say that.”

“I will never understand sports,” Isa muttered, but I caught her biting back a bemused smile. One I hadn’t seen in a long time.

“C’mon, Ev,” I said. “For your safety?”

Because seriously, Philadelphia fans were intense.

By the time our Uber arrived, he hadn’t taken the hat off, but I had successfully convinced him to turn it backward. That way his loyalty wouldn’t be so screaming obvious.

The problem now was the backward hat only added to the blazer hotness…. which made me realize that I needed to touch him. Although not his hand, not his arm, and not his dimples. More like his shoulders or his chest or just something. My hands were balled up in my shorts’ pockets, two tight fists. Don’t, I told myself. Don’t even think about it.

“Not so fast, Grace Barbour…” Isa held out her arm when Victor and his silver Honda Civic arrived, barring me from pulling open the door and sliding into the car’s backseat. The Cruzes had three specific Uber rules, and no matter the time or place, Isa upheld them.

Rule #1: You did not just jump in the car.

Our driver waved and rolled down his window. “Hello,” Isa said politely. “Who are you here to pick up?”

Rule #2: You did not mention your name; that was a test for the driver. If they didn’t know your name, it was a major red flag.

Victor glanced at his phone. “Isabel?”

“Yes.” Isa smiled. He’d passed. “And you’re taking us to…”

Rule #3: You double-checked the destination.

I didn’t know the logic behind that one, other than the Cruzes were thorough.

“You’re shaking,” Isa commented once we’d finally climbed into our Uber’s backseat and buckled up for our ride. “Are you feeling okay, G?”

By the time our Uber dropped us off at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I’d recovered and could barely contain my excitement. Ev couldn’t either. “Are we doing it?” he asked, bouncing up and down while rolling back his shoulders and shaking his arms to loosen his limbs. “Tell me we’re doing it?”

“Oh, hell yeah,” I said, pretend-punching the air like a boxer in the ring. “You better believe we’re doing it!”

Isa grimaced. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“We have to,” Ev and I said at the same time, with him adding, “These aren’t just any steps, Isa.”

“I know,” she said. “Our fathers had their film festivals at my house, remember?”

Yes, I did. Of course I did.

Before Ev’s smile could completely falter, I smiled back at him and held up a hand. He only hesitated a heartbeat before high-fiving me, a straight-on smack. “Victory!”

The seventy-two stone steps leading up to the art museum’s entrance had been nicknamed the “Rocky Steps” after Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa series. In Rocky II, there’s this universally famous scene where the boxer runs all through 1970s Philadelphia and ends his workout by sprinting up the museum’s steps. A metaphor for an underdog ready to fight his fight. Both tourists and locals mimicked his climb on a daily basis.

“Neither of you are wearing sneakers, though,” Isa pointed out, gesturing to Ev’s desert boots and my gladiator sandals. It went without saying that in her heels, she wasn’t even going to attempt Rocky’s run. At least not today.

Ev and I exchanged a look. “We’ll make it work,” I said.

“Will you hold my blazer?” he asked her.

“It’s James’s blazer,” Isa reminded him, “but sure.” She accepted the coat, then turned to me again. “I’m guessing you would like me to climb up first so I can take a video of you guys?”

I grinned. “Your cinematography skills are amazing.”

When we were younger, Isa would film and edit original plays performed in my basement, and last spring, she’d tirelessly overseen promotional footage for my presidential campaign.

“Should we make a wager?” Ev asked as Isa carefully made her way up the steps, slowly but surely.

I side-eyed Ev. “I’m listening….”

“Okay,” he said as his face flooded with color, and then he spoke so quietly that I barely heard him. “Loser has to grant the winner a wish.”

A lump formed in my throat, and my heart twisted as my mind instantly flashed to this summer, when I’d come so dangerously and agonizingly close to kissing him.

Was he alluding to that night?

No, I thought. He couldn’t be. He was probably thinking about—I hoped he was thinking about—mending his broken friendship with Isa. I was already using whatever genie skills I possessed to make that happen.

“Just one wish,” Ev whispered, Isa still climbing. “Just one, just once.”

I didn’t say anything; it was impossible for me to say anything. I didn’t have the words. Just one, just once? My eyes welled up at the thought. If I won, kissing Everett Adler was one thing, but knowing that it would be our first and last kiss?

It would be better not to kiss him at all.

Think of another wish, Grace.

A few moments passed.

“Grace?” Ev prompted.

“Sure, it’s a bet,” I said, focusing on Isa instead of him. She had picked up her pace.

“What’s your wish?” he asked.

To kiss you, I thought, but knowing that I’ll never have to stop kissing you.

Any and all circumstances aside, that was exactly what I wanted.

Isa reached the top of the steps and waved before situating her phone for filming purposes. Once she gave us a thumbs-up, Ev and I readied ourselves to run.

“I can’t tell you unless I win,” I quipped, my pulse already racing. “Otherwise it won’t come true.”

“Good point.” He cleared his throat. “On three?”

I nodded. “On three.”

The Philadelphia Museum of Art was massive: Greek revivalist architecture with grand sandstone columns and an equally large lobby. “Where should we start?” Ev asked, and cringed when his voice bounced off the walls. He slipped his hands in his pockets when other museum goers looked at him. “Sorry,” he murmured as we procured maps.

I scanned mine. This place was one big labyrinth. “I think we should divide and conquer,” I said, looking from Isa to Ev and back to Isa. “We only have limited time until our next stop.” I smirked, teasing them. “If we split up, we can each see what we want to see.”

Ev didn’t say anything, but Isa agreed. We weren’t compatible tourists, especially when it came to artwork. While she liked efficiency everywhere else, I knew—thanks to our ninth-grade field trip to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art—she would placidly wander here. She liked to study art; I liked to look at it. The last thing I wanted to do was pull her away from the Impressionist collection to see the gilded gold sculpture of the goddess Diana.

We set alarms on our phones and chose the fountain outside as our rendezvous point. Then Isa click-clacked off through an archway. How her feet weren’t killing her in those heels, I did not know.

“Well, go ahead!” I told Ev, not shooing him away but perhaps clapping my hands together before pointing directly at the staircase.

One corner of his mouth curled up, and he pretended to wave a magic wand.

“Very funny,” I said.

You have to see an exhibit with me , I’d texted him after winning our Rocky race.

That’s your wish? he’d replied.

Yes , I said. That’s my wish.

Some stakes, I know.

The two of us climbed the stairs side by side to the second floor. There were plenty of goodies at the museum, but Isa would cover those. What I really wanted to see was the visiting collection, a unique digital art installation by the Japanese art group, teamLab. Their base was in Tokyo, but some exhibitions still traveled around the world. From what I’d read online, they didn’t simply allow visitors to admire displays; they encouraged them to immerse themselves in the exhibit. My heart was skipping with excitement, and it was nice that I wasn’t going to experience this alone.

A docent waited at the exhibition’s entrance. “Enjoy!” she said as one guard held the door open for us.

First, we were figuratively and literally dazzled. Ev and I both covered our eyes for a moment. The room was full of LED lights and mirrors, creating a space that sparkled like ice and seemed to stretch on forever. We walked around slowly, worried about accidentally bumping into a mirrored wall. “Whoa!” Ev said when the room’s light pattern abruptly changed from glittering pixie dust to us soaring through some type of interstellar space-time continuum. The effect was incredible, but also scary—scary enough that I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly so we wouldn’t get separated as we spiraled. “It’s okay,” he said, squeezing it back. Sparks swirled in my palm. “I’ve got you.”

When we spotted someone slipping through a curtain into the next room, we quickly followed them.

Ocean waves welcomed us. Soft and soothing, the blue-and-white swirls washed up against the walls. The high ceiling and floor were black to solely focus on the sea, but I noticed some viewers relaxing in beanbags that had been arranged in the center of the room. Ev, however, let go of my hand and started tickling me. “Stop!” I whisper-yelled with a smile. Every summer, my family and the Adlers rented a house in Stone Harbor for two weeks while the Cruzes spent a month with family in Argentina. Ev and I always stole some beers when we took the Adlers’ sheepdog for late-night runs on the beach…but while Millie would bark and splash around in the water, we would mess with each other. He would tickle me, I would kick up wet sand at him, and then he would catch me in his arms again and spin me around and around. I always told myself that, beers aside, we were acting like little kids—that the silly games were nothing more than silly games. “We better stop,” I said now, once he’d twirled me twice. “Looks like we’re ruining some serious relaxation.”

The beanbag crew had all sat up and were glaring at us.

Ev chuckled softly, and I muffled mine in his chest. My pulse rushed when I realized what I was doing. I want you, I let myself think, longing to close my eyes, rest my head against him, and sway with the smooth waves. I want you with all my heart.

The Forest of Lamps was beautiful. Lights of various lengths hung from the ceiling, and their color scheme went from a bright red to a vivid blue to a warm yellow. Ev’s gaze swept the space. “This room is like the scene in Tangled where Rapunzel and Flynn Rider are sailing together as the kingdom releases her birthday lanterns….”

I snorted. Ev had an exceptional education in Disney movies.

He grinned, and—without thinking about it, too caught up in the fairy tale—I stretched up on my toes and kissed one of his dimples.

Or I tried to, because Ev pulled away before my lips could fully land. “Final room?” he suggested, looking flushed in the lamplight.

“Final room.” I agreed, my insides twisting. Had I read this whole thing wrong? Even though I told myself our games were just that, I didn’t really believe it. We flirted, didn’t we?

Confused, I felt Ev take my hand again and let him lead me toward the Universe of Water Particles on a Rock Where People Gather door—which was like a portal to another world, to an enchanted wonderland. I didn’t know where to look first. Purple, pink, and orange flora and fauna covered the floor and walls, while blue and green birds flew through the air, leaving twinkling flight paths in their wake. My mouth had fallen open, but when Ev let out this little gasp?

Well, forgive me for sounding so thirsty, but I wanted to taste it. And then, I heard Taylor Swift, of all people, in my head. Don’t waste the moment, Grace. Take it.

I needed to find out if the sparks between Ev and me werereal.

I tugged him across the magical room, completely bypassing the fabricated mountain where most people had congregated to marvel together. A glimmering waterfall beckoned. “What was it?” I asked Ev once we were hidden underneath the waterfall. My tone sounded too aggressive, but I didn’t want the rush of water to drown out my voice. I needed to know. “What was your wish?”

Ev didn’t say anything.

“Our Rocky Steps wager,” I clarified as if it needed remotely any clarification. “Loser grants the winner a wish.”

“Grace…” I watched Ev’s gaze skim the ground. “I won’t be able to take it back.”

“Look at me,” I said, blood now thumping through my veins. “Please, Ev, look at me.”

He slowly did, with heated cheeks and an intense expression I’d never seen before—a storm that he wouldn’t allow to rage. I shifted from one foot to the other as he raised his eyes to mine, and once they met, lightning barely had time to strike before Everett Adler and I started kissing. A rip went roaring up my spine. We had crashed together—but too quickly, too roughly, and too anxiously. Like this moment was some stupid middle school dare. It was a truly terrible kiss.

He knew it, too.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a little nervous.”

“Why?” I asked. “It’s me.”

He sighed. “Exactly.”

“Yes.” I told him. “ Exactly. It’s me—just me, Ev.”

I heard him inhale, but there was no time for an exhale—his lips were back on mine. My heart did a backward handspring when the kiss slowed and softened, and it did three more times when Ev slid his hands into my shorts’ back pockets to pull me closer. I knocked off his Mets hat so I could run my hands through his thick hair. “Hey,” he murmured as we found our rhythm, falling into a fantasy. Our breathing grew heavy, the warm air thick between us. I started kissing his neck, working my way down to his collarbone. His skin burned like sugar against my lips. I could not stop.

Ev failed spectacularly at muffling a groan and moved his hands from my pockets to my hips. We still weren’t close enough, even though our bodies had tangled together like the exhibit’s holographic tree roots. The rush of the waterfall had set the pace for my pulse. I wanted more.

Ev did, too.

I mean, I was pressed up against him.

“We should probably leave,” he whispered in my ear. “Go someplace else.”

“Where?” I asked, officially breathless. “There are like a million rooms here.”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Let’s consult our maps and pick one.”

“A janitor’s closet, perhaps?” I matched my grin to his before kissing a dimple to my heart’s content. This time, he laughed and let me.

“ Well, what do we have here?” a gravelly voice said, and after being blinded by a flashlight beam, I blinked to see a bearded, stern-looking museum security guard.

My stomach plunged.

He’s going to arrest us, I thought. Detain us. Put us in museum jail—

“Out,” the guard said in a firm but also resigned voice that sort of suggested this wasn’t the first time he’d caught some teenage PDA. “Both of you get out now. ”

Ev and I didn’t dawdle. He quickly bent down to grab his baseball hat before gesturing that I should walk in front of him for…certain reasons. We kept our eyes to the floor as we trailed through the Universe of Water I-Can’t-Remember-the-Rest-of-Its-Name room, but once we pushed through the exit and found ourselves in a normally lit hallway, I felt like I’d been clocked in the head—clocked back into real life.

Ev.

Me.

Not just one wish, but two.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Oh my god…”

“Grace, relax,” Ev said hoarsely. “It’s fine, it’s okay.”

But it wasn’t fine, and it definitely wasn’t okay. When Ev reached for my hand, I stepped away from him. A couple museum goers walked past us, and while neither of them was Isa, they could’ve been Isa. She could be anywhere, in any exhibit. For all I knew, she’d seen us disappear under the digital waterfall.

And what had Ev and I done?

“I need a minute,” I told him. “Please don’t follow me.”

Hurt flashed across his handsome face. “What?”

“Don’t follow me,” I repeated, and then let my prickling eyes catch his amber ones before I turned and made a run forit.

Tears spilled down my cheeks as I raced through the museum, past medieval suits of armor, past gaudy pink-and-gold furniture, past Pablo Picasso and his inferiors. I wanted to slap myself. How could you do it? I thought. How could you do it, how could you do it, how could you do it?

I ran up one stairwell, then down another. Something like black sludge had seeped into my veins and I needed to get it out. “Sorry, I’m sorry!” I called after nearly knocking over a woman on crutches, karma coming back around when I tripped over a Persian rug and fell to the floor. It smelled like dust.

But also like my mom’s fucking carpet cleaner.

“Miss, there is no running allowed in the museum…,” a docent said, but she dropped off when she saw my mess of a face. Her expression stilled. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” I nodded, eyes stinging. “But also no—not really.”

She directed me to the nearest restroom.

“Thank you,” I whispered, and then went to gather myself. Isa and I might’ve carried small shoulder bags, but we knew how to fit in our essentials. I washed off all the mascara bleeding down my face before starting anew with my mini makeup kit. Thanks to Mrs.Cruz’s tutelage, Isa and I were both valued customers at Sephora.

A few minutes later, I stared at myself in the mirror. I was calm and collected again.

Or I at least looked like I was.

There was no sign of Ev after I left the bathroom, so I slowed to a walk. It wasn’t until I walked into a random gallery that my stomach squirmed, and I stopped in my tracks.

Because Isa was standing across the room. I knew I needed to go talk to her; I wasn’t the type of friend who turned around and bolted.

Well, not usually. Not under normal circumstances.

Although first, I watched her. She looked so collegiate in her cardigan and heels, with that gorgeous silk scarf knotted around her ponytail and James’s blazer folded perfectly over her arm. She held up her phone with her other hand, taking a picture of the painting she was admiring.

Once she admired the photo itself, I made my move. “Isa, hey,” I said. “Fancy meeting you here!”

“G!” she exclaimed, sounding a little caught off guard. “Did you just get here?”

I forced myself to smile and nod.

She laughed. “Okay, I have to admit I thought your ‘divide and conquer’ strategy was silly at first, but then…” She gestured around the room. “I’ve been in here over an hour. Every piece is so fascinating, so uniquely beautiful.” She turned to me. “Splitting up was the best idea, Grace.”

The best idea.

It was nice someone thought so.

My heart was going to burst. It was going to burst through my chest and splatter all over the painting in front of us if I didn’t say something about Ev and me.

Isa waited for me to respond. “I know you’re supposed to be quiet in here,” she joked, “but ‘quiet’ doesn’t have to mean silent. ”

I tried to laugh, but instead exhaled a long breath. “Isa, I have to tell you something,” I said as she moved a few feet to the left, to study the next painting.

“Should I be nervous?” she asked. “You look guilty, like you broke a belle époque vase.”

“No, no, all vases are intact,” I assured her, then forced myself to say: “It’s about Ev.”

“Everett?” Isa raised an eyebrow. “What about Everett?”

“Well, we…we, um…” I trailed off, feeling like I’d messed up already. Ev and I weren’t a we. I couldn’t think straight; my insides were churning and wouldn’t stop.

Isa touched my arm. “G?”

I took her hand and led her to a nearby bench. Never mind the old man sitting there. “I should’ve told you this a long time ago,” I said, “but I didn’t and I’m so sorry.” I paused, on the precipice of disaster. “Ev and I hang out together outside of school and family stuff. Not as much as you and I, obviously, but we do hang out.” I gulped. “And the truth is—”

“Grace, stop,” Isa said. “I know the truth.”

My heart heaved. “You do?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “And it’s no big deal.”

“It’s not?”

“No, not at all,” she said, and laughed— actually laughed. “I know you help him babysit Margot and Abigail whenever his mom needs a night out or a weekend away.” She shrugged. “Mamá told me.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid for being surprised. Our moms were best friends—they got coffee together, took barre classes together, ran a book club together, and sent memes back and forth in their group chat. Of course it would come out that Ev and I shared his babysitting responsibilities.

“I’m honestly glad you help out,” Isa continued. “Mrs.Adler is swamped.”

I nodded. Not only was Ev’s mom an in-demand children’s book illustrator, but she was on the elementary school board, a Girl Scout troop leader, and had dinner religiously on the table by six-thirty every night.

“It’s really sweet that you and Everett volunteer to babysit together so she can have some time for herself,” Isa continued. “Especially…”

She trailed off, and for once, I wasn’t going to finish her sentence for her. Because whatever she’d been about to say—I knew it was about Ev’s dad. Isa and I didn’t talk about Mr. Adler much. He’d been a cool uncle to me, but he was more like Isa’s second dad. Her own father wanted her to achieve her goals no matter the cost; I’d once overheard Mr.Adler tell Isa that she could accomplish anything she set her mind to while still having fun.

And I managed to process my grief over Mr.Adler’s death with my family, but I would never forget hearing my mom on the phone with Mrs.Cruz one night. “Pilar, I wonder if Isa might benefit from talking to someone….”

Mr. and Mrs.Cruz didn’t believe in therapy. It was Everett’s dad who’d been her confidant for so many years.

“Really, G,” she said now. “Everett’s sisters love you, so if they invite you over, get in the Subaru and go save them. I getit.”

No, you don’t, I thought sadly as Isa put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a side squeeze. You don’t get it.

If Ev were anyone else, I would without a doubt be sitting on this bench and spilling the whole story to Isa, and she would be helping me laugh away the embarrassment of making out in such a public place. And then you propositioned him to have sex in a janitor’s closet? I could imagine her saying. Not classy, G! So not classy!

If Ev were anyone else.

I wanted to tell her, I did. I just couldn’t watch Isa’s face crumple in this gallery—this gallery she loved so much. Maybe she didn’t mind me co-babysitting the Adler girls, but I think she was picturing Margot and me trolling online for bat mitzvah dresses rather than watching The Office with Ev once his sisters went to sleep.

“And hey, while we’re on the subject,” Isa said, shifting in her seat, “there’s also something I feel like I should tell you—”

She got cut off, an obnoxious beeping noise suddenly filling the high heavens. Everyone—and I do mean everyone —in the gallery turned to locate the sound’s source.

I.e., us.

“Crap,” I muttered as Isa squeaked “Yikes!”

We quickly unlocked our phones and switched off their identical alarms.

“It’s time,” I said quietly, and together we bid les artistes and their masterpieces adieu.