“Real mature!” I shout.
Fuming with the checkered tablecloth under my arm, trying desperately not to crumple it in transit, I resist the urge to flip off Buckley. I know Dad is watching at home. Shaking it off, I turn back to Leo.
He’s right across the line, jumping up and down, smiling despite the setback. It’s all apropos. Leo’s the one I’m running toward. Buckley’s the one I’m leaving behind in a puddle of spilled drink. The future looks bright.
As I tap him in, Leo cries, “We’re killing this!”
With my hands on my knees and my heart in my throat, I catch my breath and think: hell yeah, we are.
Except when the bell sounds and the round ends, I find out, for sure, that we didn’t have the Club Shopper Card after all. My naive optimism kicks me in the ass.
I’m standing on my mark next to Leo, combing through my fanny pack and Leo’s fanny pack, and waiting for Pat to come back out and reveal which team is going on to the finale.
“Didn’t we win the Club Shopper Card during trivia?” I frantically ask Leo, knowing the answer but needing to hear it aloud for it to register completely.
“No,” he says, using a cloth to wipe at his sweaty brow. “We won the five-dollar gift card and the three-dollar-off coupon.”
“Looking for this?” Buckley’s grating voice comes from a few steps away. He’s holding the Club Shopper Card in his hand. As he wiggles it, the piece of plastic catches the light like it’s a goddamn golden nugget.
I grow cold. I might’ve just cost us the game.
“We’re back in two!” shouts a production assistant.
Leo and I snap forward. “We’re screwed,” I mumble, furious with myself.
“You don’t know that.” Leo’s conviction isn’t sound.
“I took the most expensive tablecloth thinking we had fifty percent off when I could’ve taken the cheapest one. The difference would’ve been like a dollar. Now, who knows how off we’re going to be.” My pulse ratchets up. I can sense Mom here with me. Was coming on this show and losing a fate worse than never knowing if I could hack it on our favorite game show?
Leo rubs a reassuring hand up and down my inside arm, which comes off as placating. I don’t like it. “We won’t know for sure until Pat comes out and announces the totals. We did our best.”
“But—”
“We did...” he says, stepping closer. “Our best.”
I want to breathe in those words, not let the panic win, but my mind won’t let me.
Then, in front of the audience, in front of Buckley, in front of his mom, Leo kisses me. He kisses me with a passion that should be exciting and reassuring like it was at karaoke, but this time it’s neither. My skin crawls, and my negative thoughts continue to crank out. One rises above the rest: he’s doing this for the audience and the producers. He’s selling the lie.
A kiss off camera is worth just as much as a kiss on-air. Maybe more. It solidifies our story and mortifies me.
What was I thinking? Why did I do this?
I’ve lost us the show and even if not tomorrow or a year from now, one day, I’ll lose Leo, too.
Once a loser, always a loser. I thought this show would help me shed that, but the dread on my back grows larger and heavier the longer we stand here. “Save it for the cameras!” cries the production assistant as she passes us to count the cameras in once more.
Flushed, I pull away. I’m lost in the haze of horrible thoughts that I don’t even realize when we’ve begun rolling again. Pat Crumsky has appeared with the special envelope that contains our fate.
“Our teams’ final receipt totals were separated by a mere fifty-six cents,” Pat says. My stomach evacuates into the bowels of the earth. “Could one coupon have cost the competitor a chance to play for one hundred thousand dollars? Let’s find out.”
The lights dim and the music skews dramatic. My heart keeps time with the persistent, ominous drum line.
I want this to be over. I want to be home. I want Mom back.
“The winner of round three is...” His pause is a major test of my patience. “Team Eggplant!”
The bright lights blink back on. I’m too stunned to process. Leo’s yelling excitedly in my ear. Buckley looks like he wants to murder me. Mrs. Min is in the crowd sporting the biggest smile I’ve seen from her yet, which breaks my heart because we lied to her. Because, despite what I believed before, I feel as tangled as I did when I arrived in Los Angeles.
