“I think they were just mad that they didn’t do better at Regionals,” I said, ready to move past this. “Easy to scapegoat me, you know?”
She looked at me for a moment longer, then grinned. “I can’t believe you did something called academic quiz bowl.”
I laughed, feeling some tension leave my shoulders. “I’ll have you know it wasverycool in Arizona. We had jackets and everything.”
“Well, see, I didn’t know about the jackets. Where should we go? Cars Land?”
“Sure!” I didn’t care where we went, really—I was just glad Bryony and I could go back to having fun. “Sheridan did say there’s a DJ. And maybe at some point I’ll be able to go on a ride again and then…”
“Radiator Springs Racers?”
“I mean, while we’re there, we might aswell.”
We headed over, and as we made the right turn into Cars Land, I smiled when I saw the famous tow truck fromCars, Mater, with a mortarboard—Materboard?—and a line of teens queueing to get pictures with him. I turned to point him out to Bryony, when something caught my eye.
It was a large, stylized poster on a stand, seeming to glow under the flashing lights.ETON MESSwas printed across the top in capital red letters. Underneath was written,LIVE! ALL THE WAY FROM ENGLAND! SHOWTIME 12:00 A.M.And then under this was a black-and-white picture of four guys in their deconstructed prep-school uniforms, the same picture Bryony and I had seen over by Pixar Pier, only bigger.
“Hey!” I stopped short when I realized I recognized one of the faces on it. The guy who’d spilled orange soda all over me—and had caused me to briefly lose my power? of speech—was one of the four guys in the band.FREDDIE,read the name under his picture. And he, at least, seemed to understand this was all a little ridiculous. Where the other guys were smoldering, he was raising an eyebrow that seemed to indicate that he was very much in on the joke. He held a bass guitar and wore a striped tie over a T-shirt. I realized after a moment that it was the same one I’d seen him in earlier tonight, the one readingEXCALIBUR!The changing lights seemed to linger on his silhouette for just a second longer than ?they should have, before moving on.
One of the other band members had a microphone slung around his neck, and was pursing his lips at the camera.NIALLwas written under his picture, which rang a bell for me. Hadn’t the guy—Freddie, apparently—said something about a Niall? The other two also had their names written under their images—TRISTRAMandALFIE.
“What?” Bryony asked, also leaning closer to look at the poster.
I pointed to it. “It’s the guy who spilled orange soda on me! I thought he was just here as a senior, but apparently not.”
“He’s in aband?” She shook her head. “Man. And I thought you were far gone before.”
“I was not,” I protested weakly, even though I knew it was pretty much the truth. I shrugged and shook my head, giving up the pretense. “It was the accent. And the hair.”
Bryony nudged me with her shoulder. “It was cute! I feel like I haven’t seen you that flustered around a guy before.”
I nodded, realizing this was true. “I mean, there was my ex from SLO.”
“The lab partner?”
“Yeah.” At my last high school in San Luis Obispo, I’d dated my environmental sciences lab partner for two months. But we never seemed to have all that much to talk about, and when we finally decided to end it, I could sense that both of us were relieved. But I hadn’t had a crush on anyone at Harbor Cove, so it really did feel like it had been a minute. “I guess I haven’t had a real crush since Bruce.” A second later, I realized what I’d done. “I mean…”
“Wait, you’ve never mentioned a Bruce.”
“I…haven’t?”
“No, I would have remembered. Because I would have said something like,Who’snamed Bruce these days?But seriously, who’s named Bruce these days?”
I smiled, even as I felt my heart squeeze. I’d had a very similar conversation, the very first night I’d met Bruce Preston. “Yeah. It wasn’t a big thing,” I lied. “We were supposed to go to the prom together, but it…didn’t work out.”
Bryony turned to me, her eyes wide and sympathetic. “He broke up with you before the prom?”
I swallowed hard, trying to push the memory away—of the text I’d sent, the way I’d turned off my phone to avoid the fallout. “Something like that.” I nodded toward the Eton Mess poster, more than ready to change the subject. “But maybe we can go see this band later. At midnight?”
“Sure,” Bryony said easily. “Sounds good.”
We headed toward Cars Land, and I glanced back at the poster for one more moment before hurrying to catch up with Bryony.
An hour later, we’d danced to the DJ, and my stomach had settled to the point where we’d been able to go on Radiator Springs Racerstwice, in addition to getting ice cream at the Cozy Cone. We’d finally gone on the Silly Symphony Swings after all, and Bryony had insisted on taking my picture in front of the Aunt Cass Café in San Fransokyo Square. And then, because it was getting close to midnight, we made our way over to where the crowd had gathered in front of the stage by Pixar Pier.
“Okay,” Bryony said, looking down at her phone. “Emma R. says they’re all here, too. And that the other Emmas have been acting kind of weird….”
“Weird how?”
