“And put that stupid black box away,” she snapped. “You’re not proposing to my best friend. You’re not showing up here and lying after all those other years of trapping her under false circumstances. Yes, I did a deep dive last night. Not again.”
The rumble in the audience began low and picked up speed, like they were all just realizing that their two favorite movie starshad real, not just internet-rumored, history. And they were lucky enough to be witnessing it, here, now, all for the price of admission to a Clay Dodara show.
“I didn’t mean—” Kai started, tilting toward the microphone, as if the public record was what mattered here. He faded and stared at Birdie, and Elliot muttered to himself, “Don’t do it, Birdie, don’t do it. Do not give that man another inch.”
“Kai,” Birdie said, and squeezed her eyes closed.
“Please,” Kai pleaded, and Elliot realized that this might be the first time in Kai Carol’s whole life when he had to fight for something, when something actually had stakes.What an absolute prick.Then he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket and pulled it out.
Francesca.
Of course she wanted the story, of course she wanted the scoop. Of course she knew he would be there, involved in some way. She just didn’t know how much, how deeply his involvement ran. It ran so deep that he couldn’t separate Birdie’s pain from his, her shock from his shock. Goddammit he wanted to help her, but he also intuited that the best way to help her was to stand right here, unmoving, and let her hold her own. His thumb hovered over his screen, and then he shoved his phone back into his pocket. For once, the scoop could wait, and Elliot found this absolutely liberating.
“I don’t understand,” Birdie said, turning to Mona, as if Kai was already irrelevant. Elliot’s heart soared. Literally, actually soared. Well, figuratively actually soared, but he suspected if a heart could really soar, his would be suspended in midair right now. “Mona, you’re not in love with me.”
Mona stared at her shoes and shifted her posture. “No, no, I mean, I love you, Bird. But... well, I wrote it for Elliot.”
That soaring heart careened straight down to the ground and splattered. Elliot nearly jumped over the two rows in front of him out of sheer astonishment.
“You wrote it... for Elliot?” Birdie squeaked.
The theater had fallen so quiet that if a heartcouldsoar, you would hear its little wings flapping.
Mona sighed, cleared her throat, looked out to the two thousand ticket holders who were getting way more than they had paid for.
“I made Elliot promise. Years ago. At prom. You remember, right?”
Birdie nodded. Elliot swallowed.
“And, I mean, you don’t know this, Bird, but seven years ago, when you guys were together—”
“Wait,” Birdie interrupted. “How do you know about that? Who told you?” Elliot saw her squint in his direction. He hadn’t said a word, he’d promised he wouldn’t tell Mona, and he hadn’t.
“No one told me, Birdie. That’s the whole point. That Elliot went to the premiere that I knew you were at too and went dark for the night, and then neither of you mentioned that you’d even run into each other, and then you never even mentioned each other again to meat allother than weird, stilted one-off questions and answers? I know I just run a dive bar, but it wasn’t difficult to piece together.”
Elliot felt the blood drain from his face, and though the spotlight made Birdie glow—she was impossibly beautiful even in the middle of a disaster—she looked peaked herself.
“And I wanted to ask you about it,” Mona said. “I wanted you to know that you could tell me anything! I didn’t have a right to claim you simply because you were my best friend, and becauseElliot got all the good things when we were growing up. What I said back then, at prom, was stupid and selfish, and I love you two more than anything, anyone else, on the planet.” Mona inhaled, then kept going. “Anyway, I called Elliot after the premiere, and I asked him how he was doing, what he was up to, and... he didn’t say a word. Dead silence about it. And I realized what a disaster I had made of everything. That the two people I wanted the most happiness for couldn’t even share it with me.”
Elliot’s jaw had nearly come unhinged.Mona called him that morning when he was at the bagel store as a setup so he could tell her, so she could give him room to tell her if something happened, and she would have been happy for him, for them, and instead, he didn’t trust her to do so, so he went back to Birdie’s and walked away or they both pushed each other away, more likely, and then he and Birdie spent the past seven years losing time.
“So anyway.” Mona sighed. “You were supposed to come home a few years ago, for something, maybe Christmas, I can’t remember. And, I mean, I feel like a proper idiot now, but I typed that note up and dropped it in the mail, thinking you’d find it and realize that it could only be from Elliot, and my screwup wouldn’t have set you guys too far off track.”
“But I didn’t come home,” Birdie whispered.
“But you didn’t come home. Not for years, not until now,” Mona said, her voice breaking. “And, Birdie, I am so, so sorry. I’d forgotten about it, and then when you brought the letter to Monads last week, I thought that you’d figure it out. And then when you didn’t, I thought that if you two spent time together in the RV,thenyou’d figure it out. I didn’t mean for it to spiral.” Mona turned toward the audience. “Elliot, I’m sorry, too. I commandeered your laptop last night and got Francesca’s email—Iwrote her and told her I’d make this right for you. Explained myself. She agreed to give you a minute to find out the truth. So you have. And I’m sorry.”
Then Mona swiveled back to Birdie, who stared at his twin sister for a long beat. Elliot was paralyzed, unsure of what to do, if he had any part in this, if he should bound up onstage and tell Birdie that he’d loved her since the day they met when she had skinned knees and lopsided braids and that weathered copy ofThe Lord of the Rings. Or if he didn’t have the right to tell her any of this anymore, now that it was so late in their saga. He was shaking, his body so amped-up on adrenaline and stress and dopamine and serotonin.
Then the applause started in the back of the theater, like a low rumble of thunder. And someone shouted, “Girl, what are you waiting for? Where is Elliot? Go get your Elliot!!” And then the rest of the venue joined in. Explosive, booming clapping and howling and cheering.
And Elliot wanted to run to her, fly right up those stairs, elbowing past Kai Carol and sweeping Birdie up into an embrace that he didn’t think he’d ever let go of. But this had to be Birdie’s story, he told himself. This had to be the ending that she wanted to write, not him. So he held his breath, and he tried to abate his trembling, though it was futile and a losing battle in all respects.
Then, just when Elliot began to feel foolish for holding out hope, Birdie broke her gaze from Mona and turned toward the adoring crowd. She turned right toward him and smiled.
58
BIRDIE
