With another eye roll, Penn yanks out his phone again. Aftera moment, a ringtone with my favorite NSYNC song echoes from the entryway.
I laugh as he sets off to find it. “Classic.”
Penn returns, holding up a phone covered in a glittery turquoise case, a charm of colorful beads hanging from its corner. He slides it across the island, and I do a double take.
For years, my phone’s wallpaper has been a selfie of Connor and me standing along the Chicago River at sunset. The background on this phone is different: a picture with Bridget, the Eiffel Tower stretching high into the cloudless sky above us. We’re hugging and laughing.
I’ve never been to Paris.
“Call me if you need anything,” Penn orders. “I’ll keep trying to get a hold of Ryan, and I’ll stop by The Disco Diner to tell Theo I’m filling in for you today.”
“Theo Ford!” I shout, slapping the counter. “That’s perfect.”
Penn rounds the island, towering over me while he cups the back of my neck and presses his other hand to my forehead. I can’t believe how warm his skin feels. How realistically my body reacts to it, goose bumps rising along my arms.
He pulls his hands away and sighs. “Water. And food. And take a nap while you’re at it. I’ll check in with you soon, okay?”
I offer him a salute.
Penn lifts keys from his back pocket and swings them around one finger. Then he points at me and says, “Don’t die, Wynne.”
I nod. “Good advice.”
With one last, weary exhale and a puzzled glance over his shoulder, Penn leaves.
Perhaps it’s the quiet, or the lack of a Penn-shaped distraction, or the coffee and frosted crackers catching up to me all at once,but as I stand up, determined to explore the mansion, my miserable headache returns. Along with a bout of nausea.
I follow Penn’s instructions and nurse a glass of water while I meander through the downstairs rooms, which are only partially furnished—and strangely so. This place must be what thirteen-year-old me pictured as a fancy mansion, because while it’s large and luxurious, the design details are still very much the rendering of a seventh-grader. I tour an office lined with tangerine bookshelves and the striped, upholstered window seat of my teen dreams. There’s a yellow sunroom with wicker furniture and pink plaid pillows, while the airy living room boasts nothing but a big denim sectional, as if my imagination got tired. Outside, sure enough, there are two pools, one large and with a slide, the other a slim, glittering lap pool.
Upstairs, I pass the unfinished bedroom, the pink-and-purple bathroom, and my bedroom, walking toward the rainbow-colored wooden stairs at the far end of the hallway. They creak as I climb up to a small, round turret room.
It’s magnificent.
The black ceiling is dotted with tiny twinkling lights that look like stars. One wall holds an aquarium filled with—I barely need to count—thirteen fish, and floor pillows as vibrant as Starbursts surround a gigantic purple beanbag that’s calling my name.
I slouch into it, yawning. Whatever spikes of energy I felt from all the sugar and excitement have officially crashed. Or maybe my dream body is spent after keeping up with such a remarkably realistic fantasy.
I’d like to keep exploring, but I can’t resist closing my eyes—even though I know that if I drift off, it will mean the end of my most memorable, hilarious dream. I’ll just have to quickly shareevery wild detail with Bridget when I wake up. She’s going to love it.
I sink deeper into the beanbag, and my breathing slows. I fall asleep.
Next thing I know, I’m awake.
And I’m still in the beanbag.
4
Cool Cool Cool
I’m not surewhat’s worse: that I seem to have accidentally projected myself into a MASH game come true, or that I’ll have to dress like a My Little Pony while I’m trapped here.
Whereverhereis.
Despondent and bruised after slamming my hip into hard objects—which, turns out, wasn’t enough to launch me out of this dream—I pace around the yellow upholstered bench in the center of my closet. Rows of teal doors with inset windows run along the room’s perimeter, and racks of shiny, colorful clothing are visible through the glass. There’s more pink and purple than I’ve worn in literally decades, and I spy a few old, familiar prints, including the mortifying plaid dress I wore in my sixth-grade yearbook photo.
I try calling Bridget again, but she isn’t answering her phone. Neither is Ryan. Here, Connor isn’t even on my “Favorite Contacts” list, and calling my parents is out of the question. Mom would be on the first flight out of Fort Meyers and sending SOS messages to everyone she knows if I called out of the blue and asked,Hey, canyou confirm our location on the space-time continuum? I’m pretty sure I’m stuck in a sleepover game from middle school.
It’s all too much. I don’t know where I am, how I got here, or how to get out.
