Page 92 of Okay, Cupid

They won’t say a word, not at first. But the feelings will be there. Something will finally click, and the two of them will be pulled right to the edge of the cliff.

And I’ll be there to push them over.

“Jude?” Leah calls from her spot on the couch. Today’s a rare day off for her, so she’s been enjoying herself by catching up on Drag Race. “You’re pacing around the house, honey. You’re starting to make me nervous.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, waving my hands back and forth in front of my body. There’s something simple about the action that’s keeping me cool and calm. “I’m just worried.”

“Tonight’s it? The big finale?” Leah asks me with so much pride in her voice.

“Not quite—it’s the setup for the big night. I want the feelings to be cemented tonight. Then boom! They kiss at the Valentine’s Dance on Wednesday.”

“Shame you couldn’t strike this on a year where Valentine’s Day is on a Friday.”

“You’re telling me.”

“But I mean, this is it? It sounds like you’ve reached the end!” Leah eyes me. “I feel like you should be happier. You look depressed.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“You’re nervous,” she tells me.

“Is it that obvious?” I don’t mean to snap; it just comes out that way.

“Whoa! Okay, let’s turn the attitude down a notch.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just … What if I fuck it up now? What if I’ve made it this close to the finish line, and I stumble?”

“Do you really think that’ll happen?” Leah gives me a reassuring look, and I know she’s saying this to try to make me feel better.

“I don’t know!” I tell her, falling to the couch dramatically.

“Okay.” Leah reaches for the remote, realizing just how serious the situation is. “Let’s talk this out. I want you to tell me what could possibly go wrong tonight.”

“I don’t get Huy and Alice together.”

“You’re not trying to get them together tonight—you said it yourself. This is the last night of prep.”

“I could fail. They could say something they don’t mean, they could hate each other again, and this entire month will just go poof! up in smoke. And I’ll have failed Richard, and the Cupids, and you’ll be disappointed in me, and—”

“You think that you’ll disappoint me?” Leah asks, her voice quiet. “Look, I get scared all the time, Jude. It’s just that as an adult, I’m expected to hide it better.”

“You’re great at hiding it.” I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever seen Leah scared.

“I was scared when I was your age, the first time I was sent out to get my first couple together on my own. You wanna know what happened?”

She takes my silence as a reply.

“I used the same plan you did the other night. I thought that tripping the guy and getting him to spill wine on this girl’s dress would lead to a funny moment. They’d go to the bathroom, try to clean things up, laugh about it. You want to know what really happened? She slapped him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, in retrospect it’s pretty funny. But there was no laughing then, just angry shouting as she chewed him out in front of a dozen people at a college party. It was ugly.”

In the years that I’ve known her, I’ve never really heard Leah talk about her failures. Her success stories, sure, but never her failures. I guess it was kind of this unspoken rule?

“And after that, I caused a car crash. Just a fender bender on the street, nothing serious. But fender benders don’t really bring people together. Another time I accidentally caused a flock of seagulls to attack this couple. I tried to When Harry Met Sally these two kids in college and they made it just into Oakland before she made him get out of the car and hitchhike back to campus because there was no way she was driving all the way to Texas with him.”

“How come you’ve never mentioned these stories before?”