Caroline’s been on me to take things up a notch.
“I mean, I get that eating lunch with Nico is very thrilling and all, but that’s not the point here,” she lectures me on the phone one night. “Like, not going to lie, you’re trying to write about love here, and chatting with him over a PB&J while his girlfriend looks on isn’t even close to that.”
I almost tell her about the close calls I’ve had, but then again, what is there to tell her? “I almost wrote?” “I got an idea about my two characters . . . standing and staring at each other?” That would only prove her point.
“It’s building, though! I can feel it building. The way he looks at me . . . it’s like we have a . . . I don’t know, secret or something. Like there’s all these people on the lawn at lunch, but I’m the only one he wants to talk to sometimes—”
She cuts me off. “You’re sitting with him, yeah, but we need to get you sitting on him, do you know what I mean?” I can almost hear her eyebrows waggling over the phone.
“Caroline!” I yell.
“His face, preferably.”
“Caroline!!!” She probably can’t hear me over her giggles. Her laugh is contagious, and I can’t help but join in—even though I feel equal parts mortified and . . . fluttery.
“How long were you planning that one?” I ask when we finally settle down.
“Awhile.”
I roll my eyes and lie back on my bed, squeezed between my fuzzy reading pillow and my laptop. I still keep it there even though I’m not writing, because that’s where it’s always been, ready to take in all of my middle-of-the-night ideas. It doesn’t feel right to put it somewhere else.
“What about Halloween? It’s on a Saturday this year, and that’s basically the universe throwing you a bone, because you know your parents will let you stay out late. Has he invited you to anything?”
“I don’t know. . . . I think I might just hang out with Lenore, Sam, and Theodore. We were talking about going out to eat and then watching movies at Sam’s house maybe—”
“Boring!”
I feel defensive all of a sudden. “His house is actually pretty cool. . . .”
“Okay, yeah, but hanging out with Hawaiian Shirt Sam isn’t going to get you any closer to your happily ever after.”
“He doesn’t just wear Hawaiian shirts, you know.”
“Regardless, you are not just wasting the magic of a holiday by hanging out with Sam.”
“Is Halloween magical? I think all the Lifetime movies are about Christmas.”
“Whatever. Okay. I got some options for you.” I can hear the sound of her fingers feverishly clicking across her keys. “It looks like there’s something called Pa’s Pumpkin Patch going on in Long Beach, and they might have a Ferris wheel. Do you know where that is? Can you do a drive-by with Sam to look for the Ferris wheel, or should I call them and leave a message?”
“Caroline. Do not leave anyone a message.”
“If that’s out,” she continues, ignoring me, “then there’s also a Ferris wheel at some place called the Pike. Could you get him there—”
“What, like, lure him to a Ferris wheel? Whatever he’s doing, it’s going to be with Poppy. The chances of us being alone are pretty much zero.”
“Oh yeah.” Her voice sounds slightly deflated, and I feel it too. It’s a necessary dose of reality, though. Perfect, beautiful Poppy will be wherever Nico is. Because she’s his person.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to dress up as yet?” she asks, changing the subject.
“Not really. I don’t have my partner in crime!” Caroline and I have always been pretty big on costumes, even if our plans were nothing more than watching Hocus Pocus and passing out candy with Miles at home (she didn’t think it was so boring then). Last year was our best yet: Cher and Dionne from that old movie Clueless. I was Cher and she was Dionne because those are our favorite characters, and no one got it because I wasn’t the Black character, but whatever.
“Brandon and I can’t decide what to be. First we were thinking Archie and Veronica, but that’s probably going to be every couple at the party we’re going to. So we’re thinking maybe more obscure, like, maybe Elliot and Gertie from E.T. or that skinny guy with the sweatband and Ellen Page from Juno, but my dad will probably have a fit if I walk out of the house looking pregnant. . . .”
I kind of start to tune out as she starts to go through her list of ideas.
“Any of those sound good! You two are going to be so cute. Hey—have your parents okayed that weekend next month yet? The flight from Sacramento to Long Beach is pretty cheap, and my parents said they would pay for half of it.”
“Uh . . . yeah. It took a while, but we’re good to go.”
“Oh, awesome!” I can’t stop myself from doing a little dance in my bed. “It will be so good to see you in real life again. I’m beginning to forget that there’s a whole body attached to your voice.”
“Yep, still have arms and legs and a whole actual life going on over here.”
“Maybe you can even meet Nico. Should we start planning something to make that happen now?”
“Sure.”
Her voice sounds . . . weird. Like, she’s not as excited as me about the trip. I start to feel anxious, but I tell myself that I’m probably just imagining it.
As if conjured by Caroline herself, the Halloween conversation comes up the next day at school.
“Yo, Tessa!” Grayson calls as I walk up. “You coming with us to Munchkin Town on Halloween?”
“What?” I ask. “Like The Wizard of Oz?”
“Oh, cut the PC crap, Grayson!” Poppy laughs. “Just call it what everyone used to before they got scared of hurting precious feelings. Midget Town.”
My eyes bug out, momentarily stunned.
Nico must read my face, because he holds up his hands. “Yeah, that’s not okay to say, is it, Tessa?”
“Why are you asking her? Is she some kind of woke expert?” Poppy asks, as if I can’t hear her. She tightens her grip on his arm.
“Because Tessa is in tune with stuff like that. She knows what’s up,” he says, grinning at me. I notice that he pulls his arm away from her to scratch his back but then doesn’t put it back in Poppy’s reach. “That word’s offensive, right, Tessa?”
I’m not sure if I know all the “stuff like that,” but this one, at least, seems straightforward. “I think, uh, ‘little person’ is the accepted term? Definitely not . . . that. Or munchkin either.” Nico nods emphatically, like I just said something wise. “What does that mean anyway? You guys are going to . . . this town?”
Poppy shakes her head and gives me a tight smile. “There’s nothing wrong with saying it.”
“Actually, Tessa, you might know where it is!” Rhys says, sitting up from his spot on the grass. “You live in the Virginia Country Club, right? I remember Weiner lives somewhere over there.”
“I live in Bixby Knolls, not the country club.” It’s just a couple miles, but it’s a huge difference.
“Ah dammit, I was hoping you could get us in!”
“But what is it exactly?”
They all turn to gape at me, as if I just asked something stupidly obvious.
“You don’t know what Midget Town is?” Poppy asks.
“Don’t call it that,” Nico says, his lips curled up in annoyance, and Poppy scowls so hard it looks like she’s going to break her face. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but it seems like they’re moving toward one of their off-again moments. “And I always forget you’re not from Long Beach, Tessa, because you, like, fit in so well here. Little Person Town—yeah . . . that’s going to take some getting used to. Well, anyway, whatever we call it—it’s this Long Beach urban legend. I think I first heard it when I was in fifth grade, maybe?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Poppy agrees. “Or maybe even earlier. Remember that one girl, Lily Mueller? She used to tell everyone that her aunt lived there and she would see all the . . . whatever—munchkins when she went to visit on Thanksgiving.”
I fight the urge to correct her use of the word. “Okay, but what is it?”
“A town of munchkins, obviously,” she says with an eye roll.
“Little people,” I mutter. I can’t help it. “Or you, know, just people. We can call them that if it isn’t, uh, essential to this story. Because that’s what they are.”
“Oh, but it kinda is,” Grayson says.
Rhys nods his head in agreement. “Yeah, like, that’s the whole point. Okay, so, Tessa, the story is this: Way back like two hundred years ago when they were filming The Wizard of Oz . . .”
“It wasn’t that long ago, man,” Nico laughs. “Don’t you, like, study this in your film classes?”
“Whatever,” he continues on, standing up and pacing now, excited to tell a story. “The deal is this: When they were filming The Wizard of Oz, they needed special housing, or some shit, for the people who played the Munchkins. Because there were a whole lot of them, and they couldn’t just live in the normal places for the rest of the cast, right? So they built this whole community in Long Beach, where there was more land. And it still exists, passed down from generation to generation, and there are little doorways and little windows. But see, they’re real secretive and don’t want people bugging them, so there’s this fence around it, blocking all of it from public view.”
All of this sounds very improbable, but I decide to focus in on the obvious issue here. “If they don’t want people to bother them, then why would you guys go there?”
“For the experience!” Poppy says, leaving out a “duh,” but it’s still very much present in her tone.
“Yeah, and I’m going to film it for my channel,” Rhys says. “It’ll get alllllllll the views!”
“We just thought it would be fun, you know, to find this place finally. After hearing about it for all these years. We can just hop the fence real quick and take a look around—maybe take a few drinks and hang out on Signal Hill after?” Nico says. “And the only semigood party going on is at Brett Kwan’s, and it’ll mostly just be music and theater kids being their normal pretentious selves and showing off their esoteric costumes. No offense, Grayson.”
“None taken.”
“Anyway, will you come with us, Tessa?” Nico asks.
“I don’t know. . . .” I can hear Caroline screaming in my head because this isn’t a Ferris wheel or anything, but it’s definitely happily-ever-after-plan adjacent. I should be taking any opportunity to hang out with Nico, yeah—except trespassing and searching for some offensive urban legend with Nico and his girlfriend isn’t exactly what I had pictured for the next act in our love story.
“Come on,” Nico insists, tapping my foot with his across the grass. “I really want you to come. It’ll be fun.”
I, not we. I really want you to come. The words warm up my whole body, and I can feel a big ol’ dopey smile spread across my face. I purposely don’t look at Poppy, because I have a feeling she’s giving me a massive stink face, and I don’t want that to ruin how good I feel about the “I” and the “really.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Wooo!” Nico cheers, and actually pumps his fist in the air. I for real almost faint.
Poppy must not be too mad, though, because she comes up and grabs my arm after we’ve all split up and are heading our separate ways for conservatory. And not in a bitch, you better stop trying to steal my kinda boyfriend way, but an affectionate squeeze, like we’ve been friends for years.
“I’m really glad you’re coming, Tessa. You know, it’s really nice to have another girl around here to break up this whole sausage fest.” She sounds so genuine that I wonder if maybe I’ve been reading her wrong this whole time. Like, maybe I’m trying to make her a villain because that makes all of this easier in my brain and keeps me from looking at my own actions too closely.
“It’ll be fun.” I smile. “I’m excited.”
“And don’t forget your costume. We’re really big on costumes,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t want you to feel left out.”
I almost feel bad for what I’m trying to do.