Act Twenty-One
Luka Kotova
47 Days to Infini’s Premiere
February in Vegas on a Friday afternoon. It’s weirdly hot outside, and less strangely, overcrowded.
We’re given an hour lunch break from practice, and I push through the throngs of tourists taking selfies.
Of course they choose to congregate around the Masquerade’s street entrance. It’s known for its mammoth marble replica of a regal ball. People can walk through the legs of marble masked men and women.
I duck beneath a selfie stick and spot Bay by the curb. Staring at the vast row of food trucks. I begin to smile.
Food trucks only stop by the Masquerade on the last Friday of every month, and I haven’t been in the past. Always avoiding her. But I’m done with avoidance.
For once, I’m getting what I want.
After we kissed outside the diner, we agreed to keep it professional for a few days. Just to throw off any suspicion. We’re not actively trying to be caught, but that cautiousness lessens today. Earlier, I texted her about grabbing lunch.
It went something like this.
Me: Lunch?
Baylee: it’s food truck day. I can’t miss it.
Me: so then food trucks.
Baylee: it’s right outside the hotel. Unless you’re okay with that.
Me: I’m okay with that.
If someone sees us, we can blame “coincidence” and that we just happened to want the same food. We’re still co-workers.
This whole plan is going to work.
It has to work.
I approach Baylee, and she catches my gaze. Her lips partially upturn, sunlight glittering her brown eyes. Her sporty braids are a little bit frizzy (adorably so), both of us beat from six hours of morning practice. I notice an icepack melting in her hand.
I edge as close as I can, my fingers brushing hers. In deep Russian, I whisper, “Hello, beautiful,” and smile into my words.
Baylee tries to suppress her own grin, smoothing her lips together. Then she covers her mouth with her fingers. How she looks—giddy, overwhelmed—I feel it too. My body lightens like I’m floating. For fuck’s sake, it’s a better feeling than actually flying forty-feet in the air.
I don’t know how that’s possible.
Love is strange and weird and unpredictable—and that’s probably why I’m drawn to it.
To her.
Baylee drops her hand to gesture at me. “You have to pause this for at least one more minute.”
She means me flirting. “Why?”
“Because this is serious.” Baylee isn’t referring to us. “I have fifty choices”—she motions to the long line of food trucks—“and I only ever make this choice once a month. It’s not like New York where, bam, there’s street food. Turn left, oh, a food truck. Here, outside of the Masquerade, this is it.”
“The food truck apocalypse.”
“That’s dramatic,” she says seriously.
And then we both burst into laughter, knowing her passionate declarations are more theatrical than my words.
As our humor weakens, I ask, “Which food truck are you thinking?”
“I don’t know.” Baylee cranes her head—and winces, freezing in place.
I grimace and watch her place the icepack on her neck. (What happened?)
“Most of the trucks are new,” she says, “but there are some old standbys that are good.”
“Let’s try something new.” I hone in on her neck, concerned. Practice for Infini has been hellish. (I’m not exaggerating.)
My calves, knees, quads, triceps, and the rest of my muscles throb and burn. Purple bruises dot my legs and torso.
In a cast of 50 artists, we’ve already gone through three boxes of Kinesio tape. It helps lessen pain, inflammation, prevents further injury, and reduces lactic acid buildup. We’re all physically feeling the stress of Geoffrey’s impossible demands.
And I worry about Baylee.
When I’m on the Russian swing or Wheel of Death, she’s going over her solo juggling act. We’re not always together in the gym.
I barely saw her today, so I don’t know what caused the pain in her neck. If she got seriously hurt or what.
“This way,” Baylee says, leading us down the street. Shaded by the trucks’ overhangs, I spin my blue hat, wearing the rim backwards, and I chew a “stolen” toothpick (they were basically free).
Bay stops to study the menu of a falafel truck.
“Did you pull a muscle today?” I ask, about to touch her hand that’s on the ice—but a cook yells out of a nearby taco truck.
“ONE TACO, ONE HALF-OFF! Step up! Come get ‘em! If you don’t trust me, trust Loren Hale!” He raises a framed photo of Loren Hale eating from that very food truck.
(It goes without saying, Loren Hale is the famous twenty-something fiancé to Lily Calloway: the shy, sex addict Calloway sister. Both starred on Princesses of Philly.)
Baylee deeply considers the taco truck now.
I toss my toothpick aside. “He’s your favorite?” I start smiling.
She shoots me a look like you’re so wrong.
“Loren I’m-going-to-kill-you-with-five-words Hale does it for you, huh?”
Baylee gapes. “You just made him sound like a murderer.”
“Burst your image of him? No more hearts around his name. No more Baylee + Loren—”
“He’s not even my type.”
“You have a type?” I didn’t know this. “It’s me, right?”
She pushes my arm lightly but keeps quiet, killing me with suspense. I’m more ripped than Loren Hale. I have darker hair, and we’re around the same height, I think.
His cheekbones are sharper. Some parts of my face are softer, and if I remember correctly, he has no tattoos.
Baylee starts laughing.
“What?”
“You’re agonizing over this, aren’t you?”
“No,” I lie. “I’m cool.” I outstretch my arms.
She places her palm on my chest—and my whole body stirs. The simple touch almost hardens me. My muscles contract.
And Baylee tells me, “I don’t believe you.”
I wrap my arms around her shoulders, caught up in the moment. (If anyone plans to tattle on us to Corporate for hugging, fuck you.) “Then I don’t believe you actually have a type,” I breathe.
Her eyes dance along my features, down my body. My hand rises to the back of her head, and she holds onto my waist.
Subconsciously, we sway to music that has only ever existed between us.
I dip my head and pull her against my chest, and my lips—meet her palm. Fuck.
Baylee stopped the kiss, and quickly, her hand falls. She glances over her shoulder, casts a fearful look at me, and then steps backwards. But not that far back.
“I forgot,” I say honestly. I forgot where we are. Just down the street from the Masquerade. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She eyes my lips. “So you know, I wanted it too.” Bay shrugs like it’s just not in the cards for us.
“Okay.” At least I’m not reading her body language wrong. I take off my hat and comb my hand through my hair before putting it back on. To cut the tension, I ask, “What is your type, seriously?”
She shrugs again. “Someone who really cares about me and who excites me.” She shakes her head in thought. “In my life, I don’t know anyone who does that but you.” With another strong headshake, she tries to stifle a wince while adjusting the ice.
I cringe. “Bay.”
“It’s fine…” she trails off, spotting something down the strip.
I watch her eyes grow in excitement.
“No way,” she breathes and immediately clasps my hand. We start sprinting side-by-side, our fingers laced.
Our smiles burst. I feel fifteen again. Running across a city next to Baylee Wright. I feel alive.
Like this is where I’m meant to be. Nowhere else.
Only with her.
Baylee skids to a halt at a bright yellow truck. Jamaican Cuisine scrawled in green paint. As we slip into the long line, she explains, “They haven’t had a Caribbean truck in four months.”
“Bastards.”
Bay smiles and adjusts her icepack, inadvertently drawing my attention to her neck. “I strained it,” she admits and turns completely. Her back faces me so I can take a look.
I finally touch her hand that’s on the ice. “Doing what?”
“5-club backcrosses.”
My brows jump. I picture Bay launching clubs from behind her back, straight into the air. I lower her hand to inspect the strain. “Did the club land on your neck?” I worry.
Juggling is dangerous. Mostly because of the props. When we were younger, I helped bandage her hands. Flat rings sliced up her nails and skin between her fingers. She also broke her toe that same year. Club dropped on her foot.
She said she was distracted, and she had reason to be. It was the year her parents passed away, and she still had to perform in Infini. Grief, broken toe, and all.
The show must go on.
(It seems like a cute phrase until you have bronchitis and you’d rather face-plant on a couch than lift your two-hundred pound cousin on your shoulders—or juggle candlesticks while balancing on two legs of a rickety chair. True story from Luka and Baylee, the early years.)
“I just pulled a muscle,” Baylee assures me.
“Hold still.”
Baylee nods before going stationary.
I knead the base of her neck with my fingers, alleviating tension in her muscles, and her shoulders lower significantly. Relaxing.
Bay leans her back against my chest, and her hand creeps up my thigh.
Our breaths deepen. I wrap my left arm around her abdomen, holding her against me. Keeping her close. As the food truck line moves, we walk forward but never detach from each other.
Can we explain this embrace to Corporate?
I don’t know.
I don’t know, but right now, I’m banking on the fact that no one sees us.
Baylee shifts my hand to the nape of her neck. “Right there.”
I massage the spot, adding deeper pressure, and she oozes against my body. The corners of my lips pull upward. “You’re easy to please.”
She stiffens. “Tell that to all the other guys.”
All the other guys. “Sure, give me their names and cell numbers. I’ll track them down.”
Baylee steps away, just to turn and face me. Head tilted.
I clutch her waist, drawing her back to my chest. “Put two shit emojis next to the ones that called you a corpse.” My voice is easygoing, not malicious or sharp.
“No.” Bay tries hard not to smile. “Be serious.”
“I’m completely, heartbreakingly serious. If you can’t be with me, I’m going to interview all the assholes who have a shot with you.”
“Really?” Her lips try desperately not to lift.
The food line moves. I step forward and walk her backwards. “You don’t think I will?”
“You don’t even do small talk. You usually toss a peppermint at people and walk away.”
“Tell me that’s not better than a how are you?”
She smiles into a head-shake. “So not the point.”
“It’s definitely a point.”
My arms return to her shoulders.
And her arms snake around my waist. “You’d really interview potential boyfriends of mine?” Her face scrunches at the thought. “What would you even ask them?”
I raise my brows. “Boyfriends? As in plural?”
“I heard it’s better to date around.”
“From who?”
“Cosmopolitan. Aunt Lucy. Friends, the television show.”
I’ve seen a few episodes because of Katya. My brows furrow. “Pretty sure Rachel and Ross were meant to be together from the start.”
“Pretty sure they had to date around in order to realize that they were meant to be together.”
My head spins. “They’re not even close to being us. You know that?” We’ve always had feelings for each other. We didn’t willingly break apart. Someone ripped her out of my arms. It’s not like we chose to move on. We had to.
We have to.
Eventually.
“I know. God, I know.” She sighs a heavy breath.
What would I ask her potential boyfriends? “You know what I’d ask them?”
“What?” she wonders, understanding the shift in topic.
“I’d ask them if they love you. And if they hesitate to say yes, even for a second, I’d tell them to get a life somewhere far, far away from you.”
Baylee inhales and rises on her toes, her hand crawling up my back. “I think…”
“Yeah?” I whisper, both of us eyeing each other’s lips.
Affection flows through her features. I see the I love you before she starts to say, “I—”
“What’d you two like?” the food truck dude asks.
We flinch and break apart. Baylee rotates fully and my hands drop from her shoulders.
We’ve made it to the front of the line. We both swallow at the same time.
While she scrutinizes the menu, I check our surroundings. No one looks familiar to me. No Aerial Ethereal employees. Just some bickering families and couples with strollers and crying babies.
I glance back at the menu that consists of jerk wings, oxtail, curry chicken, rice and peas, fried plantains, and chicken, beef, and veggie patties.
She acts like it’s a tough choice, but she’s the kind of person that tries the same exact food in different locations. I know her decision before she says it.
“A beef patty,” Baylee orders, already fishing out some money. “Oh and…curry chicken with rice and peas, fried plantains. Two orders of those.” She’s stocking up her fridge for later.
When she finishes, the cook acknowledges me.
I ask Bay, “What’s your second choice to eat for lunch?”
“Jerk wings.”
“I’ll take the jerk wings,” I tell the guy, handing him my cash before Baylee pays.
She doesn’t protest, probably not wanting to hold up the line. We stand off to the side while they prepare our order, and I immediately read her features that say: you can’t keep paying for me.
“You can’t keep paying for me,” she says matter-of-factly, slipping her cash back in her wrist wallet.
“Look, we’re technically not together.”
“Right,” she says, “you just made my point.”
“But,” I continue. “You gotta wait for my but, Bay.”
She gives me a look. “Did you just make a pun?”
“Did I?” I give her the same face.
She laughs and then groans at the sound and rolls her eyes at herself. “That wasn’t even funny.”
I stuff my hands in the pockets of my black sweatpants; my casual attitude a trait I can’t shake. “Some part of you thought it was.”
“The part that’s infatuated with you,” she says, blasé.
I raise my brows. “A lot of my body parts are just as infatuated with you.”
She begins to smile. “One starts with a C, right?”
“Or a D,” I tease.
“P.”
“See, we can spell.”
“Yeah,” she says, “screw our tutors who wrote poor language skills in our tenth grade report cards.”
I laugh at the memory, but the noise fades fast as she waves her wallet.
“Tell me your but,” she says.
“But,” I start again and then pause. I don’t even know what I planned to say. I confront facts: I’m not with Baylee. I have to let her go at the end of this.
And I have to accept that.
Even if it hurts.
“But…?” She frowns. “You okay? Luka?”
I force a weak smile. “We’ll split the bill next time. Sound good?”
Baylee doesn’t prod about my change of heart. She just nods and then shrugs. “Yeah. Sounds like a plan.”
After we grab our food order, we stroll down the strip. No destination in mind.
I carry my jerk wings, eating and walking, and Baylee has a to-go bag hooked on her arm, all the extra food for later in Styrofoam containers. But she holds her beef patty, a golden pastry shaped like a squared crescent. Meat stuffed inside.
She groans in disappointment after taking a bite. “Shit.”
“Air patty?” I guess since I’ve seen that expression many times before.
“Yeah.” She flashes me the inside of the patty. I see only a small dollop of beef. “It’s like roulette trying to get a beef patty that’s actually full of meat.”
“The risk of ordering the same thing everywhere, you’re going to be disappointed at least nine times out of ten.”
“You think it’s boring, but it’s as fun as spontaneously ordering food.”
“Evidence?”
She raises the beef patty towards me. “This beef patty. It may’ve let me down, but I’ve uncovered a huge mystery about how it would’ve tasted in comparison to all the others I’ve ever eaten. That is exciting.”
I believe her because she says every word like it lives in the core of her heart. “Where does your millionth patty rank?”
“Low to mid-tier.” Baylee takes another bite. “Crust is really good.” She holds the patty out towards me.
I take a bite. It’s one of the better ones I’ve tried. I share a few jerk wings with Bay, which is why I picked her second food choice.
“How’s your aunt?” I ask.
“Happily married and in a successful career,” Baylee says, licking her fingers and tossing a bone back in the tray. “Also, very pregnant.”
“Wow.” I’m actually surprised. I forgot that people aren’t stagnant. That in five years, people do really move on, even if we haven’t. “She still hate me?”
“Aunt Lucy didn’t hate you.” Baylee passes the beef patty to me. “Trade?”
I nod and give her the tray of wings. “There’s no chance she liked me after we were caught though.” Her entire family thought were just best friends, not also boyfriend-girlfriend and having sex.
Bay shrugs. “She doesn’t like you, but only because she thought we were temporary.”
“Yeah.” I understand.
“My parents always liked you. Do you remember that breakfast where they invited you for ackee and saltfish?”
“I wouldn’t forget that.” I remember the moment really well. I didn’t know her parents for long, but at the kitchen table, her mom would discuss music of all genres for hours, and she’d recount all of Baylee’s embarrassing childhood stories. Most about toddler Baylee dancing without a diaper and accidentally peeing on the floor.
Bay claims she had an aversion to public toilets as a kid, and her mom loved to joke about it. I think she knew that Baylee wouldn’t be embarrassed. The stories only made her daughter laugh, which made me smile wider.
Her mother was fun and protective and lively. Baylee used to say that her mom, she wasn’t just the life of the party—she was the heart.
And we’d play Trivial Pursuit before dinner. Brenden won every time. I lost a lot, but her dad—he’d come in last place on purpose. I was sure he knew who the author of War and Peace was, but he didn’t want me to feel badly for coming up short.
He’s someone I’d be proud to have as a father, so I know why Baylee cherishes the hell out of him.
Baylee balls up the thin napkin. “I like those memories.”
“Me too.” I felt so a part of her world. Sometimes, painfully so.
I remember how her aunt invited me over for the same meal after Baylee’s parents passed away. Lucy didn’t ever learn how to cook ackee and saltfish like Bay’s mom. I sat at a table with Zhen, Brenden, and Baylee—and the silent consensus was that it tasted nothing like the traditional Jamaican dish.
Lucy cried while eating and apologized profusely for being a bad stand-in for their mom. It was one of the most gut-wrenching things I’ve witnessed in my life.
Yet, I remember Baylee and Brenden assuring their aunt that it was okay. That she tried, and they loved her for trying.
We stop at a crosswalk, a red handprint flashing on the pole, and we dump our trash in a nearby bin. I think about offering to hold her to-go bag of curry chicken and rice, but I hesitate.
Because I’m not her boyfriend. (I hate it.)
“How much do you talk to your parents?” she asks.
It wasn’t a lot when I first met Baylee. It’s even less now.
We forget to cross at the light, and we end up lingering by the entrance to an Urban Outfitters, our hands brushing. I catch hers and hold strong.
“I call my parents maybe a few times a year, more if they’re already talking with Nik and he passes me the phone.” Our eyes meet. “It is what it is.” I shake my head. “I’m not even friends with all of my cousins.” There are too many. And I realize, a cousin isn’t equivalent to a mother and a father, but my parents never really got to know me.
Not even when they were around.
It’s easy lumping them into the distant-cousin category.
“I remember,” she says. “One time you forgot one of your cousins was lactose intolerant when you suggested ice cream, but you always said that some cousins you loved like siblings.”
(Dimitri.) “Yeah. That hasn’t changed.”
Baylee’s gaze drifts to the right, and she abruptly straightens up, eyes widening in alarm.