“We are outcliché-ing ourselves. Ooh, I see her.” Julia hung up without another word, and pulled the string up higher. Paper arrows pointing down the line dangled, and kids—those not involved in the plan—were starting to point. Gretchen was reading a book as she walked, and part of Julia kind of wished that she would get in her car without noticing and drive off, dragging the string behind her. Then Gretchen looked up and noticed the string and the first sign, which read, FOLLOW ME!
Julia never thought she’d want to be in Gretchen the soccer girl’s shoes. Or cleats, whatever. But that’s exactly what she wanted: to be acting out this cliché-riddled promposal that would eventually lead to Dave. Swallowing down the thought that she was doing all of this for him, not Gretchen, Julia waited for her to take the string in her hand. When it was clear Gretchen would follow, Julia turned to go into the high school, where the band kids would be waiting to load their instruments into Brett’s truck. Jealousy would have to wait.
THE FIRST ROSE
Brett in the teddy bear suit sitting motionless, the rose in his hand. If Julia were being honest with herself, the bear suit was not really crucial to the whole operation. It just made it a little cheesier, and therefore better. And how many chances was she going to get to convince Brett to pretend he was a teddy bear? She didn’t know what she was planning to do with the pictures of him in it, especially now that Brett felt like more of a friend than like Dave’s meathead brother. At the very least, she could jokingly torture him for a few months. Once Gretchen approached, Brett would hand her the rose and tell her that there were eleven more waiting for her around town, then go back to being motionless until she was out of sight. After that, he’d run back to the school and help load his truck.
THE SECOND ROSE
At the park, after following the arrows and Dave’s signs, which were sweet to the point that they’d made Julia want to buy a bag of chips for stomping, Gretchen would find that the string disappeared into the branches of a tree. Maybe out of a twisted desire to pretend they were for her, or maybe simply out of masochism, Julia had insisted on having Dave share whatever inside jokes he had with Gretchen, to repeat whatever small details they could use for the promposal. It’d been strange to hear all that he already knew about the girl, strange to see how he’d smiled when he related the simplest things, like the fact that she loved climbing trees. Yeah, no shit, anyone with a halfway decent childhood loved climbing trees.
Julia pictured Gretchen deftly maneuvering her way up the branches, and despite herself, she wanted the rose to still be there, with the tiny message still tucked into the folds of its petals, the cryptic clue easy enough to be understood, hard enough to be thoughtful. They’d placed the rose on one of the highest climbable branches, high enough that Gretchen would be able to poke her head above the leaves and look out at San Luis Obispo stretching out below her. What a strange kind of love it was, to be rooting against yourself.
THE THIRD ROSE
“We’ve got a problem,” Brett said. “The cellist is demanding to ride with her cello, but I’ve got sixteen other instruments and music stands to take, and there’s no way I’m letting her ride back there. I can’t get any more tickets. Endangering the life of a cellist is, like, six points off your license.”
Right now, if she’d figured out the clue, Gretchen would be arriving to the ice cream shop owned by a friend of Dave’s dad. The flavor of the week was rose. When Julia had come up with that part of the plan, she’d been simultaneously proud of herself and deeply ashamed that her brain could even think in such cheesy terms. Though how happy Dave had looked made her lean on the side of the former.
“Shit.” Julia had no time to deal with finicky cellists. “Tell her she can ride in the truck, but she has to lie down flat with the cello on top.”
Brett’s hair was mussed with sweat from the bear mask, and he was still wearing the rest of the costume. “That’s insane.”
“Just do it, Brett. I have to get the cupcake.”
“Wait, Julia. Before you go?”