Leo was smooth. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s discuss this more as we move on to our next stop.”
They followed him out the way we’d come, through the trees toward the parking lot near the college’s science building. Away from the festival. I looked back. People still crisscrossed the courtyard, walking back and forth, but no one watched us anymore.
19.
“That was splendid,” Amy said. “Wonderful. We’ll be sure to recommend you to all our friends.”
She gave us a fifty-dollar bill even though she only owed us thirty dollars and told us to keep the change. It was our biggest tip yet.
“Wow,” I said. “Thank you.”
“And we appreciate your recommending us to others,” Leo said. “But if you could let them know to follow the instructions on the flyer exactly, that would be great. We don’t want to get into trouble with the festival. This tour isn’t official.”
“It may be unofficial, but it’s extremely professional,” Ida said. “You kids are so motivated. Are you saving up for college?”
“For a trip to London,” Leo said.
“Perfect!” Florence said. “And you, dear?”
“School clothes,” I said, because that was the easiest answer.
“That’s wonderful,” Ida said.
It didn’t sound wonderful. It sounded like nothing, next to London.
Leo and I walked over to the bank again to get the money split up. “Twenty-five dollars each,” I said as we took the bills and the lollipops out of the bank tube and waved at the teller through the window. “Not a bad morning.”
“We have eight people signed up for tomorrow already,” Leo said. “Hopefully they’ll tip too.”
“Eight!” I said. “That’s a record.”
Leo nodded but he had wrinkled his nose up in that way he did when he was worried. “So someone saw us back in the forest?”
“I think so. But it was one person looking in our direction. It wasn’t like they called out to us or came over or got mad or anything.”
“Male or female?” he asked. “Tourist or worker? Gary?”
“Too far away to tell,” I said. “But if it was Gary, he definitely didn’t recognize us, or he would have done something.”
Leo still looked worried.
“How close are you?” I asked Leo. “To having all the money?”
“Not close enough,” Leo said. “My dad and I counted it out last night and looked into buying tickets. They’re already more expensive than I thought they’d be.”
“Are you sure your dad won’t cover it for you? Or can’t you pay him back once you get the rest of the money?”
“That’s not the deal we made,” Leo said, and his jaw was set. “I’m not going to ask for that.”
We walked a few steps in silence. I put the lollipop in my pocket. Root beer.
“My dad’s nice,” Leo said. “But he doesn’t really get me. He’s into football and his job and watching sports on TV and fishing. I like all that stuff fine. Especially fishing. But he’s way more into it than me.”
“He’s going to the play with you in London,” I pointed out.
“Yeah,” Leo said. “And it was a big deal for him to agree so I want to live up to my part of the bargain. Not ask for help.”
And then I got it. Leo wanted to go so badly because he wanted not only to be in the presence of greatness, but because he wanted to share something he thought was amazing with his dad.
“I feel like if my dad sees Barnaby Chesterfield, he’ll understand,” Leo said. “I mean, he will. Right?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking of my own dad, of the way we’d yell at everyone else to be quiet while we watched Barnaby Chesterfield in Darwin. I remembered how my dad would lean in to hear Barnaby talk, how everything he said sounded both sonorous and snipped. But most of all how it felt to be with my dad and to love the same thing so much. “He will.”
That night I put the root beer lollipop on the windowsill. It was gone the next morning.
20.
My next job in the costume shop was sorting buttons. Days and days of sifting through buttons to see which ones might work for repairs and which ones belonged to costumes we weren’t using this season but would use again another year.
It was kind of the worst.
And also the best.
Because the buttons were super annoying, but everyone kept forgetting I was in the corner working. So sometimes I heard and saw interesting things.
Everyone went quiet when Caitlin Morrow came in, looking portrait-faced and beautiful even without a trace of makeup. Caitlin played Juliet in one of the plays and Rosalind in another. She was the biggest star of the festival this summer.
“Well,” she said. “I guess you all heard what happened last night.”
I hadn’t. But it looked like the others had. Their faces changed from serious to trying-not-to-laugh.
“Romeo’s breeches split,” Caitlin went on. “Right down the back.”
No way.