ONE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21—4:00 P.M.
ABBY
THERE’S A SCENE in my favorite book, The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane, where the main character (Clara Jane) takes an elevator to the top of the Empire State Building in New York City, and just before the doors open, she realizes she’s about to be free, because she is really, truly, madly in love with the guy who’s waiting on the other side.
See, the whole setup for this book is that Clara Jane keeps living the same day over and over, but each time, she falls in love with a different guy. At the end of the day, she takes the elevator up to the top of the Empire State Building to meet whichever guy she’s fallen for this time, but on the ride up, she realizes he’s not really her true love. He’s the wrong guy. And as soon as she realizes that, the day starts over. She never makes it to the top.
But at the end of the book, she takes the elevator up and realizes that this guy (his name is Chris—kind of a boring name, if you ask me) is her true love. The elevator doors finally open, she sees Chris, and they kiss at the top of the Empire State Building, breaking the time loop.
It’s not a great book. I mean, the dreamboat guy’s name is Chris. And Clara Jane doesn’t really have a hundred romances. She has eight. I guess the author thought The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane sounded better than, like, The Eight Romances of Clara Jane.
Which it does. A lot of people have probably had eight romances.
People who aren’t me, anyway.
I read a theory on Tumblr suggesting that Clara Jane could have been living the same day over and over before the book even starts, so she actually has had a hundred romances, and we just don’t see them all. But I’ve read this book twenty-four (and a half) times, and I think it’s perfectly obvious that Clara Jane hasn’t relived the same day over and over before the book starts, and the first romance in the book is, in fact, her first one.
Although, just to be safe, I sent the author an email asking for clarification, care of her publisher. She never replied.
Anyway, The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane may not be a Great Book, but I love it. Even though it’s cheesy.
Because the truth is … I’m cheesy. I believe in fate. And true love. And kissing your true love at the top of the Empire State Building.
I guess what I mean is—I believe in the Universe. That sometimes you end up in the right place at the right time, or with the right person, and (sometimes) magical things really can happen.
I hope I’m right about that. Because I’m leaving a lot to the Universe on this trip, and I could really use the help.
I might be kind of cheesy, but I don’t think I’m completely out of my mind. I mean, the Universe has already made some magic happen. Right now, our entire marching band from Westvale, Missouri—all ninety-six of us, plus our band director, assistant band directors, chaperones, instruments, flags, and uniforms—is heading to New York City for the biggest marching event in the country: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Hundreds of bands sent in audition tapes, hoping for one of a dozen slots, according to our band director, Mr. Sussman. And Macy’s picked us to be one of those bands. We were “unique, polished, fun, and quirky.” That’s what the rep from Macy’s told us when he showed up in our band room eighteen months ago, armed with a confetti cannon and a giant banner that said You’re Going to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!
The rest of that day was a blur of screaming and laughing and crying and ducking into the band room between classes to make sure that big, bright banner was still there, strung up over the percussion lockers. It was pretty freaking magical, especially since all I’d ever wanted was to play clarinet in the marching band at my older brother’s football games, instead of joining the debate team, like my mom suggested.
Not that I would have made the debate team in a million years anyway. I can memorize and perform a whole halftime show no problem, but the minute I have to talk in front of a lot of people, I want to sink into the floor.
Our band spent the next eighteen months putting together a performance and raising money to get ourselves all the way from our boring sorta-suburb of Kansas City to New York. We practiced in the mornings, in the evenings, on weekends. In the band room, on the football field, in the high school parking lot on a giant green tarp with the Macy’s Parade logo on it, held down by traffic cones borrowed from the driver’s ed teacher. (Our school had the tarp specially made, just to practice with. It’s exactly the size of the big green rectangle on Thirty-Fourth Street, so we could plan every formation, every step, to perfectly fit.)
We marched across that tarp hundreds, maybe thousands, of times, all on top of the usual football games we had to play. On top of last spring’s concert band schedule. On top of marching in the Kansas City Fourth of July Parade and playing in the park before the local Westvale fireworks show. On top of two state championships.
And whenever we weren’t practicing, we were fundraising. Car washes. Bake sales. I literally celebrated my sixteenth birthday at a pancake breakfast (not as fun as it sounds when you’re the one serving the pancakes).
But now—finally finally finally—it’s here. In two days, on Thanksgiving morning, we’ll be marching down Sixth Avenue in our purple-and-white uniforms, with white feather plumes in our shakos, surrounded by giant balloons and decked-out floats filled with Broadway stars. We’ll perform a medley of jazzed-up Christmas carols while our color guard waves red-and-green flags in front of all those cameras. Millions of people will watch us live on national TV.
And, I mean, that’s magic. One day I’m scooping ice cream at Sundae Fun Day to add something to my college fund, and the next, I’m scooping ice cream at Sundae Fun Day while everybody who comes in tells me congratulations. Going from being a nobody to getting a bigger cheer during halftime than the football team gets during the whole game is … well, it’s magic. There’s no way that’s not some Universe-intervention magic.
So, the way I see it, if the Universe can do that—if the Universe can get our band from Missouri to Macy’s—then maybe it can help me tell Kat Wu I’m madly in love with her.
Kat Wu, who plays flute, wears her shoulder-length black hair in perfectly messy updos, and sews her own vintage-inspired dresses because she wants to go to fashion school.
Kat Wu, the only other person I know who has read The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane and loves it as much as I do.
Kat Wu, who is currently sitting next to me, eighteen hours into this endless bus ride to New York, because she’s my best friend.
Kat and I have been telling each other everything—and I mean everything—for years, ever since we met in middle school band. I was the first person she told about her dreams of going to fashion school. I know she still sleeps with the stuffed pig she’s had since she was little. And Kat knows I cried at my first sleepaway camp because I was that baby who was homesick. She knows pineapple makes my tongue itch. She even knows exactly how many Clara Jane fanfics I’ve read (a number I will never tell another soul, ever).
But there’s one giant, looming thing I haven’t told her: I’ve had a crush on her for months, ever since the traditional end-of-the-school-year marching band pool party at Westvale Park. The night ended with a bonfire, and everybody spread out towels and sat around playing cards or goofing off. Kat and I lay on our backs, talking through the events in a Clara Jane fanfic we’d both read. And somehow, partway through discussing whether Clara Jane working in a coffee shop was more compelling than Clara Jane working at a magazine, and whether the original character created to be the love interest of Clara Jane’s best friend, Olivia, was compelling at all, and whether fanfics should even have original characters …
Our fingers ended up twined together.
My stomach turned to butterflies. I kept waiting for her to let go, but she didn’t. Not until Mrs. Lewis told us it was time to go home.
When I got home, I googled how to tell if you’re gay.
I know it’s ridiculous to google it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’m not sure how much it helped anyway. I mean, half the stuff I read made it sound like I’d have to actually kiss a girl to really know if I’m gay. And I have definitely not kissed a girl.
I’ve thought about kissing Kat. A lot. Mostly at the top of the Empire State Building.
Part of the problem might be that I haven’t kissed a boy, either. I haven’t kissed anyone. I did have a crush on this guy in band last year. He was a senior and nothing was ever going to happen between us, but he played trumpet and he had blond hair that made him look like a surfer, and I found Clara Jane’s boring dreamboat Chris a lot more interesting once I started picturing him as Blake Orlowski.
So … maybe I’m not gay. Or maybe I only had a crush on Blake Orlowski because almost every girl in school did. I’m kind of suggestible.
The only girl who didn’t seem to care about Blake Orlowski at all was Kat.
Which gives me a little bit of hope. Because whether or not I’m gay according to Google, I definitely want to kiss Kat Wu. And now that I’m on my way to New York City, with boring Westvale fading behind me, I’m hoping—really hoping—I might finally get my chance.
From now on, at least for this trip, I’m going to take risks. I’m going to throw myself out there and let the Universe catch me. I’m going to be fearless Abby Akerman. Done with Google. Done with my own personal time loop, where every day I wish I could tell Kat how I feel … and then don’t. Done with being confused and indecisive and stuck.
Fearless Abby Akerman has a plan. A plan that Clara Jane is going to help me with.
Kat and I both have dog-eared, sun-faded paperback copies of The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane. Kat found them at a discount bookstore in Kansas City and got them because the Empire State Building is on the cover, and Kat has wanted to visit New York City for years. She thought it would be fun if we both read this book at the same time. Then, obviously, we got obsessed with it, and the rest is history.
But two months ago, I found a mint-condition, hardcover copy signed by the author at the same discount bookstore. I have no idea how it got there, but it felt like a sign from the Universe. So I bought it, and I spent weeks finding and underlining my favorite lines. I spent weeks carefully selecting the pages with the most romantic scenes, and writing romantic notes to Kat in the margins.
How when I looked into her eyes, I felt just like Clara Jane did in this scene.
How I wanted to lean my forehead against hers, just like Clara Jane in that scene.
How I’d close my eyes at night, and picture Kat’s smile, and feel that smile spreading through my entire being, to the ends of my fingers, just like Clara Jane does on page 84.
It felt a little sacrilegious, at first, writing on the pages of a book. I’ve checked books out from the library where people wrote in them, and it always made me mad. Who does that?
But this wasn’t a library book that a hundred other people would read. This was a gift for Kat. This was my version of a love letter, written in the pages of our favorite book.
And anyway, I did it all in pencil, just to be safe.
Now the trip is finally here, and I have the mint-condition, signed-by-the-author-and-carefully-annotated-by-me copy of The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane in my backpack, and if the Universe can help me find the right moment … I will give it to Kat. I will tell Kat I love her.
And then, I hope, I will kiss a girl.
I scroll to the next page of the THRoCJ fanfic I’m currently reading on my phone and glance over at Kat, who’s still sketching out new dress designs in a notebook, sitting cross-legged on the seat next to me with her earbuds in.
I wouldn’t even need three guesses to know what she’s listening to: Pixelated Dreams, the last album of Damaged Pixie Dream Boi, this weird, indie, alternative group and Kat’s favorite band. They’re originally from Kansas City, and Kat’s even more obsessed with them than she is with Clara Jane. Their music sounds like video game bloops mixed with death metal if you put it in a blender with a lot of angsty complaining, but Kat loves it. Which is kind of funny, given that her other favorite genre is musicals. She’s been listening to this album nonstop ever since the band broke up over the summer. Supposedly two of the guys in the band were dating, and when they broke up, that broke up the band.
Which is more evidence that gives me some hope. Exhibit A: Kat held my hand at the pool party. Exhibit B: she didn’t care about Blake Orlowski at all. Exhibit C: her favorite band is gay. Maybe that’s even why she likes them.
I haven’t asked her this, of course. If I asked, she’d want to know why I was asking, and then I’d be stuck. I’m not very good at lying, and I couldn’t just say, Well, I’m trying to figure out if you’re gay for no reason at all.
Besides, in Westvale, Missouri, being gay isn’t something you shout from the rooftops. Nobody talks about it—like somehow, if we pretend the whole concept doesn’t exist … it won’t. I’ve never even heard a teacher say the word gay. And I don’t think it’s because they’re all raging homophobes or anything. It’s just that at this point, talking about it means someone will get upset and complain, and then there might be legislation. Or … more legislation than there already is.
Maybe it would be a little different if we lived in Kansas City, or even across the border in Kansas. But in my suburb, on the Missouri side, being gay is something you erase from your search history and never even write in your journal. Or at least … I wouldn’t, if I had a journal.
Which is why I think it’s possible—even though Kat and I don’t normally hide things from each other—that we both might be hiding this. That maybe there’s a reason we never talked about the night we held hands. And if I haven’t told Kat I might be gay, maybe she hasn’t told me she is.
It’s possible.
But in New York City, you can shout anything you want from the rooftops. You can be anybody. It’s the kind of place where Magical Interventions of the Universe happen all the time. I’ve never been there before, obviously, but I have that feeling. After all, the author of The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane lives in New York City, and she set the book there. She must know what she’s talking about.
Plus, Kat is obsessed with New York. And not just because our band gets to play in the Macy’s Parade. New York City is the fashion capital of the country; it’s exactly where Kat wants to go to fashion school. She even wants me to go with her. Not to fashion school—just to New York, for college. I have no idea what I’d want to study. My two favorite things are marching band and reading, and I don’t really know how to turn either of those things into a major. Unless I want to be a band director, and I definitely don’t. For one thing, I’m too short. Nobody in the back of the band would be able to see me. I’d need stilts.
But that’s not the point. The point is: New York City is objectively romantic.
Kat is obsessed with New York City.
We’re both obsessed with a romantic book set in New York City.
Copyright © 2024 by Edward Underhill