Aaron flipped the book over in his hand to show her the cover his thumb still marking his page. A green apple with an orange interior, Freakonomics. "Sort of. Ms. Ceasar gives you a 60-point bonus on the college-project if you read a book on economics."
"Is it good?"
"I just started. It's weird...I'm reading about sumo wrestlers right now"
"Sumo wrestlers?"
"Yeah. Apparently they're all dirty rotten cheaters."
Kate laughed. The bus was finally beginning to fill with sunlight after hours of darkness.
Aaron opened the book as if he was going to start reading, then closed it again."Have you ever wondered where the sumo women are?"
Kate had no ready response to that.
"I mean have you ever seen a very large Japanese woman?"
"...no. I have not." Kate was trying really hard to find something to say. But really there was only so far you could go with women sumo wrestlers. So Kate took option b when encountering a conversational wall-- Be Jet Li. Run up it like that's a completely feasible solution. Option A of course is looking at your hands awkwardly and hoping someone joins the conversation so that you can leave it."But I haven't seen very many women linebackers either. It's probably some kind of feminist plot."
"You mean chauvanist?" Aaron grinned.
"...no..." Kate said in mock-seriousness. "I meant feminist. You have to have something to rally people around. Really the future of equal pay for equal work will center around the debate over sumo women."
"Oh really?"
"Yep."
"That's a pretty far-fetched conspiracy theory."
"Isn't that the point of conspiracy theories? I bet the conspiracy theorists have a rocking organization of fantasy writers."
Aaron gave a honest to goodness "ha" being the only time in the last century where "ha" sounding anything like an actual laugh."I would love to go to Conspiracy Con. I'd go dressed up as a Roswell alien."
"That would be awesome. I bet I could make a fortune if I set up a sound-stage of the surface of the moon that people could act out their own moon landing."
And the conversation continued uninterrupted from that point for the next three hours, fourteen minutes. It grew chimerically from the limbs of silly anecdotes and ridiculous situations, eventually gaining bones made from serious wonderings about death and whether ghosts existed and plans for college and beyond. Around one and half hours in they gained two more conversationalists to contribute after they had overheard the Aaron and Kate laughing about their first memories of playing video games. Apparently Elmo's Alphabet Adventure was a runaway hit among five and six year olds after the start of a new millennium. But Sara and Morgan splintered off on their own conversation a half hour later. The legendary beast of a chat died from an illness that too often besets its kind, it became self-aware.
"Wow, it's almost noon." Aaron said peering down at his phone.
"What? That's crazy."
"I guess we've been talking for a long time."
"...yeah."
A few beats later both felt so awkward that they both fled to their bagged lunch. Filing their faces with sandwich so they didn't have to fill them with words.
For a few hours Kate Roy and Aaron Davis enjoyed the sheer pleasure of good company. The rare but precious occurrence where people actually said meaningful things to each other that goads humanity to endure a million empty exchanges of "How are you?" "Good, and you?"-s, like continuing to buy peaches into the winter even though they are hard and flavorless. It was rich orange, juice exploding from each bite peach of a conversation. Kate mourned its conclusion, but was already trying to suppress a smile from the memory of it around her bite of peanut butter and jelly.
Kate had never really thought much about Aaron before, but she was thoroughly in crush with the rail-thin but broad-shouldered, mile-tall, pseudo-tenor with a ridiculous laugh in addition to several other hyphenated descriptors. But the kindly mischievous eyes were Kate's favorite, not that she was admitting that to herself.
-------
Julian prepared herself this time for the pre-show circle. She wasn't going to wait for Walt and had already positioned herself around her better friends in the cast and crew. It was the last performance and although Julian hadn't thought it could be possible, there was even more excitement and electric momentum backstage than there had been on any of the previous nights. Hundreds of hours, dozens of rehearsals, and a few months were coming to their culmination. Soon, Julian would tuck Fantine back into the script and she wanted to give her one heck of a send-off.
The warm-ups were more enthusiastic, the circle oscillated faster, and Mr. Todd was almost televangical in his pre-show speech. As everyone ran to their places, Julian felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around to find Walt pressing a tiny envelope into her hand.
"It's a good luck charm." He answered her quizzical expression and ran to the stage.
Julian went to open it, but thought better of it and tucked it into her bag to remain unopened for the next fifteen scenes. But only made it through the first verse of the opening song.
Julian opened the flap to realize that the envelope itself was an origami-folded picture of the possessed choir boys from the "Total Eclipse" video.
On the back in messy guy-handwriting:
Break a leg, Miss Agacelli.
Don't worry I'll protect you in the event that possessed choirboys attack the theater.
-Your Guardian Stage Manager
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