Page 6 of Witch You Would
In the back seat, Ed messed with levels on the audio receiver, his dark head bent over the bag. He wore a pink shirt and glasses,too, but his polo actually fit, and he needed his glasses to see. Where Sam stood out, Ed tended to relax in the background.We’d been partners inMage You Lookfor years, roommates and best friends for much longer.
Headlights streamed back and forth in the street as the last strip of orange sky faded to velvety blue. About fifteen peoplestood in the grass at the park outside, surrounded by a jogging trail and palm trees, a sand-filled playground nearby. Someteenagers giggled their way up a toddler-sized climbing wall and down a curved plastic slide. Pretty good for a last-minuteannouncement to my “live recording”–tier subscribers. The place had closed at sunset; we didn’t have a permit for filming,but it wouldn’t be the first time cops had kicked us out.
I unlocked my phone and tapped the email app. Nothing new.
“Waiting forCast Judgmentstuff, or did you email her again?” Sam stretched out “her” so it had three syllables.
I knew which “her” Sam meant: Penelope. I’d emailed her a little after lunch. Usually she wrote back faster, so she must havebeen busy. Unless the witch picture had crossed the line from flirty to gross?
“Aren’t we really close to where she works?” Sam asked. “You could literally go over there now and ask her out.”
“It’s closed already.” Not that I hadn’t picked this park on the off chance that she might magically show up. Every time I’ddecided I would call her, or surprise her at the store, I’d chickened out. I could make a fool of myself for thousands ofstrangers, but I couldn’t talk to the girl I liked.
“You need to fortify and do the thing.”
Ed passed me the wireless mic, and I clipped it to my shirt collar.
“She hasn’t even told me her name.” I got it from the friend who’d recommended her shop, who said the owner was never aroundand the cute tech answered all the emails.
“You know her favorite ice cream flavor and her shoe size, my dude.”
And then some. “I don’t want to assume she’s interested.”
“You’re not assuming if you. Ask. Her.” Sam punctuated each word with a flick to my forehead. Ow.
I rubbed the place she’d flicked. “It’s not just that. It’s the Leandro thing.”
“You’re not a superhero, Gil,” Sam said. “Your rules are smart, but even with the Stalker Incident, you don’t have to be thisextreme about your secret identity.”
Maybe that was true when I first started making these videos, but not anymore. And not only because of the Stalker Incident.Grandpa Fred warned me: the bigger you get, the more gravity you have, and the more people want to be sucked into your orbit.Anyway, I didn’t want to argue about this again. Not when I was about to potentially get even more popular.
“You said you had something to talk about earlier?” I asked.
Sam tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, all serious now. “We’ve been thinking. Viewership and engagement metrics are good, we’re getting more sponsor and ad requests . . .”
“Right.” Where was this going?
“But we think you should skip the step-by-step demonstration videos.”
What? “I have to do those. People are subscribed to that tier.”
“Sixteen people. It’s a waste of time we could be using to make more short content.”
A waste of time I enjoyed. A lot. I liked coming up with spells and recording goofy videos and making people laugh, but Ireally loved explaining how it all worked. My grad school cohort had moved away, my thesis advisor had moved on, and noneof my friends wanted to casually chat about intangible components, or Sina’s correspondent distillation, or how applicationsof the law of participation could improve spell effectiveness. Sam and Ed cared about how the spells would look on cameraand whether they’d go viral, but their eyes got thatI don’t get itlook when I tried to get into the theory. MyDoctor Witchblog scratched the itch a little, but otherwise, the only person I could really talk to about this stuff was Penelope.
So why didn’t I go talk to her already? Ugh. Loser.
“Until we get rid of that tier, we have to do it,” I said.
“So we get rid of it. Give refunds. It’ll save us more money than we’ll lose. Those videos get no traffic and no ad money,and they take Ed forever to finish.”
“Not forever,” Ed said. “But it’s not an efficient use of our time or budget.”
Sam stopped tapping and unlocked the doors. “I’m just saying, think about it. Especially if things change after this contest.”
“I hear you.” I didn’t like it, butMage You Lookwasn’t my show. We were a team. “When I get back in two weeks, we can decide.”
“Fair enough.”
