Page 23 of The Slug Crystal
I lean my forehead against the glass, letting the coolness settle the flush in my cheeks. “Can I ask a real question?”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?” Ben asks.
“Why are you so interested in all of this?” I ask, watching him in the mirror.
He stops doodling and folds the pen into the notebook. For a moment, I see something a little raw peek out. “My last book bombed,” he says. “I haven’t had a good idea in three years. I thought maybe if I just… said yes to something totally unhinged, I’d get my spark back. Turns out, you two are the best unhinged decision I’ve ever made. At least so far.”
“We aim to please.”
“You do. I mean, turning your ex into a snail? That’s Pulitzer shit.”
I look down at the terrarium. Alex is pressed flat against the plastic, unmoving except for his antenna stalks, which twist in the air. I wonder if, in his mollusk brain, he knows we’re trying to help. Or if he’s just waiting for the next lettuce leaf and praying we keep the playlist off the Jonas Brothers.
Wait, can snails hear? I need to research this later.
Forcing my eyes away from the snail, I reach over and poke Jake in the arm. “Your turn. Ask something.”
Jake considers, then says, “Okay. If this lady can actually undo the spell and Alex is human again, what happens next?”
Ben whistles. “That’s a biggie.”
I think about it, and the words come out before I can stop them. “I guess I’d have to apologize. Like, really apologize. And then… say sorry again and move on.”
“That’s mature,” Ben says with a nod. “And hopefully it doesn’t end up with you being in the insane asylum. Or prison.”
I grimace.
Jake glances from the road, his dark eyes unreadable. “You don’t have to fix everything yourself. If you need… help… after all this is resolved, I’ve got your back. I always have.”
Ben is very still in the backseat. “Goddamn, this is better than therapy.”
I snort, but also my insides feel sticky and warm from Jake’s words. I feel like maybe this isn’t a disaster in progress. Maybe it’s just three losers doing their best. Maybe, if we’re very lucky, it’ll all end with a story worth telling and no one being locked away.
It starts as a joke, like all the best things do. We’re maybe an hour out, the silence in the cab only recently patched with the remains of our emotional twenty questions session, when my phone’s shuffle coughs up “Dance Macabre” by Ghost. Ben, who has spent the last twenty minutes pretending to nap, perks up instantly.
“No way,” he says, sitting up like a meerkat. “You listen to Ghost?”
I freeze, my thumb hovering over the skip button. “I dabble. I’m not, like, a full-blown fan or anything.”
Ben scoffs. “You’re a liar. No one has this song in their library unless they’re full-blown.”
Jake chimes in, grinning: “She’s got three of their albums in her Favorites. I’ve seen the playlists.”
Ben puts his hand to his chest like he’s been blessed. “This changes everything.”
The first chorus kicks in, that weirdly operatic hook, and before I can help myself, I’m mouthing the words, just under my breath. Ben, not content to leave anything at “just under,” belts it at full volume, head thrown back, voice surprisingly not bad.
Jake starts to laugh, but then the next track comes on, “Square Hammer,” and now he’s thumping the steering wheel, drumming along, and even harmonizing on the chorus with me, like this is something we do every day. It is not. I have never, ever sung in public with Jake, not even at karaoke. But he knows every word, even the ones in fake Latin.
Ben joins in, and by the time we hit the second chorus, it’s three-part harmony, with me on melody, Jake low and steady, and Ben doing the worst Swedish accent I’ve ever heard.
When the song gets to the bridge, Ben leans forward and points at the terrarium. “Hey, we should let Alex choose the next one.”
I glance at the snail, who is inching along the top of the plastic log like he’s trying to escape. “He’s more of a classic rock guy, I think. Maybe some Zeppelin?”
“He always said ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was overrated. I bet he’d want ‘Kashmir’,” Jake says with the hint of a laugh in his tone.
“Let’s see what happens. Give the man, snail, the next song!” Ben exclaims.
