Page 71 of The Serendipity

“Now, put your right arm in, and shake it all about.”

Archer doesn’t copy me as I flail my arm around. Instead, he drops his hand to his lap and squints at me.

“Are you … okay?” he asks.

It’s the sincerity in his voice that tips me over the edge, and down I go, tumbling into hysterical, honking laughter that has me bent over at the waist. I clutch my cramping stomach, gasping for breath.

“Willa?” he says, and now tears are running down my cheeks, which ache from the size of the smile on my face.

I straighten so suddenly that little sparkles dance across my vision for a moment. Swiping my fingertips at the wetness underneath my eyes, I grin at Archer.

“Thank you,” I tell him.

He shifts, his gaze bouncing around the room, everywhere but at me. “You’re welcome?”

It’s only when my laughter subsides that I realize how distinctly uncomfortable he looks. It’s an incongruous display of self-conscious discomfort from a man whose entire personality otherwise screams with excessive confidence.

“What are you thanking me for? And whatwasthat?”

I freeze, realization slapping me like a rogue wave. “Do you …” I swallow, the question suddenly sounding so stupid. Archer’s gaze returns to mine, briefly, then flits away. He looks like he’s wishing for a hole to open up in the floor and drop him into one of the circles of Dante’s Inferno. “Do you know what ‘The Hokey Pokey’ is?”

I wince as I ask. Because it seems like such a stupid question. Whodoesn’tknow “The Hokey Pokey”? But I’m also wincing because if he doesn’t, it makes me feel like some kind of monster for making a joke he doesn’t understand.

“No.” Archer shakes his head, still not looking at me, and I squeeze my eyes closed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s really dumb. Just a kid’s dance that people do at birthday parties.”

A thought strikes me and almost makes me shudder with a strange kind of sadness. With the snippets Archer has told me about his childhood, would he have attended birthday parties? Has he been inside a skating rink and laced up the ugly brown roller skates with split laces and orange wheels?

Of course he hasn’t.

And it’s only because I want to climb inside of his embarrassment alongside him that I do what I do next.

I start to sing in the warbly, off-key voice I’ve been not-so blessed with. “You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out. You put your right hand in, and you shake it all about.”

My Hokey Pokey moves are almost as bad as my voice, because singing and dancing at the same time is well beyond my skill set. But I continue. This is my penance for pointing out what should be a shared cultural experience that Archer has been left out of, thanks to his upbringing.

“You do The Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around—that’s what it’s all a-bout!” I shimmy in a circle as I sing, hips swaying not to the rhythm, but I do manage to pull off the lifting of one knee to clap under it as I sing the last part.

When I’m finished, Archer is completely motionless on his stool. I’m not sure he’s breathing.

I feel both stupid and weirdly energized. Because even though I looked like a fool, I think I was successful in my quest to ease Archer’s discomfort. Now, he doesn’t look embarrassed, just a little shell-shocked.

“I’m not a singer. Or a dancer,” I say. “Obviously.”

He says nothing.

A flush rises in my cheeks. “Right. Well, that was … something.”

I turn my back and start in on the royal icing, which I really should have made already. If I ever want to sleep, that is.

At this point, I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep again. Instead, I’ll be haunted by the memory of this moment, humiliation getting me in a chokehold. I’d give up my expensive mixer to make Archer shift into boss mode and order me to do something. Even if that something was repeating my performance. Which I hope to never do again.

“The Hokey Pokey” is now dead to me.

“I guess they don’t do it at billionaire birthday parties,” I mutter.

I measure out the powdered sugar and meringue powder, then add the vanilla and almond extracts, the familiar smell a comfort when I’m feeling so distinctly uncomfortable.

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