Page 28 of How We Play the Game
“Wait,what?” Trieu turns in his seat dramatically, facing Ivan. “You didn’t say anything about that.”
“That is what we call ‘burying the lede,’” Kavi adds. “What? I deal with PR people all the time. I know journalist lingo.”
“I had kind of forgotten about Wizzcon,” Ivan admits.
“Literally an hour ago we were talking about Wizzcon in my room.”
“You right,” Ivan admits again, this time truthfully.
Then, Yekaterina returns with a plate of fries we didn’t order and places it between our drinks. “Another table didn’t want these,” she explains. “So they’re yours now. On the house.”
Ivan handles the niceties that come after an offer of free food, the are-you-sures and couldn’t-possiblys, before he accepts what’s offered on our behalf and she walks away. While they’re talking I remember how hungry I am. Eveningsushi with Cass feels like a lifetime ago. I try to grab a fry, but instantly recoil like I’ve been struck by a diner cobra. These fries are fresh and hot. There’s no way Yekaterina had enough time to order them for a table, bring them over, find out they weren’t wanted, and decide to give them to us without them losing some temperature. Suspicion confirmed. There was no other table. This lady just fired an order of fries solely because Ivan’s mommy shares her name and he made her smile. And now he’s smirking again.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“Nothing’s funny,” he replies, with a chuckle.
“Something’s funny,” I press on.
“Fine.” Ivan yanks the plate of fries closer to his and Trieu’s side of the table. “It’s just … my mom’s name is Donya.”
No wonder he’s confused when I don’t fawn all over him. From Ivan’s perspective, I am a broken chatbot—spitting out negative responses to prompts he uses to great effect in every other encounter with similar software. I look back at the fries. Yeah, I’m not eating those. I’d feel dirty taking part in Ivan’s fry lie. French Lies?
“So wait.” Kavi slides the fries back toward us. “Hold up. Ivan. You came in here guns blazing like Zora was out of line for pretending you were dating, butthat’swhat you were doing in that video?”
“Not to this degree!” Ivan argues.
“Still counts,” Trieu adds apologetically. “Gotta be honest, I was Team Ivan coming in here, but no, you’re both nuts. Talk about matching each other’s freak.” He pauses to breathe around a bite of fries—should have warned him they were hot. “I kinda love it.”
“Me too.” Now that Trieu has broken the fry seal, Kavi moves to shake the table’s bottle of ketchup over the whole plate. Ugh, I hate when people put sauce on things willy-nilly. Now all the flavors are touching, and I have to pretend like it’s fine. I’m fine! Comparatively, this is fine. “Trieu, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yup.” Trieu eats another fry. “I think we could do it. You and me? No problem.”
“I mean, it would be a challenge, but we’re not starting from nothing here. This is Ivan Hunt we’re talking about.”
“Literally what is happening right now?” I ask. I’m lost again at my own war council.
“What’s happening is there’s really only one way to fight a rumor,” Trieu begins.
“With the truth?” I offer hopefully.
“What? No. What are you, five? You fight a rumor with another, more interesting rumor. Or, in this case—”
“You own it.” Kavi picks up the idea and runs with it. “Double down. It’s your rumor world, and you have to start living in it. Harness the power of the rumor. Control it. Mold it to your ambitions.”
“We’re still talking about the dating thing, right? Not, like, the Sith?”
“Same difference,” mutters Ivan. “Anyway, they’re right. Whatever both of us did to get here is irrelevant. If we show up tomorrow saying we’re not actually dating, I look like a girl-eating jerk again. I’ve come too far to slide back down there, reputation-wise.” Has he?
“We need to be dating tomorrow; it’s simple as that,” Ivan says, like anything about that is simple. Like he didn’t evengive a second thought to the idea of using me to launder his reputation. But that’s not how this is going to work. I am not a two-legged aura cleanse whose proximity grants a “totally not misogynist” buff to problematic white boys.
“Agreed,” says Kavi. “Zora, what do you say?”
Gee, I don’t know. What does one say in this situation? There is no fake-dating primer out there for me to download and peruse before making an informed decision. Obviously part of me thinks it’s a terrible idea, but there’s another part that remembers the way Brian Juno sized me up onstage, like he wanted to flip through the contents of my mind to determine if I was a good witch or a bad witch. What’s odd is that even after my disqualification, I don’t think he’s decided which kind of witch I am. Yet.
All I know is Brian and Ivan have history. Positive history, considering how Brian openly favored him before today’s match. If anything will change Brian’s mind about me, it’s allying with Ivan. So again, what does one say in this situation? Maybe it’s easier to think of it like writing a cutscene. What comes next in the story? Got it. It’s this:
“I’m not against the idea in theory,” I admit. “I just want to be clear on whatI’mgetting out of this.”
