"Happy birthday to you…" The song ends, and all of Courtney's assorted friends clap enthusiastically as a vanilla sheet cake is placed in front of the gap-toothed birthday girl. Carefully, her mother sets the cheerfully striped red candles aflame, and Courtney puffs up her cheeks in anticipation. "Make a wish, Courtney," her father whispers, cool hand brushing away a lock of hair. Courtney closes her eyes and blows out all the candles in one breath, wishing for a new hair ribbon and for a pony and for a beanbag chair like Julia Griffam has. The children all cheer, less caring about Courtney's wish and more about the piece of cake they're now entitled to.
The grass is prickly against Courtney's bare legs, as the twelve year olds roll around on the hill. The brunette stops for a breath, lying on her back and gazing at the sky. She flicks her eyes sideways. "Amy! Rachel! I found a four leaf clover!" She shrieks, sitting up and plucking it. Her friends sprint over.
"Those are lucky, my grammie always said so," freckled Amy takes it out of Courtney's hands.
"I didn't think they were real. This can't be a real clover," Rachel snatches it from Amy's hands to turn it over and dissect it with her methodological gaze.
"Real or not, I found it, it's mine," Courtney insists and snatches it away from Rachel.
"Make a wish, Courtney," Amy encouraged, and so she does. She faces the wind, and lets the clover fly away. She wishes for an A on her math test, and a trip to Disneyland, and a new phone, and for her parents to stop screaming at each other every night. She watches the green against the intense blue of the sky, and for a moment she believes that the leaves could make everything better. But it's been a long time since Courtney believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, and even at twelve she knows why her father looks through her mother's phone every night. So the moment happens- but Courtney knows she has to face reality sometime.
The Italian restaurant has always been popular for first dates, the food not good enough to suggest commitment but the prices high enough to maybe help a guy get lucky. Courtney steadily avoids the eyes of the stuttering boy across the table- she has only agreed to go on a date with him for a favor, and she can't have him thinking she liked him.
"So, Courtney, what kind of music do you like?" He manages to get out.
"Heavy metal," she deadpanned, voice flat as her eyes.
"Uh, wow, really? That's really interesting," he spluttered. She almost admired him for his dogged effort to keeping the conversation moving, but she wondered how much more obvious her body language could get. She wondered how much worse this date could get. "I'm more into country music myself." Her stomach plummeted. It could get much worse. She let him ramble about songs describing winding Southern roads, monster trucks, and dive bars while she daydreamed about bustling city streets, sleek Aston Martins, and art galleries. "Courtney!" Her eyes snap open. "Look- first star."
She followed his pointing finger past the tacky striped umbrellas and over the skyline of the strip mall to look at what was indeed the first star in the night sky. "I think that's a planet. It's too bright to be a star," she dismissed.
"Stop being a buzzkill. If we say it's a star, it's a star, and we can wish on it." She regards him curiously. This is, by far, the most interesting he's been all night. "Make a wish, Courtney."
She acquiesces, shutting her eyes and wishing. She wishes for a new pair of jeans and for college acceptances and for her mother to smile more. She wishes for a response to that audition tape she'd sent and for a more interesting guy to like her. Peeking open, she notices her date's eyes are still squeezed shut. She wonders what he's wishing for. She wonders if it's about her. It's better if he's not. She might be a bitch, but she's not bitchy enough to lead him on any longer. So she takes another bite of her spaghetti, impatiently waiting for the waiter to offer a dessert menu that she'll decline.
Courtney feels positively luminous tonight. She knows the producers' goal is to make her feel like there's no cameras, but in this moment, 3 AM behind the cabins, she really believes she's in total privacy. She feels normal for the first time since she stepped off the boat. The boy leaning against her, entire body shaking with laughter, clearly felt the same. "You're shitting me."
"No, I swear this happened," Courtney giggled uncontrollably, slouching into him. "I was just walking to my next class, and then I was on the ground and everyone was staring at me. I must have been dehydrated or something." She wasn't sure Duncan could hear her over the sound of his raucous laughter, but she wasn't sure that mattered. Maybe he didn't need to know the details of her infamous 10th grade fainting episode, because he seemed to understand her without all the details.
"Well," he twisted to face her, "you can be my Sleeping Beauty anytime, Princess." She can't see him in the dark, but she knows he's staring at her.
"Sleeping Beauty didn't faint, she just fell asleep," she corrected him, more out of habit than out of necessity.
He was uncomfortably close now, but she wasn't uncomfortable. She should be uncomfortable. Why wasn't she uncomfortable? "Hey, Princess." She could feel his breath on her cheek.
"What?" She whispered, although she didn't know why.
"You've got an eyelash right there," he whispered back. Raising a finger, he ever-so-gently brushed Courtney's cheek. "Make a wish."
So she did. She shut her eyes, and turned her face to the night sky, and made a wish. She wished for the million dollars and for more challenge wins and for a breakfast tomorrow morning that didn't have worms in it. She wished for this night to never end and for this boy to never stop looking at her the way she hoped he might be looking at her now. Maybe she'd check. Squinting open one eye, she peered at him through the dim light of the moon. Disappointingly, he wasn't looking at her. Instead, his face was upturned to the sky the way hers was, and he seemed to be searching the stars for something. She opened her mouth to say something sassy, and then closed it. She didn't need to disturb the moment. She liked it just where it was. Letting her head flop back, she began to scan the sky like he was. She didn't feel like being The Delinquent and The Type-A. Right now, she wanted them just to be Duncan and Courtney, two regular teenagers who liked the night sky and the feel of the grass on bare legs and each other sort-of. She didn't need a birthday candle, a four leaf clover, a first star, or an eyelash to wish for that.