Chapter Text
✨💚✨
“In the good ol’ summertime! In the good ol’ summertiiime!”
Cosmo was gaily wailing the popular tune straight from the heart as he weaved this way and that through traffic in his motorcar. He proudly honked the horn to punctuate his notes, but when he inhaled with a grin to sing the next line…he immediately forgot what the lyrics were.
But Cosmo was known to take such things in stride. He promptly started up another round of, “In the good ol’ summertime! In the good ol’ summertiiiime!”
He adjusted his smart driving cap, then his smart driving goggles, and then he danced his smart-driving-glove-wearing-fingers along the steering wheel. With the actual summer season being in full swing, he had started to bake in his smart driving scarf and smart driving coat, but Cosmo felt like quite the motorist all the same.
And to think, he’d only run over twenty curbs, broadsided three horsedrawn carriages, clipped two street signs, and splashed mud all over a single gaggle of nuns.
That day.
“You hold her hand and she holds yours, and, uhhh…” Cosmo’s brain had managed to fish up some more of the lyrics, but then his brain started to stall, as it was wont to do.
He almost had it…it was on the tip of his whatcha-ma-call-it…
“…thaaat’s a very good…SIGN!”
It would have made comical sense for him to have nearly run into a literal sign at that moment, but Cosmo had actually shouted the word and slammed on his brakes for an entirely different reason.
That reason had enchanting curves accentuated by a corset and a bustle, long dark lashes that framed pink tourmaline eyes, and rosy curls that danced beneath a fetching flowered hat. As far as Cosmo was concerned, she was the only reason. For anything.
But just as quickly as he had stopped to gawk, he had realized that his cute little reason was moving away from him.
Wanda Venus Fairywinkle, the little vaudeville star that had claimed Cosmo’s heart, was riding the electric trolley. And as was usual for her, she was doing it rather…unusually. She was sitting on the ledge of the window, gripping the support, and leaning dangerously out of the trolley.
That hatpin of hers must have been doing a lot of legwork to keep her headgear in place against the wind.
And speaking of legwork, Cosmo put his to work as well. He slammed the accelerator in an urgent gambit to catch up - although being that his motorcar was a product of the 1900s, his ride wasn’t about to go anywhere too fast. Fortunately, neither was the electric trolley.
When the hopeful young dandy neared the unaware young ingenue, he was casually leaning back in his seat, folding one arm behind his head, and using his other hand and one of his propped-up feet to steer.
“Yoohoo! Miss Fairywinkle!” he called jovially.
Wanda didn’t hear him at first, because she remained as she was: eyes closed, rosebud lips curved into a serene little smile, and her curls bouncing around her face. She was enjoying the breeze, Cosmo realized, and it made his heart issue an admiring little flutter.
But he also sort of wanted her to notice him, and that, he figured, was what motorcar horns were for. He honked his with a toothy grin, and Wanda produced a real winner of squawk, her eyes flying open and her body flailing in alarm. She barely caught herself from falling out of the trolley altogether, and then she looked around and –
“Oh. It’s you,” she realized, her voice flat.
“It’s me alright!” Cosmo agreed merrily, pulling up his goggles so that she could see his shameless wink.
Wanda’s lips wriggled all around before settling into a quivery, involuntary smile. She turned away slightly, nursing her dignity, but her tone was laden with unmistakable honey when she teased, “And to what do I owe this pleasure, Mr. Cosma?”
She paused, waiting for a flirty answer, when she suddenly whipped her head back around.
“…Wait, are you driving with your foot!?”
“Aw, that’s nothin’!” Cosmo bragged, right before he immediately threw his other arm behind his head and propped his other foot on the wheel. “There’s not a bone in my body that can’t expertly drive a motor – AHHH!”
His feet had swerved the car this way and that, all while the lack of any weight on the gas made the car dramatically fall behind the trolley. Hardly any danger was present since the car was slowing down, but still Cosmo was very dramatic as he reoriented himself to drive the automobile properly to catch back up to the object of his affections.
Someone did shout at him to watch it though – and rather aggressively.
Blushing but also beaming, Cosmo rejoined Wanda and announced, “I meant to do that! Just like one of your acrobatic tricks in the vaudeville, eh, Miss Fairywinkle?”
Wanda, who had watched all of this with rising amusement and concern both, snorted and grinned wryly. “If I look like that much of a buffoon on stage, then I have to really wonder why you’re such a fan of my act.” She reconsidered. “…No, wait…it all makes sense now.”
“You don’t look like a baboon on stage,” Cosmo assured her readily. He wasn’t hard of hearing, but he was simple of mind. “And I should know: I go to the zoo every week!”
“No doubt to visit relatives,” Wanda wittily returned, and Cosmo actually caught the joke exactly for what it was and giggled.
The trolley pulled to a stop, and Cosmo’s car just barely managed to do the same.
“Where’s that thingy carrying you off to anyway?” Cosmo inquired, nodding to the electric trolley. “Can I come?”
Something passed over Wanda’s face, like she’d just popped a lemon slice into her mouth. She tried to recover from it when she muttered, “I’m going to the beach. To…to cool off.”
The young man in the motorcar frowned, unsure of what to make of this. If anyone else had made that face, he probably wouldn’t have caught the nuance. But when it came to Wanda, he always paid close attention.
More attention than he could actually afford.
Something was bothering her. Hopefully it wasn’t him.
“Well, heck, I can take ya there!” Cosmo decided rather quickly, drumming his fingers on the wheel excitedly. “I got the top down and everything if – if you like that wind…stuff.”
Once again, something interesting passed over Wanda’s face…something that Cosmo hoped was a trickle of desire.
“Oh, uh…I don’t want to impose…” she began to mumble. “A-and besides, I already paid the fare for the trolley! It’d be a waste.”
“Pfft! Pshaw! Flimflam! Horsefeathers! Applesauce, even!” Cosmo rose out of his seat, sat on his car door, leaned way over, reached right behind a startled Wanda’s ear…and pulled out a nickel.
✨💖✨
Wanda’s pink eyes grew round at this, and not because she’d never seen the sleight of hand trick before.
It was because Cosmo was always trying to pitch his own act to Wanda: to be in the same vaudeville show as a comedy magician. And never once had he performed a trick successfully for her…until now. He produced that nickel so effortlessly, so smoothly, that for an instant, Wanda forgot who she was even speaking to.
Especially because Cosmo looked so devilishly handsome then. He playfully flicked the nickel into the air, and she caught it by clapping her gloved hands together. And then…he held out his arms to her, his emerald eyes bright and earnest.
“You’re serious!” Wanda laughed in bewilderment, shaking her head.
“As the plague!” Cosmo confirmed. “…Whatever that means!”
She started to laugh again, when the trolley jerked back into motion. Cosmo and Wanda both gasped in alarm. The vaudeville star looked to the young motorist uncertainly, and he only called out with renewed vigor, “Jump, Wanda!”
He’d never called her Wanda before.
Maybe that was what drove her to do it. Without thinking for another second, Wanda squirmed out of the trolley – then remembered –
“My bag!”
She dove back into the trolley to snatch it up, but now the electric car was getting away, and surely so was her invitation for a drive to the beach…
But when Wanda leaned out the trolley again, she found that Cosmo’s car was keeping pace with the electric transport. Even though he was still sitting on the car door. Even though his feet were on the seat. Somehow.
He held one arm out and steered with the other, and he could not have looked more natural as he carelessly grinned up at her. His beautiful green bangs fluttered in the wind, and his insane green eyes twinkled.
Wanda had no choice but to beam back.
Because Cosmo didn’t know it, but…he was the very fool that her equally foolish heart had already fallen for.
With a final giggle, Wanda leapt from the trolley and crashed right into Cosmo’s waiting, chuckling embrace.
This was all very unnecessary, of course. There were saner ways to get off a trolley and into a motorcar. Without nearly getting people killed too.
Yet Wanda was giddy when Cosmo collapsed the both of them onto the driver’s seat. She wriggled on his lap and asked incredulously, “How is the motorcar even going!?”
“A brick!”
“A brick on the accelerator!?”
“Yeah!”
“You have a brick in your car!?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“HEY, WATCH OUT!” screamed a pedestrian. Obediently, Wanda seized the wheel and swerved, gritting her teeth as her every nerve felt the same shock that an electric trolley ran off of.
“Nice!” Cosmo complimented, completely unbothered.
Reclaiming her senses, Wanda squirmed off Cosmo’s lap, bent down, removed the brick from the accelerator – good gosh he hadn’t been kidding - and manually planted the driver’s foot back on the pedal where it belonged.
“I know I’ve said it before,” she told him candidly, sitting back up and fetching a hand mirror from her bag to check her appearance, “but you’ve got some screws loose, Mr. Cosma. If there were ever any in there to begin with.”
“I was hoping you’d say that again actually,” he confided in her. “I’ve been working on a new trick, thsee, f’where I…” He swished his mouth and his cheeks this way and that, before unrolling his tongue to reveal an actual screw there. Without removing it, he said, “…ta-daaaa…!”
“Gross!” Wanda scolded, and yet she was laughing, completely thrilled. She was also clutching the nickel to her heart without realizing it. “Okay, how are you able to do magic all the sudden? Every other time you’ve tried to show me, you’ve dropped your cards everywhere or lit something of mine on fire.”
“I’fe alfways been good f’at pfmagic!” Cosmo insisted around the bulk of the screw on his tongue, right before he spit it out onto the street. No doubt, it would impale someone else’s tire later. “See?”
He reached into his driving cap and pulled out a bouquet that should have been impossible to fit under it. When he handed the flowers off to Wanda – and they were pink, of course – he blushed a little. “You just make me nervous, that’s all. M-Miss Fairywinkle.”
Wanda beheld this in complete awe. When she accepted the flowers into her hands, she was barely in control of her own motions. Her body recalled what it was supposed to be doing, but her mind was frozen entirely. And then all her thoughts were fuzzy.
“And…why’s that?” she uttered.
As if she couldn’t have guessed from all his behavior up to this point.
Wanda the vaudeville star was hardly a star to most. She had only two gentlemen callers, only two fans who regularly delivered flowers to her dressing room…and Cosmo was one of them.
After all, her act wasn’t a sensual, sultry display like her sister Blonda’s. Blonda would dress in risqué, sparkly getups and she would sing teasing, flirty ballads and ditties. She’d giggle and squeak and wink to the gentlemen in the audience. Her dressing room was always exploding with bouquets and garlands.
Whereas Wanda’s act, one that she had designed herself, was a unique one. She would do acrobatics, walk over a tightrope, throw knives, do trick shots with a pistol, and so on. All the while, she would be delivering jokes and doing impressions. Sometimes Wanda would wear funny costumes with mustaches and baggy pants and cigars, or sometimes she would dress like a fetching young lady but with humorously exaggerated features like hair that was too tall or a corset that was so tight that she’d turn blue.
She was a one-woman circus, just without the torturing animals part. Or the magic, like Cosmo’s.
And yes, Wanda’s act tended to get a lot of laughs. People seemed to genuinely enjoy it…for what it was. But it wasn’t the sort of fame that won anyone real admirers.
Except from the children. They seemed to appreciate her a lot, actually.
And then there was her ex-boyfriend Juandissimo, who she would have gladly shoved into a cannon and fired off into the horizon.
And then…there was Cosmo.
Who didn’t miss a show, even though his mother hardly wanted him to leave the house. Who waited for her anxiously after her act to congratulate her and give her flowers and yammer for a bit, right before his shyness and his mother’s curfew would catch up to him.
Why did he make her nervous, Wanda had just asked him.
She hadn’t dared asked before. And there were so many reasons for it.
Cosmo bit his lip, and then he wasn’t meeting her eye anymore. He smoothly stopped the motorcar to let a little old lady cross the street. The beach was in sight now, at the bottom of the hill they were on.
Then he mumbled something that she couldn’t hear at all.
“…Beg pardon?” Wanda asked, as gentle as the sea breeze that tickled her face.
There was a short silence. The little old lady had completely crossed the street by now.
With green eyes trained ahead, Cosmo muttered seriously, “…Wouldn’t you be nervous talking to the best person there ever was?”
Wanda’s breath caught. She nearly crushed the flowers against herself. The nickel was digging into her palm. Suddenly, the sun ahead had turned up a few thousand degrees.
It was her turn to mutter something incomprehensible. Blinking curiously, Cosmo glanced at her. Before he could ask, Wanda repeated herself with a tight throat.
“…I know how that feels. A-actually.”