by Jen Calonita
“That”—Mikey G. pointed at my drawing without actually touching it with sticky fingers—“is wicked cool.” Did I mention Mikey G. hails from Boston? And being a bodyguard runs in his family—his dad was a boy band bodyguard back in the day for this group called New Kids on the Block.
“Mac,” Kyle said quietly, locking eyes with me, “that is the perfect cover for our album. You have to show this to Briggs.”
WHAT?
Those were the words I had daydreamed Zander would say to me someday, and now Kyle was saying them to me for real! I could feel every part of my body stiffen. “You think it’s that good?”
“Not ‘that good,’” he joked, making fun of what he called my American slang. “It’s aces. The boat, the storm, the clouds—you’ve captured Perfect Storm in one small picture.” Mikey G. drank his Coke and mumbled his agreement. “This IS our cover.”
I was seriously going to slide under the table. “Stop,” I said, blushing harder.
“Show Briggs,” Kyle insisted. He shut the journal and pulled it to his chest. “Better yet, let me hold on to this and I’ll show it to him.”
“NO!” I shouted a bit forcefully, scaring a woman at the senior-citizen table who knocked over her soda. I gently took back the journal and put it safely in my bag. “I mean, I don’t think today is the best day to do it, considering I spent the morning making a mess of hotel property.”
Kyle laughed. “I think you’re learning how to be a true rocker. You know what else is very rock-star-like to do? Use the rooftop pool. Want to head back and swim?”
OMG, Zander! I had completely lost track of time. “I’m actually supposed to meet someone there right about now,” I said. I was probably already late. I pictured Zander pacing the pool looking for me, a soggy quesadilla in his hand. We needed to get back there STAT. “Let’s go!”
It took us almost a half hour to get back to the hotel. I could hear my phone vibrating in my pocket. Did Zander have my number? WHERE ARE YOU, MY LUCKY CHARM? I imagined his text saying. What if Zander left the pool, and all I found was the Mexican food he left behind? And how was I going to tell Kyle he couldn’t come to the pool? Zander had talked about the two of us hanging out. Could I just show up with his bandmate, too? A rash was starting to break out on my chest, which used to happen only when I thought of sharks and The Sharkinator Lives.
Then we walked out the hotel doors onto the rooftop, and all my worries changed.
“What the…?” Mikey G. started to say.
“You guys made it!” Zander shouted. His hair was a nice mess of curls, and he was wearing an orange bathing suit and a blue tee that matched his eyes. “Kyle, dude, I texted you an HOUR ago!”
Wait, Zander had texted Kyle about quesadillas, too? It occurred to me as I saw the crowd that maybe Zander hadn’t planned on us hanging out alone after all. My heart sank.
There were at least fifty people crammed onto the rooftop deck filled with couches, twinkling lights, and pool floats. They were dancing on tables, hovering near the edge of the pool, and swimming in their clothes. Heath was playing pool volleyball with a bunch of people I didn’t recognize. The smell of fried cheese and tacos wafted over to the doorway, where Mikey G., Kyle, and I were standing, and I noticed a delivery boy from Ain’t-Cha-Lada Mexican handing out quesadillas to girls in bikinis.
“Kyle, come on! Mackenzie, you too!” Zander called.
I started to giggle, and Mikey G. raised his eyebrows. Zander did want me here! “Okay,” I yelled back, and started to stroke a strand of my hair absentmindedly.
“I don’t know if this party is a good idea.” Kyle frowned as the volleyball from Heath’s game sailed our way and Mikey G. volleyed it back. “I thought it was just the guys and us tonight. Your mom is going to go bonkers when she sees this crowd.”
But Zander had made me quesadillas. Okay, he had ordered quesadillas for fifty people, including me, but still. He had called me over. I couldn’t leave now. Not when Zander had gone to all this trouble. “We could stay for a little bit,” I suggested, looking at Zander again but trying not to stare. He was cute even with girls hanging on him. Sure, it wasn’t just the two of us hanging out as he’d promised, but we would still be hanging out. That had to mean something.
“Mac, I don’t think…,” Kyle started to say, but it was too late. Zander was a powerful magnet. I felt myself being pulled toward the fan club gathered around him.
“I loved your tweet last week asking fans to put a picture of a hyena on Heath’s head and post pictures,” said a girl who sounded a lot like a hyena herself.
“I almost died when you guys posted that YouTube video pranking Lemon Ade on her tour bus,” another girl chimed in. “Putting a rubber spider in her Cheerios was soooo funny!” She laughed giddily, and I rolled my eyes.
“That was my idea.” Zander put his arms behind his head and got comfy in a lounge chair. “Heath wanted to jump out and scare her, but I knew she’d freak over that rubber spider. I come up with most of our pranks,” he bragged. “Maybe you girls could help me come up with a new one for this week’s post. We’ve doubled subscribers.”
“That’s because PS is the best band ever,” a third girl said, knocking a taco out of someone’s hands to move closer to Zander. “I’ve been listening to you guys all weekend, ever since I heard ‘I Feel Blue’ on my Wave One app. I listen to it OVER and OVER. I think I might be the biggest fan you guys have.”
I snorted. Everyone turned to look at me, including Zander. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. You’re their biggest fan after a WEEKEND? I’ve been listening to them for a YEAR.”
Zander smirked, but his groupies collectively growled at me. “Mac,” he said, and pulled me through the crowd toward his chair. I sat down on the edge of it. He put his arm around me, and I felt like my head was on fire. “Everyone, this is my good friend Mac. She’s going to be hard to beat as the biggest PS fan.”
“Oh yeah?” The self-proclaimed number one fan stuck her hands on her hips. “Prove it.”
I wasn’t scared of these Lola Cummings wannabes. I launched into my Zander fact sheet—how he only eats red M&M’S, the escalator story, the time his mom found him putting his favorite toy in the oven because he was worried it was cold. I was so busy reciting facts, I didn’t hear my mom approach us. Neither did Zander.
“Zander, do you want to tell me why hotel security is holding back a group of over a hundred teenage girls in the lobby?” Mom asked coolly. She didn’t acknowledge me. I had a feeling that was a bad thing. “They’ve had to call in cops to control the crowd. Two girls fainted and had to be taken away by ambulance, and another is hyperventilating, all because someone sent a tweet saying there was a Mexican-food pool party with Perfect Storm at our hotel tonight.”
“You said to keep up the strong media presence,” Zander told her. “What better way to do that than invite fans to a party? At first it was just going to be Mac and me, but then I thought, wouldn’t it be better if I could invite hundreds of fans to hang out? So I did.” He looked pretty proud of himself, but Mom was not.
“Can you girls excuse us for a second?” she said to the small crowd around us, using the same voice she uses at Starbucks when she wants them to remake her coffee. The girls floated away, but not too far because each wanted the spot that was mine, right next to Zander. I started to leave, too, but Zander stood and grabbed my hand.
“Stay, please,” he said with a smile. AND HE DIDN’T LET GO OF MY HAND!
Mom definitely noticed, because her jaw became very set. “I know you want to help with our social media, Zander, and I appreciate all you’ve been doing since we talked about it, but you can’t go booking a party with fans without talking to me.” Her voice was rising. “It’s dangerous—there is a maximum capacity up here. And it’s a problem for the tour security—you released your hotel information to the world. And third, this is something that has to be approved by management. What were you thinking?”
I could feel Zander�
�s grasp on me tighten. Was he scared of my mom?
“I’m sorry, Piper,” he said. “I thought I was helping. Did you see how many tweets we got from this? And the pictures the girls are posting on Instagram? They love us!”
“That’s not the point,” Mom retorted. “The press is going to have a field day—‘Band Throws Pool Party and Causes Commotion at Nashville Hotel.’ It wasn’t smart, Zander.”
The color was draining from Zander’s face. I couldn’t stand him having to face my mom’s wrath. He was clearly starting to get worked up. His right foot was tapping, which happens only when he gets really nervous. “It’s my fault!” I blurted out, and Mom and Zander looked at me. “Zander invited me to have Mexican food with him, and I suggested he send the tweet to fans in the area. I thought it would be a good fan encounter,” I said, using one of the terms Mom always does. “I didn’t know it would get so big. Zander was against it from the start.”
“You suggested a Mexican-themed pool party?” Mom said skeptically.
I tried not to blink. “Yep.”
Mom was quiet for a moment. Then she pointed to Zander. “Shut this party down.” Zander nodded, and Mom looked at me. “I’m really disappointed in you, Mac. We’ll talk about this later.”
I felt my stomach tighten as Mom walked away. Zander put his arm around my shoulder again. “Thanks for covering for me. I do NOT need to get in any more trouble with Briggs, you know?”
Briggs. I had forgotten about him. Was he going to be mad at me? At my mom? But all my worries went out the window as quickly as they had come when Zander continued.
“Being a pop star is all I’ve ever wanted since I could walk and talk. It’s the most important thing in the world.” Zander ran a hand through his hair. “I’m lucky to have you on my side, Mackenzie Lowell.” He handed me a foam box. “The quesadillas are a little soggy, but I promise to make you a batch next time we’re on the bus for school. We’ll tell Krissy they’re part of our project on Spanish culture. Deal?”
“Deal,” I said happily, and watched him walk away.
Our Caribbean honeymoon was definitely back on! I couldn’t wait to tell Iris, Scarlet, Jilly, and even… wait, where was Kyle? I looked around the party, but I didn’t see him anywhere. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to thank him for my best day on the PS tour so far.
Thursday, March 3
LOCATION: On the long road to Texas
It’s a good thing Krissy gave me a two-thousand-word personal essay to write, because there’s not much else I can do. I’m grounded! On the road. No more sightseeing. No cell phone. No tablet. Mom took everything away. Instead I’ve been working on another scene in my Mac Attack comic book.
Being cooped up in a hotel room for days felt like jail. The room started to feel smaller than the tour bus, and the movies on demand were on a never-changing loop. Even more frustrating: Now that we are on the road again, I know Zander is only one bus away. We were finally hitting it off, and here I am, locked away in my tour-bus tower.
Why, God? WHY?
“You know why,” Mom said when I whined to my monkey stuffed animal in the PS shirt (the one I bought at my first concert on the road with the guys). “Because you messed up.” Mom stood at the edge of my bunk bed, but I wouldn’t look at her. “Mac, I know being on the road with PS feels like the most incredible thing to ever happen to you, but I don’t want you to lose sight of who you are.”
I looked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mom’s serious mood matched her style. She had on a linen shirt and black trousers with open-toed heels, and her chestnut-colored hair was blown out in waves. She swears her hair dryer helps her do that, but it’s never worked when I’ve tried it. I wondered if I’d ever grow up to look as put-together as she did.
Mom pushed the hair out of my eyes. “I like these boys, too, or I wouldn’t have agreed to be their tour manager. Heath cracks me up, Kyle is a dedicated musician, and Zander is savvy when it comes to creating a public image. He really wants to know the ins and outs of the media world, which some artists couldn’t care less about. But as smart as Zander is, he’s still a teenage boy,” she said sharply. “And teenage boys can be a huge mess, just like girls. Don’t be so eager to hang out with PS that you’re willing to forget who you are.”
“I’m not,” I argued.
Mom raised a well-arched eyebrow. “The daughter I know would never have thrown a food fight in a hotel hallway.”
I looked down at my comforter. True.
“Not to mention you haven’t set foot near a pool since you and the girls watched that ridiculous Sharkinator movie.”
I pulled my comforter over my head and groaned. Also true.
“I had to do a lot of damage control for both the whipped-cream battle and the pool party.”
More groaning on my part.
“Briggs and I had a long talk with the boys last night,” Mom said. “They need to start acting like the professionals we know they can be. If they want the airplay and the fame, they need to start taking things more seriously. Otherwise, another band is waiting in the wings to take their place.” Mom shrugged. “That’s just the way this business works.”
I shuddered. No Perfect Storm in the world? I thought of Kyle and his dreams of songwriting. Zander and his hopes to be the biggest band on the planet. Heath and his love of fun and adventure that always got the fans in the audience up and dancing. Could that all really disappear in a heartbeat? “Maybe the world needs to see the boys as we see them,” I suggested.
Mom looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
I thought for a moment about everything I had learned about PS so far that was different from what I had seen in their Instagram and YouTube videos. I sat up, suddenly excited. “Well, Heath can be trouble, but he’s also a cool big brother. Kyle wants to be a songwriter and write original stuff for PS. And you said yourself how amazing Zander is with the industry stuff. He wants this bad. They all do.”
Mom touched my chin. “You might have something here. I’m going to talk to Briggs.”
I hugged my monkey (named Zander, of course) and started daydreaming about the band thanking me for all the positive publicity they’d gotten because of my suggestion. (“Thanks, Mac,” Zander would say. “If it weren’t for you, we’d be playing a state fair in Iowa. You really got us back on track. That’s why I was hoping you would—”)
“Mac?” Mom was calling my name. Oops! “I think you’ve learned your lesson. When we get to Texas, why don’t the two of us get something to eat?”
I jumped up before she could change her mind. “Okay! I’m in the mood for barbecue again. I went to this great place with Kyle in Nashville, and I keep dreaming of their ribs.”
Mom laughed. “Barbecue it is.”
By the time we got to Austin, Mom and I were back to being our old selves. We were a team again. I liked that.
Friday, March 4
LOCATION: Austin, Texas
Friday morning Briggs knocked on our door at the evil hour of eight AM.
(Yeah, yeah, I used to be at school at eight, but road life is different!)
Mom opened the door and found Briggs in quite a state. His hair was wild, and it looked like he had football paint under his eyes. “You two have to come downstairs and hear this. We’ve been up half the night working on it, and it still doesn’t sound right.”
“Working on what?” I asked.
“A new Perfect Storm song,” Briggs said.
My stomach did a back handspring (something I can’t do). I was going to get to hear a new song before everyone else?
“The bus is still parked in valet, where we left it when we checked in,” Briggs added. “Get dressed and come have a listen.”
Mom and I got dressed quickly (well, I was semiquick—I couldn’t be seen with my hair this wild!). Then we headed downstairs and boarded the bus. I immediately screamed.
Jilly screamed back.
“What are you doing here?” I
asked as the two of us grabbed each other and jumped up and down. Mikey G. was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal and reading Soap Opera Digest. He looked at us like we were deranged.
“I flew back a day early,” Jilly said, her voice jumping with our jumps. “I missed you and the tour, and I can only take my pint-size stepbrother for so long.”
I overheard Mom telling Briggs a little about my idea, but then I forgot all about it because Jilly and I were busy catching up. She told me about her stepbrother almost setting the house on fire with his birthday candles, and I told her about the whipped-cream battle in the hallway, Zander’s pool party, my grounding, and my day out with Kyle.
“Kyle, huh?” Jilly had a strange look on her face. The bus suddenly felt very warm. I wondered if the air-conditioning was broken again.
“Girls? Want to come in the back and hear the boys’ new song?” Briggs asked.
He didn’t have to ask twice. I was at the back of the bus in seconds, with Jilly and Mom right behind me. When I heard the strum of a guitar and humming as we neared the door, my heart started to thump madly. The boys were in a semicircle, and Heath and Kyle had guitars on their laps. Sheet music and scribbled lyrics sat on the floor in front of them. Mikey G., Mom, Jilly, Briggs, and I squeezed in around them. Zander was concentrating on the song lyrics, but Kyle looked up and gave a little wave. I suddenly felt bad that I hadn’t talked to him since our day out. I really needed to tell him about my stint in prison.
“Einstein sent us this song for the boys without being asked,” Briggs said proudly.
That was impressive. Einstein is one of the biggest songwriters in music right now. He’s written for everyone from Katy Perry to Carrie Underwood. If he had penned a song for PS, then they were obviously starting to get noticed. I had heard Mom tell Briggs that their YouTube channel subscribers had doubled again!
