A&b

by J. C. Lillis

  “One more thing, FARG,” says Ava.

  I whip around.

  “Throw that wig out.”

  “What?”

  “Try sideswept bangs.”

  “Why?”

  “Your head’s a little round.” She tips her chin at me. “Just trying to help.”

  My hands ball up. I allow myself a single less-than-sisterly thought: I do not care for you, Ava Alvarez, and I never will.

  Then I’m out the door and after Viv, without even saying goodbye.

  ***

  I track Viv through the bowels of BSA Studios, dodging staffers with VIP badges, clipboards, lanyards, lit cigarettes shedding plumes of bitter smoke. Ava’s folded-up twenty burns under the bracelet. The trouble song won’t leave me alone. Twenty feet ahead, Viv’s rainbow twists of hair bob in and out of sight, then vanish behind a door.

  The crowd’s dispersed when I reach the place where she disappeared. Everyone’s gone where they belong. It’s just me and a closed door.

  PERSONNEL ONLY, the sign says.

  It is not in my character to breach the sanctity of a PERSONNEL ONLY door, except at the bowling alley where I am actual personnel. But I’m bursting with questions: What is this bracelet, even? And how do I get it off?

  I glance around. No one’s coming.

  I send a silent apology to the door and slip on through.

  It’s a plain office-building kind of hallway. Lint-colored carpet, humming fluorescents. Quiet. But the kind of teasing, fill-me-up quiet that’s dangerous when you’re having thoughts you don’t want to have.

  Black doors line the walls. I try one, then another, peeking around to make sure no one’s watching. They’re all locked.

  “…Viv?”

  My voice echoes. No one answers.

  Then I see it up ahead: a cracked-open door spilling a sickly greenish glow into the hall. I creep closer, imagining I’m trench-coated Tera uncovering secrets in the “Superspy” video. Maybe it’s a popstar laboratory. Maybe Viv will slip me a formula that turns Bs into As with a single brave gulp from a beaker.

  My shoulders droop. Viv’s not here. It’s a back door to the rehearsal room—the same place where I warmed up before the show.

  The small stage is empty now. Waiting in the pale green light.

  Words buzz in my brain like a shaken nest of hornets. The bracelet is hot and tight on my wrist. I try to get it off, try to jiggle the tiny lock with my fingernails, but it won’t budge.

  GO IN, says Evil Barrie.

  I can’t move. Because I know something bad is going to happen in there.

  SOMETHING BAD’S ALREADY HAPPENED.

  My legs think this is a good point. Because they’re carrying me into the creepy tomb-silent rehearsal room, and they don’t even tremble when the door slams shut behind me.

  Chapter Three

  The door lets me out at the back of a small darkened stage raised above five rows of cushy red theater seats. I walk slowly to center stage, set Rosalinda down, and sit cross-legged before an audience of none. I close my eyes. I sit still as death but it feels like I’m running backwards, back to my pre-Tera days when it was just me and Ma and our ravenous pet green-eyed monster.

  Mothers share what they love with their daughters, and there was nothing Ma loved more than spewing poison about folks who had it better. Those were dark, dark days in the Krumholtz apartment. Ma spat barbs about her old comedy friends and made dartboards from their movie posters. I told her about Maddie Bechtel, who had every single Rockstar High doll and got the big solo in the third-grade spring concert, and Ma made me a little sock doll to stick pins in. We screamed Hole and Nine Inch Nails and Joan Jett in the car. We stuck our used bubblegum on BMWs and smashed pumpkins in Fairview Estates on Halloween. On weekends we sipped sour lemonade at the rich-people mall and thought up funny insults for strangers, and I shushed the sad voice in my head that said no, this is mean, this is small.

  Then Tera made my whole world big and bright.

  I fell for her at age nine, when I watched the Pop University series premiere at Chelsie’s house and we saw her perform “Fight for Love” in a gold leather breastplate etched with hearts. I stared in wonder at the gladiator sandals crisscrossed up her thick toned legs. I swooned at her proud pink fauxhawk and thunderous voice and the serious way she sang sunshiny words, like she was a priestess doling out glittery communion wafers. I watched her touch dozens of outstretched hands, felt the invisible current of love that thrummed between her and the audience. Pop U wasn’t a hit yet and blogs were calling it her “last gasp at relevance,” but to me she was a one-woman revolution, a beautiful freak who made a line like climb down from your tower, plug into your power resound like an ancient commandment.

  “Music is more than fun, people. It’s a vocation,” she said at the end of Episode 1, her amber eyes auditing the sixteen semifinalists. “I want artists on a mission. Artists with a vision. Artists who know it doesn’t freaking matter who you are or where you came from, because if the music’s in you, you have the power to change lives and heal hearts. So I look at you, and I ask…Which one of you is the next soldier in my Army of Awesome?”

  I literally leapt to my feet and Chelsie looked up from her microwave popcorn and made a church steeple with her lovely orange eyebrows, and I had to lie and tell her I had a charley horse instead of a roaring epiphany about the rest of my life.

  My transformation began right away. I looked up Tera’s singles and taught myself to play them all on my junky red plastic keyboard (with headphones on, since Ma objected). I sang her songs to life every day and let her sing me to sleep every night. I saved up $12.99 for an Army of Awesome membership patch and ironed it on my secondhand backpack. I photocopied her pledge to be a force for positive change and signed it with a goldtone pen. I pored over her excellent book, You Do You: A Life Manual for Audaciously Awesome Girls, and stuck 147 sticky notes in the margins. Following the advice in Chapter 5 (“Getting over Your Shit”), I shrank all the bad jealous parts of me into a teeny Evil Barrie and banished her to the basement of my brain.

  Until now.

  Own what’s inside you. Use it.

  The bracelet tingles on my arm. I dig my sun-yellow songwriting journal from Rosalinda’s pouch and unsheath my favorite pen. I think of Ava in a limo, headed to Oblivion with Tera, and verse 1 transcribes itself in under two minutes. I think of Tera high-fiving her after a one-on-one mentoring session, and a prechorus-chorus package drops in my lap like a lethal gift. I think of her voice, her curls, her hipster pig scarf. Three more verses climb from my guts and spatter themselves on the page, animated by a swaggery melody that seems to come from someone else. Because I’m me, I then spend eighteen minutes second-guessing every word and tweaking line after line because God forbid I sing a bad first draft even to an empty room.

  I find a bank of light switches and flip random ones until it’s what I want: the stage lit up, the seats safe in the dark. I drag a high stool to the center of the stage, set Rosalinda on it, and fire her up. She seems to flinch when my fingers brush her keys.

  It’s okay, girl, I tell her. Today’ll be over soon. Then we’ll go back to normal, I promise.

  I don’t picture an audience. I don’t want you to see me like this.

  I rip out the lyric sheets and slide them into Rosalinda’s music stand.

  A pocket-sized Ava clomps around in my brain. Hi, FARG, she says smugly. I’m PIG. I love pigs, they’re my favorite. Aren’t I quirky and tortured and smart and cool? Isn’t my voice a gift to the universe?

  I curl my hand around the bracelet and squeeze.

  Also, your head’s a little round.

  I pull in a breath and release verse 1.

  You wanna know the truth, PIG

  You didn’t deserve that spot

  They’ll pluck you out like a bad tooth, PIG

  I hope that you sink like a yacht

  My voice sounds
different. Deeper, darker, stronger. I smile a wicked smile and bite into the next part:

  You’re a joke who won the jackpot

  You’re strategic and contrived

  You couldn’t write a chorus if they

  Burned your ass alive

  Your lyrics ooze pretentiousness

  Your success-dreams are deluded

  If I’ve one sentiment, it’s this:

  I hope you’re the first to get booted!

  My verses unfurl like the flag of an evil kingdom. I spit out spiky consonants. I revel in my rhymes. The words lend themselves to vamping and wicked-queen theatrics, all the un-Tera impulses I’ve worked so hard to tamp down. Cabaret? I rip my wig back off, toss it into the seats. I’ll give you cabaret! I’m Liza doing “Mein Herr,” I’m Ursula the Sea Witch in a one-woman show, I’m fabulous Lolly Lipkin from that NYCBestCabaret playlist I secretly watch on YouTube sometimes.

  You think you can get by just acting clever and cool

  But I’m guessing they didn’t teach “writing hooks”

  In poor little rich girl school!

  Someday I’ll be a butterfly, but you’ll always be a moth

  You’re just a waste

  Of precious brain-space, so

  Goodnight PIG

  Goodbye PIG—

  FUCK OFF!

  I crash down hard on the final chord. I hear Tera say Ava, you’re an easy A and my fists fly up and sprout middle fingers. I wave them around, striding my stage, spouting the kind of obscenities Ma reserves for Land Rovers that cut her off, until I trip on a wire and wipe out on the glossy black floor.

  I roll onto my back and blink up at the ceiling.

  Holy crapballs.

  What was that?

  Evil Barrie cockroach-crawls in the cradle of my ear. I know what she’s going to say. I try to wish her away, try to banish her back to the basement, but she sticks her nasty head in my ear canal and hollers into the darkness:

  THAT WAS YOU, she says. THE REAL TRUE YOU.

  ***

  I locate a restroom. Strip everything off.

  That wasn’t me.

  It wasn’t.

  It wasn’t.

  I crunch my failure dress in the trash can and knot a red bandana around my head. I yank on my favorite size-fourteen skinny jeans, the Goodwill pair with the heart-shaped pockets I sequined myself. I try to pry Viv’s bracelet off but it’s hopeless, locked tight.

  The envelope. I see it in a flash, Viv stuffing it in Rosalinda’s pouch. I dig it out and sure enough, there’s a bitty green key in there. The head is engraved with a logo I squint to read: VIVID, each letter a different color, like on those old motel signs that advertise color TV.

  Weird.

  I jab the key in the bracelet’s lock and jiggle until it unlatches. It’s left an itchy green shadow on my wrist, right over my IT’S ALL GOOD tattoo.

  Weirder.

  My phone BING BINGs as I’m stuffing Ava’s twenty in my pocket. A text from Ma: DID YOU DIE OF STAGE FRIGHT OR SOMETHING? I know what I should say: You were right. I shouldn’t throw all my eggs in the showbiz basket. I should’ve kept up my grades, applied for college scholarships, planned a backup route to adulthood in case plan A didn’t work out.

  I shouldn’t have been so optimistic. So reckless.

  I’m good, I text back. More later.

  I force my eyes to the mirror. My pale blotchy face looks fifteen percent rounder and my big green eyes are bloodshot and somehow my red lipstick has smeared clear across my cheek, as if my lips were a disguise I’d drawn on to seem human.

  Time to clean up this mess.

  I wash my face and shove the bracelet to the bottom of my bag, because it is an obvious thing of darkness and I don’t want it hurting anyone else. Then I pull on a yellow concert tee with a faded red Army of Awesome logo under Tera’s silkscreened face. I wear her image like armor. What happened today doesn’t matter; like Tera says in “Happy Endings,” you get to decide that your story’s not done. I believe in myself because of her, and someday I’ll earn that second chance to win her over.

  I snap on a smile and recite positivity mantras from You Do You:

  I will be a soldier in the Army of Awesome.

  I will use my talents to help people and make their lives better.

  I will love my fellow artists and kick jealousy to the curb.

  I say the words like I used to in fifth grade, when I found the manual dishonored in a discount remainder bin. Over and over, until they scrub away the hurt. Until they feel like me.

  Then I’m ready to make plan B.

  Chapter Four

  After I leave BSA Studios, I hop the first city bus I see. I ride buses a lot at home when I’m trying to solve a stubborn chorus or spark a new song idea—it’s super-comforting, the rumble of the engine and the pshhhh of the brakes, the people around you with their beautiful mysterious lives. Buses are magic problem-solvers, and I need some magic right about now.

  I have to figure out what the holy heck I’m doing.

  To help me think, I insert my yellow smiley-face earbuds and blast Tera’s first two albums, one after the other. When “Rearview” comes on, three minutes and twenty-four seconds of soul-saving sunshine pop, I ceremonially leave Pop U behind. The show clearly wasn’t my destiny—that’s a silly word anyway, right? Like if Destiny was a person, she’d spell her name with an i. I bet I could find some other way to help people via music.

  I get out my notebook and start a fresh page.

  PLAN B, OPTION 1: Become a musical motivational speaker

  SEMINAR TITLE: “How Not to Wig Out After Failure”

  POSSIBLE VENUES: High school assemblies, bars, depressing malls

  I rest my head on the bus window and sink into fantasy. I’ll live a useful life, a noble life, an opposite-of-Evil-B-in-every-way life. I’ll ride from school to bar to mall like a musical Lone Ranger, helping people feel stronger and better, and in return they’ll give me something like love. Tera will adopt me and/or make out with me and also invite me on her next tour. And maybe one day my phone will ring, and it’ll be Chelsie, and she’ll say I’m sorry I smashed your heart into a zillion tiny hearticles…Can we talk?

  A BING BING butts in. Another text from Ma—Pop U must be on back home by now. I picture her crunching salt and vinegar chips on the couch, her plastic Savers nametag still on and her dark hair twisted in two ratty buns.

  Ma: I AM WATCHING THE STUPID SHOW AS WE SPEAK. I assume this is bad. You’re in that booth and you’ve balled up eight goddamned notebook sheets already. TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED SO I CAN GO TO BED.

  My chest aches. I’d imagined it over and over: calling her to tell her I made it, getting a hey, good show, kid, or even a super-quiet I’m proud. She’s never said it before but maybe she’s saving it up for something big.

  I take a deep breath and get it over with.

  Me: I got the boot.

  A smirking Ava pops up in my head.

  Ma: Shit, what happened? You rhyme LOVE and ABOVE too many times?

  I mouth-fart at the phone. No matter how many mental Band-Aids I slap on, it always hurts that Ma hates my music. I tell her what happened in as few words as possible.

  Ma: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. The Krumholtz Curse didn’t skip a generation, I guess.

  Me: There’s no curse.

  Ma: Wanna rage?

  Me: Nope.

  Ma: C’monnnnnnnn. Give you a buck if you say “Tera Rivera is a washed-up old

  The rest is too mean to read; I see the c-word and avert my eyes.

  Me: I’m fine with it, Ma.

  Ma: Yeah, you gotta be. You’re my kid. The Broken Dreams Club is your destiny.

  A brief word, before I respond, about the sorrowful history of Mara Krumholtz. When Ma was nineteen she got cast in this sketch-comedy TV show called Sunday School—it was like SNL only
by and for teens, and it was a huge, huge deal for a kid from Carney with a handful of open-mikes under her belt. Her castmate Bill, the big blond musical-comedy genius, was her mega-crush and nemesis rolled into one. They went out for six weeks but she couldn’t handle that he was more talented; according to the journal I found in her closet, “when they dump my sketch for his, it’s like getting shivved by your prom date.” Long story short, her envy locked her up inside. She couldn’t write, couldn’t be happy with him. After ten episodes she got the boot, a breakup, and a positive pregnancy test two weeks later. Bill made the grossout Camp Creekbottom movies and got famous.

  She never, ever got over it. (Or him.) So that explains why like ninety percent of our talks go like this:

  Me: My dreams aren’t broken. Not yet.

  Ma: Well that’s a cute motivational poster but you’re 18 now & your rent’s due.

  Me: On it! I promise. I’ll get another job while I try to book some gigs.

  Ma: Oh god not “gigs.” *barfffffff* Showbiz sucks. I implore you: come back, put on sweats at night, and mock bad TV like a normal person.

  Me: Like you.

  Ma: Ain’t nothing wrong with me. I have zero ambitions or expectations. Therefore life can’t punch me in the boob.

  Me: Maybe I don’t mind being punched in the boob.

  She’s quiet for a long time. I won’t like what comes next. I turn up Tera’s “Brace Yourself” and brace myself.

  Ma: LISTEN UP MARY FAKE SUNSHINE. When you find out you’re not good enough, the worst thing you can do is keep embarrassing yourself. They gave it to you straight, right? So accept it. Don’t be gross. Have the dignity to give up.