A&b

by J. C. Lillis

  “Sorry! You don’t have to answer. Just, your song kinda came off like undercover-lady-love.”

  I hold my head high. I’ve been honest about this since age thirteen, when I watched Tera’s Bi Pride speech for the hundredth time, made my official announcement over beef stroganoff I cooked myself, and Ma laughed her butt off at me. “I am a proud bisexual,” I tell him.

  “Nice!” He makes binoculars with his hands and scans me. “Spotted in the wilds of Wilson Street: proudis bisexualis. Note the unusual markings on her wrist, the large red glittery feet, the…”

  “Tragic lack of love life.”

  “For real? That sucks. How long’s it been?”

  “Forever.” I say it cheerfully so he won’t think it’s odd. “Never had a real girlfriend. Or boyfriend.”

  Abel’s all aghast. “Like, never have you ever?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not? There’s gotta be one hot guy or girl in…?”

  “Carney. It’s not that. It’s…”

  Abel stoops on the sidewalk to right someone’s tipped recycling bin. I help him gather cans in the cool of the night, weighing my words.

  Now, I have made out very intensely with two people in my life, and neither was inclined to publicly acknowledge said makeout sessions. It hurts too bad to bring up Mick or Chelsie (especially Chelsie), so I tell Abel another, more general truth: that I long ago consigned my life to the creation of perfect, joy-inducing pop songs, and thus I am basically a nun except with candy-colored wigs in place of polyester veils. The few times I have allowed myself the luxury of a not-Tera crush, it didn’t inspire me—it demolished my focus. Instead of weaving new melodies, I replayed and analyzed every detail of our hallway encounters; instead of brainstorming hooks, I rehearsed conversation starters, wove endless fantasies, curated fifty-song playlists about my beloved. So in sum, crushes crush me. (Song idea? I jot it in my mental notebook.) Like Tera says, I have no idea how to be an artist and a lover, so I chose the one most likely to make me happy when I’m eighty and gazing back on a long and productive life.

  “Yeah, but the right person wouldn’t be a distraction,” Abel insists. “I’ll set you up with someone, okay? I know this bassist girl who’s a little intense but—”

  “I have to go back tomorrow.” I giggle. “Plus it’s better this way. Music’s a full-time job.”

  “But aren’t the best songs about sex and love?”

  I quote from the Cosmo interview: “Tera says sometimes it’s safer to get your inspiration from observation than direct experience.”

  “Tera’s a fuckin’ loon.”

  “Hey!”

  “I love her, but seriously.” Abel grabs a fallen lemon from someone’s front yard and lobs it to me while we walk. “I wish she’d stop contradicting herself every two seconds. And dogging cabaret! I know some A-plus cabarets that would blow her hair back…Ever been to one?”

  I shake my head no and pitch him the lemon. “I watch them on YouTube sometimes. Guilty pleasure.”

  “Guilty! No no no. Guilt and pleasure are mortal enemies.” He turns us down Trimble Street. “You should talk to Brandon. He music-directed this queer youth cabaret in Baltimore—it was magic, like one time this baby twink quartet sang ‘Message in a Bottle’ a cappella and I can’t even think about it without crying…”

  I tingle. I’m not sure what a “twink” is, but I imagine short boys who sparkle. “Sounds awesome.”

  “I only saw it once. But it was.” Abel’s face goes dreamy and I am absolutely sure he’s not just talking about the cabaret. He has the Look of Love, like that song by ABC that’s on Volume 14 of my Ultimate Awesome 80s Playlist. I get excited to meet Brandon—a fellow artist and Marylander, a wounded soul in need of musical medication. Maybe we can jam before I leave.

  “Here we go.” Abel opens the gate on a warped chain-link fence. “Home sweet home.”

  Abel’s little stucco house is the color of fancy mustard and has a rounded doorway and windows, which strike me as happy details on a home. He kicks aside a pair of neon flip-flops and leads me up the concrete path, past a potted lemon tree that could use some TLC. Wildflowers tangle in unweeded beds. Three cracked steps inlaid with pottery pieces lead up to the small porch, which is hung with scrap-metal windchimes, hummingbird feeders, birdhouses made from gourds and painted to look like monster heads and spaceships. It fits him, this house. It’s run-down but in a cozy, artsy way—not like our orange-brick apartment building back home, which looks like a block of seedy offices or a government institute where they keep dead dreams in alphabetical files.

  “Wait!” He holds a finger up and presses his ear to the door. “Okay. I don’t hear any sad acoustic noodling. That’s a good sign.” He twists his key in the lock and pushes the door open with a long skreeeeeeeeeeeeeek.

  “Bran?” he says.

  No answer.

  “He might be mad at first, that I brought someone home,” Abel whispers. “Get ready.”

  Abel pops on the lights. His house is so cool inside, all quirky modern furniture in my favorite colors—a blue leather couch, a vinyl chair in lemon-yellow. The décor’s like an extension of the restaurant. Castaway Planet action figures pose on his bookshelves, a Space Odyssey pinball machine stands in one corner, and on the living room wall is a big framed painting of two men holding hands: one in white with ice-blue skin, one in a bomber jacket and shades.

  A black suitcase stands on the shaggy white rug.

  “Shit.” Abel barrels across the living room and into the narrow hall. He bangs on a closed door.

  “Bran!” He knocks some more. “Bran…hey!”

  “Will you stop banging?”

  The door jerks open.

  When you write songs specifically designed to cure misery, you become quite the expert at spotting it. This Brandon looks like he pulled over on a lonely road to help Misery and Misery beat the crap out of him and stole his dog and car. If he were a song, he’d be one of Luke Dalton’s post-divorce ballads. He’s shorter and plainer than Abel, with red-rimmed blue eyes, rumpled brown hair, a patchy beard I can tell he’s not used to having, and a faded plaid shirt that looks slept in. His left hand grips a battered guitar case.

  “I’m heading home,” he says.

  “You most certainly are not,” says Abel.

  “Look, I really appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can’t work through things here. It’s way too—”

  He spots me stooped in the living room doorway. I give him a tiny wave.

  “See?” Abel jabs a thumb at me. “You can’t leave tonight. I brought her here!”

  “Who?”

  “The girl I told you about! From Pop U? She’s gonna give you a private performance—Bran, trust me, this song will give you life.”

  “I have a life. Kind of.” He sighs. “And I have to get back to it.”

  “But I thought—”

  Brandon holds up a hand and glances at me. “Will you…excuse us for a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  Brandon and Abel must watch too much TV because they seem to believe that moving three feet away makes them impossible to hear. I clutch Rosalinda close and breathe as soft as possible. I know it’s super-rude to eavesdrop but when you’re a writer you have to make exceptions sometimes.

  “You need to stop,” says Brandon.

  “Stop what?” says Abel.

  “Being…you. All this Mr. Fix-It energy. It’s not working.”

  “Okay! I’ll pull back, then. I’ll give you more space—”

  “It won’t matter, A. Staying with you is not going to get me over him.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because you’re determined to be miserable.”

  They get themselves knotted up in an argument that seems ten years in the making and I stand there like a dummy, scratching the pale green shadow on my wrist. I hate when people fight. In one of my enduring fantasies there’s a random couple a
rguing in a car, and right when they retreat into stony silence my song comes on the radio and one of them starts humming along, and then the other one joins in, and it’s this fun spontaneous singalong like in the movies and that one perfect moment points them back on the path to okay. I hug Rosalinda to my chest. What if I tiptoed to the dining-room table, turned her on, and…

  BING BING. Ma again, probably. I pull out my phone and check.

  The text is from an unfamiliar number. One word, with a universe of NO in it:

  FARG

  ***

  I slip out the door and stand dead still on Abel’s front porch. I regard my phone like it’s a bomb and time is ticking. How the everloving heck is Ava Alvarez texting me? Outside texting’s been banned since the cheating scandal of Season 3, and plus how did she get my—oh crap. That’s right. The Keep in Touch contact sheet. The one Medora passed around sweetly in the green room, “in case one of us doesn’t make it.”

  Okay, brain: Activate. I don’t want to see, hear, or think about Ava, not now or ever again. I need exactly the right response, something that extends sincere good wishes while politely discouraging further chitchat.

  I HOPE YOU GET PIG FLU, Evil Barrie suggests.

  Ava texts again.

  You should see this. I don’t know who posted it, but it wasn’t me. Got bigger enemies to vanquish now. (As do you, apparently.)

  There’s a long link after the text. I recognize the first part of the URL; it’s from the Pop U forum I’ve monitored religiously after each episode, with the exception of mine. It looks like the link goes right to a post.

  My thumb hovers. It’s probably some slo-mo GIF of my wig falling off, or a phony tale of teen debauchery from someone who claims to know me.

  But what if.

  WHAT. IF.

  I’m trembling now. Because I know, somehow, that the one thing that absolutely cannot happen has in fact happened. I know it on a molecular level, like I knew something awful was going to happen the day before the sixth-grade talent show and then I woke up with a faceful of chicken pox.

  Please please please be wrong this time, self.

  I shut my eyes and tap the link.

  Chapter Seven

  If you asked me forty-eight hours ago, I would’ve said the darkest day of my life was New Year’s Day when I was nine. That was when Ma shook me awake in a boozy haze to tell me she’d known who my dad was all along, and he was famous and funny, and he’d died on a toilet in a club called the Snakepit four hours ago.

  Today is officially worse.

  I sit at Abel’s table, hands on my head. We gape at his laptop as if it might combust.

  “Ohhhh, shit,” says Abel. “Oh, fuck a duck.” He cracks open a can of Whoosh and hits replay.

  The video’s dim and grainy, and the beginning is cut off. But you can tell it’s me, no question. Pump the volume and you can hear every word, every single bitter nasty word, of my Ava Alvarez song. There I am, snarling lines like if ballads were boats, yours would be the Titanic. Spewing obscenities, middle fingers in the air. Whoever recorded it cut off the part at the end where I tripped, which is the only thing that might have made me a teeny bit sympathetic.

  “When did this happen?” says Abel.

  “After the taping. In the rehearsal room. I—” My mouth snaps shut. What would I say? Some lady gave me an evil magic bracelet and awakened my dark side?

  “You didn’t see anyone else come in?”

  “No! It was dark. I was—” What? Possessed? I want to scream. The bracelet wasn’t to blame. This is me me me, all my fault.

  “Oh, honey,” says Abel. “Okay. Deep breaths.”

  “How many responses now?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Tell me this isn’t too bad yet.”

  “This isn’t too bad yet! Seriously.” Abel waggles his Whoosh can. “Before St. C’s I did social media for America’s Number Two Energy Drink. This could be one of those tempest-in-a-teacup thingies, you know?”

  “He’s probably right.” Brandon trudges in from the kitchen with a steaming robot mug. “Here: One teacup. No tempest.” He sets it in front of me and plops down, rubbing his face.

  “You staying?” Abel asks him.

  “Till morning.”

  “Oh, that’s so—”

  “It’s for her. She might need me.” He sighs. “I am still a counselor. Technically.”

  “He’s the best,” says Abel.

  “Please stop,” says Brandon.

  There’s more back-and-forth, but I don’t hear. I sink into Teraland, sing the chorus of “Lionheart” over and over in my head. Even in your darkest hour/ Find your light, proclaim your power…

  “If you need it, Barrie,” Brandon says, “I have a good stress management exercise I can—”

  I shake my head, scroll down. I need to know what they’re saying.

  heart_drops: I knew she was a mean girl. Knew it. That goody goody music seemed like such an act.

  buymecoffee: I know, she reeks of Eau de Jealous Asshole. And Ava’s so chill and talented. I’m giving her all my votes now.

  intermezzo12: WORST. LOSER. EVER. hahahahahaaaaa. Wig Girl just sank her chances at ANY music career.

  merrybomb: right? a bad audition you can recover from. being a douchecanoe? not so much.

  BurstIntoDust: mediocre white girl tearing down brilliant brown girl…lol bye bitch

  jmonroe213: Yeah, like I felt super-sorry for her after the show but this makes her look so gross.

  trixie_dixon_fan: She IS gross did u see her head?!

  JaysRedGuitar: The song is funny though.

  killtheghost: yea but you don’t call someone a pig in public. you just don’t. what a low class scabby twat.

  “She’s obsessed with pigs,” I whisper. “She called herself PIG.” But what Ava said or did doesn’t matter: I’m finished. I’ve smacked myself publicly with the Jealous Jerk Stick and now I’m doomed to walk the earth with a giant green J on my chest. Shame sears my insides. I am scum. I am the anti-Tera, unworthy of my Army of Awesome t-shirt and official membership patch.

  “Ahh, the joys of fan forums.” Abel lifts a brow at Brandon.

  Low class scabby twat. I blink at the screen.

  “Screw ’em, Barrie,” says Abel.

  Douchecanoe. Just sank her chances.

  “Seriously! It’s the Pop U forum. Long on outrage, short on memory.”

  “They could move on by tomorrow,” Brandon says.

  “True.” Abel taps away on his phone. “Something bigger could happen in the Pop U-niverse. Cross your fingers Jason Creager comes out.”

  “Season 6 Jason?” Brandon says. “He’s not out yet?”

  “He’s still in the ‘people can think what they want’ phase.” Abel makes a jerking-off gesture. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  He turns his phone around. There it is: a tweet in the #PopU hashtag. Calliebean asks her 3,713 followers GUYS DID YOU SEE THE WIG GIRL VID? And posts the YouTube link.

  “We have migration.” Abel takes another swig of Whoosh. “Buckle up, guys. This could get ugly.”

  ***

  Have you ever seen that part in Camp Creekbottom III where Scudd Fisher starts a fire via fart-lighting and seconds later all the tents are in flames?

  That’s how fast this seems to spread.

  By half-past midnight the link’s burning up Twitter and nastygrams clog my notifications. By 1:30 my barely-watched YouTube vids have dozens of new views and a handful of HAHAs and heckles, including a heart-stabbing “Barrie, I’m so disappointed in you” from sailorsue7, one of my six subscribers (five now). Right before 2 a.m., the video’s picked up by an anonymous gossip blogger, who headlines it “POP U EJECTEE WIGS OUT, SHOWS HER TRUE (GREEN!) COLORS” and includes a screencap of wigless me, staring like a doof in headlights. By 3:00, the screencap’s turning into a meme. Me with Exorcist eyes:
THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU: KILL YOUR CAREER. Me with a cartoon lobster guy shouting at my face: YOUR WIG IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.

  Abel’s rocket clock beeps. 3:30 a.m.

  “Okay, you desperately need a PR man.” He comes in from the kitchen with a plate of brownies. “I nominate myself!”

  “Leave her alone, Abel. Jesus,” says Brandon.

  “I can’t. You know me.” He pops a hunk of brownie and makes a face. “Also, you clearly need to stay for emotional support.”

  “Why do those brownies taste like dirt?” says Brandon.

  “Don made them.”

  “You hired her why?”

  “Everyone deserves a chance.” Abel tilts his head at me. “Barrie K? What can I do? You need more tea?”

  “I need some air,” I say.

  There’s a small porch off the living room. I grab my duffel bag, squeak the glass door open, and drop down in a neon-green rocking chair. I replay the comments over and over, the mediocre white girl/brilliant brown girl thing haunting me the most. I’ve always thought I was the same kind of friendly to everyone, but what if there was secret bigotry baked into the very act of singing That Song? Did my subconscious see Ava’s name and skin as thin golden threads connecting her with Tera?

  When you drill past my shell of sugar and sunshine, just how rotten a person am I?

  What I would like to do is put my face in my hands and cry for approximately thirty-eight years, but that is a luxury I don’t deserve. Instead I dig out my notebook and start a desperate To-Do list:

  Apologize to Ava Alvarez, both publicly and privately

  Reread “Getting over Your Shit” chapter of You Do You

  Examine self thoroughly for unconscious bias. Increase sensitivity by

  I get stuck there. I slip a hand under my bandana and trace the ugly bumps and bald spots, because that’s what I do when I hate myself the most. Then I get out my phone and send the following text to Ava:

  I am really, really sorry. Making Pop U was my #1 ambition forever and when you beat me I guess I kind of snapped. It is absolutely not an excuse, but I was blowing off steam—I never meant for you or anyone to hear that song. I don’t know what else to say except I sincerely apologize.