A&b

by J. C. Lillis

  “Okay,” he says. “Just for the week.”

  ***

  I lie on the couch under a blanket printed with glow-in-the-dark stars. The couch is too short for the likes of me so my feet stick out over the armrest. I twitch my bare toes madly to the Tera medley in my head.

  Brandon and Abel turn in for a few hours. Separate rooms. But not for long, I tell myself.

  I can’t sleep.

  I crack open a Whoosh, grab my notebook, and create a fifty-eight-item Sour Grapes Cabaret To-Do List.

  I update my website with the following announcement: Last night you got a sneak preview of my bold-and-brassy alter ego, Evil Barrie. Next Friday night at 8:00, see her debut her new envy anthems LIVE at LA’s best-kept secret, St. Castaways! Stay tuned for details.

  I tweet a photo of my Evil Barrie sketch, hashtag it #SourGrapesCabaret, and link to my announcement.

  I text Ma, who won’t be clued into any of this; she hates social media and doesn’t even know I have a website. Still here in LA, I type carefully. Made some friends, starting Plan B. I won’t be home this week, Ma. Maybe not for a long time.

  I crack my knuckles, heart pounding. I worry about her reaction. I worry about Ma—maybe that’s silly, but I do. Who’s going to keep the house clean? Who’ll make sure she occasionally eats a meal that doesn’t come from a can? Plus I know she was looking forward to my rent money coming in and I feel really bad about that. I resolve to send her a cut of whatever I end up making at St. C’s.

  Ma: I’d all-caps at you, but I know it wouldn’t matter. Whatever. Do what you need to do. But don’t ask me to spot you for bus fare when the $ runs out.

  I nod. I see where she’s coming from. It’s not her fault she’s a natural pessimist and life dealt her a crap hand on top of it. I will make you proud, I promise, and flip the phone facedown on the couch.

  As the sun nudges higher in the California sky, I dig in my discarded jeans for that fortune I tugged from the mannequin in the Church of Abandon. Please be a real fortune, I beg the creased slip. Please don’t say TIME IS MONEY or SILENCE IS A VIRTUE or NEVER FEED A GOAT WITH ROSES.

  I lie back on the couch and turn it over.

  It says: You will soon gain something you have always wanted.

  I put my hands behind my head and smile up at the ceiling. Somewhere in the cosmos, Destini snaps her gum and smiles back.

  ***

  At 9:38 a.m., I have a terrible realization.

  It happens in Abel’s kitchen, as I cook him and Brandon an enormous thank-you-for-letting-me-crash-on-your-couch-while-I-compose-a-one-woman-show breakfast. There are wondrous things in his fridge. A whole carton of brown eggs, real Philly cream cheese, the fancy kind of orange juice that’s not from concentrate. I have my bracelet on as I fry up some bacon and I’m trying to brainstorm new song #1 for the Sour Grapes Cabaret, but nothing is sticking. Words float into my head and then shrink away, like vampires retreating from sunshine.

  That’s when it hits me.

  In the past seven hours and thirty-four minutes, I have done a frightening amount of smiling.

  This is not generally a bad thing but when you need to mastermind a cabaret based on your darkest, most forbidden feelings, too much happiness is deadly. I need to get the nasty back, that delicious raw Alvarez-outrage that drew me onstage in the BSA Studios rehearsal room.

  At 10:13, my solution BING BINGs.

  Chapter Nine

  Ava: Morning, FARG (aka Evil Barrie)

  Ava texts me the second my hands have achieved peak gloopiness, while I’m separating eggs for three of my Protein Power Egg White omelets. I preserve the yolks in a yellow mug—I’m not sure what I’ll use them for but I can’t bring myself to throw away food—and scrub my hands thoroughly with a dot of lemon dish soap. I glare at the phone as I rinse. I thought I was done with this girl, not to mention the indignity of being called FARG.

  Me: You saw my announcement?

  Ava: Gotta keep tabs on my nemesis.

  Me: How are you texting me, anyway? Did they lift the ban?

  Ava: Ban? What ban?

  She adds an innocent-angel emoji that rolls my eyes back in my head and kills my curiosity.

  Me: Don’t you have work to do?

  Ava: We’ll get to that. By the way, you’re using “sour grapes” wrong.

  Me: I’d ask how, but I know you’re going to tell me.

  Ava: “Sour grapes” isn’t a synonym for envy. It’s a false pretense you construct for comfort, when you can’t have what you want.

  She sends a link to the Aesop’s fable about the fox who can’t reach the grapes and then decides they were probably sour anyway. I pepper the egg whites in short stabby motions. Who sends links to fables in a text message?

  Me: Thanks for the enlightenment.

  Ava: Just thought you should know.

  I whip the eggs, beaming fire at her smug blue text bubble.

  Ava: Anyway, that’s not why I’m texting. Bet you have a lot of work to do this week.

  Me: It’s under control.

  Ava: Yeah? I’ve never seen a cabaret, but doesn’t it consist of like, multiple songs?

  Me: Yes. What’s your point?

  Ava: I’ve seen you try to write a song fast. It didn’t end well.

  I whip the eggs harder.

  Ava: Point is, inspiration would help, right? And if I spilled details of all the incredible, magical things you’ve been missing here on Tera’s campus, things I don’t even appreciate, I bet you’d be inspired. I bet you could crank out ten songs by Wednesday.

  Me: You would do that?

  Ava: Sure. But I won’t give you something for nothing.

  Me: Meaning what?

  Ava: It’s a Chorus Challenge this week. Bad news for me; traditional pop choruses aren’t exactly my specialty. That’s where you come in.

  Me: You want me to help you cheat?

  Ava: Don’t be dramatic. I want you to COLLABORATE with me to HELP me win. You like helping others, right?

  On the countertop, my fingers strike a horror-film chord. Pop U was designed to be the antithesis of the writing-by-committee pop trend Tera loathes; collaborations with outside songwriters have been expressly forbidden since the scandal of Season 3, when Starr Stevenson’s parents paid a professional to funnel her ideas. Tera’s all about helping writers “discover their own distinct voices” during the show. She signs the winner to her label, so she wants to be sure she’s getting grade-A originals who won’t let her down.

  Me: It’s against Tera’s rules.

  Ava: Tera’s rules are illogical. The best songwriters in history had collaborators.

  Me: True, but still.

  Ava: Think about it, woman. Mutual benefits. What would be more horrible, more cabaret-inspiring, than writing one of your predictable, radio-ready choruses and watching me win with it?

  Under the bracelet, my skin tingles. It’s pretty awful to contemplate, but she’s right.

  Me: What are the guidelines?

  Ava: We need to use the words “can’t you see” in the chorus. That’s the only rule.

  Me: What’s the challenge prize?

  Ava: $1000. Plus a private mentoring session on Tera’s boat…the “Fuzzy Fart” or something.

  I bristle. Every Tera fan worth her salt knows that boat is called Queen Fuzzyface, after her labradoodle who died when she was twelve. I picture tall boots clicking casually on the Fuzzyface deck, Ava’s five-hundred-dollar distressed-leather Vassal boots. A thousand bucks is probably nothing to her.

  Ava: Here’s my proposal. I send you a rough recording of my first verse today. We check in tomorrow morning, after my Stage Presence seminar with C King. You pass me a chorus idea, I write up tons of details that’ll get you inflamed and inspired. Deal?

  Ma’s voice butts in: Don’t trust anyone. Make them giv
e a mile before you give an inch. I don’t listen to her under ordinary circumstances, but today I type:

  Me: I’ll need to hear your verse before I decide.

  Ava: Yeah. Still rough, but I’ll record it now. Let me find an empty room. Medora’s here cranking out another dirge about that professor she slept with. She’s such an OCER.

  I think for a minute.

  Me: Obnoxious Composer of Ex-lover Rhymes?

  Ava: I was thinking Odiously Confessional Emo Robot.

  Me: The meter is better on mine.

  Ava: Yeah, but mine paints a more accurate picture.

  I stick my tongue out at the phone and flip it facedown on the counter.

  While I wait for the video of my enemy, I serve hot omelets to Brandon and Abel on the back-porch café table. Brandon’s sketching the stage area and making a to-do list on a legal pad; Abel is chattering about his emcee costume, asking Brandon if a green crushed-velvet tux is too “Jolly Green Giant goes to prom.” I am thrilled to see them coming together on this but I can’t join in, not yet.

  I slip back in the house and wait at the kitchen counter, shoveling in forkfuls of egg and green pepper and refreshing my email. Ava’s video link arrives at the exact moment a pepper chunk gets wedged between my front teeth, and I blush as if she’s seen me in my lightning-bolt underwear.

  I pick out the pepper and hit play.

  She’s sitting crosslegged in front of a blue wall—even in rough rehearsals, she knows how to brand herself. Her navy tee has a ragged stretched-out neckline and is falling off her shoulder in a sensuously offhand way she’s probably practiced. Her hair looks fantabulous. Of course, of course she’s the kind of girl who can create a majestic updo by sticking two pencils in her twisted-up curls. My hand goes under my bandana to my own blond tufts, tracing the bald spots as Ava starts to sing.

  Her guitar is so suave and her voice is so rich with smoky-sweet sadness that five seconds in, I forget I dislike her. What she has is effortlessly remarkable, the kind of gift you only feel the weight of if it’s something you don’t have but dearly want. It makes me ill to think of how many hours I could practice and still only sound maybe thirty percent as good. Lyricwise, it’s a jumble of weird pretty words about apple trees and prophecies, but at heart it’s another tragic love-lost song, the kind she specializes in. There are too many words as per usual and the melody needs a hammer and chisel, but even a smartphone camera knows she’s a star.

  With some tweaks and the right chorus, this could be a blue-ribbon pop song. I’m already teeming with ideas.

  Ava: Verdict?

  I push my plate aside and rest my forehead on the table. I spend three minutes in agony as I contemplate being an accessory to the breakage of Tera Rivera’s #1 Pop U rule. If this girl tells me every amazing thing I’m missing, though? And then wins with my chorus on top of it? It’s a guaranteed landslide of beautiful, cabaret-fueling envy.

  I peek out the window at Brandon and Abel, their heads bent together over the legal pad. I check Twitter, and three people have already pledged to attend the first Sour Grapes Cabaret. I have a new mission, new people to help. And I won’t let them down.

  I nudge the cheating thing into the Necessary Evil for Greater Good category, and I sit up straight and inflate my chest, like Dad does in Camp Creekbottom III when he tells his nemesis Counselor Tripp to watch your ass, man—or I’ll watch it for you.

  Me: I can help.

  Chapter Ten

  I brainstorm Ava’s chorus the whole afternoon, while I tick off the following items on my Sour Grapes Cabaret Master To-Do List:

  Begin supervillain outfit. I take my Evil Barrie sketch to Goodwill and hunt down raw materials: a forest-green velvet men’s jacket, a bridesmaid dress the color of a tree viper, and a pair of old curtains in a thrillingly ugly chartreuse.

  Purchase new wig. At a beauty shop four blocks down from St. C’s, I slip on a wig cap and audition an avocado shag, a fall of emerald waves tipped in red, and a clown-cloud of curls in neon green. Then I find my perfect new look: a wine-purple bob with razor-edge bangs and two thick grape-green streaks, one on each side. The owner lady throws in a tube of X-Tra Hold adhesive.

  Initiate renovation. Abel bribes his friends Flann and Clancy with free beer and burgers, and we all go to town on the Church of Abandon. We start painting everything green and purple: the mannequins, the walls, the folding tables and chairs, the smiley-face piñatas. We bunch the piñatas together—instant giant-grape decorations—and hang them beside my makeshift stage area. Brandon laughs when Abel swats his butt with a mannequin hand, which is a promising sign.

  Make sign. I work on my light-up SOUR GRAPES CABARET sign with Kira Reznik, an artist who waitresses part-time at St. C’s and did all the sci-fi paintings in the restaurant. Kira is a thin-lipped mid-thirties-ish lady with silver fingernails and a frizzle of brown-gray hair. She is pretty grouchy for a kickass artist who was named for a Dark Crystal Gelfling, but we somehow work well together. We make holes for the light bulbs around the sign and she shows me how to use a drill, which makes me feel so powerful I never want to put it down.

  Nap. I hate to sleep. I have to sleep. I set my phone alarm for an hour and forty-five minutes and curl up on a paint tarp in my backstage area—behind the disco-dancer screens, now repainted with green and purple grapes. My dream swirls with cabaret details: bits of stage patter, song titles, costume embellishments. A delicate melody flutters by and I catch it in a butterfly net, watch it unfurl in my hand…

  PEOPLE GET UP NOWWWWW!

  I wake with a start. My phone alarm yells on a loop: Tera belting the tail end of “People (Get Up).” Chef Don stands over me in a cherry-print apron, holding a black tray with a small white bowl on it.

  “Sorry—oh! Your alarm’s been going off and I didn’t know if I should wake you, you seemed so tired, but—”

  “It’s cool.” I grin and retie my bandana.

  “I’m making a new menu. For the cabaret. Will you try this?”

  I peer in the bowl. It contains a pudding-esque substance, the blackish-brown of playground mulch after a storm.

  “Um…” I swallow hard. It’s amazing how quickly the taste buds learn fear. “Whatcha got?”

  “Bitter chocolate mousse…?” Don fiddles with the neckline of her Rosie the Riveter t-shirt. “Its official name is ‘Screw You Retromancy for Firing Me Because Apparently Size 20 Is Too Plus-Sized for Your Plus Sizes and Also I Have Terrible, Childish, Envious Feelings about My Perfect Brother Who Can Do No Wrong’ Chocolate Mousse.”

  “Aw, Don.”

  “No pity. Just taste.”

  Oh Lord, I hope this is good. I want it to be good, for her. I take a smidge on my spoon and give it a try and immediately my tongue knows that Bitter Chocolate Mousse is the best thing that ever happened to it, including the time Mick brought me salted caramel bars from the bakery on our bowling-alley break.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “Bad wow or good wow?”

  “Good wow. Great wow.”

  “I thought so, right?” She makes praying hands and draws them up to her red lips. “Sweet and salty weren’t my thing. Maybe bitter is my lane.”

  I’m devouring the rest. “I think it is.”

  “Sour stuff, too. I have tons more ideas.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “I’ll do dry-runs tomorrow.”

  “I’ll design a menu.”

  “Do we suck, though? For doing this?” She adjusts her messy bun. “I mean, I’ve never made anything inspired by bad feelings before. I keep hearing my mother say rise above, Donna. Rise above.”

  “We will. Eventually. But everyone feels like this sometimes, right? Why should we stuff it down?” I scrape the bowl with my finger and lick it. “We’ll be helping people. Don’t they say facing a monster is the first step to killing it?”

  Don nods. She leans closer, flicks her eyes to
the side like she’s selling me something illegal out of a trench coat. “So my brother just built a treehouse from scratch for his kids. Because of course he did.” Her teeth clench. “He’d never picked up a saw in his life but he taught himself, and he did it in two weeks—you know, in all his spare time, ’cause he’s also an award-winning journalist—and it looks perfect. If I’d tried that I would have…I don’t know.”

  “Nailed your thumb to a board?”

  “Probably.” She knots her arms across her bosom and blows her bangs from her eyes. “Fuckin’ treehouse.”

  “I bet it falls apart first time it rains.”

  “I like to think so.”

  We giggle together, and then this idea zings into me. The perfect chorus for Ava’s song. The simple, hummable thing that’ll tug the spacey imagery down to earth and make it human and relatable.

  I wait till Don goes back downstairs. Then I turn Abel’s mannequins—Augie and Zara and Bob—so they’re facing my stage area. I play them the chorus on Rosalinda, singing along softly. I switch on her organ setting, which makes it seem ancient and sacred as a hymn.

  Oh man. My heart hurts. I want this chorus for myself. I could build a beauty of a song around it. Every cell in my body resists swaddling my baby and handing it over to Ava Alvarez. But this is a chorus of sad romantic aching, and I am the haughty auteur of the Sour Grapes Cabaret.

  It’s not my brand.

  ***

  At exactly 10:00 p.m., after Don gives me my official St. C’s waitressing orientation in advance of my first shift next week, I arrive in Abel’s shed to wait for Ava’s text. I choose this location because it’s the perfect quiet place for doing sneaky things, and also because Abel and Brandon are fixing a leaky kitchen faucet and you never know when that might take a romantic turn, what with all the wrench-passing and shoulder-bumping.