A&b

by J. C. Lillis

  “What about your songs?” I whisper.

  “I can do them myself now.” She blinks at her hands. “I learned from the best.”

  She releases the pin slowly; it’s left the ghost of an A pressed into her palm. She rests the palm on my cheek and draws close for a kiss. Maybe the last. I close my arms around her and hold her as long as she’ll let me.

  This is not happening.

  When she breaks us apart, she says: “Do you know what the Pop U grand prize is this year?”

  “No.”

  “If I win, I get to be the opening act on Tera’s spring tour.”

  I gulp.

  Evil B stirs.

  “Tour?” My voice is small.

  “Yep. That’s the big news. No Top 5 tour this year. She’s planning a solo comeback tour instead. With one opener.”

  “Just you,” I say.

  “That’s the plan,” she says.

  Envy sparks through me. I fight it hard. I look at my bare feet, count the blades of grass trapped between my toes.

  “Hey.” Ava cradles my face in her hands. “I want you to listen to this.”

  She waits until my eyes meet hers.

  “Here’s what I’m going to win. Thirty dates, cross-country in Tera’s double-decker tour bus.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Giving you what you need.” She murmurs sweetly, like a cartoon snake peddling forbidden fruit. “Thirty stadiums…an audience of thousands in every city…private dinners with Tera…a duet onstage with her every night…daily heart-to-hearts on the tour bus…”

  My history of Tera rewinds in my head. All the hours spent learning her songs and dance moves, the YouTube concert-clip marathons, the collage-making, the fan-letter-writing, the nights I soothed away junior-high taunts by talking to her in my head and dreaming of what she’d say, what she’d wear, how she’d feel.

  “She’s the one you love. You’ve loved her for almost ten years. You’ve only known me for three months.” Ava puts her lips to my ear and whispers: “I’m not the girl you want. I’m the girl who gets everything you’ve ever wanted.”

  Lord help me, it works. It works. Evil B pours gasoline on my heart and lights it on fire. I am massively disappointed in myself. Like, what is wrong with me? I have a flesh and blood girl by my side—a girl I’ve created with, a girl I could love if she’d let me—and my heart still beats Tera’s name.

  I guess Ava can read my heart now because she stops there, satisfied. She picks up her nun dress from the porch floor, wrestles back into it, and zips herself inside.

  “Take me back now,” she says. “Before I change my mind.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Here is what you do after your first and only lover breaks both your hearts for the sake of art and victory, and you return her to the trap door from whence she came.

  You pull on your only pair of Sadness Sweatpants and your faded Army of Awesome t-shirt. You sit on a couch in an empty house with your hands folded, as if this posture will keep you from flying apart. You listen to the rocket clock hail a new hour with nine metallic beeps. You talk to Tera, because besides your dead dad who didn’t know you existed, she is the only one who’s always been there for you.

  “This is a good thing. I promise,” she says. I imagine her hand slipping into mine, and then she quotes from her Rolling Stone interview: “Small-scale, two-person love will never change the world. That’s why I’ll never get married. I put all my focus on large-scale love between me and my audience. The kind that makes endless ripples of good in the universe.”

  “Can’t you balance both?”

  “Not in my experience.” She quotes from the monologue at the start of her twelve-minute “People (Get Up)” video: “Don’t be fooled into thinking love is special. That it’ll fill you up forever. Anyone can fall in love, but only you can make the art you were born for. And that’s the kind of happiness that lasts.”

  I grab my phone and check it. Two thank-you messages from new Sour Rangers. An update from Reynaldo, a Ranger whose Smash Session inspired him to leave his bad business partner and start his own bakery. An email from Liz, a girl who says she’s driving up from Phoenix and counting down the minutes to this week’s show.

  “These are the only people you’ll ever reach with your music,” says Tera. “This is the one thing that makes you Army of Awesome-worthy. Your people need you. They need you exactly the way you are.”

  I take my bracelet from the endtable, turn it over and over in my hands.

  Giddy chatter from outside. A key turns in the front door lock.

  Enter the happy couple.

  “Hi, honey!” Abel’s voice. “We’re ho-ome!”

  Brandon and Abel stumble into the living room, arms around each other and In-N-Out bags in their free hands. They’re wearing the pants from their Halloween costumes and matching polo shirts with Monarch Inn butterfly logos. Abel’s collar is popped. There’s a smudge of blue near his right ear where the Sim makeup didn’t wash away.

  Abel clears his throat.

  “Good morning, Barbara dear.” He puts on a fifties-TV-father voice. “Dad and Dad have an announcement to make.”

  “We’re…kind of an item,” says Brandon.

  “Now, we know this new development may come as a shock to you, but we don’t want you to blame yourself.”

  “We still love you just as much,” says Brandon.

  “We just love each other too,” says Abel.

  My eyes fill up. Oh man, I don’t want it to be hard to see them happy.

  “Aw, shit. Barrie?” Abel swoops over.

  “Are you okay?” says Brandon.

  “Totally. Yeah! I’m ecstatic for you guys.”

  “Okay, spill,” says Abel. “What happened with Ava?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Really,” says Brandon.

  “We had a working dinner. I drove her back.”

  Abel squints at the sliding glass door. “Did your working dinner involve a ping-pong table and my Enchanted Evening candle?”

  “Yes, but in a completely nonsexual way.” I speak with absurd conviction. If I were Pinocchio, my nose would be the size of a pool noodle.

  “So, okay. You mean to tell me you two…”

  “Played some ping-pong. Wrote a song. Sorry.” I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “We were good.”

  Brandon and Abel exchange glances and I can’t tell if they’re gearing up for more questions or wishing I’d vaporize so they can make out. Either way, I gotta go.

  “You know what, I actually have a song idea? So I’m gonna head to St. C’s for a while.” I’ve never been so glad that St. C’s is closed on Sundays. “You guys probably want some alone time, anyway.”

  “Wellllll…” Abel arches an eyebrow.

  “Since you mention it.” Brandon drums his hands on his thighs.

  “It’s still a wreck upstairs, though,” says Abel.

  “Wrecks don’t bother me. And I’ll start the cleanup.”

  “Allrighty.” Abel shrugs. “Key’s on the hook, love. Help yourself to yesterday’s pumpkin muffins.”

  I pack up Rosalinda and hoist her on my back. As I go, they chitchat about an old road trip and a fried-egg-and-cheese scramble they got in some town called Victorville. I linger at the front door and listen to their sweet easy closeness, until my joy for them curdles into envy.

  USE IT, says Evil B.

  ***

  In the wreckage of the Monster Mash, I am reborn.

  I pull my green velvet jacket on and button it to the throat.

  I zip my boots and yank the laces tight.

  I click the bracelet around my wrist.

  In the silent Church of Abandon, I hum my own hymn. It’s good. It’s all good. I will spin this hurt into gold. I will slit my eyes at couples in the park and the grocery store. I will let myself burn with beautiful bitterness toward everyone who gets to be in
true uncomplicated love. Envy is a renewable resource in my veins; each new pain pumps out a fresh shade of green.

  I wrap my arms around myself. The bracelet activates, sending tingles through my body. And suddenly Evil B isn’t raging in my brain-basement, or perching on Rosalinda, or stomping around in my fantasies.

  She is me.

  Pain be damned. I don’t need a break from who I really am. Not anymore.

  I clomp downstairs in my Evil B boots and duck into the restroom. I dig from my pocket the tiny key that says VIVID, the only thing that undoes my bracelet’s strange little lock.

  Then I drop it in the toilet and flush it away.

  PART THREE

  www.CassTrashesIt.com

  Hey, Cass-holes:

  Let us consider the strange trajectory of two Sudden Deathers—shall we?

  Let us talk about how Ava Alvarez’s songs have been weaksauce for the past two weeks, and the judges totally know it, but America keeps giving her a free pass because she sings with such heartbreak and conviction and those looks don’t hurt either. Who knew she’d be such a letdown, right? I’m calling it now: girl squeaks into the finale with Johnny and Caleb, and they crush her like a grape.

  Speaking of grapes: let us consider the Sour Grapes Cabaret, and how we were all worried Evil B lost her touch after that one shitshow of a week, but then she roared back with fierce love-lost songs and that badass new jacket. I know some of you guys think the cabaret’s getting too weird and extreme, but I’m all for it. Whoever broke her heart—’cause you know that’s what happened—dude, you’ve done us all a service.

  So my official recrap of Pop U’s Top 4 Night might be late. I booked some studio time and—drumroll, please—I’m cutting a demo of six actual songs I have managed to write since August. Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll still recap Pop U with all the diamond-sharp hatred you’ve come to expect from me. But it’s time to get out of the basement.

  Evil B, I raise a glass to you, baby. Six years of festering bitterness? Turns out you’re right: that shit makes great songs.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Everyone’s in love but me

  They’re showing off their ecstasy

  Now I’m not trying to bait them

  But Christ, I kinda hate them

  Young lovers, please

  Jump in the sea

  At the table, my fingers halt on Rosalinda.

  Fifteen feet away, Brandon and Abel pause in the kitchen, where they went to heat up some lo mein but started smooching instead.

  “Good…tune, Major Barbara,” says Abel.

  “Maybe we should give her some privacy,” whispers Brandon.

  “No! Please. Stay.” I adjust my bracelet. “This is useful.”

  Everyone’s in love but I

  Old Cupid didn’t even try

  He said “Your heart is gristle

  Fuck roses, here’s a thistle

  Baby, you were born to cry”

  During my waitressing shift, I watch a young couple play footsie under the two-top in Section 4. Envy rushes my heart. I duck in the bathroom to shed a tear and lay down some lyrics.

  Once upon a time I thought

  I’d found a sweet romance

  I watch Ava on Pop U, singing a song she wrote solo. Her playing is genius and the heartbreak in her voice is more authentic than ever, but this chorus is a B at best.

  But I’m doomed to freedom

  Endless me-dom

  I and myself at the lonelyhearts daaaaaaance

  Onstage, I stretch the note for so long they’re dazzled, and it feels so good I don’t want it to end when I run out of breath, so I pick up the glass tip bowl and smash it on the floor of my stage where Ava and I spun around to “Umbrella.” I smash it hard, so coins and shards skitter off the stage in all directions. Some people aren’t into that, you can tell. But the ones who love it burst into applause.

  Everyone’s in love but me

  I glower at a guy and girl kissing outside the beauty shop.

  It’s stirring up the worst en-vy

  I type an empathetic email to Sour Ranger Liz on the couch, when Brandon and Abel aren’t making out on it.

  My heart’s a hissing cobra

  When they’re kissing on the sofa

  I read Brandon’s UnMated book, putting sticky notes in chapters three and six.

  Everyone’s in love

  but me

  ***

  I am listening to the music of bitterness, and making beautiful ugly things.

  At home in my Church of Abandon lair, I sit on my empty stage and craft handmade gifts for my Rangers. I fashion grimacing stress balls from balloons and sand. I sculpt green-eyed monsters from polymer clay. I make teeny envy-themed worry dolls with pipe cleaners and green embroidery floss. I hand-letter fifty lyric sheets, which I will give away at this week’s show, and decorate the parchment with howling demons and pulverized hearts.

  When my fingers are sore and the throb beneath my bracelet is too fierce to ignore, I turn up the music and lie back on my stage. “Muero Contigo” by Rafael Encarnación is old-school bachata, the kind Ava’s grandfather might have listened to in the sixties. My fingers trip over the faces on my bracelet in time with the trilling guitar. Rafael croons words I don’t know but still feel, in a high heartsick voice that spreads an ache in my chest. I take a swig of my vile drink—Whoosh goosed with vodka snitched from the bar, because why not?—and let it settle inside me like poison.

  Muero contigo. Sing it, Rafael.

  My phone alarm shrills. I sit up. It’s time. Strategic exposure to the girl who broke my heart is difficult but useful. I wrote four entirely new cabaret songs this week.

  I pull up the video of this week’s Pop U, the one where Ava barely squeaks into the Top 3. I ignore the automatic thumping of my heart. I shove aside my concern at her drawn face and sorrowful eyes. I reject the guilt that swarms in when I replay her meandering ballad and think of ten different ways we could’ve made it better together. I observe her authentic sadness with cool objectivity, never once feeling tender because the tremble in her voice is fueled by the loss of me.

  She’s bottom two. The vote is close. Medora gets the boot and smiles graciously through a torrent of tears, giving the camera a queen wave as her platform sinks into the Elimination Tunnel and she disappears from view. Ava joins the two other victors: Caleb, Johnny. Tera—fierce in a gold leather halter and floaty black feathered skirt—assembles them onstage and leads them in a closing number to pad out the show. It’s a gorgeous slowed-down version of track 14 off 1 Poptopia Drive: “Rosalinda,” my very favorite Tera ballad, the song I named my instrument after. Ava gets to stand less than twelve inches from Tera and sing the line about castles in the sky while looking directly in her eyes.

  The girl I can’t have, getting everything I want. I close my eyes and let it bleed.

  “Barrie?”

  I startle. Don’s standing on the edge of my stage in a chartreuse circle skirt, holding a plate of pink sprinkle cupcakes that look like an evil witch’s child-bait. I can tell I’m getting a concerned-aunt speech from her, like the concerned-big-brother speeches I got from Brandon and Abel earlier this week.

  “So I’m experimenting with sweet again,” she says, holding out the plate. “Wanna be a guinea pig?”

  I flinch at pig. “No thanks.” I hoist my drink. “I’m good.”

  She doesn’t leave, because of course she doesn’t. She crouches down on my stage and gives my handiwork the eye, as if I’ve been sewing capes from baby seal pelts. “We’re worried about you, sweetie,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “Well, ah…” She fiddles with the spatula charm on her necklace. “It seems like you’re taking the show to this—whole other level.”

  “I know. It’s going great.”

  “This week you were a little scary. Kira and I were afrai
d you’d start frothing at the mouth.” She flicks a stray sprinkle off the plate. “I mean, we definitely respect your, ah, showmanship, but…”

  BING BING

  I sneak a look while Don talks at me.

  Ava: Barrie. Are you there?

  I stare at her text until my screen goes back to black. It’s the first text I’ve gotten since the night of the dance.

  Don’s saying, “We want you to consider the fact that…”

  Ava: I can’t stop thinking about you.

  “Because you’re pouring so much of yourself into this. Every day, with no break…”

  Ava: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I panicked that night, I was so full of shit.

  “…and at the end of the night, you’re the only one who doesn’t feel better.”

  Ava: I don’t want to win like this. Knowing I hurt you. I don’t even think I can.

  The old me is still in there somewhere, softening because Ava’s words seem so sincere, but I am Evil B now and I will have none of it. She’s full of shit, all right. She’s sucking up. The only thing she needs from me is my chorus magic.

  Ava: Please text me back. Please.

  “Do you know what I mean?” says Don.

  “I do.” I take a cupcake to tell her I have heard and absorbed her message, even if I don’t plan to change a thing. “I really appreciate the talk.”

  We’re both quiet for a minute. Poor Don. She’s so nice, but it’s a fool’s errand to deter Evil Barrie from her mission. She says “okay then” and stands up, smoothing her skirt. I hand her the cupcake plate.

  The second Don disappears down the steps, it descends. The temptation to text Ava. To call her and let sweet words tumble from my lips. I toss my pink cupcake in the trash and rub my bracelet to remind me: I don’t need Ava. I don’t need Don or Brandon or Abel. I don’t need someone to lead me astray from bitterness.