by J. C. Lillis
That gets to her, I can tell.
I turn my palms out in a sacred gesture, like that minister at Grammy Barb’s old church. “Don’t take risks now,” I tell her. “Promise me. Just. Win.”
I stare at her until finally, slowly, she nods.
“Come to the afterparty, okay?” she says. “No matter what happens?”
I think about seeing Tera again, how awkward it would be. “I don’t think I should.”
“Then come see me the next day. We can have brunch. Spend the day at the beach.”
It hits me then: she has no idea what kind of life awaits her if she wins Pop U. She hasn’t followed every season, read every interview with every winner. She doesn’t know she’ll barely have time to breathe, let alone navigate a brand-new relationship.
I think of eighteen-year-old Brandon calling Abel too much, getting jealous of other guys, sitting alone at night aching with old memories and the new distance between them. I don’t want that to be us. Maybe we’ll come back to the same nest eventually—I hope for that, more than anything—but for now she’s got to fly.
We both do.
“Ava.” I take the crown off my head. “If you win this…”
I wait for her to change if to when. She doesn’t.
“If you win, you’ll be so, so busy. Photoshoots, interviews before the confetti’s even swept up. Then tour prep starts right away, and then you’ll be on the road with Tera till May at least.” I take a deep breath because I don’t want to say the next part, even if it’s absolutely the right thing to do. “Focus on your new life. It’ll be brilliant. And then once you’re back, if you haven’t met someone else, call me and—”
“No. Hell no. I don’t want it to be like that.” She squeezes my hands. “Come with me on the road. I’ll talk to Tera and—”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I…have this new project I’ll be working on.”
“What is it?”
“A new cabaret.” I’m surprised and not surprised when my mouth makes these words. I think of Tera saying You’re a B and the name comes to me as easily as Sour Grapes did. “Cabaret B.”
A smile warms her face. “Tell me.”
“It’ll be a mix of material. Sour Grapes stuff, songs I wrote before, new songs I’ll mix in when they’re done. Maybe an open-mike at the end where people can share their own stories.” My brain is freestyling and it’s awesome. “And this time it’ll be about everything—jealousy, ambition, happiness, sadness…”
“And love…maybe?”
“Yes.” I bring her hands to my lips and kiss them both. “Love definitely.”
My heart drums like Rosalinda’s BONGOS preset. Maybe it’s all the Whoosh we drank, but mostly I think it’s this girl, and this song, and this sweet sunlight-patch of a kiss we’re still lingering in when the gold alarm clock shrills on the table.
“Shit, it’s midnight!” Ava leaps to her feet. “You gotta go.”
“Quick pre-victory selfie?”
“Yeah!”
I duck down, hold my phone out, and point it at us. I expect her to pull an imperious pose, but instead she throws her arms around me and kisses my cheek. Like we’re in a photo booth at a carnival. I check the picture and it’s perfect: pure happiness radiates from both of us.
I make it my lockscreen immediately.
“See you sometime, Lieutenant Ava.” I zip up Rosalinda and sling her on my back. “Go join the Army of Awesome.”
“I shall,” she says.
One last kiss, and then I face the tunnel again.
WHY ARE YOU SO HAPPY? It’s Evil B, back in her basement where she belongs. IT’S NOT LIKE YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND NOW.
I edge along in the dark, my phone lighting a path. I tell Evil B to cram it. It doesn’t matter if we’re girlfriends or not, because I know we’ll know each other forever. We will show up in each other’s songs, call each other when we’re stuck on a lyric or sweating a melody. We will cheer each other on from computer screens and stadium stands and cabaret chairs. We will maybe get together again or maybe just stay friends, but she will always be here in my mind: making me work harder, write better, try things I haven’t even dreamed of yet.
I’ll never write like her or sing like her or play like her. And that’s okay. Because I am a proud and beautiful B who loves a proud and beautiful A, and seeing her win will feel as good as winning myself.
LIAR, Evil B tries.
Nope. Not this time.
SO SHE WINS THE SHOW, Evil B snarks. AND YOU LOSE YOURS.
Sadness for Sour Grapes tweaks my heart but I can’t think about that, not now. I float to the end of the tunnel. I’m not scared at all. I’m not even scared when a branch snaps behind me on the way back to the Honda, and I trip and skid down a slip-and-slide of pine needles, and I heave myself to my feet and stumble to the car and peel out of there with the headlights off. It’s all part of tonight’s adventure, one more verse in the glorious epic dance remix of my life.
***
“Oh my God,” Abel says. “You look like death.”
I stand in the doorway of the Captain James Cadmus Memorial Bar, holding out Brandon’s keys and a box containing a thirteen-donut apology.
“We did it!” I announce.
“You are the color of a swamp ghost.”
“I feel amazing.”
Abel takes the keys and donuts from me and hustles me onto a stool and nope, I don’t feel swervy and light-headed, not at all.
“You freaked us out, goddammit,” he says.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“What have you eaten? Anything?”
“I’m fine. We had dinner.” Whoosh and peanuts. Totally counts.
“You and Ava.”
I grin. “Me and Ava.”
“So let me get this straight. You, Barbara Krumholtz, noted law-abider except on the rare occasions when you sneak vodka from my bar, stole a car and snuck onto the Pop U campus?”
“Through a tunnel.”
“Jesus!”
“I have evidence. Look.”
I go to show him the selfie, but my phone’s not where I put it, in my left jacket pocket. It’s not in my right, either. Or the inner breast pocket. Or the inside of my boot, or anywhere.
I rush out of St. C’s and into the parking lot, fumble Brandon’s car door open. It’s not on the seat or under it. I pitch myself into the car, scour the entire interior twice.
It’s gone. Gone. And logically, there’s only one place I could have lost it. In the woods on the Pop U campus, when I fell.
Which means when I heard that mystery twig snap behind me, I left a blatant piece of evidence behind like Cinderella’s slipper: a five-year-old phone with a spidery crack in one corner and a glittery golden case. Unlike Cinderella’s shoe, my phone bears my monogram and a lockscreen photo that’s rock-solid proof I was in the Golden Underground with Ava.
My heart’s doing something else now. Something odd. It’s fluttering like a moth trapped in a lantern and oh crap why can’t I breathe?
“I have to go back.” I scramble out of the car, stand up too fast. The parking lot blurs and sways. “I have to find it. I’m—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” says Abel.
His denim shirt is unbuttoned two buttons and ooh, there’s the A+B tattoo, six inches from my nose. My eyes fuzz and it looks like two. A+B and A+B. Two stories that need to keep going, forever and ever and ever.
“Barrie!”
Abel’s voice is underwater, so far away. I feel my back hit the pavement and the night is all velvet sky and crystal stars and a big bright god of a full moon, and then it all goes black.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Fight for Love.” The chorus.
Not Tera’s, though…different. Fingerpicked on an acoustic.
Ava.
Fernando.
My mouth tries to make the words
but my lips and tongue are dry and heavy. I slit my eyes open.
Brandon’s on the beige vinyl chair by my bedside, plucking a song for me. Electrode thingies are stuck on my chest and a machine’s beep beep beeping and my arm is wrapped in a thick cocoon of bandages. He sits up straight when he sees me awake.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
“You’ve been asleep for twelve hours.”
“What time is it?”
“Relax. Still five hours to Pop U.” He fits his guitar back in its case. “Doctor says you’ll be good to go soon.”
With a jolt I recall my jerkitude. “I’m sorry I stole your car.”
“Heard it was for a good cause.”
“She’s going to win tonight. I know it.”
He does his jokey pious-counselor act: “And how does that make you feel?”
“Great.” I smile. “Really, honestly, super great.” Then I remember the last thing that happened before I passed out, and the smile snaps off.
Brandon reads my mind. “Abel’s out looking for your phone.”
“He is?”
“You gave him directions—remember?”
“No.”
“Not surprised. You were kinda half-conscious.”
“God. I messed up your whole night.”
“Yeah, well.” He lifts his shoulders, grinning. “There’ll be more.”
Brandon pours me a paper cup of water from the pitcher next to my bed. Then he fills me in on my condition, because sleep knocked out the memory of what the doctor said.
I passed out due to a heart arrhythmia, brought on by a full day of pounding back Whoosh like it was chorus magic in a can.
I was officially exhausted due to chronic sleep loss and overwork, which is exactly what happened to Tera on the European leg of the Lionheart tour.
And I have a severe nickel allergy, which accounts for the horror beneath my bracelet.
I’m still getting used to it. That I cooked up the enchantment in my mind, that the tingling and sores were due to something dull as an allergy. I guess Tera was right. The part of me that made Sour Grapes—it was so secret, so forbidden, that I needed to believe a magic charm was guiding me helplessly toward it. I’ll miss that, the excitement of a mystery woman’s hocus-pocus leading me into beautiful darkness. But now it’s time I led myself.
“…So if you want to keep wearing your bracelet, you’ll have to get an insert that protects—”
“I don’t need it,” I say. “I don’t need the bracelet anymore.”
“No?”
I didn’t plan to tell anyone else about my Cabaret B idea, not yet. But the beans sort of spill before I can stop them.
“I like it.” Brandon strokes his stubble. “I like it a lot. You need a creative advisor?”
“Definitely. I’m pretty scared.”
He nods. “I get it.”
“I’m going all in with this. Giving them the real me, not a persona.” I run my fingers over my bandaged arm. “What if that’s not what they want, you know?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”
He hoists himself up on my hospital bed. We sit side by side, our legs crossed the same way.
“My friend Bec’s flying out here on Sunday with a suitcase of my stuff. I’m leaving everything else from my old life behind. Going all in.” He elbows me gently. “There’s no guarantee, is there?”
“Nope.”
“What if he gets bored with me?”
“Not possible.”
“What if I get neurotic?”
“You’re already neurotic. He loves you anyway.”
“What if he only stayed in love with me all these years because he only talked to me once a week, and once he’s alone with the actual me, he’s like, commence escape plan?”
I shrug. “What if my audience boos me offstage? What if I play for six people on a good night? What if the only really awesome thing I’ll ever do is Sour Grapes, and it’s downhill from here?”
“What if?” he says, resting his head against mine.
“Then we make a plan B.” I trace the letter on my bandage. “They’ve been good to me so far.”
***
I get discharged and make it back to St. C’s in plenty of time for Pop U. Everyone’s in the Captain James Cadmus Memorial Bar, blanketing me with more kindness than I deserve.
Don’s made me a batch of chocolate-strawberry cupcakes, which are surprisingly good despite being neither bitter nor sour.
Abel’s made me a Glad You Didn’t Die card and a cup of decaf tea.
Kira gives me a beat-up book called The Healthy Artist Handbook, marked up with as many sticky notes as my copy of You Do You.
Abel’s friends Flann and Clancy are there too, debating the merits of a Slumberjack album with Don’s husband Grant. Brandon and Abel chatter close by the bar, bickering through grins about what color to paint their bedroom. Kira bustles in and out with a pencil stuck in her frizzled hair, carping about lousy tippers and yelling out orders to Jayson the prep cook.
It is the sound of happiness.
The sound of family.
I settle on a barstool and take a quick peek under the bandage on my arm. The scabs look pretty bad, but I can still make out my IT’S ALL GOOD tattoo. I think it’ll heal up fine.
Abel drops a hand on my shoulder and whispers in my ear.
“No luck with the phone,” he says.
“It’s all right.”
“Checked in those woods for an hour.”
“Thanks, though.” I straighten the bandage. “Thanks anyway.”
“It’s super-unlikely anyone found it.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. “I hope not.”
“You guys, shut up. It’s time.” Kira turns up the TV and darts off to deliver an order.
The theme song starts up and Flann and Clancy raise the roof ironically and Abel dances around and sings along in a terrible falsetto, but they might as well be on Jupiter. I take a giant bite of cupcake and lock all my focus on the screen.
It’s the Pop U finale.
It’s time.
The stage lights blare and golden sparks shoot up from the stage and Caleb, Johnny, and Ava march out to greet the audience. Ava dazzles in her own version of finale glam-wear: her same old jeans and boots, plus a badass blue-green leather jacket with studs on the collar. She doesn’t smile, so she’s either mega-nervous or mega-focused. She’s got my twist-tie heart on a thin gold chain around her neck and she’s twirling it around and around on her finger. I catch tingly glimpses of her all through Jaz’s intro and the judge banter and the endless season-recap clip package. My heart never leaves her hand.
I beam ten thousand lumens of love and support through the TV. We’re here. We made it. We’ve got this.
First performer of the night: jerky old Caleb. His empowerment anthem is called “Beat Your Time” and reluctantly I must admit it’s a super-fun boot-stomper, if you like that kind of thing. They’ve let the Top 3 choose one musician from the house band to accompany them, and Caleb’s picked Matt, the guitarist. They stand side by side with matching acoustics and tucked-in plaid shirts, slaying the twangy harmonies in Caleb’s chorus: “Gonna get the gold/gonna strive real hard/gonna beat your time/in my beat-up car…” I catch myself toe-tapping, but here’s the thing: his lyrics are all me me me, and empowerment anthems that smack of narcissism rarely triumph on this show.
Threat rating: 6 out of 10.
Fifteen agonizing minutes of filler and commercials and then it’s time for Johnny. His anthem is called “Broken Ladders” and it’s charming and pensive and quirky-sweet as the beanie on his cute potato head. His accompanist is Sarita, who looms behind him in a long black dress and saws a cello line that lends his song instant gravitas. The verses are laced with light personal detail—It’s the sixth of July and you’re still in bed with your boots on—but the chorus is all glib maxims wrapp
ed in a super-hummable tune: “Broken windows let the sun in/Broken voices still can rhyme/Broken angels are more fun and/Broken ladders can still be climbed…”
I’m already kind of sweating this one, but then it gets worse: when the final chorus fades, Johnny does this melancholy flourish on his ukulele and soars into a trembling falsetto. “And I’m cliiiiimbing up to you…” He pauses, holds the camera’s gaze with his denim-blue eyes. “So leave the window open for me…” He closes his eyes and breathes, a cappella: “…tonight.”
Don lets out an “ohhh!” Kira, watching from the doorway, shrugs and says “I’d do him.”
Brilliant move, Beanie Boy.
Threat rating: 8.5 out of 10.
We can still beat him. I know it. The poetry in Ava’s verses, the strong clear hook in my holy monster chorus. She’ll knock it out of the park. I wonder who she picked to accompany her.
God, I wish it could be me.
When they come back from commercial, something’s wrong. I feel it right away. Tera is gone from the judges’ table and C King and Luke Dalton are whispering to each other, brows furrowed. Then Jaz comes onstage with this studied sad look, like when there’s been a major tragedy in the world and the show can’t ignore it because it’s been trending on Twitter all day.
Abel cuts his eyes at me. I shrug, but my palms are sweating.
“Over the break,” Jaz announces, “we received some new information. Sadly, with the knowledge that’s come to light…” Dramatic pause. Oh God. What. WHAT. “…we’re afraid it won’t be possible for Ava Alvarez to proceed in the competition tonight.”
The whole bar gasps. Abel grabs my hand. Kira goes, “Son of a fucknut!”
“Live television,” C King throws his arms out. “Where anything can happen!”
Luke Dalton says, “Hashtag #PopUShocker.”
No. No. No. I rise to my feet. Hoyt MacLane’s “Goin’ Back Home” starts up and they’re showing footage of Ava from behind, hurrying to a limo and pulling a small rolling suitcase behind her. Her exit fades into one of their slick standard clip packages, twenty seconds of Ava’s smiles and triumphs and high notes.
What. How. WHY.
“We thank Ava for her fantastic run on the show, and we wish her all the best.” Jaz pulls in a breath. “And now let’s give a big ‘good luck’ round of applause to our final two: Caleb and Johnny!”
