Puckers Up

by Mark Peter Hughes

  Unfortunately, things were a little harder when we asked him if we could get Olivia a ride to the hospital.

  “Look, guys,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, but we’re moving a lot of bands today. I can spare one of the limos long enough to get you back to your own cars at your hotel, but I can’t send it all the way to Pittsfield and back. I feel bad about that, but Sista Slash has a lot on the line here and we need all the transportation we have.”

  I realized this meant we had a big problem. Going all the way back to the hotel meant heading in the opposite direction from where Olivia needed to be. Plus, it meant we’d have to face the crawling traffic coming back toward the concert again. We didn’t have that kind of time. Olivia needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. But without another option, what could we do?

  I looked across the field and saw Penelope. All at once I realized we did have another option, one that could get Olivia out of there fast. Long lines of customers were already forming at most of the other food vendors, but at Wieners on Wheels there was barely anyone. It felt like fate. That eyesore of a van might not have been much of a money maker, but this wouldn’t be the first time she would come in handy.

  So that’s how it happened.

  Minutes later we were strapping ourselves into the seats at the back of the wiener van—Olivia, Mo, Wen, Charlie and me (it wasn’t like we were going to stick around at the festival and perform without her, right?), plus Mrs. Reznik, who happened to be nearby when we rushed over. Wen’s dad was great. As soon as we told him the situation he closed up shop in a flash. Scott insisted on coming with us too. He was in the copilot seat. Out in the field, Al had a bullhorn and was calling for the crowd to clear a path for us. It was like the parting of the Red Sea. People stood on either side of the little grass boulevard they’d created, each of them staring in wonder at the curious VIP van with the giant wiener on top as we each said our silent, sad goodbyes to the Take Charge Festival. It was the last we’d see of the crowd that day.

  WEN

  Waiting for News

  That was a long afternoon I’ll never forget.

  So, we left the festival behind us and headed to the hospital where Olivia’s mom was being rushed for emergency treatment. We arrived just in time. Olivia’s mother was already there and hooked up to a bunch of tubes and the doctors were about to transfer her into the intensive care ward. I saw her, but not for long. She was behind a curtain, so I got only a quick glimpse of a dark-haired lady on a hospital bed with machines all around her. But that was okay—it wasn’t why we’d come. The point was that Olivia got a couple of minutes with her.

  Olivia described to us afterward that her mother was short of breath and maybe a little confused, but she recognized Olivia and told her she was surprised to see her and grateful that she’d come. Olivia said she could tell that her mother meant it too—she truly was glad to see her. Which obviously was a big deal. Seeing the look on Olivia’s face when she came back to the waiting area and told us all this, well, I think that one thing alone would have been enough to make it all worthwhile.

  After that, we waited.

  Olivia sat hunched beside me. Other than when she texted her grandmother with updates, she mostly stared at her feet. The rest of us did what we could to keep a conversation going, if only to distract Olivia from worrying too much. But really there wasn’t anything anybody could do to help except be there with her. Overhead, the televisions were showing reruns of stupid old sitcoms. Their laugh tracks felt out of place against the harsh reality of sick people and anxious families all around us. The hospital was busy that day. Maybe it’s like that every day. I don’t know.

  It seemed to take forever for the doctors to come out with more news and I kept glancing at Olivia. All this waiting seemed agonizing for her. Like I’d done so many times before, I tried to imagine what it must feel like to be her, to have lived her life and to have had the kinds of sad experiences and disappointments that I could barely conceive of.

  “Thanks for … you know, doing this,” she said to me quietly, reaching for my hand. “I’m grateful to all of you guys for being okay with this.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’re our friend. I think it’s great that you wanted to come, that you’re here for her.”

  She shrugged. “She’s my mom.”

  She went quiet again, but for a while I couldn’t help mulling over what she’d just said and what it meant. It was finally hitting me, something I hadn’t fully appreciated until that moment. This whole situation with her mom’s reappearance had been so difficult for Olivia, a real struggle, and yet even though her mother had serious problems, even though Olivia had plenty of reasons to be furious at her, she’d still wanted to come here to the hospital to be with her. Was that acceptance? Forgiveness?

  I didn’t know, but whatever it was, it struck me as amazing.

  I looked around the room at all the other people who’d come to help support Olivia and my eyes lingered on Scott. He’d been quiet, sitting in a chair along with the rest of us, waiting for news. A few months ago I would never have imagined that Scott Pickett of Mudslide Crush would give a crap about anybody but himself. And yet there he was. It wasn’t the first time either, although I’d been refusing to see it. I’d been simmering in my resentment about the past for so long, but now I had a new idea, an idea about forgiveness. It occurred to me that even though it isn’t always easy, maybe it was better than letting bitterness and anger slowly eat me up from the inside.

  It’s funny how everything happens at once. Just as Olivia was finishing her zillionth update to her grandmother, I noticed through the big window that Sydney was walking across the parking lot to the main entrance. There was no mistaking her long stride and that cascade of black hair. Following behind her was a whole crowd of people, our families. They’d all left the Take Charge Festival to pick up the cars from the hotel and had finally made it through the traffic to join us here. I was happy to see them. I knew Olivia would be too. I was just about to point them out to everyone when, from the opposite end of the waiting area, the double doors opened and the doctor in charge of Olivia’s mother appeared. She was looking right at Olivia.

  All of us stood up.

  It was clear she had news.

  What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

  —Alexander Graham Bell

  MOHINI

  The Laws of the Universe

  It’s a beautiful, lazy morning and I’m sitting at the kitchen table finishing a late breakfast with my family. Maa is sipping the last of her chai. Baba is lost in his newspaper. Madhu is chatting endlessly about a new pink blouse she saw in a store, a not-so-subtle attempt to convince my parents to rush out and buy it for her. The Take Charge Festival, only a few days in the past, is starting to feel like a fading dream.

  At least, that’s what I’m trying to tell myself.

  Absently taking a bite of a crispy luchi (my mother makes the best), I look for the hundredth time toward the front window.

  “Are you okay, Monu?” Maa asks. “You seem distracted.”

  “Just waiting for my friends to arrive. I’m fine.”

  And it’s true, I am fine. More or less. Sure, my thoughts still drift every now and then to how things might have turned out if we hadn’t missed our big chance at Take Charge, but as Charlie keeps pointing out, playing at that concert wasn’t what destiny had in mind for us. I have no regrets. If the five of us were to somehow travel back in time to face that same morning by the Take Charge stage again, I’m positive we would all make the same decision.

  The good news is that Olivia’s mother is doing okay. The hospital kept her overnight, but she was much better the next day and they were able to release her. Now she has a nurse who watches her closely, double-checking on her dialysis routine and working
with her to take better care of herself. “There’s only so much anybody can do, though,” Olivia told us. “Everyone wants the best for her, but in the end it’s her own life and she’s the only one who can really be in charge of it.”

  There was one good thing, at least, that came out of that experience: Olivia and her mom are now planning to stay in touch. Olivia says she’ll go back out there next month for another visit.

  So considering everything, things could have ended up a whole lot worse. I have many things to be thankful for. My friends and family are okay. I just got my schedule for the new school year and I made it into all the advanced classes I’d wanted, and I still have three whole weeks until the semester starts. Things are good. It’s a warm summer morning and my life is pretty much back to the same old way it’s always been. Normal. Comfortable. Low-key.

  And yet …

  And yet …

  I’m glancing around at our kitchen and everything in my world feels just a little … off. Unsettled, somehow. It takes me a moment to figure out why, but then I do. I realize that right now, a warm, do-nothing morning is exactly the kind of time when Rajeev would have instigated one of his massive water fights. Now that he’s gone it’s like there’s a hole where he used to be. I miss him.

  And then a very Charlie-like thought occurs to me: every upside has its downside. For instance, it’s great that Rajeev came to visit us, but now I have to pay for that by feeling bad that he’s no longer here. It’s just the world’s way of keeping an equilibrium. I make a mental note to tell Charlie about my revelation. “See? I’m getting it,” I’ll say. “Yin and yang. Balance in the Universe.”

  He’ll be so pleased.

  As if the Universe itself is trying to prove this point to me, my eyes happen to fall on an article on the back of the paper my father is reading. The headline says Slash Out of Cash: The Queen of Rock Anarchy’s Festival Proves a Musical Success but a Personal Financial Disaster. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this story reported, how the concert was organized on a shoestring budget and how there ended up being insurance issues and lawsuits and other unexpected costs. Even though her festival brought a lot of money to a lot of causes, it looks like Sista Slash herself might end up broke. I don’t know much about that kind of thing, only that it’s sad.

  She did something big, so now of course she has to get knocked back down to size in some way.

  Upside. Downside.

  Yin. Yang.

  See, Charlie? I really get it.

  A stack of yellow flyers with black printing appears in front of my face. “Since you’ll be going through town anyway, Mohini,” Maa says, setting the flyers on the table in front me, “could you please hang a few of these up by the community center, and bring the rest to Mr. Taxiarchis at Paperback Joe’s? He promised to pass them out.”

  “Sure,” I say, taking in the jagged lettering across the top.

  LEMONADE MOUTH PICNIC

  Join us Saturday for an afternoon

  of neighbors, fun and music!

  It was the Lemonade Mouth parents who came up with the idea. It’s basically a big party for our families and friends and anyone else who wants to join us in celebrating all the good things that happened, kind of a consolation prize for not being famous. It’s going to be in the field behind the high school. People are being encouraged to set up barbecues, and there’ll even be one of those bouncy castles for the little kids.

  The five of us figure, why not? Any excuse for a party, right?

  Plus, it’ll give us a chance to perform our newest songs.

  At last there’s a knock at the door. I look up. There’s Charlie, with his big goofy grin, waving at me through the window. As if by magic, the unsettled feeling I was just having fades away. Behind Charlie are Stella, Olivia and Wen. Scott’s there too. I’m grateful for my friends, and all at once it occurs to me that my earlier revelation was only half complete, that the laws of the Universe work both ways.

  For every downside, there’s also an upside.

  I grab the stack of flyers, thank Maa for breakfast and head for the door.

  “Monu, where are you going?” my father asks, peering over his newspaper. It’s as if he’s been so lost in his reading that he’s only just joined us.

  “We’re on a mission, Baba. We talked about this earlier, remember?”

  His brow wrinkles, but then he does seem to recall. “Yes, yes. I forgot,” he says. “Well … good luck.” And he’s back to his newspaper again.

  Soon I’m outside with the others and we’re heading down the street. We have a job to do.

  STELLA

  Springing a Big Idea

  Now comes perhaps the least known and certainly one of the strangest episodes in the entire history of Lemonade Mouth. There trudged your dissident band of agitators, making their way across town on a sticky August morning to the one place you would never in a million years expect any of them to go.

  It was Wen’s idea.

  Since the summer began, each of us had realized, of course, that Scott had been in kind of an uncomfortable position whenever the topic of Ray Beech came up. It was clear that Ray was a dark cloud issue for Scott, a longtime friend who’d fallen by the wayside, and one who didn’t exactly bring warm and fuzzy memories for any of us, his new friends. So we all avoided the subject. Wen was the one who finally came to the rest of us and said it was time to talk with Scott about it. He had an idea how we might be able to help him out—as long as Scott wanted us to, that is.

  I was surprised to hear Wen talk about helping Scott, of all people, considering how unhappy he’d been at having to work with him that summer. I also wasn’t sure there was anything we really could do to fix the situation. But I figured as long as Wen and the others were willing to give it a shot, what the heck?

  So we went to Scott. It wasn’t the most comfortable conversation, especially at first, since I don’t think Scott would ever in a zillion years have brought up the subject himself. But I guess he must have seen that we meant well, and eventually he opened up about all the bad feelings going on between him and Ray, how it had been hard for them both since Mudslide Crush broke up and how crappy he felt about losing his former best friend. Ray pushed him away whenever he tried to communicate.

  Then Wen told him his idea.

  After a long pause Scott looked around at us and said, “Really? You guys would do that?”

  Let me stop here to point out that, like Ray, Scott had a history with Lemonade Mouth that was far from unblemished. There had been a time in the not-so-distant past, in fact, when I’d considered them both to be about as evolved as a Neanderthals. But since then time had marched on, and people, it seems, can be mysterious creatures. Over and over fate seemed to be making a special effort to throw Scott together with us, and I ended up seeing there was more to him than I’d recognized. Sure, he could come off as a little cocky sometimes, but he could also be thoughtful and loyal and, in his own way, kind of a sweet kid. I’d never seen a hint of disrespect toward Mo (which would have been a deal breaker), and for her part, Mo didn’t seem to have any problem having him around.

  Plus, there was no denying that Scott had come through for us a couple of times.

  To my own astonishment, I found myself warming up to the guy.

  So that’s how we found ourselves following Scott Pickett, the former Mudslide Crush golden boy, as he led us to the lair of Lemonade Mouth’s once-biggest tormentor, Ray Beech. The walk seemed to go on forever. Mo’s mom had asked us to stop by to distribute picnic flyers at the community center and Paperback Joe’s, and after that we continued down a turn off Wampanoag Road and Scott led us from there. Ray lived in the Claypit Farm area, a secluded and relatively rural part of Opequonsett at the opposite end of town, far from the main highway. In the entire year since I’d moved to Rhode Island I’d only passed through there two or three times.

  While we hoofed it in near silence, I couldn’t help noticing when Mo reached for Charlie’s hand,
or when Olivia rested her head on Wen’s shoulder. I was happy for my friends, but for me these displays of affection were also painful reminders of how much I still missed Rajeev. We’d been calling and texting each other, but those things almost made it worse, kind of like describing water to a thirsty person. Tragically, I hadn’t even thought to keep something of his, maybe a hoodie or a T-shirt or some other article of clothing I could have at least worn to remind myself of what being close to him felt like.

  But I didn’t dwell on this. I was making a conscious effort to live in the here and now; I refused to let self-pity get the better of me.

  “There it is,” Scott said at last. “Up ahead, where the road turns.”

  At first I was confused. All I saw was an abandoned gas station with boarded-up windows. It looked like it had been out of business for quite a while. Surely Ray didn’t live there.

  But then a hundred feet or so behind it I noticed a depressing little one-story brown house with a chain-link fence and a couple of rusty old cars on cinder blocks. It looked like a junkyard.

  “That’s it? That’s where Ray Beech lives?”

  Scott nodded. “Yup. When we were little we used to tie ropes to branches and swing from his roof. The place had more trees back then.”

  I took in the mounds of mud and unidentifiable crap scattered across the enormous backyard. Near the side fence there was a wooden hutch with a railed-off area in front of it, like an animal pen. Finally we reached the front gate, where we were welcomed by a sign with big red letters that said, PRIVATE PROPERTY, KEEP OUT! THAT MEANS YOU!

  Scott must have noticed us staring at the unfriendly message. He shrugged.

  “That’s from Ray’s dad. He can be kind of a …” He seemed to search for the word. “… character.”

  All any of us could do was nod. Ignoring the sign, Scott led us through the front gate. I glanced around in case we were about to be charged by attack dogs or something, but seconds later all of us stood huddled behind Scott on the front step of the house. I could hear the faint sound of a television. Somebody was home. My palms were sweating like crazy by then, and I don’t think I was the only one. After all, this was the home turf of Ray Beech, a gorilla-sized kid with a mean streak and a grudge against Lemonade Mouth. There was no way to know for sure how he might react.