Girl vs. Superstar

by Robin Palmer

  Having to sing in front of Laurel Moses like she was a judge on American Idol would be fun? I would have rather gotten my appendix out. And been fully awake for it.

  Everyone knows that when adults do karaoke, they’re going to look stupid. It’s just one of the things you can count on like, say, rain when you’re supposed to go on a field trip to Boston and walk the Freedom Trail. If you ask me, I think it’s because something about the whole thing makes them go back to being whatever kind of person they were like when they were teenagers, before they grew up and got all serious because of all the bills they had to pay.

  For instance, when Mom got up in front of everyone at Bishop’s Lounge and sang an old Madonna song called “Lucky Star,” she started acting all sexy, swiveling her hips and shaking her hair. That made sense because Mom was really wild when she was teenager and used to sneak out of her bedroom after she was supposed to be asleep and drive to the beach with her boyfriend and make out in the car. I knew this not because she told me, but because I heard her and my grandmother talking about it once when I was overlistening from the top of the stairs. I had always thought it was kind of cool that Mom had been a little crazy back then. But what was not cool was that she was acting like this in front of a huge room full of strangers.

  As for Alan, when he got up there and sang some dorky song I had never heard of called “Heartlight” by some guy I had never heard of called Neil Diamond, and his eyes got all shiny and he got all emotional about it, I could tell that back in high school, he had probably been just as dorky and just as much a nerd as he was now. I personally don’t mind nerds—in fact, I find them to be really nice, most likely because they don’t want anyone to have to feel like they feel when people pick on them. Like Mom, he really got into the song, which, even though I wasn’t related to him, I found embarrassing.

  At least Laurel and I agreed on one thing—that Alan looked like an idiot—because when I looked over at her, she had slunk down so far in her seat you could basically see only her head. I felt pretty bad for her because by that time, people had figured out that the blonde girl who looked like Laurel Moses actually was Laurel Moses, so they were staring more at her than at Alan. At least there were only like ten other people there, but still.

  People must have started texting their friends that Laurel was there because by the time a few more people had gotten through their songs (one lady who looked sort of like a lunchroom aide sang a Britney Spears song, and her husband sang a song by this guy Jimi Hendrix, complete with air guitar), Bishop’s Lounge was packed. Like maybe fifty or sixty people. “I can’t believe I’m going to get to hear Laurel Moses sing live!” I heard one woman say to another as I went to the bathroom. Then, as I walked back to the table, I heard a guy say to his friend, “Dude, I am so filming this on my iPhone and putting this on YouTube.”

  “You know, everyone thinks you’re going to sing,” I said to Laurel after I managed to fight my way through the crowd back to my seat.

  “Well, I’m not,” she said stubbornly.

  Jeez. It was hard to keep feeling bad for someone when she kept being a jerk to you even when you were just trying to make conversation and find a way to maybe become friends. “How come?” I asked.

  She turned to me. “You really want to know why?”

  I nodded.

  “Because I can tell that you already don’t like me, and if I get up there and sing, you’ll probably find a reason to like me even less, and I’m just not in the mood for that to happen,” she said. “Especially now that they’re using words like bonding, which means that this whole thing might be getting serious and we might end up being stepsisters.”

  “You think that’s going to happen?” I asked nervously.

  She shrugged. “If they keep that stuff up, it probably will,” she said, motioning to Mom and Alan, who were sitting close together. I don’t know what it was he was whispering to her, but it sure was making her giggle.

  I had to say her not singing was pretty nice of her. I mean, if I had an amazing voice, I’d sing all the time—especially in public.

  “I don’t not like you,” I blurted out.

  That stuck-up look on her face that seemed to be a permanent fixture unless she plastered on the fake movie-star smile disappeared, and Laurel looked like a regular fourteen-year-old girl. A super-pretty one, but still, she looked more normal than I had ever seen her. “Really?” she said.

  I shrugged. Even though she insulted my clothes and was giving up a trip to Africa, I guess she wasn’t that bad. She was definitely a lot better than Marissa. That being said, if she ended up coming to the sleepover with me, and Rachel and Missy decided they wanted to be BFFs with her instead of me, I’d never talk to her again.

  Just then three women came over the table. “Are you going to sing?” one of them demanded.

  Laurel put her movie-star smile back on. “No, sorry— I’m not,” she said sweetly. “But I’d be happy to sign an autograph for you.”

  “But we want to hear you sing,” one of the other women said. She held up her BlackBerry. “I have the camera all set up and everything.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not really prepared,” Laurel said. It was pretty amazing how, when there was a crowd around, she always managed to completely keep her cool. If it were me, I would’ve said, “Obviously you got an F in Manners because that’s just plain rude!”

  The woman turned. “Hey, she says she won’t sing!” she called out to the crowd.

  From the way everyone started grumbling, you would’ve thought it was Free Scoop Saturday at Scoops and they had just announced they had run out of ice cream. In fact, the crowd got so upset that Laurel got all nervous and grabbed my arm. “But my friend here—”

  I couldn’t believe it—Laurel Moses had called me her friend! That meant if I asked her to Rachel’s sleepover, she’d totally say yes!

  “—she’ll sing,” she said.

  “What?!” I whispered. Was Laurel completely insane? Friends don’t make friends who are tone-deaf get up in front of a ginormous crowd and sing. “No, I won’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a horrible singer!” I replied.

  “Oh, come on. I bet you’re not,” she whispered back. “Everyone says that, but no one’s that bad.”

  I gave her a look. “Oh, I am. Trust me.”

  “Lucy, I think it’s a great idea for you go up there and express yourself,” Mom chimed in.

  “If I could go up there and embarrass myself, anyone can,” said Alan. I shot him a look. “Not that you’re going to embarrass yourself,” he quickly added.

  “If the girl in the hat sings, will you sing afterward?” someone in the crowd called out to Laurel.

  “Ah . . . maybe,” she sputtered.

  “Get up there and sing, then!” someone else yelled.

  I was wrong. The Hat Incident was not the most embarrassing moment of my life. Having a picture of me not picking my nose splashed all over the Internet was not the most embarrassing moment of my life either. This was the most embarrassing moment of my life. I could’ve run out the door and escaped. But then I’d be forever known as The Girl with the Hat Who Was Too Scared to Get Onstage and Do Karaoke. And who wanted to be known as that girl?

  “It won’t be so bad. I promise,” Laurel whispered as I took a deep breath and stood up.

  Ha. Famous last words.

  As I made my way up to the microphone, all I could think of was if I didn’t get my period after this, life was completely unfair.

  I looked at the list of songs to choose from; of course there were like five Laurel Moses songs. There were also a bunch of Britney ones, some Katy Perrys, some Taylor Swifts, and a whole lot of Beyoncé that I knew, but the last thing I was going to do was stand up in front of a huge crowd of people and shake my butt. Sure, I did that alone in my bedroom with the door closed tight and a chair shoved up against it so Mom couldn’t come in, but not here. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I e
nded up choosing “Let It Be” by the Beatles. I knew the song by heart because of our fourth-grade chorus recital, even if I had only been allowed to mouth it. Plus, no one expected you to shake your butt to that song.

  I walked up to the stage and took the mic. Everyone was looking at me. After some major throat clearing, I began.

  “When I find myself in times of trouble,” I sang. Except then I had to stop because the microphone did that feedback thingy where it made a screeching noise and everyone in the crowd covered their ears and a look came over their face like they had just swallowed a mixture of peanut butter and lox. “Uh, sorry,” I said. I turned to the guy who was in charge of the karaoke machine. “Can I start again?”

  He rolled his eyes and started it from the beginning.

  “When I find myself in times of trouble,” I sang again. There was no feedback this time, but the crowd had a nauseated look on their faces. And by the time I got to the “Let it be, let it be / Let it be, let it be” chorus part, they looked even more nauseous, even though I tried to put what Ms. Edut, my chorus teacher, called “some real soul” into it. From Laurel’s expression, I could tell she wished she could take back her “No one’s that bad.” Even my own mother looked scared—like she was afraid that if I didn’t stop soon, I might burst someone’s eardrum. Not only was I a really bad singer, but I was a really loud singer to boot, and here I had a microphone.

  I was so nervous, and I was sweating so much, and I was so nervous that the people in the audience could see how much I was sweating, that when I got to the third verse I just blanked out and completely forgot it. Even though I totally knew it by heart because Ms. Edut had made us practice it three billion times because she always wants everything to be perfect. Sure, the words were right there on the machine in front of me, but because I was so nervous, I had gone temporarily blind. So instead of singing, I just stood there in front of the ginormous crowd, sweating but not singing, and completely sure that I had just gotten my period.

  Finally, Mom yelled out, “It’s okay, honey. You can do it. Just keep going.” And then when I didn’t, she started singing with—or, rather, for—me at the “Mother Mary comes to me” part. Which made me totally cringe because, like I said, her voice wasn’t all that much better than mine. And also, the last thing I needed was my mom to come to my rescue in front of everyone. Finally, the karaoke guy let the music fade out, and I was done.

  Needless to say, not a lot of people clapped when I was done. Only three—Mom, Alan, and Laurel. Not only were they clapping, but they were clapping really loud and yelling, “Yeah, Lucy! That was great!” like they were at a concert for their favorite singer in the world. The rest of the crowd just looked really confused, and still a little nauseated, like they weren’t quite sure what had just happened. At least they didn’t boo, because that would’ve been really awful.

  “Hey, Laurel, now will you get up and sing?” someone yelled after I slunk back to my seat.

  “I—um—” she sputtered.

  “Yeah! You promised!” yelled someone else.

  I was about to yell out that she hadn’t promised, but I didn’t think anyone was interested in hearing anything more from me.

  The whole room started buzzing, and the louder it got, the more you could tell they were getting mad—like if Laurel didn’t go up there right that second, there might be a giant stampede and we’d all be crushed to death.

  “Honey, maybe you should give them one song,” Alan said.

  “But—”

  I felt like saying, “Yeah, go on up there, because there’s no way I could like you less than I do right now,” but I didn’t. Instead, I just gave her a dirty look before I crossed my arms and turned away from her.

  “If you don’t, it’s going to be all over the blogs and it could really hurt your image,” he said.

  She sighed. “Fine,” she said as she stood up. It was the same “Fine” I had used earlier in the evening when Mom had told me to get back in the house right that minute and put my bra on before we went to pick up Laurel and Alan. Laurel even stomped up to the stage like I had.

  “Sing ‘Broken Promises’!”

  “No—‘Millions of Miles’!”

  It must be hard when you’re a famous person doing karaoke because no matter what song you choose, everyone knows it’s you the famous person singing it rather than someone unfamous like me. In the end Laurel ended up choosing the song “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera, which happened to be one of my favorite songs. At first when she started to sing it, she seemed a little awkward and shy—at one point during the first verse, she even screwed up a few notes—but as it went on, she got more comfortable and her voice got stronger. She got so into it that when I looked around, all these people were crying—including Mom and even some of the guys.

  The fact that a few times that night I had felt bad for her and thought maybe she wasn’t so bad and we could become friends? Well, after she was done and everyone in the room stood up and gave her a standing ovation and she bowed a bunch of times and said, “Thank you! Thank you very much! Oh, you guys are just the best!” with a huge smile on her face, it wiped that possibility right out. A friend didn’t (a) force someone with a horrible singing voice to go onstage only to then (b) go up there after her and completely show her up like that.

  She took more bows and blew kisses to the audience, and I saw Mom and Alan clapping wildly for her. “Isn’t she just great?” Mom said proudly to the woman next to her, as if Laurel was her own daughter. What if that happened? What if all this bonding really did result in Things Getting Serious and they got married and we became stepsisters? I could see it now—everything I did, Laurel would do a bajillion times better. I’d get an A, and Laurel would get an A . I’d get a boyfriend, and Laurel would get a cuter boyfriend. I’d make red velvet cupcakes and Laurel would make a three-layer red velvet cake with little silver balls decorating the top of it.

  I looked over at Mom and Alan, and they were kissing. In front of everyone. Like they were a couple who were thisclose to getting engaged and getting married.

  This was not good. In fact, this was very, very bad.

  There was no way I was spending the rest of my life known as Laurel Moses’s Untalented Stepsister.

  chapter 8

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  Even though you still haven’t written me back, I thought I’d try again, just in case my other e-mails went to your spam folder or something like that. So if this is the first e-mail you’re getting from me, please check the folder because there’s probably a bunch in there.

  I know from watching your show that most of the time, you try to help people get to a place where they CAN get married, but the reason I’m writing today is because I was wondering if you could give me some advice as to what a person might do if they’re trying to get people to NOT get married. Because if those two people DID get married, then I’d have the worst stepsister in the entire world. If you’ve read my other e-mails, you know that I’m talking about Laurel Moses. I won’t go into all of it now, because it’s kind of a long story, but I can promise you that after what happened the other night at karaoke, you would totally agree that having Laurel as a stepsister would ruin my entire life.

  It’s not like my mom is officially engaged (YET), but this morning she told me that she and Alan are going to New York City for the weekend. Marissa says that means she’ll be coming back with a ring on her finger. She said one night away is okay (so they can have some privacy to really “do it”—ew!), but that two nights when you’re not married is serious. That’s what happened when her mom and Phil went to Atlantic City for a weekend. He proposed to her in front of the slot machines and then he took her for the all-you-can-eat steak-and-lobster dinner.

  Would you happen to know if this is true? Because if it is, I’m REALLY going to have to try to stop them. Oh, and when my mother was packing, I saw that she put in her lacy black underwear AND a red silk nightgown, which I’m thinking can’t be a good
sign either.

  Thanks in advance.

  yours truly,

  Lucy B. Parker

  On Monday during math, Rachel passed me a note that said, “Did you ask Laurel if she could come to my party?” I wrote back, “Unfortunately, she can’t because she just texted me that Sequoia is coming up to hang out with her for the weekend. But I can. That is, if you want me there.”

  That first part wasn’t entirely true. Sequoia was coming up to visit her—but I knew that not because she had texted me, but because Mom had told me and then I read it on WeLoveLaurel.com.

  All through the rest of math, and then science and then English, I kept glancing over at Rachel to see if she was writing me back. Like maybe something along the lines of: “OF COURSE I WANT YOU THERE!!! I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I realize now that I’ve been a total jerk and I’ve missed you soooo much and I’ll totally make it up to you for as long as I need to until you forgive me.”

  But she didn’t write that. Or anything else, for that matter. Instead, right before lunch, I saw her crumple up the note and throw it in the garbage as we made our way to the cafeteria.

  Instance number 943 where Laurel Moses had yet again ruined my life. I knew it sounded paranoid, but suddenly, I wondered if somehow Laurel had planned this with Rachel. Like somehow she had found out that I told Rachel that we had become friends and she tracked Rachel down and told her it was a lie, but then, at some point during the conversation, they became friends, and now Laurel actually was going to go to the sleepover. It probably wasn’t true, but you never knew. And then on Tuesday morning, while Mrs. Kline was yelling for us to settle down, I saw Rachel give Marissa and Cindy their invitations. (I couldn’t see exactly what it said, but I did see the big YOU’RE INVITED! on the front). Our social studies assignment that day was “take an action this week that you think will earn you some good karma” (we were studying India, where, like the Buddhists, they’re way into karma). If you ask me, the fact that she left me out was very bad karma. As was the idea that Marissa, who was constantly begging me to let her call me her BFF, said she was going to go. Later on, I told Mom what happened, and she said that it sounded like the perfect opportunity to “get a dialogue” going with Rachel and share my feelings and tell her how hurt I was about the whole thing. Frankly, I would rather stick needles in my eye before doing that.