Sofia was taking a break in the large lounge that was part of the downtown dance studio they’d booked for the month. She was midway through the day’s rehearsals and she was thirsty, hungry, and tired. And if she was being honest, feeling every kind of grouchy. This was their fifth straight day in the studio, and the constant repetition of the choreography was taking its toll. Only the fear of forgetting the moves, of the performances being anything less than perfect, gave her the mental and physical energy to carry on. Worse, she knew from experience that she had several more days of this. Once she’d nailed her own choreography, the dancers would join her until the group dances were worked out to perfection too. And then she’d perform the same choreography for sixty nights across the globe until she was exhausted and bored of it all. She loved performing her music, but dancing to it, not so much. She yawned and popped the cap on her water.
Felix and her mom were on the couch, the long comfy couch that ran across the wall opposite—the one that she loved to stretch out on, the one she really wanted to lie down on right now. They were looking at an iPad, their heads together, scrolling and murmuring, neither of them listening to her. Neither of them seeming to care that her thirst was destroying the planet.
“I thought I’d stop halfway through the show, get some girl out of the crowd and do some naked salsa dancing. I mean, it might not go down that well in Nashville, but I think it adds a bit of variety to the show. Sounds good, huh?” She raised her voice on the last three words, causing her mom and Felix to finally look up at her, realizing that she’d asked them a question. Though Sofia knew damn well they hadn’t heard what it was.
“Sound good?” She pushed them to either agree with her or admit they hadn’t been listening. She was thirty-two years old, but sometimes still felt like the rebellious teenager she had never really had the chance to be. And she was enjoying the fact that they were both staring at her now, unsure of what to say. She made sure her face was a picture of innocence.
“She wants you to agree to let her do naked dancing on stage and also to kinda save the planet from disposable water bottles.” From his chair in the other corner of the room, Noah spoke up, his voice showing gentle amusement, though he was still staring at his phone. “Oh, and she’s annoyed that neither of you are listening to her.” He looked over at Sofia and blew her a kiss before turning back to his phone.
“At least my fake boyfriend is half listening to me.” Sofia curtsied in his direction. “Though it seems you’d all rather interact with your devices than with this exhausted, real life human in front of you.” Sofia was joking—but she was also not joking at all. For someone whose music videos were watched by millions of people, she often felt invisible.
“I’m sorry, cariño.” Her mom spoke first. “We’re just trying to see how we can fit everything in.” She waved her hand at Felix. “He has all the European dates figured out, but we can’t seem to get as many dates in South America as the promoters want and still fit in all the big end of year shows here at home. Unless…” Her mom lowered her eyes a little guiltily before looking at Felix, clearly willing him to speak.
“Unless what?” Sofia wanted one of them to speak, she didn’t care which. She could already tell that, whatever it was, she wasn’t going to be happy about it.
Felix stood up and stretched. “Your mom knows all about the options, Sofia. I’ll leave you guys to talk about it. I have a meeting with the promoters. But we can’t miss the Grammys—whatever else you decide, that has to be on the list.” Without waiting for a reply, he disappeared out into the corridor, letting the door snap shut behind him. Her mom turned back to her.
“It’s Argentina, Sofia, we missed it altogether last time and we promised them dates this tour, but we can only do it if we run their shows on either side of the Grammys and you fly in and out for them.” She spoke hesitantly, her voice pleading, like she already knew how Sofia would react. “It’s an important market for us and you can sleep on the plane both ways. The time difference works in your favor too.” She looked at Sofia hopefully.
For a long time, Sofia had been happy that her mom played such an important role in her career. She had liked having her along on tour, felt better when she was involved in decision making, but lately…well, lately, Sofia felt that her mom was more of a manager than Felix was. That she was more of a manager than a mom.
She looked at Noah, who had finally put his phone down and was now staring at her. She looked at her mom, who was still waiting for her response, and then, from nowhere, she started to cry. She didn’t know why the tears were falling right then rather than yesterday when she’d twisted her knee or the day before when she’d realized she was going to miss her niece’s birthday again, but here the tears were. And they kept on falling. Tears of frustration and exhaustion, and underneath both of those things, tears of sadness she couldn’t have explained even if she’d wanted to.
Both Noah and her mom came to her side, but Sofia waved them away. She didn’t want comfort from either of them, and maybe crying was just what she needed to do. But as quickly as the tears came, they stopped and Sofia used the towel around her neck to blow her nose.
“Babe, it’s okay.” Noah put an arm around Sofia’s shoulders, but she shrugged it off. It was bad enough that she had to let him do that in public, she didn’t want him touching her in private.
“What’s okay, Noah?” Sofia looked him in the face, while stepping backward slightly. “Is it okay that I’m so exhausted I can barely function? Is it okay that my mom seems to think she has a machine for a daughter, a machine that doesn’t need rest or days off? Or is it just okay that somewhere along the way I forgot how to be a person who loves to make music and let myself turn into this thing that exists just to sell records?” She looked from one to the other. “Because it doesn’t seem okay to me.” She made herself swallow her frustration, not trusting herself to say anything more.
“I know you’re tired. I am too. But this is what the business is, what we have to do to stay at the top. And I know that you wouldn’t swap it for anything else so let’s not get too dramatic, babe.” Sofia knew that Noah had only tacked “babe” onto the end of the sentence to make it seem less harsh.
“Sure. Let’s see if you’re still saying that five years from now.” She tried to keep her tone even, despite her rising annoyance. “I’ve been doing this for ten years. I’ve been on tour, rehearsing for a tour, or locked in a fucking recording studio for ten years, Noah. I’ve done every interview with a smile on my face, answered every stupid question. I’ve had to laugh off every unflattering photo, every insult, and every review that isn’t kind. I’m tired and I need a rest. But I can’t stop because I’m told that the minute I do they’ll all forget me and move on to the next big thing, but you’re right, I should totally be more grateful. What was I thinking?” The sarcasm was something she hated but couldn’t resist. Noah had no idea. He was just starting out.
“Sofia.” Her mom said her name sharply. “I know you’re tired, but there’s no need to take it out on Noah. He’s come all the way here to have lunch with you.”
“Lunch, Mama? It’s a photoshoot. Call it what it is at least. We’re going to have a salad and have some paparazzi we tipped off take pictures of us fake dating and pretending we care about each other so that we both sell a few more records.”
“I do care about you.”
“You care about sales of your new album, Noah. And Felix and my mom care about maintaining my profile in the run-up to the tour. And faking this relationship helps us both. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
It was cynical but it worked. The magazines and websites gave them so much more coverage when they were together. And every time she felt shitty about the lying, she reminded herself that everyone did it. She was playing the part of Sofia Flores, and having Noah, the perfect pop star boyfriend, was as much a part of the show as her choreography.
“It doesn’t mean I don’t also care about you.” He was pouting now an
d sounding upset. He’d been like this more and more often lately, acting like they had something that was real. Her mom patted his arm. She was actually comforting him. Sofia wasn’t surprised. Her mom always treated him like he was her dream son-in-law. It would be funny if it didn’t all make her feel so sad.
She took another water bottle from the fridge. “Now, in case you’ve forgotten, my tired ass has a show to rehearse for.” She stopped at the door and turned back to them. “I’m supposed to be enjoying this y’know. This was supposed to be my dream come true.” To her annoyance, she was close to tears again. “And I don’t care whether we nail this routine today or not. I am taking tomorrow morning off so I can meet the designer. It’s my fucking house and I should be the one who decides what they do to it.”
Her mom had arranged to see the design company without her, but Sofia didn’t want that. She wanted to meet them, to make sure they were right for the project. She was finally going to fix up her new house and spend some time there. She just needed to finish the tour and get that third Grammy everyone was so focused on. After that she would take a break. She needed one. She tried to ignore the voice that told her she’d promised, and failed, to give herself some real time off in every one of the last five years. She left the room before more tears fell.
Chapter Two
Maddie stood next to Daya, leaning back against the wall. They had been passing a cigarette back and forth. Maddie closed her eyes, wanting to be somewhere quiet and cool, rather than an alley behind a gay bar in Miami Beach on a sweltering hot August night. Her new shoes had given her blisters and she was suddenly in desperate need of food.
“Do you wanna go and eat?” She pushed herself off the wall. “I’m starving.”
“You’re gonna bail without saying good-bye to tequila babe in there?” Daya comically put a hand on Maddie’s forehead as if to check whether she was running a temperature. “Are you sure about that? She was hotter than these temperatures, and you, honey, already admitted you are in the middle of a pretty big dry spell.” Daya laughed.
“She’s cute,” Maddie shrugged and lifted her hands, “but I guess I’m not feeling it tonight. Sorry to be such a disappointment.”
Despite Maddie not buying a single shot, the tequila girl—with her big brown eyes and her skimpy cowgirl outfit—had been paying her a lot of attention and Maddie had promised not to leave before they swapped numbers. The attention was nice, but the connection had been nonexistent, and since having Mateo, she’d given up on meaningless hookups.
Her sister and Daya had conspired to force her out of the house tonight. Ashley had played the auntie card and insisted on taking Mateo for the night, and Daya had forced her into a gay bar, with the stated intention of getting her a woman. She tried to enjoy the dancing, the music, and the beautiful women, but the truth was that she couldn’t stop wondering how Mateo was and had spent most of the night wishing for her bed and a good book. In the days when she was thrashing around after the band split up, Maddie would have gotten drunk and taken tequila girl home, but that version of her was someone she hadn’t known in a very long time.
“Let’s find pizza. Pizza is what I need in my life right now. I need it more than I need tequila girl.” Maddie pulled Daya along with her, toward the cabs lined up at the curb outside the club.
“Okay, okay. I’m down with that.” Daya linked her arm. “Pizza is definitely less awkward to deal with in the morning.” She laughed at her own joke.
Maddie was relieved they were leaving. She had always hated these clubs, the dressing up, the trying to be seen, the people whose motives couldn’t be trusted.
I started feeling tired the day you left
The day after, the day after
I stopped trusting anyone at all
Maddie felt the words of the song pop up unexpectedly inside her brain, the tune maddeningly catchy, the lyrics always hurtful. Where the hell had that come from? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d listened to the song. It was from Sofi’s first album. The album Maddie had listened to a hundred times, in grief and in anger, before eventually making herself stop.
She tried not to overthink the fact that this song was in her head now. Being out with Daya reminded her of Sofi—of course it did. They’d been out together here so many times back when they were all in the band. And being back in Miami meant she was bound to think of the band…and of Sofi. She reminded herself it was a long time ago and the memories no longer had the power to affect her. She let herself believe the lie and focused on the pizza she wanted to eat.
* * *
Despite it being two a.m., the pizza place was full. Of course it was. This part of Miami was full of hungry clubbers just like them who wanted to eat before going home. Maddie didn’t want to wait in line and was just about to suggest that they go back to Daya’s and order in, when she felt Daya tug at her hand and march them to the front door. While Maddie was focusing on just how much her new shoes hurt, Daya was chatting animatedly to the tall bearded man who was gatekeeping the entrance. Within seconds, Daya tugged at her hand again as the man unhooked the rope that was strung across the doorway so they could pass through. A flash from the line suggested that someone was taking their photo and Maddie reflexively put up a hand.
Inside, a waiter showed them to a table at the back of the room.
“How the hell did you manage to get us in here?”
“I told them who we were, about our millions of Instagram followers, and that we’d give them a big shout out if they let us in.” Daya sounded pleased with herself.
“For fuck’s sake, Daya. That’s not cool.” Maddie shook her head. “I hate you doing that. Apart from the fact that I haven’t used that account in three years, and nobody cares anymore which pizza place I’m eating at, what makes us any better than those other people waiting out there?” Maddie stood up. She would go home and order something in rather than jump the line on the basis of her so-called celebrity. Since she’d given up music, she barely ever got recognized. And thank God. When she set up her design business, she’d used only her first name precisely so no one could say she was riding on her past to get clients so there was no way she was going to use it to jump the line in a pizza restaurant.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were hungry. I was trying to help.” Daya sounded contrite. “But sit down, honey. We might as well eat while we’re here. It’ll be embarrassing to leave now.”
The waiter arrived and set down a jug of iced water and two tumblers, and Maddie sat back down and poured herself a tall glass. She was thirsty as well as hungry.
“What can I get you?” The waiter had his fingers poised over a tablet, ready to take their order.
“We’ll have the extra-large four cheese pizza, thin crust, and two side salads to go.” Maddie looked at Daya across the table, daring her to object. “And we can wait at the bar while you’re getting it ready. Please go give this table to whoever’s next in line.” The waiter looked from Maddie to Daya not sure if he was being messed with.
Daya sighed and raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like the lady has decided we’re going home.” She picked up her bag and walked across to the bar. Maddie poured another glass of water for herself before following.
At the bar, Daya leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Sometimes you remind me just why I love you so much.” She nudged Maddie playfully. “This just isn’t one of those times.”
They laughed and Maddie felt happy all over again that she’d moved back to Miami. She’d moved with Mateo so that they could be closer to her family, but Daya was here too and Maddie was pleased to have her back in her life. She’d spent years living in hotels and on tour buses, but at thirty-three, with a three-year-old son to think about, she was happy to finally put down some roots.
I thought you were sent to save me
But our roots didn’t hold
And I stopped trusting anyone at all
Sofi’s song again popped into Maddie’s head and she sighed deeply and shoo
k it away.
“You okay?” Daya regarded her closely.
“Yeah. Sorry, just worrying about Mateo.” It was half a white lie. She had worried about being away from Mateo all night, but she also didn’t want to tell Daya she was thinking about Sofi.
“He’s fine, he’s happy with his auntie.” Daya put her hand over Maddie’s. “You’re allowed a night off, you know.”
“I know. It’s not just that.” Saying it out loud was hard. “It’s just that being back here reminds me of the old days. And of Sofi.” She decided to say it and then tensed, waiting for Daya to tell her how stupid she was being.
“It’s funny, but I was thinking about those days too. About us going out together and getting mobbed by fans. Sometimes it seems like yesterday, not five years ago.”
“Maybe the day before yesterday.” Maddie made herself sound lighter than she felt.
“Remember that time we were in that club and I had to pay that girl five hundred bucks to delete those pictures of you and Sofi off her phone? Sofi was terrified she’d caught you guys kissing and you’d get outed and our record company would go apeshit.”
“They would have.” Maddie’s stomach knotted at the memory.
“Maybe they’d have just given you a fake pregnancy and an extra boyfriend each as damage control.”
“Let’s not go there.” Daya’s joke was too close to home to be funny.
Maddie chased away the memories and made herself focus on the mouthwatering smell of the pizzas coming from the wood-fired oven to the right of the bar.
“It’s just good to be back. To be close to Mom and Ashley and you. And soon, I’ll forget all about how Miami reminds me of the past,” she hesitated, knowing that even all these years later, thinking about losing Sofi brought her nothing but sadness, “and I’ll make a new set of happy memories. Mateo already loves the house. He’s been paddling in the sea every day and I’m having a new dock built this week so I’ll be able to get a little boat or maybe a couple of Jet Skis. He’s a water baby, just like me.” Maddie couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice.
Not This Time Page 3
