Morgan stops me before I get any further.
“You want to introduce Ickface to Ribot Entertainment? You’re kidding me!” She levels a lethal gaze at me, then back at Sophie. “No, you’re killing me!”
I mouth I’m sorry when Morgan’s back is turned. But Sophie misses it, too, because she dashes into the bathroom, which, really, is okay, because my silent apology is so overdue and so inadequate that I immediately want to take it back anyway. I’m sorry for so much more than what’s happening right here and now in Morgan & Ella headquarters.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend.
I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend and didn’t speak up.
I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend and didn’t speak up when Morgan brought you down …
Why don’t I have the courage to say it out loud? Is it because I’m afraid Sophie won’t accept my apology?
“I’ll never forgive Kaytee for sticking us with Ickface tonight,” Morgan huffs. “I should’ve known Flaky would bail. She thinks she’s so special because she’s the only seventh grader on the travel soccer team now.”
“Wait … What do you mean?”
Morgan dusts her shoulders off.
“I quit.”
“You did what? When?”
“Today. Effective immediately.”
“You quit? But why? I thought Middletons weren’t quitters.”
“We’re not! We’re winners! And I’m fully committing myself to the brand! I won’t have time for travel soccer when I’m on tour!” she says. “I don’t expect anything less from you!”
“But I thought doing it all was all a part of being a Girlboss …”
“It still is,” Morgan explains, “but priorities change. And Morgan & Ella is far more important to me than any soccer team that’s oh-and-three this season. I mean, if we were undefeated, maaaaaaybe I’d make it work. You know, just to show the world how totally normal I still am. But I don’t have time to waste with losers.”
The toilet flushes, and Sophie re-emerges looking pale and unwell.
“Perfect timing,” Morgan says with a sneer.
“I feel sick,” Sophie says. “I want to go home.”
Same, I think. Same.
But only one of us grabs her suitcase.
“Maybe you and Kaytee have come down with the same thing,” Morgan muses. “Loseritis.”
Only one of us walks out.
Morgan follows Sophie just to make sure she doesn’t get lost on her way out. I stay put because I don’t need to see or hear any more than I already have.
“Well, this worked out even more perfectly than I planned!” Morgan says triumphantly when she comes back. “Ickface is gone, Dunzo is gone, Flaky is gone. It’s just you and me, Morgan & Ella, ready to take over the world! Though it’s totally annoying that we can’t do a multicam edit of all the behind-the-scenes prep for our audition.” She pauses for a second to scroll through her messages. “Omigoddess! I have an idea! Why don’t you film me behind the scenes? Girlboss Lessons is blowing up lately and—”
She stops midsentence and gasps at her phone.
“What is the meaning of this?”
She shoves the screen too close to my eyes to see anything but a blur.
“You? And Alex?”
So much for keeping our friendship a secret. An anonymous middle school paparazzo snapped photos of Alex and me as we walked home from the YMCA today. There’s nothing incriminating about these photos at all, other than the fact that it shows Alex and me together without Morgan.
“There is no me and Alex,” I say truthfully.
“Is this you?” She points at my face on the screen. “And Alex?”
“Yes.” I nod. “And yes.”
“Well, that proves there is a you and Alex!”
She swipes at her phone to show shot after boring shot of Alex walking alongside me and my bike.
“I don’t get it!” Morgan seethes. “I mean, you don’t even look cute in these pictures!”
Whoever took these pictures captured the exact moment Alex asked the question: When did you stop being you?
“You knew how much I liked him and betrayed me by hanging out with him behind my back!”
“We weren’t hanging out,” I say. “We just happened to run into each other …”
I’m reluctant to explain myself because I don’t want Alex dragged into this any more than he already has been. I want to do a better job at keeping his secret than I did my own. Whoever spied on us wants to drive a wedge between Morgan and me. Whoever took and sent these pictures wants to sabotage the meeting with Ribot Entertainment. It has to be Paisley and Maddy. But why? Are they really looking out for me? Or are they just jealous haters?
I don’t know what or who to believe anymore. I watch Morgan’s face for clues to what will happen next. I catch a rippling across her features—top to bottom, a softening of brows, nostrils, lips—as she makes the decision to have mercy on me.
“You’re lucky I already canceled him and his whole family.”
Morgan’s voice is eerily calm now, as if she hadn’t been in a full shout ten seconds ago.
“You’re lucky I’m willing to put your betrayal behind me.”
As if she hadn’t called me “Suckerella” ten minutes ago.
“You’re lucky I’m a professional who will not throw away months of hard work over a loser boy.”
As if she hadn’t been making a fool out of herself in front of this “loser boy” ten days ago.
Morgan pauses and I realize she’s waiting for me to express gratitude for her forgiveness.
“Thank you, Morgan.”
“And?”
“I’m sorry?”
Morgan nods. That was the right answer. But it’s still not enough.
“I accept your apology,” she says. “But can you swear to me right now that you’ll never let any boy distract you again? That you’re as committed to Morgan & Ella as I am? That you’re all in?”
She’s holds out her palm for me to take. This is no ordinary handshake. This is an oath of loyalty. If I refuse her hand, I’m rejecting the brand. I’ll be giving up on fame, fortune, and followers—and all the free fashion, fancy manicures, and faboosh perks that go with it. And for what? To be ordinary instead of extraordinary, the pathetic, mostly-forgotten footnote in Morgan Middleton’s bio.
But can I really promise to be as committed as she is?
“Omigoddess! Of course I am!”
This is the only acceptable answer, even if we both suspect it isn’t true.
No one goes all in like Morgan Middleton.
Hey, OMGs!
So this is Morgan’s nan—I mean, assistant—driving us into Manhattan for our meeting with Ribot Entertainment! Izzy is taking us because Congressman Middleton is in Washington, DC, for a Very Important vote on a Very Important bill and Attorney Middleton is arguing a Very Important case in a Very Important courtroom. Morgan says they are Very Important people living Very Important lives. My mom also wanted to be here to support us, but she couldn’t get the day off on such short notice and also she has a can’t-miss exam tonight. When I tell Morgan that my mom is Very Important to her clients, she comes at me with a makeup brush saying, “You need to rethink your whole brow game.”
I went to school but didn’t say a word to anyone all day because I was on strict instructions from Morgan to rest my vocal chords. This prescription conveniently excused me from all awkward conversations and confrontations with girls claiming to be concerned friends and fans. Morgan skipped school to get her eyelashes tinted and she keeps blinking a lot, like she’s being stabbed by a millionbilliontrillion tiny daggers in her pupils. So this is me asking if she is maybe having an allergic reaction to the dye because the whites of her eyes are kind of redder than usual, but she tells me to focus on myself and not mess this up for her—whoopsie!—she means us.
So this is me following Morgan into the lobby of this fancy
building in Manhattan that is all marble and chrome and filled with Very Important people. We stop at the security desk, and Morgan informs the unsmiling woman behind the desk that we have a meeting with Ribot Entertainment, and part of me is hoping that the unsmiling woman will start cackling with laughter and turn us away because there’s no way two twelve-year-olds could possibly have a meeting scheduled with Riley Quick’s management team. But she confirms our appointment with the receptionist on the tenth floor and hands over our visitor badges and points a finger toward the bank of elevators that will take us there.
Yes, this is really happening.
This is me rising up, up, up in the elevator toward Morgan & Ella’s destiny.
This is me wishing I hadn’t drank a liter of tea on the car ride over, but Morgan insisted on hydration and vocal lubrication. When the doors part, my bladder feels like an overfilled water balloon.
This is Morgan asking me if I’m ready for my life to change.
This is me telling Morgan I have to pee.
This is Morgan telling me to pull myself together.
This is Morgan lecturing me on professionalism or lack thereof.
This is Morgan telling me that her eyeballs feel like beehives but I don’t see her complaining, now do I?
This is Morgan furious at bodily functions.
This is Morgan unsatisfied with telling me what to wear, post, link, sing, say, and think; she wants to control how I pee.
This is me wondering if there’s any limit to the ways Morgan can get mad at me for being me.
I’m peeing as quickly as possible so I can get back to the biggest meeting of Morgan Middleton’s life. Only after I’ve flushed and washed and dried my hands do I hear the whimpers and moans coming from the handicapped stall.
“I (snurfle) SHOULDA (blurfle) BEEN (gurfle) THERE …”
Normally, I would mind my own business. But whoever is in there sounds wounded. Like she needs help.
“Are you okay in there?” I ask.
snurfle blurfle gurfle
I don’t know how to interpret these sounds.
“Um? Are you sure?”
“NOOOOOOOOO.”
Then the metal lock unlatches and the bathroom door swings open to reveal a young woman hunched on the toilet seat. She’s distraught and disheveled but still totally gorgeous. In fact, she looks a lot like Riley Quick …
OMG
THIS
SNURFLING
BLURFLING
GURFLING
GIRL
IS
RILEY
QUICK.
She’s got one of the most famous faces in the world. I know it’s her. And yet, this snurfling, blurfling, gurfling girl, curled up elbows on knees, head in hands, looks absolutely nothing like her.
“My Bee-Eff-Eff got married yesterday!” she sobs.
“Oh!” I reply. “Congratulations to her!”
“I wasn’t invited.”
She hangs her head low. I squat down so we’re on the same level.
“Oh,” I say. “I see.”
She pops up.
“LOOK!”
She thrusts her phone in my face. It’s a model so shiny and new it probably won’t be available to the public for, like, another year or two. Free swag is one of the perks of being famous. But right now, these most technologically advanced, highest-quality images are making Riley Quick—OMG RILEY QUICK!!!—miserable.
“Look how happy Gabby is without me!”
Gabby … Mackenzie. Formerly of Mack & Quick, who chose an “ordinary, boring life” over global multiplatform domination.
Gabby Mackenzie, just a normal human being.
I guess Morgan’s story wasn’t totally bogus after all.
Riley Quick is scrolling through Fotobomb too fast for me to see anything but blurs of white dress and black suit and flowers and sunsets and …
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Tokyo right now? On the Asian leg of your international tour? That’s pretty cool too …”
She shrugs.
“I used to think so,” she says. “Now I’m just … tired.”
I’m exhausted by Morgan’s Must-Dos and we’ve only got, like, twenty thousand fans? Riley Quick has at least ten thousand times more fans than we do. Is it possible to be ten thousand times as exhausted?
She looks it.
“I left my tour and flew here to tell my management team I’m done.”
“Done?”
“I quit.”
I lose my balance and fall backward onto the bathroom tile.
“Quit?” I yelp. “You can’t quit! You’re too important to girls like me!”
She smiles for the first time in our conversation. But it isn’t the Riley Quick smile I’m so used to seeing in photos and videos. It’s more reserved. More real.
“Not forever,” she assures me. She starts scrolling through her phone again. After a few moments, she settles on an image. “Just long enough to remember why I got started in the first place.”
She holds it up for me to see. Two girls with guitars. One with frizzy hair and a mouth full of braces. The other with freckles and a long black braid hanging over her shoulder.
Mack & Quick.
Riley Quick shakes her fingers through her straightened—but dull—hair. Her nail polish is chipped, the tips ragged. When she sits up, I get my first good look at what she’s wearing.
“OMG!” I point at the image of FlutterFyre on her T-shirt. “You’re a fan of the Dragonologist Chronicles?”
Riley Quick looks right at me with her famous violet eyes, and I swear she’s put HydraCaster’s most powerful enchantment spell on me.
“Totally!” she exclaims. “I’ve been obsessed with the series since I was about your age. I’ve had this shirt forever. It’s like my security blanket, I guess. I wear it to sleep, but I’m never supposed to wear it out in public because it doesn’t go with my”—she stops to squeeze air quotes with her fingers—“brand.”
“Omigoddess! Me too! Everything you just said!”
Riley Quick does not look at all surprised by my reaction. I think Riley Quick is very used to girls like me telling her that she’s just like them. That is Riley Quick’s brand. And I think this Everygirl image started out as the truth … until it got warped to the point where it’s hard to tell what’s fake and what’s real, and okay, yeah, now I’m thinking more about myself than Riley Quick. Never, ever in a millionbilliontrillion years did I think I’d have so much in common with Riley Quick! I’m curious if she’s a mixed-up in-betweener FlusterFlutter like me …
“Do you want a selfie?” she asks.
I can’t believe any of this is happening. And if I don’t record any evidence, no one—especially not Morgan—will believe me either.
And yet.
Riley Quick’s face has changed again. Her smile is tighter now, and her eyes are sadder. She isn’t a FlusterFlutter. The Cauldron of Serpentyne would definitely sort her with the ScaleShifters.
“No, thank you,” I reply.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “Everyone always wants a selfie.”
“I’m sure,” I reply.
I have a feeling everyone wants something from Riley Quick. And I don’t want to be everyone.
“Do you want a hug?” I ask.
International superstar Riley Quick’s violet eyes expand to twice their size, like a super-sped-up time-lapse video of flowers in bloom.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”
And now I’ve got not just my arms, but my whole heart and soul wrapped around Riley Quick. But in this moment, she isn’t an international superstar or the number one followed person on Fotobomb. She’s just a girl who messed up, who misses her best friend and is very, very sad because she may not be able to get her back into her life again.
She also smells incredible, like a freshly peeled grapefruit rolled in superfine sugar.
I decide I will never tell anyone about this hug. Not even if, like, after a year-
long hiatus, Riley Quick bursts back onto the scene with her biggest and best song of her career, an international chart topper about a chance encounter in a toilet with an extraordinarily ordinary girl who reminded her why she started making music in the first place.
Which is fine because no one would ever believe me anyway.
Without pics, it never happened.
Morgan is pacing outside the entrance to Ribot Entertainment. In one minute, we will be one minute late for the most important meeting of Morgan Middleton’s life.
“Are you finally ready to prove you’re all in and as committed to Morgan & Ella as I am?”
No, I think.
“No,” I say out loud.
Morgan rattles her head around on her shoulders.
“What? Did? You? Say?”
“No.”
The door opens, and a pink-haired hipster with thick, black glasses pops her head into the hall.
“Are you girls ready?”
I don’t need to see the flash of Morgan’s Everygirl smile to know this is a Very Important person.
“One minute!”
The door closes, Morgan’s smile vanishes.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” she says. “I asked if you’re as committed to Morgan & Ella as I am. And you’re saying …”
“No,” I repeat.
But there’s so much more to that no.
No, I’m not as committed to Morgan & Ella as you are.
No, I don’t want to go to the audition.
No, I don’t want to be the other half of your brand.
No, I don’t want global multiplatform domination.
No, I don’t want to be memed, burned, or hashtagged.
No, I don’t want Sophie, Kaytee, Maddy, or anyone else memed, burned, or hashtagged.
No, I’m not afraid of The Eyeroll.
No, I don’t want anything to do with you anymore, Morgan Middleton.
But Morgan doesn’t deserve to hear the fullest truth. I answer again, simply.
“No.”
Would I have found this courage if I hadn’t shared a chance encounter in a toilet with the biggest pop star in the world? I’ll never know. I’d like to think so.
I pick up my ukulele and walk away from the most important meeting of Morgan Middleton’s life. I take the elevator down, down, down and find Izzy waiting in the main lobby. Morgan won’t chase me down—tryharding is not her style—but I’m desperate to get away.
True to Your Selfie Page 17
