Chapter Twenty-One
OKAY, SO IT WASN’T HER BEST PARKING JOB. BUT IF ALICE WASN’T saying anything about the wheel up on the curb, Tiernan wasn’t about to bring it up. The rules were different today anyway. Alice had been eerily quiet and easygoing for the entire drive to Houston—rehearsing her dance without even one suggestion of a “better idea.”
In a way, Tiernan was relieved Alice wasn’t barking orders per usual, but there was something unsettling about a mellow Alice Miller, like drinking flat Coke. She’d only seen Alice like this once before, freshman year, right after Summer had officially dumped them as friends. But if anything could make Alice happy, it was the fact that they were about to perform their dweebie seventh grade dance routine.
Tiernan smoothed her hair in the rearview mirror, shoved some quarters into the meter, and the three of them took off down the street. They didn’t need to speak. All they needed to do was get there in time. Then they needed to win.
By the time they reached the end of the block, she could hear “Parade” reverberating across the field at Liberty Park.
“What the duck?” Tiernan gasped.
Alice looked stricken. “Someone’s singing our song!”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Summer. “We have our own thing going. We just have to believe in that.”
Easy for her to say. Her long strawberry blond hair and perfect bone structure had unlocked so many doors for her, it was as though she expected them to just fly open whenever she approached. Of course, they usually did. Not a bad thing if you managed to squeeze yourself in along with her.
The entrance to the Freedom Stage (barf) was flanked by two black WKID vans with giant speakers on top. Next to them, a couple of radio station lackeys handed out free bumper stickers and neon green wristbands. As Tiernan put on her admission bracelet, a group of four women in their twenties exited through the gates, laughing and talking animatedly as they passed. One of them wore a giant poofy wedding gown, the other three had on tacky pink bridesmaids’ dresses. Tiernan had listened to Kai and Laura G.’s play-by-play of what was apparently a staggeringly awful dance routine the women had performed to “Always a Bridesmaid” about a half hour back. Now they looked like they were about to pee themselves, they were laughing so hard.
“Too bad we don’t still have matching outfits,” Summer said as they made their way onto the field. Tiernan laughed. Back in sixth grade they had this thing where they dressed identically every Friday—blue cords, tan Uggs, Level3 baseball shirts. Oh yeah, they were chic. But Tiernan had loved getting dressed for school on Friday mornings. It was the first time she could remember being part of something bigger than herself. Until right now, she’d never even realized she’d missed that feeling.
The field inside the stadium was crawling with Level3 fans—emo dudes in skinny jeans, punk chicks with skin the color of paste, your standard variety high school kids, college kids who looked like older, grubbier versions of the high school kids, and, of course, the prerequisite teenybopper girls with someone’s mom lurking ten feet behind. The festiveness of it all put Tiernan on edge.
Onstage, a dude in his early twenties played an instrumental version of “Snow Cone” on clarinet. The fact that it wasn’t half bad made Tiernan’s whole body seize up with an overwhelming desire to run.
“He’s good,” Alice said.
Tiernan nodded. “We can still bail if you want.”
“No. We can’t,” Summer snapped. She’d been all “Eye of the Tiger” ever since her big comeback.
Tiernan tried to shake off her nerves. She didn’t really want to bail, but she didn’t want to lose, either. If she was going to put herself out there for the entire world to see, then Summer and Alice better be ready to bring their A game.
“Chillax, Sunny-D. I was just kidding.”
“Can you not call me that?”
Tiernan shrugged. “Sorry. I thought you liked it.”
“You think I like having a nickname that compares me to a sickeningly sweet fake orange juice concoction?”
Tiernan wanted to tell Summer that she never meant it like that. Not to mention that she actually liked SunnyD. But Alice jumped in before she had the chance.
“You guys,” Alice commanded. “We need to focus.”
A guy in a WKID T-shirt directed them to the end of the line of performers and handed Alice a registration sheet to fill out. In front of them were three college-age girls, each holding a Paris Hilton–style ratdog dressed up in miniature human clothes.
“Look!” Summer said, pointing to the handwritten names on their little dog collars. “They’re supposed to be Travis, Ryan, and Luke.”
The dog dressed as Luke wore mini-Wayfarer nerd glasses. “I’m making an anonymous phone call to PETA,” Tiernan whispered.
“Do we have a group name?” Alice asked. Having a clipboard in her hand was bringing her back to life—the order, the control—like a shot of booze for an alcoholic.
The Ex–Best Friends? The Extremely Awkward Road Trip Trio? Yesterday Tiernan could have suggested these as a joke. But today they had a contest to win.
Or maybe it was about more than just the contest. Back home, Tiernan and her friends were always insulting one another with a constant flow of quick-witted banter. But with Alice and Summer, it was different. She was still her usual sarcastic self, but around them, she didn’t feel the need to be “on” all the time. She didn’t have to blurt out some mean ironic joke, just so she could do it first.
Sometimes it seemed like her friends back home were secretly in some silent competition with one another to see who could be the cleverest or who knew the hippest bands. But at the end of the day, who really cared? Summer probably liked Top 40, but that didn’t take away from the fact she was probably ten times more original than half of Tiernan’s friends pretended to be. And no one Tiernan had ever met even came close to being as shamelessly genuine as Alice.
“What about the Pea Pod Experience?” Alice offered, answering her own question. She’d always been good at this type of stuff, with or without a hangover.
“Well, it’s definitely been an experience,” Summer said. Emphasis on the ex.
The radio station intern came back to collect their clipboard. “I’m not quite finished yet,” Alice said.
“Actually, I just got word from my producer that we don’t have time to see any more acts today,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean?” Tiernan snapped. “We drove five and a half hours to get here.” She hated peons like this who thought a stupid VIP badge around their necks made them superior.
“I’m sorry, but they need to wrap up the morning show by noon.” He pointed to the DJs at the side of the stage.
Tiernan’s legs felt twitchy, like she needed to run, or kick someone. Preferably the weasel with the clipboard.
“Sir, we came all the way from Massachusetts.” Summer pouted. “We practiced our dance in a moving van, for God’s sake!”
“It’s not up to me, ma’am,” the man said, then walked away.
Alice just stood there, catatonic.
“No, they’re not going to deny us,” Tiernan said. “They can’t.”
“I don’t think we really have a choice,” Alice replied. She looked like she was fighting off tears.
“This is bull,” Summer said. “They have to give us a chance. After everything we’ve been through.”
“Wow, that was wonderful,” Laura G.’s voice boomed out over the PA when the clarinet kid was done.
“Do your lips get sore playing that thing?” Kai asked. His bouncy DJ voice didn’t match his scruffy, middle-aged body.
“I guess we should just go,” Alice said. “I don’t really feel like sticking around this place, do you?”
Summer shook her head.
“Hang on,” Tiernan said.
Even though it was hell here, Tiernan didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want it to end like this—shut down by some radio station d-bag. It wasn’t that she was in love with the idea of shaking her booty in front of hundreds of strangers—that part she could do without. But they’d come too far not to perform. They’d endured too much to just sit around and let this happen. Tiernan had messed things up for them in the past; that was true. And there was nothing she could do to change that. But she could do something about the present. At least she had to try. And if her plan worked, if she could convince the DJs to let them perform, then maybe, just maybe, she could finally make things right between them.
“Give me a minute,” Tiernan said, then she ran off into the crowd. She didn’t know what she was going to say to Kai and Laura G. (if she could even get through to them) but she needed to say something. Her impulsiveness got them into that whole mess freshman year, and it just might get them out of this one.
The front of the stage was lined with more radio station minions with VIP badges, and behind them, a row of big dudes in orange “Security” T-shirts. There was no way Tiernan was getting through without getting arrested. But maybe . . .
The van wasn’t far. The keys, still in her pocket. Tiernan took off across the field past a group of emo boys whose dramatic sideswept bangs seemed to point her toward the gate as if to say Go for it. Run.
So she ran—down the entrance to Liberty Park, across the street, up the sidewalk, her blue bob bouncing against her cheeks, fanning her face from the midday Texas heat. Back in Massachusetts, she would have been sweating buckets on a day this hot, but here, the air was so dry it sucked the sweat right off her face before it had a chance to collect.
Carefully, she opened the van’s sliding door, grabbing a pen from the glove box and peeling their map-collage-spectacular off of its designated spot on the wall. Then she speed-walked back to the contest, writing as she went. Being raised Jewish, she’d never written a letter to Santa before, but she imagined it was pretty much like this—hopeful, demanding, and naive all at the same time. Kind of like Alice.
Dear WKID bigwigs,
I’m writing this letter to ask you—no, to beg you—
to give us the chance to perform today . . .
Tiernan waved her wristband at the security guys as she tore through the gate. A paper airplane could work, if it didn’t veer horribly off course. Or she could just ball the collage up and chuck it onstage—but security might think she was some kind of deranged fan trying to blow up the DJs. The third option was to give it to someone who could deliver it to Kai and Laura G.
The security guards were all total Neanderthals. And the people in the WKID T-shirts looked like lowly interns who’d probably be too afraid of pissing off their bosses to take a chance. Then Tiernan saw him—a dude in his early thirties with a hipster’s handlebar mustache, black cowboy hat, and an all-access press badge. In his hands he held a camera with a lens as big as a loaf of bread. He was a photojournalist, and photo-journalists were always looking for stories, weren’t they?
“Hey, camera guy.”
The man turned around.
“I was wondering if you might do me a favor?”
She handed him the collage, rolled up like a sacred scroll and secured with a hot pink hair elastic. He reached for it skeptically, as if she were handing him a pipe bomb or a love note.
“Can you give this to Kai and Laura for me?”
“I don’t work for the radio station—” he started.
But Tiernan had already run off, leaving him stuck with it. Now he could make a choice—perform a random act of kindness for a total stranger or do nothing. She wondered what she would have done. The better version of herself would have delivered the note. The thoughtless, selfish version of herself would have blown it off, tossed it in the trash, and pushed the memory away.
When she got back, Alice and Summer were lying on the grass in a patch of shade. “Hair of the Dog” was blaring from the speakers. Naturally, the dog act was onstage.
“Where were you?” Summer asked.
“Just trying to help our cause,” Tiernan said enigmatically. “Trust me.” Alice opened her eyes just wide enough to reveal the doubt in her expression. It took a lot to make a cynic out of Alice Miller, but leave it to Tiernan to have found a way. Up on stage, the smallest of the miniature dogs pranced about on his hind legs.
Tiernan wanted to tell them about giving the DJs her note written on the back of the collage. But what if that photographer hadn’t given it to Kai and Laura G.? Or what if he had and they just didn’t care? And if Tiernan had given away the collage for nothing, there’s no telling what Alice might do. It wouldn’t matter that she’d done it for them, for all the right reasons. She’d told herself that exact same thing the night of the Winter Wonderland Dance, hadn’t she?
“Can we just go?” Alice sat up. “This is too painful to watch.”
“Let’s just wait a few more minutes,” Tiernan said. Onstage, Canine Luke marked his turf on the leg of the judge’s table.
“Okay, I think we’ve seen enough,” Kai’s voice boomed out across the field as he leaped from his chair.
The audience laughed.
“Seriously, kids,” Kai said to the dogs’ owners. “We’re gonna have to stop here. We’re calling it off.”
“You mean, we’re calling it arf,” Laura G. corrected.
The audience let out a collective “Awwwww.”
“Oh, give me a break. You guys like dog pee on you?” Kai shot back.
The sound effects guy played a Wolverine-like growl.
The only thing more torturous than this radio schtick was the anxious feeling in Tiernan’s stomach. If her letter hadn’t worked, it would all end here.
“Okay, then.” The plastic voice was back. “We’re going to tabulate the scores for today’s performances, and we’ll be back with the results after this message.”
“Crap,” Tiernan said.
The radio station cut to commercial. That was it. Her plan hadn’t worked. Of course it hadn’t. What had she been thinking? That she could actually save the day and be a hero? And what were the odds that their stupid little dance would win them the contest anyway? Even if it did, what was the point? Two months from now, they’d all be away at college and she’d probably never see Alice and Summer again.
“So what now?” Summer asked.
Alice just shrugged. She looked tired, older.
An ad for an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet played over the loudspeakers while Kai fired WKID T-shirts into the crowd out of a T-shirt cannon. You’d think he was shooting out nuggets of solid gold the way people clamored for them—screaming and elbowing each other, like some crappy T-shirts could make up for the fact that none of them had tickets for tonight’s show.
Tiernan tugged at the green bracelet at her wrist, hurrying along the back of the field, skirting around the crowd.
“Slow down,” Alice called out.
But Tiernan kept on walking. As long as she was moving forward, she could pretend that she didn’t care about failing to get them into the contest, that missing the Level3 show meant nothing to her at all. Whatever happened between here and the van, Tiernan wouldn’t let herself even glance at Alice’s and Summer’s faces. She had too much disappointment of her own to deal with to even begin to tackle theirs.
Next thing she knew, something hit her shoulder, knocking her flat on the ground. Frantically, Tiernan looked around for the person who had thrown the sucker punch. But when she saw the T-shirt lying next to her, she realized she’d suffered a more humiliating injury—popped in a drive-by T-shirt shooting.
Already Alice and Summer were on their knees next to her, their faces a mixture of shock and concern.
“Sorry, my bad,” Kai said over the loudspeakers, his voice not even approximating genuine concern.
“Are you okay?” Alice asked.
Tiernan nodded. Her shoulder stung, but she was fine. Which was more than she could say for the brainless crowd of rubberneckers gathered around her.
“Do you mind?” Summer asked, glaring at them. Tiernan had always loved the way Summer could just shut people down with a word or a look. Tiernan could piss people off, but Summer made them wither.
“What the hell?” Tiernan asked, picking up the T-shirt. It was rolled into a tight little cylinder, like a giant cotton-polyester-blend bullet. “WKID, Houston - For the kid in all of us.”
“I fricking hate WKID,” Alice spat.
Tiernan squeezed her shoulder in her hand. At least a big nasty bruise might buy her some sympathy later when Alice discovered she’d given away their Level3 map. The radio station theme song blasted out onto the field. Their signal to keep moving.
“We are back on the air at the Level3 Super-Fan Challenge, and this is Kai—and Laura G.—coming to you live from the Freedom Stage at Liberty Park. As you know, we are in the final moments of this contest where four lucky fans will win front-row tickets to tonight’s Level3 concert in Austin, complete with a limo ride to and from the show.”
The crowd hooted and screamed on cue.
“Well, Kai, I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” Laura G. said.
“Uh-oh.”
“Well, the bad news, you already know. But for those of you who aren’t actually here with us at the Liberty Park Freedom Stage, during our commercial break Kai accidentally shot a girl with our WKID T-shirt gun.”
“Who needs two eyes anyway?” Kai laughed at his own joke. “Really, though—what’s the good news?”
“The good news is that I’ve been handed a note from our producer telling me that we have time for one more act,” Laura G. said.
The crowd cheered. Tiernan slowed as she exited the gate, her stomach felt like clay.
“Is there a Pea Pod Experience in the house?”
Before she had time to absorb the meaning of Kai’s words, Tiernan was running—charging through the crowd toward the stage, Alice and Summer at her heels.
“It’s step, step, turn together, jump back, right leg kick . . .” The sudden change of plans had snapped Alice from her coma and right back into cruise director mode.
“Just pretend we’re back in the basement,” Summer whispered as the security guards examined their wristbands, then motioned for them to head up the stairs. Tiernan quickly smoothed her hair, wishing she had more time to make herself look presentable, but a radio station employee already had her by the elbow, whisking her out to center stage, the sun beating down on her from straight overhead, the audience staring.
“Now, my producer tells me earlier today he was handed a very special note,” Laura G. said, holding up the collage. “What would you call this? A collage?”
Tiernan nodded. She could feel Alice’s and Summer’s eyes on her but she couldn’t bring herself to meet them.
“It’s very intricate piece of artwork here,” Kai explained to the audience. “Lots of old photos of Level3, and some pictures of these girls, too. And it also appears to be a map?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Tiernan said, nodding. It had never crossed her mind this might involve public speaking.
“So, tell me if I got this right.” Laura G. took over. “You girls drove here all the way from Massachusetts to see the Level3 show tonight, but then your tickets were stolen?”
A radio station employee held a microphone in front of the three of them.
“That’s right,” Alice answered, confused.
Looking at the audience made Tiernan’s stomach tighten like a fist so she brought her gaze back to Laura and Kai. This is just a conversation between us and them. We’re the only ones here. Just keep looking at the DJs.
“And the name of your group—The Pea Pod Experience—it has a special meaning?”
“Well . . .” Alice gave the DJs a brief history of their friendship, conveniently skipping over the part where it ended.
“Wow,” Kai said. “So, you girls have been best friends for eight years?”
Tiernan’s neck and face muscles tightened from nervousness so that she smiled involuntarily, like a crazy person. For a few seconds nobody spoke.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Alice said.
The audience gave a collective laugh.
“Well, I think we want to hear this story, right?” Kai asked the crowd. Naturally, the crowd answered with a roaring “Yes!”
This time Tiernan knew it was her turn to reach for the mic. It didn’t matter that her stage fright made it feel like there were a million tiny knives stabbing her in the gut. She knew what she had to do, and it had to be done right here, right now, no matter how terrifying it felt.
“Freshman year, I did something . . . bad,” Tiernan began, her voice quivering. “I told a lie, and I never told them about it.” The crowd fell quiet. She could feel thousands of eyes staring up at her, waiting. “And because of it, things got all messed up between us.”
Somehow Tiernan found the nerve to look at Alice and Summer. She hadn’t brought her camera, though later she would remember these moments like a series of photographs—Alice’s and Summer’s surprise, Laura G. smiling with genuine sympathy, and the lens of the man with the handlebar mustache focused just on her. She was exposed, overexposed—spilling her guts in front of hundreds of strangers—thousands more listening at home or in their cars.
“Freshman year, I went to a different high school than Alice and Summer, so I didn’t get to see them as much as I did before, and it felt like we were starting to drift apart. Especially me, since I wasn’t around. So I decided to come home for the weekend, so we could all sleep over my house, just like we used to, just the three of us.”
Instantly Tiernan was transported back to that night. How she’d called Summer from the train station, all excited, to figure out what movie they’d rent, when Summer dropped the bomb that she’d been asked to the Winter Wonderland Dance by some meathead junior from the basketball team. She still wanted to have the sleepover, Summer assured Tiernan, only she thought they should all go to the dance first.
“What about Alice?” Tiernan had asked. “What does she want to do?”
“I haven’t told her yet,” Summer admitted. “I’m not sure how well she’ll get along with Tom’s friends, you know what I mean? And Tom’s bringing beers for us to drink in the parking lot before. Anyway, if you don’t want to go, that’s fine; I can always meet up with you guys later.”
It was a tiny thing, really. A minor little delay to their weekend of fun. But it hit Tiernan right where it hurt. She’d come all the way home to see them, and here Summer was, throwing her under the bus for some boy.
“Let me talk to Alice and call you back,” she said, as Judy pulled up in Tiernan’s dad’s old Land Rover.
The entire ride home, Tiernan only managed to give one-syllable answers to Judy’s questions, her anger over Summer’s change of plans—over being interrogated by her mother, over everything—building by the second. What was so wrong with her that made everybody want to leave? What had she done that was so awful?
When she got home, Tiernan stormed down to the basement without another word to Judy and called Alice from her cell.
“We can stop by the dance for a while, can’t we?” Alice asked meekly.
Tiernan couldn’t believe it. She’d thought Alice, of all people, would be on her side.
“Why would I want to go to some lame-ass Snowball Dance?” Tiernan hissed. “I don’t even go to WHS.”
“First of all, it’s called the Winter Wonderland Dance,” Alice corrected. “And second, it’s just a dance. Who cares whether or not you go to school here?”
Tiernan knew that Alice didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but still. Who cares? The words had a ring that seemed to resonate through Tiernan’s entire body.
“Don’t you know what Summer is doing?” Tiernan spat. The words seemed to fly out from someplace dark, perfectly aimed at Alice’s heart.
“She doesn’t really want us to go, Alice. She thinks we’ll embarrass her. Plus, she basically told me her new friends don’t like you anyway.”
Tiernan could actually feel the sting of Alice’s hurt on the other end of the line, as if the phone’s fiber optics could silently transmit another person’s pain.
Sadly, the audience in Houston was not so silent. Some people in the crowd actually hissed and booed. Not that Tiernan didn’t deserve it.
“I made it up because I was jealous.” Tiernan wiped a tear with the back of her hand and looked at Summer. “I was jealous that you two got to go to school together while I was off by myself, missing everything. I was jealous that every time I talked to Alice, all she could talk about was what you were doing, and how you were making other friends. Like you were the only one who mattered. Like I didn’t matter at all.”
Tiernan looked to Alice next. “And I lied to you, Alice, because I wanted you to be as angry at Summer as I was. But then, when you were, I felt so guilty that I could barely talk to you. I didn’t want to answer your calls.”
Tiernan could still remember that ugly night in perfect detail—chasing Alice through the halls of Walford High, like she was actually trying to stop her instead of just fanning the flames of the fire she’d started. Hell, she’d brought the kindling and the lighter fluid, too. By the time they made it to the cafeteria, Alice was moving so fast, the giant paper snowflakes that hung from the ceiling swayed in her breeze.
Tiernan could have still stopped it then, that moment before Alice found Summer in the crowd, her eyes narrowing like a cat’s when it sees a bird. Summer didn’t even see them coming, sitting on a windowsill next to Tom and his friends and laughing—not even dancing, Tiernan had noted—even though Level3 was on.
It was our heyday, hey day, hey . . .
“Sorry to interrupt your little date,” Alice began. The match to the wood.
The microphone crackled, snapping Tiernan back to the present. “Alice, that night . . . I just made up all that crap Summer said about you because I was afraid . . .” She looked down at the dusty stage floor. “I was afraid you liked her better than me. That you’d always liked her better than me.” If this was the mud her mother was talking about slogging through, Tiernan was up to her neck in it now.
“I know I acted like it didn’t bother me that the three of us were drifting apart.” Tiernan brought her gaze back to Alice and Summer, relieved to see tears welling in their eyes. “But I did care . . . I do care.”
For a moment they all just stared at one another.
“Hey, kids, I don’t want to interrupt your tender reconciliation . . .” Kai’s voice broke the silence. “. . . but we’re a bit short on time.”
The audience laughed. Tiernan laughed with them.
“Sorry.”
“Well, on that note,” Laura G. jumped in. “You girls ready to dance, or what?”
“ENCORE”
CALL ME OUT, AGAIN
AND I’LL PLAY YOUR FAVORITE SONG
IT’S NOT MUCH TO REPEAT
OUR GREATEST HITS,
IF YOU’RE SINGING ALONG
SO WHY DID I PRETEND
I WAS DONE WITH THE SHOW?
AND THEY’RE CALLING ME OUT AGAIN
BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO.
—from Level3’s third CD, Natural Causes