“Come on, Dad!”
He’d said “Dad” again. It had never given me more satisfaction than it did right after he knew I was his uncle.
“‘Come on’ is not a reason to be at an adult concert.”
“You can’t send me home. Summer’s dad drove.”
“Grandma can take my car, and I can do whatever I need to do.”
The wind whipped from behind him, flopping up a moussed panel of hair as if he had a trapdoor on the top of his head. I caught a whiff of him on the breeze.
“Are you wearing my cologne?” My laugh was pure delight, but he must have assumed it was derision.
“Whatever. Fine. Whatever. I’ll just, whatever, go home with Gram, and on Monday everyone can laugh at me. Great. That’s just great. No one’s going to talk to me anymore.” He spun on the back of his sneaker with one hand in his front pocket. The other snapped and twitched as he walked back to the line.
“Phinnaeus!”
He stopped halfway between me and the line but didn’t turn.
“I did not dismiss you.”
His shoulders rose, then fell. He stormed back to me, hanging his head in a cartoon of disappointment.
“There’s no more complaining about taking out the garbage.” He didn’t reply, and I couldn’t see his face from above. “You are not to chant the B-word. I don’t care if it’s empowering to some people. It’s not to you.”
His head popped up, eyes wide, mouth open in a crazed smile.
“I’ll be backstage looking out,” I continued. “I don’t want to see you drinking soda, eating candy or anything with sugar. It makes you hyper, and I know you want to be on your best behavior in front of Summer. Am I right?”
“Yes!” He threw his arms around me.
“Another thing. If the people around you are acting crazy, that’s not an excuse for you to act the fool.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
I patted his head, mentally listing off a lifetime’s worth of guidelines I’d never gotten around to telling him. It seemed too late. He either knew how to act or he didn’t.
“Do you have money?”
He squeezed me harder. “I have the twenty you gave me for my birthday.”
I took out my wallet, and he unwrapped himself, bouncing nervously. “You’re going to need more than that.” I pulled out three twenties. Teenagers were expensive. “Get Summer a thank-you gift or a soda or something. Offer her dad gas money on the way home, which is code for ‘Don’t spend it all at the concert.’ And don’t forget to thank your grandmother.”
He hugged me again. “Thank you. I love you.”
“I love you too.” I kissed his head and gave him a last squeeze. “Don’t get all mushy on me. Get out of here.”
He held up his fist. “Not even big enough right now, but it’s the size I got.”
I bumped. “I love you too.”
He ran back to the line with a rubbery grace, his gangly limbs growing to fit his newly expanded world.
CHAPTER 70
CARTER
I admit, I found out where Phin was sitting and asked the security lady at the closed circuits to keep an eye on him. She winked and agreed to. After that, I had to let it go. He was fine. He’d better be. Darlene was getting onstage in a silver bodysuit and wig, and I didn’t have the headspace for him. Backstage handlers were in a flurry of activity and anticipation.
“She really is something,” Emily said from behind me. I put my arm around her for a second, then let her go. I was on the clock.
“Yep.”
“They always said we both had talent, but she was the star.”
“It’s a big sky.”
She rolled her eyes at me as if I didn’t already have a teenager at home, then ran to get her dancers in place for their first big number. She was the picture of competence, and to me, she was a star.
I took a call for a drunk and disorderly, caught a crasher, redirected giggling girls looking for the bathroom, and called for cola cleanup.
The auditorium went quiet between songs. Darlene’s voice didn’t sing but spoke the first few lines of “More Than a Sister” over the cheers and hoots of her fans. I couldn’t catch every word.
. . . sometimes you have a friend . . . lost and you don’t know what to do . . . lean on . . . good times and bad . . . more than a sister.
The crowd went wild at the title, and the song began with a thump, Darlene’s operatic opening, another thump, and a different note from a different singer.
Emily hopped onto the stage with the dancers and a handheld mic. After another thump, Darlene and Emily sang together, and Emily took the first verse.
She was good.
Really good.
Maybe rough.
Maybe not silver from head to toe.
Maybe I didn’t know shit, but she was the most stunning woman to take the stage. Any stage. Ever. I didn’t know about show business, but I knew someone I loved when I saw her. And that was her. Shining her light, matching Darlene for the chorus, letting her take the next verse with a dance. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
I didn’t realize how hard I was smiling until my face hurt.
Finally, finally, after my sister and Emily and protecting Phin from his own history, I let myself taste victory.
CHAPTER 71
EMILY
It was completely possible that I hadn’t breathed since the end of the song. Or the whole time I managed my dancers. Or until the laughter and flowers had stopped and Simon picked me up in the dressing room to present the World’s Next Top Diva to everyone.
Drunk on endorphins and freedom, I hugged everyone I’d worked with on the show. I hugged the venue staff. I hugged people who didn’t even want to be hugged.
“I knew you could do it!” Darlene jumped on me, wrapping her legs around my waist. We’d sung together forty minutes before, but she acted as if we’d both just stepped off the stage.
“You were perfect,” I said. “But I want to work on the—”
“Girl! No! You just let yourself feel good for a minute. Do you feel good?”
“I feel good.”
“Can you breathe that in? That good feeling? Like this. Go . . .” She sucked air through her nose and waved her hand in the air. “Do it.”
I did it.
“Feel good?”
“Feels good.” She hugged me again, a good, long one this time until I caught the scent of fireworks and heard a man’s hands clap in slow applause. I opened my eyes to see Carter.
Darlene broke the hug. “Take her—she’s yours.”
Darlene fell out of my vision, because all I could see was Carter with his crooked smile and straight shoulders.
“You were good,” he said above the excited voices and laughs of the cast and crew. The show had been a success, and it was time to celebrate.
“Good?”
His smile stretched to both sides of his magnificent mouth, and in a swift motion I wasn’t ready for, he swept me into his arms and picked me up until we were nose to nose.
“You didn’t sound anything like a frog.”
“What did I sound like?”
“Like you belonged up there.”
His kiss was firm and strong, sealing his words with action.
“You know where else I belong?” I asked.
“With me.”