Olivia looked at me with an expression I’d never seen on her face before. “You should have just stayed in Jessell where you belong.”
I felt like she’d slapped me. I wished she’d slap me; I wanted to hit her back, to hurt her as much as I possibly could—to pull hair and leave scratches, to have this out once and for all. Then I wanted to storm out of the bedroom—out of the apartment, out of the complex, out of Orlando entirely—but one, it wasn’t like I had anywhere to go, and two, that was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it? For me to go back to Jessell with my tail between my legs, to let her take her place in the spotlight? No, I thought spitefully, flouncing onto my bed and raising my eyebrows in a challenge. She could go if she wanted. I was going to stick it out.
Olivia glared at me, shook her head again, and threw herself into her own bed so hard the springs groaned. Both of us lay there, breathing angrily, neither of us getting up to change into pajamas or brush our teeth, refusing to cede even an inch of space to the other. My whole body ached like a bruise.
TWENTY-ONE
Olivia was already gone by the time I woke up the next morning, the comforter on her bed neatly smoothed, pillow plumped and lying against the headboard. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought she hadn’t slept in it at all. It annoyed me, how meticulous she was, how tidy. Everything about her annoyed me right now.
I wasn’t late, but the rest of them were already downstairs waiting in the car, sitting three in a row in the backseat like birds on a telephone wire. Olivia didn’t say anything when I opened the door of Charla’s SUV, staring out the window with her arms crossed. Kristin and Ash oozed silent contempt from the backseat. Perfect, I thought, buckling my seat belt with more force than was probably necessary, my stomach twisting unpleasantly as I imagined what she must have told them about our fight and how it had started. Now they could add backstabbing slut to the long list of reasons they hated my guts.
Charla followed me down the steps into the parking lot, hair tightly secured in a long braid over her shoulder and her car keys jingling in her hand. “Everything okay?” she asked, eyes cutting from me to the rest of them.
“Yup,” I said, too loudly. “Everything’s great.”
Guy sat in on our rehearsal again that day, leaning back in a folding chair in the corner and looking at us critically, his arms folded across the bulk of his barrel chest. “Okay, ladies,” he said once we were finished with our warm-ups. “Here I am. Better than last time, right? I want you to amaze me.”
I wasn’t feeling much like I could amaze anybody on this particular morning, my black mood like a woolen cape out of a fairy tale, but I took a deep breath and tried to focus. I wanted to let the anger fuel me, to use it as motivation to do better than I ever had before—to prove, once and for all, that I deserved to be here just as much as anyone else did. When I glanced over at Olivia she was scowling in my direction; I rolled my eyes and looked away. Let her think I was only here to steal from her, to take what she saw as rightfully hers. Let them all think whatever they wanted. I’d show everyone the truth.
I closed my eyes briefly as Lucas started us on an up-tempo dance number called “Hey,” the electronic drumbeat coming from his keyboard matching the thump of my own anxious heart. Ashley was the tiniest bit early on her cue, but the rest of us hit our first poses exactly, crouching down and then exploding upward, elbows popping and fingers spread wide.
We looked and sounded way better than we had the last time Guy had watched us, I knew that much was undeniable. The extra rehearsing we’d been doing—that I’d been doing—was paying off. But the tension radiating from us was palpable, like stink lines in a Saturday morning cartoon: when I glanced over at Ashley, her smile had taken on a manic, slightly deranged quality, like she’d been lobotomized. Kristin was straight-up grimacing as she ground her way through the routine. And Olivia’s voice was way louder than usual, her volume making it difficult for me to find the harmonies I’d been working so ridiculously hard on, that by now I could usually hit problem-free. Was she purposely trying to out-sing me? I couldn’t tell for sure.
“Stop,” Guy said suddenly, standing up and waving his hand until Lucas took his fingers off the keyboard; the silence was startling, almost obscene. “Stop, stop, stop.” He looked around the room at us, frowning. “This isn’t working.”
All of us froze where we were for a moment, the color draining out of everyone’s faces. What wasn’t working? I wondered, but none of us dared to say a word. Ash crossed her arms, hugging herself like she was suddenly freezing. Olivia’s lips were a pale, thin line.
“Your whole brand is supposed to be carefree fun,” Guy reminded us. “It’s summertime, school’s out, everybody’s enjoying themselves. The four of you look like you’re having root canals up there. It’s fucking miserable to look at.”
Fucking miserable, seriously? It felt like a balloon had popped inside my chest. All the work I’d been putting in lately, and for what? Here I was, in the same place we’d been weeks ago, never measuring up.
Guy shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong,” he went on, as if he knew what I was thinking. “Technically, you’re better than you were. I can see you’re trying. But it’s a personality thing. The four of you should have gelled by now, and you just haven’t. Quite honestly, you’re boring to watch. Maybe four is the wrong number here, I don’t know.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Look,” he said, “the thing about these groups is that there’s one star. You get that, right? The Jackson Five had Michael; the Supremes had Diana Ross. All four of you in a line like this, vying for attention—it doesn’t work. It’s hard on the eye.”
Guy was quiet for a moment, his words hanging in the air as if you could reach out and grab them, a handful of broken glass. “So,” he said, looking at each of us in turn, “which one of you is the star?”
That took me aback—took all of us aback, our eyes widening, the question sucking all the air out of the room. Nobody said anything; the four of us looked at one another uneasily. After a moment Guy sighed, impatient. “This isn’t some cute rhetorical exercise, ladies. I’m looking for an answer.”
Silence. Olivia stared at her fingernails. Kristin looked at the ground. Ashley and I caught eyes for a minute, both of us glancing immediately away. Until now we’d been able to keep up the facade that we were all in this together, a team—albeit a messed-up one—working toward a common goal. Asking us to pick among ourselves felt taboo, as if Guy had demanded to know which one of us was ugliest or deserved to be dropped off a bridge. It felt like he was trying to get us to violate some kind of implicit code.