“You too,” Ashley instructed. “How is it there?”
I hesitated. “It’s okay,” I said carefully. I didn’t feel like I could tell her how much I missed Olivia, how weird and lonely this new setup felt. “It’s good.”
“Good,” Ash said, and it sounded like she meant it. “I’ll listen for you on the radio,” she promised as we were saying good-bye, and I swallowed something that felt bizarrely like tears at the back of my throat.
“Bye, Ash,” I said.
After that I called Kristin, who hung up on me so hard I could actually feel it in my eardrum. I put the receiver back in its cradle, leaning my head against the wall.
“No rehearsal today,” Charla said two mornings later, when I came out into the living room; Olivia was already sitting at the table, a bowl of oatmeal pushed to the side. “The two of you have got media training this morning.”
I frowned. “What’s media training?” I asked.
Media training, as it turned out, was Olivia and I sitting side by side in Guy’s office while a middle-aged blond woman named Gayle taught us how to answer interview questions without embarrassing ourselves or our coaches. Gayle rubbed me the wrong way immediately, her red lipstick and carefully shellacked hair like the women who worked at the fancy department stores in Atlanta, her mouth drawn up tight like a square knot in the middle of her face.
I only half listened as she droned on through her list of dos and don’ts, looking over at Olivia out of the corner of my eye. Her attention was rapt, of course, head tilted slightly to the side as she took in everything Gayle was saying; she’d be great on TV, I knew, same as she was great in performance: poised and disciplined and confident, nothing ugly ever seeping through the cracks. I frowned and looked away, picking at a loose thread on my shorts. I kept waiting for the moment when sitting near her or hearing her talk didn’t make me want to scream or punch her or burst into tears, but it hadn’t happened yet. We’re a team, I wanted to shout; I wanted to shake her. What the hell happened to the two of us being a team?
“People will know what you tell them,” Gayle explained. “Be pleasant, but not boring. Stay on message. And for Pete’s sake, smile. We’re building a brand here. We’re selling a product,” she continued, “and the product is you.”
There was that word again. I got an unpleasant creeping feeling every time anyone said it, like Olivia and I were a pair of dolls in boxes on a shelf. I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair, frowning. Gayle glanced at me with open disapproval.
“Now,” she said, “a word about body language . . .”
We had our first live performances that weekend, opening for Hurricane State at a festival at a big public park in Orlando. We were scheduled to go on right after the pie-eating contest, which is about the only way we convinced Mikey not to enter. “I could take this!” he protested, looking longingly over his shoulder at the racks of blueberry and rhubarb. “You’re keeping me from my true calling!”
It was even hotter than usual; volunteers were handing out little bottles of water, and spritzing stations were set up so that people wouldn’t pass out from heat exhaustion. Juliet sprayed our faces with Aqua Net to keep our makeup from melting down our cheeks. “You’re up first,” she told me, reaching up and tucking a stray piece of my hair back. I glanced at Olivia, who was looking away.
I’d spent the whole morning anxious out of my brain, reliving the disaster of our rehearsals in front of Guy on a never-ending loop. Why had I thought I wanted this again? As I watched the crowd gather in front of the makeshift stage, red-faced and restless, it was hard to remember.
The DJ from a local radio station introduced us over the microphone, feedback squealing out into the throng. The crowd clapped politely down in the grass. The recording Lucas and the other backup musicians had made of our tracks blared from the speakers and out across the park, and then it was just . . . happening.
“Hi, guys!” I heard myself say, my voice as clear and steady as if it belonged to somebody else entirely. “I’m Dana Cartwright!”
I’d spent the last few days steeling myself for the possibility of disaster, expecting my nerves to swallow me like some kind of tsunami, but instead I felt calmer than I ever had. I felt . . . ready. Right away I felt muscle memory take over, like all these weeks of practicing had actually meant something. Like every once in a while, hard work paid off. I remembered every lyric, knew every step and combination. And when I hit my most difficult note, it took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to stop in the middle of the song and fist-pump. Suck it, Lucas, I thought.
Take that, Liv.
The best part, though—the absolute best, most surprising, most unbelievable part—was how much the crowd was enjoying it. They were dancing and clapping and singing along with me, and when I got to the part in “Heat Wave” where I asked everybody to throw their arms in the air, everybody did. I spotted Alex off to the side just then, watching, and the proud, happy grin on his face told me everything I needed to know.
I felt like I was magic, like I could bend the entire universe to my will as long as I was up there. I felt confident and powerful and true. I could love this, I realized as I headed into my last song, building to the finale. More than that: I kind of already did.
“Oh my God,” I said when it was over, still smiling and waving at the slowly dispersing crowd. “Oh my God, that was awesome.” I felt light-headed with adrenaline as I jumped down the last two steps off the stage, my legs going a little rubbery as I landed and a dazed, fizzy buzzing at the back of my brain. I could have turned around and done it again, ten more times.
I reached out to high-five Charla, who was waiting on the grass off to the side, but she grabbed my hand and pulled me back to her, wrapping me in a tight hug even though I was hugely, grossly sweaty. “Do you see?” she said in my ear, quiet enough so Olivia couldn’t hear. “Do you see what you can do when you really try?”
“I do,” I promised, and for the first time I actually meant it. “I see.”
Afterward, Alex and I walked the fairgrounds for a little while, watching the rickety Ferris wheel complete its revolutions and little kids shoot down the giant yellow plastic slide on burlap sacks. I was getting my change from the fried-dough vendor when someone tapped me on the shoulder; I turned to face a rail-thin girl with long, straight blond hair who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, a hot pink marker in her skinny hand.