“Can I have your autograph?” she asked, blue eyes wide.
I laughed out loud, surprised and cackling. Somehow I hadn’t imagined this. I definitely hadn’t imagined how crazy and exciting and unbelievable it would feel, the idea that I meant enough to a total stranger for her to want a piece of paper with my name on it. For that to be something that was valuable to her. My face actually ached from smiling. “Of course,” I said, signing with a flourish and drawing a heart next to it, grinning at Alex as I passed the pen back. “Anytime.”
“Check you out,” Alex said once the girl was gone, her ponytail bouncing as she joined her group of giggling friends next to the Fun Slide.
“Okay, I liked that,” I admitted as we brought the fried dough over to a picnic table, kicking up clouds of hot, sandy dust as we walked. My fingers were sticky with melting powdered sugar. “That felt awesome.”
“I can tell.” Alex grinned. “You’re gonna be doing a lot more of it, I can tell that, too.”
“Oh, you can, huh?” I laughed.
“I can. All over the place.” Alex raised his eyebrows and tore off a piece of fried dough. “They’re talking about Europe after the national tour, did you hear that? Maybe even Asia.”
“What?” I gaped at him. “Seriously? And you guys would get to go?”
“So would you,” Alex pointed out.
“Or Olivia,” I said.
“Or you,” he said again.
I let myself imagine it for a moment: the notion was glittering and white hot, like it would burn my hand if I reached for it. Europe and Asia, a fall and winter spent globetrotting with Alex. The whole world—suddenly, literally—within my reach. “Have you ever been?” I asked instead. “Out of the country?”
“Just to Mexico,” he said around a bite of dough. “It sounds amazing, though, doesn’t it? I’d love to see that stuff with you. Eat croissants in Paris, that kind of thing.”
That kind of thing. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. Two months ago, if anyone had told me there was a chance in hell I’d see Europe in my lifetime, I would have laughed out loud. It was dangerous, I knew, to let myself picture it. It could mean I was setting myself up for a disappointment that would grind my bones to dust. But when I looked at Alex, I could tell he believed I could get there. And just for a moment, I believed I could, too.
“Come on,” I said, finishing the last of the fried dough and licking my sticky fingers, nodding my head at the spinning Ferris wheel. “Let’s go get stuck at the top.”
TWENTY-SIX
The thrill of performing live struck some magical match inside me. I rehearsed in the shower, in the car on the way to the studio, before I went to bed every night. Once I woke up in the dark with the sheets tangled all around my ankles, and I realized I’d been practicing my routines in my sleep. I gulped every gross green smoothie Charla handed me. I worked harder than I ever had. I wanted to be the best. More than that: I wanted everyone to see me be the best.
Especially Olivia.
It was stupid, maybe, but hers was the face I saw every time I missed a dance step in rehearsal; hers was the voice I heard taunting me in my head. I wanted to get up earlier than she did, to hit notes that were higher and get crowds to scream louder. I wanted her to admit that she’d been wrong. I wanted Olivia to know she’d misjudged and betrayed me, but the more I tried to get her attention, the more indifferent she seemed. As hard as I was working, it was like she was working even harder not to notice me at all.
Guy noticed, though. “Come in here,” he said one day after rehearsal, motioning me into his office. I felt myself tense as he shut the door behind me, but all he did was thump me on the back, dad-like. “Nice job, kid,” he said, sitting down in his big leather chair across from me. “You’re really showing up now, huh?”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling surprisingly proud, my face flushing with the unexpected pleasure of it. It was nice to feel like everything was paying off.
I expected that to be the end of it, and I took a step toward the door, but Guy held a hand to stop me. “You doing all right?” he asked.
“Me?” I said. “Yeah, I’m great.”
“You sure?” he asked, looking at me closely. “You happy?”
I stopped, surprised. Guy was the last person I ever expected to care about something like that. “Of course,” I assured him now, which was a lie. I wasn’t happy, not exactly; I missed Olivia, and I felt unsure more often than not. But the longer I did this, the more there was a charge in it for me, something about it that made me want to get better; I liked being special, liked the different way Lucas and the other coaches looked at me when I came into the studio. And more than I’d ever thought I would or was capable of, I liked the feeling of working toward a goal. “I am.”
It felt good to do what you were good at, I realized. And I was getting really good.
Guy nodded. “Not everybody has what it takes to do this,” he told me. “Lot of girls flame out, crack under the pressure. But you’re not like that, I can tell. We’re gonna go all the way.”
I found myself grinning at him. “Yeah,” I promised, nodding in agreement. “We are.”
We had another performance with the boys later that week in New Orleans; it was the first time we’d gone anywhere far enough from Orlando that we needed to fly there, and I gripped the armrests like I could hold myself up in the sky. “This your first time on a plane?” Alex asked, sitting down beside me—Mikey had been assigned to the seat, but Austin had dared him to go up to the flight attendant and ask for one of those little plastic pins shaped like wings.
“Nope,” I lied.
“Really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “It’s my first time.”
“Really?”
“No.” Alex grinned when I scowled at him. “Relax, though,” he said, peeling my fingers off the armrest and taking my hand. “Planes hardly ever crash in real life. You’re, like, a hundred times more likely to die in a car wreck.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, but I was laughing now, distracted. It occurred to me that that might have been the point all along.
That night’s performance was a good one, bright lights and my first time with a full backup band, an electric kind of energy in the audience. I took my bow and waved and came offstage looking for Alex—I’d tried something different in “Only for You,” a little run of notes toward the end of the bridge, and I wanted to hear what he’d thought about it. I was expecting him to be waiting in the wings, like I had for Hurricane State’s performance earlier, but I didn’t spot him in the crowd of assistants and techs. “Have you seen the boys?” I asked Juliet, who was deep in conversation on a cell phone, the long antenna poking up into the air.