Guy took my side, surprisingly: “Take ’em home,” he said to Charla, who drove us back to the hotel while he dealt with the fair runners.
“I’m right next door if you need me,” she promised, hugging the both of us good night. They’d gotten us separate rooms, but I went in with Olivia, waiting on the bed while she scrubbed this whole place off in the shower. I couldn’t wait to get back to Orlando.
“Are you okay?” I asked again, when she emerged in her pajamas, her hair hanging in a long wet tail down her back. I wanted to keep asking. I wanted her to know I was here if she wasn’t.
“Yeah,” she said, sitting down on the bed with her legs folded up like a pretzel. She looked like she had back when we were in middle school, her face scrubbed clean and pink. “I’m fine, I just—”
“You’re rattled.”
She nodded.
“You want to call your parents?”
She shook her head.
“Well, okay.” I grinned. “I’ll just stay here and pee a circle around you, then.”
That made Olivia smile. “Please do,” she said, leaning back into the pillows. “And then maybe go rip somebody’s spine out like a video game.”
“I was worked up!” I said. “I’d still go rip somebody’s spine out. That was shit, that the coaches sent you out there when it wasn’t safe.”
Olivia shrugged. “I don’t think they could know,” she said.
“It’s their job to know,” I shot back.
“You’re sure Guy wasn’t mad at us, though?” Olivia asked, sounding uncertain. “About ganging up on Juliet?”
“Nah,” I reassured her. “When I talked to him he said he admired my chutzpah.”
“I admire it, too,” Olivia said, and yawned, and as soon as she did it I yawned, too. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I was physically exhausted, but both of us were still too unsettled to sleep, so we lay in bed side by side, flicking through the channels until we found a Meg Ryan movie on cable.
“I wish Junia was on,” I said, and Olivia grinned.
“This reminds me of the night of the auditions,” she said, stretching her long legs out in front of her. “Do you remember that?”
“Of course,” I said, but I knew what she meant. Even though it had only been a few months ago, it felt like we’d been completely different people back then—weirdly innocent, like we had no idea what was ahead of us. We’d been friends most of our lives, but there was a part of her I’d never really known—that I couldn’t have known—until this summer. It hadn’t always been easy, but it felt like we were coming out closer than we’d ever been before.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to go on today,” she told me.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “There’s no way I would have gotten up there after what happened to you. You have zero things to apologize for.”
“I’m really glad you were there,” she said, rolling over to look at me. “I’m glad you’ve been here this whole time, honestly. You’re probably the only reason I haven’t gone totally insane yet.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “You were built for this, you know that.”
“I thought I was.” Olivia shook her head again. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’d want to do it if you weren’t here. Or like, even more than that, I’m worried I couldn’t.” She sighed. “I wish he’d just keep us both,” she said, looping around to the thread of the conversation we’d had back in Orlando. She smelled like baby powder, same as she had since we were small.
“Yeah, but he’ll never.”
“Why not?” Olivia shrugged. “He changed his mind once, didn’t he? Guy’s not exactly what I would call a stay-the-course kind of guy.” She propped herself up on one elbow, tilted her head to the side. “What if we could convince him he could make money on us both?”
“You think he’d go for that?” My voice was doubtful, but I could feel a tiny flicker of hope sparking inside my chest. Olivia knew how this stuff worked, didn’t she? It was a long shot, but if she thought it was possible, then maybe it was.
“No way to find out except to try it,” Olivia said, tucking her feet underneath her. “But I think we’re different enough that there’s room in the market for both of us, you know? Your dancing is stronger than mine, that’s obvious. And the songs I’m really good at are the ballad-type ones. We’re already focused on different things, really. There’s no reason for it to be a zero-sum game.”
I thought about it for a moment. “If we really play up what each of us are good at, eventually he’s gotta see it for himself, right?”
“Honestly, I don’t see how he wouldn’t.” Olivia nodded. “What if we make a pact?” she asked. “Either we get Guy to keep both of us, or we both walk away.”
“What?” That surprised me. “You’d do that?”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed just the slightest bit. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would,” I told her. “But you’ve wanted this your whole life.”
“Yeah, and we’ve been friends for that long. I don’t want to be fighting you for Guy’s table scraps, you know? It isn’t worth it to me.”
“Me either,” I promised, and as I said it out loud I realized it was the truth. I wanted this more than I’d ever wanted anything; I’d worked harder for it than I’d known I could work. But when I thought about what had happened today—when I thought about what had been happening all summer—I knew it wouldn’t mean anything without Olivia beside me. I wanted her with me on this adventure, or I didn’t want it at all.
And then, of course, there was also the flip side: that I worried about what would happen to Olivia if I left her on her own with Guy and Juliet.
“We’re in this together, or we both walk away.” Olivia looked at me, dark eyebrows raised. “Deal?”
I nodded. “Deal.”
THIRTY-FIVE
The week seeped by; Tulsa’s tour crept closer. The days had started getting shorter, darkness falling a minute or two earlier each night, but the heat was unrelenting, like all of Orlando was covered in a film of plastic wrap.
On Thursday, Olivia and I both had sessions with a photographer Guy worked with, the same woman who’d taken the iconic shot plastered on all of Tulsa’s tour photos. A blond girl with bright-red lips and dozens of tattoos did our makeup, the tiny brush tickling as she gave me a dramatic cat-eye with one expert flick of her wrist. Juliet hung all our new clothes on rolling racks.