“You were my good luck charm,” Olivia told me. “Is that lame?”
“It’s totally lame,” I said, “but who cares? This is amazing!” It was amazing; it was incredible, it was unlike anything I’d ever dreamed about. But there was a tiny part of me that was sad, too—after all, this meant she’d be leaving home way before we’d planned, off on adventures I could only ever dream of—the rest of our lives arriving immediately, hers with a bang and mine with a whimper.
“We should celebrate,” I said, pushing the thought away. I wanted to be properly excited—I was properly excited—but that was harder if I was feeling sorry for myself. “Should we get drunk?”
“It’s three-thirty in the afternoon,” Olivia pointed out, laughing, and I was about to tell her that famous people boozed at all hours of the day and night when the phone rang.
Grabbing the receiver off the wall in the kitchen, I breathlessly asked, “Hello?”
“Is this Dana Cartwright?” asked an unfamiliar woman’s voice.
“Yes,” I said slowly, twisting the cord distractedly around one finger. “Who’s this?”
“Hi there, Dana,” the voice said warmly. “This is Juliet Evanston, Guy Monroe’s assistant. I’m calling with some good news.”
I was confused. “Are you—are you looking for Olivia?” I asked, looking at her across the kitchen; she peered back at me, brow furrowed. Who is it? she mouthed.
“I’m looking for you,” Juliet told me. “I’m calling because we’d like you to come join us in Orlando and be a part of Daisy Chain.”
For ten full seconds I was silent. I honestly thought I’d heard her wrong. “Dana?” Juliet said, sounding unsure all of a sudden. “Are you there?”
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. “Are you sure you have the right—?” I broke off, tried again. “I mean, at the audition I’m the one who sang—?”
“‘Happy Birthday,’” Juliet supplied. “We know who you are, Dana.”
Olivia was staring at me anxiously now, standing on one foot like a stork—perfectly still, though I could practically see the waves of energy vibrating off her.
“What?” she said, out loud this time. “What?!”
I waved my hand so she’d be quiet, listening as Juliet gave me the same details she must have given Olivia—the apartment, the media training, the tour. “I’m overnighting you a package with all this in writing,” she told me. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“I—okay,” I said, in a voice that didn’t sound anything like normal. “Thank you.”
Olivia was practically apoplectic by the time I hung up the phone. “Who was that?” she asked shrilly. “You look like you’re about to die.”
I hesitated. For a moment I was weirdly worried she’d be mad at me—this was her rodeo, after all, the dream she’d been working toward since she was a toddler in a tutu. I was only ever meant to tag along. I didn’t want her to feel like I was trying to take something from her, like I’d stolen it out from underneath her when no one was looking; still, what could I possibly tell her besides the truth?
“They picked me, too,” I said.
“I—” Olivia blinked. “What?”
“I’m not going to do it,” I said immediately. “But—that was Guy’s assistant person. They picked me, too.”
“And you’re not going to do it?” Olivia’s eyes darkened. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I’m not a pop star!” I said, feeling like that should have been glaringly obvious. “I don’t perform. I’ve never even wanted to do anything like that! This is your deal, not mine. I don’t know why they picked me to begin with. It must be some weird mistake.”
“Are you kidding me?” Olivia shook her head. “They saw something in you, that’s all. You have to come, I need you. It’ll be like if we’d gone to college together, but a million times better.”
I let myself imagine it for a moment, adding myself to the images I’d conjured up of Olivia’s new life. I didn’t fit in there, even in my own imagination. In a lot of ways she was a shape-shifter: able to chameleon herself into Showbiz Olivia, to be whoever the situation demanded. I was just . . . myself.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I—what is even happening right now? No.”
Olivia looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. “What are you going to do if you don’t do this?” she asked. “I mean it. I’m sincerely asking. Are you just gonna stay here forever?”
It was a blunt truth, the kind of thing only Olivia could have said out loud to me. It was a slap in the face meant to bring me to my senses, and it worked. I looked around at the kitchen in my mom’s house—the linoleum peeling up by the refrigerator, the curtains above the sink that had gone yellowish from cigarette smoke. The empty vodka bottle poking out of the trash can, the one that hadn’t been there last night.
I ran my hands through my messy hair, yanking at the tangles. I tried to be calm and rational and smart. Olivia had wanted this her whole life, but she didn’t truly need it. In a very real way, I did. Random and potentially disastrous as it was, this was the universe throwing me a life preserver. I’d have to be an idiot not to take it.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, then,” I said. “Looks like we’re going to Orlando.”
Olivia let out a loud, delighted squawk, then dashed across the room and flung her arms around me—all long limbs and strawberry shampoo hair—both of us laughing our heads off. I should have known she wouldn’t be upset. That wasn’t how our friendship worked.
“I can’t believe this,” she said, twirling me around the kitchen. “It’s perfect. It’s the best thing.”
I smiled and let her spin me, the dingy kitchen blurring before my eyes. Already I knew nothing was going to come of this. I had no training, no real talent. That I’d auditioned at all was a freaking mistake. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of warm possibility that was unpacking its suitcase inside me, the idea that maybe there was something out there for me after all.
FIVE
The address on the paperwork Guy’s assistant had sent us was for an apartment complex not far from the studios where we’d auditioned, a cluster of two-story stucco buildings arranged in a square with an in-ground swimming pool of questionable cleanliness at the center. The sun was already setting by the time Olivia pulled into the parking lot, the cast of pink and gold more forgiving than I suspected broad daylight might be. “Tulsa lives here?” I asked with no small amount of skepticism, peering from the buzzing neon sign identifying the complex as THE COCONUT PALMS to the low-rent strip mall across the boulevard.