I’m taken aback by the question. Honestly, I hadn’t even thought of that. All I could think about was having a legitimate reason to spend time with Tinsley. Everything else seemed irrelevant.
“You don’t? Think it’s a good career move, I mean?”
“I think you’re playing right into what Plum was going on about. They’ll view you as being even softer than you already are.” He smirks. “Then again, it’s guaranteed to bring in some solid bank. People always love a duet. And if you make it sappy enough, your existing fans will be happy.”
Bank.
Image.
Kitchen-table Goth girl critics.
Is this really the world I’ve always dreamed of?
“On second thought, the odds of ever impressing your haters are nil, so you should probably go for it. If you play it right, you can retire by the time you’re eighteen, then none of it will even matter, right?”
“Retire at eighteen? And then what?”
That’s only five years away—and the way he says it, like I’m sure to be washed up by then, well, it feels like a bullet speeding straight toward me.
“I don’t know, what do all the other has-beens do? Go to rehab, wait for their chance to appear on Where Are They Now?, sit on their shrink’s couch, and cry about what could’ve been?” He laughs.
“One Christmas duet—one—and you’re already pegging me as a has-been?”
Dougall shifts in his seat and leans toward me like a doctor about to diagnose a serious illness with no cure. “I hate to break it to you, bro, but you were destined to be a has-been from the day you started this journey.”
The way he says it, the way he looks at me, I can’t help but wonder if he somehow knows this is all a weird dream. Maybe he’s in on it too.
But when he says, “Name one teen sensation from the past that managed to stay relevant,” I know he’s just making a point.
It’s not like I rack my brain. I haven’t lived long enough to know that many people. Still, I can’t think of a single one.
“My point exactly.” Dougall grins, clearly overcome with the satisfaction of being right. “So why not just accept the inevitable and enjoy the ride while it lasts?”
SWOOSH
By the time I’ve gotten used to the taste of coffee, I no longer hate it, my cup is empty, my brain is thrumming, my body is vibrating like it received a megadose of adrenaline, and I’m still in the limo, still in the dream.
The only difference is, I no longer care.
Dougall is right.
I need to sit back and enjoy the ride while it lasts.
I mean, jeez. Here I am, an International Superstar wielding some seriously solid bank (as Dougall would say), and all I can do is try to return to a place where I’m a Brainiac Nerd with $132.59 (thanks to Nana’s annual Christmas/birthday checks and accumulated interest) to my name.
It doesn’t make sense.
Not to mention, the more I hang with this new version of Dougall, the more I like him.
For one thing, he’s nothing like the Greentree Dougall. He’s like a billion, trillion, gazillion times cooler.
For another, he apparently has loads of celebrity contacts. Well, I guess technically they’re my celebrity contacts, but Dougall knows what to do with them.
Also, he knows how to have fun. Real fun. Not the kind that’s relegated to eating Cheetos and watching old Roswell documentaries on a couch covered in cat hair. We’ve been hanging out for a while now, and I haven’t heard a single mention of Bigfoot, black holes, or conspiracy theories. The Greentree Dougall would never last this long without mentioning one of those things.
According to Dougall, who’s pretty much an authority on celebrity life, it’s way too early to show up at Jonah’s party (only a dork gets there within three hours of the start time), so we decide to head out for some burgers to soak up the caffeine.
Sparks is pretty good at eluding the paparazzi, which isn’t easy when you’re driving a limo. And yet, even though we arrive without a bunch of photogs snapping my picture, even though Sparks went in first to scope out the restaurant and consult with the manager on securing the very best seat, the second we enter, the place erupts into chaos, with everyone snapping pics of me on their cell phones as the manager whisks us to a private booth in the back.
Sparks insists on guarding our table and plants himself right at the edge. His back ruler straight, feet planted wide, his head swivels back and forth, like he’s scoping for would-be assassins. It’s kind of cool to have my own personal badass on call, but it still really bugs me to have him hanging around and eavesdropping on our conversations. So I order him to take a walk, grab a bite, maybe even read a few chapters of Lord of the Flies—a joke that admittedly falls kinda flat, but that’s only because he doesn’t know that in Greentree he assigned that book to our class.