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  When I got back in the car, I told Mandy the entire nonstory about Lucas Rivers. “I’m sure I’ll be telling my grandkids about it one day, but I doubt Lucas even remembers that it happened.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be telling my grandkids about it one day too,” she said.

  We parked and walked into the large, seventies-era building that was Lydon High. I’d always thought it looked like a prison. As we walked down the hall my bag slid off my shoulder, jerking my arm and causing me to spill hot coffee all over myself. Smooth. I handed my cup to Mandy while I dug in my bag for napkins.

  “Here you go.” I looked up. Mike Malloy stood in front of his locker holding out paper towels. He was the star basketball player/class stud, and I’d hardly spoken a word to him since he’d ruined my life freshman year.

  I yanked the paper towels out of his hand as I passed by.

  Next to me, Mandy hissed, “He knows! People know!”

  “Oh well,” I said. “Too late for Lydon to start trying to be decent now.”

  —

  I finished the test with enough time to double-check my answers. My coffee had long since gone cold, but I drank it anyway. Acing finals was the first part of my plan, and I already felt more relaxed now that it was under way. This was also the easiest part, the only one that was mostly within my control. When Mrs. Carlson called time, I handed in my booklet and waited for Mandy.

  “That was brutal,” she muttered. “How did you do?”

  “I think okay,” I said. We walked to her locker. I stashed my stuff in there as I usually did, since my locker was in the creepy basement.

  “Translation: another A for Chelsea.” Mandy gave me a grudging smile. “Did you nerd out and study in Los Angeles?”

  “A little,” I lied. “I’m starving. Where should we eat?”

  “You choose. You’re the one who’s leaving.”

  I’d been so obsessed with getting out of here that I hadn’t really thought about what I’d miss. “Raspberries?”

  Mandy groaned. “Seriously? I’m trying to put off the inevitable.” We’d worked at Raspberries, Lydon’s only health food café, last summer. The owner, a crazy, capitalist hippie named Dane, invented new sandwiches daily and bugged out if we forgot one of the nine ingredients on a particular sandwich. We both had PTSD from all his yelling, and as an annoying side effect of working there, I now found sandwiches without sprouts to be inedible. Unfortunately Lydon didn’t have many jobs to offer, so Mandy would be back at Raspberries for another summer.

  I’d imagined telling Dane what he could do with his crappy job at least a million times, but when the time had come to actually do it, I’d settled for sending a text. Unprofessional, but Dane deserved it.

  We drove into town and tried to slip into the café unnoticed. “Please let this be one of his colonic days,” Mandy muttered as we walked in and seated ourselves.

  “I’ll have a Jane’s Special,” Mandy whispered to the waiter after we sat down. He gave her a weird look.

  “Make it two,” I said. Mandy shushed me. The waiter went back to the kitchen. “Will you relax? Dane doesn’t have dog ears.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  I worried that Mandy was having a harder time with my leaving than she let on. “So when are you going to visit me?” I asked.

  “Anytime, as long as you pay for my ticket and save one of the guys for me,” Mandy said.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “That good, huh?” Mandy sipped her water and studied me with a furrowed brow. Seriously, who else would feel bad for a girl who was about to go live on a bus with three hot guys who also happened to be talented and famous?

  “They didn’t stone me or anything, but it’s not like we stayed up late and did each other’s hair.”

  “Did they stay in the Pretty Woman hotel too?”

  I snorted. Mandy was talking about the Beverly Wilshire hotel, made famous by my mother’s favorite movie. “Yeah right. That was on my parents’ dime. The band stayed in some crappy apartment in Burbank.”

  “Things must be going well at Ford’s Fast Five,” she said, referring to my parents’ sporting goods store. It had the usual stuff for seasonal and team sports, but they’d expanded a couple of years ago to carry things like high-end sneakers and designer jeans. “So the guys didn’t come around at all?”

  Bonding with the band, also known as phase two of my plan, felt like it might never happen. I’d hoped things would fall into place in December when I recorded, but aside from Pem swinging by and barking orders at me, it was pretty much just me and the sound engineer. And last week (the third time I worked with them) was so insane, I was impressed that they remembered my name. “If by coming around you mean ignoring me until I screw something up, then yes.”

  Mandy sighed. “I read that all arranged marriages take time. It’ll be better when you don’t have constant chaperones. But the actual shows were good?”

  I nodded. “Everyone said we killed it.”

  Pacific Records and our agent at AEA put together some closed, music industry showcases for us. They said it was to show people how well I fit into Melbourne, but I overheard Pem say it was because I had no experience in front of a live audience. I guess by his definition, three hundred studio audience members didn’t count as live.

  “What the hell, man?” Dane’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “We’re out of pickled radish. Eighty-six the Jane’s Special, man! Come on!” Dane thought that adding man to every sentence made the difference between conversation and verbal abuse. He came into the dining area and spotted us right away. “Your discount doesn’t apply unless you’re actually working. Former employees get no consideration whatsoever,” he said.

  Mandy pushed her chair back. “Chelsea doesn’t need your ‘consideration.’ She’ll be making a hell of a lot more than minimum wage plus one sandwich per shift! And you’re about to wish you were much nicer to her.”

  She always had my back. I didn’t want her to be stuck in this crunchy hellhole while I had the “summer of my life.”

  Dane smirked. “You probably want to think about being much nicer to me.”

  I stood up and pulled Mandy toward the door. No sandwich was worth this. “She quits! So you can keep your ridiculous, overwrought sandwiches and your insulting discount! She has a phenomenal job on tour with me!” I said it on impulse, as an f-you to everyone in Lydon who’d made our past few years hell. One look at the shock and gratitude on Mandy’s face and I knew I couldn’t take it back.

  3

  We made it almost all the way back to school before Mandy broke the silence. She took a deep breath. “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes I do. It might take a minute, but I’ll figure it out.” Her giving me an out made me feel even more obligated.

  A small, hopeful smile flashed across her face. I barely felt welcome on this tour; I could just imagine their reaction to me bringing an entourage. At least she’d keep me sane. I wondered if anyone in Melbourne’s camp cared enough about my mental health to buy that as a justification.

  “Let’s go eat petrified cafeteria food by ourselves in a corner. For a change.” I grinned at Mandy, trying to make her laugh.

  She sighed. “What do you have next?”

  “Français.”

  We set our trays on a table by glass doors that led to the bright, grassy field outside. Lydon was most beautiful in the summer. The sky was wide, cloudless, sparkling. Deep green leaves hung heavy and languid from elm trees. Even the cafeteria was tolerable right now. Thanks to the intensity of finals, it was deserted, with only a handful of tables taken by last-minute crammers.

  I ate wilted lettuce with French dressing in an attempt to get my game face on. I wasn’t that stressed; it was an essay test, and Madame Kramer was lenient as long as the grammar was correct and you threw in some obscure vocabulary words.

  Mandy kicked me under the table. I bit my yelp of pain short when I saw why. Mike Malloy was coming toward us, a te
ntative look on his face instead of his usual, haughty “eat shit” expression.

  Mike and I had started fooling around at the beginning of freshman year. It went without saying that I’d had to keep it to myself; he was cool, I wasn’t, but I wasn’t a loser either. Not yet, anyway. When we were alone, he was sweet and attentive. My favorite was when he asked me to sing for him, because back then, nobody knew I sang. It was another special secret between us.

  A few months into it, we decided to have sex. I thought I was in love and kept telling myself he’d be ready to tell his friends about us soon. Afterward, I was sick with guilt and anxiety. Probably as a result, my period was late and I was positive I was pregnant. I was such a hot mess I couldn’t even bring myself to buy a pregnancy test.

  When I told Mike, he froze up and only asked me to “give it another week.” He didn’t want to go buy a pregnancy test either. Then he started avoiding me. When my period finally came and I told him, he lost it and accused me of trying to trap him into being my boyfriend. The thing was, I already thought of him as my boyfriend.

  I tried to apologize so many times that I’m sure it looked like I was stalking him. To explain why I was suddenly all over him, he told anyone who would listen that he got drunk and hooked up with me at a party and then I went psycho and pretended I was pregnant. That effectively scared off all the boys; and when the boys won’t go near you, the girls keep their distance too. Mandy was literally the only person who’d risked staying my friend.

  Over time, the snickers and whispers that followed me wherever I went died down, but no one ever forgot.

  Now I did what I always do when confronted with Mike Malloy: I ignored him. However, as he decided to loom over us, I eventually gave up. “What?” I asked, keeping my eyes on Mandy.

  “Nothin’. Heard your news.” Of course Mike would be the first person to glom onto the Melbourne announcement. “You know I like that one song, ‘Parietals.’ ”

  Unbelievable. The boy was shameless. I glared at him.

  Mike seemed confused by my hostility. “Anyway, wanted to see if you were coming to Caryn’s party when school lets out.”

  “Did I finally make it off the inactive list?”

  Mike just blinked at me, so I broke it down for him. “When have I ever been invited to that?” Caryn lived around the block from me, but I hadn’t been welcome at her house since middle school.

  “She’s cool,” Mike assured me.

  Mandy gave him a flat stare. She was like my own personal pit bull.

  “Doubtful,” I said. “I leave right after finals.” With any luck, I’d never see Mike again. No sense in torching a past that had already been burned to the ground.

  He shrugged but looked mollified. “See you around.”

  I was pretty much past Mike screwing me over, but my need to get out of Lydon still kicked into overdrive when I had to deal with him. The other residual effect was that no one besides Mandy had spoken more than two sentences to me since freshman year.

  —

  Somehow, in the middle of exam week, I worked up the courage to call Sam. He might have thought I was a good singer and liked me on a personal level, but until the band stopped thinking of me as a “hired gun,” we both knew who his real clients were.

  A couple of months after I left American Pop Star, a Pacific Records executive had called my parents and explained that the network had reported that I had an unusually high Q factor for where I’d been voted off. (That’s some marketing term that I never quite understood, and ninth runner-up, to answer my least favorite question.) They wanted to talk to me about a project that needed a female lead singer.

  When I’d auditioned for the show, I hadn’t realized that Pacific Records got three-year options on every contestant who made it to the top twenty-five. Usually it wasn’t an issue, because what were they going to do with a bunch of talent show rejects? Most of us just faded into the reject sunset.

  Hollis Carter had quit Melbourne and enrolled at Vassar. She was burned out and wanted a normal life. The only problem was that Melbourne owed Pacific one more record. They could have paid back their advance. They’d made plenty of money, and every one of them came from rich East Coast families. (They liked to downplay their trust funds, but since they were all prep school buddies, it was sometimes glaringly obvious.)

  Pem insisted that they deliver the record. I wasn’t clear on why he was so hell-bent, but Malcolm was up for the party and Beckett was all for it. Pacific wouldn’t approve their first choice for a singer, because she’d had a deal at another label. Melbourne eventually gave in and accepted Pacific’s recommendation. And that was my auspicious intro to the band.

  Sam picked up on the first ring. “Hey, how’s it going? You crushing those finals or what?”

  “Chemistry was a little traumatic,” I said, before it occurred to me that he probably didn’t actually care.

  “You getting enough rest? Eating well?” Sam was slightly out of breath, and I could hear traffic in the background.

  I thought about the Reuben sandwich I’d had from Sonny’s Bagels for lunch. It had given me acid reflux—seriously distracting during my AP chem final. At least it was kind of on topic. “Yeah, eating lots of fruits and veggies.” Starting now.

  “Good, good. I’m in New York with the guys. They’re fired up about the tour.”

  The exclusion that I always felt reared its ugly head again, knowing that everyone except me was prepping for tour together. I had to get over it. Since I had so many practical goals hinging on this tour, I was trying to keep my emotional expectations low.

  “Cool. Tell everyone I said hi.”

  “I will. So…what’s up? You got questions?”

  “Kind of. More like a favor-slash-question,” I hedged. I’d made it a point to be agreeable, so asking for anything felt risky, though logically I knew it was too late for them to change their minds about me. At least for this record cycle.

  “Shoot.”

  “Could I bring a friend on tour?”

  “Girl or boy?”

  I thought that was a weird first question, but I went with it. “Girl.”

  “We were saying it might be hard on you to be the only girl. I was going to hire a girl to do merch. Will your friend work?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, of course!”

  Sam asked a couple of questions about Mandy’s work experience and told me to email him her contact info, and then it was a done deal. I could not believe it had been that easy.

  As soon as we hung up, I called Mandy. She shrieked so loudly that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “Are you messing with me?” She sounded like she might be crying, which made me a little teary too. I was so happy I could do this for her.

  “Your parents will let you, won’t they?” It had occurred to me that my parents might have been a little unusual in letting their teenage daughter roam around the country with a bunch of strange boys.

  “They better! Once they realize they won’t have to feed me for the entire summer, I’m sure they will. How much will I get paid?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” I’d been so fixated on just getting Sam to let Mandy come on tour, I hadn’t even thought to ask. “You want me to call Sam back?” I wanted her to say no, but I supposed wanting to know how much she’d make was reasonable.

  “If you can. That’d give me more ammunition.”

  The Olsons were conservative, but they knew who their daughter was. Her near-obsessive concert-going had never been about anything but the music. Hopefully they’d see this as a constructive way for her to spend a summer.

  Sam picked up on the first ring again. He wasn’t annoyed at all; he was actually apologetic about not mentioning it before. “She’ll make two percent of the net. If we go by our last tour, we usually sell about twenty bucks a head.”

  I felt too stupid to ask what that would mean for Mandy’s take-home pay, but it sounded good enough. I didn’t want to seem like an ingrate.

  “Huh.
I figure you’ll be playing, like, thousand-seat clubs, right?” Mandy said when I called her back.

  Actually, I had no idea. I knew that we’d be playing decent-sized places. In Detroit, we were playing the Fillmore, which I knew only because I’d been to a bunch of shows there. A thousand seats seemed like a good guess.

  “So if you do twenty a head, and let’s say net is half, that’s ten thousand—I could be making two hundred dollars a night! How many shows a week, again?” Mandy sounded incredulous. The girl might have struggled with precalculus, but she was no slouch with money.

  I felt a little disbelieving myself. That wasn’t much less than I’d be making. I was getting paid less than the rest of the band, since they’d written every single Melbourne song in existence and were the ones people were coming to see. Sam said that we’d revisit my deal for the next record, if there was one. That was all still up in the air, which was why I was on a mission to make my bandmates love me. I could only hope they were as desperate for this to work as I was.

  4

  A week later, Mandy and I were waiting for our suitcases at Pittsburgh International Airport. My stomach was in knots, but luckily Sam interrupted my panic attack, tapping my shoulder and giving an awkward little wave. “You made it. Was the flight okay?”

  “It was great. No problems.” I mean, it was on time and didn’t break down, so I had no complaints. “This is Mandy.”

  They shook hands while I reached to silence my phone’s buzzing. It was a text from my mom: Can’t wait to hear about rehearsal!

  Sigh. Her guilty conscience was working overtime. Summer was Ford’s Fast Five’s busiest season, so my parents would miss most of the tour. Of course I didn’t tell them, but I was looking forward to having this experience without them hovering. Besides, I had Mandy.