Falling for Trouble

by Sarah Title

  Then she thought about little Liam in tap class, surrounded by girls in frilly skirts. Maybe he wore a sparkly vest and bow tie. And a jaunty cap. And the idea of his earnest face—the same one he used to chop tomatoes—concentrating on the steps and keeping time with the music, it filled her with so much glee that she had to lean away from him and put her hand over her heart lest it beat out of her chest.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. She hadn’t even realized she was laughing. She thought she was having a cuteness overload heart attack.

  “No,” she gasped. “I mean, sort of. But in a good way.”

  He leaned over her. “How is this a good way?” He narrowed his eyes at her, but he wiped a tear off her cheek and her heart melted.

  “I’m just picturing little Liam in his bow tie . . .” She couldn’t finish. She was dying of laughter.

  “Hey, I never said I wore a bow tie.”

  “I know, I just . . .”

  “I mean, I did wear a bow tie. And suspenders.”

  Suspenders! She threw her head back. She couldn’t breathe. Suspenders!

  “Hey, now,” he said. But she couldn’t stop laughing. Every time she looked at him, all she could see was that sweet, earnest face highlighted by a sequined bow tie. His eyes narrowed, and she tried to stop, really, she did, but then he threw the covers off them and nudged her legs apart and finally, finally she stopped laughing.

  * * *

  “Now you tell me something.”

  Joanna didn’t want to talk. Her muscles were rubber. Moving her jaw was too much work.

  “I know you’re not asleep.”

  “Yes, I am,” she muttered into his chest.

  “I can feel you thinking.”

  She sat up, pulling the sheet with her. She wasn’t sleepy, just a little dead. She crossed her legs, and he put his hand on her knee.

  “Tell me something embarrassing,” he said.

  “Where to begin . . .”

  “Tell me about Bunny Slippers.”

  Her head dropped to her chest. Of course he wanted to know that. “You don’t already know?” She felt his thumb rubbing a lazy circle on her leg.

  “I want you to tell me.”

  She took a deep breath. What did it matter? She’d be gone soon anyway.

  “We recorded one album ourselves. It wasn’t great.”

  “Yes, it was,” he said. “I have that album. It’s raw and loud and great. It makes me want to smash things.”

  “Yeah, okay. It was pretty great. And it was so fun to make. God, we tore up that studio. Not literally, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “We were just touring around, working crappy day jobs, nothing major. But Mandy—the lead singer— she was talking to this record company guy. He came to one of our shows . . . We had a lot of band meetings. God, so many meetings. I didn’t want to sign, Mandy did. I thought this guy wanted us to tone it down way too much; Mandy said it wasn’t a big deal. So we signed with him. It all happened so fast, but I barely noticed the change. It would just be little things—tone down Mandy’s shouting vocals, cut my damn guitar solo.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  “I know. I’m a damn rock genius.”

  “Your guitar solos are the only good thing about Bunny Slippers.”

  She looked down at him. He was serious.

  God, he was sweet.

  “So, okay. He got us on this tour with the Penny Lickers. At first I thought he was joking. I mean, those guys are nothing like us.”

  “They’re terrible, for one thing.”

  “Yeah, and it’s just a totally different sound, you know? They’re more traditional rock, and we’re, like, the second coming of Sleater-Kinney.”

  His thumb kept circling the spot right above her knee. It was comforting. And she needed comfort, because this was the worst part.

  “So it’s the night of the first show. I’d been feeling like this really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but I’d signed the contract, right? So I had to do it. Then, just as we’re about to go onstage, Jeff gives us these . . .”

  “These what?”

  “It’s too embarrassing.”

  “More embarrassing than a sequined bow tie with matching suspenders?”

  “Yes.”

  He tugged her down so her head rested on his shoulder. He snaked his hand through her hair and massaged her scalp. She got goose bumps, it felt so good.

  “Bunny tails.”

  He stopped massaging. “Bunny tails?”

  “White fluff balls. They attached with Velcro. To our butts.”

  Her head was shaking. She realized it was because Liam was shaking.

  “Are you laughing?”

  “No,” he said, but then he snorted and rolled on his side away from her.

  “Stop laughing at my pain!”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t. I can’t. Bunny tails?”

  She shoved him farther to the edge of the bed, but he caught her arms and held on.

  “Okay, okay, I’m done laughing. Tell me the rest.”

  She settled back onto his shoulder and closed her eyes. She could still feel it, all these weeks later. The adrenaline as they stood in the wings, the roar of the crowd pulsing through her veins when they stepped out onstage. The thwack on the ass Jeff gave each of them right before they went on.

  Not a thwack on the ass. A thwack on the tail.

  Mandy was eating it up. She paraded out onto the stage, her arms outstretched, taking in the screams. As Joanna and the others followed her, she bent down and stuck her tail in the air. “How do you like our new look?” she shouted into the mic. Deb and Harlow gamely turned and wiggled. Joanna looked out over the deafening crowd. This was the biggest show they’d ever played, exponentially bigger. This would expose them to thousands and thousands of new people who would download their album and make them stars.

  “All I had to do was get onstage and shake my tail,” she told Liam.

  “And it didn’t feel right?”

  That was exactly it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to—although she didn’t—it just wasn’t who they were as a band. It wasn’t who she wanted to be as a musician. Women in rock had a hard enough time being taken seriously as musicians, and now Jeff wanted them to have a piece of fuzz up their asses?

  “It’s because I saw this girl in the front row. I don’t even know how I was able to pick her out. The lights were blinding, the whole thing was sensory overload. But there she was.”

  “The girl in the front row.”

  “She was wearing a Bunny Slippers shirt, one of our old ones. Those were the ones that Mandy screen-printed in her dad’s garage, one at a time. They were so crappy, these cheap white T-shirts that just said ‘Bunny Slippers’ in this crazy font that was totally illegible. But I knew that shirt. I’d sold those shirts at the merch table in many crappy bars.”

  “A real fan.”

  “Yeah. Only she wasn’t smiling. I’ll never forget it. All these people jumping and screaming around her, and she’s just standing there, staring at me and my fluffy tail, like I’d betrayed her.”

  “Not very nice.”

  “That’s when I knew. That’s when I knew this had all gone too far, all the little compromises we made to be palatable to all these jumping people made us look like fools to the people who cared about our music when no one else did. And I was one of those people. I didn’t care that this was going to be our big break. If this was what we had to do to get big, I didn’t want to do it. So I didn’t.”

  “So, what, you just left?”

  “Didn’t you see the video?”

  “No. I wanted to, but . . . I don’t know, I thought I’d just wait for you to tell me.”

  “This would probably be easier if you’d seen the video.”

  He reached around her for his phone, charging on the nightstand.

  “Wait, really?”

  “You said I s
hould see it.”

  She took a deep breath and Googled.

  She was relieved to see that it wasn’t the top result for Bunny Slippers. First, there were news stories about the album making the charts and the hot new guitarist who wore ears and a tail. Finally, she found the video and handed the phone to Liam.

  “You don’t want to watch?”

  She shook her head, but then she lay back down on his shoulder where she could see his face and the screen.

  There it was: the screams and the tails, and Joanna, frozen on the side of the stage. There was Mandy, giving her a playful wave. Then Joanna shaking her head, and Mandy shouting something the mics didn’t pick up. Then Joanna walking off the stage while the guy taking the video said “Holy shit, she just left!”

  And that was it. The end of her rock-and-roll career, over in a minute and thirteen seconds.

  Liam made a funny sound in the back of his throat. “Have you seen this before?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t read the comments.”

  “Ugh. Let me guess: that fat chick with the guitar is a total loser.”

  Liam put the phone down. “Never mind.”

  This time, he didn’t go back to his side of the bed. Instead, he hovered over her, pushing her hair out of her face.

  “So. That’s your most embarrassing moment.”

  “So far.”

  “It’s a pretty good one.”

  “Thanks.”

  He leaned down and kissed her. It was soft and sweet and it kind of made her want to cry. “Thank you for telling me,” he whispered in her ear.

  This guy was strange. She peeled back her skin to show him the darkest layers of her soul, and he said thanks.

  If she wasn’t careful, she thought as he leaned down to kiss her, more thoroughly this time, she was going to be in real trouble.

  Chapter Twenty

  Joanna pulled up to Trina’s house and noticed that she was no longer grateful that Trina lived in the wide, unobstructed country where she was never in any danger of hitting other cars or people. Not that she wasn’t grateful, she just wasn’t, like, obsessed with it.

  She was getting good at driving Granny’s boat.

  She got out of the car and went around to unbuckle Rosetta from the front seat. She knew it was weird and unnecessary, but she didn’t care. It was too hot to put Rosetta in the trunk. Which was not technically true, but again, she didn’t care. She was a weirdo for her guitar, even more so now that she was actually playing it.

  All she needed to do to get back into music was play a crappy gig in front of a hundred kids at the library. Who knew?

  Truth be told, it wasn’t the worst gig she’d ever played. And it wasn’t even the least she’d gotten paid. She got a pretty nice dinner out of it, and afterward. . .

  Afterward she’d smooched the hell out of the librarian. Or had he smooched the hell out of her? And then there was last night . . . She’d have to watch herself or she’d start to like him.

  She walked in Trina’s front door—because this was Halikarnassus, where nobody locked their doors—and headed out back to the barn. Rick and the kids were in the yard, kicking a ball around. Or Rick was trying to kick the ball around; the kids were working on their cartwheels.

  “Hey, guys!” she shouted, because she was in a good mood, dammit.

  “Joanna!” Max shouted back.

  “Fluffy butt!” Hazel added.

  “I’m gonna kill you for that song!” Rick shouted.

  “Sorry!”

  “No, you’re not!”

  “I know!”

  “Quit shouting, would you?” Trina shouted from the door to the barn.

  Rick jogged over and gave Joanna a quick peck on the cheek. Then she almost hit the ground because Max and Hazel gave her a stealth leg-hug attack that she was not expecting. She held up Rosetta protectively.

  “Watch the guitar, monkey children,” Rick warned his kids.

  “Monkey children!” they shouted, and ran circles around each other until they fell into a giggling heap.

  “Seriously, whose kids are those?” Rick asked Trina.

  “I don’t care as long as they take a nap later.”

  “What do you care, you’ll be out here blaring your rock and roll. You guys! You’re getting the band back together!” Rick was possibly more excited than Trina and Joanna about their decision to revive Delicious Lies, if only for the summer. They both missed playing music, although Joanna had a feeling Trina was doing it more as a favor to her than anything else.

  Whatever, she was itching to play. She was still feeling a little gun-shy on account of the record deal with the devil, but that didn’t mean she was ready to retire Rosetta. Messing around in a barn with her best friend sounded good to her.

  Rick joined the kids in their cartwheeling contest, which was an alarming sight, but, she had to admit, kind of charming.

  Charming. God, she was getting soft.

  “Before we start, there’s something I should tell you.” Trina was standing in the doorway to the barn, her arms outstretched as if she was blocking Joanna’s path.

  “What? Did the kids destroy your drums?”

  “No . . .”

  “Did Rick destroy your drums?” Joanna had a hard time imagining that happening and Rick still standing. Although at the moment, he was lying in a post-cartwheel heap on the grass. But still, they hadn’t acted like a couple that just had a major blowup because one of them decided to destroy the other one’s dreams.

  Not that music was Trina’s dream. But still. It was, like, a hobby.

  “Okay, stop thinking about ways to kill Rick and let me finish,” Trina said.

  “I wasn’t!” Joanna protested, even though she was pretty sure that was the next path her thoughts were going to take.

  “Just listen. I invited someone else to play with us.”

  “Okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Is it Hitler?”

  “Yes, Joanna, I resurrected the ghost of Adolf Hitler and asked him to join our band.”

  “Not cool, Trina.”

  “Shut up. This is a real person.”

  “Hitler was real.”

  “A not-dead person. Jesus, what is with you today?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re, like, giddy or something.”

  “I am?” Oh, God. Did she have a postcoital glow? Granny hadn’t said anything when Joanna snuck into the house early that morning. But then, she didn’t have to because Joanna was sneaking into the house early in the morning.

  “It’s weird. But . . . listen, I want you to hold on to that giddy feeling, okay? This is not, like, a permanent addition to the band. We’re just jamming.”

  “Okay, geez.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise to hold on to that giddy feeling.”

  “Just . . . just don’t freak out, okay?”

  “Fine! I promise not to freak out!”

  “Thank you. Come on.”

  Trina led her inside the barn. As they climbed up to the loft, Joanna half expected Liam to be there. She wasn’t sure why; she was pretty sure he didn’t play. And she wasn’t sure why Trina would expect her to freak out at that, except that Joanna was a generally unpleasant person who didn’t react well to change that she did not initiate herself. This was an unfortunate truth about her, but clearly Trina knew it and accepted it and prepared for it.

  Besides, playing with Liam wouldn’t be terrible. I mean, it wouldn’t be terrible to spend more time with him, dork that he was. He probably had a whole pile of sheet music he practiced from.

  Thinking about Liam’s dorkiness made her smile, so she was smiling as she climbed the oversized ladder to the loft with Rosetta strapped to her back.

  Her smile froze on her face when she saw who was up there waiting.

  She’d promised Trina she wouldn’t freak out.

  Every fiber in her being wanted to throw a fit. It was
all she could do not to just back down the ladder.

  Standing next to Trina’s drum set, a bass guitar strapped to her chest, was Kristin Klomberg.

  “Are you kidding me?” Joanna asked in a tone that she hoped relayed that she was not going to freak out, as promised. She was pretty sure it didn’t. Because she really, really felt like freaking out.

  “I knew she wouldn’t go for it,” Kristin said to Trina.

  “What, you guys are like best friends now?”

  “Jesus, Joanna, relax. Kristin’s been learning electric bass, so I thought she could join us.”

  “There’s no bass in Delicious Lies.”

  “That’s because we didn’t know any bass players in high school.”

  “I thought you played the cello.” Joanna had distinct memories of Kristin bragging about private lessons and how she didn’t have time for the Halikarnassus Concert Band because she was in the state youth orchestra program, which was a much more worthwhile endeavor than playing in some crappy band. “I thought you were Miss Fancy Orchestra Pants,” she added, because she really knew how to sling an insult. Dang, she was getting soft.

  “Nice. For your information, I gave up orchestra after high school.”

  “Why, you weren’t good enough?”

  “Are we really going to do this?” Kristin asked Trina.

  “Joanna—”

  “No! No, it’s fine. I promised not to freak out. I’m not freaking out that my best friend decided to include a prissy orchestra chick who doesn’t even play the bass to join our band.”

  “Okay, first of all, we’re just messing around here. It’s not like—”

  “Prissy orchestra chick! Grow up, Joanna. Don’t you think it’s time you let this whole mean girl thing go?”

  “I’m the mean girl? I’m not the mean girl! You’re the mean girl!” And whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you, Joanna wanted to add. But she didn’t, because that would mean she was freaking out, which she definitely was not.

  “Very selective memory, Joanna. You terrorized me as soon as I got boobs!”

  “Are you kidding me? You had people calling me ‘Flat Stanley’!”

  “I only said that because you would run through the halls calling me ‘Titson Walsh’!”