by Marni Bates
“I’ve met them, Mom,” I protested. “They’re really nice, and I’d be going with Corey. I’ll be fine. Plus, I got a break from my tutoring.”
I didn’t mention that this “break” might be permanent.
Her lips pursed and my heart sank. She was giving Mom Body Language that said, I don’t think so, missy.
“You went to a party last night and a concert before that. You’ve had your fun. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to want you here for the rest of the weekend.”
I nodded. “It’s not unreasonable. This is a last-minute request, and I know that my timing couldn’t be any worse. I got drunk at a party last night, and I understand if trusting me right now doesn’t seem like the best idea. But Mom, it’s me. You know you can trust me. I really need to do this interview. I need to prove to myself that I can handle this once and for all. How long have you been trying to get me out of my shell? Well, I’m ready to do it, Mom.”
She considered that for a moment. “If you meet certain conditions ... you can go.”
I jumped out of my chair and wrapped her into a giant hug. “Just name your terms.”
“Hold on. I want phone calls. Lots of phone calls from the road. You will pick up every time I call you, when I call you. No drinking. No drugs. No partying. I’m trusting you, Mackenzie.” She said the last part slowly, emphasizing every word, so it would really sink in.
“Done and done.” I ran into the computer room to print out the parental consent forms. “Just sign on the dotted line.”
That’s pretty much all it took. A signature and a few phone calls later, I was boarding a tour bus with my suitcase, my best friend, and my favorite rock band.
And I couldn’t help thinking, Hollywood, show me what you’ve got. I can take it.
Chapter 34
The guys were great. I don’t know if Tim got the others to clean up before we arrived, but the bus was totally presentable when Corey and I boarded with our stuff. No Playboy magazines or dirty underwear lying around. Which was a relief, actually, since with two new additions the bus was pretty cramped. Not that any of us seemed to mind. The minifridge was stocked with soft drinks so I could lean back against the supercomfy leather couch, pop open the top, and hang out with four very cool guys. And when Tim and Corey started holding hands it was such a sweet form of PDA that no one said anything in case it killed the moment.
“So, Mackenzie, I still haven’t heard about the party.” Corey’s words instantly piqued everyone’s interest.
I sipped on my Coke and tried to think of some way to get out of it. “I’m a bit fuzzy on certain parts myself.”
Dominic laughed. “Drink too much?”
“Yep, tequila. Never again.”
Tim grinned. “Blame it on the alcohol.”
Everyone groaned at the Jamie Foxx song reference.
“Last night was ... complicated. Patrick told me—I’m not making this up—that I’m only interested in guys for their money and popularity.”
Corey tensed, and his eyes flashed with annoyance. “What an idiot!”
“And then I saw Logan making out with Chelsea.” I didn’t mean for that to come out. I was going to keep it to myself. What happens at night in a gazebo ought to stay private. Of course, they really should have found a better location for their make out session if they wanted it to be such a secret. That’s how I justified blurting it out at the first opportunity.
“Who’s Logan?” asked Tim.
Corey answered before I could. “He’s a really great guy who Mackenzie wants to date, but she is too thickheaded to admit it.”
“I don’t ... okay, yeah.” I put my head in my hands. How was it that Corey could see everything so much sooner than me? Talk about unfair. “It gets worse.”
Dominic, Chris, and Tim exchanged grins and leaned back in their seats as if they loved nothing more than watching an emotional train wreck.
“First I started drinking.” Corey winced. “Yeah, I know. Bad idea. Anyhow Logan took me to his house since it was pretty obvious I needed to get out of there fast.”
“I would’ve picked you up,” he said with a frown. “You know I would’ve picked you up.”
“I didn’t want to ruin your night.” I included Tim in my smile. “The two of you didn’t need an idiot like me screwing up the date. Anyhow, Logan took me to his house.”
Dominic got up to grab another can of soda. “His house. That’s cozy.”
“It didn’t mean anything.” That was the part that really sucked. “He was the designated driver before ... not the point. So I puked and he told me all about Chelsea.” I found myself searching for details that weren’t altogether clear. “Something about how confident she is. He said she dumped him right after some big dance.”
“What’s the problem then?” asked Tim.
“That was ages ago, before she started flirting and he looked down her shirt in front of me and they made out in a gazebo.”
“Okay, what else?” Corey said. “You’re leaving stuff out. I can tell.”
“He was great. Made me drink water. Loaned me clothes to sleep in. And, no, he didn’t help me change,” I said, knowing that Corey had been about to ask. “Everything was great. He told me a secret or something and then I fell asleep.”
“What was the secret?” Chris jumped back into the conversation. Then looked defensive as everyone stared at him. “What? I want to know the secret.”
“It wasn’t much of a secret. Something about not liking the way I looked at Patrick this one time.”
Corey’s hand tightened reflexively to squeeze Tim’s in excitement. “He said that!”
“Yeah, something along those lines. Then he said we were friends and I thought, Okay, maybe not EXACTLY what I want, but it could be worse. And things were fine between us until he let a real secret slip out. Apparently, he went behind my back and threatened Alex Thompson.” I felt my indignation return in full force.
“Wait, who’s Alex?” Tim wanted to know.
“The asshole who was pushing Mackenzie around.”
“Oh.” He soaked this in. “Then why do we care if Logan threatened him?”
“Because he didn’t ask me for permission! It was stupid male macho garbage that I really don’t need in my life.”
“Wait a second,” Corey interrupted. “Since when do people have to check in with you before helping you out? He wanted Alex to leave you alone and he made it happen.”
“I made it happen!”
“So the real problem was that he stepped on your pride.”
“Well.” I had to think about that one. “Maybe ...”
“Here’s a question for you: what if it had been me?”
“What if what had been you?”
“What if I told you Alex kept shoving me around in the boys’ locker room and kept making gay slurs directed at me. What would you do?”
My hands had curled into fists, and I could feel the anger pooling inside me. “Did he really do that to you, Corey? Did you report him to Principal Taylor?”
“Good ol’ boy Taylor whose life revolves around our school athletics won’t do anything that might jeopardize his star tackle.” The bitterness was back in his voice.
“I’d—I’d, damn, I’d totally pick a fight with him.” I looked down at my clenched hands. “I’d get pummeled, but it’d be worth it.”
“Interesting, isn’t it? You didn’t need to ask for my permission first.”
“That’s completely different,” I protested.
“I don’t see how. You want to take a swing at him, and it has nothing to do with believing I’m weak. It has everything to do with the fact that I’m your best friend and he’s blatantly homophobic. When you think a friend needs you, you don’t always think clearly.” He grinned at me. “We’d have to scrape you off the cafeteria floor.”
“Hey!” I said defensively. “I’d do all right.”
“My point is that you may not like his methods, but whatever Log
an did worked. And as your best friend, I’m glad he did it. I wish I had thought to do it myself, actually.”
“Corey, that’s so not important right now. Is he leaving you alone?”
He grinned. “Look, I took care of it, so no need to attack him with a textbook, okay? After Taylor blew me off, I lodged a complaint with the guidance center. They hauled everyone in for a ‘discussion.’ ” His smile was filled with humor. “My parents wore their rainbow What Part of Equality Don’t You Understand? shirts. I’m really lucky to have so much support. Lots of people don’t.” His expression swiftly became serious. “I just hope he didn’t go after you as a way to get at me.”
I laughed. “No, I’m pretty sure he hates me plenty on my own. I wish you’d told me about it earlier.”
His grin cocked back into place. “I didn’t want you doing anything stupid. So ... what happened after your hissy fit?”
“I do not have hissy fits,” I said prissily. “I have heated arguments.”
“Right. What happened next?”
It was strange trying so hard to recall what had been said only a few hours earlier. I blamed the tequila.
“I was trying to set boundaries, or something ... it was, weird. Anyhow, I ended up quitting my job and royally pissing him off.” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter what Logan thought of me, even though, of course, it did. “I might have said something about him and Chelsea being perfect for each other. You sort of had to be there.” I scanned the disbelieving faces of the boys in the tour bus with me. “What?”
“This is better than cable,” Chris decided.
Dominic shook his head. “She’s like an accident on the side of the road. I just can’t seem to look away.”
“I’m not that bad!” I insisted. I turned to Corey for confirmation. “Right?”
“You’re worse. Why didn’t you just stab a number two pencil through him while you were at it.”
I stared at Corey in total confusion. I understand textbooks and I can make sense out of history lectures, but with real people ... well, I wish they came with flashcards and translations.
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s into you. Or he was anyway.” Corey turned to the other three boys to get a consensus.
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like the guy was into you.”
“Definitely.”
It just shows how strange my life had become that having a tribunal of rock stars discussing my love life felt normal to me.
“No way.”
Corey shook his head. “Think about it.”
So I did. I sat back in my plush leather seat while the guys talked amongst themselves and I thought about Logan Beckett. And this time I pretended that I was an impartial observer—a scientist looking to catalogue flirtatious behavior among high school male adolescents.
That impartiality didn’t work too well when I remembered how he had deflected the conversation from me, sat down next to Jane, and taken the time to really listen to her. I mentally shrugged. For all I knew, maybe he was interested in Jane that way. Or maybe he was just a nice guy who had been born with social skills. None of that meant he liked me.
But as I replayed our almost-date at the mall that first day with the paparazzi chasing us, I thought Corey might have a point. The way he had grinned at me over kung pao chicken before telling me about his dyslexia could’ve meant anything. But combined with everything else ...
“Oh, crap!”
Corey nodded. “My sentiments exactly.”
They let me silently mull over how, exactly, I’d completely failed to notice that Logan, the most notable of Notables, had been interested in me as more than a tutor.
And now I had to figure out a way to make everything better.
Chapter 35
I called my mom about ten times from the road, which seemed a bit excessive to the guys, but I knew it would make her happy. Plus I thought when she got off work and sat down to go through her voice mail she’d appreciate the messages I’d left for her.
Messages like:
Me: Hey, Mom! It’s me calling you again. We’re just passing. . . Corey, where are we? Okay, well, Corey thinks we’re near Ashland or Medford ... or something. He’s not too sure. But the bus driver knows exactly where we are, so everything’s fine. Thanks again for letting me do this. I’ve got to go though since Tim’s bugging me to try one of his new songs as a duet. Maybe you can hear the guitar in the background. That’s him. Yeah, I know, Tim! On the phone here! Okay, I really have to go. Call you soon. Love you!
Click.
Corey and I both called Jane from the road too. She said she was glad we were having fun, that she’d be sure to see Ellen interview me, and that the two of us should try to get some homework done on the bus because otherwise we were never going to get caught up. That was exactly what we needed to hear to make us actually open the textbooks we’d brought along. Jane might be a bit on the staid, serious side, but she’s the best person to go to when a reality check was needed. Even if she did throw in a few “Oh, Kenzie’s.”
So I took care of a large chunk of my homework, which would be superdifficult for any teenage girl who found herself on a tour bus with the very attractive members of a boy rock band. Talk about messing with your concentration. I worked for as long as I could and then dealt with Dylan. He called just to find out if “yes, I was fine” and “no, I would not ask Chris, Tim, or Dominic for a signed copy of their latest CD for him.”
Little brothers. Even when they’re concerned about your welfare, they can be awfully annoying.
But even with the phone calls and homework to distract me, most of the ride was spent hanging out and talking, which gave me more than enough time to really get to know the guys.
I bet you want to know everything.
Too bad.
You’ll have to watch VH1 Behind The Music, just like everyone else.
I can tell you that we had a few jam sessions along Interstate 5—and that we sounded really good. I thought maybe that whole singing-onstage-with-Tim YouTube video clip had been some kind of fluke. I expected to join in on the vocals only for them to holler, “Stop! Stop! You’re off-key! This is too painful!”
But instead, Tim kept saying stuff like, “Let’s try having you come in about two beats earlier, so you actually start before I do. Okay, sounds good. Now what if you ...”
It went on like that for well over three hours. By the end of it, the song sounded freaking awesome. It was like all the vocals layered over each other to create this really great texture. Kind of like baklava: all sweet and delicious, layered and smooth—and by the end of it my voice was so entwined in the song that I thought of it as mine too. It would still sound good without me ... but I was totally the honey drizzle that kept the layers sticking.
That’s right: the honey drizzle.
So when Ellen’s producer called again, asking if I’d sing with ReadySet, I instantly agreed. The song needed me—and that was a direct quote from Timothy Goff. In fact, Tim had already set up some time for us in a recording studio after the interview. I didn’t let myself think about that. I had enough to worry about just being interviewed by Ellen. Old Mackenzie would have been freaking out, hyperventilating into a brown paper bag, and begging Tim to call whomever he needed to contact to get me out of it! But every time I felt my panic level rising to the danger zone I reminded myself that I was in control. I was making all the decisions. I even sort of enjoyed the sensation. I could feel the quick jumping of my pulse, and it made me feel so alive.
That’s what had been missing from my life before. I’d been comfortable, I’d been invisible, and for the most part, I’d been content.
But I hadn’t felt this alive—this wonderfully and terrifyingly vulnerable since, well, ever.
The closer the bus came to its destination the more wired I felt. It was kind of like having a ministroke. I’d laugh at a joke and be totally relaxed while munching on the food we’d grabbed from some grea
sy fast-food place and then I’d think, In less than twelve hours, I’ll be on the set of Ellen! Every muscle, tissue, and fiber in my body would constrict and I’d wonder if I had just dreamed it all up. Any second I would wake up and I’d just be Logan’s lame tutor, ReadySet wouldn’t have heard of me, and I would never get invited to do a talk show. All of this made much more sense as the product of an overactive imagination or a very weird dream.
But when Dominic shook me awake after my second night sleeping on the leather couch, it was all too real for me to have created the whole thing. Even after I had scarfed down a banana loaf with my mocha Frappuccino I had trouble believing that we’d just roll up to the studio lot, get buzzed inside, and then have interns hustle us off to prep rooms to be made camera ready.
I managed to grab Corey’s hand before I could be abducted by a woman who kept barking things into her earpiece like, “We need makeup and wardrobe on standby! Greg, have the mics been checked? Get on that, please.” She smiled as she led us through twisting hallways full of props, equipment, and people. “We’re so excited about today’s show. Did you have a nice drive?”
Before either of us could answer, we reached the makeup room. “Great. Okay, here you are. Sorry we don’t have time to talk. Things are crazy right now.” She pressed her earpiece. “Cynthia, I said we’d do that next week, honey. Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes expressively. “Okay, well, you need to make it work.”
She cut off any reply Corey or I might have had with a quick, albeit distant smile. “Charlene here will have you looking great.” She patted my shoulder quickly. “Break a leg, sweetie.”
Then she swooped out the way she’d swirled in and demanded that Bryant give her an update stat.
“Think everyone in Hollywood uses pet names?” I muttered nervously to Corey as Charlene wheeled over a mountain of cosmetics.
“Of course they do, snookums. That’s how they get out of remembering anyone’s actual names.”