Sing

by Vivi Greene

  “Lil-y,” Joey Z teasingly intones, “anything you want to tell us?”

  I breathe carefully, making sure to turn my face away from the headset before adjusting the microphone. Normally, I don’t say anything about my personal life that hasn’t been vetted by Terry and the team. And rarely am I caught off guard by photos in the press. If I’m seen in public holding hands with someone new, it’s usually because I want to be. I know the “right” thing to do here would be to deny it. Say Noel’s just a friend—a family friend, maybe, something innocent and concrete.

  But something in me can’t find the words, or the practiced, blasé tone I’d need to pull them off. What am I hiding from? Noel isn’t like the other guys I’ve dated. He doesn’t have a manager, a publicity machine. On the island, we’re just another couple, doing what couples do. Everything is different now. Why shouldn’t this be different, too?

  “Joey,” I say, breathy and casual. “You know I don’t kiss and tell. But I will say that he’s someone very special to me, and I can’t wait for you all to meet him soon.”

  I see Sammy and Tess cringe as Joey Z hoots and hollers.

  “Does this mean he’ll be joining you on tour this fall?”

  Tess is already on the phone and Sammy is holding her head in her hands. I know I should be terrified, but instead, I feel like I’m floating, like half my heart has been locked in chains and now, suddenly, it’s free.

  “Nothing’s set in stone yet,” I say. “But I can say it would make me very happy if he did.”

  26

  35 Days Until Tour

  August 8th

  SAMMY PUSHES MY phone toward me across the backseat as K2 whips around the island’s dirt roads toward the house. “It’s Terry.”

  I try to read her face for some clue as to what I’m in for, but her lips are tight, her eyes a trained mask of indifference. I’ve forgotten what my friends are like when things get hairy. Being away has changed them, too. They’ve been more relaxed, less consumed by the minutia of my daily life, and it’s almost scary how immediately they’ve snapped back into work mode. There are subtle differences in the tone they use to talk to me now and in their neutral, studied expressions.

  I hold my breath and bring the phone to my ear, steeled against the barrage of reprimands I suspect are about to be spewed in my direction.

  “Hello?” I greet him meekly.

  “Lily!” Terry booms. “You were brilliant!”

  My eyebrows cinch together. “I was?”

  “The stuff about the guy? How you can’t wait for us to meet him? Sheer genius!” Terry laughs. “And of course he’s a dreamboat. I mean, my God, where do you find these people?”

  I chuckle nervously. Terry’s acting like this was some publicity play, like coming clean about Noel was a premeditated plan to get more press before the tour. I suddenly start to feel sick.

  “I hate to make this about me,” he continues, “but can I just remind you that I never fell for that ‘the island is my anchor’ baloney? Not for one second.”

  Terry babbles on about ramping up my interviews to stay in control of the way the story plays out. I try to pay attention but my head is spinning. The story? Noel isn’t a story. He’s a person.

  My legs start to twitch. I have to get off the phone. I have to call Noel. I stammer some stuff to Terry about a bad connection and hang up as we pull into the driveway.

  “Bird—” Tess says from the front seat.

  “Hang on,” I interrupt, finding Noel’s number. “I need to make sure that Noel isn’t going to kill me.”

  K2 cuts the engine and the car is suddenly too quiet. Tess and Sammy are turned to look out their windows. “I’d say he’s getting there,” Tess says.

  Noel’s truck is in our driveway, and he stands beside it, his face frozen somewhere between bewilderment and sheer panic.

  “You have to get him out of here,” Sammy says.

  “What do you mean?”

  Tess looks over our shoulder. “She’s right. Unless you want this conversation broadcast on the nightly news, you need to have it somewhere other than the driveway.”

  I hear the rumble of wheels on gravel and turn to see a pair of cars squealing to a stop at the end of the road. “Are you kidding me?” I ask as a cluster of camera-wielding paparazzi forms at the edge of the lawn. “How is this happening? Nobody could have gotten here this fast.”

  “The photos went up early this morning, and apparently the paparazzi showed up on the island soon after,” Tess explains. “I guess town has been a circus all day. When the interview went live, they must have found us at the station and followed us here.”

  Tess flings her door open and starts toward Noel, while Sammy nudges me out of the car. “Go inside,” she says. “Don’t run. Don’t look concerned. Just walk like a normal person.”

  I force what I hope is a casual smile and glance over at Noel. Tess is putting an arm around him and undoubtedly giving him the same orders, and they walk slowly, if rigidly, toward the house.

  “Lily!” I hear the first of the catcalls coming from behind us. The crowd has grown to about six reporters, scrambling to get their shots.

  “Wave,” Sammy whispers, and I lift a hand, beaming a manufactured smile before following her up the steps.

  “Noel, I’m so sorry.”

  We’re alone in the kitchen—Sam and Tess have gone upstairs to man their phones and keep up with what’s happening online. Noel leans against the refrigerator and I reach for the ragged hem of his faded gray T-shirt, tugging it gently. He tries to smile, but his eyes are jumpy and uncertain.

  “I was . . . I was pulling into the harbor and they were all there, with cameras, and so many questions.” He scratches the back of his head. “I just wish I knew what I was supposed to say.”

  “I know.” I nod, looping my arms around his waist. “I’m sorry. I should’ve . . . we should have talked about it first. I should have warned you about this part. I just, I got caught up, and . . . I’m tired. I’m tired of thinking about everything that I say, or being told how I should spin things. This, us”—I put a hand on his chest—“it doesn’t need spinning.”

  But even as I say the words, I feel guilty. I feel Noel’s pulse racing beneath my palm. How could I not have considered what this would be like for him? His whole life will be analyzed, his every move will be held under a spotlight and picked apart for weeks.

  I reach for his hand and wish more than anything that I could lead us somewhere safe, where we could be alone, just us. It’s the way I used to feel, when I was just starting out and didn’t know how to handle how crazy everything would get. Back before I learned how to be “on” all the time. I remember how terrifying it was, how violated I felt that I couldn’t walk outside my front door without feeling like it was a performance. All I wanted was to hide beneath my covers, to wake up in a world where nobody knew my name.

  Now, without so much as a word of warning, I’ve done the same thing to Noel.

  I force a reassuring smile, trying to calm us both down at the same time. “It’s going to be intense for a little while,” I finally manage, hoping he doesn’t hear it for what it truly is: the understatement of the century.

  “Intense?” Noel raises a concerned eyebrow.

  I nod. “They’ll want to know everything about us, about you,” I say. “But the good news is, it doesn’t last long. Once they see how boring we are, they’ll be on the next boat out of here, I promise.”

  Noel laughs, and I can see color returning to his cheeks. “Lily Ross and Boring Local: Netflix and Chill?” he jokes hopefully.

  My ragged breathing starts to even out, the tense knots in my shoulders start to unwind. “You heard it here first.”

  I push myself up onto my toes and nestle against his chest, hoping that he’s right. Of course there will be some photos, a story or two, but once the newness wears off, maybe they’ll leave us alone. I close my eyes and breathe deeply into his shoulder, inhaling the familiar
smell of sea salt and soap.

  “Lily?”

  I pull my head away to see Tess in the doorway. The look in her eyes is sharp and alarming. Before she says a word, I know: they’ll never leave us alone.

  Things have gotten much, much worse.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  She walks slowly toward us with her phone. She hands it to me, but her eyes are glued to Noel.

  The screen is open to another gossip blog, one that I’ve barely heard of, and the homepage has a photo of a woman who looks vaguely familiar, but whom I can’t place right away. The longer I look the more I realize that the photo is a mug shot, a grainy, washed-out close-up of a pale, thin woman standing in front of a blank white wall. “Who is this?” I ask, waving the phone back at Tess.

  Tess doesn’t say anything, her gaze still locked on Noel as he leans in for a look. His face goes slack, his jaw drooping and his eyes growing wide. “It’s my mother,” he says, slightly above a whisper. “It’s my mom.”

  There’s a buzzing sound in my head and I feel an inappropriate laugh bubbling up in my throat. I look frantically from Noel to Tess, who takes back her phone and scrolls down through the story.

  “What do you mean, it’s your mom?” I ask him, peering over his shoulder to get another look.

  My mind flashes back to the black-and-white photo on the wall of his house, his mom, pregnant, with Noel beside her. This woman is older and thinner, with new, hard lines on her face and dark shadows around her eyes. But there’s no question: It’s the same woman. It’s Noel’s mom.

  I shake my head, as if I’m trying to rearrange pieces of a scattered puzzle. “I don’t get it,” I say. “I thought she was in India.”

  Noel slides down the refrigerator, landing on the floor. He bends his knees and draws them close to his body, lowering his head into his hands. I crouch down beside him and put my hands on his shoulders. I wait for him to say something, but he just stares at a spot on the linoleum between my feet.

  “Noel?” I urge, looking from him back up at Tess. “What’s going on?”

  Tess stares at the top of Noel’s head, her lips twisted in a knot. Noel makes a groaning sound and I look back into his eyes. There’s a sudden harshness to his features that I’ve never seen before. He looks older. Weaker. He looks just like his father.

  “What’s going on?” Noel slowly repeats, forcing a hard chuckle behind it. “What’s going on is that my mother isn’t in India. She’s in rehab outside of Portland, where she’s been since she was arrested two years ago.”

  “Arrested?” I ask. The urge to laugh is back. This has to be a joke. Rehab? How could I not have known? “What are you talking about?” I ask again. “You said . . .”

  “She’s an addict, Lily,” Noel says, a wounded weariness coating his voice. “She’s an alcoholic and an addict, and my dad kicked her out. She got picked up on the mainland with drugs in her car, spent a few nights in jail, and my dad said the only way he’d bail her out was if she got help. She was in rehab for a while and has been living in a halfway house ever since.”

  Tess puts a hand on Noel’s shoulder and for a strange, confusing moment I feel like a third wheel. Something in me even wonders if I should leave them alone. There’s no way Tess could have known the truth, but she must remember his mom the way she used to be. They have a past together, a shared history, something I’ll never understand. How can I comfort him when there’s so much I still don’t know about him? How can I help him when it’s my fault he’s hurting in the first place?

  Tess glances at me and puts the phone in her pocket. “I’ll be upstairs,” she says, giving Noel’s shoulder one last squeeze before quietly slipping into the hall.

  Noel is gripping the ends of his light hair and blinking furiously at the floor. I sit cross-legged beside him. I close my eyes and see Sidney, the map on her wall, the pushpins, the postcards.

  “Sidney . . .” I say, starting to work it all out.

  “She doesn’t know,” Noel finishes, a new flash of panic registering on his face. “She didn’t know. Fuck.”

  He scrambles to his feet, bumping a chair and knocking it to the floor with a jarring crash. I cringe and reach out to stop him as he starts for the door.

  “She doesn’t know what?” I stand.

  “Anything!” Noel shouts, flustered. “She thought . . . we’ve been . . .”

  I feel the blood draining from my face. “You’ve been lying to her?” I guess. “Your dad?”

  “It was his idea,” Noel blurts, pacing the kitchen with his arms over his head, like he’s been running too long and is walking out a cramp. “This island . . . it’s so small. He didn’t want her to be that kid at school. It would have been all anyone talked about. It’s hard enough for her as it is, you know? She’s different.” He looks at me, his eyes suddenly searching mine, begging me to understand. “We were just trying to protect her.”

  I bend down slowly to pick up the fallen chair and let my body sink against it. “What about the postcards?” I ask.

  “That was Mom’s idea,” Noel says. “She orders a bunch online and sends them in an envelope to a PO box. My dad picks them up so Sid doesn’t see the postmark. Mom says it’s the only thing that keeps her going, pretending to be somewhere else.”

  I feel my eyes watering and wipe at them quickly. “So everyone’s in on it but Sid?” I ask. Something bubbles in my chest and I feel like I’m the one who’s been betrayed. How could they not tell her the truth? She’s smarter than the rest of us put together. Did they honestly think she wouldn’t figure it out, eventually? “She’s fourteen, Noel,” I say, my voice harder now, almost accusatory. “She’s not a little kid.”

  Noel stops moving and whips around to point a finger in my face. “You don’t get to judge me. You have no idea what it’s like,” he says. “You have no idea what anything’s like. You think this island is a bubble, Lily? You’re a bubble. Your whole life . . . it’s not even real. You complain about not being able to do what you want? To think for yourself? All you do is think about yourself!”

  I sit frozen at the table, stung by his words.

  “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I didn’t want you to write a song about me? That maybe I wouldn’t want my entire life picked over by complete strangers?” Noel stares at me, like he’s waiting for an answer.

  My breath gets quick and shallow; my chest feels like it’s collapsing. I see myself again, the way I used to be, before all this became a way of life. Seeing my innermost secrets splashed across the pages of magazines, explaining myself in carefully rehearsed sound bites at every turn . . . only, when it happens to me, there’s a flip side. I still get to make my music. I still get to travel around the world. I still get to sing my songs to thousands of people in the dark.

  What does Noel get?

  I drop my head onto the table. I don’t know what else to say. Noel throws up his hands and turns to the doorway, standing with his back to me. I look up to see that Tess and Sammy are hovering in the hall.

  Suddenly, awfully, Noel laughs. He gestures to my friends as he walks toward them. “Even your friends have to be paid to hang out with you,” he calls back to me, cruelly, over his shoulder. “You don’t see a problem with that?”

  Tears pool in the corners of my eyes, clouding my vision as I stare at a chipped corner of the kitchen table. I see the shape of Tess’s arm as she reaches out for Noel, a quick flurry of color and motion as he brushes her off. I hear the hurried shuffle of his footsteps. I feel the shattering quake of the door as it slams behind him.

  27

  33 Days Until Tour

  August 10th

  I SPEND THE next few days in bed. At least, my body does. My mind is somewhere else, everywhere else, cycling through events—the things I’ve done and said, the things Noel said, the looks on my friends’ faces as they stood like statues in the hall—and wondering how it all could have gone so wrong, so fast.

  I was happier than I’d ever been.
I’d finally done it, finally found a way to have everything I’ve ever wanted. My music, my fans, my career . . . and a normal, stable relationship with a guy who cared about me as much as I cared about him.

  But now I’m back to square one: a life that will never be normal.

  I flop my head against the pillow. Every so often, I hear myself making weird noises, low, guttural groans, like I’m being passed through some invisible torture device, my insides twisted into unbearable knots. How could I have been so thoughtless? Going public should have been something that Noel and I decided together. If he’d had all the facts about what he was getting into, maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to come on tour with me, but at least he would have been prepared.

  I sit up, staring out the dark window. It’s night again. Soon, Sammy will bring me something to eat, a simple, lovingly prepared meal that I’ll barely be able to pick at. Tess will read through my emails and keep me up-to-date on what’s going on at home, how the set for tour is coming along, who’s doing what and what’s being planned. I’ll nod and thank her, blankly, without actually hearing a word that she’s said.

  My phone buzzes, buried beneath the comforters. I’ve been ignoring it for days, racking up voice mails and texts alerts in terrorizing little red bubbles. But this time, something tells me to look.

  It’s my mom.

  I swipe the screen and press the phone to my cheek. I try to say “hi” but all that comes out is a pathetic-sounding cry.

  “Sweetie?” Mom says. I hear the beeping sound her car makes when the door is open, the rumble of her engine as it starts. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “I ruined everything,” I say once my breath has steadied and I seem to be out of tears. “I forgot what it’s like. I forgot how easy it is for me to hurt people I care about, without even thinking.”