The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions)

by Amy Spalding

  Ethan Summers, a former member of Chaos 4 All, still lives in Chicago, where the group began over two years ago. “I saw a sign for auditions at Woodfield Mall,” Summers told the Crest. “My friends made fun of it, but I secretly memorized the website address and went home and signed up. You just had to submit a head shot; I didn’t have one, so I sent my freshman-year photo.”

  The members of Chaos 4 All didn’t know each other before they were selected for the group by its manager, Len Whitley, who at the time Summers believed to be a stranger to all group members as well.

  “I met Austin [Marts], Luis [Rivera], and Alex [Powell] during callbacks,” Summers said. “We all went to different schools, but we hit it off pretty much right away. Our audition song was ‘Want 2 B Ur Boy,’ and we sort of naturally picked up on the harmonies when we sang together. I thought, if I get chosen for this gig, I hope these guys do too.”

  Summers’s wish came true, as Marts, Rivera, Powell, and himself were selected by Whitley. When the four arrived at their first rehearsal, they met Chaos 4 All’s fifth member, Johnnie Blakely. The other members did not recall seeing him at initial auditions or callbacks, but were quickly impressed by his singing and dancing abilities.

  “Johnnie didn’t hang out with us as much, outside of rehearsals,” Summers said. “The four of us were pretty tight-knit, but it was like he had his own things going on. It might have bothered us more except that rehearsals took up so much time, we didn’t have that much real free time as it was.”

  After a strenuous several weeks of rehearsals, Chaos 4 All recorded “Want 2 B Ur Boy” and filmed the music video. The rest of their self-titled debut album was recorded while the music video was being edited, despite that their Rolling Stone interview quotes Blakely that they’d worked on the songs together for months before they had any plans of making them public.

  “We were just five friends goofing off,” Blakely said in the cover story. “Or at least that’s what it felt like. We never thought this would be anything more.”

  The “Want 2 B Ur Boy” music video broke 1.3 million views on VidLook on May 3 of that year. The video had supposedly been uploaded by Whitley only two days previously, on May 1.

  “It was crazy to see how fast those numbers went up,” said Chaos 4 All member Alex Powell. “I think we were all shocked.”

  According to Summers, though, these million views weren’t what they seemed.

  “Johnnie’s dad was one of the original investors in VidLook,” said Summers, and a review of VidLook’s public investor information confirms that John Blakely II was one of VidLook’s first and biggest investors. “He had power over the whole website. All he had to do was talk to the tech team, and they’d do whatever he asked.”

  According to Summers, that million-impression mark wasn’t reached by a surge of viewers across the world tuning in to watch Chaos 4 All, but a simple and invisible tweak on the back end of VidLook’s system. With the flip of a figurative switch, Chaos 4 All were an overnight success.

  A search on blog postings over this short time period indicate that despite the staggering rise in views, there is no record of any sharing or embedding of the video over those few days. Normally a quick rise in popularity on VidLook is accompanied by a proliferation of bloggers sharing the content that then takes on a viral nature once social media gets its hands on it.

  “Once we had those views, it didn’t matter anymore where they came from,” Summers said. “We were featured on the home page, and on the sidebar of almost every other video—music-related or not—on VidLook. And then people were watching, legitimately, and it took off from there. Moving forward, the rest of the fans were all real.”

  While those fans and the inevitable stardom that followed may have been real, they followed on the heels of something entirely unearned. This factor of unwarranted achievement came to prove itself out, when Chaos 4 All’s next few singles saw less and less attention, until their fourth single, “Y Aren’t We 2gether, Girl?,” did not even crack the Hot 100.

  “Once the last single off the album came out and tanked, I think we all knew that was it,” said Powell. “There was a point in time where we thought we’d get to do this forever, but I guess there was always a part of me that thought we couldn’t last.”

  Today the members of Chaos 4 All are, for the most part, living average lives away from show business. The only former member who appears to be actively pursuing a music career is Blakely. Blakely, who did not respond to attempts to interview him for this story, maintains a Bandcamp page featuring solo music available for a donation of six dollars.

  Chaos 4 All is now frequently cited as an example of how fast viral success may not translate to long-term career success. Within E.V.A., there’s another example of this: the weekly video and online program, TALON. While one might expect TALON’s episodes to collect, at most, as many views are there are students at E.V.A., TALON episodes regularly list five, ten, and even beyond 20 times that number of views.

  Now, with Chaos 4 All’s VidLook tampering brought to light, a common thread, besides unrealistically high interaction numbers, is Alex Powell. Could Powell be using the lessons learned from Chaos 4 All to help this new extracurricular get off the ground?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Relief is what I feel first. It’s not the worst, even though up until this very moment I didn’t realize that I even had a worst in mind. It was years ago, and it ended. It’s nothing that changes our romantic relationship.

  And what Chaos 4 All did probably isn’t illegal.

  But it’s definitely unethical.

  What Alex did was unethical.

  And he’s possibly still doing it.

  After all, if Ethan Summers can be so casual about it now, they must have all known. Sure, they were all just fifteen, but couldn’t someone have said something? Maybe they couldn’t have stopped it, but they could have spoken up.

  It really should make me upset. Doesn’t this make Alex a thief, at least kind of? It makes him at least a liar. It makes him a cheater.

  I’m actually not sure there are that many things worse than cheating.

  I escape my parents and hole up in my room because I’m not sure how I’ll manage not to tell them about this. They’ve literally been the only people I could talk to about Alex since we got back together, but now it’s too much.

  Peanut and Daisy join me on the bed, so I talk to them instead.

  “We clearly can’t publish it,” I say. “It’s all based on hypothesis at this point, and even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure that Mr. Wheeler would let us.”

  I might be imagining it, but it seems like Daisy’s giving me a look of concern.

  “But of course it’s not just that,” I say while stroking Daisy’s velvet ears. “I can’t do that to Alex. Even if it’s true. Even if he’s a cheater and a liar and other bad things. He’s still Alex.”

  Peanut perks up at the sound of Alex’s name, which would be the cutest thing ever if not for the situation at hand.

  “How could he know all of that?” I ask. “How could he know that and go along with it? Alex was so concerned when he did that Stray Rescue piece for TALON that I thought of him doing it for good and not for attention. Could someone like that cheat everyone just to get famous? And then do it again?”

  My phone buzzes, and I look at it, even though I know who it’ll be, both because I’m expecting it and because this is exactly how my life works. Of course it’s Alex.

  Want to go out? Obviously you have to drive. I’ll buy dinner, or whatever else you want.

  “Of course I want to go out!” I say, and I don’t even pretend I’m talking to the dogs anymore. I’m just a girl, sitting on my bed, talking to myself. “But can I not talk about this? I don’t think that’s even possible.”

  Right now it seems that my phone is the source of everything stressful, so I stick it under my pillows and run back downstairs. Darcy and Mom are debating where they should go out for dinner, and ev
en though I think it might be some kind of date night, I pipe up that French sounds great. I have to get out of the house. And I think when you’re a parent, you accept that your child will at least occasionally hone in on your plans.

  I hope so at least.

  When we get back from dinner at Canelé and then coffee at Bon Vivant, Mom and I take the dogs out for a walk while Darcy checks in on some work emails. By the time we’ve brought the dogs back in the house, I say good night and head up to my room. I want more enforced time away from my phone, of course, but I’ve crashed enough of their date night.

  Alex hasn’t texted any more, but, crap, Sadie has. Why do I keep forgetting her?

  Are you free? I have to stay home with Jon but we could order food.

  OK I guess you’re IGNORING ME like usual but please come over if you get this, so bored watching these kung fu movies.

  I ordered Indian because I haven’t heard from you, but I got tons of extra, so you can still come over if you want.

  I start to type that I was out with my parents, but obviously I’d normally have my phone on me, and also I’d normally pick dinner with Sadie over dinner with my parents. Nothing will add up if I can’t include anything about Alex or the Alex article.

  I do text Alex back, though. Sorry, out with Mom and Darcy. It’s probably too late now. Sorry!

  His response is immediate. Don’t be sorry. It’s not THAT late, but I know you run on Sunday mornings.

  I want to view him with nothing short of intelligent suspicion, but now he’s texting me and being considerate. The thought of kissing him is enough to put the article out of my head.

  For a moment, at least.

  Thanks for understanding, I text. Have a good night!

  Will he know something’s up? Normally we don’t say good night; we text back and forth until it’s harder to come up with complete thoughts, and then it sort of trails off naturally. But if Alex suspects anything isn’t usual about tonight, he doesn’t say it, merely wishes me a good night too.

  Sadie and Em are at my locker when I get to school on Monday. Alex passes by me, and I use every ounce of effort not to react in any way. All at once I want to demand he explain everything about Chaos 4 All and TALON, but also I want to kiss him. And instead I have to do nothing.

  “Big Saturday-night plans?” Sadie asks me, and I remember the texts I missed while my phone was under my pillow and I was out on my parents’ date.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t text back,” I tell her.

  “Let me guess?” Sadie rolls her eyes. “Your phone died?”

  “No, I…” I’m not sure what I can say that will sound real and also that won’t sound like a cop-out. “The Crest stuff.”

  “Of course,” she says.

  “We hung out on Friday night,” I say, because all of us ended up at a movie again.

  “With everyone else,” she says. “Come on, Em. See you in class, Jules.”

  “But…” I lock eyes with her. “We have first period together.”

  “Yes, Jules, I’m capable of remembering my own schedule. See you there.”

  They walk off toward Em’s first-period class, and I slide all my books from my backpack into my locker. And when I get to women’s history, Sadie doesn’t look at me at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I go to school like it’s a completely normal Tuesday, even though my SAT scores are due to get posted today. There were only a few other Eagle Vista students there with me that day; I try to gauge when I spot, for example, Natalie in the hall, if she looks nervous. But she looks like she always does; completely together and completely unfriendly.

  “I bet they’ll be fine,” Sadie tells me before women’s history. We seem to be talking again, but I did make a point of it last night not to let my phone out of my sight, and to text Sadie a couple of funny pictures of the dogs. “Not fine. Perfect. I’ve never seen you choke. I have so much more to worry about.”

  “NYU’s acceptance rate is four times higher than Brown’s,” I tell her. “You’re fine.”

  “Wait, do you have every college’s acceptance rate memorized?” she asks.

  “Just the ones relating to me,” I say.

  “Aw! You memorized it because I’m your best friend? That’s somehow the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a while.”

  “It wasn’t even that nice,” I say, which makes her laugh. Hopefully we’re back on normal footing. Better footing, at least.

  It is easier not confessing everything to Sadie when we aren’t hanging out constantly, though.

  “Let’s skip class and check your scores,” she says.

  “Skip class?” I give her my best disapproving look, even though it’s true that women’s history, and my future, start at the exact same time today, eight AM.

  “Someone will give us a pass,” she says, pulling me down the hallway to Mr. Wheeler’s classroom. We file in with his freshmen.

  “Jules, Sadie,” he says. “Are you two lost? Ha-ha!”

  Sadie laughs like this is a very funny bit. “Mr. Wheeler, could we use one of the computers for just a moment, and get a pass for first period?”

  He sighs but waves us over to the row of computers as the bell rings. Sadie sits down and types in my email address into the Web portal. “What’s your password?”

  I lean past Sadie to enter my password (PeanutDaisy777), and then follow the directions I’ve saved in my inbox to get to my scores.

  “Should I close my eyes?” Sadie asks as I’m logging in. “Do you need, like, one private second?”

  “Hey, ladies,” Mr. Wheeler says. “Please keep it down over there, okay?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Wheeler!” Sadie calls. Loudly.

  “You don’t have to close your eyes,” I whisper as my results load.

  “You’re a rock star,” Sadie says in nothing approaching a whisper.

  “I don’t think SAT scores are what rock stars are known for,” I say, but I can’t help smiling. My numbers are higher than ever. These are Brown-worthy scores.

  “Sadie, come on.” Mr. Wheeler looks over from his attempt to observe the classroom for attendance. “We’re having a class here.”

  “Jules, we have to celebrate,” Sadie says emphatically enough that Mr. Wheeler gives her another stern look.

  “Later,” I tell her. “We need to go to class.”

  “We should get our passes and leave this classroom,” she says, loudly enough that Mr. Wheeler just walks to his desk and writes out our passes.

  Out in the hallway I take out my phone to message Darcy and Mom in our ongoing group text. It’s usually about who walked the dogs last or if whoever’s making dinner needs something picked up from Gelson’s. This is better.

  “Swork for coffee?” Sadie asks.

  “We have class,” I say.

  “We have passes that keep us out of first period,” she says, “as long as we’re back before the bell rings. You’re a genius and deserve a latte. Well, more than a latte, but right now I will buy you a latte.”

  I don’t know how to say no to Sadie when she’s right in front of me, so I walk as calmly as I can beside her and realize that if our passes are held in viewing range that no one really gives us a second look. We’re off campus before I know it, and then we’re only a couple of blocks from Swork.

  We get small iced lattes, because we feel confident we can finish them in the couple of blocks before we’re back at the school. I check my phone while we’re still off campus and fast-sipping our lattes, and my parents have both responded. We knew you could do it! SO PROUD!!! plus an emoji heart from Mom. Yes, this is a non-surprise, but the best kind, from Darcy, and then one more emoji heart from Mom.

  “I think my mom learned emoji from your mom,” Sadie says, glancing over my shoulder. “I get whole messages without words now.”

  “We should get back to class,” I say.

  “I know, I know.” She grabs my empty cup and tosses both of ours in the trash can immediately befor
e school grounds. “We can celebrate for real later, okay? After you walk the dogs tomorrow? I’ll plan something cool that you’ll love.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “I have to check my schedule.”

  Sadie sighs. “I know, I know, I’m just Sadie, I can’t help you with the Crest or with Brown. I’d never be able to figure out how to take down the whole of digital media in one fell swoop.”

  “What? No, just, my moms, homework, everything.” I shrug because everything partially does include the Crest and of course taking down at least the digital media within our school.

  “Sure,” Sadie says, but like the word is something she has to get rid of from her mouth as quickly as possible. “See you at lunch.”

  I didn’t think it was possible to get these scores and feel this bad.

  Maybe it’s my scores, or the caffeine in the iced latte, or Sadie’s sure playing over and over in my head, but I’d somehow almost forgotten about the Chaos 4 All article.

  “We’re definitely publishing it,” Carlos says during our after-after-school meeting. “Right?”

  “I… don’t know,” Thatcher says, looking right at me.

  “I don’t think that we should.” I aim for a firm and convicted tone, but my pitch sounds off. High-pitched and off. “It doesn’t seem to fit the historic goals of the Crest.”

  “I thought this year we were trying to protect those historic goals,” Marisa says.

  “We are—”

  “That’s exactly what this will do,” she interrupts me. “Right?”

  There are a lot of positive-sounding murmurs around Carlos’s living room.