“Don’t say anything, okay? He’ll know the question’s actually coming from me. And then he’ll think that I care where she is and why she isn’t with him, when I definitely don’t.”
Olivia shrugs, but she doesn’t say a thing. Because she doesn’t have to.
A second later, Jacks sits up and nudges George in the ribs. He waves a driver’s license in George’s face. “Come on, let’s get cocktails.”
“No, you go ahead. I’m staying here.” George leans back in his chair.
“What for?” Jacks says. “To wait for your chick? Dude. Snap out of it. Have you looked around you? It’s like one big naked party around here.”
“I guess. Whatever.”
“I can’t believe you hooked up with someone from the show. Seriously. LA is babe central, so why you’d waste your time with a girlfriend like that, I’ll never know.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” George pops his earphones in his ears and rolls over so that his back is to Jacks.
Whoa. This is definitely something new.
George seems cranky—no, downright pissed. But why? Because Jacks called Rio his girlfriend? Or because he said George was wasting his time when he could be doing it with California girls? I blink a couple times, trying to make sense of it, but nope. It’s no use. I’m more confused than ever about George, his suddenly pissy mood and—let’s just say it here—whether he prefers male or female genitalia.
Jacks, on the other hand, is relentless.
“What’s your deal, man? You sort of suck as a roommate, you know that? You’ve been moping around here for days and after that funk you sunk into after Liquid went home, I can’t take another round of this from you.” Jacks puffs out his chest. “Look around you. We’re in LA. Life is great. You don’t see me feeling sorry for those losers. Especially that Liquid guy.” He mutters, “What a tool.”
George glares at Jacks. I guess because, to George at least, Jacks is the tool, not Liquid. But it’s weird to see George pining over someone that was only in his life for like a minute, and even then it didn’t really seem like George cared about Liquid at all. I think of Liquid when we first saw him back in Portland, the morning of tryouts. I can still picture his sunken eyes staring at George like he had seen him before. Like he knew him. Then I think of the way Liquid was when he was eliminated. He looked so empty. George looked like he didn’t even care. But maybe there was more between them than I knew. Maybe it wasn’t just attraction, a way to use each other for sex or, in George’s case, for revenge. Not like I’d know. George used to tell me things about his life. Until he didn’t.
“I feel bad every time someone has to leave the show,” George says, lifting the left side of his headphones off. He glances at me again. “I’m not heartless, you know.”
I watch him pick up his SUMMERLAND OR BUST tee and pick an imaginary piece of fluff off the “B.” His eyes are glassy, and he must know that I’ve noticed, because he grabs his aviator shades from his pack and slides them on.
Jacks shrugs. “Who cares who goes home? Gets us closer to the prize. You won’t catch me all broken up when any of you guys are eliminated.”
George tosses his headphones back on the chaise. “Right.” His left eyebrow rises over his sunglasses. “We’ll see about that.”
Jacks shoots him a look. “Hey, where is your hot piece of ass anyway?”
“Front desk,” George says. “She had a message waiting for her.”
Under my glasses, I close my eyes. Instantly, I get this flash inside my head, this picture. Rio with a broken leg. Rio off the show for good. I shake it off because I know it’s mean and not the kind of person I’ve ever been. And then I wonder if George has pictured me like that—broken and off the show—the way I just did to Rio.
“Save my seat, okay, you guys?” Hayden says. “I have to go back to the lobby, too.”
“For what?” Olivia says.
“My cell’s dead. I forgot to call my parents.” She fiddles with her ponytail. “I won’t be long. Like five minutes, okay?”
“I just saw you on the phone ten minutes ago, crying like a baby,” Jacks says. “Wasn’t that them you were talking to? What are you, twelve?”
I can’t imagine Hayden doing anything but grinning 24/7. She swallows hard. It looks like it hurts. “I wasn’t crying. I had to call them once before we came out here. I have to call them now because I just got this feeling that—” She takes a gulping breath of air. “You’d call them too if you—”
“Cared? Because if you don’t call them a million times a day, the earth will spontaneously combust?” Jacks laughs. It sounds so mean.
I look away, look at George and Olivia who, I notice, are looking away too. Jacks has always been an ass. But he’s taking it too far.
“That’s not why I call,” Hayden says super slowly. I lift my glasses to get an unshaded view of her face. And for the first time ever—that I’ve seen at least—Hayden’s smile totally, completely falls. Her bottom lip quivers. She bites on both sides of her cheeks. “That’s not why I need to phone them. Oh whatever.” Her eyes brim with tears. “What the hell do you know about my life anyway?” She chucks one of Jacks’s empty plastic cups at him and pulls her knees up tight to her chest. Then she blinks, letting two little drops dribble from her eyes, down her cheeks, and onto her knees.
But Jacks doesn’t care. He lets the cup bounce off his chest and then tosses his hat to the ground. “Who’d want to know anything about your life anyway, Little Miss Sunshine?” He motions around to the rest of us. “Not me. Not anyone around here.”
“Fuck you, Jacks,” Hayden yells. She turns to me and Olivia and even George, too. “And fuck the rest of you too.” Hayden’s face is getting redder and her hands are balled in fists. Olivia’s eyes are huge and so are George’s. Pretty much all three of us are frozen stiff. Hayden’s never even frowned for a second in our company, let alone yelled at anyone. Using some pretty serious profanities. In the pool area of a fancy LA hotel.
Jacks jumps out of his chair. “You better watch your language.”
“Hey, come on now,” George says. “Cool it, you guys, okay?”
Jacks sticks one finger in between Hayden’s eyes, not quite touching her but almost. “You don’t know who you’re messing with. People don’t call me shit and get away with—”
“It’s my brother,” Hayden says. “I call them to make sure he’s alive, okay?” Her head drops low. Her voice cracks, so much that it’s barely in one piece at all. “He’s only four years old. He’s got this thing in his brain that makes him have seizures, like, all the time. He was born with it. At first we thought he’d get better but now my mom and dad can’t ever leave his side. Not both at once.”
“So he might die?” Olivia says.
Hayden shrugs. “Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe. They’ve been saying that pretty much every month of his life. He hasn’t died yet though.” Then she inhales and wipes under both eyes.
Inside my chest, I feel my heart turn over. Is that why? My mind swirls with all the times I’ve cringed watching her, that perma-smile spread across her face.
“That’s awful.” Olivia leans over and touches Hayden’s shoulder.
Hayden stands up. Takes one small step back. “But they did leave him. Because I got mad. I told them I’m sick and tired of them living every single day of their life for him, when I’m important too. My life is worth something too.” She shakes her head back and forth. “I said it all, just to make them feel bad. And it worked. This time, they did leave him with my grandma to come here and support me. It’s the only time they’ve ever done that.”
Hayden tilts her head up to the sky, just kind of staring into it without blinking or anything. The rest of us stay totally still. “But then my grandma called and said he was really sick again. So they had to go.”
“Is he—” My breath catches. I can’t get the words out. I can’t imagine life without Rose. It settles inside my gut. She might not be dying, but she wo
n’t want me in her life after this is all over.
“He’s not dead.” Hayden wipes her eyes with the back of her hands. “No flipping way. I’m not doing this here. Not in front of you guys. You already talk so much crap behind my back.”
“Well can you blame us for talking shit?” Jacks says. “You’re like a weird clown with that stupid frozen grin of yours all the time. Seriously. I was beginning to think you were mentally handicapped or something.”
I close my eyes. I cannot believe he said that. I mean, I so cannot believe he said that. Everyone else must be stunned by it too because we all sit there, silent and awkward, until Olivia jumps up and slaps Jacks clear across the face. Hard. Super-duper hard.
Jacks looks totally stunned. He cups his cheek and then stares up at Olivia, who looks a little stunned, too. At first I think he’s going to rip her head off. But then I see that he’s looking at her like she’s some kind of goddess.
Hayden bursts out laughing. Not one of her ear-to-ear plastic laughs, but a true one. A holding-her-gut one. She points to Jacks. “She totally got you. Look at your face. You’re going to look like shit on TV.” She punches him, lightly, in the shoulder. “I wouldn’t want to go on national television looking like that.” She motions around to the rest of us. “Pretty sure no one around here would either.”
I can’t help but crack up because she’s right. He is going to look like shit on TV. And to the left and right of me, Olivia and George are laughing too. Even Jacks’s face looks less hard. I study him as Olivia sits down next to him and takes his beverage and holds it up to his cheek. She doesn’t say sorry, but it’s close. He doesn’t rip her head off, but I guess he wouldn’t have anyway. In fact, it’s almost like he’s smiling. Almost like he’s happy, which is weird, because I think we all would have slapped him ages ago if we’d known that this was what it took to make him act like a normal human being. He rubs the strawberry mark on his cheek. “Yeah,” he says, patting Olivia’s ankle. “I guess I am.”
THIRTY
Olivia’s face is a shade of pink I’ve never seen on her before. Not even on one of her twenty-plus bikinis or from one of her two zillion tubes of gloss. She stares down at Jacks’s hand, still resting on her ankle even though it’s been a good eight minutes since he put it there. She covers his hand with her own until she spots Hayden sprinting toward us.
Hayden stops herself in front of our chairs and places one hand against her heaving chest. “You guys won’t believe this.”
“You look like your head’s going to pop off,” Olivia says. Then she sits up straight, claps one hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. Is your brother okay?
“He’s fine. It’s nothing about that. But this is big.” Her mouth is still smiling—even after everything that’s happened—but her eyes. There’s something in her eyes that wasn’t there before. Relief, maybe. “It’s huge actually. I mean, I can’t even believe it.”
“What is it?” Olivia says. “Are our next dance styles posted already? They said the list wouldn’t be up till noon. I almost wish we still drew them from the hat.” Olivia grabs my arm. “Want to walk back to the lobby with me and see if it’s up?”
Hayden shakes her head. “No, that’s not it. I mean, they were just about to post it but they’ve had to change everything now.”
Olivia wrinkles her nose. “Change what?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. After I called home, I stopped by the lobby gift shop to grab a bottle of water. And that’s when I saw Rio.”
George, who up until this point has remained very quiet and totally un-George, lifts his sunglasses and rests them on his head. He stares up at Hayden, which wouldn’t be that weird except that there’s something in his expression that I just can’t place. Something that makes my heart beat just a little bit faster.
Jacks groans. “Who cares if you saw George’s booty call there?”
“No, you guys,” Hayden says. “She was with the producers of the show. And Elliot Townsend was there and everything. And she was crying.”
I bite my lip. Shit shit shit. I swear that when I wished for her to break something, I didn’t mean it. But it’s too late. I can’t suck those words back in now, no matter how bad I want to. “Why?”
“Because they’ve just disqualified her, that’s why.”
Olivia bolts upright. “Are you serious?”
“I saw it all for myself,” Hayden says. “But go on inside if you don’t believe me.”
My heart sinks into my gut. Okay, so she’s not injured. But disqualified? I didn’t wish for that to happen. At least, I don’t think I did.
“Man,” Jacks says. “Why do you think they disqualified her? She had serious chops.”
“I know why,” Hayden says. “They kicked her off because Rio turned sixteen last month.”
Olivia grabs the metal of her chair to steady herself. “You’re not serious.”
“How is that even possible?” I say. “They checked our IDs when we tried out.”
Jacks waves his cocktail in my face. “Um, hello? Fake IDs?” He slides his card over. “Says here I’m a twenty-five-year-old marine.”
Olivia swats his hand away from me. Jacks scoops her off her chair and dangles her over the pool like he’s going to throw her in while George keeps his eyes closed. It’s like his mind has gone someplace else. Someplace very far away. I wish I knew where he went so I could go there, too.
“Wait,” Hayden says. “I haven’t even told you the best part.”
Olivia slaps Jacks’s arm until he sets her down.
“They chose Rio to dance in her own style for Week Four.”
No way. Rio’s style is contemporary. Now that she’s out—
“Contemporary will probably be up for grabs! There’s no way the judges will have no one dance it, since Gia’s a contemporary choreographer and influences pretty much everything on the show. We’re so close to the end. They have to give it to someone, and someone who’s good at it.” She nods toward me and Olivia and then to George. “I guess that means one of you guys is going to get it.”
“Yes!” Olivia screeches, pumping her arm. Only I don’t really know why, because Olivia’s already had contemporary and classical ballet, so the chances the producers are going to let her have it again are minimal. But me. Though I’ve done styles close to my own, I haven’t had contemporary. Yet.
I stand up and search for a way to get off this pool deck and fast. I pull Olivia aside and tell her that if Hayden knew that Rio was supposed to dance contemporary, maybe the dance styles are up after all. While Jacks sips his cocktail and George and Hayden soak up some sun, Olivia and I slink out of there before they notice.
Hayden’s so right. They’ll want to give the most popular of all the styles to someone, and that someone’s got to be me. There’s only three weeks left in this whole competition. Three measly weeks. Which means I have three weeks to show them that I deserve to win this whole thing. Maybe even more than anyone else. And with Rio out and contemporary back on the table, I’ve got a better chance than ever of making everything I’ve ever wished for come true.
Olivia and I burst through the lobby door, running at full tilt until we reach the bulletin board outside the gift shop. Olivia stops and breathes when she sees two cameramen coming our way. She smoothes her hair and pushes her shoulders back just as the red lights from their cameras go on. “Is it up? Where is it?” She searches around, above the board and below it. She whips out her phone and frowns when she sees she’s got like twelve missed calls, which are all probably from her mom. Then she stares at the clock. She shakes her phone in front of my face. “It’s 12:02. It should be here by now. Why isn’t it up yet?”
“Because it’s right here,” a voice behind us says. Olivia and I turn to see Elliot Townsend standing behind us. “There’ve been some complications. You’ll see the official announcement during a segue shot.” He reads the page in front of him. Shakes his head, almost regretfully. He glances at the camer
as and shoos them away. “Tomorrow when the show airs, you’ll see it all.”
Olivia and I exchange glances while Elliot squeezes in past us and tacks up the single white page to the board. I read the first name listed. “Oh my God,” a voice says. It takes me a second to realize that it’s my voice that said it.
“It’s you,” Olivia whispers. Her voice gets louder and louder until it’s pretty much shrieking. “You got it, Magnolia!” She grabs a hold of my arms and shakes me a little. “George didn’t get it. You did.”
I stumble backward. The single most beautiful word I think I’ve ever seen is next to my name. It glows bright, like a sunset fading from the sea in Summerland. Contemporary. Now I’m sure of it. I’m going to show them what I can do for Summerland. Show them that I’m not her, have never been anything like her. In two days, I’ll be dancing in my own style. And I’m going to rock their worlds doing it.
Elliot’s face breaks into this broad smile that’s so warm and real. He touches my arm. “You got it. After four weeks of doing every style but your own, you’ve earned this. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” My words are slow and I don’t even know if they come out right, the way I mean them to. “Thank you so much.” In my head they’re all muddled and choppy, like one of those badly dubbed Chinese films you see on late-night TV. Unlike most of the characters in those films, I’m sure as hell no samurai soldier, though I sure as hell feel like one right now.
But then I remember that I wished for Rio to be gone. The night of the first results show, I wished she were off the show.
Elliot smiles at Olivia and then at me. His eyes hold mine for what seems like forever. Like he’s proud of me the way a father would be. Proud of his daughter who’s done something really, really good. Which makes me feel really, really bad.
And then he walks off. Whistling the tune to some old-fashioned song I’ve never heard.
Spin the Sky Page 24