For the Record

by Charlotte Huang

  When Lucas picked me up, I noticed that his suit matched my outfit perfectly. It was gray, accented with black and pearl. “How did you do that?” I asked.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” he said. I tilted my face up for a kiss but he avoided my lips, brushing my cheek with his lips instead. “Don’t want to get lipstick on me. Why are you so covered up?”

  “How did you know what I was wearing?”

  “I didn’t. Lisette emailed your stylist a picture of my suit and told her to coordinate.”

  I was floored. “You decided my outfit? Why didn’t anyone say anything?”

  Lucas studied my face, puzzled. “What’s the big deal? You’re my date. Why didn’t you choose a different top? People are going to think I’m dating a Mormon.”

  “Right, I’m your date, not your accessory. Just because I’m going with you doesn’t mean I want to be your arm candy.”

  Even as my anger increased, I was aware that I was overreacting. But I was nervous about going to this awards show with him, and I would have felt better in something that was more me. Plus, I had this idea that I was letting Melbourne down if I didn’t stand out on my own. I was their lead singer. Front women shouldn’t blend.

  Lucas exhaled, his own anger starting to pop. “Chelsea. I know you’re new to this, but this is a big deal. You’re walking the red carpet with me. Those pictures will be everywhere. Are you really going to throw a fit and screw everything up?”

  When he put it that way, part of me wanted to. Instead, I turned to the mirror, gathered my loose, feminine waves into my fist, and twisted them into a high topknot. The change in hairstyle added some edge, but it wasn’t enough. I wiped off my soft pink lipstick and put on a bright, saturated orange-red instead. I grabbed a pair of giant neon-yellow dangly feather earrings that Mandy had purchased from a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Lucas’s face stayed blank. “Ready?”

  I could have used Lucas’s arm for support, but I didn’t take it. I tottered down the carpeted hallway as gracefully as possible. We passed Beckett. He didn’t say anything but shot me an appreciative smile. At least someone liked my outfit.

  —

  Aside from the dizzying sensory overload of the red carpet, the awards show was a snooze fest. Lucas presented the award for Best Actor in a Comedy along with his costar, Nina Maras. She’d matured about five years and looked nothing like the little girl I’d seen on TV in Austin. It was a good thing I wasn’t the possessive type.

  Nina and Lucas had playful chemistry when they presented but didn’t seem like they wanted to hang out with each other. “Too much togetherness,” Lucas explained.

  A couple of Melbourne’s rival bands performed, even though there were no music categories. I wondered if we’d been invited to play. It would’ve been great exposure at a time when we were trying to promote a record.

  By the time I said goodbye to Lucas, I was mostly done being mad about the outfits. He and Ray escorted me back to the bus. “When am I going to see you again?” I asked.

  “I’m going to try to make it tomorrow,” he said.

  “Really?” Our next show was in the Bay Area.

  “Yeah.” He leaned in to kiss me. “I’ll call you.”

  I climbed onto the bus and immediately plopped down to take off my heels. Everyone else was already on board.

  “How was it?” Mandy asked. “You looked amazing. I loved the changes you made. So much more rocker. Did you meet any famous people?”

  “You know, we’re famous,” Beckett said in a mocking tone.

  “Nina Maras. She’s in Lucas’s movie,” I said.

  “Dude, she’s hot,” Malcolm said. Mandy elbowed him. “Seriously. Can he introduce me?”

  “If he did, would you stop being a jerk to him?” I asked.

  Malcolm thought for a second. “Doubt it.”

  “Why do you guys hate him so much?” I asked.

  “He has that squeaky-clean image. It makes him seem stupid,” Malcolm said.

  “And he’s a talentless pretty-boy hack. Oops, did I say that out loud?” Beckett didn’t bother looking up from his phone.

  I decided not to mention that they hadn’t seen the last of Lucas just yet.

  26

  Sam spent the night on the bus with us, his eyes glued to his laptop. As we neared Oakland, his typing grew more frenetic. “Saw the show last night. You guys got a lot of airtime. I had my intern monitor Twitter and the text crawler. Said comments went from ‘Who’s that girl?’ to ‘I wanna be Chelsea from Melbourne’ by the end. Everyone wants to know where to get those earrings. You should Instagram a picture with info on where you got them.”

  I smiled in disbelief. “That’s bizarre. Did you watch Scuttlebutt?” People liked to lump our band in with them.

  “Yeah. That’s why we pulled out. Pem refuses to play the same stage as them. Didn’t you wonder why we had a random Saturday off in LA? Your agent almost lost his mind over that.”

  “Poor Mark. Why does Pem care? It would have gotten us in front of a lot of people.”

  Sam grunted and peeled his eyes away from his computer. “Scuttlebutt has always been like an annoying kid brother. Now that they’re more established, Pem thinks it’s bullshit that they’re always trying to start a rivalry with us. And when he heard they wanted us to play first, he fuckin’ lost it. I didn’t argue with him, because when we had to commit we weren’t sure if you’d be ready for a live TV performance.”

  Ouch. Faced with a concrete example of how I might have been holding the band back, I felt something very close to mortification. “I’ve performed a lot on TV.”

  Sam gave me a look. We both knew performing on a highly produced show specifically made to showcase singing performances was totally different. He tactfully changed the subject. “Michaela texted me to be prepared for a cover story next week. Pictures are all over the place.”

  I chewed on my lip. A tiny part of me was excited. I was willing to take a little heat if it meant busting out of the guys’ shadows and making a place for myself. But most of me was nervous about what I’d unleashed and what it might mean for the band. Sam saw the conflicted feelings on my face. “Can’t take it back now,” he said.

  Beckett, Malcolm, and some of the crew guys came out, and Sam headed to the back lounge to get more work done. Beckett took his breakfast to the jump seat as usual, even though Dave was already off to some hotel. I drank instant coffee from a lumpy mug that a fan had made for him. “Can’t you read?” he asked. “It says ‘Beckett’ and there’s a picture of me on it.”

  Malcolm snapped a picture of me holding the mug. “Must you?” I asked.

  “Sings good. Can’t read. Sad,” Malcolm said as he tapped. He jabbed at his screen one last time, sending my photo to probably all Melbourne social media feeds.

  “Sorry,” I said. “They didn’t make one for me.”

  “Awww, poor Chelsea!” everyone said.

  “Someone make the girl a mug!” Winston bellowed.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Never mind.”

  “At least we’re rid of the d-bag and his incontinent babysitter,” Jared said.

  “They might be back tonight.” I ducked to avoid possible projectiles.

  Groans all around. “At least the damn bet is done,” Malcolm said.

  Beckett swiveled around in his chair. “Bet’s not over.” Everyone turned to look at him, including me. His expression was flat. “I sleep below you.”

  I was dying. They were about to give me the third degree— I could see it in their eyes. I couldn’t believe Beckett knew I wasn’t sleeping with Lucas yet and that he’d told everyone. There really was no such thing as a secret on a tour bus. I climbed over legs and feet, making my way to the door with my cup of coffee still in hand.

  When I stepped onto the pavement, I was hit with a wall of yells. “There’s Chelsea! He must be on the bus!”

  About a hundred people, mostly young girls, hung on the fence like they were ab
out to climb it.

  “What’s going on out there?” Beckett asked as I ran back up the steps.

  “I think they want to kill me,” I said. Everyone was up and looking out the front window.

  “They just want to see the d-bag,” Oscar said.

  “You’re scared of a bunch of twelve-year-olds?” Beckett asked.

  “Terrified. What are we going to do? We can’t just sit in here all day,” I said.

  “We don’t have to. They’re not screaming our names,” Malcolm said.

  Sam reappeared. “We’re trying to move the show.”

  “Why? What happened?” Beckett asked.

  “Promoters think this is going to get worse and that we should move to a bigger spot,” Sam said.

  “Can you do that with no notice?” Beckett asked.

  Sam shrugged. “Mark’s looking into it. Never tried this before.”

  “There’s not that many people out there,” Malcolm said.

  “It’s ten in the morning,” Beckett pointed out.

  “We can’t have this many people on the street. At least if we open up more seats, there’s a chance that some of them will buy tickets and get inside,” Sam said.

  The screams outside grew louder, more insistent. The rest of the bus woke up, none too pleased. “I want to rip my ears off,” Mandy said, stumbling into the lounge.

  “They’re like tiny savages,” I said.

  “Even when he’s not here he’s a pain in the ass,” Pem said.

  Sam’s phone rang and he went to the back to take it. We filled Pem in.

  When Sam came out, he said, “We can’t move today or tomorrow, but we’re adding a show in Vancouver. Hopefully Canadian Lucas Rivers fans will stay put. We’re putting tickets on sale today.”

  “This is crazy,” Pem said. “Just because there are some insane Lucas Rivers fans here doesn’t mean they’re going to follow us around the country. He was seen with Chelsea last night. I’m sure it’ll die down.”

  Sam rubbed at his head, looking agitated. “Mark talked to his counterparts in talent and says we don’t understand the passion and dedication of the Rivers fan base. He’s your agent, and I think we go with his gut on this.” Maybe I didn’t understand the Rivers fan base either.

  “Chelsea, you have to give me as much notice as you can when he’s going to come to a show,” Rob said.

  “He said he’s trying to come today.” I thought about telling him not to come. That seemed like the easiest thing to do. But I didn’t want to do that to him when things had been strained between us in LA.

  “Better get the venue working on additional security.” Rob flashed me an accusatory look and then left the bus.

  “We should make him pay for the extra security,” Pem said. “No, seriously.”

  —

  A couple of hours later, I got a text from Lucas: Be there around 5.

  The promoters had been right; the crowd outside now spilled down the block. At least they’d stopped with the yelling. Still, I felt safer staying on the bus. Mandy brought lunch and ate with me.

  Once I had to go in for sound check, I stayed inside. That walk between the bus and the theater felt hectic, and I didn’t want to do it any more than I had to. I was glad we hadn’t moved the show; the Fox Theater was a beautiful venue, decorated in a Moroccan motif with swirly gold details.

  Lucas walked into the dressing room just before our meet and greet. “I have a surprise,” he said.

  “What is it?” I gave him a suspicious look.

  “I knew it! I knew you were the kind of girl who loved surprises.” Lucas grabbed me and swung me from side to side, trying to get me to laugh. “This is gonna blow you away. You have to come outside so I can show you.”

  “We have our meet and greet. Can I see after?”

  “Cool. And then we’ll grab food?”

  “How? We’re on lockdown, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  Lucas grinned. “I told you that show was going to be big. Did you check out the pictures?”

  I nodded and smiled begrudgingly. We did look good together.

  Lucas waited in the dressing room while I did the meet and greet. By the time I got into the room, everyone was already there. I was immediately surrounded by a group of girls. They complimented me on my awards show outfit and said how much they enjoyed my addition to Melbourne. I wasn’t naive enough to think this had anything to do with word of mouth from shows, which didn’t depress me as much as you might have thought. I didn’t need validation about singing; my problem was low visibility. Being with Lucas put me on a level playing field with my bandmates.

  Naturally the subject of Lucas came up, and they wanted to know if he was going to see the show. Lying didn’t seem like the best idea, but neither did telling the truth. “He’s here,” I finally said. I imagined the airwaves lighting up with texts and phone calls, causing a stampede of another few hundred girls into downtown Oakland.

  But I needn’t have worried, because Lucas didn’t need any help to cause a stampede.

  When Lucas and I got outside so he could give me my surprise, I almost fainted dead away on the spot. Right behind our tour bus was another tour bus. This one was wrapped with an advertisement for Lucas’s upcoming movie, Spring Forward. The title was scrawled in cursive letters with lots of flourishes across the top of the bus. Below it was a photo of Lucas staring soulfully into Nina Maras’s eyes, nearly kissing her but not quite. The whole ad was done in powdery, washed-out tones, but that didn’t make it any less garish.

  “I don’t know what to say.” I hoped this was a joke, like when he’d watched his own movie in the hotel room.

  “I know it’s a little over-the-top, but I got the studio to pay for it,” Lucas said.

  “That was big of them,” I said with more sarcasm than I’d intended.

  “But look, this way I can go on tour with you and we can have space and privacy.” He said this without irony, even as his fans screamed themselves hoarse and shook the fence so hard it threatened to come down.

  “What makes you think, as a girl who’s starting to date you, that I’d want to ride around in a bus with a picture of you making out with someone else on it?” I looked hard into his face, willing him to see the absurdity of what he was asking me to do.

  “It’s just an ad,” he said. “It’s going to be everywhere in about a week, so what difference does it make? This is one of the things about dating an actor. You just have to get used to it.”

  He was probably right, but the idea of me being in that bus was crazy. “How long are you planning on being on tour?” I asked.

  “Can’t we just wing it? It doesn’t matter, really. The studio was all too happy to do this. They want me to show up to the premiere in the thing.”

  “And do you really want everyone to know where you are all the time?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Like I said, it’ll be bad for about a week. Then that ad goes live and it’ll be on tons of buses. Ours will blend in.”

  There were probably already thousands of posts and reposts of this bus online. We would literally be inside a moving target. The thought made my stomach churn, but I didn’t see how I could turn him down after he’d gone to all that trouble. I could only begin to imagine what my bandmates would have to say about this. They might kick me out of the band just for making them look at that bus every day.

  Right before bus call, Sam dropped in. He took a quick tour, looking impressed but also weirded out. Having a bus for four people (including Ray and Lisette) was decadent, but it’d be nice not to be in such tight quarters. There was a bedroom in the back instead of a lounge, fewer and more spacious bunks in the sleeping section called condo bunks, with walls that pushed out when the bus was parked—it was very cushy. “We sold out Vancouver,” Sam said. “The promoters all know about the additional bus.”

  Sam looked like he wasn’t sure whether to be happy about selling out or annoyed about the atrocious extra bus. Funny, I was having troubl
e figuring that out for myself.

  27

  It was Lucas’s birthday. The way I found out wasn’t in any normal way like, say, him telling me. Instead, I woke up to dozens of fans singing happy birthday to him outside the Peabody in St. Louis. They didn’t just sing it once. They sang it over and over again. I nudged him awake. “It’s your birthday?”

  Lucas rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. Want to give me a present?” He pulled me closer.

  Even I wasn’t quite sure what I was waiting for. Fooling around with Lucas was fun, but I felt like we were still getting to know each other, despite the fact that we slept in the same bed every night. He didn’t pressure me (not much, anyway), and I appreciated that.

  We’d spent the past week in our own little world. I was barely with the band long enough to hear the objections they undoubtedly had. Even though that part was nice, I felt cut off from them, like plans and decisions were being made without me.

  The Spring Forward bus had become a beacon for Lucas Rivers fans everywhere. They came close to shutting things down a couple of times; local police had to be brought in for every city. But the shows all sold out, each of them crazy and amazing. The attention was weirdly addicting, and I was surprised at how quickly I got used to people screaming my name.

  Sam was flying in for an emergency band meeting. He also wanted to talk to me privately. This didn’t sound good. I tried to get Mandy to snoop, but she couldn’t find out anything.

  When I got off the bus, there was a fresh surge of “Happy Birthday.” Lucas was still in bed, but the fans didn’t care; the open doors encouraged them to sing louder.

  The band gathered in the production office. They looked like they’d barely woken up on time. Sam came in and closed the door. “The promoters all say that the meet and greets have become clusters. Radio stations and local sponsors want to fit more people in, so we have to change the way we’re running them. We’re going to sit you guys at a table and have fans line up. Each person will get to say hi and take one picture.”