For the Record

by Charlotte Huang

  I wrinkled my nose. “Doesn’t that lack the personal feel we’re going for?”

  “If they really want to talk, they can try to catch you guys before bus call.”

  “This is the way we did it before,” Beckett said.

  Sam turned to me. “These guys say they feel a lot of fallout from having Lucas around. The crew too. No one feels like they can leave the venue. You guys have kind of left it up in the air as to how long he’s going to be on tour. Do you have any clearer idea?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t feel defiant, exactly, but I did feel like they were harping on the negative. So far there had been no mention of the stronger ticket sales and the fact that Melbourne was being talked about in every media outlet in the country.

  “If you could work that out and give Rob a heads-up, that would help,” Sam said.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “It’s like you committed a white-collar crime, but the jury sentenced us to life without parole. You know?” Pem said.

  Beckett didn’t bother to translate, but he didn’t have to. “Can you stick around?” Sam asked me.

  When the guys left, Sam pulled his chair closer. “So things are happening. Pacific wants to leverage your new visibility. They’ve lined up interviews for you in LA and a couple of meetings with companies that are interested in using you as a spokeswoman.”

  This was so not what I thought we were going to talk about. My mind flooded with questions, but all I could get out was “Really?”

  Sam nodded. “You’re famous.”

  We let that idea wash over me for a minute. I didn’t feel different, but maybe I wasn’t supposed to. Maybe it was because I knew I hadn’t truly earned this level of fame. But that was true of a lot of famous people these days, wasn’t it?

  “Are the guys okay with this?” I asked.

  “They don’t know about it yet. I wanted to discuss it with you first. Is this a direction you want to go?”

  I thought about it. I’d be able to stop feeling apologetic for being foisted upon Melbourne. I’d finally bring something to the table by putting our name and songs in front of different people. “Yeah. I’d love to at least check it out.”

  “Okay. We’ll fly you out tomorrow morning, and the band will continue to Minneapolis. Tomorrow’s a day off, and we’ll move the show the next day. I’ll explain everything to them.”

  “What if they don’t like the idea?” I asked.

  “They don’t really have a say. Pacific wants this. The record’s doing great, but they’re always looking to boost sales or wring out another single.”

  I wondered if I even had a say. I also couldn’t tell if Sam was excited about this development. I thought he would be, but there was something not quite right in his eyes.

  When I told Lucas, he said, “Cool. I’ll fly back with you.”

  “They’re going to ask you to lose weight,” Lisette said.

  I’d become more or less accustomed to her blunt demeanor, but sometimes she still managed to grate on me. “If anyone says that to me, they can suck it,” I said.

  “It’s Hollywood. It’s never enough.” She turned back to her laptop.

  Lucas kissed my cheek. “I knew it wasn’t going to be bad. Congratulations.” We both knew this development was because of him. But neither of us said anything.

  —

  I parted ways with Lucas at LAX. “See you tonight,” he whispered before ducking into a town car. I’d decided to stay with him at Chateau Marmont.

  “What are we doing first?” I asked Sam.

  “Meeting with the team at AEA, coffee with Michaela, and then a dinner meeting with Bombshell Cosmetics. Tomorrow you’re taping Ellen in the morning, then you have an interview with Seventeen, and then a meeting with Kicks.”

  “Am I supposed to decide things right in the meetings?”

  “I think we’re still in the exploratory stage. I’ll be in all the meetings with you; Michaela’s coming to your interviews. You’ll be fine.”

  Of course Sam wouldn’t just turn me over to the wolves, but I wondered how much his presence was to protect me and how much was to protect the rest of Melbourne. And then I wondered why these weren’t the same things in my head. They probably should’ve been. I felt weird being in LA without the band.

  I decided to take advantage of the time alone with Sam to nose around about my future. “Is there a plan yet? For after this tour?”

  “We’re trying to do another tour. International. Mark has dates on hold. We just need Pem to say yes.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “He will. He’s in the thick of it, so there’s no way we’re going to convince him now. Give him a week off the road and he’ll be fine. You figure out school?”

  I was elated to hear that there was a plan in the works that would keep me out of Lydon. “I already registered to take the GED when I get back.”

  “Your parents are good with that?”

  “I think they’d just let me drop out if I wanted.” I’d been so dogged about getting good grades so I could convince my parents to let me get my GED, but now I was pretty sure fame trumped a diploma as far as they were concerned.

  Sam shook his head. “You gotta do it. It’ll be easier now than later.”

  “Has Pem said anything about me?”

  Sam laughed. “Listen. I think he knows he’s stuck with you.” That made me feel better, but it probably shouldn’t have.

  —

  My meeting at AEA eased my mind. They assigned a sponsorship person to me who would also attend the meetings. She used a whole lot of marketing jargon, which I didn’t understand. But Sam kept nodding, so I figured I was in good hands.

  I ended my stay in LA with offers to design my own line of shoes and to help formulate a lipstick color that would be named after me. Both proposals included full-scale advertising campaigns that we’d begin shooting as soon as the tour was over.

  The interviews had gone reasonably well. I had fun meeting Ellen and laughing whenever she asked funny questions about Lucas that she didn’t really expect me to answer. Seventeen was trickier, but Michaela balked whenever they brought up Lucas, which was about every five minutes.

  “I’m not sure about all this. I think all this stuff could be tough for the band to swallow,” I said. It was late and we had an early flight to Minneapolis the next morning. Lucas was tired but sweet enough to sit on the balcony with me as I processed everything that had come at me in the past couple of days.

  “What could they complain about? Their lead singer’s face will be everywhere. Girls all over the world will want to wear and buy stuff associated with you, including Melbourne albums.”

  “I just don’t want to alienate them,” I said.

  “It’s what happens with all great front women. Chicks always get more attention than dudes. That’s just the way it is. Besides, the level of recognition that you’re going to get will finally put you in a different category than Hollis Carter.”

  I tilted my face up and kissed him. “Thanks for coming back with me.”

  “No problem. I’m actually going to stay a little longer. I need to decide some stuff on my house, take some meetings with my agent. I’ll fly back to you in a few days.”

  “Is the bus going to stay on the tour until you get back?”

  “For sure. It’s your bus. Have Mandy sleep over, keep you company.” He played with my hair, twirling it through his fingers.

  I already knew Mandy wouldn’t leave the Melbourne bus, and the idea of rattling around the other bus by myself was depressing. I wondered if my bunk was still set up. They’d probably turned it into another junk bunk.

  —

  By the time I arrived in Minneapolis, I’d decided to stay on Lucas’s bus. I felt too awkward about how things were with the band to just go back like nothing was going on.

  I went straight to the Myth and stopped by their bus. They weren’t there. I was so bored that I helped Rob organize his producti
on office. All his work equipment traveled in a black case that stood on wheels. I hooked up his printer/scanner and plugged in all his chargers. I really wasn’t that much help, but I think he appreciated the gesture. He played old Radiohead on the computer and we both sang along while working.

  “Don’t have anyone else to play with?” he asked.

  “Lucas is staying in LA for a couple more days.”

  Rob didn’t look up from his computer but raised his eyebrows. “I’m honored to be your sloppy seconds. Is there trouble in the land of the beautiful people?”

  “He just needed to be home. I mean, how many Melbourne shows can a person watch?”

  “Plenty. Trust me,” Rob said. “Is the bet over, or what?”

  “Do you guys bug Pem this much about his love life?” I asked.

  “We know a lost cause when we see one.”

  “What’s up with that? He has girls throwing themselves at him constantly. I assume he’s had girlfriends in the past.” I’d seen him check out enough girls to know he wasn’t gay. But as far as I knew, he never went beyond looking.

  Rob pantomimed zipping his lips. “You’d have to ask him.”

  I’d rather cage-fight a wild boar.

  —

  Everyone filtered in as we got closer to sound check. When we finished, I grabbed Beckett before he could escape. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I want to check in, see how everyone’s feeling,” I said.

  He gave me a bemused look. “And you decided I’m the spokesperson?”

  “You’re my favorite,” I said. Beckett gave a humorless half chuckle but didn’t look at me. “Lucas is taking a break from tour.”

  Beckett looked down at the ground. “Yeah? So you feel like now is a good time to reengage with the band?”

  “I feel bad. He made this grand gesture to come be with me on tour while trying to respect the fact that no one really wants him around. I couldn’t let him go through all that and then be all ‘See ya, gotta go hang with people who can’t stand you.’ ” I crossed my arms and stared at him.

  He scrubbed at the back of his head. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s why none of us has an actual girlfriend.”

  “I can’t help it that you’re all emotionally stunted.”

  “Look, it’s not about you having a boyfriend. But he’s not good for the band. He brings too much insanity. Every show becomes, in some way, about him. Even your newfound fame—it’s all really about him. Is that what you want to be? The girlfriend?”

  Sigh. Leave it to Beckett to jump right on the thing that Lucas and I were so careful not to talk about. “No. I want it to be about us. I wouldn’t do anything that I didn’t think would benefit the band.”

  “His fans turn our shows into a circus every single night. Our actual fans can’t even get to us because they get shoved aside by people who want a piece of Lucas Rivers. Which includes you, by the way.”

  I felt helpless. I didn’t know how to make things right. “What do you want me to do? This is just how it is.”

  “Maybe you should think about why any person would crave that much attention. It’s not normal. And I know it isn’t you.”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. He just turned and walked away.

  28

  Desperation set in quickly. I called Mandy for company even though I felt ridiculous.

  “It’s better you’re on your own bus. Everyone here wants your head on a platter,” Mandy said when I complained about being lonely. We added a date in Indianapolis and an extra show in Cincinnati to make up for my meeting days in LA. This evidently didn’t increase my popularity with the band and crew.

  “You’d think they’d be excited about more exposure,” I said.

  “Yeah. They’re not,” Mandy said. She held the phone away to bicker with one of the crew guys.

  “Have they said anything about Lucas not coming back?” I asked.

  She sighed. “Only that they hope you’re finally ready to scrape the barnacles off your social boat.” I didn’t have to guess who’d actually said that.

  Even Malcolm, who usually took everything in stride, freaked out about all the hangers-on. In Des Moines, he decided to play the show drunk and yelled into his mike, “Lucas Rivers has left the building! If you’re trying to catch a glimpse of that ass, you’re shit out of luck!”

  That was the low point.

  The good news was that I had plenty of time to work on my song. Since I was alone on the bus, I didn’t even need headphones. I tried writing in a notebook to see if that would free up my thoughts. It didn’t. Lines were crossed out as soon as I wrote them. I forced myself to move away from the specifics of my life and write more generally about emotions, but then there was nothing to anchor the story.

  I thought about the songs that our fans loved most. What they all had in common was that they were detailed enough to be unique stories but general enough to be relatable. Even (shudder) “Parietals” had that going for it. Who couldn’t relate to the thrill of sneaking around, breaking rules, to be with the person you were into? After all, that’s what had made it the perfect song for me and Mike Malloy.

  My usual resolve to forget Mike ever existed broke down as the Detroit show neared. I wondered if he’d see me as this totally different person. Even though I didn’t want to be with him anymore, I wouldn’t object if he were to spend months or even years wallowing in regret.

  During the next few days, as I tried to write my song, I relived that awful chapter again and again, which only increased my hysteria. I filled and emptied the trash bin many times, and balled-up paper littered every corner of the bus.

  I hoped Lucas would come back to the tour before we got there. I knew it was shallow to want a celebrity boyfriend as a security blanket. There was so much that I was unprepared to deal with.

  “Don’t think about it,” Mandy advised. “Why would you even want people from school to accept you? I’ll try to help with your parents’ circus, but if my family comes I might have my hands full. You know they don’t understand crowds.”

  “What if Mike shows up?” I knew she couldn’t really have the answer.

  “So what if he does? Ignore him like always and move on,” Mandy said. I must not have looked convinced, because she leaned forward and gave me a squeeze. “I mean, say he does come bearing roses and a sweet apology. What’s that going to do? It’s two years too late. You’re dating Lucas Rivers, who makes Mike Malloy look like yesterday’s dog food. Why you’re even wasting your time thinking about high school, I have no idea.”

  “You’re not nervous at all?” If you asked me, going home could be even weirder for Mandy, since she’d definitely be back for senior year.

  “I didn’t say that, but I’m loving my summer. I have the best job, and I’m not going to let haters bring me down over some ancient, made-up drama.”

  I groaned and felt guilty once again that her only fault in said made-up drama was staying my friend.

  How could Lydon High ever have been my real life?

  —

  My phone rang as soon as I remembered to turn it on. “It was a still from our publicity shoot. You know I’m not into her, right?” Lucas said when I answered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You haven’t seen? Go get online.”

  I passed the ghost town of the sleeping berth and went out to the lounge. “What am I about to see?” I waited for my laptop to start up.

  Lucas sighed. “Me kissing Nina. It’s a still from our publicity photo shoot. I swear.”

  “Why do you think I’m going to be upset about this?”

  “Because. The way it’s cropped and blurred out, it looks likes a paparazzi shot. All the headlines say I’m cheating on you.” He blurted it out, like saying it was going to be the hard part.

  I searched for their names together and the picture loaded right away, right there in the search results. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” I felt my insecurity and pitiable dating
track record taking over, ruling out any rational thought.

  “I’m coming to see you. You’re in Cincinnati for one more day, right?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

  “I want to. I have to.”

  I could already feel myself starting to shut him out. Whether he’d been with Nina or not almost didn’t matter. That everyone thought he had was bad enough.

  —

  Our show that night was fantastic, which was totally bizarre since I performed entirely from muscle memory. I almost wasn’t even there, I was so absorbed in thinking about Lucas and going home.

  “That show was killer,” Pem said. “Whatever you were doing, definitely do it again.” That wouldn’t be a problem.

  If my bandmates knew anything about Lucas and Nina, they were being discreet. Only Mandy had any interest in the subject. We had a night in a hotel, so I got a break from feeling like the tour outcast. “Why would Lucas do that?” she asked. “Do you think he can tell you’re still scarred from Mike?”

  “I am not!” My shrill voice gave me away. “Lucas doesn’t know anything about that.”

  “You haven’t told him?” She eyed me like I’d neglected to tell him about a terminal disease. “I’m just saying, maybe he senses that you’re not completely available.”

  Her reaction threw me. “So you actually think he did it?”

  Mandy’s cheeks colored. “No! I’m just trying to understand what the reason might be if he did. But I’m sure he didn’t. He’s obviously smitten with you.”

  “He’s coming tomorrow. I should probably hear him out.” I realized that in some ways, I’d expected this to happen. Not that I deserved it, but it was kind of a setup for failure to date someone who could have whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it.

  Mandy put her arm around my shoulders. “I just want you to finally put the Mike Malloy debacle behind you. You deserve that.”

  —

  Lucas arrived just before our meet and greet. He burst into the dressing room. “Can we get a minute?”