Lucky Caller

by Emma Mills

  * * *

  I took the elevator downstairs to make the call. The chances of being overheard in the hallway felt too high.

  I stood in the doorway of the Papa Bear ballroom. The overhead lights were half on, the chandeliers off. A cluster of round tables and bamboo chairs were out, but they weren’t set yet, instead standing bare in preparation for whatever decorations the weekend’s weddings would bring.

  Dad picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Hey, Nina, what’s going on?”

  “You’re not coming for Sidney’s show?” I said without preamble.

  He let out a sigh. There was a long pause. “I really hate to miss it, but something’s come up at work and I—”

  “You said, though.” There was a plaintive edge to my voice that I tried desperately to quash. “You said you’d come and that you could do the thing for my radio class.”

  “That’s just it,” he said. “I can’t get out of work on Thursday, so I’d miss your show for sure. Even if I made it in time for Sid’s play on Friday, I couldn’t choose between the two of you like that. I can’t. It’s not fair to either of you. So I’m just gonna have to sit this round out.”

  Silence.

  “So you’re not coming at all. Even though you could make it for Sidney. If you wanted.”

  “I couldn’t do that to you, kid.”

  There was a lump in my throat. “Forget about my radio thing. Just come for her show. It’s important to her.”

  Silence. And then:

  “I’m sorry, Nina. You know I am. I’m really—”

  I didn’t hear the rest. I had already hung up.

  43.

  ROSE CAME DOWNSTAIRS EVENTUALLY. I was sitting on one of the bamboo chairs in the ballroom, mindlessly scrolling on my phone.

  I passed a picture of a fancy dessert from Alexis’s account. Joydeep and two other guys posing in front of a car. Three celebrity #sponsored posts. I didn’t absorb any of it.

  Rose leaned against the doorway. She was wearing workout clothes. “Wanna go to the gym?”

  “No.”

  A pause. “Couldn’t get Dad to change his mind?”

  “That would be a no as well.”

  I paused on a photo of a beach with a heart drawn into the sand.

  “That sucks,” Rose said eventually.

  That was an understatement. “I don’t know how he can do it. Just bail like that.”

  “Seriously? It’s kind of his whole deal.”

  “That’s not true.” I shook my head. “I know that you and him fight about stuff, but…”

  “But what? Seriously, Nina. Where is he right now?”

  He hadn’t mentioned on the phone, though I hadn’t given him much of an opportunity. “I don’t know. The grocery store?”

  “He’s on the other side of the country.” It was quiet for a moment. When Rose spoke again, her tone was measured in that way that reminded me of Mom. “You know, there’s this thing we learned about in psych class called a parasocial relationship. It’s when there’s a false sense of connection between you and a famous person. Listening to Dad’s show every day makes you think that you know him. But you don’t. Not really.”

  Like the Deadnoughts thinking they know Tyler or how he would act: He’s faking us out. He’ll definitely show at the interview! A classic TB denial!

  I shut off my phone screen, looked up at Rose. “When did you take a psych class?”

  “Last semester. It was a gen ed thing.”

  “How’d you do?”

  She smiled a little. “Pretty well. I liked it.”

  “You know, art therapy is a thing.”

  “Are you saying I need some?”

  “No, I’m saying you could, like, give it—be an art therapist.”

  She just looked at me for a moment and then said, “Let’s stick to one life crisis at a time.”

  “This isn’t a life crisis. It’s just…” I shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  She nodded.

  “You’ll figure it out,” she said. “It’ll all be okay.”

  I didn’t believe her for a minute.

  44.

  WHEN I WENT BACK UPSTAIRS that evening, Sidney was in our room, going through some dance moves in front of the mirrored doors on our closet. I watched as she swung her arms above her head, jumped forward, pivoted, kicked one leg out …

  “Yes?” she said eventually.

  “What number is this?”

  “It’s right before the act break.”

  “I’m not seeing a lot of jazz hands.” I leaned against the doorframe. “I hope this show’s not light on jazz hands.”

  “There might be some jazz hands.”

  “I won’t sleep well without absolute confirmation.”

  It was quiet. She spun in one last circle and then struck a pose, arms in the air, one hip cocked. Shooting me a look, she jazzed her hands. “You’re welcome.”

  I smiled and she dropped the pose, went and flopped down on her bed and picked up her phone.

  “Sorry about Dad,” I said.

  She shrugged. “He’s missing your thing too, right?”

  “Yeah, well … That’s not important.”

  “It’s important to you.”

  “Nah.”

  Sidney looked up at me for a moment. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  Her gaze dropped back down to her phone. “You know what.”

  It was quiet. “Yeah, okay,” I said, and then I held my arms up and did jazz hands. “What do you think?”

  “Mediocre at best.”

  “Hey!”

  “Okay, let’s say room for improvement.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  45.

  I WAS SITTING AT LUNCH the next day when my phone buzzed. Twenty-two tickets so far today and counting. The group chat had been going off periodically—updates on the ticket sales from Sasha, exclamations of concern from Joydeep. Jamie was trying to downplay everything. I didn’t respond to any of it. I didn’t know what to say.

  I assumed it was another text from one of them, but when I checked, it was from Alexis. Question, was all it said. I would have to wait a moment for the follow-up—a typical Alexis texting convention. She liked building suspense, I think.

  As I watched the text bubble, I thought of the eighth-grade field trip—the ill-fated visit to the IMA. Alexis had slid into the seat next to me on the bus ride back to school, after the kiss, the fallout.

  “So?” she had asked, leaning into me. “Did it work? Are you guys together now?”

  “Are you serious?”

  She blinked at me. “We saw you kiss.”

  But not the part afterward. I just shook my head and stared out the window. “That was stupid. It was a stupid idea. I never should’ve…” The passing streets grew blurry. I blinked against it.

  Alexis was quiet for a moment, and then said, “I only picked him because you like him, and he likes you. It’s super obvious.”

  “He’s mad it was for the game,” I said, voice thick, but that wasn’t even accurate by half. Mad wasn’t right. Hurt. He was hurt. Because of me. I did that.

  Alexis looked troubled for a moment, but it quickly cleared. “He’ll get over it. It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing.”

  She huffed a breath, frowned. “I’ll fix it,” she said finally. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Don’t,” I replied. It would only make it worse.

  “I didn’t mean to—” I had never heard Alexis sound uncertain before. “I thought I was helping.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t blame her. It was her dumb game, sure, but I was the one who agreed to play it. “Just leave it alone. Forget it.”

  She left it alone. But a couple weeks later on the schoolyard after lunch, when one of the girls suggested a round of Kiss Cam, Alexis shot me a look and then said, “I’m over that game. Let’s do something else.”

  Our friendship mellowed af
ter that. I think high school was responsible for that a little bit—scattering our friend group across a giant freshman class, lessening Alexis’s pull. She sought me out more than I sought her out. Never in a needy way—it wasn’t in her nature—but the dynamic had definitely changed. That kind of queen bee hero worship thing was gone. Somehow the Kiss Cam incident leveled things out between us.

  Right now, I watched as Alexis’s follow-up message popped up my phone:

  So is it true some group from your radio class is having Lucas on?

  I frowned. What?

  Everyone’s been talking about it, she replied. Is it true?

  Who’s Lucas?

  From TION, she replied. The blond one. Not as hot as Kenji but more accessible than Tristan?

  More messages appeared quickly.

  He’s the one you want to drink hot cocoa in front of a fire with

  In some mountain cabin somewhere

  Wearing matching sweaters

  While he bones you

  ALEXIS, I typed. Who is having them on their show?

  That’s what I’m asking you. It’s this huge thing apparently

  Dread was growing in the pit of my stomach. Who did you hear this from?

  Some girl on the dance team.

  Another message followed, the nail in the coffin:

  Anyway they’ve been selling tickets for it

  And another:

  Should I buy one?

  I left before finishing my lunch, making up some excuse to the other people at my table and pitching my half-eaten sandwich on my way out of the cafeteria.

  Emergency meeting at the gallery, I texted while pushing through the doors.

  Right now!

  RED ALERT

  I almost ran straight into Jamie in the hallway. My phone slipped from my hands, but he managed to grab it.

  “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?” A frown. “You okay?”

  “We have a problem.”

  46.

  WE ALL HUDDLED AROUND SASHA’S laptop screen and peered at an image of five faces—one brooding, one smoldering, one smiling shyly, one grinning, and one looking pensive.

  “Which one is he?” Jamie asked.

  Sasha pointed to the one who was grinning. “He’s the hot one.”

  Joydeep looked offended. “Are we looking at the same picture?” He jabbed at the smoldering face. “That guy’s the hot one.”

  Sasha screwed up her face. “Kai?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t know you were a fan,” I said.

  “I’m not,” Joydeep replied. “I just have eyes.”

  “How could this have happened?” Jamie asked.

  “I don’t know. But it’s a thing, apparently. People think he’s the mystery guest.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Alexis told me, Apparently some girl on the dance team told her.”

  Joydeep gasped.

  “What? What is it?”

  His eyes were wide. “Sabotage!”

  47.

  WE ALL WAITED IN THE hall before radio class on Friday, and eventually Sammy showed up, walking hand in hand with Colby. Colby slapped palms with Joydeep and they exchanged “Bro!”s.

  “Hey, could we talk to you real quick?” Jamie asked Sammy.

  She looked a little annoyed. “It’s almost time for class.”

  “We just need a minute,” Jamie said.

  Sammy squeezed Colby’s hand and then let it go. “Be right in, babe.”

  Colby gave us all an odd look but headed in.

  Sammy looked at us expectantly. “What do you guys want?”

  “Saboteur!” Joydeep cried.

  “We heard you’ve been spreading rumors about our show,” Sasha said, more calmly. “About our mystery guest.”

  Sammy just blinked.

  Sasha had never seemed taller than in this moment. “Why would you do that?”

  There was no doubt she’d been made, and Sammy knew it, so she huffed a breath, folded her arms, rolled her eyes. “Um, let me see. ‘Dear Cat Chat, I think I’m a tree. I jizz sap everywhere. Blah blah blah.’”

  “Uh, the letter writer didn’t think they were a tree. Their boyfriend thought they were a tree,” Joydeep said.

  “Either way, it was completely despicable of you to tamper with our show like that—”

  “Hey, check your ratings, sister, I fucking made your show—”

  “How did you even find out what Joydeep did?” I interrupted.

  “Funny story,” Sammy said. “Our producer Lily was driving home from track practice one night and heard the craziest thing on the radio. Four idiots who didn’t realize that they hadn’t pressed the right button, sitting around talking about how super funny their prank was.”

  “Okay, that was one idiot who hadn’t pressed the right button, and a separate idiot who did the pranking, thank you very much,” I replied. “Leave the others out of it.”

  Sammy made a face. “Either way, it was messed up, so obviously I had to do something. And honestly, you guys made it easy when you were basically giving out Lucas facts about your stupid secret guest anyway. No one really believed me at first, but then you started selling tickets and that totally clinched it, so thanks for that.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Those facts are about my dad.”

  Sammy let out of breath of laughter. “Are you serious?” Her eyes widened with realization, and her grin grew. “Are you for real? Is your dad Lucas from TION?”

  “Uh, not to my knowledge.”

  She looked between us. “You really didn’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  She shook her head, still grinning. “Good luck, is all I can say.”

  48.

  “WHAT THE FUCK WAS SAMMY even talking about?” Joydeep said. We met back in the gallery after school for another emergency meeting—though admittedly emergency had lost some of its urgency since all of our meetings these days seemed to be emergency meetings. Mr. Tucker had sent out an excited email that morning:

  Ticket sales have reached four hundred! This is so amazing! Congrats Sounds of the Nineties team, cannot WAIT for the big event!

  “Apparently, there have been some other … coincidences,” Sasha said, looking my way. “In the facts we compiled about your dad.”

  “What? How? Genuinely, tell me how my dad could also be mistaken for Lucas from This Is Our Now?”

  “I did some looking during class,” Sasha said carefully. “And apparently, a lot of stuff just … happens to be similar. He’s actually lived in Indiana. He’s been heard on the radio for years. His favorite TION member is Josh—there’s this whole thing with him and Josh, this bromance. The color yellow—”

  “How could yellow possibly factor in this time?” I asked.

  “Apparently he sings a line in one of their most popular songs: My heart burns yellow sun/Your soul answers midnight blue.”

  “Bleh.” Joydeep looked disgusted.

  “I don’t hate it,” Jamie said. “Lyrically.”

  “Anyway,” Sasha continued. “It’s a thing, apparently. They have like, yellow sun shirts and stuff. I guess people thought we were referring to that.”

  “TGI Fridays, though?” Joydeep burst out, incredulous.

  “He, like, famously loves their loaded potato skins. He’s tweeted about it.”

  “No,” I said. “No no no. It’s enough we’ve got the Deadnoughts. We’re not dragging the TION fandom into this.”

  “We didn’t do anything,” Jamie said. “People interpreted something wrong. That’s not our fault.”

  “Yeah, but once it’s out there, it’s out there,” Sasha said. “Even if it’s not true, just the idea that it could be is enough for people.”

  Joydeep nodded. “I say we just announce your dad once and for all. If people want their money back, that’s their own fucking deal.”

  Sasha nodded, then glanced my way. “At least we have some kind of guest, even if it’s not
the one everyone’s expecting.”

  I swallowed. Anxiety roiled in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to have to rip this Band-Aid off.

  But there was no avoiding it. Or at least I knew that avoiding it any longer would only make it exponentially worse.

  “We actually … don’t.”

  They all looked my way. “Sorry, what?” Joydeep said after a moment, voice ominously calm.

  Mine was small in response: “We actually … don’t have a guest. He can’t…” I shook my head. “He’s not coming.”

  The silence that followed seemed interminable, though in reality it was probably only a moment or two before Joydeep stood and walked over to one of the pottery stands.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, turning back to face us. “The event is one week away. We don’t have Tyler Bright. We don’t have Lucas from TION. And now we don’t even have the actual person that we were actually supposed to have in the first place, your own dad, we don’t even have your own dad. That’s what you’re telling me. We have nothing.”

  “Except ticket money from four hundred people,” Sasha said hollowly.

  “And each other,” I added, because I’m an idiot.

  “Oh, great,” Joydeep said. “Great. This is great. Really great.”

  “You have to stop saying great,” Jamie replied.

  “Fantastic!” Joydeep exploded. “Is that better? Nina, how did this even happen? You said he was for real confirmed this time. You said one hundred percent! How could this have happened?”

  I looked at them for a moment. Three expectant faces.

  “I lied,” I said.

  49.

  “WHAT THE FUCK?” JOYDEEP SAID, quietly and with great sincerity.

  I shrugged. The looks on their faces were too much to handle, so I fixed my eyes on the series of fake magazine covers lining the back wall. The one in the center was a Rolling Stone cover mock-up featuring a girl wearing a pink leotard, posing provocatively.

  “I … I’m sorry,” I said.

  And then there was nothing to do but bail.

  Jamie followed me out and caught up with me, longer legs carrying him faster so he could circle around and cut me off at the end of the hall.