“Sorry,” she mumbled quickly and rushed out of the coffee house. She didn’t stop running till she reached the bus stop. She couldn’t show up at Salty Sam’s now.
All Lidia could think about was that kiss. A kiss that should have been meant for her.
LID—WHERE ARE U???????
Sydney texted Lidia for what felt like the millionth time in the past two days and got no response.
On Tuesday, Lidia didn’t show up at Don’t Be Crabby’s before their shift on Salty Sam’s pirate cruise, which wasn’t like her. Lidia was never late and always handed in assignments—including a list of prospective Nightingales Sydney had suggested compiling—way early. And she never flaked out on work, unlike Sydney (who had already gotten a written warning). That is why Sydney was sure something had happened to her. A quick call to Lidia’s house had calmed her fears. Lidia’s grandmother said she was sick. But a person could be sick and still answer the phone or respond to a text, couldn’t they? Lidia hadn’t done either.
It was as if …
No. Not possible.
Griffin.
The name popped into Sydney’s mind before she could stop it and her stomach fluttered. Traitor! she yelled at herself even as her mind flashed to some of her favorite summer memories, which all seemed to include Griffin. They’d spent so much time together rehearsing for In the Heights that it was bound to happen: They clicked. She’d only started chatting with him to get more intel for Lidia, but she quickly realized she and Griffin had a lot in common. They both had a jug at home marked HAMILTON where they squirreled away money to go to New York and get tickets to see the Broadway show. They were both obsessed with Grocery Wars, this bizarre coupon-cutting reality show. They agreed that they fell in love with musicals when they saw Singing in the Rain as kids. Even musically, they were in sync. When a song they liked came on the radio during rehearsals, they both burst out in song, matching harmonies without even trying.
Griffin.
Don’t even think his name, she reprimanded herself. It was a stupid mistake. It’s never going to happen again.
From now on, she’d refer to him as He Who Shall Not Be Named. Griffin Mancini was as dangerous as Voldemort.
Ugh! She’d said Griffin’s name again!
And again! Why did she keep saying Grif—
ENOUGH! What had happened at Don’t Be Crabby’s had completely messed with her head. One minute she was grabbing a table for her and Lidia, all proud of herself for being the early one for a change. The next, He Who Shall Not Be Named had stopped by to talk about the latest episode of Grocery Wars. They started laughing over something that had happened with detergent and then he had blurted out how much he liked her. Sydney was stunned. He was supposed to like Lidia! Just when she was about to tell him that, he’d leaned across the table and kissed her.
Sydney had been so freaked out, she’d left the coffee shop without even getting her coffee. She’d texted Lidia that she was running late for their pirate shift and gone straight to the boat, her heart pounding and her lips still tingling from the memory of what had just happened. Or, as she kept telling herself, hadn’t happened. Sydney wanted to wipe the memory from existence just like that time in fifth grade when she tried to sing falsetto during her solo in the holiday concert. He Who Shall Not Be Named was not hers to think about. Lidia had been in love with him forever.
You need to tell her what happened, a little voice pressed.
No! Sydney told herself. Lidia would be crushed. And besides, it didn’t mean anything.
Sydney glanced at her phone again. No response from Lidia.
Above her, the town hall clock chimed four. She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to get to Pinocchio’s. It was time to convince some girls to become Nightingales!
Ever since she and Lidia began dreaming of being Nightingales co-captains, they’d been keeping tabs on potential new sopranos, altos, and beatboxers—girls they’d spied singing in the halls or to the radio. Sure, most of these girls had never been in chorus before, let alone expressed interest in joining an a cappella group, but if they got just the right mix of singers to join, the Nightingales could be on their way to a cappella glory again. Sydney could actually see herself holding a trophy at Turn It Up. Lidia was the one who came up with the idea of inviting girls to hear about the Nightingales before school started, and that’s when Sydney suggested her dad’s ice cream shop, Pinocchio’s. She’d even gotten him to agree to give out free (small) sundaes. Together they’d put up a post online saying FREE ICE CREAM! BRADLEY GIRLS ONLY!* And then in smaller print had explained: *And while you’re eating your sundae, hear us explain why the Nightingales is the group you WANT to be in this year!
Twenty-five girls had commented they were coming. That was more than twice as many girls as they needed to have a group! Two girls they didn’t love—Micayla and Whitney—had RSVP’d as well. The gruesome twosome had tried, and failed, to beat her and Lidia out as co-captains—so Sydney expected them to do their worst to try to derail the meeting. But still—twenty-five girls were coming!
Once they were all there, Sydney would give “The Big Speech” about how incredible it was to be in a singing, dancing, all-girl group. (Sisterhood! Solidarity! Togetherness! Fun!) Then she and Lidia would dive into their rendition of “For Good” from Wicked. The girls would be so impressed that they’d want to know more about the group, and that’s when Lidia was going to tell them how being a Nightingale would give them confidence onstage, which would help them in college interviews, and in the Run the World jobs they’d someday have. Sydney smiled to herself. She may have been the actress, but it was Lidia who nailed public speaking. Between the two of them, this meeting couldn’t go wrong.
She just needed to make sure Lidia was coming. Sydney pulled out her phone again to text Lidia and saw the little circles under the message spin. Lidia was writing back! Then the circles disappeared. What was up with Lidia?
Sydney pushed her pale-blond hair off the back of her neck and fanned herself with her Nightingales notebook. It was so hot out, she was starting to melt, and there was still no sign of Lidia on the busy street.
She would never understand why her dad loved living in southwest Florida. Sure, her parents had met at Florida State University, but why didn’t they leave the state afterward? Who chose Florida—with its alligators, retirees, way too much Coppertone, and too little culture—to raise a family? When her parents divorced and her mom moved to Philadelphia, Sydney thought her dad might pick up and move somewhere new too, but he’d stayed put to open Pinocchio’s.
The first chance Sydney got after graduation, she was out of here. She was headed to New York, Los Angeles, or any culturally cool town that had more than one stage production a season. She would not work in Orlando at a theme park singing for peanuts. She had bigger dreams. And those dreams included living outside the Sunshine State.
Syd clutched her purple polka-dot notebook to her chest. The book had all their notes, plans, and dreams on those pages, and Sydney never let the notebook out of her sight. During In the Heights practices, He Who Shall Not Be Named had even teased her about it.
She felt buzzing in her bag. Lidia? She pulled her phone out, read the text, and frowned. Then smiled. Then frowned again as her heart beat faster. Speak of the devil.
GRIFFIN: You can’t ignore my texts forever.
GRIFFIN: School starts next week, which means you’ll soon be forced to talk/fawn all over me in person.
GRIFFIN: But it would be less awkward if we talked about what happened first. Call me, okay? I’m sorry if I freaked you out.
GRIFFIN: But not sorry because I’ve wanted to do that all summer.
So he wasn’t sorry he’d kissed her. This was BAD. Really bad. Lidia was going to find out. Sydney had to shut this discussion down ASAP.
SYDNEY: Nothing to talk about. Forget it even happened. Please.
GRIFFIN: I don’t want to forget. Can we please talk about this?
GRIFFIN:
Maybe over an episode of Grocery Wars?
Why couldn’t this happen with a different boy? Not that she’d found any boys at Bradley Academy that got her the way Griffin did, but Griffin wasn’t hers to like. She wanted to reply so badly, but she knew she shouldn’t text him. She reluctantly put her phone away.
She needed to stay focused on the Nightingales. With any luck, Lidia was already at Pinocchio’s wooing a group of girls over a salted-caramel sundae with marshmallow sauce (Lidia’s personal favorite). Lidia was great at explaining things in a way that put people at ease, whereas Sydney tended to be a bit hyper about everything.
Sydney walked down the block, thinking about the afternoon game plan. If they could convince Julie Ivarone and Natalie Chen to try out, Angela Burt and Sophie Higgens would want to come too. Then the freshman class would get wind that it was cool to be a Nightingale and there would be a flood of auditions. They’d have to turn people away!
She threw herself through the front door of Pinocchio’s and spotted her dad behind the counter taking orders. “Hey, kid,” he said, like always. (Sometimes she wondered if he even remembered her name.) He smiled as he bent over the ice cream in the freezer, giving her a glimpse of his thinning salt-and-pepper hair. “Lidia and some other girls are already in the back waiting for you. Good luck!”
Lidia was there! Good.
“Thanks, Dad! I promise to work some shifts this weekend to make up for all the ice cream!” Sydney slipped past the barn door that separated the ice cream shop from the private room normally used for kids’ parties and smiled when she saw the large (large!) group of girls in the back room. Julie and Natalie were there with Angela and Sophie. YES! So were Viola Chasez and Gabby Cyprus, fellow sophomores who were always nice. There were also some girls in the junior class like Yvonne Poj and Kelly Moira, who sang Beatles songs on a field trip last spring and sounded amazing. And … oh no. Pearl Robbins was there. She’d tried out last year and didn’t make the group. She remembered Pearl being super pitchy. And who was she talking to? Did that girl with the wavy black hair have a puppet on her right hand? Sydney started to panic. What if they were forced to take Pearl and Puppet Girl because they didn’t have enough girls for a team?
She was being ridiculous. Auditions were going to be great! The turnout for the get-together was even better than Sydney could have hoped for. It was time to put Operation: Save the Nightingales into action.
She spotted Lidia sitting at the soda shop counter in the back of the room, her long legs dangling from the spinning counter stool, and headed over. Gabby was saying something to her that the other girls nearby were riveted by.
“And that’s why this group is cursed,” Sydney heard Gabby say.
The word “cursed” stopped Sydney in her tracks.
“No. Way,” said Sophie, her jaw dropping slightly. “You’re telling me Vanessa Pyun was blown off the stage and broke three ribs when she landed in the orchestra pit?”
“Yes,” Gabby said solemnly. “It was as if a giant gust of wind came out of nowhere and carried her off. I saw it myself.”
“She was spinning, Gabs,” Viola said with an eye roll, running a hand through her short, curly hair. The two were good friends. “I don’t remember the wind.”
“There was wind,” Gabby insisted, her arms waving wildly and her bracelets sliding up her arms. “The Nightingales are cursed.”
Throughout all this, Lidia had remained silent. If she wasn’t going to step in with all this cursed talk, Sydney had to. She laughed extra-hard. “Gabby, you’re hilarious! No one was blown off a stage! The Nightingales are not cursed.” Her voice sounded pitchy rather than confident. She never sounded pitchy! “That’s just a rumor the Kingfishers started last year to get back at us for supposedly toilet papering every member’s house the night before spring break. Right, Lidia?”
Lidia spun around on the bar stool, not saying a word. Okay.
Gabby shook her head slightly, her short brown bob barely moving. Sydney suspected she shellacked it to keep it from frizzing in the Florida humidity. “If the Nightingales aren’t cursed, then how do you explain the season when Hurricane Charlie flooded the Bradley Academy Performing Arts Center?” She looked at the other girls. “The group had to practice in the cafeteria all season, and their pitch was so off, they didn’t place in any competitions.”
“I heard they didn’t place because they barely had enough people to keep a group going,” said Yvonne, walking up behind them. “No offense, Sydney, but the Nightingales don’t have the best reputation.”
“Well, that’s changing with me and Lidia in charge!” Sydney nudged Lidia, who spun away from her. What was going on? “Besides, everyone knows the cafeteria has terrible acoustics.”
“How do you explain 2014?” Gabby pressed. “That year my sister was in the group and the Nightingales somehow made it to the state finals.”
“They were great that year,” Sydney said, but no one seemed to be listening. Instead, more girls gathered around Gabby.
“The group was hungry so they stopped to eat on the road,” Gabby told them. “And that is how the Serrano Tex-Mex Grill Food Poisoning Incident happened.”
“I heard their club advisor picked the place for lunch and stepped down afterward,” Natalie volunteered.
“Mr. Matthews’s wife got a job in Utah and they had to move,” Sydney said in exasperation. “And it wasn’t food poisoning. It was just a team-wide stomach virus.”
“There’s a difference?” Yvonne asked.
“Yes!” Sydney said wearily. “We’re lucky Mr. Matthews left. Mr. Wickey’s a way better advisor anyway—he racked up tons of awards in his own a cappella collegiate career.”
Gabby cut her off. “But nothing was as bad as what happened last year. Ariel Simon, the lead vocalist, left the group right before competition season to try out for The Voice.” There was a murmur of excitement. “She didn’t make the cut and was so embarrassed, she left school. Someone said she moved to Long Island, New York, and is now on Word of Mouth.” She shook her head again. “I’m telling you, this group is cursed.”
Grr … Sydney tried to stay calm. “If that’s true, then why did you come to hear about auditions?”
Gabby grinned. “Are you kidding? Free ice cream! And besides, I love drama. This is better than trying out for the play. I want to be a Nightingale and see who falls victim to the curse next.”
“There’s no curse!” Sydney snapped. The girls all looked at her. Sydney smoothed her hair behind her ear. “I mean, accidents happen. Sometimes people have bad luck or a few bad a cappella seasons. It doesn’t mean a whole group is cursed.” She nudged Lidia. “Tell them, Lid.”
Lidia jumped out of her chair. “I need ice cream. Anyone else want to make a sundae?”
What was she doing? They’d planned for speeches first, then ice cream. Lidia wasn’t sticking to the plan, and now girls were following her across the room to the sundae bar.
Sydney felt a pat on the back. “I wouldn’t worry about the curse this year, though,” Gabby said brightly. “Look how many girls are here! There is going to be fierce competition for spots. Even Micayla and Whitney better bring their A game. Where are they anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Sydney said. Maybe they were so bitter about not being captains, they had changed their minds about the group.
“More ice cream for us,” Gabby said. “Question: Would you allow dogs as background singers? Just at tryouts? I’ve taught mine to howl in harmony when I sing.”
“Umm …” Sydney didn’t know what to say. What was happening?
Gabby smiled. “I watch dogs as part of my family’s doggie day care business.”
“Cool,” Sydney said. “If you’ll excuse me, I wanted to get everyone’s attention to—”
“Hi, Sydney!” said someone with a squeaky voice.
“Hi, Pearl.” Sydney hoped her voice didn’t betray her feelings.
Pearl bounded up to Sydney, practically engulfing her in a
big hug. Her long, frizzy red hair moved in one motion, like she was wearing a helmet. “I’m so happy I got your text. I mean your post, but I’m just happy to be here!” She wrung her pale, freckled hands anxiously. “I wanted to say I’ve been working a lot on my pitch since last year’s auditions and I think—THINK,” she said, her voice cracking, “you’ll love what you hear!”
“I’m sure I will,” Sydney said, sidestepping her and quickly making her way over to Lidia, who was spiraling whipped cream on top of a five-scoop mint-chocolate-chip sundae.
“Is that for you?” Sydney had never seen Lidia eat a sundae that big, which was funny considering they could both have as much free ice cream as they wanted at her dad’s shop.
“Yep.” Lidia kept her eyes on the sundae, which she topped with chocolate pieces.
“Okay, well, are you ready for ‘The Big Speech’?” Sydney whispered, adjusting her shoulder straps and the thin belt on her paisley-printed dress. She’d bought the dress because it was the same color as the Nightingales’ group logo—lime green and blue.
“It’s all yours,” Lidia said, adding some gummies to her ice cream skyscraper. “I’m not really in the mood to talk today.”
The plan was for Sydney to start, Lidia to jump in, then Sydney would do the big finish. They’d practiced it for weeks. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?”
Lidia finally looked Sydney’s way and Sydney’s stomach plummeted. Lidia always looked her best, even if it was for a sleepover, but today her normally sleek hair was frizzy and her eyes were swollen. It was as if … Sydney’s heart began to pound faster.
“What do you think?” Lidia grabbed a fistful of jelly beans.
Lidia knows about Griffin. Sydney wasn’t sure how, but she did.
Did she take the risk and come clean? She looked at Lidia. They’d been best friends for five years. They never kept secrets, which meant Sydney should tell her. Just tell her! her head screamed.
“I …” Sydney couldn’t do this now in front of all those girls. “I … Did you bring the songbooks and the iPod?”