“BroadwayBaby17.”
My shoulders sagged. Fuck me.
Sam let out a holler. “Christ on a bike, this is fucking hilarious!” He waved an arm at Kristen and turned to Nick. “This is the girl he said doesn’t know shit about singing. The one who couldn’t tell radio rock from thrash metal if it hit her on the head with a guitar. The one who said our lyrics are sexist and whose ass Eli said he’d like to kick all the way to Broadway so she’d just shut the fuck up.” He doubled over, laughing.
Nick stared at me and then looked at Kristen. “Sam, shut up, man!”
Nice effort, but it was too late. Kristen’s huge blue eyes filled with fury, and her face went red. “So…you’re FretGuy99?” She never waited for me to answer. “God…was this…this really was all some kind of setup.” She stared at me, huge blue eyes swimming with tears, and I wanted to throw myself at her knees. “It’s bad enough dealing with the crap Ride Out posts but FretGuy?” She stared at me, eyes watery, and then she snapped straight up, lips narrowing. “What the hell is your deal? You just lurk online, waiting for someone to criticize Ride Out, and then you swoop in, hiding your identity behind a different account? I cannot believe this. You’re a troll… You totally suck.” She grabbed her stuff and stalked out of my garage, out of my plan, out of my life.
Damage control. I had to do damage control right fucking now before she blabbed to the entire Internet that FretGuy99 was part of Ride Out. I worked hard to keep those two accounts completely separate, and I wanted them to stay that way. If this got out, I’d get nothing but newbies asking me to offer free advice or listen to their demo tapes.
I grabbed my phone, only to discover that Sam had beaten me to it.
Ride_Out: So we let BroadwayBaby17 jam with us today. #CatCall
One step, two steps, and I had Sam’s shirt bunch in my fist. “Sam, what the hell did you do?”
8
Kristen
@Ride_Out
Check it! @kristencartwright rockin’ out with us. Amazing sound. #CatCall
@DTMilo
@Ride_Out should change name to Ride Her! #CatCall #lemmebefirst
@Ride_On747
@Ride_Out Wait @kristencartwright is BroadwayBaby17? OMG #CatCall
@Ride_On747
@Ride_Out @kristencartwright Stick to the stage and leave metal to the men. #CatCall
@Mikey_T
@Ride_Out @kristencartwright Nice! Post pics of those tits! #CatCall
@kristencartwright
That’s right! I’m singing with @Ride_Out. Somebody’s gotta show the boys how it’s done. #CatCall
@kristencartwright
@elijahhamilton will be on his knees screaming for ME. #CatCall
@Mikey_T
@Ride_Out @kristencartwright @elijahhamilton oooh, it’s #KrisVsEli! #CatCall
RETWEETS 38 FAVORITES 102
@Mikey_T
@kristencartwright Did you scream yet? RT @Ride_Out: Wanna hear her scream! #CatCall
RETWEETS 33 FAVORITES 212
“It was a bad idea, Rachel. I shouldn’t have listened.”
Stretched across her purple bedspread, Rachel looked up from this month’s issue of People magazine and popped another nacho chip into her mouth. “Yeah, well, Etta’s kind of hard to say no to.”
“Exactly!” I flung out my hands and paced around her room. “And now, Elijah’s got video footage of me rehearsing with his band that he could post all over the Internet, tell the whole world how bad I suck, how much of a sellout I am.”
Rachel’s hand froze halfway to her mouth, the nacho chip clasped between her fingers. “And that would be a bad thing, why again?”
I rolled my eyes. “Because he knows I’m BroadwayBaby17 on the Beat. I take enough crap from the guys on that site. If everybody found out my real name, it would never stop.”
Rachel went back to page-flipping. “You’re making too big a deal out of this. Okay, he knows your name. But you know his real name too. You could post crap right back if he did. Ooooh, he is so gorgeous,” she said on a gusty sigh when the magazine opened to a two-page spread of her favorite actor.
I angled my head and appreciated the eye candy, but I couldn’t stop worrying. Elijah Hamilton—hiding behind his FretGuy99 account—was one of the chief slingers of insults online. Etta kept asking me why I didn’t just stay offline if the abuse bothered me so much, but that always struck me as running away. I wasn’t doing anything wrong and shouldn’t have to hide myself because a few oversensitive jerks couldn’t deal with criticism. They hid behind their little keyboards, safe in their little cocoons, free to say any vile, disgusting thing they’d never have the guts to say to my face.
And just in case they did, I never posted on the Beat under my real name.
I’d joined the Beat about a year ago. The site was organized by genre, but you can follow anyone you want. At first, I followed other drama club people—actors, musical theater performers, dancers. I don’t remember exactly how I found Ride Out. I probably followed someone’s link. I listened to a few of their tracks and it was…raw. I thought I could help them refine their sound. That was the site’s mission—artists helping artists. You post snips of songs, riffs, a little video—and you ask for help. Am I hitting the right mark? Is this the right emotion? Stuff like that. Your followers can vote on your posts, share them, or reply back. I had a few thousand followers on the Beat now who requested my opinions and feedback and respected me—mostly. But there was this whole hard rock contingent that did nothing but antagonize me. I ignored most of their crap, blocked the truly nasty ones, and just tried to do my thing. My stomach clenched into a knot every time I thought about Elijah of the Intense Eyes as one of those jerks.
My phone buzzed. I swiped at the screen and read a message, and my heart thudded against my ribs. “Oh, no.”
Rachel looked up from her celebrity crush. “What?”
I showed her my phone. He’d done it. He’d posted video of me with my real name.
@Ride_Out
Check it! @kristencartwright rockin’ out with us. Amazing sound. bit.ly/Pmm2nxps #CatCall
The link attached to the post on the Beat led to a video of my first attempt at rock music.
Rachel clicked the link, and a second later, the sounds of Elijah’s guitar played out of the tinny speaker. It was only about thirty seconds of raw footage. Elijah was an incredible vocalist—not that I’d ever admit that in public. His sound was edgy, brutal in one verse, sweet and soulful in the next. I wasn’t sure how he changed up his sound like that. My voice was impressive too, but I wasn’t sure I could do that—not that it mattered. I wouldn’t be singing with these guys again, which would clearly make Sam happy. The video made it painfully clear that he hated me. He made faces, shot meaningful looks at Elijah, who ignored him, and nearly dropped the mic at one point. Jesus, I just had to get warmed up. And I did. It was rehearsal! It wasn’t supposed to go public.
I could kill Elijah for this.
I took the phone and played it a second time, and this time, I focused on me. I remembered getting sucked into the sound, dancing in place, and then jumping in because I just couldn’t help it. I was in the zone…skin tingling, body tuned, and it showed.
“Oh my God, Kristen! This is so cool.” Rachel forgot about her chips and her magazine and grinned at my phone. “Sam is seriously hot.”
I scoffed. “If you like guys who have better hair than you do, I guess so.”
“Hey, be nice.” Rachel flipped her own long, dark hair. She grabbed another chip. “You’re making too big a deal out of this. This gives you publicity, right? I thought you loved publicity.”
I do. Or I did. “Etta always says there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” I sat down on the corner of Rachel’s bed and folded over my middle. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
“Why no
t?”
I handed her my phone. “Read the comments. They’re actually scary.”
Rachel frowned at the screen. “Wow. Ride Out should be Ride Her. Um, here’s another. Stick to the stage, BroadwayBaby and leave metal to the men.” And then she gasped. “Oh, ick. Nice! Post pics of those tits!” Rachel tossed the phone to the bed in disgust. “I see what you mean. So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Etta thought this could be a good thing. Singing in a hard rock band might give me an edge for conservatory apps.”
Rachel pursed her lips and picked at the label on her magazine. “I don’t know, Kristen. Etta’s great and all, but she doesn’t know today.”
Rachel’s words pissed me off, but I took a deep breath and let them go right by because she had a point. Etta didn’t know anything about Twitter or the Beat. She didn’t deal with the kind of sexism and insults I put up with. On the other hand, I had a great time singing with Elijah, Sam, and Nick, even though Sam hated me. And yeah, I really did want to write my own rock song.
A sudden idea struck me so hard, I gasped.
“What?” Alarmed, Rachel sat up straight and examined me for signs of bodily injury.
Could I do it? Could I be that bold? I mulled it over for a moment and decided Etta would totally do it if it were her. She took crap from nobody. So why should I?
“What, Kristen? Jesus, will you say something?” Rachel grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
Slowly, I grinned at her. “I have the most amazing idea.”
She blew her bangs out of her eyes and bounced back to the bed while I tapped out a tweet. When I showed her the screen, a matching smile formed. “You sure about this?”
No. “Yes.”
“You realize this is a volley, right?”
I nodded. “I do. But I have almost as many followers as the band does and definitely more followers than his personal account does.”
“Okaaaay,” Rachel said with a wince. “But I don’t think this is one of those situations where there’s safety in numbers.”
Oh, I disagreed. That was exactly why I was doing this. Elijah thought he was such a player? Time to prove I could play too. This would shut them up.
I clicked Send, flopped back on Rachel’s bed, and met her palm in a high five.
9
Elijah
Ride_Out: BroadwayBaby’s got metal pipes! #CatCall
Ride_On747: She’s hot, but metal? #jurystillout
JJStix88: More! More @BroadwayBaby17!
I sat for ages, trying like hell not to pitch my guitar across the garage. I had her! Damn it, I had her hooked, and now she’d never talk to any of us again. Behind me, I was totally aware of Nick and Sam watching me.
Waiting.
We’d tried to practice after Kristen took off, but nobody was into it. Nick was tense and kept looking from me to Sam, but I knew he would not step in the middle of that unless blood was about to be shed.
“Well,” Sam finally said. “It’s been real.”
I raised my head to see him buckle his guitar into its case.
Chest heaving from the effort not to tear his fucking head off, I said, “Sam, you are a colossal dick.”
“Not just him, Eli. You acted all caveman,” Nick added, stepping between us.
“I…you’re—” I couldn’t even think straight.
“That’s because he wants—” Sam pumped his fist in front of his mouth, and I lunged for him, but Nick held me off.
“You see? An hour. That’s all it took. A fucking hour before Yoko Cartwright came between us.”
“So that’s why you antagonized her? You did everything but call her a hypocrite!” I jabbed a finger at him.
He straightened up, gave me another one of those casual shrugs, and shook the hair from his face. “That’s exactly what she is. All that bullshit about a sound that’s all sex and drums and lyrics that disrespect women? Underneath it all, she wants to be just like us, bro. Everybody wants that! They want to be in a rock band—even repressed Miss Drama Queen.”
I sneered. He just couldn’t face it that somebody could be better than him. “That why you couldn’t wait to tell everybody she jammed with us?” Beside me, I heard Nick pull in a sharp breath before he pulled out his phone to see for himself.
“Oh, Christ! What the hell did you do, Sam?”
Sam studied Nick for a minute and rolled his eyes with a curse. “I called her out on her bullshit so we can go back to doing what we do best.”
“Sam,” Nick said, shaking his head. “You posted video nobody had a chance to even review. That makes us look like shit.”
I managed to get a hand twisted in Sam’s shirt again before Nick tore us apart. “You’re an asshole, Gowan!” I shouted. “Look at these alerts.” I waved a hand at the tablet that was pinging a couple of times a minute. “You posted video that makes us look worse than the garage band we are. How the fuck are we supposed to book gigs?”
Sam crossed his arms until I finished my rant. “Hamilton, you can’t see past the hard-on you have for this chick. Are you reading those alerts? It’s working! We’re generating buzz, just like you wanted. All I did was spin things a little. So don’t get pissed at me because it’s working.” Sam grabbed his guitar case and strode out of my garage without another word.
I watched him go but didn’t stop him.
Behind me, Nick shuffled. “Uh, Eli. He’s right. This tweet’s getting a lot of traction. I mean, that’s what we wanted, right?”
Some publicity, some controversy. Yeah. That’s what we wanted.
Okay. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to think.
Okay, this could still be salvaged. Kristen was a pro; she would understand Sam’s lame-ass attempt at generating buzz.
Right?
I raked both hands through my hair and checked the comments online.
WTF @Ride_Out? You got BroadwayBitch17 on her back? Sweet. #CatCall
Yeah, it was sweet. Oh, not the comment, but having Kristen jam with us. She was every bit as good as I imagined…maybe better. I had to get her back. I had to.
I thought about it for a long while. We’d spent days learning new riffs and recording song covers and gotten maybe a dozen views at most. Our stats on the Beat followed a pattern—they spiked after we posted some other band’s cover and then dropped the rest of the month. Kristen could break us out of that pattern. She was fresh, she was sick on the mic, and she was fearless. After one session, bam! Kristen had those numbers rising. But I wanted them to stay up. So now, everything inside me was begging to give them more. And still more after that. I thought about what else I could say, what else I could post, and it suddenly came to me, something that was sure to get this whole thing trending in our favor. Kristen wouldn’t like it, but I knew it would work.
The answer was drama.
People ate that shit up. I remembered hearing somewhere that the conflict among the Beatles instigated by Yoko and Linda McCartney translated directly into record sales. And hadn’t Sam just said he didn’t want Kristen to be our Yoko? Well, okay then. It was time to plant exactly that seed. Once we got the numbers and the recording deal, then I could rein it all in and refocus everyone back on the music. But until then…
I grabbed the tablet and tapped out a post:
@Ride_Out
@BryceG: On her back? Hell, gonna have her on her knees. Wait and see. #CatCall
This would work. I was sure of it.
• • •
In silence, Nick and I dug through the bagels Sam left behind, both of us afraid to talk about what had happened. Kristen’s voice still echoed in my mind—it was that amazing. But Sam’s words replayed too.
Okay, so I liked Kristen. Who wouldn’t? She had a hot body, truckloads of talent, and was funny when she wasn’t pissed off at me. If I were being totall
y honest with myself, I’d have been putting moves on her already if not for the band.
I stopped because the band meant more to me than scoring. I played out half a dozen scenarios in my mind, devoured two bagels, and still had no clear idea how to make this right.
A throat cleared, jerking me out of my thoughts.
I looked at Nick, sitting by his drum kit, looking like a brick just hit his head, which was pretty much how I felt. “What?”
“So…are we…we’re not over, are we? Tell me this isn’t it for us.”
Sam and I frequently had loud, volatile disagreements, but Nick? Nick was always so…so easy. He had a Teflon coating that nothing ever stuck to long enough to get beneath. So when I looked over at him and saw the vein pulsing on his temple, I almost bolted. Instead, I waved a hand and tried to look unconcerned. “Nah. Sam’s a diva. He’ll be back.” And then I heard the words that I’d just said. Sam really was a diva.
Sam Gowan was jealous.
He didn’t like sharing a stage with anybody else and that included Nick and me. But he dealt with us because we respected his guitar skills. But sharing a spotlight with someone who didn’t—or couldn’t—appreciate his talent? No matter how successful the band might become because of Kristen, Sam would only see her as…well, as Yoko.
Shit.
I grabbed the tablet and checked the stats. It hadn’t been long since Sam posted the raw, unedited video with Kristen’s actual name. The tweet had been shared close to three dozen times and favorited more than a hundred. It also had a long list of replies.
That was when I saw it.
@kristencartwright
That’s right! I’m singing with @Ride_Out. Somebody’s gotta show the boys how it’s done. #CatCall
@kristencartwright
@elijahhamilton will be on his knees screaming for ME. #CatCall