“What?”
“He was trying to be romantic!” Carina cried. “Don’t you see that?”
“I think he does still like you,” Hudson said more diplomatically.
“He doesn’t. And Ava called right in the middle of it, anyway,” Lizzie said.
“So what?” Carina blurted. “You should have jumped him!”
“You guys, no. I’m just gonna be friends with Todd Piedmont. He has a girlfriend. End of story.” She ate her last bite of turkey sandwich and threw it out. “What’s a lot more important right now is this release I have to give my mom. So Andrea can send in my pictures to New York Style.”
“You still haven’t told her, right?” Hudson said, applying a wand of Chanel lipstain to her lips.
“I can’t. Hey, Mom, I know you’re a supermodel, but guess what? Someone wants me to be an ugly model! I can’t do it.”
“Where’s the release?” Carina asked as they turned west on Twenty-Fifth Street.
Lizzie pulled it out from her purse. “Why? Do you understand lawyer-talk?” she asked.
“I don’t have to,” she replied, unfolding it. “You got a pen?”
“C, what are you doing?” Hudson asked, concerned.
Lizzie gave Carina a pen. Carina walked over to a mailbox, spread the piece of paper on it, and signed it with a flourish. “There you go,” she said simply, handing it back to Lizzie.
“Carina!” Lizzie said. The signature said KATIA SUMMERS with a bunch of overdone curlicues and flourishes.
“What?” Carina asked defensively. “The photos are just for the editor to look at, right? She’s not gonna do anything with them.”
“That’s forgery, C,” Hudson said, astonished. “People go to jail for that.”
“It’s making something easier,” Carina groaned. “I mean, Lizzie’s gonna tell her mom eventually, right?”
“Right,” Lizzie said, folding the slip. “I guess,” she added, less convinced.
“It’s still wrong,” Hudson argued. “Lizzie, why don’t you just tell your mom? I’m sure she’d be fine with it.”
Lizzie shrugged, looking at the slate-gray Hudson River in the distance. “If you guys remember, I had a hissy fit about getting my picture taken at Fashion Week. Now it’s like I’m totally changing my mind.”
Hudson came to a stop in front of a sleek glass-fronted gallery building. “Okay, guys, we’re here.” Both Carina and Lizzie had hung out with Hudson in recording studios before, but this was the first time they’d be seeing Hudson, and not her mom, lay down tracks. Supersonic Recording Studios was on the fifth floor, behind a pair of smoked-glass doors that clicked open when Hudson typed in a security code. Inside, the studio’s large reception area-slash-lounge was filled with things to pass the time when recording an album: a flatscreen TV with Xbox, neon-lit pinball machines, piles of magazines on the coffee table, and bowls of Chupa Chups and Hershey Kisses. Carina swiped a handful of Kisses before they turned down the hall to the studio. “This place is awesome,” she muttered.
Hudson took off her jacket. She looked adorable in skinny jeans, ballet flats, and a black-and-red-striped trapeze top. “Okay, you guys promise not to make funny faces at me through the glass?” Hudson asked. “C?”
“Swear to God,” Carina said, eating a Hershey’s Kiss.
“I’m so proud of you,” Lizzie said, squeezing Hudson’s tiny shoulder. “Your first album. This is so cool.”
“Tell me that after you hear the first track,” Hudson said nervously, but her green eyes shone with pride.
As they walked into the recording studio, a guy with strawberry blond hair and amiable blue eyes looked up from the mixing board. “Hey superstar,” he said to Hudson with a smile.
“You guys, this is my producer, Chris Brompton,” Hudson said. “Chris, these are my best friends in the whole world, Carina and Lizzie.”
Hudson hadn’t been exaggerating, Lizzie thought. Chris was hot.
“Hey, welcome,” Chris said, getting up and shaking their hands. “Hudson’s told me so much about you guys.”
As Chris grinned at Hudson, Carina and Lizzie traded looks. “Oh my God,” Carina mouthed.
“I know,” Lizzie mouthed back.
“You guys wanna make yourselves comfortable?” He pointed to a sofa at the back of the room, but Chris’s eyes and smile were so mesmerizing Lizzie almost forgot to sit down. Carina had to gently nudge her.
“So we’re just gonna have you lay down the vocal,” Chris said to Hudson. “How’s the throat?”
“Kind of scratchy.” Hudson fluttered a hand over her neck. Lizzie could already tell that Hudson had a crush on Chris, and she didn’t blame her.
Chris handed Hudson a bottle of water. “Or do you want me to get you some hot water with lemon?”
“That’s okay, I’ll be fine.” She took the water, blushing.
Lizzie and Carina exchanged a look. Uh-oh.
“Okay, guys, I’ll see you in a bit,” Hudson said, turning to them.
Carina and Lizzie gestured excitedly toward Chris’s turned back. Hudson rolled her eyes as if to say calm yourselves, and left the room.
Chris turned around to face Carina and Lizzie. “Have you guys heard her yet?”
They nodded.
“She’s gonna be a big star,” he added before swiveling back around to the board.
Carina grinned with pride. “Damn straight,” she whispered.
Through the window above the mixing board, they watched Hudson and her band enter the recording booth. The guys picked up their guitars, took their places behind a double bass and a drum set, and Hudson slid behind a shiny Yamaha piano. She slipped on a pair of earphones, as if she’d been doing this for years, and gave Chris a thumbs-up sign behind the glass.
A moment later they began to play. The soft rat-tat-tat of a snare drum poured through the studio speakers. Then the thump of a jazz bass, and the soft trills of Hudson’s piano. Lizzie recognized it right away. It was a song Hudson had written last year and played for Carina and Lizzie on the Steinway in her apartment, fumbling a little over the keys. Even then Lizzie had known it was beautiful. Now with the addition of drums, bass, and electric guitar, it was gorgeous.
Hudson closed her eyes, swayed a little on the bench, and as her fingers pressed the keys, she began to sing.
There is just one place in my heart
Just one place in my heart
For you, my love, for you…
Goose bumps rose up along Lizzie’s arm. Hudson’s voice was perfect for jazz and soul: deep, throaty, and evocative. It was the complete opposite of her mother’s, which was like a sonic Pop-Tart: yummy and sweet and made for Top Forty hits. Holla’s voice made you want to get up and dance, but Hudson’s made you want to slow dance with some guy who was bad for you.
When the song faded out, Lizzie and Carina shot to their feet, clapping wildly.
“Yeah, Hudson!”
“Woo-hoo!”
Hudson couldn’t hear her friends going crazy, but she gave them an embarrassed half-wave through the glass.
Chris leaned into a microphone on the board and pressed the intercom. “That was amazing, you guys. Let’s play it back.”
And just then the studio door burst open.
“That was so good!”
Before anyone could fully prepare themselves, Holla Jones—the Holla Jones—marched into the room. “Great job, baby,” she yelled to the glass, waving her hands with their long manicured nails. “Great job!”
At the piano, Hudson’s face dropped. Clearly her mom’s visit had been a surprise.
Holla turned to Carina and Lizzie and held out her arms. “Gir-irls,” she said in a singsong, like she always did, and both of them went up to hug her.
Holla couldn’t have been more than five foot one and ninety-five pounds, but her presence was as large and overbearing as Godzilla’s. She was darker-skinned than her daughter, with large, almond-shaped brown eyes, lush lips, and a high, commandi
ng forehead that was remarkably smooth. Today her long caramel hair was twisted in a bun and swept off her face with a pair of enormous D&G sunglasses perched on top of her head. Holla was known almost as much for her supremely fit body as she was for her voice, and today she wore a sleeveless pink tank top and hip-slung yoga pants that showed off her fearsome biceps and six-pack. A sparkling pendant of three diamond monkeys, one covering its eyes, another covering its ears, and another covering its mouth, hung from her neck. It was easy to see where Hudson had gotten her love of jewelry.
As Lizzie and Carina took turns giving her a hug, two twiglike women with sunken cheeks and fake eyelashes and one beefy man dressed in black quietly walked into the room. Lizzie didn’t recognize them, but she knew exactly who they were: Holla’s assistant, stylist, and bodyguard. Holla never went anywhere without her entourage, but the trio was always different—none of the three ever lasted long in their jobs. They leaned against the wall, took out their BlackBerrys, and expertly melted into the background.
“All right, Chris, I’ve got some thoughts,” Holla said abruptly after greeting Lizzie and Carina. She pulled up an empty chair and sat herself next to him. “I know what you’re going for with the whole low-fi thing. I get it. But I’ve told Hudson a million times—that whole rootsy, brown-sound, Norah Jones thing is totally over.”
Chris rubbed his chin. “O-kay,” he said carefully.
“We should track all these guys separately,” Holla said, gesturing to the band behind the glass. “Maybe sample in some beats. Put her voice through a sequencer, use some compression, take out the scratches. Go sharper and glossier.”
Chris glanced hesitantly through the glass. Hudson sat on the edge of the piano bench, her brows knitted with concern.
“I think your daughter really wants this kind of sound,” he said, sounding a little terrified.
Holla sat back in her chair. “I know what she wants,” she snapped. “But I’m telling you the way it should be.”
Just then the door opened and Hudson walked into the room. “Hey, Mom, what’s going on?” she asked casually, coming to stand by her chair. Lizzie could hear the panic underneath the sweetness.
“Oh, nothing, baby, I’m just having a talk with your producer,” Holla said gently, taking Hudson’s wrist in her hand. “I think we need to start over with this. Go with what we talked about. Something sharper. Fuller. More radio. Less… easy listening.”
Hudson darted a here-we-go look at her friends. “Mom, we talked about this,” she said. “I’m not Britney.”
“Thank God,” Holla laughed, swinging Hudson’s arm. “I’m not saying that. I just want you to have the career you deserve. And if you’re stuck behind a piano on tour, nobody’s gonna see you dance. And you’re such a good dancer—”
“Mom,” Hudson cut in, her voice darker. She darted a look at Chris. “I told you I didn’t want to do this unless I could make the album I want to make,” she said in a low voice.
“Honey, what do you want to be?” Holla said, sitting back in her chair and letting go of her daughter. “A girl who sells a hundred thousand records? Or a star who sells millions and wins Grammys? Who’s going to have little girls dressing like her and singing her songs? You have that in you, honey. I know you do.”
Hudson chewed her bottom lip and looked anxiously at her friends. I don’t care, Lizzie wanted Hudson to say. I don’t want to be like you. But she knew Hudson couldn’t bring herself to say that in front of her mom.
“How soon do you think we could move to a new studio?” Holla asked Chris, as if the issue had been settled. “One with the digital capability we might need?”
“I’m not sure. We’ll have to talk to the label about that.”
Holla’s hands were already moving over the board. “Can we play it back? I just want Hudson to hear what I’m talking about.”
Hudson stared at Chris imploringly. But he was no match for Holla Jones. With a sigh, Chris pressed a button and the music started.
Lizzie knew that this was only going to get worse. She looked at Carina. What can we do? she asked with her eyes. Carina gave a sad shrug.
“You guys are probably bored,” Hudson said, sensing her friends’ discomfort. “You can take off if you want.”
Carina and Lizzie traded a look. They didn’t want to abandon their friend, but it was obvious Hudson wanted them to leave. They knew that nothing was more mortifying to Hudson than a public power struggle with her mom, because she’d always lose.
“Thanks for having us,” Lizzie said to her as she leaned down and gave her friend a hug. “You were so great.”
Carina hugged her, too. “You kicked ass,” she whispered.
“Thanks, guys,” Hudson said with downcast eyes.
“Stand up to her,” Lizzie said under her breath.
Hudson only shook her head, her green eyes faraway. “Right,” she wisecracked.
They mumbled a goodbye to Holla, but she was too busy manipulating the faders on the mixing board to notice their exit.
Out in the hall, Carina and Lizzie walked to the elevator in silence.
“I hate watching her do that to her,” Carina finally said, punching out a piece of gum and putting it in her mouth. “It’s so unfair.”
“Maybe she should have waited to do this,” Lizzie said.
“Waited for what? Her mom’s always gonna be like that,” Carina said.
“But maybe she could handle it better in a few years.”
“Well, the sooner she learns to do it, the better,” Carina said, pressing the button. “But what do I know? I’m my dad’s slave.”
The elevator door opened and they walked inside.
“You know what? This is the year we stand up to our parents,” Lizzie announced. “You need to let your dad know that he’s being unfair, Hudson needs to do the album she wants to do—”
“And you need to not be so afraid, Lizzie,” Carina said pointedly. She punched the lobby button. “It’s your life. Do you want to spend the rest of it in your mom’s shadow or not?”
The doors rumbled shut. Lizzie didn’t answer, but she thought about Carina’s words all the way down to the lobby and out onto the street. That’s what this was all about. As long as she could remember, this had been the implicit bargain of her life: to live on the sidelines, in the shadows, out of the spotlight, and off the red carpet. To be known to everyone—and even to herself—as Katia Summers’s daughter. Her weird-looking daughter. To be quiet, to be unseen, and to hope nobody noticed her.
But that couldn’t last forever. Didn’t she deserve her own life?
A few minutes later, out on the street, she stopped in front of a Kinko’s on Twenty-Third Street. “Hold on,” she said to Carina, and ran inside.
At the counter, she pulled the permission slip out of her bag. Andrea’s fax number was at the top. She handed it to a clerk behind the counter.
“Just fax that, please,” she said.
As she watched him feed the slip into the fax machine, she felt a niggling sensation of doubt. But she knew that Carina was right. It was time for her to start being Lizzie. Even if doing that scared her to death.
chapter 16
Four days later, on a rainy Wednesday a few minutes before French, Lizzie looked up from reading Tender Is the Night and saw Todd standing over her, looking like he either had something important to say, or had completely forgotten her name.
“Hey,” he finally said, and cleared his throat. “What’s up?”
Now Todd was giving her the cold shoulder. He didn’t look at her in class. He passed by her in the halls—with Ava and her rolled-up kilt glued to his hip. Lizzie knew that she had no reason to be hurt—they were just friends, after all—but his decision to ignore her ever since their study session didn’t make any sense.
But, it seemed, he’d changed his mind. Again.
“Uh, just reading,” she said, putting down the book.
Todd nodded and looked down, as people streamed into
class behind him. God, he could be awkward, Lizzie thought.
“So we should meet again for the English project,” he said haltingly.
She closed the book. “Sure.”
“And is it okay if I ask you a favor?” he asked.
“All right,” she said.
“Actually, it’s not for me,” he said, letting his weird English bookbag slide off his shoulder. “It’s for Ava.”
Lizzie felt something drop inside her, as if her heart had just been torpedoed.
“She wants to ask you something but she’s kind of embarrassed,” he said, staring at the ground, as he swept the floor with his shoe.
Ava embarassed? she thought, just as Ava blew into the room.
“Hey, Lizzie!” Ava cried, walking over. Her cheeks were rosy from being outside, and she’d left on her knit hat with devil horns, which immediately got on Lizzie’s nerves. “I sooooo didn’t want to bother you, but you know I’m the chairperson for the Silver Snowflake Ball, and we’re doing a raffle for prizes, and, well, I was wondering if we could get your mom to donate something.”
Her torpedoed heart made a crash landing in her gut. “Um, like what?” she asked.
“It could be anything,” Ava shrugged crazily. “Dinner with her, a dress, going with her to a photo shoot, hanging out with her and Martin Meloy, whatever. Oh, and you’re totally gonna get an invitation, just so you know.” She smiled radiantly and glanced at Todd, who still seemed fascinated by the floor.
“Uh, well, I’ll ask her,” she said, deliberately sidestepping Ava’s invitation.
“Great!” Ava exclaimed. She tossed her curls off her shoulder and squeezed Todd’s hand. “Todd said you wouldn’t mind. And you know, he said your mom is really cool and everything.”
“Glad he helped you out with that,” she said thickly.
Just then Madame Dupuis stalked through the doors in a hideous chartreuse pantsuit.
“Okay, well, see you later!” Ava chirped.
She and Todd scrambled to the back of the room just as Madame Dupuis called class to order with her usual “Shhht!”