Olivia and Gil walked forward, pulling Lucy with them. But she turned back and watched as the guy wrapped his enormous arms around Liza’s shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. In his arms, Liza looked positively tiny. “God, I’ve missed you.” He stuck his nose in her hair and smelled it.
“That’s Scott,” Gil whispered.
“It is?” Lucy stared at them. “As in the guy on the phone?”
Gil nodded and pulled Lucy forward again.
There was an angry-looking girl in a tiny black dress and turquoise heels guarding the door. Olivia leaned over to whisper something to her. Olivia’s white hair brushed against the girl’s black locks. Lucy snapped a picture. The girl turned and kissed Olivia on both cheeks, then stepped back to let her inside. She did the same to Liza and Gil. And even Lucy.
They went down a dark hallway that led into a huge room with a high-domed ceiling. It looked like the type of place where you’d go to hear a symphony or an opera except there were no seats. “A lot of famous people sang here back in the twenties when this place was first built,” said Olivia. “And lucky us, there’s an amazing new singer doing her debut performance here tonight.”
“Who?” Lucy looked up at the stage. Thick, red velvet curtains hung from a twenty-foot ceiling. Thousands of pinpoint lights hung from the ceiling on invisible threads, making it look like the room was full of tiny floating stars. The place was empty except for a few guys walking back and forth carrying giant pieces of sound equipment.
And a slow smile spread across Olivia’s lips and her tinkling bell laugh rang in Lucy’s ears. “You.”
Lucy’s entire body went cold.
“Welcome to your first show, rainbow cake,” said Olivia.
“But how did you even know I . . . ?”
“Remember when you were singing in the car the other day?” Gil said. “You were amazing.”
“You guys heard that?” Lucy whispered.
“Nature gave you something precious,” Olivia said. “Don’t waste it. You were meant to do this. It’s only fear that’s preventing you.”
“I . . . ,” said Lucy.
Gil squeezed her hand. “. . . will be wonderful.”
“But I can’t . . .” Terror tightened around her throat and no more words would come out.
“Don’t follow that,” Olivia said. She pointed to Lucy’s face. “It’s fear that separates the Heartbreakers from the heartbroken. It’s fear that keeps people from getting”—she gave Lucy a meaningful look—“what they want the most. If you do a good job, we have something very special to show you.”
Her meaning was clear. This was the final step.
If Lucy wanted their magic, this is what she needed to do. If she wanted Alex back, this is what she needed to do.
So this is what she would do.
Lucy raised her hand to her lips. She didn’t even bother to try and smile. “When do I go on?”
“Pete has lived here ever since we’ve known him,” Gil said as the four of them walked across the giant room. “Apparently the place is haunted by the ghost of some magician or something.” They went through a side door. “He says sometimes at night he’ll hear the sounds of cards shuffling and”—then down a narrow hallway—“sometimes finds aces tucked in between his covers”—and up two sets of stairs.
Finally they popped out into a big room behind the stage that was filled with a crazy mass of wires and cables, laptops, soundboards, and a couple dozen musical instruments.
“I can’t believe this is your friend’s house,” Lucy said.
Gil shook her head. “I know, right? That’s where he sleeps.” She pointed behind a pile of spotlights to a smallish bed covered in a quilt.
“Is sleeping,” a muffled, British-accented voice called from under the covers.
Olivia poked at the lump on the bed.
It reached out one arm, hooking Olivia around the waist and pulling her down on top of him.
Pete sat up. He was a few years older than they were. He had this look on his face like a kid who’d done something naughty. Or was just about to. He was still holding on to Olivia. She swatted at his arm, turned her head, and gave him a long kiss on the lips. Her bright white hair pressed against his bright red. He let her go and she stood back up.
“What time is it?”
“Ten,” Gil said.
“Hmmm.” He rose, shirtless in pin-striped suit pants. “Hand me that, would you, love?” He pointed to Lucy, then to a white button-down shirt hanging on the back of one of the spotlights. She handed it to him. He smiled. “So is this little flower my new singer for the night?”
Lucy nodded.
“Everyone’s talking about how incredible you are,” he said.
“They are?”
“Well, no,” he said. “But I’m sure they will be after tonight.”
“She’s wonderful,” Gil said.
Pete nodded. “Good.” He finished buttoning his shirt. Tucked it into his pants. Let out a yawn and stretched. “All right, I’m off. It would seem I’m having all my closest friends over for a party tonight so I suppose I ought to attend to some matters of hygiene . . .” He grabbed a green toothbrush out of the top of a giant speaker.
“They’re already lined up outside,” Gil said.
“Oh, some of them have been here since this morning,” said Pete. “Someone posted something on some website that said I’d be closing the door after the first five hundred people or something.” He shrugged.
Lucy raised her hand to her mouth. “Five hundred?”
“I know, it’s very silly,” he said. “This place can fit a thousand at least. Especially if you put the people on top of each other, which is how they usually end up.” He waggled his eyebrows and stuck his tongue between his teeth. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” He disappeared through a door in the back. Two cinnamon-colored cats marched out behind him.
A thousand people. That was more than the entire student population of Van Buren. That was more than three times as many people as would fill the biggest concert hall in town. That was . . . Lucy stuck her hand out for something to grab on to.
“Oh, calm down,” Liza said. She caught Lucy’s wrist. “Making an audience love you is the same as making one person love you, but a bunch of times over. It’s honestly not that big a deal.”
Lucy sank down onto Pete’s bed.
“You could always back out,” Olivia said. “But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Lucy looked down. Her broken heart thumped.
“So what am I singing?” Lucy asked.
Olivia smiled. “Gilly, deal with our little songbird here, Liza and I have to talk to Pete about something. . . .”
“You’re not . . . ,” said Gil.
“Not yet,” said Olivia. “He’s not ready.”
“Soon though,” said Liza.
Gil led them across the stage behind the curtain into a room on the other side, which contained various complicated-looking pieces of musical equipment, speakers, a keyboard, a guitar, and five laptops.
“You know the boys, of course,” said Gil. Standing amongst the laptops were Jack/Bathrobe and B/Lying on the Couch, the two Lucy had stood alone with in the apartment only a few days before, the ones she’d been too scared to talk to. Funny how long ago that seemed.
“Hello,” Lucy said.
Jack looked Lucy up and down. Then yanked down his pair of black tuxedo pants to reveal a pair of pastel yellow boxer briefs. “We match,” he said.
“Put your pants on, Jack,” B said. “You don’t want to scare her.”
Jack nodded solemnly. “My manhood scares the ladies sometimes. It’s a curse.”
“It’s not your manhood that I’m scared of,” Lucy said. “It’s the singing in front of a thousand people.”
Jack grinned.
“Ah, right, you’re our singer tonight,” B said, nodding. “A mute singer. Perfect. How very avant-garde. Hope you’re better than Jackie here. He just cannot hit those high
notes.”
Jack nodded. “Again, it’s the manhood, I think.”
“Too much testosterone and all that, probably,” Lucy said. But she was staring at the opening of his shirt and his completely hairless chest.
Gil laughed. “Listen, I have to go make a phone call and I don’t get reception back here. Lucy, you’ll be okay if I leave you?”
“Of course she will be,” said B. He was grinning at her. “She’s our brand-new buddy.”
Gil kissed Lucy on the cheek. “I’ll see you out there, sweetie,” she said, then left.
B hit a button on one of the laptops and a heavy bass beat filled the room. Jack hit a button on another laptop and a beepy boopy melody joined in. B flipped on the keyboard and pressed a few keys. There was an airy whistle, and the rich, warm sound of bells, and on top of that a bluesy twang somehow mournful and hopeful at the same time. There was a heartbeat behind all of it, and she could feel it beating with her own heart.
She closed her eyes. She was somewhere else, floating through the air; she could feel the wind rushing past her face. When the song ended she opened her eyes.
“So that was it,” said B. “Like it?”
“I completely love it,” Lucy said, and meant it.
“Well that is glorious news,” said B. He clapped his hands together. “Because that’s what you’re singing to.”
B closed the laptop and Jack took a silver flask out of his hip pocket and took a sip of whatever was inside.
“Aren’t we going to practice?” Lucy said.
“That was practice,” said Jack. “Now shoo, we have manly matters to attend to.”
“Wait,” Lucy said. “I’m not ready . . .”
But they weren’t listening. Jack was leading her out the door, and for a second he stopped. “Oh,” he said. “And PS, when you get to the stage, make sure you stand on the X because that’s where the spotlight’ll be.”
“The spotlight?!”
The door shut behind her with a click.
An hour later the place was packed with people. A thousand? Five thousand? A million? All Lucy could see in every direction was a blur of bodies—dancing, bouncing, sweating. She had wandered out onto the dance floor to clear her head before going onstage, to try and deal with the hot bile that was working its way up her throat. But now she was trapped.
A giant dude in a black T-shirt stood directly in front of her, blocking her way. His thin brown hair was drenched with sweat. He shook his head in ecstatic dance and little beads of it sprayed around him in a halo.
“Excuse me,” she said. She moved right, moved left, but everywhere she tried to go, he already was. “Excuse me, please!” she said again, louder this time. She tapped him on his arm. It was wet and gritty feeling, like he was coated in sand. He looked down at her and blinked. Then just kept right on dancing.
Hot panic shot up the back of her neck. She was supposed to go onstage soon, probably any minute. But if she could not get to the stage in time, she could not go on. And if she did not go on . . .
“Birdie?”
Lucy looked up. Delicate features, dark gray shirt, black pants, hair spiked up slightly. It was Paisley and he was grinning. “Paisley!” she said.
“Hey!” He pulled her in for a hug. His skin was warm and smooth. And Lucy was flooded with relief. A familiar face, even one she’d only seen once was better than nothing. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Tokyo?”
“Missed the flight. It’s okay though, the guy who was going to fly me in ended up beaming me in as a hologram. I was watching on a webcam. People kept trying to make out with hologram-me and kept being really confused when I wasn’t actually there.” He laughed. “How are you?” He tipped his head to the side. “You kind of look like you are freaking out. You okay?”
“I’m supposed to be up there.” Lucy pointed to the stage.
“Performing tonight? Hey, awesome.”
“Olivia just sort of told me I was, so . . .”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like the Olivia I know.” Paisley grinned.
Lucy half laughed. “But I can’t get there.”
“You, my dear, are lucky I came along. You don’t spend half your life in clubs without learning a thing or two about getting through a crowd. My ex used to say watching me get through a crowd was like watching salt get through soup. The sweet boy was never very good at analogies.” He shook his head. “Anyway, allow me.” Paisley took Lucy’s arm and put it around his shoulder. Then leaned in and said: “In all the clubs I’ve been to I’ve met a thousand different types of people, but you know the one thing they all have in common? No one wants to get puked on.” Paisley leaned over then, put his hand over his mouth, and jerked his shoulders. “OH NO, I THINK I’M GOING TO . . . ,” he shouted. Then he winked at her and started lurching forward. Everyone around them started backing up. The backup spread like a ripple through the crowd. People were elbowing each other left and right to get out of his way. Every couple seconds Paisley would shout something like, “I DON’T THINK I CAN MAKE IT TO THE BATHROOM!”
“HOLD ON, PAISLEY!” Lucy shouted. “JUST HOLD ON!”
A minute later they were standing at the side stage door. It opened and she found herself pushed through before she even had a chance to thank him.
Chapter Nineteen
Lucy stood in the wings, heart thumping along with the music, camera pressed against one wide-open eye. Instead of focusing on the pounding of her heart, she tried to direct all of her attention on what she saw through the lens: Two cabaret girls were out onstage, one playing an old-fashioned harp and the other playing this weird electronic instrument, which sounded like a creepy woman singing and was played simply by touching the air around it. Jack and B were out there too with their laptops, their cymbals, and a giant sousaphone. She took pictures of the coils of wire, of the dusty air, of the bright lights on their faces. When the song ended, she raised her camera and snapped a picture of the cabaret girls as they dragged their instruments into the wings.
Up close they looked like life-sized dolls—bright red Cupid’s bow mouths, huge fake spider-leg-looking lashes, faces powdered pale, and a red circle of rouge on the apple of each cheek. They were twins, Lucy realized, identical except for the dark freckle at the corner of one’s mouth. Which may have been painted on anyway.
They stopped in front of Lucy. They smelled baby-powder sweet.
Lucy put the camera down and took a deep breath. She stared out at the dark wood on the stage, a glow-in-the-dark X was taped out in the middle. So that’s where she’d be standing. That’s where she’d be standing when she puked all over herself.
Freckle reached out one tiny hand and squeezed Lucy’s arm. “You know what we always think about when we’re nervous?” She had a little girl voice, high and breathy.
“The Amazing Arturo!” said the other one, in the exact same voice.
“He was this famous magician back in the twenties, who was killed on that very stage. His assistant accidentally used steel knives instead of rubber in a knife trick.”
“She wasn’t so smart,” Freckle whispered. “But she had perfect aim.”
“The moral of the story? No matter what happens to you up there, it won’t go as bad as that. . . .”
They giggled. “Probably!”
Freckle grabbed Lucy’s camera off the shelf and started poking at it. “Oh, a picture-taker machine. Fun!”
The cheers were dying down and the lights were dimmed except for three blue spotlights on the stage.
“Ready?” Jack was about to walk back onstage.
“Wait!” Lucy’s stomach lurched as she realized something. “I don’t even know what the lyrics are!”
“Oh right, silly me.” Jack pulled a little piece of paper out of the back pocket of his tuxedo pants.
He handed it to Lucy. It was blank.
“But there’s nothing on here!” Lucy shouted.
“Well then, you’ll just have to make it up,” Jack said. He shru
gged. And B shrugged. And they both strolled out onstage. B stopped under the spotlight on the row of laptops. Jack stopped behind the keyboards.
There was one blue light left, waiting for Lucy.
Lucy stared. For a moment she could not move at all. This isn’t real, she tried to tell herself. Just go, this is only a dream. But she could not convince her body; she could not convince her pounding heart. She was more awake than she’d ever been. She could not believe what she was about to do.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do it.
Lucy’s legs were shaking as she stepped out. The stage was hot and dusty. She coughed. She could barely breathe. The lights were directly in her eyes, which was maybe a good thing because it meant that she could not see the crowd out in front of her.
The music started.
The whistle, the beat, the heart.
She squinted out into the crowd. She could not see anyone, but she knew Olivia and Gil and Liza were out there, watching her, judging her. So was everyone.
The music rose, up, up, up. Sing, Lucy! SING!
Lucy opened her mouth. Nothing came out but a thin raspy squeak.
The spotlight moved, swirled around. She stared out into the crowd and she could—oh, please no—she could suddenly see them. All those people there, waiting for her to go, all of them, staring at her as they danced. Hundreds and hundreds of faces. Hundreds of people with brains and bodies, and hands and hearts. But none of them was the one she wanted.
None of them was Alex.
Her heart squeezed then. A pain shot through her so sharp and hard, she stumbled backwards. If she could do this, just this one last thing, access to the magic would be the reward. And Alex’s return would then follow. She closed her eyes and she pictured his lips against hers, breathing his love deep down into her. That was worth all this of course. That was worth anything.
So she took one last breath. Filling her lungs down to the pit of her stomach, and then, standing up there in front of a thousand people, Lucy, still absolutely terrified, opened her mouth.