Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up (11 page)

“What the heck is wrong with you, Stella?” Clea asked me more than once from one of our backyard lounge chairs. Clea had recently finished her freshman year at Brown University and now seemed content spending her entire summer alternately sunning herself and stuffing her face with ice cream. “For days you’ve been floating around with a stupid
smile on your face. Did you even realize you were just humming? Snap out of it!”

“Nothing’s wrong, Clea dear,” I told her. “Just enjoying the morning, that’s all. Shall I fetch you another scoop of rocky road?”

“Be careful,” Mo advised me after Rajeev and I had been going out for almost a week. “I know for a fact that his parents are
way
traditional—even more than mine.”

“So? What are you saying? That there’s something wrong with me that they should be upset about?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with you, Stella. You’re great, and Rajeev’s a super-lucky guy. You know I mean that. But the thing is, you’re not a Hindu, and I think for his parents that might set off some red flags.”

I’ll admit, this gave me a moment of pause—but only a brief moment. If Rajeev had a problem with me not being a Hindu, well,
that
would have been a real concern. But he never said he did, so I figured, why worry? Besides, his parents didn’t even know me. If they met me, maybe they’d change their minds.

Anyway, I would cross that bridge only if I ever came to it.

Before you could say “infatuation at first sight” Rajeev and I were spending as much of our free time together as we could and my summer had gone from merely exciting to positively electrifying. Rajeev was like a Southern gentleman from an old black-and-white movie. He opened doors for me, and despite my feminist sensibilities I have to admit it didn’t bother me one little bit. He was always kind and polite, but not in a way that got on your nerves. He was interested in my opinions and ideas and wasn’t shy about sharing his with me even when we disagreed, which wasn’t all that
often. We would talk for hours and hours about everything and nothing. We
got
each other.

And to top it all off, he was one heck of a great dancer.

So is it any wonder I was on a cloud?

Dear Ted
,

I know, I know. Two letters in one week—what’s come over me, right?

Today was another long day of recording. We spent the whole session on one song (another new one, “Zombietown”—lots of harmonies and percussion) and by the time Charlie’s mom brought us home Brenda had to reheat dinner. Now it’s almost midnight and she’s in bed. As I write this I’m at the kitchen table with Daisy purring on my lap. Only three months old, but already she’s so big that Brenda and I are starting to wonder if she’s part mountain lion. She’s definitely a wild thing. Today Brenda said she caught her climbing one of the curtains and leaping from there across the room onto one of the ottomans. The other cats are skittish around her. I don’t think they know what to make of such a hell-raiser
.

Anyway, I’m writing to tell you that I got your letter today. It was in the mail stack when I came home tonight, and now I can’t think of anything else. Yes, of course I’m planning to tell Brenda about the note from Mom. I’ve been waiting for the right moment, that’s all. Brenda’s been under a lot of stress lately, and besides, you know how emotional she gets about these things. Whenever I’ve brought up this stuff in the past it’s been like torture for her to talk about it. It’s a topic I’ve learned to avoid
.

Not that I haven’t been thinking about my mother a lot in the past few days
.

Funny how there are so few pictures of her around. It’s almost like when she left, everything about her kind of disappeared too. I still have the photograph you gave me, though. I’ve kept it hidden in my bedside cabinet all these years. You remember the one, right? The two of you are at a party on a beach and she’s leaning her head on your shoulder and you’re staring at the camera with this sly look like a cat that just caught a mouse. You look so young, Daddy, but I guess it makes sense, because you both must have been in high school at the time. And she’s so beautiful with her long dark hair and those big eyes she had, and the way she was smiling at you like she’d decided what she wanted
and you were the best thing ever. It’s no wonder you fell for her
.

I don’t remember much of anything about her, just a few moments and feelings. A green jacket she wore, how it felt rough against my skin. Her and me singing along with the radio. I can even close my eyes and picture myself watching through our front window as she rolls her suitcase toward a yellow cab waiting at the end of the driveway. She turns to wave at me before she gets in and closes the cab door and never comes back
.

I imagine these things, but I couldn’t have actual memories of any of it, not really. I was too little
.

Okay, so now I’m going to share yet another secret with you: I’ve been checking the mail every day to see if she writes again. I’m curious about her. For so many years I used to wonder what happened to her. I would imagine her living in a mansion somewhere, or sailing around the world. I used to pretend to have conversations with her, long discussions where I’d share everything about my life and she’d tell me everything about hers. If she’d written to me then, it would have been so easy for me to forgive her for leaving. Later I decided that she must have died. In a strange way that might have been better, because at least it would have given me a good reason for why she never contacted
me during all those years. Not one phone call. Not one letter. Nothing. Until now
.

Which I suppose is why I still haven’t mentioned any of this to anyone except you. I think about it all the time, though. I keep wondering, why now? Why would she drop back into my life at this moment instead of any other? What does she expect from me? Is she trying to start a new, ongoing connection with the daughter she abandoned? If so, why didn’t she give an address or a phone number? Or is it that she’s looking for something else? Forgiveness, maybe?

I hope it’s not forgiveness. After so many years without a mother, it feels a little late for that
.

Love
,
Olivia

Even while we were still making our recordings and everything else was going on in our lives, Mr. Decker was already busy behind the scenes setting up opportunities for Lemonade Mouth. The man was a force of nature. Not only did he have incredible access to high-ranking executives and other power players in the business, but he also worked fast.

Days after the holiday weekend he set up a video link to say he’d arranged for us to try out on
American Pop Sensation
.
I was floored by the news. We all were.
APS
was the biggest reality show on TV, where unknown musicians from all over the country competed in front of three opinionated judges and a live national audience. The show was huge. Each of the winners of its ten previous seasons had been unknowns who became household names and sold millions of albums. Landing us a slot on the show, even if the only guarantee was a one-minute shot in this season’s preliminaries, was an amazing feat.

But it was also nuts. I’m not going to lie—at first I wondered if Mr. Decker had lost his mind.

“But does it really make
sense
for our group?” I managed to ask as the five of us gaped at his face on the monitor. “I mean, national TV. Millions of viewers. Don’t you think it’s kind of a big risk?”

“Relax,” he said, taking a puff on his cigar. “I have a good feeling about this.”

I looked over at Olivia. At the mention of national television she looked like she’d lost half her blood supply. Charlie and Stella didn’t seem sure either.

“I don’t know. Those judges can be kind of rough,” said Mo, biting at one of her fingernails. It was a nervous habit I knew she was trying to break. “What if we screw up and end up looking ridiculous? Lots of people do. Do you really think the odds of us winning are high enough to take that chance?”

Mr. Decker chuckled. “You’re not going to screw up. I have faith in you.”

The point, he explained, wasn’t that Lemonade Mouth had to
win
, exactly, but that any kind of national exposure would be good exposure. He asked us to trust him. None of us felt as sure as he seemed, but he was adamant that this
was a good idea, and by the time the call was over he’d gotten us all to agree to do it. That was how Mr. Decker was. Once he had an idea there was no stopping him.

So a few days later, midafternoon on a sweltering day in July, we started our drive to New York City, where the show was being filmed. Mr. Decker insisted that we ride with him in his limo. “I want you to look like a band,” he told us, “and it never hurts to make a big entrance.” Our parents came with us, of course, and Lyle, Naomi and Mrs. Reznik too—we couldn’t let something as gigantic as this happen without having them with us.

I remember how nervous and quiet all of us were during that long ride to New York. It was supposed to take three and a half hours, but it took a lot longer because of traffic. If Mr. Decker was worried he didn’t show it, but I was sweating it out the whole way.

“Keep in mind that the show isn’t only about your performance on the stage,” Mr. Decker said as we traveled through Connecticut. “There will also be cameras on the contestants in the waiting areas, and even on the crowds in line outside the studio building. When the cameras are on you, America is watching—don’t forget that.”

I kept checking on Olivia. She spent most of the ride hugging her elbows and staring out the window.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

For weeks she’d been telling everyone not to worry about her, that she had her stage fright under control, but I wasn’t so sure. I knew for a fact that she’d already vomited twice that day—once in the morning and once just before the limo arrived. I glanced at the driver, Ralph, a serious-faced guy with a gray mustache and dark glasses. He was concentrating on the road.