Reunited (27 page)

“Travis!” the crowd screamed.

Laura G.’s voice was scolding. “Getting back to the contest, Kai . . .”

“Oh, right, right. The contest.” Some forced chuckling on Kai’s part.

“Well, next up,” Laura continued. “We have a couple of young ladies who’ve just graduated from our very own Rice University where they say their majors were Travis Wyland and
Ryan Hale.” More fake laughter from the DJs. “No, seriously, though—you girls are mechanical engineers?”

There were two nervous “mm-hmms,” then Kai jumped back in, his crazy DJ voice working overtime. “I don’t even know what that
is
.”

“Me neither. But I know it means they’re smarter than we are.”

“That’s not too hard,” Kai added. Laughter from the crowd.

“Holy crap.” Tiernan sighed. “If their performance is as bad as these DJs, we’re totally gonna win.”

Summer shushed her. “I want to hear.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the lovely Molly and Priyanka, who’ll be singing a duet of ‘Little Me.’”

“THERE WAS A TIME, YEARS AGO,

WHEN WE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WE DIDN’T KNOW . . .”

“
American Idol
wannabes,” Summer proclaimed.

Tiernan shook her head disparagingly. “Basement karaoke at best.”

Alice felt her heart start to race. There was that hope again, that need.
We could win this. At least we have a shot.

“In eight-hundred yards, exit right,” Coach Quigley said.

Two more mediocre songs and a dog act that didn’t translate well over radio, and they pulled up to the station. Alice’s cell phone said it was 11:11. Normally, that meant it was time to make a wish. But Alice wasn’t making wishes anymore.

“THE METRIC SYSTEM”

WE LIVE IN THE ONLY COUNTRY

THAT DOESN’T USE THE METRIC SYSTEM

WE KEEP OUR FEET IN OUR YARDS

WE GET THERE IN MILES.

AND I’D LIKE TO LEAD THE REVOLUTION

TO OVERTHROW OUR RULERS,

I THINK THE WORLD WOULD APPROVE

MAYBE EVEN BUY ME A LITER OF BEER

DESPERATE TIMES

CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES

OUR NUMBERS ARE DIFFERENT,

OUR DISTANCE THE SAME

IF ONLY WE COULD SEE IT LIKE THAT

IF ONLY WE COULD SEE IT LIKE THAT

—from Level3’s second CD,
Rough & Tumble

OKAY, SO IT WASN’T HER BEST PARKING JOB. BUT IF ALICE WASN’T
saying anything about the wheel up on the curb, Tiernan wasn’t about to bring it up. The rules were different today anyway. Alice had been eerily quiet and easygoing for the entire drive to Houston—rehearsing her dance without even one suggestion of a “better idea.”

In a way, Tiernan was relieved Alice wasn’t barking orders per usual, but there was something unsettling about a mellow Alice Miller, like drinking flat Coke. She’d only seen Alice like this once before, freshman year, right after Summer had officially dumped them as friends. But if anything could make Alice happy, it was the fact that they were about to perform their dweebie seventh grade dance routine.

Tiernan smoothed her hair in the rearview mirror, shoved some quarters into the meter, and the three of them took off down the street. They didn’t need to speak. All they needed to do was get there in time. Then they needed to win.

By the time they reached the end of the block, she could hear “Parade” reverberating across the field at Liberty Park.

“What the duck?” Tiernan gasped.

Alice looked stricken. “Someone’s singing our song!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Summer. “We have our own thing going. We just have to believe in that.”

Easy for her to say. Her long strawberry blond hair and perfect bone structure had unlocked so many doors for her, it was as though she expected them to just fly open whenever she approached. Of course, they usually did. Not a bad thing if you managed to squeeze yourself in along with her.

The entrance to the Freedom Stage (barf) was flanked by two black WKID vans with giant speakers on top. Next to them, a couple of radio station lackeys handed out free bumper stickers and neon green wristbands. As Tiernan put on her admission bracelet, a group of four women in their twenties exited through the gates, laughing and talking animatedly as they passed. One of them wore a giant poofy wedding gown, the other three had on tacky pink bridesmaids’ dresses. Tiernan had listened to Kai and Laura G.’s play-by-play of what was apparently a staggeringly awful dance routine the women had performed to “Always a Bridesmaid” about a half hour back. Now they looked like they were about to pee themselves, they were laughing so hard.

“Too bad we don’t still have matching outfits,” Summer said as they made their way onto the field. Tiernan laughed. Back in sixth grade they had this thing where they dressed identically every Friday—blue cords, tan Uggs, Level3 baseball shirts.
Oh yeah, they were chic.
But Tiernan had loved getting
dressed for school on Friday mornings. It was the first time she could remember being part of something bigger than herself. Until right now, she’d never even realized she’d missed that feeling.

The field inside the stadium was crawling with Level3 fans—emo dudes in skinny jeans, punk chicks with skin the color of paste, your standard variety high school kids, college kids who looked like older, grubbier versions of the high school kids, and, of course, the prerequisite teenybopper girls with someone’s mom lurking ten feet behind. The festiveness of it all put Tiernan on edge.

Onstage, a dude in his early twenties played an instrumental version of “Snow Cone” on clarinet. The fact that it wasn’t half bad made Tiernan’s whole body seize up with an overwhelming desire to run.

“He’s good,” Alice said.

Tiernan nodded. “We can still bail if you want.”

“No. We can’t,” Summer snapped. She’d been all “Eye of the Tiger” ever since her big comeback.

Tiernan tried to shake off her nerves. She didn’t really want to bail, but she didn’t want to lose, either. If she was going to put herself out there for the entire world to see, then Summer and Alice better be ready to bring their A game.

“Chillax, Sunny-D. I was just kidding.”

“Can you not call me that?”

Tiernan shrugged. “Sorry. I thought you liked it.”

“You think I like having a nickname that compares me to a sickeningly sweet fake orange juice concoction?”

Tiernan wanted to tell Summer that she never meant it like that. Not to mention that she actually
liked
SunnyD. But Alice jumped in before she had the chance.

“You guys,” Alice commanded. “We need to focus.”

A guy in a WKID T-shirt directed them to the end of the line of performers and handed Alice a registration sheet to fill out. In front of them were three college-age girls, each holding a Paris Hilton–style ratdog dressed up in miniature human clothes.

“Look!” Summer said, pointing to the handwritten names on their little dog collars. “They’re supposed to be Travis, Ryan, and Luke.”

The dog dressed as Luke wore mini-Wayfarer nerd glasses. “I’m making an anonymous phone call to PETA,” Tiernan whispered.

“Do we have a group name?” Alice asked. Having a clipboard in her hand was bringing her back to life—the order, the control—like a shot of booze for an alcoholic.

The Ex–Best Friends? The Extremely Awkward Road Trip Trio?
Yesterday Tiernan could have suggested these as a joke. But today they had a contest to win.

Or maybe it was about more than just the contest. Back home, Tiernan and her friends were always insulting one another with a constant flow of quick-witted banter. But with
Alice and Summer, it was different. She was still her usual sarcastic self, but around them, she didn’t feel the need to be “on” all the time. She didn’t have to blurt out some mean ironic joke, just so she could do it first.

Sometimes it seemed like her friends back home were secretly in some silent competition with one another to see who could be the cleverest or who knew the hippest bands. But at the end of the day, who really cared? Summer probably liked Top 40, but that didn’t take away from the fact she was probably ten times more original than half of Tiernan’s friends pretended to be. And no one Tiernan had ever met even came close to being as shamelessly genuine as Alice.

“What about the Pea Pod Experience?” Alice offered, answering her own question. She’d always been good at this type of stuff, with or without a hangover.

“Well, it’s definitely been an
ex
perience,” Summer said.
Emphasis on the
ex.

The radio station intern came back to collect their clipboard. “I’m not quite finished yet,” Alice said.

“Actually, I just got word from my producer that we don’t have time to see any more acts today,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean?” Tiernan snapped. “We drove five and a half hours to get here.” She hated peons like this who thought a stupid VIP badge around their necks made them superior.

“I’m sorry, but they need to wrap up the morning show
by noon.” He pointed to the DJs at the side of the stage.

Tiernan’s legs felt twitchy, like she needed to run, or kick someone. Preferably the weasel with the clipboard.

“Sir, we came all the way from Massachusetts.” Summer pouted. “We practiced our dance in a moving van, for God’s sake!”

“It’s not up to me, ma’am,” the man said, then walked away.

Alice just stood there, catatonic.

“No, they’re not going to deny us,” Tiernan said. “They
can’t
.”

“I don’t think we really have a choice,” Alice replied. She looked like she was fighting off tears.

“This is bull,” Summer said. “They
have
to give us a chance. After everything we’ve been through.”

“Wow, that was wonderful,” Laura G.’s voice boomed out over the PA when the clarinet kid was done.

“Do your lips get sore playing that thing?” Kai asked. His bouncy DJ voice didn’t match his scruffy, middle-aged body.

“I guess we should just go,” Alice said. “I don’t really feel like sticking around this place, do you?”

Summer shook her head.

“Hang on,” Tiernan said.

Even though it was hell here, Tiernan didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want it to end like this—shut down by some radio station d-bag. It wasn’t that she was in love with the idea of shaking her booty in front of hundreds of strangers—that part
she could do without. But they’d come too far not to perform. They’d endured too much to just sit around and let this happen. Tiernan had messed things up for them in the past; that was true. And there was nothing she could do to change that. But she
could
do something about the present. At least she had to try. And if her plan worked, if she could convince the DJs to let them perform, then maybe, just maybe, she could finally make things right between them.

“Give me a minute,” Tiernan said, then she ran off into the crowd. She didn’t know what she was going to say to Kai and Laura G. (if she could even get through to them) but she needed to say something. Her impulsiveness got them into that whole mess freshman year, and it just might get them out of this one.

The front of the stage was lined with more radio station minions with VIP badges, and behind them, a row of big dudes in orange “Security” T-shirts. There was no way Tiernan was getting through without getting arrested.
But maybe . . .

The van wasn’t far. The keys, still in her pocket. Tiernan took off across the field past a group of emo boys whose dramatic sideswept bangs seemed to point her toward the gate as if to say
Go for it. Run.

So she ran—down the entrance to Liberty Park, across the street, up the sidewalk, her blue bob bouncing against her cheeks, fanning her face from the midday Texas heat. Back in Massachusetts, she would have been sweating buckets on a day
this hot, but here, the air was so dry it sucked the sweat right off her face before it had a chance to collect.

Carefully, she opened the van’s sliding door, grabbing a pen from the glove box and peeling their map-collage-spectacular off of its designated spot on the wall. Then she speed-walked back to the contest, writing as she went. Being raised Jewish, she’d never written a letter to Santa before, but she imagined it was pretty much like this—hopeful, demanding, and naive all at the same time. Kind of like Alice.

Dear WKID bigwigs,

I’m writing this letter to ask you—no, to
beg
you—