Reunited (32 page)

Summer climbed up next to Tiernan, taking her shift at Alice patrol. “Don’t worry.” Summer sighed. “She’s still just standing there.”

“What the hell?” Tiernan asked, to no one in particular.

They’d been waiting for Alice for the last ten minutes, while all around them, happy, satisfied fans were practically rubbing it in their faces.

“I think we should just go over there and get her,” Tiernan said.

“No.” Summer’s voice was firm. “Give her some time, and she’ll calm down eventually. Just let her ease into it.”

Tiernan rolled her eyes. Summer had
her
way of dealing with Alice’s meltdowns. Tiernan had her own methods. “Screw that,” Tiernan said. “It’s time to bust a move.”

She headed off into the crowd, elbowing her way through the throngs of people until she was close enough to grab Alice’s
hand. “Come on,” she said, pulling Alice in the direction of the exiting mob. “Party’s over. Time to go.”

“No.” Alice shrugged her off. “I’m not going back to that nasty motel room. I’m just not.”

Suddenly Summer was behind them.

“It’s okay, Alice,” Summer cooed, squeezing past Tiernan. “Let’s just get out of here and we can find someplace else to go.” She wrapped an arm around Alice’s shoulder, but Alice shook it off.

“I think I just need to be alone for a while, okay?” Alice said; then she stamped off into the flow of people.

Tiernan turned to Summer and shrugged. “I guess you called that one right.”

Shockingly, Summer didn’t rub it in. “She has my cell number. She’ll call when she’s ready.”

By the time Tiernan and Summer had found their way out of the fray, Alice was at the end of the block. Even for a shorty like Tiernan, she’d been easy to pinpoint—the only person angrily storming her way through a sidewalk full of amblers.

“I think we better follow her,” Summer said. “She’s in a pretty delicate state.”

And what about me?
Tiernan wanted to ask. They’d
all
missed the concert. “Aren’t
you
bummed about missing the show?” Tiernan couldn’t help herself.

“Of course I am,” Summer snapped. “But you know how Alice gets.”

Tiernan felt a wave of anger surge through her chest, but she wasn’t sure why. What did
she
care if Summer was looking out for Alice? It wasn’t as if Tiernan wanted to abandon the poor girl. What exactly was it about Summer’s thoughtfulness that Tiernan found so annoying?

Unless . . .
A thought flashed through Tiernan’s mind, making her stop in her tracks. What if that thing she was feeling wasn’t annoyance at all? What if, after all this time, she was actually still jealous?

“What are you doing?” Summer turned around, ten paces ahead of her. “We’re gonna lose her.”

Tiernan started walking again, picking up speed until she caught up to Summer. Things felt different now that it was just the two of them, without Alice around to act as their buffer. Or maybe it was the lurking feeling that Tiernan needed to finish what she’d started on the stage back in Houston, only she didn’t know how.

“I know you probably think that I’m babying Alice,” Summer said, turning to face her. “And maybe I am. But you know what a perfectionist she is. You know how hard she can be on herself when things don’t go her way.”

Tiernan nodded.

“It’s just . . .” Summer searched for the words. “You and I can deal with things in a way Alice can’t.”

Yeah.” Tiernan laughed. “Probably because we’re more used to disappointment.”

“For your information, I’m pretty pissed off about missing the show,” Summer declared.

“Well, so am I,” Tiernan said. “I’m
super
pissed.”

“I was on the verge of tears before,” Summer said. “Seriously.”

“I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs,” said Tiernan. “Like randomly kicking people.”

Summer sidestepped away from her, pretending to be afraid.

Tiernan went on, “I feel like biting a chunk out of my own arm.”

“Ew.” Summer groaned. “That’s just disturbing.”

Up ahead, Alice turned left into the heart of the college campus. Tiernan and Summer followed her, like the world’s most conspicuous pair of spies.

“I hate it when Alice gets upset,” Tiernan said. “It wigs me out.”

“That’s so weird,” Summer said. “I was just thinking the exact same thing.”

They walked in silence for a while.

“You know what I think?” Summer asked. “I think if you look back to freshman year when things went south between us, it was all about Alice being unhappy. You and I, we always had our little squabbles. But I never fought with Alice. Did you?”

Tiernan shook her head. “Never.”

“And I was never jealous of Alice, either. Even though I
wished I could be more like her. You know what I mean?”

“Totally,” Tiernan agreed. Even on the rare occasion that Alice freaked out (like tonight, or at that loathsome freshman dance) her intention was never to be hurtful or cruel, just to vent her feelings so that she could say her piece and move on. Unlike Tiernan, Alice wasn’t afraid to let her emotions spill out freely. She wasn’t afraid to speak the truth, even if it meant laying herself totally bare. Just the thought of being so vulnerable gave Tiernan goose bumps.

Summer continued. “You know what surprised me most about what you said, back in Houston?”

That I’m a liar? That I was the one who sabotaged our entire friendship?
All the muscles in Tiernan’s body seemed to cramp at once, but somehow she managed to both speak and keep walking. “What?”

“What shocked me most was that you, of all people, were actually jealous. I guess I always just assumed you never really cared about anything. You know, ’cause you act all ‘whatever’ all the time.”

Tiernan smiled. “Ah, yes, my Whatever-ness. I own the trademark on that.”

Summer laughed. “You know what the sad thing is?”

Tiernan shook her head. Up the block, Alice hung a left.

“I was always jealous of Alice and
you
.”

“Yeah, right.” Tiernan snorted. Was Summer just trying to make her feel better?

“No, really,” Summer went on. “I always felt like you and Alice were closer friends than me and her or me and you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Tiernan scoffed. “In my mind it was the other way around.”

“But Alice was always in the middle, wasn’t she?”

Tiernan smiled. “The glue in our collage, so to speak.”

“Hey, look!” Summer pointed up the street. “I think the glue’s finally slowing down.”

Tiernan watched Alice plod across the street to the garage where they’d stashed the Pea Pod. Her talk with Summer had left her feeling good, considering their circumstances. Suddenly a new fear hit her.

“You don’t think she’d take off on us, do you?”

Summer turned to face her, wide-eyed, then they both broke into a run.

In the parking garage, they dodged their way through the line of cars jammed up by the exit and barreled up four flights of stairs. When they finally reached the top floor, Tiernan was relieved to see the Pea Pod right where they’d left it, with Alice sitting in the driver’s seat.

They approached the van cautiously, as if Alice were a fly they were trying to trap inside a cup. Tiernan was almost at the driver’s side window when she heard a noise that made her stop. Slowly she turned to Summer while the sound repeated itself—
Ch-ch-ch, shoop
—the halfhearted wheeze of an engine that won’t start.

For a few seconds Tiernan and Summer just stood there, listening to Alice turn the key in the ignition again and again, until finally all the life had been drained from the battery and the engine only made a pitiful clicking noise.

“I think she left the headlights on,” Summer whispered to Tiernan.

“Probably,” Tiernan whispered back. “But you might not wanna bring it up.”

Just then, Alice flung herself from the Pea Pod, her cell phone flying out of her back pocket and clattering across the concrete. “I give up!” She screamed at the rows of parked cars, or possibly the universe. Alice was in such a state, Tiernan wasn’t even sure she’d seen them standing there.

“Hey,” Tiernan said softly. “We can call Triple A if you want.” She picked up Alice’s cell phone and held it out, like she was offering a steak to a rabid dog.

But Alice just stormed off across the garage.

Tiernan shot Summer a look that said,
Your turn
, and the two of them took off after Alice.

“Listen, Alice,” Summer began when they were in speaking range. “This isn’t your fault.
All
of us fell asleep.”

Alice stopped, turning to face them. “It just sucks, okay? This totally sucks! This whole trip has been nothing but a complete disaster from day one.”

Tiernan wanted to argue with her, but what could she really say to that?
Getting the van stuck in the mud and ripping kudzu off
a shed and having her mom crash their trip and Alice getting her purse stolen and missing the concert they all came to see was totally awesome! Woo hoo!

“So what?” Summer sighed. “So things haven’t exactly gone our way. It still doesn’t mean you should blame yourself. It’s not anyone’s fault things ended up like this. It’s like that John Lennon quote, ‘Life’s what happens while you’re making other plans.’”

Alice narrowed her eyes at Summer as though she’d just spoken a foreign language. “What did you just say?”

Summer repeated herself. “I said, ‘Life’s what happens while you’re making other—’” But she was cut off by Alice’s howls of laughter.

Summer looked at Tiernan. Tiernan looked at the phone, still in her hand. Screw Triple A—she was calling the nuthouse.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said, trying to suppress her giggles. “But I really hate that stupid quote.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I guess I was just trying so hard to make things perfect, you know? Like if we had an amazing time, it just might fix things between us.”

A small smile emerged from deep within Tiernan’s layers of “whatevers.” She’d spent so much energy convincing herself that the only reason she came on this trip was to run away from being grounded. But what if she was never really running away at all? What if, this whole time, without realizing it, Tiernan was actually running
to
something?

“I thought this whole trip was
beshert
,” Alice continued. “The three of us being together again, seeing Level3 play. There were so many signs . . .” She let the rest of her sentence fade away.

“Maybe it is
beshert
,” Tiernan began. “Maybe
this
is just what’s meant to be.”

She stared at Alice and Summer, their faces lit up by the fluorescent green light of the garage. It gave her that same woozy feeling she’d felt onstage back in Houston.

“Maybe Level3 was just an excuse,” Tiernan continued. “But we just didn’t know it.”

Summer raised an eyebrow at her. “I think we all had plenty of excuses.”

Tiernan laughed. “Yeah, so what else is new?”

Alice’s phone rang in Tiernan’s hand, startling her. The Level3 ringtone had seemed like a great idea when Alice had downloaded it over lunch. Now it made them all wince.

Tiernan looked at the caller ID and handed the phone to Alice. “Here you go. It’s your parents.”

Alice shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to them right now.”

Tiernan glanced at the ringing phone. Now that she was on a roll, she might as well apologize to the Millers, too.

“Then I will,” Tiernan said, answering the call before Alice could stop her.

“Hey, it’s Tiernan,” she said, veering away from Alice and
Summer to give herself some privacy. “I just wanted to say sorry about the whole thing with my mom, and for putting you guys in the middle of it—”

Of course, she wasn’t even halfway through her apology when Bill Miller told her she’d been forgiven. Anyway, he didn’t have time to for Tiernan’s true confessions. Bill was calling with more important news.

“‘I’ve got a golden ticket!’” Tiernan skipped toward Alice and Summer singing the song from the 1970s
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
, her hand curled tightly around Alice’s phone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alice looked curious.

“I can’t believe your dad’s letting me do this.” Tiernan beamed.

“Letting you do
what
?” Alice asked.

Tiernan whistled the familiar melody.
I’ve got a golden ticket.