You're Invited (25 page)

“Yeah, well.” I can't really think of anything else to say. Plus it's weird talking to Lance about stuff that doesn't have to do with volleyball strategy or whether a tri-fin surfboard is better than a quad-fin. After Mr. Vernon's party, and the way everyone loved that crab dip, I wanted to try again just to see if it was a fluke—
maybe the seniors were all a little senile.

Although Lance's reaction is telling me that possibly that's not the case. Which feels kind of good, if I'm being completely honest.

“Five Alive, rehearsal time. Now!” Becca shouts through cupped hands. “We need to run your dance number before the girls show up.”

“Better go dance,” I tell Lance. “Becca's pretty serious about this band stuff.” I point with a serving spoon at Becca, who's got her hands on her hips as she waits for Lance and Ryan to join the other two guys.

By the time I've got the food ready, Lauren's arranged the Make Your Own Band T-Shirt table (complete with iron-ons of the Five Alive guys' faces and lots of glitter), Sadie's finally gotten the sound system set up, and Becca's run the boys through their dance three times and is handing them bottles of cold water so they won't pass out in the heat. The whole time, Izzy is darting around, taking pictures of it all. Sadie said she wanted to spend more time with her sister so she cooked up the idea to have Izzy play the role of paparazzi. We get everything ready just in time for the birthday girl, Jilly, to arrive with her parents and twenty of her closest eight-year-old friends.

Becca shoos the guys behind the bathrooms so the girls won't see them until the big reveal. Lauren, Sadie, and I hand out goody bags to all the girls as they come in, and Izzy snaps pictures of them. The girls ooh and aah over the bejeweled sunglasses and autograph books and the bracelets and rings that flash different colored lights (never mind that it's the middle of the afternoon and the sun is blinding, so you can barely see the lights).

“Are they dressed right?” Jilly's mom asks Sadie. “I wasn't entirely sure what ‘rock-star chic' meant.”

Lauren giggles and Sadie smiles at Jilly's mom. “They're perfect.”

And they are. These kids have probably outdone Becca (who came in tight black leggings and the sparkliest shirt she owns). At least half of them have Five Alive T-shirts, they're practically drowning in costume jewelry, and Jilly's hair is teased up so high, it makes her almost as tall as me.

“Thanks again for doing this,” Jilly's mom says. “I can't wait to see the band!”

“Well, let's get—” Sadie begins.

Becca's off and running onto the “stage,” which is actually just the far side of the picnic area where we pushed the tables out of the way.

“
Heeeey, party people!” Becca shouts through the microphone.

“—started,” Sadie finishes.

The girls crowd around the stage area, Jilly right in front.

“I said, HEEEEY, PARTY PEOPLE!” Becca yells.

The girls clap.

Becca puts a hand on her hip and shakes her head, like the eight-year-olds are completely hopeless. “That's not the kind of welcome you give your most awesomely amazing BFF, Jilly Papadakis, is it? Especially not on her eighth birthday. And definitely not when she's got everyone's favorite band here to perform, just for all y'all!”

A few of the girls squeal, Jilly slaps her hands over her mouth and spins around to see her mom, and Mrs. Papadakis does a great job of acting super surprised.

“So let's make some NOISE!” Becca shouts so loudly, the people way down on the beach can probably hear her.

The girls scream and clap and jump up and down.

“Good call, putting her up there as the emcee,” I say to Sadie.

“There's no way any of us could ever be that loud,” Sadie replies with a grin.

“
Or that enthusiastic over a bunch of guys from our class pretending to be some silly boy band,” Lauren says.

“All right, then!” Becca says over the mic. “That's more like it! Now get ready for the most supremely amazing afternoon of your whole entire lives. Because here, just for you, Jilly, all the way from fabulous Toronto, Canada, ready to perform their number one song . . . FIVE ALIVE!!!!”

“And that's my cue,” Sadie says just as the crowd of girls erupts into a synchronized shriek and Izzy's camera clicks in rapid succession. Lauren claps her hands over her ears as Sadie pushes her way toward the sound system.

Becca's jumping up and down “onstage,” pumping her fist. So, of course, I can't help but pull out my Now-Sometimes-Vi lilac phone and snap a picture of her in midair just in case Izzy's protective of her own shots. Sadie starts some intro music, and Becca finally raises her hands to quiet the girls.

“Now some bad news. Leo Lumpkins has caught the duck flu, and can't join us today,” Becca says.

Lauren laughs, and when I look at her, she whispers, “It's bird flu, not duck flu. It's this really horrible virus, and if the real Leo Lumpkins caught it, he'd be in pretty bad shape.”

“Then I guess it's good we don't have a Leo Lumpkins.”
When we figured out we'd only have four guys, Becca suggested we leave out Leo. Apparently, he's the least popular. She actually called him Leo Lumpy, which seems kind of mean to me but she was like, “Please! Everyone calls him that.”

Anyway, none of the girls look too disappointed that we don't have a Leo.

“So the only question is . . . ARE YOU READY?!” Becca shouts.

The girls scream and jump up and down.

“Here they are. FIVE ALIVE!”

Sadie turns the music up and Becca holds an arm out to her left.

And . . . nothing.

“Um, where are the guys?” Lauren asks.

Becca's onstage snapping her fingers all frantically (like the guys are actually going to hear that over the music).

“Be right back,” I say to Lauren, and I race past the crowd toward the park bathrooms. Around the back of the concrete block building, I find Ryan, Lance, Evan, and this other guy, named Dominic, who's best known at school for bringing a veggie burger for lunch every single day. They're
all hunched over Lance's phone.

I plant myself right in front of them.

Lance looks up. “Vi! You've gotta see this video of a dog jumping—”

I yank the phone from his hands. “Hello? There are a bunch of hyper eight-year-olds waiting for you! Move it! Or you'll have to answer to Becca.”

That gets them going.

“Sorry,” Lance says as he runs after the other guys toward the stage.

I join Sadie by the sound system as our Five Alive (Four Alive?) takes the stage. The girls either don't notice or don't care that they aren't the real Five Alive, because they're shouting and cheering so loudly that Sadie has to turn the music up when she starts “I'm a Hot Potato.”

And I have to hand it to the guys. The dance isn't perfect, but they at least look like they rehearsed it. Ryan, who's playing the lead singer, even flashes some grins in between his lip-syncing that make the girls squeal even more.

As the song really gets going, I spot Becca singing along (to “I'm a hot potato, a potato in a tornado”), Jilly's
mom and a couple of other moms cheering and clapping along, and even Lauren bopping just a little to the beat in the back of the crowd.

“This is
perfect
,” Sadie says as the song ends and the guys pose onstage.

The girls scream and shout for more. Except the guys only rehearsed one song, so that's not going to happen. But it doesn't seem to matter, because Ryan gives the crowd a wink, and then he's mobbed—like swarming-bees mobbed—by shrieking eight-year-olds, with Izzy right in the middle, capturing it all with her camera.

“Omigod! Get them out of there! Where are the bodyguards? Hey, girls, back off the talent!” Becca's trying to part the sea of girls to get to Ryan and the others.

I look at Sadie and we both burst out laughing.

“Maybe we should help her,” I say between giggles.

“Probably,” Sadie says. But before we can take a step, Becca emerges from the pack of girls, arms out to each side, protecting the guys as they run off toward the bathrooms.

“Whew,” she says when the moms finally step in and guide the girls toward Lauren and the Make Your Own Band T-Shirt table.

“Um . . .” I
point to her hair, which was in this nice slicked-back ponytail and is now in a not-so-nice sticking-straight-up mess.

Becca pats her head and makes a face. “Be right back.”

The party's going really well. The T-shirts are a hit, the girls eat pretty much all the food and cake (and I'm kind of proud to say that my meatballs went first), they drink gallons of pink Jilly-ade, Jilly's opened all her presents, and Sadie's kept the Five Alive music pumping through the stereo. Becca brings the guys back so the girls can get their autographs.

Sadie's just about to restart the Five Alive album when Jilly taps her on the shoulder.

“Hey, do you have any other music?” Jilly asks.

“I'm sorry, all we brought was Five Alive,” Sadie says. “I thought you and your friends loved the band?”

I'd say they more than loved the band, considering the way they lined up for the guys' autographs and giggled every time Ryan or Lance said a word to them.

“We
adore
Five Alive,” Jilly says. “But all their songs are about love and kissing and stuff.” She makes a face like this is just totally gross.

“So, what do you want to hear?” I ask her.

“I don't know.
A song about friends, maybe?”

“I'll scroll through my phone and see if I can find anything,” Sadie says. She flicks on her phone, and then turns it off. “Wait. I just had the
best
idea.” She runs off toward Becca.

Jilly looks at me, and I shrug.

Sadie's talking to Becca, and Becca's shaking her head. What in the world? Sadie grabs Becca's hand and drags her over to me and Lauren.

“Okay, so here's the deal,” Sadie says. “Becca—”

“Shh! It's a secret.” Becca's eyes are huge and she looks like she wants to clamp a hand over Sadie's mouth.

“What's going on?” Lauren asks.

“Becs, these are your best friends. No one's going to laugh at you. Just tell them, already!” Sadie says as she gathers her hair up in a ponytail.

Becca eyes the ponytail—Sadie's getting-down-to-business one—which pretty much means Sadie's not going to give up until Becca spills the beans.

She gives a huge sigh and then mumbles, “Iwrisngs.”

“What?” I ask.

Becca's face matches her hair by now. “I. Write. Songs.”

None of us says anything for a couple of seconds.

“Ugh, why did you make me tell?” Becca asks Sadie. “They think it's stupid.”

Not exactly. Lauren has this look on her face like she couldn't be more impressed.

I shake my head. “It's not stupid! It's really cool, actually. But, um, Sades, what does this have to do with Jilly and the playlist for the party?”

“Becca told me—” Sadie starts, but Becca takes over.

“Oh my gosh, if everyone has to know everything, then fine. Sadie gave me this great idea to write a song about friendship, and so . . . I did. And then I kinda, mighta shown . . .” Becca trails off.

“Shown . . . ?” Lauren prompts.

“Ryan, okay? I showed Ryan.” I've never seen Becca look more embarrassed. Ever. I didn't think she was actually capable of being embarrassed. It's So Not Becca.

But then again, maybe a lot of us are more than what we show the world.

“You did?” Lauren squeals. I also did not know Lauren could squeal.

“And he
loved
it,” Sadie adds, looking all proud of Becca. “So . . . don't y'all think it'd be great if Becca and
Ryan performed the song here?”

“Yes!” Lauren and I say together.

“No. No way. Nuh-uh,” Becca says.

Ryan appears behind Becca. “Wait, are you talking about Becca's song? I'll sing it with you,” he says to Becca.

“No, I don't—”

“No excuses! Come on, let's get our guitars. Which guy was pretending to play yours in the show?”

Becca's eyes are wide as she murmurs, “Lance, but . . .”

Ryan doesn't wait for her to say any more. Looking so excited to perform, he runs off to grab both instruments.

“You can thank us later,” Sadie says as she pushes Becca toward where Ryan is headed onto the stage. “Izzy, heads up. You're gonna want your camera ready for this!” she calls to her sister.

Becca stumbles forward. “I'm never talking to you again. Any of you.” But when Ryan holds out her guitar, she sighs and goes to join him.

Sadie runs after her and grabs the mic. “Hey, everyone, we have a special treat for you. This is the world premiere of, um . . . the,
uh, Becca and Ryan Experiment.”

Behind her Becca makes a face, and Ryan flushes so much you'd think someone just outed that he still plays with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains or something.

The girls crowd around. Lauren and I push our way over to Sadie after she leaves the stage to Becca and Ryan.

Sadie's beaming as Becca strums her guitar. The song is slow and mellow. It's nothing like the Five Alive pop songs, but none of the partygoers seem to mind. They're wholly focused on the stage. I flick on my phone and hold it up to capture the whole thing. Ryan joins in with his guitar, and then Becca starts singing, really quietly:

“You can blow out the candles on your cake,

Close your eyes and make a wish.

You can meet for your reunion once a year,

Pass around your favorite dish.”

“I didn't know Becca could sing or write songs,” Lauren says. “And I thought she was too embarrassed to even talk to Ryan, never mind play music with him.
Although they did kind of have a moment at Illumination Night.”