“How long have you wanted this, hon?”
“Forever.” Which is way longer than I’ve wanted Ten’s friendship… or whatever it is I want from him. If I renege on my dreams for a boy, then I become the sort of girl I despise—the sort willing to fold herself into another person’s ideal.
People who bend too far run the risk of breaking. After all, we aren’t reeds; we’re made of bones and dreams, not chloroplasts and sunlight.
“Look, if I thought you sucked I wouldn’t encourage you,” Rae says.
“How do you know I don’t suck?”
“Because I’ve heard you sing.”
I snap up my neck to look at her. “When?”
“Last year. I was picking you up to go to the mall, and your mom told me to go on up to your room, and you were belting out some P!nk song in the shower. I remember standing beside your stack of records and being floored by what I was hearing, but I knew you’d hate it if you caught me eavesdropping, so I left the minute the water turned off.” She crouches beside me, clasps one of my hands in hers. “You got this, Angie.”
But she’s wrong. I don’t have anything yet, besides foul breath and an empty stomach.
Her eyes suddenly get this glint that makes my insides flop.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says, but she’s biting back a smile, so I know she’s thinking something, and that worries the heck out of me.
“You’re not planning on making me sing over the PA system, are you?”
She slaps a hand over her chest. “I would never do such a thing, Angela Conrad.”
“You swear?”
“Cross my heart.”
And although I trust her not to do that, I don’t trust her not to do something equally terrifying. Rae’s life philosophy has always been about facing your demons, and what greater demon do I have than singing in public?
46
The Squeak of Bluebirds
“Lynn’s singing at the Bluebird tonight,” Steffi tells me as she folds a metal chair and rests it against the wall. “It would mean a lot if you came.”
The Bluebird sounds like the perfect thing to get my mind off the emotional roller coaster I’ve been riding since the incident in the cafeteria. At the end of that horrid day, I got up the nerve to corner Ten and tell him, “I’m not doing this to spite you.” He barely acknowledged me and hasn’t talked to me since.
“I’ll be there,” I tell Steffi as I clamber up the stairs of the dance studio.
“I’ll email you a ticket!”
I pedal home in record time, shower, and change into black combat boots, fake suede shorts, and a white T-shirt with a black, loopy rendering of a guitar. After swiping on mascara and coating my lips in red lipstick, I blow my mom a kiss and get back on my bike to head to the Bluebird.
The place is busy as always. Butterflies swarm my stomach as I take in the lively crowd, the framed celebrity pictures on the walls, the tangle of string lights over the bar. There’s something about this place. Maybe it’s the floorboards that have been trod upon by some of the biggest music celebrities, or maybe it’s the mics that have been filled with someof the greatest voices, or maybe it’s because the Bluebird is where Mona Stone got her start. Whatever it is, this place is magic to me.
Steffi and Lynn wait at a table set for five. I wonder who else they’ve invited. Another couple probably. I walk over and slip into the seat closest to Lynn.
“Thank you for getting me in!”
They each have a glass of wine in front of them. Lynn’s is almost empty.
“Don’t tell me you’re nervous?” I ask her.
She tips her glass of wine to her maroon-tinted lips and chugs the dregs.
