Fangirl (2 page)

“Correct. I'm taking lessons so that I can play obscure Chris Isaak tunes that no one has ever heard of—not so I can sell action figures and lunch boxes with my face on it to hormonal teenage girls.”

“Just sayin' . . . ,” Josie teased.

“Okay. Fine. Then how about this:
you
just told me that
you
are babysitting all summer, which can only mean you must want to join the cast of
Teen Mom
.”

“Um, like, that would require me actually doing
it
.” Josie fashioned her fingers into air quotes. “And, since it would require me having an actual boyfriend, that ain't happenin' any time soon.”

“Please,” Christopher said. “You could have a million boyfriends if you wanted.”

“Not true.”

“Totally true,” he insisted. “Every guy in drama has a crush on you. Every guy in math has a crush on you. If you ever took your earbuds out of that little skull of yours, maybe you would notice.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Josie lifted her tank top and rubbed her belly. “But I would make a pretty hot mom, don'tchathink?”

Christopher smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Hey, speaking of hot moms . . .” With his pimple-spotted chin, Christopher pointed in the direction of the parking lot at a lady with big blond hair pulling up in a shiny black SUV. “There is Mrs. Cougarville herself.”

“Eww.” Josie looked out the window. “Okay, pervy Mr. MILF.”

Josie stood up and stuffed her phone into the back pocket of her cut-off denim shorts. “Later, BBFF.” She high-fived Christopher and hustled off with a flirty wave.

“Have fun with your
boyfriend
tonight,” Christopher teased.

Josie plopped onto the backseat of the Mercedes and studied Mrs. Rogers. She wore an expensive full-length floral summer dress. Josie peered under the steering wheel at her wedge sandals, which revealed ten perfectly pedicured toes painted bright red. The diamond ring on her left ring finger rested on the leather-wrapped steering wheel like an ice cube. Josie could only see the right side of Ashley's mom's face, a smooth cheek that had a wrinkle-free texture that apparently had come after some expensive surgery. Ashley's father was Bakersfield's top plastic surgeon, after all. Plus, all the ladies who lived at the Las Palmas Hills Country Club looked like they belonged better in Beverly Hills.

“How's your mom doing, Josie?” Ashley's mother asked.

“Good. You know, still working at the hospital and stuff.”

“Oh, that's great to hear. What with the layoffs you're always hearing about. She's such a sweet lady.”

Josie stared blankly out the window.

Silence.

“Ashley tells me you're still writing music?” Mrs. Rogers continued.

“Well, sort of. I don't really write music
per se.
I just write lyrics.”

“Oh, good for you. That must be a great outlet, what with everything that's going on in your life. Very therapeutic.”

“Mom,” Ashley hushed under her breath. She clenched her teeth. “Please.”

Josie pretended not to notice.

Ashley's mom steered the car into Josie's apartment complex, slowing down as a gaggle of elementary school kids ran across the street chasing a soccer ball.

“Well, tell your mom I said hello,” she said, pulling up to the curb in front of Josie's apartment building.

“Thanks, Mrs. Rogers, I will.” Josie stepped out of the car. “See y'all in a couple hours.”

Josie turned around to wave good-bye, noticing that Ashley's mom, rather than looking at her, was studying her aging apartment building's cracked stucco siding. Again, Josie pretended not to notice.

Josie's preconcert preparation ritual began the moment she scurried up the outside stairs to the second-floor apartment she lived in with her little brother and mom.

Their apartment had three bedrooms and one bathroom that they all had to share. Their living room window view: the parking lot of a strip mall. But the $850-a-month rent was
affordable enough with her mom's paycheck as an occupational therapist. Josie knew it wasn't the lamest complex in Bakersfield, but it wasn't the nicest either. It certainly wasn't nearly as plush as the four-bedroom McMansion in the gated community they lived in before the divorce, before her dad retired from pro hockey and decided he would rather live alone than stop drinking and hanging with his hockey buddies.

Josie slid off her shoes and dropped her backpack on the tile floor beside the mountain of her brother's stink-bombed high-tops and various women's sandals and shoes. Josie had recently become obsessed with comfortable slip-on TOMS canvas sneakers. Her goal was to amass one pair for every day of the school week. She had red, navy, black, and chocolate. For her fifteenth birthday, coming in less than two weeks, she'd already asked her mom for a pair of the stonewashed ones. That would make five. #Perf.

“Josie, is that you?” her mom called from the kitchen.

“No,” Josie deadpanned. “It's the Kern River Killer.”

“Very funny,” her mom yelled through the wall from the kitchen. “I'll have to call the cops.”

As Josie made her way down the hallway to her bedroom, her mom, predictably, asked, “So how was school, honey?”

“Good!” Josie cheerily replied with the sincerity of a used-car salesman.

Her mom followed her down the hallway.

“Did you see my message?” she asked. “The Facebook one.”

“I did,” Josie replied lazily, turning toward the stairs and adding an obnoxiously gleeful, “LOL!”

“That Christopher, such a cutie,” her mom said. “Such a nice boy.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Josie said, rushing, “but I really gotta get ready for the concert.”

Meanwhile, Josie's twelve-year-old brother, Connor, sat on the couch blowing up bad guys in his testosterone theater otherwise known as
Call of Duty.

“Hey, Josie,” Connor said as his sister breezed by.

“Hey, Conz.” Glancing at the TV, Josie added, “Hmm. Still workin' on that Nobel Peace Prize?”

Connor's eyes stayed fixed on the carnage, sinking into the sofa as if his butt was stitched to the fabric.

“Wait, wait,” he said. “I have a question for you.”

“Quick. I'm in a hurry.”

“I'm serious.”

“Okay. Fine, what?” Josie cocked her hands on her hips. “Make it snappy. I only have an hour.”

“Okay, well, uh, I was wondering if you'd heard what Lady Gaga's right leg said to her left leg.” Connor's fingers were still in full-out spasm mode on his controller.

“Gee, I have, like, no clue.” Josie arched her eyebrows with mock enthusiasm. “Please, please do tell!”

“Nothing. 'Cuz they're never together! HAHAHAHA!”

“Oh-my-God! That is sooo HIGH-larious!”

Josie made a “C” shape out of her right thumb and forefinger
and put it up to her forehead. “Creeper,” she sneered. Connor had already ADD'd his eyes back to the TV screen.

Once inside the comfort of her bedroom, Josie began to focus on her concert prep.

Josie wiggled out of her jeans and T-shirt, wrapped herself in a towel, and scurried down the hall to the bathroom. She liked to steam up the shower before stepping in. Since her mom could never in a million years afford a visit to an actual spa, this was Josie's low-budget way of pampering herself.

After a few minutes, a knock came at the door.

“I hope you're not running the water when you're not in the shower,” her mom yelled.

“I
am
in the shower,” Josie lied, just then stepping inside the stall.

“Thank you!” her mom shouted.

Ten minutes, a palm load of exfoliating body wash, and two hair-conditioning rinses later, Josie stood dripping on the bathroom rug. She reached for the mirror, wiped it clear, and began her postshower inspection.

Kind of like a driver passing by a car wreck, she couldn't help but scan her body every chance she got. Lately, her body's appearance seemed like a moving target—her top, bottom, middle, front, and back all changing shape and form on a seemingly daily basis.

On “good” days, Josie would see the high cheekbones on her pimple-free face, a narrow waist, and athletic legs sculpted from years spent doing laps at the Bakersfield Dolphins Swim
Club. On “fat” days, she wished she could undergo a
90210
-style makeover. As much as she was always told how “skinny” she was and thus hated thinking this way, she would stare at the tiny bulge in her lower belly and obsess over what she had eaten over the last few days. On these kind of self-critical days when she felt as bloated as a water balloon, Josie would catch herself fantasizing about having a flat stomach and a bigger chest like Ashley's.

Today, though, she was not having a “fat” day. She twisted, craned, and turned and poked and stared and, well, didn't think she looked all that bad, actually. A victory. #ThankGod 4SkinnyMirrors.

She hustled back to her bedroom and pressed play on her Peter Maxx playlist, pumping up the volume. In front of the mirror that leaned against the wall opposite her loft bed, she began brushing her hair.

PING!

Josie put down her brush and glanced at her phone.

Ur meetin me at 630?

Ashley.

Totes am,
Josie texted back with thumb-busting rapidity.

Josie slid on a pair of her mom's spiked heels from the shoe pile and squeezed into a tight-fitting denim miniskirt, sucking in her stomach as she snapped it on. “I hate skirts,” she growled, uncomfortably wiggling out of it and kicking the shoes off into the closet.

Still a tomboy at heart (even though she quit ice hockey and softball when she turned twelve), Josie changed into her favorite pair of blue skinny jeans, black TOMS, and a tight white T-shirt, on which was printed in giant pink letters:
MUSIC IS MY BOYFRIEND
. The only girlie-girl addition was her silver peace-sign earrings, plus the carefully applied red lipstick and smoky eyes and Peter Maxx's sweet-scented Dreamcatcher perfume she sprayed on her neck.

She had to make one last check of
@PeterMaxxNow
.

Nothing. No updates in the last twenty-four hours. In fact, his last Tweet was of a pic he took from the stage of a packed arena two days earlier in San Diego:

You're welcome, San Diego! #SoGrateful #BestFansEver

Josie checked the time on her phone. Six o'clock. Two more hours until showtime.

Bakersfield.
Another city, another arena waiting to be packed with screaming fans—mostly female ones, of course. Sure, there was the usual spattering of man fans, but they were pretty much either just boyfriends dragged kicking and screaming, or “cool” dads wearing baggy blue jeans and untucked office shirts trying to make their daughters think they were hip to the cause.

But Peter Maxx stayed most focused on his core demo: teenage girls. They were the ones who downloaded his music, stalked him on the Web, bought his concert tickets, T-shirts, hats, pens, screensavers, ring tones, pillows, cell phone covers, bottles of perfume, hairbrushes—whatever commercial products his management team could dream up making money by selling to his devotees. So devoted, in fact, was his following that thousands of “Maxx-a-holics” held online “group therapy” in live chats. Peter may have been only sixteen, but he was wise enough to know that he'd be just another struggling singer posting YouTube videos without his dedicated fans.

That being said, the tour was fast becoming a blur. Last night, he was at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The night before that, San Diego. Three nights earlier, Phoenix. The next day . . . he didn't even even know yet. Oakland, maybe? He
couldn't keep track. It was all so hectic. But Peter's dad was touring with him all along the way, keeping him focused on the music, keeping him from burning out. He always taught Peter that great performers “focus on the moment, not the memory.” So, being the good boy who listens to his daddy, on that night it would be all about Bakersfield's fans.

It was a forty-city North American tour, Peter's first as a headliner. At the start, just about everyone—his record label, his dad, the concert promoter, sponsors—worried that the tour wouldn't sell out. On top of the usual concerns over whether parents would foot the bill for their kids to get tickets, an article in
Billboard
had just posed the question with an ominous headline: “Will Digital Downloads Mark the End of the Live Music Era?” Well, the answer, for now at least, was no: from St. Petersburg to Seattle, Peter had sold out each and every show.

That June night in Bakersfield marked the halfway point, his twentieth stop on a tour that wouldn't end until late August. By all the usual industry indicators—ticket sales, corporate sponsors, merchandise revenue, downloads, radio spins—the tour had been a complete financial success. Peter Inc. was raking in nearly a half-million bucks every show. Peter's dad kept reminding Peter, “Assuming everything runs smoothly, you'll be set for life. But you can never assume. To do that is to make an
ass
out of
you
and
me
.”