Reunited (28 page)

to give us the chance to perform today . . .

Tiernan waved her wristband at the security guys as she tore through the gate. A paper airplane could work, if it didn’t veer horribly off course. Or she could just ball the collage up and chuck it onstage—but security might think she was some kind of deranged fan trying to blow up the DJs. The third option was to give it to someone who could deliver it to Kai and Laura G.

The security guards were all total Neanderthals. And the people in the WKID T-shirts looked like lowly interns who’d probably be too afraid of pissing off their bosses to take a chance. Then Tiernan saw him—a dude in his early thirties with a hipster’s handlebar mustache, black cowboy hat, and an
all-access press badge. In his hands he held a camera with a lens as big as a loaf of bread. He was a photojournalist, and photo-journalists were always looking for stories, weren’t they?

“Hey, camera guy.”

The man turned around.

“I was wondering if you might do me a favor?”

She handed him the collage, rolled up like a sacred scroll and secured with a hot pink hair elastic. He reached for it skeptically, as if she were handing him a pipe bomb or a love note.

“Can you give this to Kai and Laura for me?”

“I don’t work for the radio station—” he started.

But Tiernan had already run off, leaving him stuck with it. Now he could make a choice—perform a random act of kindness for a total stranger or do nothing. She wondered what she would have done. The better version of herself would have delivered the note. The thoughtless, selfish version of herself would have blown it off, tossed it in the trash, and pushed the memory away.

When she got back, Alice and Summer were lying on the grass in a patch of shade. “Hair of the Dog” was blaring from the speakers. Naturally, the dog act was onstage.

“Where were you?” Summer asked.

“Just trying to help our cause,” Tiernan said enigmatically. “Trust me.” Alice opened her eyes just wide enough to reveal the doubt in her expression. It took a lot to make a cynic out of Alice Miller, but leave it to Tiernan to have found a way. Up on stage,
the smallest of the miniature dogs pranced about on his hind legs.

Tiernan wanted to tell them about giving the DJs her note written on the back of the collage. But what if that photographer hadn’t given it to Kai and Laura G.? Or what if he had and they just didn’t care? And if Tiernan had given away the collage for nothing, there’s no telling what Alice might do. It wouldn’t matter that she’d done it for them, for all the right reasons. She’d told herself that exact same thing the night of the Winter Wonderland Dance, hadn’t she?

“Can we just go?” Alice sat up. “This is too painful to watch.”

“Let’s just wait a few more minutes,” Tiernan said. Onstage, Canine Luke marked his turf on the leg of the judge’s table.

“Okay, I think we’ve seen enough,” Kai’s voice boomed out across the field as he leaped from his chair.

The audience laughed.

“Seriously, kids,” Kai said to the dogs’ owners. “We’re gonna have to stop here. We’re calling it off.”

“You mean, we’re calling it
arf
,” Laura G. corrected.

The audience let out a collective “Awwwww.”

“Oh, give me a break. You guys like dog pee on you?” Kai shot back.

The sound effects guy played a Wolverine-like growl.

The only thing more torturous than this radio schtick was the anxious feeling in Tiernan’s stomach. If her letter hadn’t worked, it would all end here.

“Okay, then.” The plastic voice was back. “We’re going to
tabulate the scores for today’s performances, and we’ll be back with the results after this message.”

“Crap,” Tiernan said.

The radio station cut to commercial. That was it. Her plan hadn’t worked. Of course it hadn’t. What had she been thinking? That she could actually save the day and be a hero? And what were the odds that their stupid little dance would win them the contest anyway? Even if it did, what was the point? Two months from now, they’d all be away at college and she’d probably never see Alice and Summer again.

“So what now?” Summer asked.

Alice just shrugged. She looked tired, older.

An ad for an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet played over the loudspeakers while Kai fired WKID T-shirts into the crowd out of a T-shirt cannon. You’d think he was shooting out nuggets of solid gold the way people clamored for them—screaming and elbowing each other, like some crappy T-shirts could make up for the fact that none of them had tickets for tonight’s show.

Tiernan tugged at the green bracelet at her wrist, hurrying along the back of the field, skirting around the crowd.

“Slow down,” Alice called out.

But Tiernan kept on walking. As long as she was moving forward, she could pretend that she didn’t care about failing to get them into the contest, that missing the Level3 show meant nothing to her at all. Whatever happened between here and the van, Tiernan wouldn’t let herself even
glance
at Alice’s and
Summer’s faces. She had too much disappointment of her own to deal with to even begin to tackle theirs.

Next thing she knew, something hit her shoulder, knocking her flat on the ground. Frantically, Tiernan looked around for the person who had thrown the sucker punch. But when she saw the T-shirt lying next to her, she realized she’d suffered a more humiliating injury—popped in a drive-by T-shirt shooting.

Already Alice and Summer were on their knees next to her, their faces a mixture of shock and concern.

“Sorry, my bad,” Kai said over the loudspeakers, his voice not even approximating genuine concern.

“Are you okay?” Alice asked.

Tiernan nodded. Her shoulder stung, but she was fine. Which was more than she could say for the brainless crowd of rubberneckers gathered around her.

“Do you mind?” Summer asked, glaring at them. Tiernan had always loved the way Summer could just shut people down with a word or a look. Tiernan could piss people off, but Summer made them wither.

“What the hell?” Tiernan asked, picking up the T-shirt. It was rolled into a tight little cylinder, like a giant cotton-polyester-blend bullet. “WKID, Houston - For the kid in all of us.”

“I fricking hate WKID,” Alice spat.

Tiernan squeezed her shoulder in her hand. At least a big nasty bruise might buy her some sympathy later when Alice discovered she’d given away their Level3 map. The radio station theme song
blasted out onto the field. Their signal to keep moving.

“We are back on the air at the Level3 Super-Fan Challenge, and this is Kai—and Laura G.—coming to you live from the Freedom Stage at Liberty Park. As you know, we are in the final moments of this contest where four lucky fans will win front-row tickets to tonight’s Level3 concert in Austin, complete with a limo ride to and from the show.”

The crowd hooted and screamed on cue.

“Well, Kai, I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” Laura G. said.

“Uh-oh.”

“Well, the bad news,
you
already know. But for those of you who aren’t actually here with us at the Liberty Park Freedom Stage, during our commercial break Kai accidentally shot a girl with our WKID T-shirt gun.”

“Who needs two eyes anyway?” Kai laughed at his own joke. “Really, though—what’s the good news?”

“The good news is that I’ve been handed a note from our producer telling me that we have time for one more act,” Laura G. said.

The crowd cheered. Tiernan slowed as she exited the gate, her stomach felt like clay.

“Is there a Pea Pod Experience in the house?”

Before she had time to absorb the meaning of Kai’s words, Tiernan was running—charging through the crowd toward the stage, Alice and Summer at her heels.

“It’s step, step, turn together, jump back, right leg kick . . .” The sudden change of plans had snapped Alice from her coma and right back into cruise director mode.

“Just pretend we’re back in the basement,” Summer whispered as the security guards examined their wristbands, then motioned for them to head up the stairs. Tiernan quickly smoothed her hair, wishing she had more time to make herself look presentable, but a radio station employee already had her by the elbow, whisking her out to center stage, the sun beating down on her from straight overhead, the audience staring.

“Now, my producer tells me earlier today he was handed a very special note,” Laura G. said, holding up the collage. “What would you call this? A collage?”

Tiernan nodded. She could feel Alice’s and Summer’s eyes on her but she couldn’t bring herself to meet them.

“It’s very intricate piece of artwork here,” Kai explained to the audience. “Lots of old photos of Level3, and some pictures of these girls, too. And it also appears to be a map?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Tiernan said, nodding. It had never crossed her mind this might involve public speaking.

“So, tell me if I got this right.” Laura G. took over. “You girls drove here all the way from Massachusetts to see the Level3 show tonight, but then your tickets were
stolen
?”

A radio station employee held a microphone in front of the three of them.

“That’s right,” Alice answered, confused.

Looking at the audience made Tiernan’s stomach tighten like a fist so she brought her gaze back to Laura and Kai.
This is just a conversation between us and them. We’re the only ones here. Just keep looking at the DJs.

“And the name of your group—The Pea Pod Experience—it has a special meaning?”

“Well . . .” Alice gave the DJs a brief history of their friendship, conveniently skipping over the part where it ended.

“Wow,” Kai said. “So, you girls have been best friends for eight years?”

Tiernan’s neck and face muscles tightened from nervousness so that she smiled involuntarily, like a crazy person. For a few seconds nobody spoke.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Alice said.

The audience gave a collective laugh.

“Well, I think we want to hear this story, right?” Kai asked the crowd. Naturally, the crowd answered with a roaring “Yes!”

This time Tiernan knew it was her turn to reach for the mic. It didn’t matter that her stage fright made it feel like there were a million tiny knives stabbing her in the gut. She knew what she had to do, and it had to be done right here, right now, no matter how terrifying it felt.

“Freshman year, I did something . . . bad,” Tiernan began, her voice quivering. “I told a lie, and I never told them about it.” The crowd fell quiet. She could feel thousands of eyes staring
up at her, waiting. “And because of it, things got all messed up between us.”

Somehow Tiernan found the nerve to look at Alice and Summer. She hadn’t brought her camera, though later she would remember these moments like a series of photographs—Alice’s and Summer’s surprise, Laura G. smiling with genuine sympathy, and the lens of the man with the handlebar mustache focused just on her. She was exposed, overexposed—spilling her guts in front of hundreds of strangers—thousands more listening at home or in their cars.

“Freshman year, I went to a different high school than Alice and Summer, so I didn’t get to see them as much as I did before, and it felt like we were starting to drift apart. Especially me, since I wasn’t around. So I decided to come home for the weekend, so we could all sleep over my house, just like we used to, just the three of us.”

Instantly Tiernan was transported back to that night. How she’d called Summer from the train station, all excited, to figure out what movie they’d rent, when Summer dropped the bomb that she’d been asked to the Winter Wonderland Dance by some meathead junior from the basketball team. She still wanted to have the sleepover, Summer assured Tiernan, only she thought they should all go to the dance first.

“What about Alice?” Tiernan had asked. “What does
she
want to do?”

“I haven’t told her yet,” Summer admitted. “I’m not sure
how well she’ll get along with Tom’s friends, you know what I mean? And Tom’s bringing beers for us to drink in the parking lot before. Anyway, if you don’t want to go, that’s fine; I can always meet up with you guys later.”

It was a tiny thing, really. A minor little delay to their weekend of fun. But it hit Tiernan right where it hurt. She’d come all the way home to see them, and here Summer was, throwing her under the bus for some boy.

“Let me talk to Alice and call you back,” she said, as Judy pulled up in Tiernan’s dad’s old Land Rover.

The entire ride home, Tiernan only managed to give one-syllable answers to Judy’s questions, her anger over Summer’s change of plans—over being interrogated by her mother, over
everything
—building by the second. What was so wrong with her that made everybody want to leave? What had she done that was so awful?

When she got home, Tiernan stormed down to the basement without another word to Judy and called Alice from her cell.

“We can stop by the dance for a while, can’t we?” Alice asked meekly.