Читать книгу Sing - Vivi Greene - Страница 9

“WHERE ARE WE?”

I open my eyes and stare blurrily through the backseat window. I fell asleep somewhere around Portland, Maine, when Ray and the guys in the car ahead insisted on stopping for snacks. Now Tess is turning into a long, narrow parking lot and steering us toward the ocean. It feels like we could keep driving onto the rickety dock, over the water, and straight into the pale blue horizon. Wait until I tell Jed about this, I think, and then instantly feel the pain of losing him again. I wish I could erase him—his name, his face, his existence—from my memory.

“We’re here!” Tess announces, turning off the engine of her beloved Prius—or “the Pree” as she affectionately calls it. Tess is the only one of us who drives regularly, which is ironic given that she’s also the only one who has lived in the city her entire life. The Pree was the first big purchase Tess ever made and I’m pretty sure she’s more attached to it than she’s ever been to an actual human being.

“We are?” Sammy looks up from her phone distractedly, taking in the sleepy dock and the deserted parking lot around us. A car door slams and I see Ray loping across the pavement, looking very fish-out-of-water in his reflective Ray-Bans, black polo, and pleated khakis. He grips the inside of the passenger-side window and peers in to see me sprawled out across the backseat. “You good?”

“Just woke up.” I yawn. After years of shuttling from hotel rooms to buses to planes, I can pretty much sleep anywhere. It was hard at first, but I got the hang of it: contorting my body into compact positions, tossing a sweatshirt or hat over my face, and dozing off within seconds. I stretch and sit up, noticing a smudge of orangey powder on the collar of Ray’s shirt. “Cheese puffs?” I guess.

“Crap.” He sighs, patting the crumbs away with one enormous thumb.

I smile. “I’m telling Lori.” Ray’s wife is a nutritionist and runs a tight ship. Cheese puffs are not on the meal plan.

Ray rolls his eyes before squinting into the sun. “Where’s the boat?” The island is a forty-five minute ferry ride off the coast, which at first made me anxious. What will it feel like to be stranded in the middle of the ocean, with no team of stylists, no schedule, no events?

Now it doesn’t feel far enough.

“Guess it’s late,” Tess says, fiddling with the radio. She leaves the battery running but pushes the door open with one foot. “Gives us time to get lunch,” she says and climbs out. “This place has the best chicken salad on the planet.”

Sammy pockets her phone and gets out of the car, pulling her hair into a messy bun at the top of her head.

Tess nods toward a quiet café at the top of a small hill. “What do you think, Ray? Gluten-free bun? Hold the mayo?”

Ray crosses his arms over his broad chest and leans against the bumper, which dips perceptibly beneath his weight. “Coffee,” he grunts. “Black.”

I press my forehead against the window and look out across the water. A cluster of gulls hovers above the ocean, squawking and diving in a sort of dance. I can’t remember the last time I was this close to the sea. The beach was just a short drive from my house in LA, but the only time I ever spent there was the week we shot the “California Christmas” special for MTV. Otherwise, it was just the scenic blur of my daily commute to and from my house.

Choppy DJ chatter bursts from the car speakers and suddenly “You Are Here” comes on. It’s a song I wrote about getting lost while driving around LA with Caleb. I still feel a little jolt every time I hear the opening bars of one of my tracks on the radio. Usually, it’s a happy, heart-pumping thrill. But today it’s more of a guilty pang, like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

Aside from my parents, I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving the city. I thought about texting Terry, but I knew he’d try to talk me out of it. I’ve decided to call him when I get to the island, explain that getting away is the only option right now. There are three months until tour, and I have to relax before then. I can’t risk another scene like yesterday. Terry won’t be thrilled to hear that I’ve temporarily relocated to an isolated island hours and a boat ride away from any trappings of civilization, but he’ll come around … eventually.

Out of habit, I pull my phone from the front pocket of my bag and scroll through old texts with Jed. I see my usual gushy, long-winded messages, full of kissy-face emojis and exclamation points, and his quick replies: Yup; You too; Night. I guess if I’d really been looking for it I would have noticed that he was distracted and curt. But why would I be looking for it? Just last week we’d done an all-day event together in Central Park. He was by my side through the whole thing, his arm hooked easily around my waist. I’d never felt so supported.

I stare off across the still water, willing the boat to appear and magically transport me to someplace where I can pretend to be somebody else.

“Welcome home!”

Tess lugs our bags out of the trunk and plops them down on the grass beside her. I peel my legs from the sticky seat and climb out of the car as Sammy bounds up to the screen door like a dopey golden retriever.

The house is small and boxy, with missing shingles and a screened-in porch that’s patched with electrical tape. But the paint on the trim is new, and a cheery row of peonies lines the stone walkway to the steps.

“What do you think?” Tess asks. I follow her gaze toward the horizon. The house may be plain, but the setting is something out of a fairy tale. A thick fog snakes between clusters of giant evergreens. A low, grassy marsh opens into a web of tidal pools. And beyond all that is the ocean, flat and still and so blue it’s almost black.

“It’s gorgeous,” I say. The air smells sweet and salty at the same time, honeysuckle mixed with gusts of a crisp sea breeze. My grandparents live in a place like this. Theirs is a lake house in Wisconsin, but the feeling of being lost in nature is the same.

“It’s no Four Seasons.” Tess laughs, shouldering her bag and starting for the house.

Ray leans in to scoop up my luggage, but I wave him off. “I got it,” I say. “You guys go get settled. We’ll call you if we make any plans.”

Part of the deal I struck with my parents was that the guys had to stay at a B and B in town. I can handle being shadowed when we’re out and about, but there’s no way I’m spending the summer with a security team from dawn until dusk. The whole point of this trip is for me to feel normal again, and there’s nothing normal about three burly bodyguards monitoring my every move.

After a thorough inspection of the house, Ray insists on rolling my bags to the steps before climbing back into his SUV and reversing down the dusty dirt road.

I open the screen door and am immediately transported to the summers of my childhood. The windows are covered in dusty plaid curtains, and there’s a wood stove in the far corner of the living room. It even smells like my grandparents’ house, a combination of mothballs and lingering ash from the stove.

It’s perfect.

Sam and Tess are getting settled upstairs, the old wooden floorboards groaning beneath their feet. I leave my bags near the bottom step and walk through the kitchen, a bright, narrow room with linoleum tiles and wallpaper trim. Between the kitchen and the living room is a sliding glass door that opens up to a small porch. I leave my sandals on the steps and start down the trail toward the water.

Strains of Sammy’s laughter float on the breeze. I take a deep breath and feel a sharp twinge of missing home, Madison, my grandparents, and my mom and dad. I talk to them all the time, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same as waking up to the sounds of Mom in the kitchen, mixing batter for pancakes, classical music playing softly from the clock radio beside the stove.

Ahead of me, the water stretches out in all directions. The trail under my feet turns from rock to tall grass, opening up to a pebbly coast. I bend down to cuff the bottoms of my jeans and burrow my toes into the dark, cool sand. The waves crash into the rocks at intervals, sending up a dramatic spray of white.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I jump. I slip it out and stare guiltily at the screen: Terry. I exhale loudly and answer the call, pressing the phone to my ear.

“Hey,” I greet him, breezy and cheerful.

“Lil, what the hell?” Terry barks. “I’ve been texting all morning.”

“I know.” I sigh, backing away from the crashing surf. “I’m sorry.”

“What was that about yesterday?” he asks. “Are you okay? I’ve already pulled a bunch of stuff down but a few photos got out. Did you fall? What happened?”

“I’m fine, Terry,” I say. “It’s just … Jed and I broke up. He ended it. We’re through.”

There’s a short pause. I imagine Terry pacing the stretch of carpet in front of his desk, staring through the window of his corner office and tugging at the roots of his slicked-back hair. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, his voice measured. “I thought you guys were—never mind, not important. What’s important now is that you stay calm. Do the work, right? Nobody processes this stuff better than you do, Lil. You’re the queen of bouncing back.”

I slump into the sand and pick up a handful of pebbles, sifting them through my fingertips. “That’s the thing,” I say softly. “I don’t know if I can do it this time.”

“What do you mean?” Terry asks. “Of course you can. We’ll put you right out there. Radio. Events. Whatever it takes to keep you busy and get ready for the fall.”

I take a deep breath. “Terry. I left,” I say. “I’m taking some time off.”

Terry laughs. “What are you talking about? Left where?” he asks, panic creeping into his voice. “What about the tour?”

“The tour is still on,” I assure him. “But I need time away. I can’t … I need … I need new songs.”

There’s another pause, this one longer. “Terry?” I ask.

“Lily,” he says, carefully, like I’m a horse he’s afraid of spooking. “I understand how hard this is. Really, I do. But I think you’re still in shock. Forever is practically in the can. It’s perfect. The first single is supposed to release in a few weeks. And besides, there isn’t time. You can’t write, record, and promote a new album in three months.”

There’s a buzzing in my arms and legs, the same whirring energy I used to get whenever somebody told me I couldn’t do something I wanted to do. “I don’t have a choice,” I say firmly. “I can’t get up there and sing those songs anymore. They’re lies, and I won’t lie to my fans. If Jed and I are done, Forever is done, too.”

“Lily,” Terry pleads.

“I have to go,” I interrupt. “I promise I won’t let you down. I just … I need to do this. I need to do it for me. Bye, Terry.”

“Lily!”

I quickly end the call and stand, wiping the sand from the back of my jeans. I take a deep breath and look out at the expanse of the ocean. The air in my lungs feels new, and the water—massive and indifferent—pulses a stubborn rhythm into my veins. It doesn’t care who I am. I close my eyes, and in an instant I feel it: coming here was, without question, the right thing to do.

The phone vibrates again inside my clenched fist. Buzz buzz buzzzzzzzzz.

Before I have time to change my mind, I wind up and chuck it overhead. It spins in a smooth, high arc before slipping under the still surface, swallowed into the dark, murky bay. I wait with an empty dread for the panic to set in.

But all I feel is free.