Sing (12 page)

48 Days Until Tour

July 26th

NOEL'S HOUSE IS
actually three houses. Four, if you count the chicken coop. After a few days of hanging out at our place—more surf sessions with Noel on our beach, yoga with Maya on the deck, long, festive dinners, and lots and lots of board games—I decide to surprise Noel at home. It's the first night we haven't spent together all week, and I consider calling or texting first, but I'm feeling adventurous, and proud that—with a little help from Tess—I've managed to find him on my own. She gave me general directions, whatever she remembered from when she used to play there as a kid, and K2 and I drive slowly around the neighborhood until I spy a red
mailbox in the shape of a boat, with
BRADLEY
painted in black on both sides.

K2 leaves me at the end of a long, shell-covered driveway, and I crunch uncertainly toward a cluster of small houses. One of them is clearly the main house, with a covered porch and a pile of rubber boots angled near the door. Another is a smaller shack, with a clothesline hanging from one window and rigged to the top of an outdoor shower. A third looks like a toolshed and is packed with gear; rusted beach chairs, old surfboards, and an ancient-looking lawn mower spill out onto the patchy lawn.

The chickens are loose, and a few of them scurry over, trailing me to the front door.

As I get closer I hear the clank and sizzle of cooking sounds, water running, the chatter of televised sports. The front door is wedged open and I rap on it lightly, peering across a tiled floor to the living room, where a pair of bare feet is elevated at one end of a worn, leather couch.

“Hello?” I call out.

There's a patter of footsteps and the door opens wider, revealing a girl of about fourteen. Her blond hair is pulled back into a thick ponytail, and she wears cutoff jean shorts and a gray sweatshirt with a pink robot on it. When she sees me, she whispers, her lips barely moving:

“
Oh my God
.”

I smile and hold up my hand in a wave. “Hi. You must be Sidney. I'm Lily. Is Noel around?”

She stands frozen in the doorway, her mouth hanging slightly open. “Oh my God. Oh my God,” she says again, this time a bit louder. “Wait. Don't move. I think . . .” She closes her eyes for a second, then snaps them open again, holding one hand to her stomach. “I thought I might puke. You know that feeling you get when you think you're going to puke but then you don't puke? That happened. But I think it's passing.” She takes a deep breath. “Yup. I'm good.”

I laugh. “That's good.”

“Yeah. Good.” Sidney nods seriously. “Come in. Do you want to come in? Or not. Whatever. NOEL!” She erupts suddenly, screaming Noel's name without taking her eyes off of me, as if she's afraid I might vanish. “NOEL!”

“What in the hell?” I hear Noel from the kitchen. The faucet turns off and he rushes toward the door. “What is wrong with you— Oh,” he says, clearly taken aback. His eyes flit quickly from my face to the house around him, and his cheeks redden. “Did we . . . did we have plans?”

I feel my smile slipping and clear my throat. He looks shocked, and not in a totally comfortable way. Maybe this was a mistake. “No,” I say. “I thought I'd surprise you. But I can go, I mean, if it's not a good time . . .”

“No!” Sidney yells. “It's a fine time! The finest of times! I don't know why I'm yelling. Am I yelling?”

“Sid.” Noel puts a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe you want to go tell Dad we have company?” He nods toward the living room.

“Sure,” Sidney says, but doesn't make a move.

“Now?” Noel presses, physically shifting her out of the doorway and ushering me inside. “Sorry about her,” he says softly as I pass. “I'd say she's not usually like this, but . . . she is.”

I smile and pretend not to listen to the conversation happening in frantic whispers over my shoulder. The TV switches off and there are more shuffling footsteps. “Here we go . . .” Noel says under his breath, almost to himself.

Sidney reappears, dragging a man in flannel pajama pants and a black T-shirt behind her. His face is an older, more rugged version of Noel's: the same clear blue eyes and strong jaw. He holds out a hand and smiles warmly. “Hello,” he says. “My daughter says I'm not allowed to talk to you. I'm Lew.”

“Lewis,” Sidney interrupts. “His real name is Lewis. It's a family name.”

“Hi, Lew,” I say as he shakes my hand firmly. “I'm Lily. It's not a family name. My mom just liked the flower.”

“It's a beautiful flower.” Lew smiles. “A beautiful flower for a beautiful girl!”

“Dad!” Sidney clutches the sides of her head like her brain might leak out. “That's disgusting! I told you not to say anything. Does he have to be here?” Sid turns pleadingly to Noel.

“Yes, he has to be here,” Noel says. “Sid, Dad, why don't you guys finish watching the game, and Lily and I will make dinner. Sound good?”

“I thought you'd never ask.” Lew smiles pleasantly and shuffles back into the living room. “Let's go, Sid. I'll give you the big chair so you can eavesdrop.”

“I wasn't going to eavesdrop,” Sidney whines, following her father reluctantly.

Noel puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me into the kitchen. The sink is stacked with dirty dishes and the countertops are covered in mixing bowls. A thick slab of white fish is on a plate near the stove, next to a box of Ritz crackers.

“Sorry about the mess,” Noel says. “I'm kind of a disaster in the kitchen.”

“What's for dinner?” I ask, before whispering: “Are you sure this is all right?”

Noel holds my chin in one hand and plants a quick kiss on my lips. “I'm sure,” he says. “If you'd told me you were coming I could have prepared them a little. And you.”

“Prepare me? For what?” I watch as Noel takes out a roll of crackers and begins to pound it against the countertop.

“My dad's lame jokes,” he says, crunching the crackers into a fine dust. “Sid being . . . Sid.”

“I wanted to meet your family.” There's an unopened globe of Brussels sprouts on the table and I start to peel back the plastic. “Not your
prepared
family. What are you doing?”

Noel pours the cracker crumbs into a bowl. “Making bread crumbs,” he says, eyeing the big box of crackers. “What, they don't do it like this in New York?”

I laugh, holding out my hand as he passes me a knife. We work together in the kitchen, settling into an easy rhythm as we chop, peel, mix, and clean. It's funny to think that this would've been hard for me just a few months ago, but my cooking goals have really paid off. It feels effortless and fun, but maybe some of that is Noel, and the way he makes everything feel so easy.

Sid spends dinner either peppering me with questions (everything from “If you could only listen to one song on repeat for the rest of your life, what would it be?” to “Do you believe in aliens?”) or watching me chew in a stunned silence. There's something so earnest and familiar about her that I like her right away, but it's not until we're in the kitchen alone together, cleaning up the dishes, that I realize why. She is exactly the way I was at
her age: passionate and awkward, confident and shy, all at the same time.

“Wanna see my room?” Sid asks when we're done with the dishes.

“I thought you'd never ask.” I follow her up the stairs. Noel gives me a questioning look from the dining room table and I wave and mouth silently,
I'm fine
.

Sid takes the steps three at a time and leads me down a long hall. There's a gallery of photos on the hallway walls: Sid and Noel on the beach as kids, Noel and his dad on the boat, a black-and-white photo of a much younger Lew with a beautiful pregnant woman, a tiny, towheaded Noel grabbing on to her leg.

At the end of the hall is Sid's room, a small, low-ceilinged space. “This is it,” Sid says, holding out her arm as I pass through the door. “Bed. Table. Lamp.” She points to the furniture in the room, pausing at a collection of stuffed animals spilling out of a box on the floor. “Miscellany. Sorry it's a mess. I'm usually fairly organized, but I've been busy working on this project for class . . .”

She sits at the makeshift desk in the corner.

“What's the class?” I ask, scanning her bookshelves and noting all the familiar titles:
Anne of Green Gables
, Harry Potter,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
. Long after Sammy and everyone at school had made the shift to
“cooler” books and TV, I was still stuck on the classics.

“It's a computer programming class at the community college,” she says. “I do it online. We're building websites, front to back. I'm making one for my dad.”

Her voice gets higher and faster as she starts explaining something about writing code, and my eyes wander to a bulletin board on the wall over her head. It's plastered in postcards from all over the world—Sri Lanka, Budapest, New Zealand, Rome. Beside it is a giant map with red thumbtacks stuck in various places.

“They're from my mom. She travels a lot. She's in Goa now. That's in India. It's in the southern part,” she says, moving to the map. “Really beachy and beautiful. She says it's her favorite place to paint so far. The colors are so rich you can taste them.”

I smile, watching as Sid checks the thumbtacks, making sure each one is secure. “Do you talk to her a lot?”

Sid shakes her head. “Just the postcards,” she says. “Dad says it's expensive to call.”

“You must miss her.” I can't imagine not being able to call my mom—or to have been without her at Sid's age.

Sid shrugs. “Yeah,” she says. “It was worse before Noel came home. Now we're okay. We take turns cooking, doing the laundry. Dad's really bad at that stuff. He can barely use the microwave without setting something on fire.”

“I heard that,” Lew yells from downstairs.

Sid rolls her eyes. “He built this house himself in the seventies. It's insulated with newspaper,” she whispers. “No privacy.”

“The house I grew up in was just like this,” I say. “Well, sort of. It was smaller, actually. I shared a room with my parents until I was eight.”

“You did?” Sid asks, her eyes wide with disbelief.

I nod. “Then I moved down to the basement, which I loved. It was like my own apartment,” I say. “Except I had to share it with my mom's exercise bike.”

Sid kneels to point through a low half window. “That's Noel's shack,” she says, pointing to the little house with the clothesline. “He moved out there when he came back. It used to be my mom's painting studio. He cleaned it up and put a mattress on the floor. It's pretty cozy.”

I smile, trying not to feel sad about the idea of Noel sleeping on the floor in the room where his mom used to paint before she left them. I think of my own mother, of all the afternoons we spent together in the kitchen, doing my homework, singing along to the radio, watching sappy movies on her bed.

“All right, you two, enough yammering,” Lew calls from downstairs. “It's time to get down to business.”

“Business?” I ask.

“I was afraid of this,” Sid muses, shaking her head
as she leads me back downstairs. She stops short on the landing and turns to whisper in my ear: “Listen, if you want to get out of here, just tell him you're having lady troubles. That's what I usually do.”

I fight back a giggle and peer over her shoulder into the living room, where Lew is on his knees, opening a black case on the floor.

“Dad, can we maybe do this another time?” Noel asks. “We're sort of in a rush.”

“What rush?” Lew asks, clicking open the metal latches. “You going fishing?”

“No, but—”

“But nothing,” Lew interrupts. “Take a load off. Lily and me are gonna jam.”

He pulls a short, rounded instrument from the case and fits the strap over his shoulder. “Is that a mandolin?” I ask in awe, reaching out to touch the smooth body, the old, rusted strings.

“See? I told you she'd be impressed,” Lew says, sitting on the couch and starting to tune the strings, one at a time.

“Dad used to play in a bluegrass band,” Sid tells me, standing in the hall, her face a muddled mixture of pride and embarrassment. “They opened once for Bob Seger.”

“Pete Seeger!” Lew corrects. “It was at an anti-nuke rally over on the mainland. Really nice guy. ‘This Land Is Your Land.' You know it?”

Lew plays a few chords and starts singing, his rough voice smoothing out into a sweet, clear tenor. I raise an impressed eyebrow at Noel, who is cringing by the door. I take a seat on the floor. It's a song I haven't sung or heard since music class in the fourth grade, but somehow I remember most of the lyrics.

Sid sits beside me and joins in, urging Noel with a kick to his ankles. Noel shakes his head and crosses his arms defiantly, but when I catch his eyes, they're smiling.

48 Days Until Tour

July 26th

AS NOEL TAKES
the turn out of his driveway and we start down the main road, K2 pulls out from his hidden spot to follow close behind us. Lew insisted that Noel drive me home, despite repeated assurances that I could manage on my own. “I don't care what's ‘in' these days,” he'd said over dessert—defrosted frozen cream puffs and a pint of Ben & Jerry's. “This boy was raised with manners.”

“Thanks for doing that,” Noel says with a grateful sideways glance. “I knew Sid was going to geek out. But I hoped my dad would keep it together.” At the door, Lew passed me a mix CD he'd made of all his favorite folk classics, each title written on the paper sleeve in tiny, deliberate print.

“They were great.” I tap the CD lightly against my knee. “It's been a while since a guy made me a mix.”

“Careful,” Noel warns. “He's working up to asking if he can tour with you.”

I stare ahead through the windshield. A light rain has started falling and the windshield wipers squawk eagerly across the glass. There's a flutter in my stomach as I think about tour. The summer days are passing in hectic clusters. Soon, it will be time to get back on the road. There's a part of me that misses working, performing, the comforting chaos of being in a new city every few nights. But it means leaving the island. Leaving Noel. The idea of not seeing him every day makes my heart lurch into my throat.

I reach for Noel's hand and stare at our fingers locked together over the console. We still haven't talked about what comes next, which, I've learned, is pretty much a way of life around here. When there are fish to be caught, fires to make, and houses to build, there isn't much time for worrying about things that haven't happened yet.

The truck slows as Noel turns down our driveway, bumping over the potholes, his tires splashing through muddy puddles on the road.

“You guys expecting visitors?” Noel asks suddenly. I follow his gaze into the darkness, where an unfamiliar sedan is parked in front of the house.

“No,” I say. “Pull over.” Noel edges the car to the side of the driveway, where we're hidden by underbrush. My pulse quickens and I reach for my phone. Whenever Ray nags me to lock up at night, I tease him for being paranoid. This place feels about as dangerous as a Disney movie. But now I'm glad the guys are close by.

K2 rumbles past us in the Escalade, his headlights lighting up the uneven shingles on the front of the house. We watch as he gets out of the car and walks deliberately around the sedan, checking the plate and peering inside the darkened windows.

Suddenly, a tall shadow moves near the front steps, and K2 hurries to cut him off. I squeeze Noel's hand harder, until the figure moves into the light and I can see his face clearly.

“Is that . . .” Noel starts.

“Jed?” I squint through the windshield, pulling my hand from Noel's and reaching to open the door.

“Wait—” Noel calls after me. I hurry out of the truck and walk quickly through the rain.

Jed and K2 are shaking hands when I reach them, chatting about the weather and the rambling journey from the city.

“What are you doing here?” I interrupt, my voice shrill and harsh. Jed looks at me, his wide, expectant
smile faltering only slightly. K2 gives us a curt nod and retreats to the SUV.

“I tried texting, but you didn't answer,” Jed says, his broad shoulders hunched against the rain. “And I know how much you love surprises.” He holds his arms out wide, an uncharacteristically goofy smile spreading across his face. “Surprise!”

I stare at him, my brain racing to process his presence on this road, on these steps, on this island. He's wearing dark-wash jeans and a beige cardigan with a floppy cowl neck, his hair damp with rain but still arranged in a perfect wave across his forehead. As much as I want to feel nothing, my heart trips and races, an eager warmth spreading throughout my body. We're not standing in the rain. We're back on the big leather couch at his apartment, his long legs draped over mine, my hand in his hair, absently twirling that perfect wave while he hums a new melody.

“Everything okay?” I hear from over my shoulder. My eyes dart furtively to the damp ground. I hear Noel's footsteps behind us on the gravel.

Jed looks past me and I see his body shift, as if he's suddenly grown even taller. He extends his hand to Noel. “Hey, man,” he says. “I'm Jed. Didn't mean to freak you guys out. This place isn't much for streetlights, huh?”

Noel shakes Jed's hand quickly before stuffing his
fists in his pockets. “Guess not,” he says. “Lily, I'll, uh . . . I'll call you later?”

I look from Noel to Jed uncertainly. “Sure,” I say. Noel lingers, and I lean over to give him a quick peck on the cheek. It feels forced and stupid, and I wish I hadn't done it, but my thoughts are still scrambled and I'm feeling suddenly faint.

“Seems nice,” Jed says, watching as Noel reverses down the driveway, his headlights fading away.

“He is.” The rain is coming down harder now, the sweatshirt I borrowed from Noel earlier getting damp and heavy.

Jed gestures toward the house. “Is it okay if I come in?”

I stare at the screen door a long moment, as if it might be able to give me advice. It takes a lot to leave me speechless, but I'm having a hard time understanding what I'm supposed to do next. It's almost as if Jed and the island have existed in two entirely different physical dimensions. It feels impossible that they've suddenly collided in the cottage's front yard.

“Lily?” he asks, reaching out to touch my arm. It sends a programmed shock down my spine.

I pull my arm away. “Of course,” I say, my voice formal and overly chipper, before starting up the porch stairs. “Come in.” Tess and Sammy are at Maya's for
dinner, so for better or for worse, we'll have the place to ourselves.

Jed follows me, ducking inside the small front door. His tall frame dwarfs the furniture as though he's stumbled into a miniature diorama. “Cute house,” he says, glancing up the stairs and into the living room. I have the urge to stand in front of him, to block his view, to protect this place from his prying eyes.

I take a steadying breath and walk into the kitchen. “Would you like some tea?” I ask, sounding very much like a middle-aged housewife.

Jed sits carefully at the edge of the worn upholstered couch in the living room. “Yeah, or coffee,” he answers. I sigh, standing in front of the coffeemaker, annoyed by the prospect of having to brew a whole pot. “Actually, tea's great,” he calls out, as if reading my mind.

I fill the kettle with water and catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window over the sink. My hair is wet and flat and my mascara has run into dark pools at the corners of my eyes. I wipe them with the side of one finger and attempt to arrange my hair into something flattering. I silently reprimand myself for caring so much about my appearance, but I know that it's no use. No matter what's happened between us, I'm still that eager-to-please, nerdy little girl, awestruck that Jed Monroe is casually sitting in the other room.

I pull down two mugs and wait for the water to boil, my mind racing with questions.
What is he doing here? Why now? How did he even find me?

My phone buzzes—Noel. I consider ducking out onto the porch, telling him everything is all right. But I can already hear the strain in my voice, the unconvincing tremble. I decline the call and leave my phone on the counter.

“Thanks,” Jed says as I join him in the living room. I place the mugs on a pair of matching tile coasters and sit across from him in one of the high-backed antique chairs, my posture straight and rigid. I clutch the mug with two hands but it burns my palms. I stare at the foggy wisps of steam.

“Terry told me how to find you,” Jed says finally. “Don't be mad. I didn't give him much of a choice.”

I smile tightly. “There's always a choice.”

Jed shrugs. “I gave him my Yankees seats. Behind home plate. Plus, he likes me.”

Unfortunately, he's right. In fact, I was surprised that Terry didn't put up more of a fight when we broke up. He was always saying how well Jed and I complimented each other. High praise coming from somebody who could find fault with Mother Teresa if he thought she looked at him funny.

“After I pled my case, I think he felt like you should at least hear me out.”

“Your case?”

Jed clears his throat. “I made a mistake,” he says. “More than a mistake. I was an idiot. If I could take back the last few months, if I could go back to the way things were . . . you made me happier than I've ever been in my life, Lily. We were good together. Weren't we?”

I lean back in the stiff chair. It's like he's reading from a script I wrote for him in the days and weeks after we first broke up. It's exactly what I dreamed he would say. But now, the words sound different and almost hollow, like the meaning behind them has gotten lost. “I used to think so,” I say.

Jed runs one hand through his thick dark hair, droplets of rain landing on his shoulders. “I got scared. One of the guys showed me some dumb article online that said we were getting engaged. That weekend you wanted me to come home to meet your parents? It said I was going to ask your dad's permission to propose. I know it's stupid. I should have just ignored it. But I panicked.”

I stare at the faded Oriental rug, the ornate pattern warped through the thick glass of the coffee table. “The weekend of my grandparents' anniversary party?” I ask, working it all out in my head. It was true, what I'd read in the tabloids. He'd lied about not being able to come. But it wasn't because he didn't want to be there. He'd heard a rumor, and he'd been scared that it was true.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “It's just . . . it's a lot of pressure. You have to know that.”

“Pressure?” I ask. My face is warm and I feel a rising in my chest, like all the things I've been wanting to say to him, to ask him, are pushing up through my ribs. “Pressure to do what?”

As far as I knew, our relationship had been exactly what we both wanted. We worked hard, and what little downtime we had, we spent it together doing low-key, normal things. There was no drama. There were hardly any fights. I can understand feeling freaked out by a rumor online, but at the end of the day, was it worth throwing away everything we had without so much as a conversation about it? “I
never
asked you to do anything you didn't want to do.” I can feel righteous anger starting to spread inside me.

“I know.” Jed shifts uncomfortably. “It wasn't you. It was . . . everyone else. Everyone on the planet is rooting for you, Lily. They want you to have this perfect love story. A surprise proposal, the perfect ring, a storybook wedding. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be single-handedly responsible for Lily Ross's fairy-tale ending?”

Jed's eyes search mine. I suddenly see the guy I first fell for, the guy on the balcony doing his own thing, refusing to be like everyone else. Of all the people
who could have been put in this position, it feels suddenly unfair that it was Jed. Jed, who hates public appearances as much as I love them. Jed, who spends weeks holed up in the studio, obsessing over every last detail of his music. No wonder he was feeling overwhelmed.

“I wish you'd said something,” I say, softening.

Jed shakes his head. “I didn't know what to say. It wasn't anything you were doing. There was no way for you to fix it. It's just the way things are.” He shrugs.

I stare at him. “If you hate it so much, why did you talk to the press?” I ask. “I saw the magazines. You made me look pathetic.”

Jed looks at me squarely in the eyes. “Lily, I didn't say a word,” he swears. “It had to have been somebody on my staff, someone who knows my schedule. It wasn't me. You know how I feel about my privacy. I would never have done something like that.”

There's something so solid in his voice that it's hard not to believe him.

“Okay,” I say. “But what's changed? What's different now? Not my fans. Not my life. As soon as I leave here and get back on the road, everything will be just the same as it's always been. I'm not interested in getting married. That's, like . . . it's a dream, and I want it someday, for sure. But not today. Not tomorrow.”

Jed takes a deep breath and I can see the relief flooding him like a current.

“That doesn't mean people are going to stop talking about it,” I continue. “I could say I'm not interested in marriage, or a ring, until I'm blue in the face. But the magazines, the blogs . . . they aren't going anywhere.”

“I know that,” Jed says, “and I'm not saying I have it all figured out. I'm not saying I'm ready to . . . I can't promise I'm ready to be your Prince Charming, if you'd even have me.” He clasps and unclasps his long fingers in his lap, looking shyly at the floor, before glancing up at me with a smile. “But I would like the chance to keep auditioning.”

My shoulders relax as I fall back into the chair. Rain pounds on the window behind Jed and I still can't believe he's sitting here. Weeks ago, I would have given anything for a big romantic gesture like this one. I may not be twiddling my thumbs, waiting around for a proposal, but my fans are right about one thing: I am a sucker for a happy ending.

Still, now that I'm here on the island, away from the insanity of my everyday life, I'm not even sure what that happy ending looks like. Is it me and Jed, making our music and being together, running around from one event to the next, caught in the machines of our brands, our lives? I can see it, as clearly and easily as ever. Our
lives together still make sense. Our relationship is built on the solid ground of our careers, and when our careers are everything, what else matters?

Besides, I can't help but muse guiltily, it would mean I could keep my old album. Maybe
Forever
could be
Forever
, again.