Sing (4 page)

86 Days Until Tour

June 18th

THE CAR BLINKS
and beeps and I stare at the dashboard like it's the operating system of a spaceship. The last car I drove myself was the beat-up truck my grandfather gave me when I left Wisconsin for LA There were no tricks to getting it to start, aside from revving the engine and praying a lot until it caught. The Prius has an On/Off button that should be fairly self-explanatory but somehow isn't.

Finally, with my foot on the brake, the keys in the ignition, a press of the button, and a whispered prayer, the Pree purrs to life. I glance quickly at the upstairs windows as I slowly back out of the driveway. I left a
note for Tess and Sam on the fridge, but they were out late, and I doubt they'll be rallying anytime soon.

I woke up craving eggs and bacon. And pancakes. So far, Sammy and Tess have gotten all the groceries at a market in town, and I'm hoping I'll be able to find it on my own. The car bumps and lurches along the winding dirt road, feathery branches scraping at the window.

I expected to feel worse this morning. Last night, after the girls went out, I sat on the back deck for hours, watching the stars blink on and thinking more about my album. I was getting nowhere and gave up around midnight, stumbling upstairs to my room and collapsing onto the creaky twin bed. I slept hard and woke up seven hours later, in the same position, fresh and rested and ready to go. Even my body felt different, as if my bones had been shifted, my muscles stretched and realigned until all the usual touring-and-traveling aches and pains were gone.

The dirt road forks off and I turn onto pavement. The trees are thicker here and the houses closer to one another and the road. There's a small schoolhouse, and a church, and a convenience store with a single red gas pump out back. Across from the harbor is a long, low building with a swinging sign,
MCCONNELL'S FOOD AND SUNDRIES.

I park and collect my bags from the front seat. There was a stash of canvas totes in the hallway closet, branded with logos from farms, the library, a bank. I grabbed a
handful, along with a baseball cap I found hanging on a hook—faded blue with the red outline of a lobster. Now I pull my hair through the back of the cap and settle the hat low on my forehead. I dig around for my favorite comically oversize sunglasses and ease them on. The hat-and-shades routine hardly ever works anymore, but I still try.

I decide to make a list and I reach into my pocket for my phone, only to remember that I chucked it into the ocean. This morning, in a frenzied panic, I had snuck into Tess's room and sent a quick text to Terry asking him to FedEx me a new one. Now that I've seen the tabloids, I feel disarmingly disconnected. It was a jarring reminder that even though Lily Ross the person is on vacation, Lily Ross the business is still chugging along. On a typical day, by the time I've been awake for an hour, I've grown numb to the endless beeping of alerts, texts, and e-mails. I've also talked to Terry ten times, my parents twice. No wonder I feel so clearheaded, I realize. I haven't spent this much time alone in years.

In the market, I settle on a quick list of ingredients and begin to make my rounds. At the deli counter is a pair of girls in denim shorts, maybe nine or ten years old. They're daring each other to do something, their eyes glancing furtively at the ice cream freezers. I stand behind them, knowing what will happen when they turn
around. I brace myself for squeals, iPhones, maybe even questions about the magazines and Jed.

But the strangest thing happens. The girls look up at me and I smile. They freeze. Before I can say hello, they're gone, giggling and scampering down the aisles and out through the chiming front door. I'm not sure if they recognized me or were simply scared that they'd been caught.

At the register, I wait behind a handsome young dad, his three little kids clamoring for more treats and hanging off the cart. He's so preoccupied with them that he doesn't glance in my direction. Then the middle-aged woman behind the counter swipes my card without noticing my name. I leave the store laughing, lugging the bags over my shoulder, and when my sunglasses slip off my nose, I don't even put them back on.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

The screech of tires is still ringing in my ears as I gingerly climb from the front seat. There's a puff of steam coming from underneath the hood of the Prius and my fingers are trembling. One minute, I was cruising through an intersection, almost home, windows down with the smell of the ocean filling up the car. The next, I was careening toward the passenger door of a pickup
truck, slamming on the brakes too late and whipping against the steering wheel.

Tess is going to actually kill me. Her precious Pree, practically her third best friend, is wedged beneath the bed of a rusty old truck. The truck's driver is angrily prying open his door and also appears ready to actually kill me. So at least when Tess finds me, I'll already be dead.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I'm so sorry.” I walk around to the front of the car, squinting to see and not-see at the same time. The car and the truck are locked together like pieces of a life-size puzzle, and there's some kind of ominous-looking fluid pooling between them on the ground. “I didn't see you.”

“Well, that's a relief, I guess.” The driver, a guy around my age in dirty shorts and a pale blue T-shirt, walks to the back of his truck, surveying the wreckage. “If you'd seen me or that stop sign you just blew through, I'd say you might need more than a new prescription.”

It takes me a long moment to realize he's talking about my sunglasses, which I'd stashed on the top of my hat. “Oh.” I pull off the glasses and wave them. “These? They're not prescription.”

We're in the middle of an intersection, which, I now see, is a four-way stop. Another car, some kind of old-model Subaru, creeps up behind us, and the guy waves the driver on. Then he crouches between our cars, peering up at the underside of his truck, before glancing down at the puddle.

“They're actually just sunglasses,” I explain, now wiping my lenses on the front pocket of my overalls, as if that might help. “For the sun? I got them from a street vendor in Rome.”

I hear myself still talking and want to climb under the smoking hood and stay there until he drives away or I melt, whichever happens fastest.
Sunglasses? For the sun?
It's embarrassing to admit, but there are times when it's easier to be recognized. Times like these, for example, when it would give me an excuse to stop talking, or at least start talking about something else.

“You don't say,” the guy grumbles from the other side of the hood. He stands and scratches his upper arm, revealing a hint of one tanned tricep. I feel my face going red, which is annoying—I'm not in the mood for muscles and blushing. I glance away from him and up at the bed of his truck. It's stacked high with long wire crates, tangles of mesh nets, and a pile of oblong buoys. Tucked between two empty traps is a long yellow surfboard, its rounded nose jutting out over the tailgate.

“You surf?” I ask as he stands, waving off the steam and lightly pressing on the bumper. “I mean, obviously. I took a lesson once. My friend wants to learn this summer. It's on her summer bucket list. Not that she's dying. She just . . . it's something she wants to do.”

The guy is still carefully inspecting the hood of my car, which has finally stopped smoking. There's a gnarly looking dent in the bumper and a pattern of scratches near the front, and I'm reminded of Tess and the whole killing-me scenario, which, given the way this conversation is going, now seems like a welcome alternative.

He holds out his hand and it takes me a minute to understand that he's asking for my keys.

“Are you a mechanic?” I ask. I realize there's little chance he's going to drive off with Tess's car, and if he did, he wouldn't get far, considering we're on an island. But it still seems important to establish his credibility before handing over her keys to a complete stranger.

He stares at me for a long moment, and I'm sure this is when it will happen. When he'll finally recognize me. But I can tell by the look in his eyes—which, unfortunately, are a bright and almost breathtaking blue—that he has no clue who I am.

“No, I'm not a mechanic,” he says, impatiently running a hand over the top of his cropped light hair. “Are you?”

I drop the keys in his palm and watch as he climbs into the driver's seat. “It's not my car,” I call after him. “I mean, I didn't steal it or anything. It's my friend's. It's a hybrid. It's sort of tricky to turn on. There's this thing with a button?”

Within seconds the car is whirring to a frenzied start. He glances over his shoulder before slowly backing up. There's a nasty-sounding crunch as the car unsticks from the undercarriage of his truck, but he doesn't flinch. He reverses all the way back toward the stop sign, then hops out and jogs back to me.

“So what's the bad news?” I ask as he pulls open his door and starts to climb in. “How much do I owe you?”

“Me?” The guy smiles for the first time, and my insides turn to a familiar pool of wobbly goo. According to Tess, the year-round population on the island is around two thousand. What are the chances that on my first day, I literally run into the best-looking person here? “Well, it
is
a work vehicle,” he says, thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Not to mention my only transportation, so . . .”

“Of course.” I nod solemnly.

“I'd say about fifteen grand?” he ventures. “I mean, like I said, I'm no mechanic, but that seems a reasonable guess.”

My heart clenches. Who racks up fifteen thousand dollars in damage driving on an island with four major roads and no stoplights? A boxy Jeep rolls through the intersection between us, and the driver and the guy share a wave. I duck behind my hand, imagining the next big headlines:
Lily Ross in Grief-Fueled Fender Bender.
Not exactly the “quiet escape” I had in mind.

“Fine,” I huff, an embarrassed whisper. “I don't have my phone on me, so you'll have to give me your number or something . . .”

The guy looks at me for a drawn-out beat. “I was kidding,” he says flatly. “Are you serious?
Fifteen grand?
This truck is older than I am. I'll probably have to
pay
somebody to get rid of it eventually.”

I blink at him, flushing from the neck up. Of course he wouldn't expect me to pay thousands of dollars for a truck that looks like it's held together mostly by duct tape. I can tell by the smug lift of his golden eyebrows that he thinks I'm an absolute buffoon.

“Right,” I finally manage, clearing my throat. “Of course. So . . . we're good, then?”

He smirks. “Yeah, we're good,” he says, closing the door between us. The truck sputters dramatically as he turns the key in the ignition. He checks his rearview mirror and slowly pulls away, pausing after a few feet to glance quickly over his shoulder. “Just don't write a song about me or anything.”

He puts on his blinker and lifts two fingers in a half wave at the mirror. I stand frozen in the intersection, a surprised smile inching across my lips, and watch as he takes the turn down another dirt road, traps and buoys and the yellow surfboard clattering in the bed behind him.

84 Days Until Tour

June 20th

THE SATURDAY MORNING
yoga class was Sammy's idea. She had seen a flier on the community board in the supermarket, and dragged us out of bed for it. Tess wanted to stay home—she's more inclined to beat out aggression in kickboxing than breathe it out at yoga—but after my little mishap with the Pree, she's refusing to let anybody else drive. I bet Sammy twenty bucks that Tess wouldn't last through the first sun salutation.

“Let's start with our hands on our hearts.” The teacher, Maya, is around our age. She has an easy smile and seems genuine, not pretentious like a lot of the teachers I've had in New York and LA

The room is packed, a cozy attic space above the
island's only hardware store. Every so often I hear the electronic chime of the door below as it swings open, or the thud of the cash register slamming shut. I chose a spot near the wall, with Sammy to one side and an older woman in tie-dyed leggings to the other. Tess is as close as she can be to the exit.

“Let your breath be your guide,” Maya says. She sits at the front of the class with her eyes closed, a thick beam of dusty sunlight caught in her long, braided hair. She is tall and toned, and dressed comfortably in a gray thermal shirt and worn, wide-legged pants.

Every so often I sneak glances at Tess, who gradually stops pouting and at one point even seems to be enjoying herself. The class feels great—calming and slow—and I make a mental note to grab a schedule on the way out.

In
savasana
, we lie on our backs. Maya sprays a lavender mist around our heads, and my limbs sink heavily into my mat. She asks us to set an intention for the rest of our day. I close my eyes and think about the people I've been watching in the mirror, the middle-aged women with frizzy hair and baggy T-shirts, a few rugged men lightheartedly grunting as they attempted to touch their toes. I wonder what their lives are like, if this is their Saturday-morning routine. Breakfast. Yoga. A trip downstairs for supplies to finish a project around the house.

There's an unpleasant fluttering in my chest—I'm jealous. There's a part of me that would give anything for every Saturday to be like this one. I know it sounds absurd, and if I ever said it out loud I'd be immediately branded as ungrateful. A lot of people—my whole family, Terry, even my friends—have made sacrifices over the years so that I could be where I am today. And “where I am today,” most days, feels like on top of the world. What kind of a person would throw all that away for tie-dye and a chore list? I breathe deeply, trying to reclaim the temporary peace I'd found, but it seems I've already lost it.

There's shuffling beside me and I look up to see Sammy rolling her mat. She holds a finger to her lips and nods to Tess across the room. She's still sprawled out on the ground, and I can tell by the steady rise and fall of her chest, the heavy, outward tilt of her feet, that she's sleeping.

“Well, that sucked,” Tess grumbles, her yoga mat folded sloppily under her arm.

Across the street from the yoga studio is Fresh, a vegan café. We're staring at the chalkboard menu, deciding between shots of wheatgrass and house-brewed kombucha.

“Yeah, you looked like you were really struggling,”
Sammy jokes, closing her eyes and lolling her head to one side, before breaking out in a fake snore.

“My point exactly. If I wanted to pay fifteen dollars to take a nap I could have gone to the movies. I don't need a guru for that.”

Tess leans her mat against the counter and pushes in front of us to squint at the menu. As she's looking, the line shifts and I see that Maya, our serenely smiling instructor, has walked in behind us. She greets a few familiar faces and falls into line.

“Fire cider?” Tess asks, making a face. “Kombucha? Is it a requirement for there to be at least one insufferable hippie establishment within a hundred feet of every yoga studio on the planet?”

I clear my throat as Sammy looks pointedly over Tess's shoulder. “What?” Tess asks. She turns around and Maya wiggles her fingers in a teasing wave.

Tess's face, still pink from the heat of the studio, flushes an even deeper crimson. “Oh,” she says. “Hey. I didn't mean . . .”

“No, it's a really good question.” Maya nods, a spirited sparkle in her big green eyes. “I'll have to take it up with my
guru
.”

Sammy and I laugh while Tess fidgets uncomfortably. It's not very often that she's put on the receiving end of this kind of banter, and it's entertaining to watch.

“I'm only teasing,” Maya says, touching Tess lightly on the shoulder. “But you really should try the fire cider. It's life-changing.”

As a peace offering, I insist on treating Maya to a cider shot, and she suggests that I get a round for the rest of us, too.

“What's in it?” Sammy asks as the barista hands over the squat glasses. She leans in and crinkles her nose at the pungent smell.

“It's vinegar infused with horseradish and a bunch of other stuff,” Maya explains. “It's like a power-washing for your insides.”

“And that's a good thing?” Tess asks quietly, clearly still recovering from the taste of her own foot in her mouth.

Maya smiles. “It's never a bad idea to start over,” she says, holding up her shot glass. It may be something in her eye, but I swear she winks at me as we clink glasses. For a paranoid second, I wonder if she was actually reading my mind in class.

We knock back our ciders—it's like a mix between mouthwash and a Bloody Mary, in a not entirely unpleasant way—and say good-bye to Maya, promising to come back to class next weekend.

There's a small corner table in the back of the café and I duck toward it. A freckled girl with pigtails stops
me on the way to ask for a photo, and I oblige. It's only happened a handful of times since we've been here, and everyone has been so polite that I haven't minded, but today, it gives me a little shock. It's been amazingly easy to forget that I'm famous. I sort of expect that everyone else has forgotten, too.

“What's up?” Tess asks, apparently reading a new shadow on my face.

“I just don't know what the point is anymore.” I sigh, nibbling at the corner of my sunflower seed muffin.

“The point of what?” Sam asks.

“Why am I even trying to pretend like I can escape?” I ask. “Everyone in this room knows that I've just had my heart broken. If they're not talking about it, they're thinking about it. And we're on an island with no chain restaurants and a video rental store that still carries
actual
videos. Do you have any idea how messed up that feels?”

Sammy opens her mouth and I know she's going to say something to cheer me up, the way she always does, but I keep talking. It feels like if I don't get it all out, the way I've been feeling, the uneasy sensation in my chest might get stuck, swelling and spreading until it crushes me completely.

“I'm so sick of the drama. And I hate that everyone expects me to roll over and turn every crappy thing that happens to me into a song. What if I don't want to write
about getting my heart broken for the fifteenth time? What if I don't want to write a love song at all?”

We're all quiet for a few moments, until Sammy clears her throat. “Are you saying you want to stop singing?”

“No,” I huff. “I just wish I could figure out a way to write about something that isn't Jed.”

“So do it,” Tess says simply. She's always doing this, making me feel like I'm overcomplicating things, like if I didn't spend so much time in my head, if I could get out of my own way, everything would be so much easier. I watch her stir sugar into her coffee. I watch Sammy break her scone into tiny, uniform pieces. I feel a sudden, empty sadness. These are my best friends, the people who know me better than anyone else in the universe. If they don't understand how hard this is, how can I ever expect anyone else to?

My phone buzzes on the table. I lean over to glance at the caller ID. Tess and Sammy do, too. It's Jed.

My stomach drops, and I snatch the phone up. “Don't answer it,” Sammy blurts.

It's the first time he's called since I left. The first time that I know about, anyway. I received the FedExed phone from Terry almost immediately, but I waited a day before activating it, and now I can't stop staring at it, willing every vibrating alert to mean a message from Jed. I quickly scan my memory of his schedule,
wondering where he is. London? Spain? What time is it there? Is he alone?

“She's right,” Tess says. “What could he possibly say that would make you feel better?”

I think about it, my fingers clutching the phone's smooth sides. Even if he says he was wrong, that he's made a mistake, he wants me back, it won't change the fact that he talked to the press and made me look like a whiny, needy, lovesick little girl.

I drop the phone and watch as it shudders across the table. It finally stops its tortuous buzzing and we wait to see if he leaves a message. The screen goes dark. He doesn't.

I swallow, my jaw clenched, a throbbing pressure behind my eyes. Every part of me wishes I could hear his voice, ask him about his shows, tell him all about the island and how much he'd love it. It's like my brain has been reprogrammed, but my body, my heart, are still stuck. Even after the way things ended, all I can think about is the way we used to be, a time—not so long ago—when my days weren't complete until I shared them with him. There's a tiny part of me that feels like this whole thing is truly just vacation, and when I get back to New York, I'll return to my old life, my old routine. And Jed.

I feel Sammy's and Tess's eyes on me as I stare at the phone. Tess pulls her own out of her pocket and checks
the time. “We're late,” she says quickly, heading outside as she makes a call.

I glance up at Sammy. “Late?” I ask. “Late for what?”

Sammy stands, gathering our plates. “Didn't she tell you?” she asks, glancing through the wall of windows. Outside, Tess paces a stretch of the sidewalk, smiling into the phone. “She ran into a bunch of guys she used to hang out with. They offered to take us fishing.”

“Guys?” I ask suspiciously. “What guys? When?”

Sammy shrugs. “At the bar the other night. Some guys she used to play with when she was little. They seemed nice. I thought she told you.” She walks briskly toward the trash.

“No, she didn't tell me,” I say, hurrying to catch up. “I'm pretty sure I'd remember hearing about a post-yoga fishing date. Nice try.”

Sammy smiles sheepishly. “Tess thought you wouldn't go unless we bribed you with snacks,” she says, tossing the rest of my muffin into the compost bin.

I can't help but laugh. They may not understand every aspect of what I do, the impossible balance of life and career—but they know
me
. We walk outside and I stop short in front of the big window. “I haven't showered,” I say, catching sight of my reflection. My hair is flat and sweaty, the straps of my halter are twisted in the back.
“I'm supposed to wear this?”

“You're the one who wants to be normal,” Tess says, linking her arm in mine as she drags me toward the car.

“Hop in,” she orders. “I'm driving.”