I feel exactly the same way. You couldn’t pay me to get up and sing in front of a bunch of strangers. Or non-strangers, for that matter. Fortuna Beach isn’t a big town, and it’s impossible to go anywhere without running into someone you sort of know. Even now, glancing around, I notice my mom’s hairstylist at the bar, and a manager from the corner grocery store at one of the small tables.
Ari, however, is still staring at the binder. Her eyes spark with yearning.
I’ve heard Ari sing. She isn’t bad. At least, I know she can stay in key. Besides that, she wants to be a songwriter. Has dreamed of being a songwriter since she was a kid. And we all know that to have any sort of success at all, there will be times when she’s probably going to have to sing.
“You should give it a try,” I say, nudging the binder toward her.
She flinches. “I don’t know. What would I even sing?”
“Like, any song recorded in the past hundred years?” says Jude.
She gives him a look, even though it’s clear his comment pleases her. Ari loves music. All music. She’s a walking Wikipedia of everything from 1930s jazz to eighties punk to modern indie. In fact, we probably never would have met if it wasn’t for her obsession. My parents own a record store a block from Main Street, Ventures Vinyl, named after a popular surf-rock band from the sixties. Ari started shopping there when we were in middle school. The allowance her parents gave her was way more than I ever got, and every month she would bring in the money she’d saved and buy as many records as she could afford.
My parents adore Ari. They joke that she’s their sixth child. They like to say that Ari has single-handedly kept them in business these past few years, which would be charming if I wasn’t afraid that it might actually be close to the truth.
“We could duet?” says Ari, looking at me hopefully.
I bite back the instinctual and impassioned no, and instead gesture hopelessly at my textbook. “Sorry. I’m still trying to finish this paper.”
She frowns. “Jude wrote his in ten minutes. Come on. Maybe a Beatles song?” I’m not sure if she suggests this because of how much I love the Beatles, or because they’re the only band for which I could be trusted to know most of the words. Growing up around the record store, my siblings and I have been inundated with a variety of music over the years, but no one, in my parents’ eyes, will ever compete with the Beatles. They even named each of their five kids after a Beatles song—“Hey Jude,” “Dear Prudence,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Penny Lane,” and “Eleanor Rigby.”
Realizing that Ari is still waiting for a response, I sigh. “Maybe. I don’t know. I need to finish this.” As she continues flipping through the songbook, I try to return my focus to the paper.
“A Shirley Temple sounds pretty good,” says Jude. “Anyone else want one?”
“A little girly, don’t you think?” I tease.
He shrugs, sliding out of the booth. “I’m comfortable enough in my masculinity.”
“I want your cherry!” Ari calls after him.
“Hey, that’s my brother you’re hitting on.”
Jude pauses, looks at me, then Ari, then proceeds to blush bright red.
She and I both burst into laughter. Jude shakes his head and walks toward the bar. I cup my hands over my mouth to shout after him, “Yes, get some for us, too!”
He waves without looking to let me know he heard me.
We’re not supposed to cross the rail that divides the twenty-one-and-over area from the rest of the restaurant, so Jude stops at the invisible barrier to give the bartender our order.
I’m one more paragraph into the paper when Jude returns, carrying three tall glasses filled with fizzing pink soda and extra cherries in each one. Without asking, Ari takes a spoon and scoops out the cherries from both mine and Jude’s and plops them into her own glass.
“Hello, everyone, and welcome to our very first weekly karaoke night!” says Carlos, speaking into a microphone that Trish brought with her. “I’m Carlos and I run this joint. I really appreciate your business and hope you all have a fun time tonight. Don’t be shy. We’re all friends here, so come on up and give it your best! With that, I’m pleased to introduce our karaoke host, Trish Roxby.”
There’s a smattering of applause as Trish takes the mic and Carlos starts to head back to the kitchen.
“Whoa, whoa, aren’t you gonna sing?” Trish says.
Carlos turns around, eyes wide with horror. He chuckles lightly. “Maybe next week?”
“I’ll hold you to that,” says Trish.
“I said maybe,” says Carlos, retreating some more.
Trish grins at the restaurant patrons. “Hello, folks, I’m so excited to be here tonight. I know nobody ever likes to go first, so I’ll get this party started. Please do bring up those slips of paper and let me know what you wanna sing tonight, otherwise you’ll be stuck listening to me for the next three hours.”
She punches something into her machine and a guitar riff blares through the speakers—Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll.”
I try not to groan, but … come on. How am I supposed to focus on finishing this paper with that playing in the background? This is a restaurant, not a rock concert.
“So, uh, this is unexpected,” says Jude.
“I know,” says Ari, nodding appreciatively. “She’s really good.”
“Not that,” says Jude, elbowing me in the side. “Pru, look. It’s Quint.”
FOUR
My head bolts up. For a second I’m sure Jude is playing a practical joke on me. But no—there he is. Quint Erickson, loitering next to the SEAT YOURSELF sign just inside the doorway. He’s with a girl I don’t recognize—Asian, petite, with her hair tied in two messy buns behind her ears. She’s wearing denim shorts and a faded T-shirt that has a picture of Bigfoot on it with the words HIDE-AND-SEEK WORLD CHAMPION printed underneath.
Unlike Quint, who is watching Trish sing her heart out, the girl is engrossed by something on her phone.
“Whoa,” says Ari, leaning over the table and lowering her voice, even though there’s no way anyone can hear us over Trish Roxby’s guttural demand to put another coin in the jukebox, baby. “That’s Quint? The Quint?”
I frown. “What do you mean, the Quint?”
“What? He’s all you’ve talked about this year.”
A laugh escapes me, harsh and humorless. “He is not!”
“He kind of is,” says Jude. “I don’t know which of us is more excited for summer to start. You, so you won’t have to deal with him anymore, or me, so I don’t have to listen to you complain about him.”
“He’s cuter than I imagined,” says Ari.
“Oh yeah, he’s a stud,” says Jude. “Everyone loves Quint.”
“Only because his ridiculousness appeals to the lowest common denominator of society.”
Jude snorts.
“Besides”—I lower my voice—“he’s not that attractive. Those eyebrows.”
“What do you have against his eyebrows?” says Ari, looking at me as if maybe I should be ashamed for suggesting such a thing.