Everybody Knows Your Name

PRAISE FOR
EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME

“This book is like your favorite reality show come to life on the page. Andrea Seigel brings her patented wounded angel
noir
vibe and fuses it with Brent Bradshaw's blunt pathos. Together their voices pack a pretty punch. It's a sexy, funny, and poetic book about reconciling your dreams of the future with the drama of your past. I loved it.”

—Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, co-screenwriter of
Legally Blonde
and
10 Things I Hate About You

“Funny, entertaining, and above all, honest,
Everybody Knows Your Name
examines the trials and tribulations of ‘reality' TV, instant fame, first love, and finding out who you are . . . especially when the cameras stop rolling.”

—Elizabeth Eulbe.rg, author of
The Lonely Hearts Club

“A fun and fast-paced novel for music fans or readers looking for a rock and roll reality romance.”

—Dana Reinhardt, author of
We Are the Goldens

“You'll fall hard for these characters. If you're looking for the humor, wit, and heart behind ‘reality' TV, it's here in this book.”

—Melissa Walker, author of
Unbreak My Heart

“The best voice I've read in years. This is a razor-sharp, hilarious, and surprisingly sexy tale of life in front of the L.A. lens. Read it immediately.”

—Rebecca Serle, author of
Famous in Love

VIKING

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First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2015

Copyright © 2015 by Andrea Seigel and Brent Bradshaw

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Seigel, Andrea.

Everybody knows your name / by Andrea Seigel and Brent Bradshaw.

pages cm

Summary: “Teenagers Magnolia and Ford unexpectedly fall in love as they share a mansion in the Hollywood Hills and compete on a reality TV singing competition”—Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-101-63162-1

[1. Reality television programs—Fiction. 2. Singing—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction. 4. Family problems—Fiction. 5. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Bradshaw, Brent. II. Title.

PZ7.S4562Eve 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014024548

Dedicated to

When you're a teenager, everybody tells you you're going to change. They say,
Oh, sure, maybe you like that stupid singer and that stupid outfit right now, but someday you're going to look back and think, “What?”

But then, when you get older, it seems like everybody says you
can't
change, like you've gotten stuck. It becomes too late. Your personality has run into a wall or something. And that's why there are so many divorces.

Anyway, I don't know at what age you can't change anymore, but I'm only seventeen, so I want to believe it's possible that I could turn into someone who's going to be good on this show.

We're supposed to be staying in a mansion in the valley, but last night LA had a freak rainstorm, and all the mansion's skylights leaked. The producers called us this morning to say, “The carpets are soaked, so we're going to put the contestants up in a hotel until we get this sorted out,” and my mom said to them, “Really, there's carpet? In the mansion?” She was expecting white marble floors or something. I told her that I was sure the carpet would be nice and fine once it was dry, just to get her off the phone—she loves talking to the producers.

Even though it's still sprinkling, it only took us an hour to get to the hotel, because we live in Orange County and we left after the traffic. Lights are on in every few rooms of a modern gray rectangle on a corner downtown. They make the hotel look like it's trying to send out some secret code. We drive up to the valet, whose blond ponytail is as high and tight as my mom's, and for a second it almost seems like the two of them are eyeing each other competitively. She hands him the keys.

“It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow,” he says.

“That's a relief,” she tells him, and puts up her umbrella for both of us to get under.

Inside the lobby there's a DJ with his eyes shut standing behind a huge turntable, playing some pretty loud music for girls who are sitting on the dark pink lounge chairs. It's Monday night around eight, so he doesn't have much of an audience. The song he's got on sounds like what would come out of fish if you could capture the sounds of their mouths opening and shutting underwater.

I watch my mom taking in the lobby, and you can see all over her face how happy she is to be there. Some things about her make her seem younger than forty, like the trendy jumpsuit she's wearing and the twenty thin rings stacked on her fingers and that ponytail and the excitement in her eyes.

But then the weird thing is that the exact same things can make her seem older than forty when you take them all in together.

At the reservation desk she says, “I think it should be under her name: Magnolia Anderson? I'm the mom.” She leans forward a little. “We're with
Spotlight
.”

The clerk looks from his computer screen to me, and smiles for the first time. “Our manager briefed everyone on the cast visit. Congratulations. You must be excited.”

“Can't wait to get started,” I say. My mom believes in the Secret, that you can manifest things just by saying them about yourself. I think that's beyond cuckoo. For me, it's like
coooooooo-kooooooo
. But I am eager to get started so I don't have to wait anymore to find out if I'm going to change.

“Just don't show your nerves,” he says. “People get very uncomfortable watching people who can't handle themselves. If you get distractingly nervous, just imagine everyone naked.”

The show is going to be on TV, so that's a lot of people. “Everyone in America?”

He makes a face. “Well, let's not torture ourselves. Maybe only the thin, good-looking ones.”

I've heard this naked idea before in my life, but I've never seriously had to consider it.

“But you don't think it's even more nerve-wracking to make yourself imagine that the whole country has suddenly turned into a nudist colony?” I wonder out loud. “Isn't that kind of a threatening mental image? To think that everyone isn't just staring at you, but they've also got out their—”

“Okay,” my mom interrupts, smiling at the clerk. “Let's not overthink it, my love.”

“Maybe you should just get her some Xanax, Mom,” the clerk jokes as he goes back to encoding our room key cards. He asks me, “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen, oh yeah. Now's the time you want to learn how to go through life without being so neurotic, or it will catch up with you. I have friends who are so, so neurotic. They're messes.”

“You think I'm neurotic?” I ask.

“When Magnolia sings,” my mom butts in again so that this guy doesn't have to answer my question, “she completely gets out of her own head. It's pure. You're going to be so moved that you won't be able to stop yourself from picking up the phone to vote for her.”

“I have a TV, but I only watch films on it,” the clerk says, handing over our key cards. “But I'm sure that's true.”