Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up (30 page)

Sista introduced us to the restaurant owner, a tall, muscular guy named Pete (apparently Sista and Pete grew up together, another reason why she offered to make the trip down to Rhode Island), and he treated us like family. “Any friend of Sista’s is a friend of mine,” he said with the same Southern accent. After that he brought us plate after plate of the best vegetarian food I ever imagined. Who knew spicy barbecued zucchini with chipotle black beans would be delicious?

Then, about halfway through the meal, she dropped a bomb on us
.

“Listen, guys,” she said, wiping her mouth on a napkin, “I have an idea I want to run by you. What would you say if I told you I’d like to squeeze Lemonade Mouth into the lineup of bands performing at Take Charge?”

I’d just bitten into a deep-fried artichoke and I almost coughed it up. By the sudden silence around the table, I think everybody else was just as shocked
.

“Think about it,” she continued. “I’m talking maybe a fifteen-minute set, short but sweet. I know five days ain’t a lot of notice, but it’s an important cause and I think Lemonade Mouth would be a terrific addition to the festival. I’ll help you, you help me. What do you guys say?”

I looked around. Stella’s mom set down her fork. She looked too stunned to continue eating, and I guess she was waiting to see what everyone thought. But I knew exactly what my friends were thinking—that this was a colossal opportunity for us, that taking part in this huge event would bring us much further than
APS
or
After Midnight with Chet Anders
had. The Take Charge Festival is sure to be the biggest concert event of the whole year. Sharing the stage with famous, respected acts like the Swag Hags and Fade Out 321, not to mention Sista Slash herself, would establish us as real musicians, not just a novelty act of high school protesters. There would be worldwide satellite links
and international coverage, and afterward, who knew what else? A retrospective concert album? Maybe even a documentary movie?

If ever there was a big time, this was it
.

But needless to say, the idea scared the living crap out of me. My stomach had already tightened to the size of a marble and I had to fold my hands together in case they started to shake. Everyone stayed quiet. Stella, who probably wanted this more than anybody, looked at me and then quickly back down at the table, not pushing one way or the other. Wen squeezed my shoulder. I could tell none of them were even going to try to persuade me. They were just waiting to hear what I would say
.

I think Sista Slash is a smart lady. I think she was aware of how we felt about the situation just from watching us
.

“I understand about being scared,” she said after a pause, her voice gentle, even motherly. She was looking around at everyone, but I felt sure she was actually talking to me. “I’ll let you in on a secret. When I first started out I used to panic before every show I did. I’d break out in a cold sweat like you wouldn’t believe, and it got worse as the venues I played started to get bigger. But then I decided I had something worthwhile to say and that nothing was going to stop me from saying it, especially not myself. You kids have something to
say too, something people need to hear. The truth is, up until now I’ve been wondering whether your whole all-for-one-and-one-for-all thing was just a marketing trick, but now that I’ve met you guys I can see that it isn’t. It’s real. And it’s exactly what Take Charge is meant to be all about.”

At last she turned to me and she touched my hand
.

“Olivia, hon,” she said even more gently, “you can do this. I may have trouble balancing a checkbook, but trust me, I’m an excellent judge of character, and I firmly believe that you and your friends can do whatever you set your minds to.”

I’d been staring down at the tablecloth but I looked up at her now, and in her eyes I saw that this wasn’t about her trying to convince me to do her show. I could tell that she meant what she was saying. She really did understand the kinds of feelings I go through, and she wanted to help me. Realizing this, I felt my face heat up and I had to look away again. But when she squeezed my hand, I squeezed hers back
.

The Universe really is a mystery, Daddy. Earl Decker is gone, but they say sometimes when a door closes a window opens. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. I’m told there are Take Charge posters not only all over the country but all over the world, each showing Sista Slash with her fist in the air and the slogan ACTIVISM MEANS DOING SOMETHING! IT’S YOUR WORLD! TAKE CHARGE! There’ll be
over fifty thousand people in the live audience this Saturday. Tens of millions more are going to watch across the country and around the globe, from Burbank to Boston to Brussels to Bombay
.

And Lemonade Mouth is going to be a small but real part of it
.

We’re scheduled to play four songs
.

We start at about 12:20 in the afternoon
.

I can hear your voice now. You’re telling me to stay calm. You’re saying I need to take deep breaths and find some small part of this situation to focus on instead of letting the entirety of it overwhelm me. And, Daddy, that’s what I’m doing. I’m thinking about my friends and how much this means to them. I plastered my bedroom walls with life-size printouts of faces, hundreds of strangers who are watching me even as I write this. That was Sista’s suggestion. She told me that instead of trying to pretend the audience wasn’t there, what worked for her was when she went the other way, trying to imagine that she was being watched all the time. I know it sounds crazy, but she said it made her get used to the idea and after a while it didn’t affect her as much. Every now and then I look up at the images and I imagine they’re real. I try to see them without seeing them, without catching my breath, without my hands starting to shake
.

I don’t know if it’ll work, but nothing else has, so I’m giving it a shot
.

We go on in five days
.

P.S
.

It’s a couple hours later. You’re not going to believe this, but we just heard from Jess. She called to ask Brenda for two hundred dollars, and when Brenda asked her why, she only said it was for bills. Can you believe the nerve of that woman? And Brenda says she’s actually going to give it to her! I asked her why (it’s not like we’re rolling in spare money) and she told me it’s because Jess is her daughter. I understand that, of course, but it still infuriates me. It’s obvious that Jess uses people. When I said that to Brenda she just got mad
.

“Don’t be so judgmental,” she said. “Neither of us can understand all the things she’s gone through, and anyway, her health is more of an issue than you realize.”

I was going to say something else but that last part made me stop. “What do you mean?”

Brenda sighed. She was opening cans to feed the cats at the time and she didn’t look up. “Your mother isn’t doing very well right now. Worse than normal, I mean. Her kidneys are failing and it looks like she’s got a tough fight ahead. This is serious.” She stopped what she was doing. She
turned to me. “What I’m saying, Olivia, is I don’t know how long your mother’s going to be around. Understand me? Maybe you ought to keep that in mind before you get too high and mighty about her.”

I shut my mouth. I had nothing to say to that
.

I had no idea
.

Okay, so I’m keeping it in mind now. I’m imagining my mother’s life as kind of like an iceberg, and I’m trying to picture the entire thing, not just the part I’ve seen, the part sticking out of the water. I’m working on it, but it isn’t easy. Do you have any idea what it’s like to finally get comfortable feeling mad at somebody, only to have something else happen that makes you feel bad for them? That makes you realize your own problems are nothing in comparison with theirs?

Not only is it ironic and scary, it’s infuriating
.

Man, were we ever nervous. There was no denying this was huge for us. It wasn’t a record deal, but it was still a big opportunity.

In the few days of practice leading up to the Take Charge Festival, Stella was in panic mode. “We have to get this right!” she kept saying. “We have to be better than tight! The breaks need to be super clean and we need to absolutely nail the starts and endings!”

We worked hard on our set. We’d decided to begin with “Blastoff Castaways” and then move on to “Let Us Begin,” “Street Corner of Condiment Dreams,” and “Zombietown.” I knew this whole thing was tough for Olivia, but she seemed to be holding up. I was proud of her. We were sounding good too, and I was feeling pretty okay about how we were going to do.

And then an odd thing happened with Ray Beech.

It was the middle of the afternoon during a break from practicing in Lyle’s garage, and I’d volunteered to shoot into town on my bike to grab everyone some snacks—we’d already raided Lyle’s cabinets clean of chips and other munchies, so it was time to replenish the supply. Just as I turned the corner onto the pedestrian bridge over Warren Street, I noticed Ray Beech about a block away. From over the rails of the bridge I could see him standing on the sidewalk gazing through the display window of Goldy Records, probably checking out the new Dustbin Dukes poster.

Just then I heard a voice call out, “Ray! Long time no see, buddy! How’s it going?” I recognized that voice.

Scott Pickett.

I slowed my bike, peering down from the bridge. Sure enough, there was Scott with his girlfriend, Lizzie DeLucia, about half a block closer to me but on the opposite side of the street from Ray.

I’m not going to lie. I was still having a hard time with the Scott Pickett thing. He hadn’t stopped working for my dad, so I had to keep running into him, and it was always uncomfortable. Sure, he’d helped us with the
After Midnight
show and I knew that was good and everything, but come on, after all he’d done to us in the past, all of a sudden he was supposed to be our
friend
now? We were supposed
to just forget everything? And yet everyone else seemed perfectly fine with it. They told me I was carrying the old grievance too long and that I should let it go. Even Mo.

I was trying not to make a big deal of it, but deep down it wasn’t easy for me to make the shift.

Now, in the street below me, Ray turned to see who had called to him. When he saw Scott I could tell this was some kind of an uncomfortable moment for them, because they both sort of froze for a second. Ray looked a little surprised and Scott just stood there waiting for a response. Nobody noticed me on the bridge overhead. I was close enough to Ray, though, that I could see happiness flash across his face at first, like a part of him was glad to run into his old friend. But that didn’t last. Just when I thought Ray was going to call out hello and maybe go over to talk, instead his expression went all dark and he stormed away in the opposite direction without saying a word. Only then did I notice that Scott and Lizzie were both wearing Lemonade Mouth T-shirts.

The entire incident couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, and like I said, nobody even noticed I’d seen it. It might not have seemed like a big deal either, except Scott definitely looked deflated afterward. I couldn’t hear him and Lizzie, but when they walked away they moved slowly, with Lizzie talking and Scott shaking his head and staring at the pavement. And that was it, it was over.

Still, it got me wondering. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen Ray looking like a sad little kid who’d lost a friend and didn’t know how to get him back. I remembered the morning in the high school field when everyone was helping us get ready for the
After Midnight
show, how I’d noticed him
at the top of the hill watching us from his car. Eventually Scott had seen him too and started walking up to him, but just like today, Ray had left as soon as he realized people knew he was there.

So what was that about? What could it mean?