Sweet Harmonies (22 page)

“
What was it, I never actually saw,”
Karina said.

“
It's a video on YouTube of you and
Ryan singing at the Town Follies,” Sam said with
excitement.

“
Oh, right,” Karina said dismissively,
heading into the kitchen and motioning for Sam to follow her,
“Bernie sent me a link to it earlier. I haven't watched it yet. Is
it good? More importantly, care for some wine?”

“
Yes on both counts,” Sam replied, “But
the surprising thing about the video is not the quality, it's the
popularity.”

“
Oh, people like it?” Karina asked her
voice still conversational and light, not realizing the importance
of the message Sam was trying to convey. “That’s cool.”

Just then, Sam's phone trilled and she hit
the button to answer it, bringing it up to her ear, “Hey, girl!
Yes, she's here, she's fine...She was on a date...No, he's not
here, I waited until he left, give me a little credit...What do you
mean, a track record? You know what, that's not important right
now....No, I'm still trying to tell her about the video...Well, I
don't know, let me ask her.”

Sam took the phone away from her mouth and
covered the mouthpiece with her hand, “Karina, are you happy about
the video?”

Karina looked at Sam like she was nuts and
said, “I....guess?”

Sam shook her head, exasperated, and put the
phone back to her mouth, “No, she doesn't get it, I'm going to
explain it...Yes, great, and pick up Amanda on your way....OK, love
you, see you guys soon.”

Sam clicked the button to disconnect the call
and replaced the phone in her back pocket as she accepted the glass
of wine that Karina was handing her.

“
I suppose I should just leave this
bottle out if the rest of the Fabulous Four are going to be joining
us,” Karina reasoned, setting the bottle on the counter in front of
her, “By the way, I don't think I ever got around to telling you,
so I'm glad you intuited on your own – please feel more than free
to invite other people over to my house. Mi casa es su casa and all
that.”

“
Oh, please, it's not 'people' its
Amanda and Lauren,” Sam said impatiently, “Now, on to what's
important. Do you have your laptop around?”

Karina nodded, and crossed to her kitchen
table, where her laptop was sitting among envelopes, papers, a day
planner, and other various random items associated with running a
household.

Sam took it and set it on the counter, opened
it, and called up YouTube. Into the YouTube search bar, she typed,
“Karina Black Kyle Austen Reed Ryan Perkins” and hit enter.

When the search results populated, Karina saw
a small thumbnail photo of herself standing at the mic in the Hope
Falls High School auditorium, and Ryan standing next to her with
his guitar, both of their mouths open in song. Next to the
thumbnail was the title, “Kyle Austen Reed intros Karina Black and
Ryan Perkins – Love Is the Key (new song)”

Sam maneuvered the mouse over the thumbnail
photo and clicked, bringing up the full size video, which started
playing automatically. As promised, there was Kyle Austen Reed
introducing Ryan, who walked out onstage in the small video just as
he had done a couple of days ago in real life.

Karina watched, interested, as she and Ryan
began to sing on YouTube. Of course, it was hardly a new experience
for her to watch footage of herself performing, but this was a bit
new. She had obviously never seen any interactions between herself
and Ryan from an outsider's point of view, and she had to admit,
there was a palpable chemistry there that was discernible even if
you weren't one of the parties involved. Having been so wrapped up
in the experience of being inside the force and power of that
attraction, it was somewhat surreal to view it from outside.

As the song progressed, Karina found her eyes
wandering the rest of the page. Almost immediately, they alighted
on the number of views the video had received.

“
Wait a second,” she said, taken aback
and pointing at the figure, “Does that say...”

“
Yep,” Sam said, satisfied that now
Karina was beginning to get the point, “It does say. It says one
million views. It also says over 100,000 likes, and thousands upon
thousands of comments. And it was only uploaded this
afternoon.”

Karina looked utterly bewildered. “How did
this happen?”

“
I think people can pick up on the
crazy chemistry you guys have, and they like it!”

Karina nodded, “Yeah, we do make good music
together.”

Sam rolled her eyes, “Give me a break. Watch
the sparks flying back and forth on that stage and tell me that the
only connection happening there is 'musical' in nature.”

Karina shook her head, letting that go for
the moment, “Well, tell me this. How did people even find out it
existed in the first place?”

Sam laughed, “Oh, that's easy. Kyle Austen
Reed tweeted it.”

Karina groaned, “Seriously?”

Sam nodded earnestly, “Oh, yeah, and then
your fans really picked it up and ran with it. It's been tweeted,
like, tens of thousands of times. The hashtag #LoveKey is trending
on twitter right now.”

Karina shook her head to clear it, and heard
bells pealing. She sighed, “Is that the front door or is my head
just ringing?”

Sam scampered out to the front door and
returned with Amanda and Lauren.

“
So, how's our little viral video
goddess?” Lauren asked with a knowing half-smile as she walked
in.

“
Bite me,” Karina groaned.

“
So, better than expected then,” Amanda
concluded, and the other two agreed.

“
Look,” said Lauren pragmatically, “You
hate this being out there because you don't like your personal
business being all out in the public, and this video feels
personal. But I think the way to remedy that is to try to think of
this video as a professional tool, instead of a personal
moment.”

Karina perked up, “I'm listening.”

Lauren continued, “This is exactly the kind
of music that you've wanted to do, and this video proves to the
world, and to the powers that be, that you can succeed and be
popular with this style of music. It even gets your real name out
there.”

Karina nodded, considering.

“
Why don't you look convinced?” Amanda
asked.

Karina dropped her head into her hands
miserably, “I don't know. What you guys are saying makes sense. It
just doesn't feel true emotionally. Inside, this just feels
so...complicated...I don't know.”

Karina looked pensive, and then took a deep
breath to begin speaking, finally ready to get into a deeper
analysis of her true feelings, however rare and painful that
process might be. Her friends leaned forward, focused on her
entirely, waiting with rapt attention for the next words to come
out of her mouth.

However, none of them were ever to know what
those words might have been, for at the very instant that Karina
was to begin speaking, the doorbell pealed again, causing Karina to
scream in frustration.

“
SERIOUSLY! It's like Grand Central
Station in here!” she exclaimed.

Sam hurried to the front door and returned
just a moment later, a wide grin on her face.

“
Who was it?” Karina asked.

Sam opened her mouth to answer, but instead,
a masculine voice called out expansively, “It's Kyle Austen Reed!”
as said movie star swept past Sam, his arms outstretched to
encompass the entire room.

Karina crossed her arms on the table in front
of her and dropped her head into them.

“
Go away, Kyle!” she yelled, her voice
muffled by her arms.

“
...Austen Reed,” her three friends
chorused.

“
Well, the cat is out of the bag!” Kyle
exclaimed happily, his smile making him look like he, himself, was
that cat, and had just eaten the canary.

Karina wearily lifted her head and stared at
him blankly, “I'm almost afraid to ask...”

Kyle sauntered over to Karina and wrapped his
arm around her stiff and unbending shoulders, pulling her to his
chest, “I realize this wasn't the way we would have wanted it to
come out, but you must never fear when I'm around, my sweet
Karina...”

Karina sighed, “Fine, I'll bite. Wanted what
to come out?”

Kyle spread his arms wide again, “Our
love!”

Karina scowled, “Our what?”

Kyle flung his arms even wider for additional
emphasis, and repeated even more emphatically, “Our LOVE!”

Karina began to rub her temples.

Lauren said carefully, “Perhaps if you start
from the beginning...”

Karina cut her off quickly, “No, no! Don't
start from the beginning. Limiting yourself to JUST this incident,
tell me exactly what you mean by the cat being out of the bag, re:
our love.”

Lauren smiled and shook her head wryly,
seeing where her original question could have gone awry.

“
The YouTube video of us has over two
million hits,” he said proudly.

The four women looked at each other,
puzzled.

Karina, aggrieved, said, “Dear God, there's
another one?!”

Lauren said calmly, “Kyle, why don't you show
us the video.”

“
Of course!” Kyle replied, pulling his
iPad out of his supple leather messenger bag. He flipped open the
cover and, with a few expert flicks of his fingers, had called up
the video of “Love is the Key.”

They watched for a moment, to try to spot any
differences, but, no...it was the exact same video.

“
That's a video of Karina and Ryan,”
Lauren pointed out gently, placing her hand on Kyle Austen Reed's
upper arm to try to soften the blow.

“
No, look here...” he said, mousing
over the creeping red line at the bottom of the video which tracked
its progress and dragging the endpoint back to the beginning in
order to start the video over.

When the video began again from its
inception, there indeed was Kyle Austen Reed introducing Ryan.

The four girls opened their mouths to
protest, but Kyle Austen Reed put up a finger to hold them off.
“Wait for it...” he cautioned.

At this point in the video, Ryan had finished
calling Karina to the stage and she was beginning her walk out.
When she and Kyle Austen Reed crossed on the stage, they paused,
and Kyle gave her a barely perceptible kiss on the cheek.

Kyle hit pause on the video, so that the
screen was filled with the image of he and Karina exchanging this
kiss. Flipping out the back of his iPad cover to form a triangular
stand, he set it down on the counter facing all of them, and they
stared at the image, almost mesmerized.

“
I give you...” he said dramatically,
“Kyle-ina.”

“
Oh, No...” said Karina, looking
queasy.

“
The comments on the video are quite
effusive. They can't seem to get over our overpowering chemistry,
my love. They seem quite blown away by it, in fact.”

“
Kyle, I hate to tell you this,” Sam
said kindly, “But I think the chemistry they are referring to in
the video is less about Kyle-ina and more about
Ka-Ryan-a.”

“
Enough of the name-smushing, for God's
sake, Sam!” Karina cried.

“
Portmanteaus,” Lauren put in, but when
she saw the look that Karina was giving her, she rushed to amend,
“Not that it matters!”

“
At any rate, the commenters – AKA, the
voice of the people – have spoken,” Kyle continued as if the others
had not spoken, “They overwhelmingly say how much chemistry we
have, how hot we are together. CaliGurl818 even said that seeing us
together made her blush. The cat, as I said, is officially out of
the bag. To that end, I have already contacted my PR firm and
instructed them to put out a statement saying that I have no
comment regarding our relationship status at this time.”

Lauren raised her eyebrows and said, “Don't
you need to actually be asked a question that you don't have a
comment to before you can say that you have no comment?”

Kyle patted her on the top of her head, which
because of Lauren's height, was no easy feat.

“
Dear, dear one,” Kyle said
sympathetically, as if speaking to someone whose lack of knowledge
about the way the world worked was truly pitiable, “In the business
of show, one must be a step ahead of the game at all times if one
wants to remain relevant.”

Karina, her voice strangled, said, “If you
play the 'no comment' card, that's as good as saying we're in a
relationship.”

Kyle looked pleased with himself, and Karina
grabbed a pillow from the back of one of the kitchen counter stools
and screamed into it.

Kyle rubbed her back, and said to the other
three girls, “That's my little flower, such a passionate and fiery
little filly!”

Karina raised her head from the pillow and
looked at Kyle Austen Reed with murder in her eyes.

“
OKAY!” Amanda quickly jumped in, “I
think we'd better all get out of Karina's hair before she remembers
that we're sitting in a room that has knives in it. Shall
we?”

As the group gathered their belongings and
meandered toward the front door, Amanda hugged Karina and whispered
in her ear, “Call me if you need me, OK?”

Karina nodded, and they both heard Lauren's
dry exclamation from the front door, “Amanda, you'd better hurry.
Kyle Austen Reed wants to tell us the entire story of he and
Karina's relationship, not leaving out even one tiny detail. I know
you don't want to miss the beginning.”

Karina smiled widely, “For anything wrong
you've ever done to me, you are about to be paid back for several
mind-numbing hours.”