I shake my head. “Nope. Everything’s great.”
Kat and Dylan are dramatically singing along to the Bowie song Aziza picked on the jukebox. I’m trying not to make eye contact with Tabby, who’s fortunately busy enough with her other tables that she doesn’t come by ours very often.
“Have you all been playing your instruments for forever?” I ask.
“Playing our instruments,” Kat says with a snicker.
“Kat.” Dylan shakes his head. “You’re the oldest. Be mature.”
With her fingertip, Kat draws a circle on the tabletop. “Gutter.” She points inside it. “My mind.”
“I’ve been playing bass since I was thirteen,” Dylan says. “So only a few years. Basically, I wanted to be Kim Deal. I imagine that’s how approximately eighty-five percent of people decide they want to start playing bass.”
“And I wanted to be Meg White,” Aziza says. “Minus whatever messed-up relationship she had with Jack White.”
“Weren’t they siblings?”
“No. Husband and wife, I think? And he took her last name?”
“How long have you been playing?” Dylan asks me as Kat and Chase debate the White Stripes.
I squint, as though it’ll help me remember. “About ten years?” I say, and Dylan whistles. “But it took a while for me to realize I didn’t have to just play the classics, and then I was forever changed. I bought a book of Rufus Wainwright’s music and never looked back.”
“Love him,” Dylan says.
“Guys, where’s Bette?” Aziza says.
The Bowie song stops, and the familiar opening notes of Journey’s “Separate Ways” come through the diner’s speakers. Bette stands at the jukebox with a victorious fist thrust in the air.
CHAPTER 17
SOPHIE
I CLOSE MY DANCE TEAM locker and tighten my ponytail, letting out a long, shaky breath. Montana lays her hands on my shoulders.
“You’ve got this,” she says, dark eyes boring into mine. She’s so close to my face; no one but my family and Peter has ever been close enough to see all my pores and imperfections like this. A few months ago it would have intimidated me, but now her closeness is a comfort. “We’ve been over it at least fifty times.”
I’ve spent a couple days a week at Montana’s and sometimes Liz’s—not mine, since a screaming baby makes it hard to concentrate. It makes my life feel oddly off-kilter. Carpooling to school should be normal after Peter’s insistence that we’re going to be “exactly like we’ve always been,” but it’s been marked by strange silences and Peter’s desperation to fill them with random facts about books and obscure musicians.
“What if no one likes it?” I ask Montana, who’s lifted her hands from my shoulders and is now jamming a few pins into her bun.
“Then they’re off the team.” She breaks into a smile. “Kidding, but I’m positive they will. And Liz and I will be here to back you up—if Liz can part with her fictional characters for an hour.”
On the other side of the aisle of lockers, Liz is sitting cross-legged, eyes glued to a thick book. She holds up a finger. “Five more pages.”
“Two.” Montana pauses, then adds, “And I love you.”
“Love you too,” Liz grumbles as she turns the page.
“What are you reading?” I ask, and Montana groans.
“Don’t get her started or she won’t be satisfied until you’ve read all four books
in the series—”
“Five books, with at least two more on the way,” Liz says without looking up.
“Yay, there’s more.”