“Good,” I said, resisting the urge to wipe my sweaty fingers on my jeans, determined to put my best foot forward.

She gave me a short once-over with her eyes, gray-flecked and serious. Then she smiled. “Let’s meet the girls, shall we?”

I FOLLOWED MARSHA’S tousled red head down a maze of corridors until we reached a door with a long, rectangular window. “Here we are,” she said, twisting the knob and revealing three girls seated in various stages of boredom around a conference table. There was a warbling voice that I realized was not emanating from any of them but streaming from a shoebox-size cassette player.

Three faces turned toward me, all blank in expression. The girl in the middle, with ice-blue eyes, stopped the tape and gave me a small hopeful grin.

“This is Meredith,” Marsha said, as ice-blue waved a hand. “Yumiko, Rose.”

Yumiko half-stood from her chair and reached out a hand without changing expression. I put a hand out as well and shook it. “Usually people call me Yumi,” she said with a touch of warmth, then sat back down again. Her voice was soft and wispy.

Rose, however, did not move. Her hands remained clasped on the table and her back was rod-straight.

“Well,” said Marsha. “Girls, Cassidy’s vocals suit what we’re looking for, so I think that she’s a good fit. I’ll just leave you four in here so you can get to know one another. Buzz if you need anything.” She closed the door behind her.

I pulled out a seat. We stared at one another.

Yumiko was one of the most naturally beautiful women I had ever seen. Long, black hair framed a delicate oval face. Her brown eyes were slightly far apart, giving her a sly, cattish sort of look, and a long flat nose led to a perfect cupid’s bow on a small mouth. When she’d stood up for our handshake, I’d noticed she was an hourglass of curves, clad in a shiny metallic jacket and shimmering dark jeans.

If Yumiko was warm-toned, Meredith was the complete opposite: blond curls and pale white skin, offset by berry lips. She wore a cropped tank top and bleached jeans with enough space between the two that it was apparent she was the most confident of the three about her body. She wore her skin like it was an expensive coat that she took for granted. I’d known girls like her in middle school—while the rest of us worried about our early-blooming breasts or sudden six-inch growth spurt that left our legs looking like sticks, she was the one that puberty was kind to, sharpening the childish angles of her face, growing hips gradually instead of overnight. The ones who were cheerleaders, the ones the sixth-graders worshipped.

Rose’s eye contact was unnerving. She was petite—Edie’s size, maybe—but her small body was coiled tight. One Doc Martens–enclosed foot tapped against the chair leg, unable to reach the ground. Aside from a fairly unremarkable face, which reminded me of a gerbil with its long dark lashes and tiny pointed nose, I realized it wasn’t just her staring that immobilized me. It was her unblinking eyes: one was brown, the other blue.

I suddenly found my voice. “So . . . hi. I’m Cassidy.”

“Don’t get too comfortable, Cassidy,” Rose declared in a soft, clipped tone. “We’ve been interviewing dozens of girls.” She gestured to the tape player, which I gathered had been playing their other choices before I’d walked into the room. Seems like my parents didn’t have much to worry about, after all.

“Rose, do you always have to be nasty to every new person we meet?” chided Meredith. Her attention swiveled to me. “We saw you on TV. You were good.”

My mouth involuntarily lifted in one corner. “Thanks.”

“Not that we regularly tuned into that show, but Marsha sent us clips when she wanted to throw your name in.”

“Thank you,” I repeated. “Um . . . so what is your band?”

“We’re from San Francisco. Well, not actually San Francisco, but the Bay Area?” Meredith said.

“We, minus one person,” said Yumiko.

“We got this deal here,” Meredith said, in my direction, “but our fourth—Viv—had to back out unexpectedly. But the group just doesn’t sound right with only three people, you know? It’s, like, unbalanced.”

“Why did she leave?” I asked, while also wondering if maybe I shouldn’t ask.

“None of your business,” Rose said, flint in her voice. She hadn’t shifted position, hadn’t moved her arms from that clasped position on the tabletop. But her foot continued to skitter against the chair leg.

Admonished, I looked down at my hands. Long fingers, pink nail beds. I had a flash of the last time I was in Los Angeles, of that boy whose hands I’d looked at before he went onstage. Stephen St. James. This was his label. He might have sat in this room. He might be in the building right now. The sudden thought streaked across my mind before I remembered why I was there.

“Oh. Sorry,” I murmured.

“Anyway,” Yumiko said brightly, trying to change the subject, “we’re also figuring out a new manager. We’re all up in the air but hopefully we’ll get it all figured out soon.”

I nodded. Yumiko continued, “Why don’t you do a quick song with us? Just so we know how it’ll feel? We’ll do ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’”

I took a moment to warm up—after the plane ride, my throat felt a little tight. I could feel Rose’s withering stare. Merry flipped the cassette over and hit RECORD on the tape player.

As I launched my voice, the other girls chimed in. It felt electric, like everything just slid right into place. Merry’s alto tones were deep and fluid, and I could hear the soft, lifting vibrations of Yumiko’s soprano.

We let the song taper off, but there was no doubt that we all felt the mood shift of the room.

“Let’s try another one,” Merry said. It was even better than the lullaby. The silence afterward was so thoughtful that Merry forgot to stop recording, and Yumiko had to lean over and hit the button for her.

They were both smiling. Even Rose tilted her head, regarding me with a new look.

“Did you do much performing before the show?” asked Yumiko. “Just wondering how you lucked into all this.”

“I’ve taken singing lessons since I was a kid and done some school musicals . . . but Sing It was the biggest thing I’ve done so far,” I admitted.

“But you sent in demos and stuff, right? The typical hungry-artist thing?” Merry asked.

“Not really . . .”

“Hold on,” Rose said, and leaned forward on both elbows. “Are you telling me that you only just realized last year while on that singing show that you wanted to be serious about it?”

I was suddenly ashamed that I hadn’t tried even harder, that summer or any of the summers before.

“Damn.” Rose slapped her palms down on the conference table with a resounding thud. “We worked for every inch that we could gain and now here you are, fresh off the televised mayhem, waltzing in for a spot. Ridiculous.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. A beat; the room darkened as a cloud shifted under the sun. Rose caught herself and intertwined her fingers together, bent her head forward as if she were praying. She breathed in and out. The other two girls seemed to understand that Rose was making a decision. They kept their mouths shut and just watched. “You’re good,” she said finally. “You have to be serious, okay? You have to be serious, because we are serious.”

We’d been in this room for less than twenty minutes and I didn’t know these girls at all, but I could sense the lingering sweetness of our harmony, like a perfume hovering in the air. I knew we could do great things. I looked into her mismatched eyes and nodded. “I am.”

She nodded her head toward the door, dismissing me. “We’ll let you know.”

4.

Thursday

Yumi

What’s this one called?” Rose said, feet drawn up onto the couch and gesturing with one hand. Her orange-colored drink wobbled perilously close to the lip of the glass. I’d considered mimosas for the early hour, but thought it was too festive a drink to serve the day after learning our friend had died. I’d tucked the booze away before guests arrived, but as soon as Rose came in she asked where the vodka was. She was drinking a screwdriver, light on the orange juice, heavy on the vodka.

I wrenched my eyes away from her drink and looked at the painting. It was oversize, fit into an overwrought gilded frame, and hung opposite the couch. I took a gulp of my own drink to soften the memory. “Something about a storm on the sea. He was obsessed with buying fancy paintings for me and he came home saying it was by Rembrandt.”

“You think it’s a fake, though?” She quirked an eyebrow, looking at it some more.

“It has to be. But I liked the energy of it and he gave it to me.”

“Just like that—gave it to you? Even after all that mess?”