“Again,” said Sven, and we moved on. Forty-five minutes later, we were changed back into street clothes and pulling off our fake eyelashes in the car, where no one said a word during the drive back. It was so quiet that I didn’t even try to eat the apple I found rolling along the floorboard in the backseat.
But what I said to Alex was a little less depressing. “I was in this sequined jumpsuit that I had no business being in—like seriously, my butt was like two giant disco balls, and no one needs two disco balls.”
“It sounds very eye-catching,” Alex teased.
“The clothes were all awful. And they put Yumiko in all black, with flat-ironed hair. She looked like a goth. It made no sense why Meredith and I were in these shiny clothes and she was stuck in the back.”
“Maybe once the cover comes out it will be more obvious,” he said, trying to sound positive. “Maybe the clothes look bad in real life but great on film.”
“Maybe.” Alex was such an optimist, always seeing the best possible outcome. I wasn’t so sure. I thought about how the stylist ignored Yumiko when she asked about her shoes. “She does have the most beautiful face. They probably put her in black so she wouldn’t overshadow the rest of us.”
“There you go,” he said quickly. I didn’t know what else to say after that, and we both grew quiet.
The last wash of orange skimmed along the edge of the adjacent building, sliding below and out of sight within minutes.
“What ya doing?” Alex asked, when the pause had gone on for a minute.
“Just watching the sun go down. It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time.”
“How does a California sunset compare to a Texas one?”
“It’s different. It’s—I don’t know—brighter?” Texas sunsets are warm and the golden light soaks into treetops and long grass. They herald cicadas before the mosquitoes. This one was almost frosted in comparison. “The view here is terrible though. I’m sitting on my apartment landing. I wish I could’ve seen this from a tourist spot. Maybe see the Hollywood sign all glowed up.”
“There’s so much I miss about Texas,” he said. “The sunsets here suck. The blue lasts forever.”
When I walked back into the kitchen, dusting off the backs of my shorts, I found Yumiko at the plain IKEA table. She cupped a ceramic mug and flipped pages of an aged teen magazine. I could hear the low murmuring of Rose holding a conversation behind another wall. Without tearing her gaze from the dog-eared leaves, Yumiko asked, “Good talk with your friend?”
“Yeah, um, fine.” There was an uncomfortable beat of silence.
She turned another page. “Peter called. We have to go out and mingle again. Let the ‘people know about us.’” She spoke in what was supposed to be Peter’s voice.
I opened the fridge and leaned in to look. Apples, lettuce, skim milk. Meredith had an annoying habit of eating a few bites of something, then leaving the plate and utensil in the fridge and forgetting about it. A withered salad was turning into sludge on the middle shelf. I closed it without taking anything, and then our eyes met.
“Hot tea helps,” she said, lifting her mug off the table in a tiny salute. “It kinda . . . coats your insides, makes you feel like maybe there’s something in there.”
I leaned against the fridge. “I’m so hungry,” I confessed.
“I bought two kinds. Feel free. Kettle’s on the stove.” She turned her attention back to the magazine.
“Thanks.” I flipped the burner on and found a cup. I wanted to feel zen about this diet. If I leaned into it more, maybe I wouldn’t hate it as much. If I made it into a competition with myself . . .
Yumiko snapped her magazine closed and lifted her eyes to mine. “The walls here are thin,” she said. “Rose is probably talking to Viv again.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I knew nothing about the girl I’d replaced. Yumiko studied me for a long moment and then took a quick drink of her cooled tea as she shoved out of the chair. The conversation seemingly over, she retreated to our room.
That night, Yumiko settled into her somewhat squeaky mattress and her deep breaths did not start immediately. “Cassidy?” she whispered, and I could tell she was facing me across the short aisle between the beds. “Are you up?”
I shifted my body weight over so I was on my back, speaking toward the ceiling. “Yeah?”
“I was just curious . . . do you feel lonely?”
My eyes were open now, focusing on the shapes and dollops of light that played across the ceiling as cars moved on the streets below. I didn’t respond.
“Isn’t it weird?” she continued, taking my silence as a yes. “We spend all this time together, and then with all of these people, but it’s like we’re not social with anyone else. It’s like we’re in a bubble.”
“Yeah, I know,” I murmured.
Her springs squeaked again and she resettled herself on the bed. I stole a glance at the lump beside me in the dark. Yumiko was on her side, facing me, her legs balled up under the blanket. I could see the glitter of her eyes from several feet away.
“This must be hard for you,” she whispered. “I’m with my best friends here, but yours aren’t around. Cass, don’t be afraid to become our friend too.”
From then on, Yumiko and I continued soft conversations in the dark. It was easier for us to share anecdotes and thoughts when the lamps were off and the words could breeze across the room, light and fluttering, like autumn leaves drifting from branches.
6.
January 2001
Southwest Leg of the Mall Tour
Cassidy
Texas blurred by in a bright gray-and-yellow carousel outside the bus window. Meredith sat next to me in the back of the bus, rhythmically flicking the ends of her hair with a thumb.
Yumi snapped, “Can you stop?”
Meredith rolled her eyes but released her hair without saying anything.
We’d been traveling for a few weeks now—since the holidays—on a mall tour, and at last we had returned to my home state. I’d been excited to show off Houston but it’s nothing to note in January: cold, gray, with excessive amounts of plastic bags that blow around in the wind. We had visited one mall and then moved on without staying a night. The only positive was that Mom brought Melanie and Katie to the performance, grinning and proud, and I was able to let them hang out with us on the bus for a few minutes before we had to leave for Dallas. The twins had acted as if it was the coolest adventure in the world.
Our mother, while interested in the bus, pulled me aside as the twins picked through my show costumes. “Are they feeding you enough?” she whispered in a concerned tone, plucking at my forearm. “You’ve lost so much weight.”
“We’re fine, Mom,” I said placatingly. “Touring is just very energy-consuming. We dance a lot and have rehearsals on top of that.” When she didn’t look convinced, I lied and said, “We even have a nutritionist on call. Seriously, don’t worry.”
The truth was, over the weeks, not eating had become easier than actually eating. The more praise Peter heaped on me for losing weight, the better I felt about the diet. This was one thing I could do well, one thing I could control.
Because the rest was out of my hands. Peter planned everything: he had us following a crooked line across the southern United States, touring malls every day of the week. It was low-budget but respectable, with a small stage set up like a kiosk near the food court, and we’d perform four songs from the album, dance a choreographed routine, sign photos, break everything down, and move on to the next mall. We’d shuffle the Midwest a little bit, then hop back to California to shoot our first music video for “Wake Up Morning,” and debut our single on the radio.
Even though we knew the tour, the bus, the small entourage, and the managers were taking precious dollars out of Gloss’s record deal, everything felt very inexpensive. Peter was in talks with a director for the music video, who described his vision as “charming”—which probably meant we’d be wearing ten-dollar sundresses from Walmart while we lip-synced.
“We’ll take a second tour out to New York if the first is successful,” Peter had promised. “Likely with nicer buses.”
“Or a plane,” Rose had muttered.
The bus didn’t bother me too much, but tensions were running high while we were confined for hours at a time. At the apartment, we could at least retreat to our own bedrooms; here, we could only duck into our bunks for semi-solitude. Rigid privacy curtains closed off the triple-bunked beds from passersby in the aisle and blocked out light, but not sound. Anything that could be flung around in a sharp turn was belted down with Velcro or in a pocket attached to the walls. This is where I kept my cell phone, which had become my lifeline to the outside world. Meredith showed me how to send text messages—since real conversations were often drowned out by both road noise and loud conversation—by pressing numbers multiple times until the correct letter appeared on the screen.