As if summoned at the perfect moment, Jerome placed our dishes in front of us. I ate as slowly as I could with half-bites to make the food last longer, and I noticed the rest of the table did the same, picking gently at plates and eating around any oil spots. Only Emma Jake ate with gusto.

When the check arrived, Emma said, “Cassidy, dear, please stay a moment.” The others excused themselves and I waited, wondering what Emma wanted to tell me alone.

“Listen, sweetheart.” She straightened up after signing the check with a flourish. “I can see you’re going to have a little bear of a time with Rose. It’s not easy being the odd one out, but I know you are good for the group. Rose is very headstrong and she’s in it for the long haul. Be careful not to get hurt. I don’t think she means everything she says, but keep your guard up just in case.”

“I know,” I said. “I will.”

Emma Jake walked me to the door, patted my arm like a doting grandmother, then, to my confusion, she meandered back inside. I stepped into the sun, blinking brightly, and rejoined the others.

Lucy smiled as a shiny silver Jag was pulled forward by the valet. “Who wants to sightsee in Malibu?”

9.

May 2001

NYC

Cassidy

Would you like a drink before takeoff, Ms. Holmes?” A flight attendant hovered by my elbow. I accepted a sparkling water and glanced over at my companions in our private jet, courtesy of Big Disc for landing The Sunrise Show. Our tour manager, Ian, messed with his PalmPilot; Merry was asleep, head lolling off to one side, blond curls bobbing. Yumi was flipping through in-flight entertainment, and Rose surprised me by pulling out a Sudoku book and filling in one of the grids with a pen.

Rose saw me looking at her and a faint tint of red appeared on her cheeks. I wondered if she was still upset with me after the talk with Emma Jake. We’d barely exchanged two words after our lunch at the Ivy, not since Lucy had driven us, somewhat jerkily, toward the lowering sun. The road had gotten narrower, a little twisty. We’d popped out on the coast, and she’d made a right turn on the PCH, which ran parallel to the beach. I had sat on the right rear side, having been squashed on the edge with Yumi in the middle seat as buffer. Meredith had claimed the front passenger seat, chattering away with Lucy about boys.

We’d made it all the way to Malibu, where the Jag climbed another twisty road and stopped near a wrought-iron gate at the end of a cul-de-sac. “This totally hot A-lister lives here,” Lucy said, waggling her brows. “He won’t mind if we park in front of his house.”

We got out and stretched. It’d been at least an hour crammed into the back seat of the car. Rose walked away from all of us, facing the ocean, which we could see through a small smattering of trees among the manicured lawns. The horizon line was a gray smudge in the distance, perfectly bisecting the sky and water.

Meredith whistled. “Gorgeous. I’m going to have to buy a place over here.”

“It’s prettier down by the water, but if you’ve never seen the houses up here, you don’t know what you’ve missed out on coveting.” Lucy laughed.

“You don’t live out here?” Yumi said, sounding surprised.

“Ha! I wish. I’m still a minor, remember? I live with my parents in a boring old ranch house in Sherman Oaks. But once I’m eighteen . . .” She clapped her hands together forcefully. “I’m going to buy myself a nice birthday present with a pretty chunk of my Jet-Setters money.”

Rose, I noticed, kept her distance. Yumi stood next to me and murmured, “Ignore her. She’s in one of her moods.”

“I don’t get her,” I said fiercely.

Yumi touched my elbow. “I’ll explain later, okay?”

Lucy was still waxing poetic about real estate as Meredith loudly agreed. We returned to the car, drove down to the beach, and began to dig our heels into the sand with wind whipping our hair. Yumi motioned me over to her. She glanced over at the other girls, but with the wind they wouldn’t be able to hear us anyway. “I wish you’d be a little more patient with Rose,” she began. She held up a hand when I started to protest. “It’s still hard on her that Viv isn’t with us.”

“Oh.” I looked at Rose, who hadn’t joined us down on the strip of beach. She was still leaning against Lucy’s car. I had so many questions, but could never bring up Vivian without feeling like I was intruding on something personal. “What’s she like?”

“Beautiful voice. Same register as yours, but different. And pretty. In an unconventional way.” Yumi touched her cheek with a finger, remembering. “Dark hair, curly, kinda wild. We all kind of grew up together, but Rose and Viv knew each other the longest. It was Rose’s idea that we become a singing group. She saw a music video on MTV and decided we should do that.” She smiled. “Rose said it was important that we blend. That none of us overpowered the other. We were all equals in the group, she said.” She was hugging herself against the wind.

“And then what?” I asked.

“We were pretty good. I mean, without a band, singing along to karaoke a lot. We made a tape of ourselves singing a blended version of different covers and sent them to a bunch of companies. Big Disc actually wrote back.”

I was quiet, looking out into the endless surf. Light danced on the waves.

“The company invited us to come in and sing. They really liked us. Said we had p-potential,” Yumi stuttered, and I realized she was crying. “They wanted to add a fifth voice in; said we’d sound even better. Rose said no, that it was the four of us and that’s it. We went home. I loved that she stood up for the integrity of our group. Then Viv got sick.” She swallowed hard. “She was feeling really low energy for a while, had these headaches. She went to the doctor and they ran tests. Cancer. It was her idea that we go to Big Disc and say okay to their terms, because she knew she’d be replaced anyway. That’s when you came in.”

No wonder Rose was so callous. She was expecting one of her best friends of the last ten years there, and instead saw a stranger. A stranger who usurped Vivian’s place that she had worked so hard to create.

“It’s not you, Cassidy,” Yumi said, dabbing at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “She doesn’t mean to be cruel. Please be patient with her.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” I was mortified, having harbored so many ill feelings toward Rose during the past months. “I have all this resentment—and so does she—and I would’ve been more understanding . . .”

“I guess I thought she’d settle down and you’d get along. But you were kind of clueless, and she’s still upset . . . so yeah. I figured I should probably tell you so you could tread more carefully around her.” She smiled a shaky smile. “She’s a bitch, but a bitch for a good reason.”

A shout warbled across the sound of the waves. Meredith was waving us back.

“Just try, okay?” Yumi said, and held her hand out for me. I twined my fingers into hers as we made our way across the sand.

THE FIRST EXHILARATING, live television performance of “Wake Up Morning” began its rounds on the Sing It finale, to much applause, but The Sunrise Show would be the real test—its live audience consisted of Sunrise fans, not Sing It ones.

With a rumble, the cabin door closed and, before I knew it, the world below us miniaturized, fell away, partially hidden under wisps of clouds. Rose was halfway through her inked grid before a drink materialized on her foldout table.

“What’s on your mind, Cassidy?” Ian asked.

He sat sideways in his seat with his long legs swiveled out toward the aisle, scribbling in the margins of a sheaf of papers. Barrel-chested and tall, with a default scowl on his face, Ian was intimidating at first, but we soon saw his softer side. He always asked if we had any requests when he managed the tour schedule, even though we knew that Peter had locked down every possible minute of our time.

“I thought that was already finalized,” I said, noticing that the top page was a calendar grid. Every available space was jammed with tiny print.

“Peter wants another radio spot. Gotta add it in.” After a beat of silence, he looked up at me, making eye contact. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking about all the stuff that we’re going to do. I’m kind of anxious about The Sunrise Show.”

“But you’ve been on TV before?” He said it like a question, even though he was well versed in my Sing It experience. Eyes back down on his makeshift office, pencil working. Even Ian wasn’t capable of filling out a grid in ink! My begrudging admiration for Rose grew.

“Yeah, but . . . that was singing. I can sing.” I stated this matter-of-factly. I might have been insecure about many things, but my voice was not one of them. “But what if Melina Vaclavik asks me a question and I give a silly answer? At least on Sing It if I was being interviewed, it was taped so I could start over if I messed up.”

“So don’t mess up.”

“I’m not good under pressure.”