Whitney had gotten what she wanted. And she was about to drive a nail into it.

Chapter 4

Okay, Claire was getting back on the horse. Operation Reenter the World and Prove All the Assholes Wrong was a go. After a few more ego-boosting playgroup sessions, in which the women fawned over her voice (well, except for Amara scowling at her in the corner), she scheduled an audition with a band that was looking to add a female singer. She didn’t normally spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, but she fussed over herself that morning, switching her part from left to right and then back again. She did lip trills in the shower. The subway car she got on happened to be totally empty, not because of piss or vomit or anything like that, but just through some thrilling confluence of timing, location, and luck. Claire took it as a good omen and walked from pole to pole, belting out “Killing Me Softly,” as the train rattled downtown.

She got to the studio fifteen minutes early for her appointment time and sat down to wait. A few other girls milled around, staring at a gray door from which muffled bursts of music emanated. They were all younger than her—fresh out of college and trying way too hard (one girl had put on so much eyeliner that she looked like Jack Sparrow). Claire wondered if any of them had her tour experience, if any of them had given their all both to small bars sparsely populated with mean drunks and to crowds of a thousand people enthusiastically clapping along. Had any of them rolled up their sleeves and changed a tire on the side of a Florida highway in the midst of a designated-driver shift one night while the rest of the band had been too high to do anything but stare? Did any of them know that particular magic that happened when you and a bunch of unwashed dudes had been trying and trying to finish a song and then, in one inspired moment, the perfect lyrics fell from your lips? Did any of them know what it was like to have that strange, enchanted life and screw it all up?

She shook her head, the memories tainted for her now, and glanced down at a stack of magazines on the coffee table next to her chair. Her gaze skidded across New York and landed on the newest issue of Rolling Stone. Goddammit.

There, on the Rolling Stone cover, under the headline “The Unexpected Conquerors,” stood Marcus and Marlena, entwined in an embrace. The photo was striking, vivid. Marcus wore suspenders, gray pants, and a partially undone white button-up. Marlena, her hair wild, her lips bright red and slightly parted, wore skintight, high-waisted black pants and nothing else. Marcus had his eyes locked on Marlena, but she’d turned her head toward the camera so that she stared straight at Claire, a frank, unabashed look on her face.

Claire knew that she should leave the magazine, that she should stand up and move to the other side of the room, but a sick, masochistic curiosity overtook her. Would they mention her? Or would they just pretend she had never existed? She opened the magazine, flipped to the cover story, and started to read.

For years, the members of Vagabond toiled away, not unhappily, in indie rock purgatory. They had fans numbering in the tens of thousands, a record deal with a small label, a handful of sponsorships. Most of the time, they made enough money to pay their rent. They were set for a long, solid career of quietly doing what they loved. And then they found Marlena Rodriguez.

As a ringing in her ears grew louder and louder, Claire skimmed from the writer’s description of Marlena’s vocals (she whirls between seductress, she-demon, and naif) to the story of Marlena and Marcus’s fast-blooming romance (Jones-White told Rodriguez that he realized he was in love with her at the “Idaho Eyes” music video shoot, right before the director called “Action” on the last take, and when you watch it, you can sense a tremulous intensity in their interactions). Her eyes flicked past the desultory mentions of Chuck and Diego.

Then, a few paragraphs in, she found it.

And if some of the original fans accuse the band of selling out, of trading in a certain rawness (not to mention a completely different female singer) for something more polished and poppy, the band doesn’t seem to mind. Jones-White declines to comment when I ask him about why the band moved away from their old singer and sound, except to say, “She was fine, but Marlena is fire.”

Claire stared at the page until her vision blurred, the words tattooing themselves on her brain. Then the door to the studio opened, and a young woman came strutting out, a self-satisfied smirk on her face, the guys in the audition room watching her go. One of them followed her to the door, looking at a list in his hand. “Claire Martin?” he asked.

A great lump rose in Claire’s throat, and she ducked her head down, pretending to be engrossed in the magazine, as the man repeated her name, looking around the waiting room for some response, the other auditionees shrugging their shoulders.

“Oookay,” he said, “no Claire Martin, then.” He looked back down at the list. “Anna Lee?” The Jack Sparrow eyeliner girl popped up from her seat with a nervous wave—a link in an infinite chain of younger, shinier girls always popping up like in Whac-A-Mole—and followed him inside.

* * *

—

Claire practically ran to playgroup after that, biting back tears and anger at herself and at Vagabond. She craved the uncomplicated chatter of the mothers, their confidence that singing songs to their children was just about the most important thing anyone could do. She was running a little early, but she didn’t mind, and she dashed into the elevator. Amara, evidently running a little late, was already in there, with Charlie and his stroller in tow.

“Hey!” Claire said, pasting on a smile. Amara gave her a silent nod in return and stared at the floor numbers spinning by. God, she was intimidating, all the planes of her face taut, her bones sharper than ever in these close quarters. But also, it couldn’t hurt to try to get back into her good graces. Maybe they could just laugh off the whole Claire-walking-in-on-Amara-stealing-from-Whitney thing.

“So Whitney mentioned you used to work for a late-night show,” Claire said, attempting a light and friendly tone. “That’s really cool!”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Amara said.

“She said you did something with musicians? Booking music?” Claire asked.

Slowly, Amara swiveled her head to look at Claire straight on. “What, you have an EP or something?” she asked, her voice turning drier than Claire had ever heard it. “You’re looking for the perfect connection to get discovered, and you think I could be useful to you?”

“Um, I—” Claire stammered.

A vein began to pulse in Amara’s throat. “Look. You might think you have some kind of leverage over me, but you don’t,” she said. “I told you, I was looking for soap. If, for some crazy reason, you decide to tell Whitney otherwise, I don’t think there’s any chance in hell she’ll believe you.”

“Wow,” Claire said, a laugh of disbelief escaping from her like a bark. She suddenly felt like she was sliding all the way down to the end of her rope. “‘Leverage’? Okay. That’s not what I was implying at all. I’m here to sing to your babies and make some money so that I don’t have to go live in my parents’ basement, not to get involved in whatever shit is going on between you all. I’m not going to mess things up for you. So please don’t mess things up for me.”