Messy (33 page)

He hopped off the desk and walked over to Brooke to extend his hand. Brooke took a second to collect herself—her roiling emotions, most of them jubilant, were somewhat
at war with the ones she had just unleashed on the room—and then shook it firmly.

“I will not let you down,” she said.

Brick let out a shout of glee and hugged her and Zander, bemusing the latter so thoroughly that his glasses actually dropped to the ground.

“Oh, and, uh, Brooke,” Zander said through Brick’s biceps. “Listen, you don’t have to, but if you want to have Max… I mean, she could keep… if you want.”

Brooke was tempted. Continuing as they had begun, with the rest of the world none the wiser, seemed like the easiest Band-Aid. But then she thought of the toll the situation had taken on Max, and of all the people on that set who knew the truth. Lies were like zits: They always exploded eventually, and concealer never worked.

“No,” Brooke said. “Fresh start, right? If I keep blogging, it’ll be me doing me. But better. No pressure to copy the way it used to be.”

Zander nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “God, I really need a latte right now. With a shot of whiskey in it.”

Brick clapped him on the back. “I’m buying,” he said. But first, he turned to Brooke and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Sunshine, I’m proud of you for being honest. You didn’t have to be, but you did the right thing. And that, to me, says more about your heart and soul and mind than any blog ever could.”

Brick stretched and slung an arm around Zander’s bony
shoulders. “Zander, buddy, we need to talk about your deltoids,” he said. “Have you ever used a climbing wall?”

As Brick launched into a sales pitch for his Berlin Wall idea to a nonplussed Zander, Brooke sat down in one of the cold metal chairs on the police-station set. The crew killed the lights and everyone dispersed, some stopping to squeeze Brooke’s arm supportively, others merely whispering to one another about the brouhaha. Brooke tried to stay cheerful, but she shivered. Maybe people hadn’t liked that entry, but it was accurate. It was always freezing once the spotlights went off—a metaphor if Brooke had ever heard one. She’d have to remember that one for her blog. Her new,
real
blog.

A lean shadow fell across her feet. Brooke knew who it was without looking.

“Hi, Brady,” she said.

“Hi,” he said, dropping into the chair opposite her. “So, that happened.”

“It did,” Brooke said, forcing herself to make eye contact with him. “And so did a lot of other stuff, which I guess we should talk about.”

“Probably,” he said. “Come on, let’s bust out of here and get some In-N-Out. We’ve earned it today, and also, I just found out I can order my fries animal-style, which blew my mind. You in?”

Brooke let out a happy sigh. “Yes,
please
,” she said, taking his outstretched hand as he helped her out of her seat. His was warm, which, weirdly, made her shiver again.

“It’s going to be okay, Brooke,” he said, interpreting her tremor as jitters.

Looking into his kind eyes, which were refreshingly devoid of judgment or disappointment, Brooke felt hope rise up in her chest like a balloon. Maybe none of this mattered to him. Maybe Brady had seen enough of the real Brooke that he didn’t care how much of the other stuff was true. Maybe her fresh start could be with
everyone
.

THE MORNING DAWNED
unbearably stuffy in Max’s room, which had not contained fresh air since she’d stormed home from the studio Wednesday night.

“Eileen, I told you, I used the immersion blender to fix the sprinklers!” her dad boomed somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen.

Max cracked an eye.

“I thought that was the SaladShooter!” her mother replied, exasperated.

Max’s open eye rolled.

“No, that went toward trying to make a new immersion blender,” her father said, sounding as though he were trying to explain math to a fifth grader.

What day is it, even?
Max wondered. It felt like two
weeks had passed, but her phone said it was the first Saturday of May, so it had really only been three days since she’d bolted from the set of
Nancy Drew
. She’d driven home that night feeling more upset than she could really explain, even to herself. At the studio, the decision not to apply to NYU had felt right: Max was sick of caring about things that were obviously beyond her reach. But in the car that night she’d been unable to convince her tear ducts of that.

Luckily, no one had been home when she arrived. So Max took her red, splotchy face to bed, and then begged off school the next day, claiming cramps and a demi-migraine. Her mother had just eyeballed her for a moment and then nodded, which is how Max knew she must have looked as miserable as she felt.

And then she had mostly just… lain there and tried not to think about anything. One day stretched into two, and now into this morning. She slept occasionally, she stared at the wall, she stared at a different wall, she counted cracks in the ceiling. She was beginning to understand how people became shut-ins. It was so much easier than dealing with other people, and all their
feelings
and
reactions
. Molly had called her five times, and Teddy twice (even though he lived upstairs). Even Brooke phoned, and Jake texted, but Max ignored them all. She didn’t feel up to talking to anyone. She barely felt like talking to herself.

There was a knock at the door. “Are you alive?” Teddy called.

“Debatable,” Max muttered.

“Can I come in?”

Max ignored him. Teddy pushed her door open with his guitar case and stuck a concerned head into the room. He sniffed the air.

“Debatable is right,” he said. “It smells like a corpse in here.”

“I don’t recall inviting you in,” Max said, trying to pull the sheet over her face. But it got stuck around her stomach.

“So,” Teddy said, sitting on the corner of her bed and untwisting the sheet. Max promptly burrowed underneath it. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Max said, the bedding muffling her voice.

“Liar. I heard what happened on the set.”

“What happened on the set?”

Teddy pulled down the corner of the sheet covering her eyes. “That was really solid of you to do that for Brooke. Most people would’ve let her fry.”

“Where’d you hear this?” Max asked, trying to sound disinterested.

“I guess you’ve been watching your wallpaper curl for so long you forgot that I have an in at the Berlin household.”

“Oh, right,” Max said. “Well, hooray. A happy ending.”

“Except for you, apparently.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I gathered that. This is taking antisocial to new levels, even for you.”

“What do you want, Teddy?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head as if trying to knock an impulse out of it. “Should we carpool to the carnival?” he asked instead.

“Can’t you tell everyone I have Brain Fever and can’t come?”

“Sure,” Teddy said, “but I don’t think Mom’s tolerance of your fake illness will extend much further.” He nodded at the floor, where Max noticed for the first time that he’d laid down his guitar case. “And you’ll miss the big Mental Hygienist show.”

“At the carnival? Since when?”

“We’re a last-minute addition,” Teddy explained. “While you were off at the studio throwing yourself on a sword for Brooke Berlin, Bone was on the phone with this rep from Chop Shop.”

“Chop Shop
Records
?”

Teddy grinned. “That’s the one,” he said. “I guess he was at the House of Blues concert and he loved Bone’s stuff. They want to sign us.”

“Shut up!” Max said, sitting up so fast to punch him in the shoulder that her head spun. She lay back down again.

Teddy nodded. “Crazy, right? Brie said we had to play a set at the carnival to celebrate.” He frowned. “Actually, I think she said that having a band with a record deal on the bill would improve the carnival’s Q rating. But anyway. There you have it.”

“And how do you feel about this?” Max asked. “Weren’t you going to quit the band or something?”

“I was embarrassed,” he admitted. “And I figured they’d want me out after everyone hated my stuff. But Molly kinda made me sack up and go talk to them, and it turned out no one was mad at me about it.”

“I told you!” Max crowed.

“No, you didn’t,” Teddy said. “You sat next to Molly while she told me that.”

“Same thing. I’m moral-support-
adjacent
.”

“Of course,” Teddy said. “Anyway, Bone said that there isn’t a group in the world that hasn’t had something like this happen, and he thinks we can all make each other better.” He blew out his cheeks. “I never thought a person named Bone—much less
this
person named Bone—would be the voice of reason.”

“So you’re sticking with it?”

“For now,” Teddy said, leaning over to retie the shoelace on his left Converse. “I mean, graduation is in six weeks. And then I start UCLA in the fall, and who knows what will happen then. But for now, why not see where it takes me? I obviously have a lot to learn about songwriting.”

Max leaned back against her headboard. “Ew. That’s so mature.”

“Just returning the favor,” he said. “I recall you giving me some pretty sage advice, too.”

“Definitely a fluke,” Max said. “I think when it comes right down to it, I am actually really stupid.”

“Okay, drama queen. Either spill it or get over it and rejoin the world,” Teddy said. “Or would you prefer if I had Mom come up and carry you downstairs?”

“So we should probably leave soon if we’re going to make the carnival in time, right?” Max responded brightly.

“I knew you’d see reason,” Teddy said. “I’ll meet you downstairs. If you don’t shower first, you’re going to asphyxiate everyone before we even get onstage.”

The carnival took place every year off-campus at the historic Rose Bowl stadium, nestled in the mountains in Pasadena. Underneath the stadium’s famous red cursive logo hung the biggest and most garish banner Max had ever seen, which read in part
COLBY-RANDALL PREPARATORY SCHOOL SPRING CARNIVAL
and noted that the proceeds were going to a women’s shelter in downtown Los Angeles. Under that—in substantially larger script—it screamed,
BROUGHT TO YOU BY DIET COKE, BAKED TOSTITOS, AND OUR GRACIOUS COMMITTEE CHAIR, BROOKE BERLIN
.

I am never going to escape that girl.

Max and Brooke had parted on decent terms, or so it seemed from their silent exchange before Max fled the set, but in the car on the way over, Max realized what she dreaded most was what came next. How were they supposed to act now? It was like breaking up with someone and then trying to stay friends: It never truly worked, and
tended to involve minimal contact and awkward sentence fragments. This was a compelling reason Max preferred to avoid these kinds of entanglements. Aftermaths were not her thing. But Max was thankful she’d have more time to figure it out—Brooke would be away filming for at least another month, and by then… well, by then, instead of being at NYU, Max would probably be very busy taking drive-thru orders at McDonald’s.

“Maxine! Theodore!” screeched a blonde banshee from just to the left of the stadium entrance.

Wait, Brooke is here?
Max panicked.

But as they drew closer to the registration table, Max saw that this was Brie, her hair an even blonder and fuller mass of curls than before, and her skin at least two shades tanner. She waved Teddy through but motioned for Max to stop at the table.

“Thanks for joining us, Maxine,” she said, rummaging around in a cardboard box on the ground. “One never can tell with you. Aha!”

Brie withdrew a large Hefty bag from the box and handed it to Max. Confused, Max gave it an exploratory poke—it was awfully squashy—and looked quizzically at Brie.

“Your costume,” Brie prompted her.

“My
what
?”

“You were missing in action—again—when everyone signed up for a booth,” Brie said sunnily. “So we had to assign you to something.”

Max set the bag on the ground and opened it. A pile of brightly colored velvets peered back at her. On top sat a gold lamé turban, topped with an emerald-green ostrich feather.

“The fortune-telling booth?” she gasped. “You are not serious.”

“These are the consequences of shirking your extracurricular commitments,” Brie said. Then she waved her hand in the air dismissively, a very Brooke-like gesture. “It’ll be entertaining. Think of all the downer fortunes you can make up for people.”

Max opened her mouth to point out that it was probably well on its way to being a hundred degrees out, and that she would likely die of heat prostration under her turban. But then she thought better of it. The prospect of an afternoon telling some schmo from her chemistry class that the Spirits claimed he was going to set his pants on fire next Tuesday fit her mood perfectly.

“Fine,” she said. “Where is my tent?”

They set off, past the fame-themed first attraction—a step-and-repeat emblazoned with their sponsor logos (and Brooke’s signature, in pink) behind a stretch of bubble-gum-colored carpet, where a couple of students dressed as paparazzi were setting up cameras—and then deep into the heart of the stadium. In spite of the planning committee’s endless discussions, it looked exactly like every other carnival Max had ever seen: a Ferris wheel, a Skee-Ball station, some game where you could knock over pictures of all the
teachers with water guns (a touch Max rather appreciated, since shooting her mother was worth the most points), cotton-candy and caramel-corn stands, several games involving balls, and a rickety teacups ride that actually had buckets marked
FOR VOMIT
lined up near the exit. There was a carnival jail—Anna Fury had obviously won that argument; it was five bucks per arrest, and either an hour of captivity or another five bucks for bail—followed by a bunch of stalls where local merchants and some of Max’s classmates were selling crafts and jewelry. Between that area and the giant stage, where Mental Hygienist would be playing, sat a tiny purple-draped tent with a sign reading
MADAME ESMERELDA: WHERE A FORTUNE WON’T COST ONE
. The jar outside indicated the fee for entrance was a buck.