Rock 'n' Roll Rebel (7 page)

Chapter Fifteen

“W
e should've asked her to sit with us,” Robbie said as soon as the girls piled into the minivan.

“Not the right moment,” Tig said. “Not yet.”

“Well, when
is
the right moment?” Robbie asked. “We've
got
to get her. We've just got to. I can already picture the five of us onstage together!”

“First we've got to get rid of Haley,” Tig said.

“Who's got Haley's number?” Robbie said. “Kyra, you've probably got it in your phone, right? Gimme.”

“Cool your jets, Chan,” Tig said. “We can't just call her and blurt out, ‘You're out of the band.'”

“Sure we can,” Robbie replied. “It's easy. Repeat after me: ‘Haley, you're out of the band.' See? Simple.” Tig just looked at her. “Well, it's easy for me. Tell you what . . . I'll be glad to do the honors.”

“I just bet you would,” Tig said with a smile.

Robbie grinned. “Granted, I might be prone to a bit of elaboration. How's this sound? ‘Haley, because you're a horrible, spoiled tyrant none of us can stand, we hereby kick you, with great pleasure, out of Pandora's Box. Go forth and stink somewhere else.'”

Even Kyra laughed. But then she added, “If we don't handle this just right, Haley, Regan, and Sofia will go on the warpath.”

Robbie scoffed. “They can just bring it, then. I'm not scared of them.”

“Oh, I am,” Olivia said. “I'm terrified of them!” No one said anything. “What? I'm the only one?”

“Of course not,” Tig said. “Robbie, I'd love to be as brave as you are, but the truth is, these girls are vicious, and I'm just not a fighter by nature. I don't like conflict. I'm going to avoid it if I can.”

“You're going to let the Bots walk all over you?” Robbie said.

“I didn't say that,” Tig said. “Look, I'll break the news to Haley. On Monday. And I'll do it as nicely as I can to try to keep the peace. I don't want it to look like we're dumping Haley for someone else.”

“But we are,” Olivia said. “We're dumping her for Claire.”

“That doesn't mean it has to look like it,” Tig replied. “And besides, we were going to dump Haley anyway. It just so happens we found her replacement earlier than we'd anticipated. But if the Bots think we kicked Haley out because of Claire—man, just think what they'd do to poor Claire! And she's so nice. I don't think it would be fair of us to put her in that position.”

“It's kind of, like, let's say you were dating this guy who you decide is totally wrong for you,” Kyra explained. “And you're planning to break up with him. But before you get a chance, you meet this other great guy who's totally right for you. But you can't go out with Right Guy immediately after you dump Wrong Guy because then it looks like you dumped Wrong Guy for Right Guy, even though you knew you were going to dump Wrong Guy before you even met Right Guy. Right?”

“Yes,” Tig said. “As ridiculously confusing as that was, yes. That's it exactly.”

“So we're going to all this trouble to prevent a Botpocalypse from raining down, not only on all of us, but also on Claire?” Robbie asked.

“Yeah,” Tig said.

“I guess I can see your point,” Robbie replied. “I mean, they can bring it all day long as far as I'm concerned, but Claire does seem fragile. She's so quiet. She might curl up and die if they pick on her. I wouldn't want that. The only part I hate is that we have to be nice about it all to Haley. She certainly doesn't give a rip about being nice to
us
.”

“I know,” Tig said. “Haley doesn't deserve it. But my mom always says the people who need kindness most are the ones who deserve it least.”

“Gag. Did she read that on a poster?” Robbie asked.

“I know,” Tig said. “But even so, we've got to be smart about this. Staying out of a war with Haley is a matter of survival. Getting on the wrong side of the Bots would be a
real
Pandora's box that I do
not
want to open if we can avoid it.”

“Okay, I can respect that,” Robbie said. “It's less fun this way, but I respect it.”

“What if Claire says no?” Kyra asked. “I mean, she seemed pretty nervous just getting up for karaoke at Pepe's. What if she doesn't want to be the lead singer for an actual band?”

“It can't hurt to ask,” Olivia said. “All she can say is no, and then we're no worse off than we were before.”

“Oh, but Claire just has to say yes,” Robbie said. “Her voice will haunt my dreams until the day I die!”

“She is amazing,” Tig said. “I don't think she realizes how amazing she is. You're right, Robbie. She has to say yes. She just has to.”

Chapter Sixteen

T
ig had rehearsed her speech to Haley a thousand times over the weekend. She was going to go with the old it's-not-you-it's-me routine:
Your voice is really special, Haley, but we're just not the best band for it. We're more of a rock band, and really, your voice is so much better suited to ballads and pieces where you can really showcase your range
. Sure, it was a snow job, but it was a snow job of kindness and restraint . . . and self-preservation. Tig was sure any reasonable person would appreciate how delicately she handled the situation and would bow out gracefully, self-esteem intact, and not start a war over it.

But, of course, Haley was not known for being a reasonable person.

Tig approached the Bot Spot in the gym Monday morning before school.

In her peripheral vision, she could see Kyra, Olivia, and Robbie sitting together, trying to pretend they weren't watching.

All the Bots in the radius eyed Tig's intrusion into their space with curiosity. No one had to say a word; the knowledge that an outsider had encroached upon their space was instantly telegraphed to them all, and they sat alert, as though awaiting their cue to attack and defend their territory.

“S'up, Haley?” Tig said, trying to sound casual, trying to act as though she didn't feel all those pairs of eyes burning holes through her.

“I suppose you've come to tell me you've gotten rid of that loser who was playing guitar in my band?” Haley said.

Tig felt her face flush. Loser?
Her
band? There were so many things to be angry about at once, Tig almost couldn't process them.
Keep your head, Tig
, she told herself.

“Actually, I did want to discuss something with you about the band,” Tig said. “Could we talk somewhere privately?”

“Anything you have to say to Haley, you can say to our whole crew,” Regan said.

Who asked you?
Tig wanted to say. “Well, it's kind of a sensitive matter.”

“Like Regan said,” Haley replied, “whatever you've got to say, spill it.”

“Okay, then,” Tig said. “About the band. We think your singing is really . . . something. Really something . . . special.” Tig wasn't exactly lying.
Special
could mean many things. Like, out of the ordinary. And Haley's singing was definitely out of the ordinary.

Haley beamed and looked at Regan for affirmation.

“So, based on that,” Tig continued, “we feel that our band isn't really showcasing your . . . specialness.”

“Finally!” Haley said. “It's about time you came to your senses. So, here's the plan. From now on, I pick the songs, I pick the tempo and the key, and the rest of you basically just do what I tell you. It's going to be a lot better this way.”

“That's not exactly what I . . . what we . . . had in mind,” Tig said.

Regan bristled. She actually sat up straighter and inclined her face toward Tig. “Then what
did
you have in mind?”

“Well, I . . . we . . . were thinking that maybe Pandora's Box isn't a good fit for Haley's voice. We sort of want to go with more of a rock ‘n' roll format, and Haley really needs . . .” Suddenly Tig couldn't remember anything she had rehearsed. She desperately wanted to either erase the entire conversation or end her last sentence with
a lobotomy
, but she knew neither was a viable option.

“Wait,” Regan said. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” She put her hand up and her head down. When she looked back up, she was laughing. But not in a good way. More like an evil villain way. “Are you trying to say that you . . . that your pathetic little bandmates and you . . . are kicking Haley out?”

“It's not really like that,” Tig said. “‘Kicking out' sounds so harsh. It's more like, I don't know, a parting of the ways, you might say. We're just going in different artistic directions.”
That sounded pretty good
, Tig thought.
Not bad
.

But Regan and Haley weren't buying it.

“I cannot
believe
what I'm hearing!” Haley said. “Who do you think you are? How dare you! How dare
you
kick
me
out of your crappy little excuse for a band when I am the
only
one with any actual talent!”

That was it.

“Look, Haley,” Tig said. “I was trying to be nice about this, but . . .” Tig let out a growl of frustration. “You just can't let anyone be nice, can you? Okay, then, fine. Gloves off. The fact is, you can't sing. You can't! I wish you could, but you can't!” Tig had completely lost her cool, and people all over the gym were looking at her. She saw several girls from different cliques whispering to one another. Tig wondered if they thought she was a psycho or if they admired her for standing up to the Bots.

Haley didn't yell, though. She was quiet. Calm. She said matter-of-factly, “You are an idiot. An ugly, reject, loser idiot. I'm a great singer.” She even had a smile on her face when she said it. Anyone watching might have thought Haley had said something nice to Tig. That only made Tig angrier.

“No, you're not!” Tig said. “Maybe these fake friends of yours say you are, maybe your mom and your grandma or whoever says so. But guess what? They're totally lying! You stink! Maybe if you weren't so arrogant, you could learn how to actually sing . . . take some direction from somebody . . . but that's never going to happen! You're condescending and mean and impossible to get along with! So that's it—you're out. Good-bye and good riddance!”

As Tig walked away, adrenaline surging through her body, Regan got up, grabbed Tig's arm, and whispered, “Watch your back!” before returning to her seat.

Olivia, Kyra, and Robbie were staring, open-mouthed, at Tig as she walked up. “I think it's safe to say that didn't go as well as I'd hoped,” Tig said.

“We couldn't hear, but it seemed to escalate pretty quickly,” Robbie replied.

The four of them looked back at Regan and Haley's stronghold. They were all huddled together in a strategy session.

“This is bad,” Kyra said. “What are they going to do to us?”

“I don't know,” Tig answered. “But whatever it is, it's not going to be pretty.”

Chapter Seventeen

U
gly.

The word kept rattling around inside Tig's head for the rest of the day and into the evening, taunting her even as she tried to fall asleep that night.

Haley had called her ugly.

Idiot, loser, reject
—whatever. She'd expected those. She didn't take them personally. They were just words. Tig knew she wasn't an idiot. She made good grades and was obviously bright. And loser and reject, well, those were just middle-school categories she knew she had it in her to break free from.

But ugly? That stung.

Tig looked in the mirror after supper that night. She examined everything about herself. Her skin was sallow, not radiant. Her nose was kind of a blob. The braces didn't do much for her smile. Her hair was brown and a little on the frizzy side, nothing lush and beautiful about it. She wasn't overweight, but she wasn't skinny. Her legs were thin but not shapely; she disliked her ankles. Her arms were too hairy, her feet too big, her stomach too round.

The only thing she couldn't find fault with were her eyes. They were a greenish-blue, framed by long, dark, thick, curly lashes. They had an interesting shape and setting. They looked sleepy but sparkly at the same time.

At least she had pretty eyes.

As Tig cried herself to sleep that night, she was glad it was her secret. She'd die before she'd ever let Haley Thornton know she'd made her cry.

The band was going to work. She was going to recruit Claire, and then Haley and everyone else would see how awesome an all-girl band could be. Probably they'd become famous one day, and Tig would get her own stylist and makeup artist and all that stuff, and she'd be in magazines that would talk about how pretty she was, how she had such beautiful eyes. They could do all kinds of things with hair and makeup. She'd seen all the before-they-were-famous pics of celebrities; she knew.

And Haley would be standing in the checkout line at the grocery store with her ten screaming kids, and she'd see Tig's beautiful photograph smiling at her from the cover of
Glamour
, and she'd burn with envy. And the story inside the magazine would be all about how Tig hadn't been home to Alabama in years because she was so busy with her tours and recording sessions and her houses in Malibu and New York and Paris. But of course, she would send her private jet occasionally to fly out her family and close friends from school for visits and concerts. And Haley would wish she had been one of those friends from school, but no, she'd blown her chance, and she couldn't get on Tig's jet even if she begged her. She just had to stay in Alabama and live her sad little life as someone completely unfamous and unimportant.

And then they'd just see who was ugly, wouldn't they?