Once and for All(40)

“What is that?” I said, laughing as he scrambled to silence it.

“Don’t do it,” he said, holding up a hand. “Do not mock. You don’t know the whole story.”

I waited.

“If you must know,” he said, looking down at the phone, “it’s Lexi Navigator.”

“Seriously?” All I knew about Lexi Navigator, a teenage singer with a statuesque build and a huge amount of dark hair, were the skimpy outfits and plentiful feathers and body glitter that were her trademark. She was the kind of entertainer defined by the fact that I could name at least three of her outlandish getups off the top of my head, but not one of her songs. “I would not have guessed that.”

“I said don’t mock,” he reminded me.

“Then tell me the story.”

A sigh. Then he squinted. “Okay. So, it’s the beginning of junior year and my buddy Sam’s dad, who’s an entertainment lawyer, gets this block of tickets to a Lexi Navigator show. We’re not doing anything, and it’s the whole VIP thing: limo, backstage passes, all that. So we go.”

“No girls? Just you?”

“What, six guys can’t hit up a Lexi Navigator show in the name of male bonding? You gotta live, right?” I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. “So the seats are, like, third row. We’re all just laughing, making fun of the opening act, having fun. Then she comes out, and there’s fireworks and confetti and she’s in this dress that shoots lasers, wearing a wire basket on her head . . .”

“Wait, a wire basket?”

He shrugged. “That’s what it looked like. And the show is crazy, right? All these greased-up dancers, balloons falling, little girls screaming all around us. Then, about halfway through, she goes into this more mellow part, brings down the lights, puts a stool on the stage, takes a seat.”

“Still wearing the basket?”

“No, by then she’d changed, like, ten times. She had on, like, a crown of snakes and a bikini tuxedo.”

“Of course she did.”

“So she starts talking about the next song,” he continued, “and how it was inspired by her grandmother dying the year before. And then she starts singing, and about a verse in, she’s crying.”

“Really.”

“Yup.” He squinted. “And we’re all sitting there, only a few feet away, and I can see the tears and they’re real, and suddenly I start thinking about my grandmother.”

“Your grandmother’s passed, too?”

“No, she’s fine. Healthy as a horse. Which is what makes this all so stupid.” He sighed. “So I’m watching, and she’s crying, and I’m thinking about Nana, and you know, maybe I get a little emotional myself.”

I waited a second. Then I said, “Maybe?”

“I did.” He coughed. “And, unfortunately, it was seen. And documented by my buddies.”

I reached over, taking his hand again. “Oh, dear.”

“Exactly.” He folded his fingers through mine. “And of course they won’t let it go, even when she changes into a mermaid costume with a real flipper. They’re threatening to post it everywhere, immediately, and I just want to die. And kill them. Or kill them, and then die.”

I laughed. “That seems kind of extreme.”

“You don’t know my guys,” he said. “We’ve been mocking each other since we were in diapers. It’s like an art form. I’m never going to live this down.”

“So what did you do?”

“We have this thing called striking a deal,” he said, rubbing his free hand over his face. “Like an exchange program for embarrassment. You pick one to trump another. I was willing to do just about anything.”

“Obviously.”

“So,” he continued, “I agreed to have a Lexi Navigator song as my ringtone until graduation. And if anyone asks about it—and of course, they do—I have to tell them I’m her number one fan and show this picture.”

With that, he turned on his phone again, typing in a passcode. A few swipes and there it was: Ethan, in a BROWNWOOD LACROSSE T-shirt, next to Lexi Navigator, who was wearing a red leather bodysuit and devil horns, her face covered in glitter. You gotta live, indeed.

“And this is better than the world knowing you cried at her song?” I said, clarifying.

“Of course it is!” he said. “This way I just look quirky. With the tears, possibly mentally unstable.”

“You sure about that?” I asked, looking at the picture again.

He made a face. “Anyway, the deal is this: if I ever don’t answer by saying I’m a big fan and showing the picture and they hear about it, they’ll post the video and kill me with shame. We shook on it.”

I raised my eyebrows. “And these are your friends?”

He flipped to the next picture, of all of them around Lexi Navigator. “My best friends. Believe it or not.”

“I believe it,” I said, leaning against him as he moved to another picture of their group, this time in the limo. All cute, athletic boys, clean-cut and grinning. Jilly would have been in heaven. “But I have a question.”

“She smelled great,” he said. “Everyone asks that.”