Saint Anything(75)

“Yeah,” I said as she looked at my dad, who shrugged. “You said that Mac’s band could use it, to record.”

“Mac,” she repeated, like she was trying to jog a distant, faded memory. “I don’t—”

“Layla’s brother. My friend.” I turned to my dad. “You met him last night. I asked if his band could use the studio to record this demo, and you guys said yes.”

“Oh, Sydney, I don’t know,” my mom said. “Even if Peyton was okay with that—and really, we’d have to ask him—it couldn’t happen with us out of town.”

“But you said—”

“Then I spoke without thinking,” she told me, looking at my dad again. “Or we did. The bottom line is, until this graduation thing is over, I really can’t focus on anything else.”

“It’s not just anything,” I said. “It’s my thing. My friends.”

I could tell I’d surprised them. I’d always accepted being second in importance; it was my place in the pecking order. But when it came to this—to Mac—I was ready to fight. Like finally I felt I had a real reason. It would have been better if it had been for me, myself. But I’d still take it.

“You didn’t even know these people three months ago,” my mom said. “I find it hard to believe they’re suddenly more important than family.”

“Mom—”

“We’re not talking about this anymore,” she said, rising from her seat and pushing her chair in. “We will go support your brother because he needs us, whether he’s choosing at this moment to admit it or not. After that, we can talk about everything else.”

She walked to the coffeemaker, her back to me as she refilled her mug. My dad watched her go, then gave me a sympathetic look. But once again, he didn’t do anything. Like this was her job, it was decided, and he couldn’t go over her head, as much as I wished he would.

Even though this was the way it always went, I felt a flush of anger rise in me, unexpected and unprecedented. Something had changed. Before, she’d grouped me within “anything else.” Now, “everything.” I’d always been the other, the one not Peyton; I’d come to accept it. But finally, I’d met people who saw me differently. Now that I’d been real and first to someone, I never wanted to be invisible again.

*

“So what I’m thinking,” Eric said, “is that we start strong with a Logan Oxford, end big with that ‘Six of One’ with my solo. We’ll put Layla doing vocals on another one in the middle to shake things up.”

“Yeah, but which one?” Mac asked, peeling another clementine. He had Irv’s phone disassembled in front of him, replacing the shattered screen, a result of its being sat on. Just looking at all the tiny screws made my head hurt. “It’s not like we have anything rehearsed with her.”

“It’s not complicated, it’s pop music,” Eric told him. “And she knows all these songs already. It’s just a matter of picking one with the perfect meaning.”

“You just said it’s simple, though,” said Irv, who was finishing off what was by my count his third chicken leg. “So how can it have meaning?”

“That’s where the irony comes in.” Eric sighed: yet again, none of us were keeping up. “I’m going to pick a song that is clearly from a guy’s point of view, then turn it on its head both with the original arrangement—I’m thinking acoustic, maybe—and having a girl singer.”

“We,” Mac said quietly, picking up another screw. “We will pick a song.”

“Right, right,” Eric replied, flipping his hand. “Consensus rules. But let’s be honest: I’m the one who’s really driving the depth of our message.”

“‘Depth of your message’?” Irv repeated, then laughed out loud. “Man. You’re outdoing even yourself right now.”

Beside me, Mac laughed, too, and I forced a smile, trying to join in. I hadn’t yet figured out how, exactly, to break the news that my parents were not actually okay with the band using the studio. So I hadn’t, instead just sitting there getting more and more anxious as they made their plans to do just that.

I wasn’t the only one out of sorts. Even though she was partly the subject of this conversation, Layla wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was focused on her phone. It was clear enough by her face she wasn’t happy, but the fact that her lunch was untouched just sealed it.

“You okay?” I asked her for the second time that day. I’d bumped into her in the hallway after homeroom, just in time to see her hanging up, looking irritated. We’d both been running late and headed in opposite directions, so when she said she was fine, I’d taken her at her word.

“Yeah,” she said, not looking at me. “Just . . . Spence stuff. It’s stupid.”

I hesitated, not sure how much to push this issue. Since she and Spence had been spending more and more time together, I’d only gotten bits and pieces from her about their relationship. I had noticed that the swooning, “He’s so great and sweet!” phase had waned. Apparently I hadn’t been wrong about her perfect boyfriend having his own complicated history. After some prodding, she’d admitted to me that not only was it mandatory community service he’d recently completed, he’d been expelled from three schools before landing at W. Hunt. At the time they’d met, he was keeping in line and on the upswing. With people like that, though, there was always a down waiting.