1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Soares Rev 1

Name: Maggie Soares
Genre: #OwnVoices Contemporary Young Adult
Title: What You Have of Me

This is how you handle a paparazzi scrum.

Head up, shoulders back, sunglasses on (no anti-glare: anything you can do to ruin a photo is good). Hands relaxed: clenched fists means the internet’ll be speculating about what has you so angry within the hour. You look straight ahead and you never, ever stop walking.

This is how I screw that up.

I’m coming out of my last exam when my dad’s voice bounces off the empty lockers. Carly Smithers, a girl I only ever talked to in this class and probably won’t talk to again, is wearing shitty headphones with the volume turned up too high. One song changes to another, and, yup, that’s Apollo Knight’s third studio album. Weird choice. Everyone always says that’s his worst one.

(I try not to take it too personally, since it was born the same year I was)

She takes out the headphones and lets out that awkward chuckle people do when I catch them listening to my dad’s music.

“That was impossible, right?”

I hum in vague agreement, even though the exam was ridiculously easy. I don’t know if she’s the type of person to run and tell some reporter I walk around thinking I’m smarter than everyone. She’d be a perfect social media star, blonde hair and dancer’s body. I’m miniature beside her, the curls piled on top of my head the only thing giving me a boost.

I’m saved from further small-talk by the buzz of my phone. When the theme song to Jaws starts playing, though, I cringe.

My dad’s PA doesn’t bother with hellos.

 “Echo,” Mary says in a clipped tone that means something’s really hit the fan. “I sent a car. Get down here as inconspicuously as possible.”

She hangs up before I can respond, and I clench and unclench my toes in my dirty uniform shoes so I don’t lose it with Carly still around.

“I have to go,” I tell her, but she’s distracted by something on her phone. She looks up at me, eyes wide, and nods.

If Carly already knows what’s going on, Mary showed real discipline by not pulling me out of my exam.

Malcom’s outside the school, but inside my dad’s least-conspicuous car, our standing arrangement.

“How’d it go?” He asks once I’m inside.

“Do you know what this is?” I ignore his question. He knows that class was my easiest A.

Malcom just shrugs, because nothing we do surprises him at this point. His hair’s greying at the sides, or maybe it’s always been like that.

“Thought Mary was going to explode. Y’know that vein on her forehead?”

If Mary’s forehead vein has made an appearance, we’re in the danger zone.

My phone is suspiciously quiet, I and resist the urge to throw it when I realize I have no service. Mary only cuts off my data when something apocalyptic happens. It’s easier to be annoyed than scared, which is how my gut’s starting to feel, so I allow myself ten seconds to glare out the window at the palm trees that line the road. Palm trees don’t have to put up with this shit. I shove my phone back into my bag and try to shove the fear down with it.

It’s probably not drugs, since Apollo Knight’s been famously clean for the past fifteen years (a voice in my head reminds me the longer he’s been clean, the bigger the scandal a relapse would be). As far as I know, he hasn’t been dating, so it’s not some gold-digger coming after us. If it had something to do with my mom, she would have called me, so I rule her out, too. There’s always the chance that it’s about me, and that presses on my windpipe until I have to force myself to stop thinking about it. My foot taps anxiously and dirt and glitter and other arts school shrapnel fall onto the otherwise-spotless tan car mats.

“What’s the plan?”

“Security waiting at the gate.”

“Seriously?” I lean forward until my head almost touches the back of Malcom’s neck. His shoulder twitches.

If I have to walk up my dad’s driveway, that means three things. One, paparazzi are camped outside his house. Two, he wants people to see me there, so, three, whatever he did can be improved if we pretend we’re a happy family.

I dig through my backpack for my emergency pair of jeans, letting out a little noise of accomplishment when I find them buried under a stack of posters Nora asked me to put up ages ago. The thought of Nora sends my hands shaking along with my foot, and I internally mutter a few choice words at Mary for not letting me text her.

“Mary wanted you to stay in your uniform,” Malcom eyes me in the rearview.

“Mary’s gonna have to live with the top,” I wiggle into the jeans under my skirt. “Every time I wear a uniform skirt in public I end up on niche porn blogs.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that. My heart’s in my throat and I breathe cautiously around it, sure if I’m not careful I’ll bite down and destroy myself. My tapping foot’s crept up my body, a low-level tremor going through me by the time we make it to my dad’s house.

I’ve never seen it like this.

My dad’s A-list status rides on obnoxious guys my age who think he’s the Last Real Rock Star and the handful of number ones his label’s produced, but everyone knows Apollo Knight is not exactly at his peak. He might get papped grocery shopping sometimes, but we all know in a few years he’ll be surviving or dancing or racing with The Stars.

With the crowd outside his house, you’d think it was twenty years ago.

There’s at least fifty of them, yelling and waving cameras and trying to swarm the car. My dad’s head of security pushes through the crowd. Dylan offers his arm, and I allow myself to be pulled up.

The noise is always the first thing I notice. It hits me sharply, a stinging wall of sound that I have to focus to keep an impartial face against. I squeeze my eyes shut behind my sunglasses, swallow my heart, and step into it.

My name’s being called from thirty different directions, but I don’t turn to any of them. Don’t get distracted. If they smell blood, they’ll be on you before you can even realize your mistake. Dylan sticks by my side, but I don’t smile up at him like I want to. Someone would write an article claiming we’re in some kind of secret taboo romance, and by the look of things, we can’t afford another scandal right now.

I try to pull my face into a placid smile. Anything too happy and it’ll look like I’m not taking this seriously. Anything too angry and I’ll look like a bitch.

“Hi Echo,” Greg Peters’ smarmy voice says. He’s recording, and if I don’t say anything I’ll be public enemy number one on his livestream tonight.

“Hi,” I try to keep my voice from going completely flat.

“What do you think about all of this?” Greg’s chasing after me now that I’ve opened my mouth. I press my lips together, tight enough that Greg seems to notice. He gets this look on his face like he’s about to go in for the kill.

“Are there any others?”

I stop walking.