I was quiet, looking out into the endless surf. Light danced on the waves.

“The company invited us to come in and sing. They really liked us. Said we had p-potential,” Yumi stuttered, and I realized she was crying. “They wanted to add a fifth voice in; said we’d sound even better. Rose said no, that it was the four of us and that’s it. We went home. I loved that she stood up for the integrity of our group. Then Viv got sick.” She swallowed hard. “She was feeling really low energy for a while, had these headaches. She went to the doctor and they ran tests. Cancer. It was her idea that we go to Big Disc and say okay to their terms, because she knew she’d be replaced anyway. That’s when you came in.”

No wonder Rose was so callous. She was expecting one of her best friends of the last ten years there, and instead saw a stranger. A stranger who usurped Vivian’s place that she had worked so hard to create.

“It’s not you, Cassidy,” Yumi said, dabbing at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “She doesn’t mean to be cruel. Please be patient with her.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” I was mortified, having harbored so many ill feelings toward Rose during the past months. “I have all this resentment—and so does she—and I would’ve been more understanding . . .”

“I guess I thought she’d settle down and you’d get along. But you were kind of clueless, and she’s still upset . . . so yeah. I figured I should probably tell you so you could tread more carefully around her.” She smiled a shaky smile. “She’s a bitch, but a bitch for a good reason.”

A shout warbled across the sound of the waves. Meredith was waving us back.

“Just try, okay?” Yumi said, and held her hand out for me. I twined my fingers into hers as we made our way across the sand.

THE FIRST EXHILARATING, live television performance of “Wake Up Morning” began its rounds on the Sing It finale, to much applause, but The Sunrise Show would be the real test—its live audience consisted of Sunrise fans, not Sing It ones.

With a rumble, the cabin door closed and, before I knew it, the world below us miniaturized, fell away, partially hidden under wisps of clouds. Rose was halfway through her inked grid before a drink materialized on her foldout table.

“What’s on your mind, Cassidy?” Ian asked.

He sat sideways in his seat with his long legs swiveled out toward the aisle, scribbling in the margins of a sheaf of papers. Barrel-chested and tall, with a default scowl on his face, Ian was intimidating at first, but we soon saw his softer side. He always asked if we had any requests when he managed the tour schedule, even though we knew that Peter had locked down every possible minute of our time.

“I thought that was already finalized,” I said, noticing that the top page was a calendar grid. Every available space was jammed with tiny print.

“Peter wants another radio spot. Gotta add it in.” After a beat of silence, he looked up at me, making eye contact. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking about all the stuff that we’re going to do. I’m kind of anxious about The Sunrise Show.”

“But you’ve been on TV before?” He said it like a question, even though he was well versed in my Sing It experience. Eyes back down on his makeshift office, pencil working. Even Ian wasn’t capable of filling out a grid in ink! My begrudging admiration for Rose grew.

“Yeah, but . . . that was singing. I can sing.” I stated this matter-of-factly. I might have been insecure about many things, but my voice was not one of them. “But what if Melina Vaclavik asks me a question and I give a silly answer? At least on Sing It if I was being interviewed, it was taped so I could start over if I messed up.”

“So don’t mess up.”

“I’m not good under pressure.”

“That’s bullshit.”

I bit down on my lip as I peered at Ian across the aisle. The truth was—and I began to realize it while flicking my eyes over to Rose—that I was worried I would be up there on that stage and Melina Vaclavik would ask Rose a question and she would delegitimize me right there on live television. A reality show competitor who didn’t even win the final round. A girl who skipped half her senior year just to become a background singer.

“Take it easy.” I must have had a terrible expression on my face. “I watched Sing It with my little boy. He thinks you’re talented. I do too. You’ll be fine.”

The anxiety still threatened to climb out of my throat. I clutched at the soft leather armrests and tried to take my mind off it. “Your son?”

“Yeah. Jordan. I get to pick him up on Tuesdays and hang out with him, and what he wants to do is watch Sing It. So that is what we do.”

I let out a breath.

“How old is he?”

“Twelve, going on twenty,” he said, mouth finally cracking into a full smile.

“Did he vote for me? Be honest. Or did he vote for Anna?”

“I never let him vote,” he said firmly. “I won’t have him calling phone numbers that show up on the bottom of a TV screen.”

“But you could have called for him,” I pointed out.

“See, just bring that sass, Miss Cass,” Ian said, jabbing the tip of the pencil toward me emphatically.

“That didn’t answer my question,” I said cheekily.

He turned back to his work. “He made me vote for St. James. Thought he was a hunk.”

I laughed.

I HADN’T BEEN to New York since I was a little kid. My family and I drove up from Houston, like ridiculous people, in a minivan, when I was eleven. I didn’t remember much of the trip except for the crowds and bleak weather. We’d come during Christmas break, and though I thought the many buildings would have insulated us from the cold, wind sheared through the corridors between buildings instead, creating tunnels of absolute misery. We had walked in a miniature tour group, all in a clump with my Astros-capped father leading the pack, while the kids whined about wanting to just sit down somewhere there was heat. I distinctly remember my toes going numb in my sneakers.

Returning to New York with this tour group was a different experience altogether. As we made our descent in our private aircraft, it was in the twilight hour between sunset and evening. Skyscrapers glowed blue, rimmed warm pink from behind. Millions of beads of light lit uneven clumps of buildings and major thoroughfares. I squinted and made out the Empire State Building, taller than all of the other buildings around it, and toward the edge of the window, the unmistakable ridges of the twin towers stood at the tip of Manhattan.

Twenty minutes later, we slid onto a runway, disembarked, and within moments we exited JFK and climbed into a glimmering black SUV. We rode through sticky streets, an hour and a half of low murmurings, as Merry had fallen asleep again in the middle seat.

It surprised me then, and it surprised me again, how dense New York is. Coming from two highly populated cities, it shouldn’t have caught me off guard, but those were cities of sprawl. The millions of people on this two-mile-long island are stacked upon one another, sleeping above one another, crowded next to one another, walking in a giant sea of anonymous faces. It made me dizzy.

While Big Disc may have spared no expense getting us to New York, they were slightly less accommodating when it came to our hotel rooms. We slept in modest adjoining suites, two to a room, with Ian across the hall and various other members of our entourage scattered across three floors. Merry had sprawled on a bed as soon as Ian unlocked the first door, and Yumi followed her in. Rose and I uncomfortably realized we were roommates for the night.