The Famoux Read online

  I try to concentrate on my shoes, but it’s hard to, with Chapter across the room. He has an air about him that makes it impossible not to look. I suppose it’s why they put him on the big screen.

  “Where are you headed?” he asks.

  “Wes Tegg’s,” I say. “With Kaytee.”

  “You’re getting coffee?” Chapter can’t help but grin. “You’re always having that.”

  I hope he can’t see my blush from all the way over here. Do Famoux members even visibly blush? I can imagine that kind of telling emotional trait might be erased by the Fissarex. At least, I can hope so.

  When I’m done with my shoes, I see that Chapter is looking at a vase of flowers on one of the many onyx dressers. “There used to photos here,” he observes.

  Right. This was Bree’s room. The ache creeping up on his face makes me want to disappear.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “I know it’s uncomfortable. I had no idea you and Bree were … If I knew, I would’ve—”

  “We weren’t dating,” Chapter says.

  “But the members—”

  “I was her only friend here,” he says. Chapter inspects the vanity now, with its bone-white wood and massive mirror. He meets my gaze through it. “Bree was hard to get to know, but I already knew her.”

  “Already?”

  “We were neighbors. Before the Famoux.”

  My eyes widen. “How is that possible?”

  “Norax found Bree first. Bree told her about me,” he says. “We don’t talk much about past lives in the Famoux, but Bree and I already knew each other’s, so we kept together. The others assumed that meant something. I loved her, of course, but it wasn’t like that.”

  I can’t read Chapter’s expression fully, but I can tell he’s thinking of a memory, replaying a moment as he looks at the vase where photos used to be. There’s an ache there that makes the scabs of my own past feel like they’re being picked at.

  “It’s hard to lose someone who knows you,” I say. “Who really knows you.”

  “Been through it too?” Chapter asks.

  “My mother. She ran away.”

  My candor surprises me. I didn’t expect to say it, but Chapter has the kind of face you want to reveal secrets to. Maybe that makes him trustworthy, or maybe it makes him treacherous. Either way, my heart jolts at the mention of my mom, and I have to look away from him.

  From the hallway beyond us, I can hear “Emeray!” being called out by Kaytee, whose footfall grows louder as she reaches the door.

  “Ready to go?” Kaytee asks.

  “I think so,” I say. The nerves of what I’m about to do kick in again as I grab the first coat I see in my closet and shrug it on. It’s a bit too big, but that’s fine. My corduroy jacket from back home used to be a little too big for me too. It’s almost a comfort.

  On the way out, Chapter stops me. Even through my coat and the sweater, the contact of his hand on my arm sends a spark through me.

  “Bring this,” he says, holding out his snow-covered cap for me to take.

  “But it’s yours,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Maybe you’ll need it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The lights are going wild. We haven’t even set foot outside the car yet, but through the blackout windows they persist, making the glitter on Kaytee’s skirt twinkle.

  “Wow,” my bodyguard Gerald breathes out from the front seat. The crowds are as foreign to him as they are to me. “Look at all those lights.”

  No one had to tell the paparazzi we were coming; they knew. The moment a car leaves the Famoux hideaway, hidden photographers like vultures seem to descend on it, following it ceaselessly to whatever its destination. This is why, Norax believes, my identity was leaked to the public so quickly. Even though our vehicle took several unnecessary loops and exits and tunnels on our way into Waltmar to prevent it, her small visit to the mansion put them on the scent.

  I fiddle with the knitted pattern on the hat Chapter gave me, trying to ignore the fact that my hands are trembling uncontrollably. The lights are surely frightening, but it’s the roaring commotion, above all else, that has me the most scared. It had been the worst part about getting caught in the alleyway—all the screaming and shouting. Granted, their presence had been a surprise then. I wasn’t expecting it. But I’m surely expecting it today.

  Before we left, Norax gave me a few pointers for my smile, which has to be just right—what with all the magazine covers it’ll be on. “Make it as bashful as you can,” she told me. “The world needs to believe it. Lennix needs to believe it.”

  Kaytee has helped me practice this smile a few times in her compact mirror on the way over. I’m not sure if I have it down, but I guess I’ll have to. The car is slowing to a stop in front of the café right now. As it reaches the curb, she lets out a squeal.

  “I love making history on a regular afternoon,” she says. “Don’t you?”

  “I … never have.”

  But I guess I’m about to.

  Bold and unfazed, Kaytee surfaces from the car first. Gerald and I exchange alarmed glances as the volume outside increases tenfold. For whatever overwhelming mile we are about to brace when we step out of the car, we’re already floundering in an inch of it.

  I put on Chapter’s hat. There’s no more time to waste. It’s our turn to join the circus.

  “Are you ready?” Gerald asks me.

  “I hope so,” I say.

  He exits first, coming around to my door to escort me out. I take a long deep breath, then the plunge.

  All at once, the roar for Kaytee turns into something bigger. My name ripples across the mass like a resounding chorus, only everyone is singing it brash and off-key. Camera clicks ring out, rapid-fire, and shouts build into screams so loud I can barely hear anything anymore. I can’t tell if they’re happy, or mad, or anything, and it’s so bright that I can’t see their faces. It’s hard to know what the response is at all.

  “She’s here!”

  “She’s with Kaytee! She’s got to be—”

  “Emeray Essence, over here!”

  Over where? Trying my best to follow Norax’s advice, I look around, and the lights meet me everywhere. Black splotches dance across my vision. I can’t make out a single thing, but I smile at them anyway. All of them. The muscles in my face ache almost instantly.

  Gerald is stunned by the whole ordeal too, and another Famoux guard grabs my arm, pushing me to walk right through the pandemonium. He hollers at the photographers until there’s a sudden clearing, and without any care for my balance I am shoved through it, straight into the café’s doors.

  Like a flash, it’s over. The café is playing soft music, the chaos now a murmur through the walls. I’m left wondering if I smiled enough, or too much. Norax will let me know in due time.

  “You made it!” Kaytee exclaims. “That wasn’t so bad, right?”

  Gerald is beside himself. “Not so bad? How do you ever get used to that?”

  At first I believed this café had to be empty, but the awed silence of the entire room is but an occupational hazard for a Famoux member. Nearly every table is filled, and every eye at them is on us as Kaytee leads me toward the corner of the room. I keep my head ducked down, hoping to hide, but it’s no use. They’re all staring. Maybe I actually prefer the chaotic anonymity of the crowds outside to something as intimate as this. I feel like I’m Emilee Laurence again, walking down the hall on the way to class. I’m too busy thinking about this to even realize that Kaytee’s sitting me down at a table.

  “Wait, aren’t we just ordering at the counter and leaving?” I ask.

  Kaytee shifts on her feet. “Well …”

  “Is that my girl?”

  Just then, a young man wraps his arms around Kaytee, twirling her around in the space between our table and a group of young school kids. The kids look like they’re about to faint, and I don’t blame them: this is Cartney Kirk—Kaytee’s megafamous musician boyfriend.

  I’ve only ever seen them together in photographs. In person, they’re like a perfect painting. He pulls her into a tender kiss, and I find myself wondering if I’d ever seen my own parents treat one another with such affection.

  “You must be the girl of the hour, huh? I like the hat.” Cartney extends a hand out to me, taking a seat.

  I gape at him. I’ve already done far more talking than I was supposed to on this trip. Now, I’m expected to sit down in this crowded café and hold a conversation?

  I look to Kaytee, desperate, but she’s sitting down too. “I thought it’d be nice if you two met,” she says. “Can’t we stay for just a few minutes?”

  I want to explain to her my grave unpreparedness for this kind of social interaction, but there are so many eyes on us, evaluating our every move, I know I can’t. I paste on the smile I’ve been practicing and sit. In a flash, a waitress is there to take our order. This isn’t even a café with table service, but I suppose such a thing exists everywhere for the Famoux.

  The just a few minutes turns out to be several. Far more than I’d prefer. Considering how much I genuinely like Kaytee, and how much I genuinely felt their love when Cartney Kirk first entered, I’m stunned by how little a liking I take to him. It’s clear that the proximity to the Famoux has gone to his head: he oozes a sense of superiority over almost everyone, going on long monologues about himself and his life journey. I guess I’m lucky that he’s so talkative, though. It means less opportunity for me to embarrass myself. I get a lot of practice keeping quiet and grinning until my cheeks hurt.

  “So.” Cartney takes a long sip of his drink. It’s a vanilla latte. His favorite, I’ve been told. “We’re going to be recording a little something with you soon, right?”

  “What?”

  “Cartney!” Kaytee whispers, but loud enough so the room can hear. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? To talk about a song?” he asks. “I heard Norax on the phone with Buchan about it.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not set in stone yet.” Kaytee punches his arm playfully. “Keep your voice down!”

  “Nah, let it leak. The other musicians better know about the threat now,” he says. “A song with all three of us would probably demolish the charts.”

  I laugh along with them, but my eyes are on the door, where Gerald and the other guards are waiting. I’m sure Norax is wondering why we haven’t left yet. Her instructions were so clear. In and out. Minimal talking …

  “Does this mean you’re going to be a musician from now on, Ray?” Cartney asks, using an odd nickname for me he has decided will stick.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I want to try everything right now.”

  “If I were you, do you know what I’d do?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re already doing that,” murmurs Kaytee. “You haven’t made a new album in over a year.”

  Cartney’s grip on his cup tightens. He plays it cool for onlookers, but I can tell a new tension has surfaced between them. “I’m letting the inspiration take me wherever it wants, dear.”

  Waiters come around with free pastries to give us, and Cartney declines, his face suddenly sour. I’d assume this would mark the end of our meeting, but no such luck. The moment the waiters leave, Cartney launches into a long soliloquy about his meteoric rise to fame.

  It started three years ago, when he was just a new artist at his record label, Buchan. This was around the time the Famoux started their new era, so he and Kaytee got together at the start of their careers. They’ve been topping the charts together ever since. It’s a story I’ve heard a million times before in the hallways at school, but I couldn’t tell him that. As I’ve been warned by Lennix, the world needs to think I’ve been homeschooled, since Emeray Essence has never existed on a real class roster.

  As he tells the story, Kaytee chimes in a few times to make corrections. “It was actually your solo album,” she says after he’s told me about a project called, of all things, Kaytee. “I was featured on some songs, but it’s yours.”

  “Technicalities,” he murmurs. “When will we be doing that duo album, then?”

  “Soon,” she promises.

  Though trying to conceal it, the tables around us twitter with excitement.

  As he goes in depth about his fourth studio album, called, of all things, McKarrington, it occurs to me that if I can’t escape through the front door, I can certainly make a break for the bathroom. I excuse myself.

  On my way back, I run into two girls who don’t look to be much younger than me. Maybe I don’t run into them, though. Judging by the magazines and pens they’re both holding, it looks like they planned this encounter.

  “Are you Emeray Essence?” one asks.

  For a moment I forget to speak. Being approached in a public area has always meant bad news for me. One of Westin’s friends finding me in the wild. But then I remember who I am, and I nod.

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s my name.”

  Just like that, any calmness they were managing cracks, erupting into a choir of yelps. “Could we please get a photo?” the other asks.

  Just like that, I forget who I am again. “With me?”

  “Yes!” She holds out a silver device. “We love you, like, so much!”

  They do? How? Staggered, all I can think to do is says, “I—I love you too!”

  This gets a whole extra round of squeals. I doubt I’m being composed enough for Lennix’s liking, but I don’t think these fans notice or care. Gerald, who made his way back when he saw people approach me, playfully grabs the girl’s device, and he takes the calmest series of photos I’ve experienced all day.

  As they gush to me about how exciting this is, I notice a small line of people has now gathered, waiting their turn. The scenario Lennix proposed earlier jumps into my mind. Do I stop for them all? One look at their faces, so light and happy to see me, and I decide, yes. I’ll take every photo until the line’s finished and try to enjoy it.

  I barely even have to speak—they walk up, we pose, and then they hug me, thank me, and leave. They seem to know this drill, like they do it every day with celebrities. For me, it all feels something like a strange, impossible dream. It wasn’t long ago at all that I was being thrown straight into rivers. And now?

  “Emeray, we’re going,” Kaytee calls out to me. The line of people waiting wail at this, but Kaytee has the answer. She has Gerald take a group photo of all of us, including her and Cartney, much to everyone’s delight. As we leave the café, it hits me just how good she is at appeasing masses.

  Out in the commotion of paparazzi flashes, Cartney bids us good-bye. He pulls Kaytee into a rigid hug and a long kiss that makes the cameras go crazy. As she ducks into the car, he moves on to me, plucking my hand from my side and giving it its own kiss. This is a whole bigger performance for him, I realize. Everyone’s eating it up.

  “It was lovely to meet you, Ray,” he says.

  I narrow my eyes. “Why Ray?”

  “We’re friends,” he insists. “Friends give each other nicknames, don’t they?”

  The whole ride home, Kaytee can’t stop apologizing about her boyfriend’s behavior. “He never knows how to act around Famoux members,” she tells me. “He’s far too proud to feel comfortable in a room where he isn’t the most important person, so he overdoes it.”

  “What about when he’s just with you?”

  “What do you mean?” she asks innocently.

  “You’re a Famoux member too. Does he act differently when it’s just you?”

  She doesn’t seem to understand the query. She shakes it away, sharing ideas for the song we’ll split between the three of us. She thinks perhaps I can learn to play the piano for it. She’ll provide the guitar. The people, she says, will love it.

  The first person Kaytee and I see when we enter through the foyer is Foster, emerging from the kitchen, eating grapes. He regards us with wide cobalt eyes. “Well that was a pretty long coffee run,” he says.

  Kaytee lets out an exasperated sigh. “If we could’ve gotten out of there sooner, we would’ve.”

  “Yikes,” says Foster. “Was the coffee that bad?”

  “No, I always love Wes Tegg’s.”

  Foster nods. “Ah. Right. It was Emeray.”

  Just beyond us, Race emerges from another hallway. He has barely enough time to speak, much less open his arms before Kaytee barrels straight into them like they haven’t seen each other in years. She buries her face into the side of his neck, kisses him, and he lifts her up in their embrace so that her feet dangle above the ground.

  I’m wholly stunned. But Foster doesn’t seem surprised at all. He continues eating his grapes, like it’s nothing. When Kaytee and Race finally pull apart from their embrace, she tells him, “Cartney’s gotten worse, if it’s even possible.”

  “Did he check himself out in his silverware?”

  “Constantly.”

  Beside me, Foster murmurs in my ear, “Must be pretty nice to come home to somebody like that, am I right?”

  “Wait. They’re together?”

  “Oh, you didn’t know? It started back in the beginning,” Foster says. “Before I even got here, actually. They liked each other immediately.”

  “But what about Cartney?”

  Foster hesitates. “Well, she’s not really with Cartney. It’s the contract.”

  A dating contract, it appears. Foster explains that she signed it under the assurance from Norax that it was a good career move. Solidified an ally in Buchan, the record company.

  “But now the contract’s always getting renewed, and she and Cartney are far too popular as a unit,” he says. “People would lose it if they ever broke up.”

  “Will they have to keep renewing it forever?” I ask.

  “Certainly appears that way.”

  As Kaytee talks to Race, her hand absently traces his, and I realize she didn’t hold Cartney’s at Wes Tegg’s at all. In fact, the moment they sat down, their act deteriorated in front of my eyes. Their strange behavior from this afternoon now makes sense. I can’t help but think about the painting on Race’s studio wall. The girl with the dark hair, writing something. It has to be Kaytee. Perhaps she was signing the contract.