Tig would have preferred to talk with Robbie, Paris, Olivia, and Claire face-to-face about all this, but there was no way she could sit on it overnight. She was bursting to get it off her chest. She hoped Robbie or one of the other girls would have some idea about what to do.
Tig set up a group video chat with her bandmates. Claire’s hair was in a towel; Olivia’s was held back from her face with a cloth band, and she had zit cream dotting spots along her forehead and nose. Robbie was wearing a ponytail, something she almost never did. Paris, however, was the most interesting of all: she was holding a baby goat.
“Is this the cutest critter you’ve ever seen or what?” Paris asked.
The girls squealed over the baby goat’s cuteness for a few minutes, and then Tig got down to business. “No offense to your critter, P, but we’ve got a problem,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” asked Claire.
“It’s the gig,” Tig replied.
“They changed the date?” asked Robbie. “The pay? Are they going to try to pay us in tapioca pudding?”
“This isn’t a joke,” Tig said. “My grandparents told me tonight that one of the old men on the reunion committee is Kyra’s great-uncle’s first cousin. The only reason he voted to have us play is because of Kyra. Now he’s found out she’s no longer in the band and he wants to cancel us.”
“Wow, get a life,” Robbie said. “Old people have way too much time on their hands, obvs.”
“My sentiments exactly,” said Tig.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” said Olivia. “They don’t sound like very close relatives, so why does he care so much?”
“Apparently, this whole saga goes back several decades to when he was spurned by my grandma,” said Tig. “He just wants to cause trouble for my granddad.”
“That’s strangely romantic,” said Olivia. “He still hasn’t gotten over your grandma? What is she, like, Cleopatra or somebody?”
“Who knew Mimi was such a hot ticket back in the day?” said Tig.
“I just had this weird thought,” said Claire. “Someday we’ll be old like they are, and then people who are the age we are now will have a hard time imagining us as young. Isn’t that kind of sad to think about?”
“Yeah,” said Olivia. “Someday the guys we think are so cute will be old men, and we’ll be old ladies, and it will be like, what was the big deal about them?”
Tig took that in for a moment. She had a flash of herself and her friends as old women. What if Will and Olivia got married and had children and grandchildren, and they all still lived in the same town, and every time Tig saw Will, she felt that same pang of regret mixed with jealousy that he belonged to Olivia? Could feelings really last that many years? Apparently, they could, given the Mimi/BD/Norman Allen triangle. But Tig could barely imagine herself in high school, let alone as a grandmother. She shook off the thought—it was something to ponder later, when the aspects of her current life were less pressing.
“So there’s nothing we can do, then?” Robbie said. “It’s over? There’s no gig?”
“There is one thing we can do,” said Tig. “But you’re not going to like it. I don’t.”
“What?” asked Paris.
“Yeah, what?” said Robbie. “I’ve already mentally bought that denim jacket with the sixty bucks added to my stash. This gig needs to happen.”
“BD says that if we leave Kyra in the band just until after this one gig, the old man won’t pull the rug out from under us.”
“You’re right,” said Robbie. “I don’t like it.”
“Me neither,” said Claire. “Kicking Kyra out once was hard enough. I’d hate to have to do it twice.”
“Exactly,” said Tig. It was nice that Claire understood her feelings without her having to state them.
“Besides,” said Olivia, “I hate to point out the obvious, but does anyone actually think that Kyra could learn all those new songs before the performance? I mean, she could barely play the ones we’ve been working on for months.”
That hadn’t occurred to Tig at all. “You’re right,” Tig said. “Olivia, I hadn’t even thought about that. I was so focused on how weird it would be to invite her back in that I’d completely forgotten the most obvious problem. Kyra would never be able to get these songs together in time for the gig, and then we’d have no set list—not even an hour’s worth.”
“And we were scraping for that as it was,” said Robbie.
“Yeah,” said Claire.
“Paris, you haven’t said much,” said Tig. “How’s all this sitting with you?”
“Y’all know me,” said Paris. “I’m easygoing. If you need to get Kyra back for this gig, I ain’t gonna be mad at you. But I’m with Olivia. I doubt she could do it.”
“Here’s a thought,” said Robbie. “What if we had Kyra play one or two of our old songs with us at the reunion, and then we sub in Paris after that? Then Kyra doesn’t have to learn any new material, and the old guy still gets his third-cousin-twice-removed-great-grand-niece glory?”
“That’s a great idea,” said Claire.
“I agree,” said Olivia.
“I knew you’d think of something,” said Tig. “Paris, how does that sound to you?”
“Works for me,” Paris said.
“Okay,” Tig said. “Now all we have to do is get Kyra to agree to this.”
“Good thing we already made up with her,” said Robbie. “Can you imagine how awkward that would have been?”
Tig felt a wave of nausea just thinking about it. If she hadn’t already made up with Kyra and had to go begging to her about this gig, Kyra probably would’ve milked it for all it was worth. She knew how pouty and manipulative Kyra could be as well as she knew her own name. But the funny thing was, knowing this about Kyra had never stopped Tig from being close with her their entire lives—after all, Kyra had her good points, too, didn’t she? With the betrayal still fresh in Tig’s mind, it was getting harder to remember what those good points were. Tig decided that maybe everyone had a dark side if you got to know them well enough. But somehow that didn’t make her feel any better about Kyra. Tig tried to remind herself about the divorce and how hard that was for Kyra, but was that supposed to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for every rotten thing Kyra did from here on out?
“Awkward. You can say that again,” Tig said. “All right, if we’re all agreed, I’ll talk to Kyra about it tomorrow at school.”
“Why don’t you just call her tonight and get it over with?” asked Claire.
“It’s getting late,” said Tig. “I’ve still got some homework to finish.”
But the truth was, Tig was in no hurry to talk to Kyra . . . or to spend any more time with her than she had to.