GOD, THIS HOUSE WAS HUMUNGOUS. IT WAS ALMOST as big as Sutton’s spread, if not bigger. How did people even live in such vast palaces? Didn’t it get lonely? Or scary? She wondered what it would be like to wander around those infinite rooms. She sat on the sidewalk and waited for Nick to come home. She hadn’t thought of ringing the bell, being too shy to announce herself. She was betting on catching him when he came home from school.
Their conversation the other night was bothering her, and she wanted to apologize, even if it was he who had been rude. When Nick found her, she was just sitting on the sidewalk, her board at her feet, like a lost soul.
“Taj?” he asked, rolling down the window to his convertible. “What are you doing here?” He looked more than surprised. Maybe he’d thought after the stunt he’d pulled he would never see her again. But then, Taj wasn’t like other girls.
“What does it look like? I’m having a chocolate chip cookie,” she said cheerfully, holding aloft a damp bag of Mrs. Fields. When Nick still looked confused, she set him straight. “I’ve been waiting for you, what else? Took you long enough! Doesn’t school let out at three?”
“I had practice. Why didn’t you call me?”
“I would have, if I had your cell. And you guys aren’t listed.”
“Well, get in,” Nick said, unlocking the door.
Taj jumped in. “Nice car.” She whistled.
Nick drove them up the winding driveway.
Taj looked sideways at Nick, admiring his profile. If you’d told her a few weeks before that she would be hanging out with some Bel-Air preppie, she would have swatted you with her skateboard.
“Jesus. It looked huge from down the hill, but up close it’s even more enormous.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, a little embarrassed. “It’s been in my dad’s family for years.”
Taj shook her head. Nick parked the car in the garage and led Taj into the house through the kitchen.
Nick excused himself to his room, citing a need to change out of his sweaty soccer uniform, while Taj looked around at the kitchen, admiring its immaculate emptiness, the appliances only peeking out from behind roll-down doors. The countertops, honed in onyx, didn’t sparkle but glowed with a soft, calibrated light.
It was a beauty that she had only seen in the pages of glossy, oversized magazines. Flowers sat under focused spotlights, their petals and leaves stapled and arranged into elaborate shapes that contrasted the starkness of the modern kitchen.
She had been to her share of rich-kid parties, had seen these houses close-up—this was just as impressive as Sutton Werner’s, if not more so. But she had never known anyone who actually lived in one of these houses; she had always thought of those people in the abstract. Sutton didn’t count. She didn’t know Sutton. But she was starting to think of Nick as a friend, and to realize that he came from this—she couldn’t decide if it made her like him more or less.
Nick came down the back stairs, a towel around his shoulders, dressed in a clean white T-shirt and jeans. He was drying his hair.
“I don’t even want to know what you thought of my house,” Taj said, suddenly feeling painfully embarrassed at how proud she’d been of their backyard view.
“What are you talking about? Your house is awesome,” Nick said, completely sincere.
“Okay, you don’t have to lie to me—I’ve seen your house now,” Taj joked, feeling relieved. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that he’d seen the way she lived.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked.
“No, I’m good, thanks. Want a cookie?” she said, offering him a nut-brown one.
Nick began to shake his head—his stepmother had raised them to prefer wheat-free, carb-free organic snacks, but the sight of melted chocolate proved too tempting. “Sure,” he said, picking it up.
“I loooove these,” Taj said, licking chocolate off the side of her lip.
He was charmed. He’d only ever known girls who shrieked at the sight of an ice-cream cone and subsisted on dressing-free salad.
Taj removed a pint of milk from the bag as well. “Want a sip?” she asked, offering him her drink.
“No, thanks,” he replied, holding up his trusty can of Red Bull.
“How can you drink that stuff? It’s gross.” Taj shuddered.
Nick looked at the can in his hand. It was gross. It was too sweet and sugary, and most of the time it gave him a headache. But somehow he couldn’t help ordering it, buying it, drinking it. One day it was the only thing he would drink, the only thing his friends would drink. He tried to remember what he used to drink before reaching for the Red Bull, but he couldn’t remember. “I like it,” he said dubiously, putting down the can.
“Listen, Taj, I’m sorry about the other night. That was totally rude of me. Please tell your uncle I feel like an asshole.”
“You were an asshole,” Taj said. “But that’s okay. You were upset about your sister.”
“Friends?”
“Of course.”
It was funny. They’d only known each other for what—a week? And already it felt so comfortable to be around him. She hadn’t felt this way about a guy since—well, since Johnny. For a moment she felt guilty for a reason she didn’t want to think about. She wasn’t technically cheating on Johnny, after all. And besides, he was the one who had all those other girls.
Taj put down her cookie. She wiped her mouth carefully with a damp napkin. “I was thinking about what you said the other night, and I wanted to apologize. I know you thought I was being weird, so—”
He interrupted her. “I did some digging around. My friend Eric, who’s a computer nerd, found some stuff. Did you know TAP is owned by Werner Music Group? You know, WMG?”
“You mean they bought it from YourPage.”
“No, Eric said it’s the opposite—they set up YourPage to back TAP.”
“Really?” Taj asked, taking another cookie and not looking at him. “Huh. I always thought it was those two guys that started it—Mark and Jim … Jim’s cute.” Taj shrugged. “But for all we know they could be actors …”
“You know, Werner Music is one of the biggest labels around, if not the biggest,” Nick said. Half the world’s most popular music was distributed by the company. It had a finger in every musical pie—from hardcore rap to down-home country to everything in between.
“It’s not Sutton Werner, is it? I heard his dad is some music mogul,” Taj said innocently.
“Yeah, his dad’s the biggest deal in the music industry. You know, his grandfather started the company. He discovered Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin … and his dad managed Jeff Buckley and Nirvana. Sutton grew up here, in L.A., the Palisades. His family moved to New York and he transferred to Bennet just this year. I heard he’d been kicked out of a couple schools—Choate, St. Lawrence, Harvard-Westlake. Anyway, I always thought he was a bit of a twerp. You?” he asked. “What do you know about Sutton?”
Taj slouched on the counter, breaking the cookie in half. “The same as everyone. Not much.” She looked like she was going to evade the question again, but she kept talking. “Actually, he was Johnny’s manager.”
“No way. Sutton?”
“Yeah. He—he approached Johnny. When Johnny first put up his songs online, Sutton sent him an e-mail, telling him he could help him, you know, with his career and stuff. He was always very professional.”
“And he throws those TAP parties. So it all goes back to him,” Nick said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, everyone knows they’re Sutton’s parties, right?”
“I guess.” Taj shrugged. “We didn’t know that at first.”
“We?”
“Johnny and me. But then when he asked Johnny to play several of the parties, we kind of figured out that he was behind the whole thing.”
“How’d you guys meet anyway?”
“Me and Sutton?”
“No, you and Johnny,” Nick asked.
“Online.”
“Of course.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Taj said, blushing. “I don’t meet guys online. It’s not my thing.”
“Only in front of locked doors?” Nick asked, teasing.
“Right.”
“So was Johnny some homeschooled genius? That’s what TAP always said.”
“Homeschooled? Johnny?” Taj laughed. “He’s from Van Nuys. He went to Van Nuys High till he dropped out.”
“Really. I always thought he was some kind of music savant.”
“No—” Then Taj caught herself. “I mean, he was. But not that kind. He was pretty ordinary. He just played up that part—you know, Johnny Silver, artiste. Mr. Sensitive. But he was a pretty normal kid. Except when it came to music. Johnny was crazy about music.”
“You think he’s alive?”
“He’s got to be. I mean, he’s seventeen years old. You know? And famous. If he were dead, we’d hear about it, right?”
Nick nodded.
Taj took his hand. “What about your sister? Anything?”
Nick shook his head. “Nothing. I just wish she’d call. I’m sure she’s fine. I mean, Fish is a pretty savvy kid. She can handle herself.”
“I’m sure she’ll turn up,” Taj said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure she’s fine.”