Page 9 of Instant Karma

Jude and I exchange looks because, actually, we have done karaoke before. Lots of times. Growing up, our parents used to take us to this gastropub that had family-friendly karaoke on the first Sunday of each month. We’d belt out Beatles song after Beatles song, and my dad would always end “his set,” as he called it, with “Dear Prudence,” then call us all up together for “Hey Jude.” By the end of it, the entire restaurant would be singing—Naaaa na na… nananana!Even Penny would join in, even though she was only two or three years old and probably had no idea what was going on. It was sort of magical.

A little nostalgic part of me lights up to think of Dad’s slightly off-key rendition of “Penny Lane” or Mom’s over-the-top attempts at “Hey Bulldog.”

But then there was one time, when I couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old, when some drunk in the audience shouted—Maybe that kid should spend less time singing and more time doing sit-ups!

We all knew who he was talking about. And, well, the magic was pretty much ruined after that.

Come to think of it, that might have been the start of my public-speaking anxiety, and that all-encompassing fear that everyone will be watching me, criticizing me, waiting for me to embarrass myself.

“Well, you kids just think it over,” says Trish, setting the binder down next to the chips. She takes a pen and some slips of paper from a pocket and sets them down, too. “If you find a song you wanna sing, just write it down here and pass it up to me, all right? And if the song you want isn’t in the book, you let me know. Sometimes I can find it online.” She winks at us, then wanders off to the next table.

We all spend a few seconds staring at the binder like it’s a poisonous snake.

“Yeah,” Jude mutters, and starts tossing his things into his backpack. “That’s not going to happen.”

I feel exactly the same way. You couldn’t pay me to get up and sing in front of a bunch of strangers. Or non-strangers, for that matter. Fortuna Beach isn’t a big town, and it’s impossible to go anywhere without running into someone you sort of know. Even now, glancing around, I notice my mom’s hairstylist at the bar, and a manager from the corner grocery store at one of the small tables.

Ari, however, is still staring at the binder. Her eyes spark with yearning.

I’ve heard Ari sing. She isn’t bad. At least, I know she can stay in key. Besides that, she wants to be a songwriter. Has dreamed of being a songwriter since she was a kid. And we all know that to have any sort of success at all, there will be times when she’s probably going to have to sing.

“You should give it a try,” I say, nudging the binder toward her.

She flinches. “I don’t know. What would I even sing?”

“Like, any song recorded in the past hundred years?” says Jude.

She gives him a look, even though it’s clear his comment pleases her. Ari loves music. All music. She’s a walking Wikipedia of everything from 1930s jazz to eighties punk to modern indie. In fact, we probably never would have met if it wasn’t for her obsession. My parents own a record store a block from Main Street, Ventures Vinyl, named after a popular surf-rock band from the sixties. Ari started shopping there when we were in middle school. The allowance her parents gave her was way more than I ever got, and everymonth she would bring in the money she’d saved and buy as many records as she could afford.

My parents adore Ari. They joke that she’s their sixth child. They like to say that Ari has single-handedly kept them in business these past few years, which would be charming if I wasn’t afraid that it might actually be close to the truth.

“We could duet?” says Ari, looking at me hopefully.

I bite back the instinctual and impassionedno, and instead gesture hopelessly at my textbook. “Sorry. I’m still trying to finish this paper.”

She frowns. “Jude wrote his in ten minutes. Come on. Maybe a Beatles song?” I’m not sure if she suggests this because of how much I love the Beatles, or because they’re the only band for which I could be trusted to know most of the words. Growing up around the record store, my siblings and I have been inundated with a variety of music over the years, but no one, in my parents’ eyes, will ever compete with the Beatles. They even named each of their five kids after a Beatles song—“Hey Jude,” “Dear Prudence,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Penny Lane,” and “Eleanor Rigby.”

Realizing that Ari is still waiting for a response, I sigh. “Maybe. I don’t know. I need to finish this.” As she continues flipping through the songbook, I try to return my focus to the paper.

“A Shirley Temple sounds pretty good,” says Jude. “Anyone else want one?”

“A little girly, don’t you think?” I tease.

He shrugs, sliding out of the booth. “I’m comfortable enough in my masculinity.”

“I want your cherry!” Ari calls after him.

“Hey, that’s my brother you’re hitting on.”

Jude pauses, looks at me, then Ari, then proceeds to blush bright red.

She and I both burst into laughter. Jude shakes his head and walks toward the bar. I cup my hands over my mouth to shout after him, “Yes, get some for us, too!”

He waves without looking to let me know he heard me.

We’re not supposed to cross the rail that divides the twenty-one-and-over area from the rest of the restaurant, so Jude stops at the invisible barrier to give the bartender our order.

I’m one more paragraph into the paper when Jude returns, carrying three tall glasses filled with fizzing pink soda and extra cherries in each one. Without asking, Ari takes a spoon and scoops out the cherries from both mine and Jude’s and plops them into her own glass.

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