Page 3 of With a Little Luck

“‘Sea Glass,’” I say finally.

Ari blinks. “My‘Sea Glass’?”

“I’m telling you. I am your biggest fan. Pru likes to claim thatshe’syour biggest fan, but we both know she would pick a Beatles song as her favorite.”

For a second I swear I just made Ari blush, which is not something I can say about many girls. I almost laugh, but I hold it back, because I don’t want her to think I’m making fun of her. But then, since I don’t laugh, the moment starts to feel awkward.

Over the speakers, Sir Paul is singing about how everything is going to work out, with just a little luck.

Ari clears her throat and tucks that same strand of hair behind her ear again. “I’ve been working on something new lately. I thought of playing it tonight, but … I don’t think it’s ready.”

“Oh, come on. It’d be like … workshopping it.”

“No. I don’t know. Not tonight.”

“Fine. Keep your groupies in suspense. But I’m just saying”—I hold8up the doodled flyer again—“Araceli the Magnificent would never pass up an opportunity to mesmerize a crowd with her newest masterpiece.”

“Araceli the Magnificent plays to taverns full of drunken hobbits.”

“Halflings,” I correct.

Ari smirks and jumps down off the counter. “How about this?” she says, setting her guitar back into its case. “I will play my new song ifyousubmit one of your drawings for publication somewhere.”

“What? Who would want to publish one of my drawings?”

“Uh—lots of places? How about that fan magazine you like?”

I try to remember if I ever told her my deeply buried dream of having an illustration printed in theDungeon, a fanzine that covers everything from the Avengers to Zelda.

“Just submit something,” she says, before I’ve had a chance to respond. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“They reject me,” I say.

“You don’t die from rejection.”

“You don’t know that.”

She sighs. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

“It might, actually,” I counter. “It might hurt very much to try.”

Her frown is disapproving—but I can deal with Ari’s disapproval. Or Prudence’s. Or my parents’. It’s the possible disapproval of the world at large that grips me in agonized terror.

“Rejection is part of the life of an artist,” she says, tracing a sticker of a daisy on her guitar case. “The only way to know what you’re capable of is to put yourself out there, and keep putting yourself out there, again and again, and refusing to give up—”

“Oh god. Stop. Please. Fine, I’ll consider submitting something. Just—no more pep talks. You know they stress me out.”

Ari claps her hands together. “Then my work here is done.”

9

Chapter Two

It takes us most of the hour to reconfigure the store to makeenough space around the stage. The store isn’t huge, but once we roll the record bins and shelves off to the sides, it’s roomier than it seems. We bring a dozen folding chairs out from the back room, setting them up in a half circle around the raised platform.

People start showing up around five thirty. Two people. Then four. Thenseven. Pru and her boyfriend, Quint, arrive at a quarter till, holding hands as they stroll through the door.

We add another row of seats after the first dozen are filled up. It’s the most crowded I’ve seen in a while, maybe the most crowded the store has been since last year’s Record Store Day—a nationwide promotion that happens every spring and always brings in a bunch of customers.

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