on the face.”
He laughed. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry.” At least he was being honest. “Listen, Ms. Dante—how do I get a yes?”
“What do you mean?”
“What does he want? Alpacas in his dressing room? A bowl of green M&M’s? What?”
I bit my lip. What we really needed was money.
As if reading my mind, Flynn said, “I’ll pay him five thousand dollars to show up, and five thousand more if he pulls it off.”
I sat down hard on the bed.
“Ms. Dante, you’re killing me. All right, ten thousand more if he pulls it off. That’s fifteen grand for a successful performance. Final offer.”
Fifteen. Thousand. Dollars. That was more than we’d made in the last year. That was rent. That was meds. That was rescue.
“How long do I have to consider it?”
“Thirty seconds.”
My pulse pounded in my wrists, my temples, my face. I thought about last night, about how Dad had commanded that yard full of rich wedding guests, drawing their focus away from one another and onto the stage. He still had it. He was wasted on weddings and corporate Christmas parties; he belonged on a national stage.
But another failure might kill him. The first one had probably killed my mother, and it had certainly torn our family apart. We couldn’t afford to take that risk again.
But could we afford not to take it?
It didn’t matter anyway, because there was no way Dad would say yes. Absolutely no way.
Flynn cleared his throat. “What’s it going to be?”
I took a deep breath. “We’re in.”
CHAPTER 5
WHEN I HEARD THE CLICK of the RV’s door opening, a fist seemed to squeeze my heart. What had I just agreed to? And how was I going to tell Dad? As he mounted the steps, I covered my face in a fake yawn, trying to hide the mixture of fear and excitement I felt. Dad was going to be on national TV again. He had a shot at a comeback.
He was going to be so pissed.
“Good morning,” he said, setting two coffees in the cup holders. He held up a McDonald’s bag, his face drawn tight in a forced smile—but when he saw me, his expression changed. “What’s the matter?”
“I just . . . had a weird dream,” I said, my heart pounding, my brain scrambling for some way to break the news. “I’m still waking up from it, I guess.”
He squinted, and I couldn’t tell if he looked concerned or suspicious.
We sat down in the captain’s chairs and ate our Egg McMuffins in silence. Dad finished his first.
“We need to rest up and figure out our next plan of action,” he said. “There’s a KOA in Bluffton. We have enough. We’ll spend the night there.”
If Walmarts were my second home, KOAs were the motels I stayed in during business trips. They had washing machines, showers, and—most important—free Wi-Fi. Once we got there, I would figure out the right way to tell Dad about the Flynn & Kellar show. I would have to.
We arrived just after eleven a.m. Dad looked surprised when I offered him the first shower, but he grabbed his duffel bag and marched off all the same. I fired up my laptop, and as soon as it connected to the KOA_BLUFF Wi-Fi network, my whole body sagged with relief. It was good to be connected again.
While Dad was at the showers, I opened the email from Grace Wu and electronically signed the attached contract. As soon as I clicked Send, I felt a rush of anxiety. We were committed now; we had a direction. But I had no idea how we were going to pull it off.
I put it out of my mind for the moment, logged into my school site, and started cranking through my US History exam. When I finally clicked Submit forty-five minutes later, I figured I’d earned a B, which would count as a C since I had taken it a day late. I’d have to bust my ass to bring my average back up.
Dad came in once, saw me working, and announced he was going for a long walk. I brewed a pot of coffee and slogged through a chapter of the Joads crossing the Dust Bowl in a beat-up wagon. I found their plight disturbingly relatable.
As soon as I stopped reading, I could feel my internal machinery begin to grind to a halt. The coffee and the opportunity to work had triggered a brief high, but now I was sliding downward again. Schoolwork suddenly seemed a waste of