Sing. Vivi Greene

going down.

      The whispers turn to frenzied panic as I splay across the linoleum floor, and I feel the crowd closing in. I shut my eyes, take a deep breath, and hear the unmistakable snap of a shutter going off. I know I should get up. I know I should laugh, make a joke about being the world’s biggest klutz, but I can’t. I lean into Ray’s shoulder as he helps me to my feet, and keep my head down as I finally duck through the door and out onto the sidewalk, tumbling into the car.

      K2 peels away from the curb. He makes a series of quick turns and soon we’re careening down the West Side Highway. I look out at the river on one side, the towering clump of high-rise buildings on the other. My breathing has started to return to normal, but I still feel trapped.

      This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. Usually after a breakup, I crave contact with the outside world. Being around my fans, talking to them, feeling their energy … it’s what gets me through. It’s what inspires me to get back to writing, to mine the heartache and make it my own. To wrestle it down and wring it out: a new song, a new album, a new experience.

      But now it feels like I’m the one being wrung out.

      I need a change of scenery. I need to be alone. I need to hear myself think.

      I take out my phone and scroll through my messages, searching for a recent group text. Changed my mind, I type furiously to Tess and Sammy. Need a vacation. Who’s in?

      

       90 Days Until Tour June 14th

      “WHERE ARE WE?”

      I open my eyes and stare blurrily through the backseat window. I fell asleep somewhere around Portland, Maine, when Ray and the guys in the car ahead insisted on stopping for snacks. Now Tess is turning into a long, narrow parking lot and steering us toward the ocean. It feels like we could keep driving onto the rickety dock, over the water, and straight into the pale blue horizon. Wait until I tell Jed about this, I think, and then instantly feel the pain of losing him again. I wish I could erase him—his name, his face, his existence—from my memory.

      “We’re here!” Tess announces, turning off the engine of her beloved Prius—or “the Pree” as she affectionately calls it. Tess is the only one of us who drives regularly, which is ironic given that she’s also the only one who has lived in the city her entire life. The Pree was the first big purchase Tess ever made and I’m pretty sure she’s more attached to it than she’s ever been to an actual human being.

      “We are?” Sammy looks up from her phone distractedly, taking in the sleepy dock and the deserted parking lot around us. A car door slams and I see Ray loping across the pavement, looking very fish-out-of-water in his reflective Ray-Bans, black polo, and pleated khakis. He grips the inside of the passenger-side window and peers in to see me sprawled out across the backseat. “You good?”

      “Just woke up.” I yawn. After years of shuttling from hotel rooms to buses to planes, I can pretty much sleep anywhere. It was hard at first, but I got the hang of it: contorting my body into compact positions, tossing a sweatshirt or hat over my face, and dozing off within seconds. I stretch and sit up, noticing a smudge of orangey powder on the collar of Ray’s shirt. “Cheese puffs?” I guess.

      “Crap.” He sighs, patting the crumbs away with one enormous thumb.

      I smile. “I’m telling Lori.” Ray’s wife is a nutritionist and runs a tight ship. Cheese puffs are not on the meal plan.

      Ray rolls his eyes before squinting into the sun. “Where’s the boat?” The island is a forty-five minute ferry ride off the coast, which at first made me anxious. What will it feel like to be stranded in the middle of the ocean, with no team of stylists, no schedule, no events?

      Now it doesn’t feel far enough.

      “Guess it’s late,” Tess says, fiddling with the radio. She leaves the battery running but pushes the door open with one foot. “Gives us time to get lunch,” she says and climbs out. “This place has the best chicken salad on the planet.”

      Sammy pockets her phone and gets out of the car, pulling her hair into a messy bun at the top of her head.

      Tess nods toward a quiet café at the top of a small hill. “What do you think, Ray? Gluten-free bun? Hold the mayo?”

      Ray crosses his arms over his broad chest and leans against the bumper, which dips perceptibly beneath his weight. “Coffee,” he grunts. “Black.”

      I press my forehead against the window and look out across the water. A cluster of gulls hovers above the ocean, squawking and diving in a sort of dance. I can’t remember the last time I was this close to the sea. The beach was just a short drive from my house in LA, but the only time I ever spent there was the week we shot the “California Christmas” special for MTV. Otherwise, it was just the scenic blur of my daily commute to and from my house.

      Choppy DJ chatter bursts from the car speakers and suddenly “You Are Here” comes on. It’s a song I wrote about getting lost while driving around LA with Caleb. I still feel a little jolt every time I hear the opening bars of one of my tracks on the radio. Usually, it’s a happy, heart-pumping thrill. But today it’s more of a guilty pang, like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

      Aside from my parents, I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving the city. I thought about texting Terry, but I knew he’d try to talk me out of it. I’ve decided to call him when I get to the island, explain that getting away is the only option right now. There are three months until tour, and I have to relax before then. I can’t risk another scene like yesterday. Terry won’t be thrilled to hear that I’ve temporarily relocated to an isolated island hours and a boat ride away from any trappings of civilization, but he’ll come around … eventually.

      Out of habit, I pull my phone from the front pocket of my bag and scroll through old texts with Jed. I see my usual gushy, long-winded messages, full of kissy-face emojis and exclamation points, and his quick replies: Yup; You too; Night. I guess if I’d really been looking for it I would have noticed that he was distracted and curt. But why would I be looking for it? Just last week we’d done an all-day event together in Central Park. He was by my side through the whole thing, his arm hooked easily around my waist. I’d never felt so supported.

      I stare off across the still water, willing the boat to appear and magically transport me to someplace where I can pretend to be somebody else.

      “Welcome home!”

      Tess lugs our bags out of the trunk and plops them down on the grass beside her. I peel my legs from the sticky seat and climb out of the car as Sammy bounds up to the screen door like a dopey golden retriever.

      The house is small and boxy, with missing shingles and a screened-in porch that’s patched with electrical tape. But the paint on the trim is new, and a cheery row of peonies lines the stone walkway to the steps.

      “What do you think?” Tess asks. I follow her gaze toward the horizon. The house may be plain, but the setting is something out of a fairy tale. A thick fog snakes between clusters of giant evergreens. A low, grassy marsh opens into a web of tidal pools. And beyond all that is the ocean, flat and still and so blue it’s almost black.

      “It’s gorgeous,” I say. The air smells sweet and salty at the same time, honeysuckle mixed with gusts of a crisp sea breeze. My grandparents live in a place like this. Theirs is a lake house in Wisconsin, but the feeling of being lost in nature is the same.

      “It’s no Four Seasons.” Tess laughs, shouldering her bag and starting for the house.

      Ray leans in to scoop up my luggage, but I wave him off. “I