Break It Up Part 11

"What do you mean no one else will be on this tour? No one was invited? There wasn't a contest that people could win tickets from or something?"

"No." Rick shakes his head. "I wanted to cancel the whole visit. I still want to cancel it."

"So the zoo staff is working overtime and no one's coming on this tour with me?"

"Or we could cancel it."

"That would be rude." Zach isn't having any of it.

I observe this from my cramped position, wedged between Aidan and Brent. They've set up a camera mounted on the car dashboard to record this entire exchange.

From what I can glean from the conversations I've overheard, Triple Cross under the reign of Mrs. Wechsler did a lot of PR stunts. Everywhere they went, they'd arrange events like this tour of the zoo and bring along kids dying of cancer or a Girl Scout Troop selected by a random drawing or something. They'd smile and interact with these guests from a calculated, safe distance and get a ton of photo ops that showed what great guys they were.

It makes sense why the manager thinks it's too much to hit full day after full day of work after a transatlantic flight. The problem is only two out of three band members concur, so now one lone Triple Cross member is going to tour the Madrid Zoo solo. Unless you count his entourage, which I don't. We won't be in any of the publicity stills. This'll look weird. One major celebrity walking around the zoo by himself.

Now I have some idea of why Mrs. Wechsler was so successful. She didn't just micromanage every second of the band members' time, she was good at making a visual statement that the media would grasp. Three band members walking around the zoo with some special needs teenagers and the pictures would say it all. Zach on his own, though...

"Kyra," says Aidan under his breath, "you could sign a release and join him on the tour. We could film it like you're a lucky fan or-"

"No," I say.

"This could be a disaster."

"Is this going to end up in the film?"

He shrugs. "We'll figure that out later."

"If you want to prevent disasters, why didn't you do anything this morning in the lobby?" I ask.

"Blowing off steam, I can make that work, you know? Show the wear and tear of a tour on the members. This zoo visit... I'm not sure what I can say about it."

"So you probably won't use it in the film?"

"Probably not, but you never know. Something interesting could happen. Give me something to work with." He shrugs.

When we get to the zoo, Zach steps out of the car with an easy confidence, smiling and nodding at all the right times, greeting his guide and the other zoo staff graciously. He makes each person he greets feel like she's the only person in the universe right at that moment. That's star power. It's a skill Jason has too, though Jason is more every-guy about it. You forget you're talking to an A-list movie star around him and start to feel like he's someone you grew up with and used to throw food at in junior high. Zach doesn't make you forget who or what he is for a second. It's as if the whole rest of the world is slightly out of focus. Even when I don't look at him, I still know exactly where he is. Though, to be honest, I can't stop looking at him.

This trip is awkward at best. With the right media spin, it could be an unmitigated disaster. People might think he demanded a solo tour and ordered the zoo shut down on a whim.

Aidan gives me his phone and a slip of paper with some numbers on it and why I need to call them. It's all to arrange transportation to the next stop on the tour; once again, some of the doc.u.mentary crew will be travelling via commercial flight while the rest of us will be in the private jet with the band, so I need to call to confirm seat reservations and special meal requests.

I hang back from the crowd and keep my voice low so that I don't interfere with the filming. It's best not to see how this is going anyway. Everyone else goes into an outdoor amphitheater to watch a dolphin show, but I linger outside, on hold with the airport shuttle service in Lisbon. I can see the dolphin trainer on the concrete stage, albeit from an extreme side angle, and I watch as he waves to Zach and crew, smiling with appreciation.

The dolphins, four of them, swim up to the edge of the pool and look eagerly up at their trainer like eager children expecting a treat while Muzak drones on at me over the phone connection.

The trainer throws his arms open and the dolphins are off, swimming around the pool and leaping out of the water, their torpedo-shaped bodies gleaming in the sun.

And as luck would have it, that's when the airline picks up the line, so I have to turn my back and focus on the conversation. Between this and the call to the airport shuttle company in Lisbon, I miss most of the show, but whatever. I'm not really here to see dolphins perform.

Afterwards, though, Zach doesn't leave at once, but rather accepts the trainer's invitation to step up to the lip of the tank, where the dolphins mob him much like his fans do on land. He smiles and pets them and his gaze falls on me.

"You ever petted a dolphin?" he calls out.

I nod but know I'm probably too far away for him to see it all that well. If I get closer to him, I make the shot unusable, though maybe that's a reason to get close. Maybe I should help make all the footage from this visit unusable.

No, I chide myself. You're overreacting. The very thought of Zach looking bad brings out my protective side. He can handle this.

He continues to pet the dolphins, but his face is still turned my direction. "Come on," he coaxes.

Coming from him, this has the power of a royal decree. My knee buckles slightly, and before I know what I'm doing, I find myself halfway around the front of the tank, walking towards him.

The camera keeps rolling as I draw close, and the trainer grins at me toothily. All my focus is on Zach, even though I'm not looking at him. Not at his face, at least. I stare intently at his shoes, the white ones with his autograph st.i.tched into them.

Right now the camera should feel like it's shooting out a thousand-watt beam of light, and I suppose I am aware of its cold, gla.s.s eye watching my every move, but it's Zach who has my stomach tying itself in knots.

One of the dolphins chitters at me, and I reach over to stroke its boiled-egg textured skin. Another one noses up under my hand and I lean over the side of the pool to give them equal attention. "Hey," I say as cheerily as I can. "h.e.l.lo."

"Have you ever petted a dolphin before?" Zach asks me. His tone of voice is low, as if we're alone together, and that just makes my nerves worse. My hand, the one on the dolphin's head, begins to shake.

"Yeah," I say in a low voice. "When I was a kid. At SeaWorld."

"Which one?"

"Which dolphin?"

"Which SeaWorld?"

"Oh. San Diego."

"Nice."

I hazard a glance at his face and see that he's smiling. I let myself smile back. It'd be rude not to.

I did get an A in drama. Even Jason says I have potential. But the challenge of playing it cool in this situation is kicking my b.u.t.t.

"Shall we move on?" his chipper guide asks.

I duck and run for the safety of behind the cameras. "Kyra?" Aidan asks me. "Can you translate what people are saying here?" He points to a couple of zoo workers chatting. "I don't know if it's interesting or not."

"They're comparing Zach to Reid Malone, who was here last week."

"Yeah, let's film that," says Aidan.

I wish I'd kept my mouth shut. Even though the workers claim Zach is nicer than Reid, Reid's a notorious, self-centered, bratty child star.

LATER, WHEN the rest of the crowd has stopped at the elephant enclosure, I step away to go to the restroom. It's weird to have the whole zoo to ourselves; the restroom's cavernous silence demands voices and laughter to break it up, and I feel like I'm in some post-apocalyptic zombie movie, was.h.i.+ng my hands in an eerily deserted room.

When I step out the door and right into a figure, I gasp and jump back.

"Just me," says Zach. He leans against the wall; it's obvious he planted himself there to wait for me. Now that he's away from the camera, he seems a lot less sure of himself. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine, you?"

"Well, I gave Logan and Ben the demos we listened to." He shakes his head. "They can't agree on any of them. It's a nightmare."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks." He glances back in the direction of the rest of the crew. "This was a mistake, coming to the zoo. I keep trying to do the right thing and..." He shakes his head again.

"It's all good."

"I'm wasting people's time."

"It's a nice zoo."

"I've been here at least a dozen times already, and they know that."

Without thinking, I step forward and give him a hug. Those split seconds with my body cradled against his make the blood roar in my ears, and it's all I can do not to fan myself when he lets go.

He's oblivious as he flashes me a grin. "Thanks."

"Sure. Anytime."

"I'm lucky to have a friend like you." He moves past me to the men's room.

I take a few deep breaths before I go rejoin the others.

THAT AFTERNOON, just before it's time to head over to the concert venue, Aidan summons me to his room, where several of the rest of the crew stand around his laptop. "Kyra," he says, "I want you to see this first to make sure you're okay with it." He turns his computer so that the screen faces me and I see that he's on YouTube. "This isn't public yet," he a.s.sures me. "But we're releasing teaser videos, and given how today went...this is the only one I've got."

The video starts up and it's Zach. He's petting the dolphins and joking with the trainer, who introduces himself as Bernardo. Then Zach turns and calls out to me offscreen. The sun is bright enough that everyone's squinting, too polite to put on sungla.s.ses while talking to each other.

Then I walk into the frame, my face blurred out, my body showing that I'm shy in this situation. I pet one of the dolphins and Zach asks me, "Have you ever petted a dolphin before?"

I watch, mortified, and see that my response is a mumble. Subt.i.tles appear at the bottom of the frame, and while I suppose it would be normal to feel embarra.s.sed to find out I'm that bad on camera, I'm relieved. No one can even hear my voice. Friends of mine could watch this and have no idea that it's me. Even better, the subt.i.tles are wrong. It has me saying, "Sorry?" rather than "Which dolphin?"

"Are we okay to make this public?" Aidan asks. "You're ident.i.ty is concealed. I just want to get a good clip out there, and this is cla.s.sic Triple Cross publicity. Them taking the time to give a fan some individual attention."

I really wish I knew offhand whether he has to ask me for permission or not. Is he doing me a courtesy when he could go ahead and post it anyway? Or if I say yes, am I waiving some right not to be featured?

"I don't want to be in this doc.u.mentary."

"I know," he says. "That's not what I'm trying to do. His fans will love it. We can blur you more if you want?"

"This needs to be the only time I ever appear on camera then. Ever."

"I know. I wouldn't ask if I wasn't a little desperate."

"Pity to blur out such a pretty face," says Brent.

Whatever.

"The press has picked up on the fight this morning," says Aidan. "It's kind of a mess out there right now."

Given that, I really shouldn't stand in the way of this sweet, positive clip he has. "Yeah, okay, put it up."

"You any good at social media?" Aidan asks.

"I pay attention to it a lot."

"Know how to get this clip some exposure? We've got Twitter, a Facebook page, all that stuff, but I don't know the first thing about it."

"Yeah," I say. "I can do all that."

Everyone else heads over to the concert while I go back to my room to compose Facebook posts and tweets, and go through all the YouTube messages and comments. It's just as well that I don't see Zach in all his hotness striding around the stage.

There aren't a ton of YouTube comments yet since this doc.u.mentary hasn't been publicized much at all, but I can already tell that soon the landslide will begin. Triple Cross fans are a ravenous group with all kinds of access to social media. One tweet from us gets retweeted forty-seven times the first minute just because I used the #triplex hashtag. Wow.

I go back to view my YouTube video again, now with the image of fans circling like ravenous sharks online, ready to rip me to shreds. A second viewing eases my nerves. My own father would have a hard time recognizing me.

There are a smattering of comments that say, "That girl is soooo lucky," and such, but mostly they are all about how hot Zach is and how sweet he seems. Most people see him calling me over as a sign of his wonderfully charitable nature, not of any special interest in this anonymous, mumbling girl.

I imagine him performing on stage right now, one fist in the air as he belts out his lyrics, sweeping his gaze over the audience of shrieking fans.

He meets and sees hundreds, if not thousands, of people a day. The girl in this video is no one special at all. It's stupid of me to think anyone would even care to know my name.

While I'm checking comments, a tweet pops up on the concert movie feed.

@TriplexMovie Check out this fight!

There's a bit.ly link at the end of the tweet. My stomach sinks as I click it, and sure enough, up pops a window with a picture of Logan holding the vase while Ben argues with him.

"Trouble in Paradise?" the news story begins. "Members of the popular band Triple Cross appeared to have a falling out today in their hotel in Madrid."

Did the guys have to pick a fight in the lobby of all places? Why couldn't they just trash their rooms like normal celebrities with issues?

"Witnesses on the scene say the fight appeared to be quite serious and not just the guys horsing around, as their publicist insists."

I wonder if said publicist is going to fly out and join the tour. If he or she knows what's good for the band, they should.

I pull up Google and do a quick search, only to pull up 3,000 hits for "Triple Cross fight in Madrid." Is this bad? Or is this a small number of hits, given how famous the band is?

"Ben Roland seen out drinking before concert," proclaims one news headline. Great. Way to go, Ben. I check, and sure enough, there are pictures of Ben at a bar with a pint of beer in one hand.

Anger flickers in me. Anger and fear. It feels somewhat like when one of my boyfriends angered a rival gang leader and very nearly got shot. Only Zach isn't my boyfriend, and his life isn't in danger. Unless a rabid fan goes postal or something. Now, though, just like back then, I feel helpless and that's what I hate. The knowledge that bad things are happening and there's nothing I can do to stop them. I think of Chloe and Jason with the media d.o.g.g.i.ng their heels.

Ben's an idiot. He doesn't know what kind of hornets' nest he's stirred up here. A glance at the clock on my computer shows me it's nearly midnight, and I realize that the concert is over and I didn't eat dinner. I'm starving. When I get up to go scout for a vending machine or some other food source, I notice someone's pushed a note under the door.

"Come up?" says the handwritten scrawl, and tucked into the fold of the paper is a room key.