"It still drives."

"That's not what your father asked," snapped Mom, carefully signing every word to be sure I didn't miss anything. "Is it damaged?"

"I think it needs a new front b.u.mper," I said quietly.

Dad slammed his fist on the table. "Well, that's just G.o.d-d.a.m.ned wonderful."

Mom touched his arm gently. "Language, Ryan." She feigned a smile, pointed at Grace. "Little ears, you know."

"But I'm insured, right?" I asked hurriedly. "That's what insurance is for."

"You're eighteen, Piper. The best insurance your mom and I could get for you has a five-hundred-dollar deductible. No matter what happens, we come out of this five hundred dollars down."

"I-I'm sorry. It was an accident."

Dad shoved his chair back, threw his napkin on the table.

Mom grabbed his hand before he could leave. "Grace said Mama, honey. She said her first word."

Dad forced a smile and nodded curtly, but when he walked out of the room he didn't look back-not even at Grace.

I stared at my plate, but I couldn't eat. In my peripheral vision I saw Mom glaring at me, like she'd just seen a terrible side of me she hadn't known existed.

Why did you do that? she signed. she signed.

I couldn't move, couldn't speak.

We've been waiting for this ever since Grace was born, wondering if it could really happen.

I shook my head, and a moment later Mom clattered her cutlery onto her plate and left the table. When I glanced up again, Grace's lower lip was quivering-she'd obviously sensed the sudden change in mood, and feared she was the cause of it.

When the inevitable flood of baby tears came a few seconds later, Grace wasn't the only one crying. Caught between his inconsolable sisters, Finn reached over and lifted Grace out of her high chair, held her tight against him. I didn't even blame him for choosing her side.

But then he came over and squeezed me too. And I swear, I bawled like a baby.

CHAPTER 25.

I had to get out of the house. I didn't care where I went as long as I couldn't be found by anyone with the last name Vaughan, so I just threw myself into USS Immovable Immovable and started driving. It occurred to me that if Kallie were with me, she'd have been amused to see how quickly my bad karma had come back to haunt me. and started driving. It occurred to me that if Kallie were with me, she'd have been amused to see how quickly my bad karma had come back to haunt me.

I tried to calm myself by remembering that fall semester at Gallaudet began in ten months, but then I remembered The Case of the Amazing Disappearing College Fund. I might not be going to Gallaudet in the next ten years, let alone ten months. And it was looking increasingly unlikely that Dumb was going to be able to change that at all.

I wasn't really conscious of where I was heading, but when I found myself pulling up outside Coffee Crew, I wasn't completely surprised either. Unfortunately, Ed was just turning off the neon OPEN sign as I got out of the car, and he locked the door as I approached. I would have taken it personally, only then he saw me and hurried back to the door, unlocking it and holding it open for me.

"You're closed," I said.

"Closing," he corrected.

"There's a difference?"

Ed swept his arm across his body in a gesture of welcome. "For my manager, yes." It took me a moment to realize he was talking about me.

In light of recent events the thought of being Dumb's manager was enough to make my stomach churn, but he said it with such exaggerated servitude that I ended up smiling instead. A moment later, I was leaning against a counter and Ed was concocting something inappropriately caffeinated for eight o'clock in the evening.

I couldn't see his face clearly as he worked the espresso machine, so I didn't speak. I just watched him go through the motions, banging out filters and grinding coffee and steaming milk and the other fifty-three steps needed to make a simple cup of coffee. I'd seen gourmet steaks cooked in less time.

While the golden-brown espresso oozed into a gla.s.s, Ed steamed a pitcher of milk. It said "whole milk" on the handle, but I had the feeling that objecting to this would be sacrilege to a barista, so I kept my mouth shut and watched him touch the side of the metal pitcher with his fingertips, waiting for it to reach the desired temperature. With the same precise timing that characterized his playing, the espresso stopped flowing at the same moment he shut off the steam, and he placed the gla.s.s before me with all the care of someone showing off a delicate antique. I was sure I was about to crack up laughing, but then he began pouring the milk, a steady flow at first, then a gentle shake of the wrist that traced a perfect white flower across the surface of the coffee. Suddenly I didn't feel like laughing anymore.

"It's . . . beautiful," I said, not even bothering to disguise my admiration.

"Try it. It's all about the flavor. The flower is just for show."

I took a sip, the coffee mingling with foam so rich I would have sworn it was whipped cream. I met his eyes. "That's amazing. Seriously. That's the most amazing cup of coffee I've ever tasted. What did you do differently?"

Ed smiled. "Well, first off, I used whole milk. And yes, I saw you twitch when you read the handle of the pitcher. You're not the only one whose peripheral vision works overtime." Okay, now I was really really impressed. "I also did impressed. "I also did not not use any kind of flavoring-it's coffee, not dessert. The other thing I did was to make sure the pour-time was a steady twenty-four seconds-" use any kind of flavoring-it's coffee, not dessert. The other thing I did was to make sure the pour-time was a steady twenty-four seconds-"

"You're losing me."

"Oh. Yeah, maybe that's more information than you need," he said, his mouth crinkling at the corners.

"What's it called, anyway?"

"It's a cappuccino."

"Hmm. Well, aren't you you a man of many talents, Ed Chen." I have to admit the words felt deliciously flirty as I said them. a man of many talents, Ed Chen." I have to admit the words felt deliciously flirty as I said them.

Ed turned slightly red, touched his thick hair nervously. I almost wanted to prolong the silence just to see how fl.u.s.tered I could make him, but that seemed unnecessarily cruel.

"How long have you been working here?"

"Since junior year," he answered, relieved at the change of topic. "I've always been addicted to coffee, and I wanted to learn how to make it properly, so I asked the owner if she'd teach me to use the espresso machine in return for a few hours of dishwashing."

"Seriously? What did she say?"

"She said sure, then paid me for my time and asked if I wanted to come back the next week. Now I close the shop and cash up on Thursdays."

"Except when your boss stops by."

"She never does."

"I mean me," I said with mock seriousness.

"Oh yeah, right." Ed blushed again, a response so endearingly earnest that I wanted to hug him.

"Thanks for this, Ed. I really needed a pick-me-up."

Suddenly he looked concerned. "Why? What's up?"

I took another sip, then another. I wasn't sure I wanted to rehash everything with him, but since he'd asked . . .

"Kallie wasn't very pleased when I told her she had to stay in the band."

Ed waited like there was more to come, then realized there wasn't. "That's not surprising, though, right?"

"I guess not. I just don't know where the band is going right now."

"I can understand that."

I puffed out my cheeks, blew a steady stream of air in an attempt to purge my frustration. It didn't work. "What am I missing, Ed?"

"Honestly?"

I nodded, which was stupid because "honest" is just a code word for "critical," and I should have realized I wasn't ready for that-especially not from Ed.

"Here's the thing," he began, an opening gambit that a.s.sured me the list was about to be alarmingly long. "Dumb is a hard rock band. Josh and Tash and Will don't get soft rock at all at all. Meanwhile, we've got an extra guitarist we don't need who can't really play. But because she's hot she's become the face of the band, and now we can't get rid of her, even though she wants to quit. This isn't rocket science, Piper. You need to decide what kind of band Dumb is going to be, and you need to decide quick, because I don't think we'll survive many more occasions like last night."

He'd finished his a.n.a.lysis, but I couldn't speak. I felt the seconds pa.s.sing and the crushing emptiness of the shop as Ed waited for some kind of acknowledgment that I'd heard a single word. I knew he'd wanted to help, and that under other circ.u.mstances I'd have wanted his advice. But at that moment his words stung more deeply than those of Kallie and my mom combined. I didn't think about what that meant-or why it bothered me so much that he'd described Kallie as "hot"-I just nodded like I was strong enough to accept responsibility for everything that was going wrong.

Then I turned away, leaving half a cup of coffee and the remaining shreds of my self-confidence behind.

CHAPTER 26.

I needed to distract myself, but none of my homework a.s.signments engaged me at all. And I couldn't shake that look Mom had given me. She hadn't looked angry; she'd looked hurt, like I'd just told her she was fat, or that Grace was an ugly baby. It was the kind of look that left no room for quick retractions. I felt guilty. I hated feeling guilty.

Without thinking it through, I e-mailed Marissa, told her the whole story. I knew it was too late to IM-it was eleven o'clock-but I needed to tell my side of the story to the one person who'd understand. A moment after I'd sent it, Marissa IM'd me: MARI55A: that sucks that sucksP1P3R: YES. everything sucks at the moment YES. everything sucks at the momentMARI55A: everything? everything?

I hesitated. Dumb wasn't Marissa's favorite topic-I knew that-but we'd never kept information from each other before. Besides, I needed to vent.

P1P3R: P1P3R: yes. tash and kallie had a blowup after Dumb's interview last night yes. tash and kallie had a blowup after Dumb's interview last nightMARI55A: kallie sims is in dumb? kallie sims is in dumb?P1P3R: didn't i tell u? didn't i tell u?MARI55A: no noP1P3R: oh. anyway, i had an argument with her about staying in the band, and then i went to see ed and he was kind of mean too oh. anyway, i had an argument with her about staying in the band, and then i went to see ed and he was kind of mean tooMARI55A: no way no wayP1P3R: yes. told me i needed to work out what Dumb was all about yes. told me i needed to work out what Dumb was all aboutMARI55A: seems fair seems fairP1P3R: i guess so, but i got the feeling he blamed me somehow i guess so, but i got the feeling he blamed me somehowMARI55A: ur the manager. who else should he blame? ur the manager. who else should he blame?

She may as well have stabbed me in the heart. I reread the line, tried to inflect it with a positive spin, but it was a million miles from the unconditional support I'd always counted on.

P1P3R: i thought u'd understand i thought u'd understandMARI55A: i do. look, i gotta go. hang in there, okay? xoxo i do. look, i gotta go. hang in there, okay? xoxo I would have written back, but she'd already logged off.

I turned off the light and crawled into bed. I wanted to fall asleep, to escape the thoughts clawing at my consciousness, but instead the evening just replayed in my mind, a c.r.a.ppy movie on endless loop. Even Josh made a cameo appearance, smirking as if to confirm that my promotion to manager was no coincidence at all, that he'd planned Kallie's arrival in Dumb as carefully as a military offensive. Unwittingly I'd played my role to perfection. It was enough to make me want to quit, but what if he'd planned for that too? I couldn't bear to give him the satisfaction of being proved right yet again.

Once the clock had yawned all the way to midnight, I resigned myself to not sleeping. I dragged myself out of bed and turned the light back on, then stuffed my pillow at the bottom of the door so Dad wouldn't see the strip of light when he eventually went to bed (even rebels need to pick their battles). Firing up my laptop, I pasted two new reviews of Dumb on our Mys.p.a.ce page, and linked to some bloggers who had discovered the band and thought it was promising. There were also several new messages of the generic "You're an inspiration, Kallie" variety, and even more of the "Oh my! Now I see why Dumb needed Kallie" type from people who had evidently followed the link to Dumb's Battle of the Bands performance on YouTube and suffered emotional trauma as a result. And there was one message from someone called ZARKINFIB that didn't fit any category at all: get educated u money-grabber. go see kurt at 171 lk wash blvd e get educated u money-grabber. go see kurt at 171 lk wash blvd e It was like getting a threatening letter-you know you should ignore it, or tell your parents, but instead you read it over and over, like secretly you knew you had it coming all along. And although I was pretty sure ZARKINFIB wasn't likely to bust through the window brandishing a machete anytime soon, I still felt pretty shaken up. It was like getting a threatening letter-you know you should ignore it, or tell your parents, but instead you read it over and over, like secretly you knew you had it coming all along. And although I was pretty sure ZARKINFIB wasn't likely to bust through the window brandishing a machete anytime soon, I still felt pretty shaken up.

I closed the messages and struggled to focus on the rest of the Mys.p.a.ce page. The main change since Sunday was the number of profile views: 6,259. I couldn't actually remember what the number had been before the radio interview, but I knew it was triple digits only, which meant that all those bloggers had directed some serious traffic our way. And even if people were only there to check out extra photos of Kallie, it was still an astounding number. More importantly, it was the ammunition I needed to keep fighting.

I launched the word processor and without pausing to think, I began to type: Piper's Manifesto:Problem: Josh is an a.s.shole. Solution: Suck it up as long as the band makes money.Problem: Tash is bad for morale. Solution: (gulp) Stand up to her.Problem: It's not entirely clear that Will even has a pulse. Solution: That's a problem?Problem: Kallie can't play guitar for c.r.a.p. Solution: Get Finn to help her-he owes you.Problem: Ed doesn't think I know what I'm doing. Solution: Prove him wrong.Problem: Dumb can't do soft. Solution: Make them hard again.Problem: Mom and Dad suck. Solution: Wait until next summer, then join a commune.

Apart from the last line (which I deleted) the manifesto sort of made sense. And somewhere in the few minutes it took me to write it, I'd even begun to formulate a plan.

I Googled "Dumb Kallie Sims" and found links to twenty-three bloggers who had written about Dumb's resident G.o.ddess-muse. I figured they'd be mostly guy blogs, the kind with close-ups of Kallie's barely visible b.o.o.bs and a copy of her birth certificate proving she'd be fair game once she turned eighteen the following March. Instead, almost all of the blogs were written by women, linked to each other like the tentacles of a Kallie Sims fan club that Kallie herself probably didn't know existed. And there were other common links too, to the websites of KSFT-FM, the Christian Family Beacon, Seattle Today . . . Christian Family Beacon, Seattle Today . . .

I'd heard of Seattle Today Seattle Today-one of those breathtakingly dull talk shows that air in the late morning when the coffee has worn off and viewers are trapped in a pre-lunch stupor so disabling they can't even summon the energy to switch channels. The website informed me that the host, Donna Stevens, had been "guiding" the show with her "effortless blend of gentle humor and homespun wisdom" for eighteen years, and in all that time had never once missed a show, even turning up for work promptly the day after undergoing gallbladder surgery ("!"). (Comparing the almost identical photos of Donna from her first and most recent shows made me suspect that her gallbladder wasn't the only part of her that had undergone surgery.) The show, it turned out, still aired live, "a decision favored by Donna for the spontaneity of the results and not, as many have suggested, because it puts her in a different category at the annual Seattle TV awards, where Seattle Today Seattle Today has won uncontested for the past six years." has won uncontested for the past six years."

It was past one a.m. when I composed my e-mail to Donna Stevens, requesting an invitation for Dumb to appear on her show. I wrote that she was an inspiration to the Vaughan family. I quoted the bloggers who applauded Dumb's "wholesome" values. I provided a link to the podcast of our-okay, Kallie's-interview on KSFT-FM. I even disabled the YouTube link on our Mys.p.a.ce page, just to be sure she didn't accidentally stumble across Dumb's punk alter egos; no need to concern her with details like the band's true musical ident.i.ty just yet-she'd find out soon enough if they appeared on her live live show. show.

I pressed Send.

Over eighteen years, I had done so much to earn the trust and respect of my family and peers-a lifetime of n.o.ble works, you might say. And yet it took just eighteen minutes for me to perfect the art of lying, misleading, and perverting truth for personal profit.

Friday October 26, 1:23 a.m.: the moment Piper Vaughan developed a taste for being bad.

CHAPTER 27.

Of everything on the Piper Manifesto, I'd thought the easiest part would be getting Finn to help. He knew he'd be stuck at school until Dumb's rehearsal was over, so it seemed like a no-brainer, but he hemmed and hawed like it was actually a tough decision. I figured he was just playing an angle, getting me to beg, so I told him to forget it, which is when he finally said okay. But when he appeared at the rehearsal several hours later, he still looked genuinely conflicted. I wondered what was occupying his time after school ended. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

On the bright side, Kallie showed up on time, and took her seat without glaring at me even once. Come to think of it, she didn't look at me at all, but I couldn't really blame her for that. With the cold war between her and Tash still ongoing, I made Finn sit between them-officially, so that he could hear them both; unofficially, so that he could keep them apart. Personally, I'd have been satisfied if all he did was prevent Tash from a.s.saulting her playing partner, but having sacrificed whatever irresistible plans he'd previously made, Finn seemed eager to make his presence count.

I began by announcing to everyone that Dumb's excursion into the world of soft rock had been a means to an end-and I'd already discovered 6,259 good ends-but that it was time to get back to doing what they did best. (No one begged me to reconsider.) Then I said we needed to concentrate on expanding our repertoire with mostly original songs, and maybe a couple of covers that we could get away with performing as long as we weren't being recorded. (Everyone nodded like this sort of made sense.) Finally, I asked if anyone had written a song that Dumb could work on. Josh said that he and Will had collaborated on nine songs, and that three of them were "amazing."

Josh's definition of collaboration collaboration was loose, to say the least. Will had clearly composed the songs single-handedly-and even had sheet music to prove it-while Josh contributed angry, stream-of-consciousness lyrics that justified his penchant for screaming into microphones. Once Will had handed out the music, he and Josh performed their favorite "composition" as a duet, including some high-pitched wailing that I think was meant to simulate a guitar solo. When silence prevailed three minutes later, Ed was evidently raring to go, while Tash and Kallie simply looked confused, leaning forward for a better look at the chord symbols decorating the page like hieroglyphics. As for Finn, he seemed to be having trouble coming to terms with the fact that they were leaning across him, Kallie's hair draped over his lap. was loose, to say the least. Will had clearly composed the songs single-handedly-and even had sheet music to prove it-while Josh contributed angry, stream-of-consciousness lyrics that justified his penchant for screaming into microphones. Once Will had handed out the music, he and Josh performed their favorite "composition" as a duet, including some high-pitched wailing that I think was meant to simulate a guitar solo. When silence prevailed three minutes later, Ed was evidently raring to go, while Tash and Kallie simply looked confused, leaning forward for a better look at the chord symbols decorating the page like hieroglyphics. As for Finn, he seemed to be having trouble coming to terms with the fact that they were leaning across him, Kallie's hair draped over his lap.

"Here," he said, reaching for Kallie's guitar like he didn't trust himself to stay conscious if she remained there any longer. "It's like this."

Finn played the chords perfectly, looking at Tash then Kallie to show them how simple it was. And I didn't know he'd nailed it because I could hear the chords; I knew it because, for a split second, Josh, Will, Tash, and Kallie looked up with expressions of pure awe.

By the time Finn had demonstrated the fingerings three more times, Kallie seemed reluctant to take her instrument back. Even Tash hesitated, afraid of failing Finn's pop quiz. But Finn sat back like a proud grandparent, generous in his praise, gentle in his criticism, always coaxing more from the stage-struck duo. Meanwhile, Ed asked Josh and Will what sort of drumming they'd envisioned. Even though they clearly hadn't thought about it until that moment, Josh naturally had very strong opinions on the matter.

As they all cranked away over the next hour, I didn't spend my time checking Mys.p.a.ce hits, or trawling Google, or even posting anonymous comments to hard rock fan sites about this incredible new band I'd heard called Dumb. Instead I watched with amazement as Dumb pulled "Kiss Me Like You Mean It" into something resembling a song through Josh's enthusiasm, Ed's discipline, and Finn's ever-patient guidance. My brother Finn, the wayward freshman, had serious skills, and was sharing them with my my band. I wondered if I'd have done the same for him. band. I wondered if I'd have done the same for him.

I should have known better than to push my luck, but there were a few minutes left and everyone was pumped up, so I convinced Dumb to attempt a full performance. They seemed so close to getting through it too, but then Kallie stopped playing and the band fizzled out around her.

"Sorry," she said. "I'll get it this time."

Again the band struck up, and again they were in the middle of what I a.s.sumed must be the chorus when Kallie dropped out, staring accusingly at her fingers. Finn leaned forward and moved her fingers to the right place, but by then Tash had clearly had enough.

"Just leave that chord out," she snapped.