Sing Read Online Free PDF

do for fun?”
    Tess leans back against the wide bay window. “You’re looking at it,” she says.
    â€œNo way,” Sammy says, turning off the faucet. “Get dressed. If there’s a jukebox in this town, I’ll find it.”
    Energized by the possibility of stimulation, I grab Tess by the hand and pull her from the cushioned bench, shooing her toward the shower. I almost make it to the top of the stairs before I remember my journal, which I stashed in Sammy’s bag after the beach.
    I race back downstairs and duck into the living room. The bag is slumped against the tattered ottoman, and as I pull it up by its leather handles, a magazine slides out and into my hands.
    My heart drops.
    There I am, in all of my clumsy glory, sprawled out on the shellacked floor of a midtown Starbucks. Onearm shields my eyes but my mouth is locked in a pained grimace. In boxy white type the headline reads: Down on Her Luck: Lily’s Alone Again.
    I’m in such a trance that it takes me a few moments to register the other tabloids that have tumbled out of the bag at my feet. I glance down and am assaulted with the same photo from different angles. More oversize type, exclamation points: Bruised and Brokenhearted: Lily Heads to Rehab and Where in the World Is Lily Ross?
    â€œShit.” I hear a voice over my shoulder. I stare at the jumbled collection of my own startled faces. Tess rushes into the room and sweeps the pile aside with one foot. Sammy stops short in the hallway behind her.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” Sammy says. “I was trying to clean out the shelves at the grocery store. They only had a few of each . . .”
    â€œI want to see them,” I say sternly.
    Sammy bends down to scoop them up but Tess puts a hand out to stop her. “No,” she says stubbornly. “You don’t. It’s all garbage. None of it is real.”
    I collect the magazines myself and walk briskly up the stairs.
    â€œBirdie!” they call after me in unison.
    I shake my head. “I’m good,” I say, my voice trembling. “Really. I just . . . I need a few minutes.”
    I close the door to my room behind me and collapse onto the bed, my pulse pounding an erratic beat insidemy ears. I try to count my breaths, to close my eyes and be present, but none of the usual tricks work.
    This is not the first time my face has been plastered on the cover of trashy tabloids. It comes with the territory, particularly post-breakup. After my first boyfriend in LA, Sebastian, it was a circus. Word was he was cheating with one of his backup singers. Then: all his backup singers.
    After Caleb, I was the one who was moving on too fast. I was “heartless” and “career obsessed” for ending things and moving to New York when my second album took off and his, well, didn’t. I could have set the record straight, done an interview and insisted that he broke up with me , but Terry was sure it would only make things worse. The best thing to do with this kind of press is ignore it. Days later, it’s always somebody else’s heartbreak, someone else’s mistake—real or fabricated—staring back at the world from the checkout racks.
    But this time, somehow, I’m not prepared. Being here, away from everything, it’s easy to forget that the world is still chugging along. Jed is still touring, answering questions, being who his fans want him to be. I’m not. I’m nowhere. So I’m fair game.
    I open the magazine on top and flip slowly to the center spread. It’s all there. Our last dinner date. The stupid soup. A grainy shot of me watching Jed’s car asit sped away, spare keys dangling in one hand, staring after him like an abandoned puppy.
    I quickly scan the poorly written copy, quoting various “inside sources” about our relationship, how it had been stalled for months. “Lily is ready to settle down, and Jed isn’t. The pressure