The next day is Sunday, and I sort of ignore Emma and Uncle Sam the whole day. I'm still taking in all the changes that will happen when I go to college. It's a lot for me to digest, so I decided to try to digest it alone.

Monday comes around, and it's time for me to fully step into the role of the festival planner and organizer. I had worked a little the week before, but I had mostly been preparing for graduation because Principal Beckham had called a practice for almost every day that week. It was ridiculous.

But, I'm all finished with that, so I get ready Monday morning in shorts and a t-shirt. Downstairs, I grab a granola bar and banana for breakfast and then head where Clearwater Bay's small pier is. Everyone is already hard at work.

I finish my last bites of breakfast and find Nicole at the location of the festival stage. She waves at me when she sees me and beckons for me to come over to her. I toss my trash in a nearby trash can as I walk over to her.

"So glad you could come, Maya," she greets as I walk up.

I smile. "Me too. What's on my agenda today?"

"You sound like you're in business mode today. I like it. You'll start here and help Tanner with the sound system. I'm going to run over to some of the booths and make sure everyone has what they need," Nicole tells me.

I nod. "Okay. I guess I'll see you later."

She smiles. "Yep. I have to run. Good luck!"

I head onto the stage after Nicole walks away and find Tanner at the left wing of the stage. I look to the right and see people wheeling in speakers. I take a deep breath and then walk over to Tanner.

"Hi," I say to him.

He looks up from the paper he's looking at and smiles at me. "Hey, Maya! Good to have you here. You're going to help me with sorting out the sound system, right?"

"That's what I was told. What do we have to do?" I ask.

He beckons for me to come look at the paper, and I walk over to look. "This is the way Nick planned to have everything set up, but the stage was shortened by around a foot. It shouldn't have thrown everything off, but it somehow did," he explains as he points at the paper in front of us.

I study it closely and try to make sense of all of Nick's scribbles and horrible drawings of the speakers. I bite my lip and keep studying it. I tilt my head a little and wonder if what I have planned will work.

"Anything?" Tanner asks after a few minutes of my thinking.

I turn to face him. "Maybe. Are we able to add one onto the hanging speakers?

He furrows his eyebrows. "I don't know if we can do that because it will affect the sound of the speakers on the floor, but I want to know what you're thinking."

"I'm not a huge expert on how the sound system works, but couldn't we figure out a way to make it work?" I say.

It's his turn to puzzle over my suggestion, but it doesn't take long for him to respond, "I think we can make it work. Let me talk to Eric, our sound guy. I'll be back in a minute."

I nod, but Tanner is already gone. I sigh and look back down at the plans. Nick really is a horrible drawer. I slightly smile as I look at the plans. I may be disconnected from him, but I can't stop wondering about what he is doing. I can't help but still have a small part of me believe that he likes me.

Still, I keep telling myself that he doesn't like me because he's a celebrity, and I'm not. I'm just a really good friend of his that is around when he needs a break. I tell myself I'm just a part of his vacations, and that's it.

"Maya!" Tanner shouts, breaking my thoughts.

I look up and watch him running toward me. "What?" I ask.

"It's a go. We'll try your idea," he replies.

"Okay, great! Are we ready to get started?" I question.

He nods. "Let's go get everything set up!"

I follow him out to the stage where people are beginning to unload the speakers onto the stage. I'm introduced to Eric, and he tells me everything that has to be done. I'm given directions to step back and let them begin to lift some of the speakers.

I do step back and just tell them whether or not they're centered. I do the same thing for the floor speakers. By lunch time, the speakers are finished, and my idea worked! The sound still works perfectly.

Tanner gives me a high five after we break for lunch. I follow him over to a table near the pier. On the table, is food for all of us. I grab a salad and a fork and sit down on the small wooden pier. Tanner sits down beside me with his sandwich in his hand.

"Tell me something about yourself, Maya," he tells me.

"Anything?"

"Anything."

I bite my lip and blurt out, "I hate mushrooms."

He laughs. "I guess that's a good start. I like to help set up for events like this."

"How long have you been doing stuff like this?" I ask.

"Just a few things in the last year. Setting up for this festival is just something for me to do until I hear whether or not I got a role in a movie I auditioned for," he explains.

I turn my head and look at him. "You act?"

He smiles. "Trying to. I've been Nick's righthand man for the last few years. We've been best friends for years, and I got to be right there with him when he got his first movie role. I saw how much fun he had, and I started thinking that it would be a blast for me to act, so I started getting into it."

"Did he help you get your addition?"

"No. When I told him I wanted to pursue acting, he said he could help me. I told him that I had to do it on my own. I don't want anyone thinking that I just got a movie role because I knew someone famous. I want to be the one to do it," he quickly says.

"I admire that. I know what it's like to be discriminated against because of someone you may know," I say softly.

"What do you mean?"

I take a deep breath and carefully explain, "I had someone in my past that just wasn't a good person. When I moved here, word about that person got to the people in this town. They immediately assumed I was like that person. It made it harder for me to distance myself from that person and find myself."

"Oh," he replies.

"It's just that people are so judgmental. They don't take time to hear the whole story. If more listening went on in this world, less tears would be shed and more kindness would be displayed. A lot of things would be different."

"Wow, Nick was right," Tanner mutters.

"What?" I ask with a surprised look.

Tanner smiles at me. "Nick told me a lot about you, but what he really talked about was that you have a very interesting way of thinking. He said that you saw and thought like nobody else."

"He told you about me?" I question.

Tanner rolls his eyes. "Like you don't know."

With a very serious face, I state, "As a matter of fact, I don't."

Tanner stops smiling. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," I reply.

He shakes his head. "Well, now you do. Maya, he may be a loony person, but don't think he doesn't care-- he does."

I uncomfortably shift in my spot and look away. "What else do we have left to work on?"

"You're going to go over to the school auditorium with Nicki and watch all the acts to make sure they're ready. I'm stuck here working on more of the stage."

I smirk and look at him again. "Awwww, poor baby. Do you need me to hold your hand?"

He shakes his head and stands up. "Why do I have someone else who teases me? Did Nicki  teach you?"

"Teach her what?" Nicole asks as she walks up to us.

He begins to walk away back to the stage as he replies, "Nothing. I'll see you two horrible people around."

Nicole laughs and waves him away. "You ready to head over to the school? You can bring your salad with you."

I look down and realize that I didn't take one bite of my salad during my conversation with Tanner. I smile to myself and stand up. Nicole and I walk off the pier and toward the school. We talk about the festival all the way there. Once we reach the school, I lead Nicole into the auditorium.

We sit down a few rows back from the stage. She hands me a packet with the names of all the acts on it. I almost moan when I catch sight of Cassandra's name. Nicole begins to go over the list of acts and who we're going to see first. I sort of listen, but I don't actually fully process what she's saying.

I let my thoughts ramble to all sorts of different things, including Cassandra and Nick. I don't know why, but Nick's been on my thoughts more than usual. Now that I know Cassandra is in the show, my thoughts go to her and how she threatened me at the beach a week ago.

"Maya? Have you heard anything I've said?" Nicole almost shouts as she waves a hand in front of my face.

I jump and look over at her. "Sorry," I say sheepishly.

Nicole smiles. "It's okay. Just pay attention this time, please?"

I nod, and she starts over. This time, I pay attention all the way until the end. People begin to enter the auditorium just when she finishes. I recognize almost all of them because they're either people who graduated with me, or they're juniors who were in awe of Cassandra.

Once everyone seems to settle in, Nicole goes up onto the stage and explains, "Thank you so much for being here! We're excited to see what your acts are looking like. We're just going to be going down the list today. I hope you all got the message that you needed to bring your own props and such. Any questions?"

"I do! Is Nick here today?" a familiar annoying voice questions.

Nicole raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. "So glad you could finally join us, Miss Beckham. I don't tolerate tardiness, so you and your friends need to take a seat. You'll see the answer to your question in a minute. Now, let me get everything sorted out, then the performances will begin."

Nicole comes back down and sits down beside me. She quickly gets out the list and grabs a pencil. She marks off Cassandra's name, which was toward the top of the list and places it at the very bottom of the list. She sets the pencil down and stands up. She calls out the name of the first act and then sits back down.

"Why'd you do that?" I whisper as the first act goes up on the stage.

She replies, "I have my reasons. She's been on my tail since I got here. She's just going to go last. No big deal."

I sigh and just nod as I turn my attention to the stage where the first act is starting. I almost fall out of my chair when they begin singing, and it's not because they're bad. It's a duet with one of the former junior boys and former senior girl. It's beyond amazing. Nicole and I both look at each other at the end in awe. We tell them that we can't wait to see them at the festival.

After their act, the rest of the acts are a little over average. Only a couple of them are worse than average, so we have to cut them, but I manage to convince them to work backstage at the show.

As we get nearer to the end, I look back and see Cassandra sitting, fuming. I look back at Nicole, but she isn't concerned at all. She's just watching the stage. I decide to ignore Cassandra's anger as well. Finally, we reach the end of the list.

"Cassandra Beckham, you're up!" Nicole shouts cheerfully.

By this time, only a couple of people are left in the auditorium, and Cassandra doesn't seem happy about it. She walks up to our table and growls at Nicole, "Why am I the last to go? I told you to put me near the top so people could see how good we are!"

I look beyond her and see her clique standing behind her, nodding their heads. Nicole also looks behind Cassandra and then back at Cassandra. "I'm actually doing you a favor, Cassie. Since you're act is so good, we wanted to save it for last so that everyone can be surprised at what you do."

Cassandra glares at her as she walks up on stage. "It's Cassandra," she spits out at Nicole.

Nicole smiles sweetly at her. "You may begin whenever you're ready."

That's all Cassandra needed to hear. Her music starts, and her act is soon in full motion. I'll admit that it's good, but it's just too overtop. Anyone can tell that she's trying too hard. At the end, Nicole tells her that it was great and that we can't wait to see it at the festival.

Cassandra walks out in a huff. Nicole turns to me and sighs with relief as she sinks down in her chair. I smile at her and also sink down in my chair.

"I'm so glad it's finally over. Now, we can focus on finishing setting up everything," she says.

"Me too. I can't believe it's only in a few days. I feel like we have so many things left to do," I reply tiredly.

"We do have a lot left to do. Do you think you can come down to the pier a little earlier tomorrow?"

I nod. "I definitely can."

She nods, and I stay in my spot. We're too tired to really talk or move to leave, so we just stay there for an hour longer.

When I get home that night, I sink down on my bed and float off into a deep sleep, not even hearing the call I get from New York City from the same number as last time.