“You’ve got like ninety seconds left,” Teesha told her.

“That’s right. I’ll say to stay in Savasana as long as they like, then …”

She stretched out, arms overhead, before turning on her side, knees drawn up. Smoothly, she rolled into a cross-legged position on the center of the mat.

“Meditation position,” she said, putting her right palm over her left, thumbs touching. “Breathing in and out, blah blah.” She crossed her arms over her midsection, bowed forward. “Thanking yourself for showing up, holding the practice in, then …”

She sat up again, put her palms together, bowed her head. “Namaste. That’s it.”

“Fifteen minutes, four seconds.” Lips pursed, Teesha nodded. “That’s really good.”

“You’re really bendy.” Loren had edged out onto the terrace to sit on one of the sofas and munch chips. “I can’t even touch my toes.”

“Flexibility’s important. The thing is, a flexible person has to go farther than an inflexible one to get any benefit.” She could help him, she thought again. “Stand up, try to touch your toes.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s only embarrassing when you don’t try.”

He gave her a doubtful look but bent over from the waist, arms down. His fingertips didn’t come within six inches of his toes.

“You’re feeling the stretch.”

“Shit, yeah!”

She mimicked his pose. “I get nothing, nothing until I go all the way down.” She stretched down, palms on the floor, nose to her knees. “We’re getting the same benefit. Stand up, now inhale. No, when you inhale, you’re inflating the balloon. Fill your lungs, extend the belly.”

“Mine’s extended twenty-four-seven.” He laughed with it; so did the others. Adrian only smiled. “Just try it. Inhale, fill the balloon. Now you’re going to deflate it, drawing the belly to the spine as you bend over to touch your toes.”

When he tried it, she nodded. “And that’s already a full inch closer. Breathing. It’s all about the breath.”

She glanced over, saw Hector leaning against the wall, studying his camera display.

“How does it look?”

“It’s okay. I can study it and work out the angles. I can talk my dad into letting me use some stuff. You’re going to need to be mic’d for the other stuff, and you need like an introduction or opening bit, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve been working on it. Oh, thanks.” She took the Coke Teesha handed her, drank without thinking. Then stopped, closed her eyes. “Okay, that’s so freaking good.”

“I’ve got about twenty before I have to get home.” Hector switched off the video. “Maybe we could go over the opening, and the transitions between each segment.”

“We could storm the brain tomorrow.” Loren tried another toe touch. “At lunch period if you want to risk sitting with us two days in a row.”

“I’ll risk it.”

By the time they left, and Adrian disposed of empty Coke bottles and chip bags, she realized she hadn’t just found the production team for her pet project.

She’d found her tribe.

They brainstormed at lunch, rehearsed, and worked on details after school.

On Friday evening, she ordered pizza, stocked drinks. She helped her crew set up the equipment Hector scored. The light stand and barn doors and gels for evening shoots, the bounce, the umbrella for afternoons, the mic, the cables.

They managed to set up a makeshift studio with what Hector had begged or borrowed.

They ate pizza in the main level dining room with Loren’s playlist of ’80s hits rocking out.

With Wham! demanding to be waked up, Adrian finally had to ask. “Why the eighties?”

“Why not?”

“Because none of us were born?”

He pointed a finger. “That’s a why, not a why not. It’s history, dude. Music history. I’m thinking of doing one of the nineties next. You know, to analyze the societal fabric—where music plays into it—during our birth decade.”

“That is totally nerd.”

“Accepted.” He bit into another slice. “I dig on music, man.”

“The Music Man,” Teesha said between bites. “Robert Preston, Shirley Jones—the movie version, 1962. Preston also played the lead in the 1957 Broadway production, with Barbara Cook as Marian.”

“How do you know that?” Adrian stared in wonder. “And why?”

“She reads it, she remembers it,” Hector supplied.

“Hey, I should do a playlist of Broadway musical scores. Now that is total nerd.”

“You get right on that, son.” Hector glanced around. “This is an awesome space.”

“Says the kid who lives in a mansion every other week and a penthouse not unlike this one the next.” Teesha gulped some Coke.

Hector just shrugged. “Parents split, so I bounce between. Step-parents are okay, so far. And I got a little bro from the dad, little sis from the mom. They’re cool.”

“I used to want siblings. I had to get over it because that’s never happening. What about you?” Adrian asked Teesha.

“Two older brothers, and parents stuck together like glue. The brothers are mostly okay, except when they’re pains in my ass.”

“Sister.” Loren peeled a pepperoni off the pizza, popped it into his mouth. “She’s ten. Parents separated for a few months back when, worked it out, got back together, and out popped Princess Rosalind. Kind of a brat.”

“Kind of?” Teesha said with a laugh.

“Okay, a complete brat, but she’s way spoiled, so it’s not her fault so much. You got the only child deal,” he said to Adrian. “All the attention.”

“My mother’s career gets that, and I get what’s left. That’s okay,” she said quickly. “It means she’s not on my back most of the time. And I’m going to have my own career. You guys are helping me start that.”

“And when you’re a YouTube star …” Teesha heaved a big, exaggerated sigh. “We’ll still be the three nerds while you sit at the cool kids’ table.”

“Not a chance. And since it’s the nerd table for me for the duration, I should be an honorary nerd.”

“No honorary about it. You are a nerd,” Hector told her. “You drink carrot juice and eat granola on purpose. Your mom’s gone for a couple weeks, but you’re working instead of running on the wild side. You’re the fitness nerd.”

She’d never considered herself a nerd, by any standards, but when she’d finished her bedtime yoga practice and slipped under the covers by ten, she realized the term applied.

And she really didn’t mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

They started before dawn on Saturday morning. Adrian had what she called “craft services” set up with juices, bagels, fresh fruit, and since she’d learned all three of her friends went for fancy coffee, a pod coffee maker with a variety.

She’d have to store that in her room afterward, as Lina ran a strict no-caffeine household.