His jaw dropped. “Dude! That is totally unfool! You just said she was great. And you know Pearl’s fexcellent too. Now you’re going to get all boys-only on me?”

I turned away, thoughts echoing in my brain, like my skull was suddenly empty and lined with concrete. Between the Stratocaster that wasn’t mine, the other guitars I couldn’t afford, Pearl’s demolition of the Big Riff, and now the thought of paint buckets, it’d been too many adjustments to make in forty-eight hours.

I almost wished it was just Zahler and me again. We’d been like a team that was a hundred points behind—we weren’t going to win anything, so we could just play and have fun. But Pearl had changed that. Everything was up in the air, and how it all came down mattered now.

Part of me hated her for that and hated Zahler for going along so easily.

He kept quiet, wrangling the dogs while I calmed myself down.

“All right,” I finally said. “Let’s talk to her. What have we got to lose?”

We waited till she was packing up, stacking the buckets into one big tower. Her muscles glowed with sweat, and a few splinters from a stick she’d broken rolled in the breeze from a subway passing underneath.

She glanced at us and our seven dogs.

“You’re pretty good,” I said.

She jutted her chin toward a paint bucket that was right side up and half full of change and singles, then went back to stacking.

“Actually, we were wondering if you wanted to play with us sometime.”

She shook her head, one of her eyes blinking rapidly. “This corner is mine. Had it for a year.”

“Hey, we’re not moving in on you,” Zahler spoke up, waving his free hand. “We’re talking about you playing in our band. Rehearsing and recording and stuff. Getting famous.”

I cringed. “Getting famous” had to be the lamest reason for doing anything.

She shrugged, just a twitch of her shoulders. “How much?”

“How much… what?” Zahler said.

But it was obvious to me. The same thing that had been obvious all day.

“Money,” I answered. “She wants money to play with us.”

His eyes bugged. “You want cash?”

She took a step forward and pulled a photo ID card from her pocket, waved it in Zahler’s face. “See that? That’s from the MTA. Says I can play down in the subway, legal and registered. Had to sit in front of a review panel to get that.” As she put the card away, a little shiver went through her body. “Except I don’t go down there anymore.”

She kicked the upturned paint bucket, the pile of loose change clanking like a metallic cough. “Seventy, eighty bucks in there. Why would I play for free?”

“Whoa, sorry.” Zahler started to pull his dogs away, giving me a look like she’d asked for our blood.

I didn’t move, though, staring at the bucket, at the bills fluttering on top. There were fives in there—it probably totaled a hundred easy. She had every right to ask for money. The world was all about money; only a lame-ass bunch of kids wouldn’t know that.

“Okay,” I said. “Seventy-five a rehearsal.”

Zahler froze, his eyes popping again.

“How much for a gig?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. One-fifty?”

“Two hundred.”

I sighed. The words I don’t know had just cost me fifty bucks. That’s how it worked with money: you had to know, or at least act like you did. “Okay. Two hundred.”

I held out my hand to shake, but she just passed me her business card.

“Are you crazy, Moz? Pearl’s going to freak when she finds out she has to pay for a drummer.”

“She’s not paying anyone, Zahler. I am.”

“Yeah, right. And where are you going to get seventy-five bucks?”

I looked down at the dogs. They were staring in all directions at the maelstrom of Times Square, gawking like a bunch of tourists from Jersey. I tried to imagine rounding up customers, going door-to-door like Zahler had, putting up signs, making schedules. No way.

My plan was much better.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got an idea.”

“Yeah, sure you do. But what about the Strat? You can’t save up for a guitar if you’re paying out seventy-five bucks two or three times a week.”

“I’ll figure that out when its owner shows up again. If she shows up.”

Zahler let out his breath, not sure what to make of this.

I looked down at the card: Alana Ray, Drummer. No address, just a cell-phone number, but if she could make a hundred bucks a day in cash, somehow I doubted she was homeless.

It had been so simple hiring her, a million times simpler than I’d imagined. No arguing about influences, getting famous, or who was in charge. Just a few numbers back and forth.

Money had made it easy.

“Moz, you’re freaking me out. You’re, like, the tightest guy I know. You never bought your own amplifier, and I’ve only seen you change your strings about twice in the last six years.”

I nodded. I’d always waited until they rusted out from under my fingers.

“And now you’re going to pay out hundreds of dollars?” Zahler said. “Why don’t we find another drummer? One who’s got real drums and doesn’t cost money.”

“One who’s that good?”

“Maybe not. But Pearl said she knew a few.”

“We don’t have to run to her. We said that we’d handle this. So I’ll pay.” I turned to him. “And don’t tell Pearl about the money, okay?”

Zahler groaned. “Whoa, now I get it. You want to pay this girl so she owes you, right? You want her to be your drummer, not Pearl’s.” He shook his head. “That is some dumb-ass logic at work, Moz. We’re supposed to be a band.”

“Pearl’s already paying for rehearsal space.”

“Which is no big deal for her. You’re getting into a spending contest with a girl who lives in an apartment that has stairs. Whole other floors!”

I looked down at my tattered shoes. “It’s not a contest, Zahler. It’s just business.”

“Business?” He laughed. “You don’t know jack about business.”

I looked up at him, expecting to feel the death stare, but he was just confused. I didn’t understand myself, not completely, but I knew I had to get some part of this band under control. If I let Pearl decide everything and pay for everything, Zahler and I would wind up just a couple of sidekicks along for the ride. “Just don’t tell her about the money, okay?”

He blinked, his dogs winding around his feet in disarray. I saw him wondering if I’d gone insane, wondering if I was going to screw this whole thing up, and knew I was right on the edge of losing him.

Which was fine, if he really thought I was that hopeless. Maybe it was better to walk away now than later.

But finally, he exhaled. “Okay. Whatever. I won’t tell Pearl you’re paying. I guess I can pitch in some of my dog money too.”

I shook my head. “I’ve got it covered.”

“But maybe we should warn Pearl… before we all show up for rehearsal.”

I frowned. “Warn her about what?”

“Um, that our new drummer drums on paint buckets…”