Keep reading for a sneak peek of SWEET LAUREL DAY ONE A GUY WEARING SKINNY JEANS and a neon-blue fedora is leaping into the air, vaulting up onto the backs of the people in the crowd, waving like crazy and shouting, “Baby Tom-Tom! Baby Tom-Tom!” like a man on fire calling for a bucket. The dock is a zoo. Fans, maybe two thousand fans, are crammed into the space on either side of a red carpet that extends from the limo drop-off point, all the way up the dock, up a narrow gangplank and onto the luxury cruise liner, the Extravagance. It’s dawning on me that I’ve made a terrible mistake: I walked. My parents dropped me off way back at the ship terminal after besieging me with last-minute instructions about everything from cell phone usage to alcohol poisoning. I should have come with Vivika. She begged me to join her in the limo her dad rented for her. But, eh, I felt like I didn’t want to show up like some pseudo-celebrity in a rented limo. Well, it turns out that when you’re boarding a cruise that’s filled to the brim with wannabe rock stars and reality-TV almost-rans, you want to be chauffeured.
