Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City (24 page)

“Samantha, I’m done with hodgepodges of emergencies and misunderstandings. My heart just can’t take this anymore. It is too exhausting for me to be looking after a teenager.”

“Especially such a troublemaker,” Darren says with a grin.

Now, I can tell he’s just trying to lighten things up a little, but obviously he’s clueless about how serious this is sounding. “Hey!” I say, pointing at him. “You stay out of it! If you hadn’t gone and broken my mother’s heart, none of this would be happening.” He looks at me like, Ouch, and my mother stares at me like, Wow, so I look at
her
and say, “Casey just told me.” Then I turn to Grams and drop
my voice when I ask, “What are you saying?” ’cause my gut is all topsy-turvy over what I’m
afraid
she’s saying.

She pinches her eyes and shakes her head. “You staying with me was never supposed to be long-term. You and your mother will have to figure it out.”

“No!” I cry. “Please, Grams! Please! I promise I won’t stow away in any more cars or jump on any more planes or … or do anything I’m not supposed to!”

“I can’t do it anymore, Samantha. Now that Heather knows? It’s unworkable.”

“Grams! No! Heather and I are having a truce. Things will be fine! You’re just tired. It’s one in the morning! You drove a long, long, long, long, long, long way! We’ll get a room, we’ll get some sleep, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

She shakes her head and sighs. “Where’s Hudson?” And all of a sudden there he is, putting an arm around her. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she says to me. “I was never so worried in my life.” Then she strokes Hudson’s cheek and says, “Let’s go.”

“What? Wait! You can’t go!”

Hudson gives me a reassuring look and whispers, “She’s exhausted.”

But I can tell—this is different than all the times before.

Grams means it.

And then they do go.

“They have rooms at the MGM,” my mother says, holding me back as I go to chase after them. “I’ll get us one there, too, and we’ll go see them in the morning.”

And since I’m now crying and being the total after-party
downer, I tell her, “I’m going to go sit out there for a while.”

“Out where?”

“I don’t know! Somewhere out
there
,” I tell her, pointing through the door. Then I look at Darren and say, “I’m sorry. I really am. I know this is weird for you, too.”

All he does is give a little nod—probably ’cause he’s already learned that if he
says
something, I’ll bite him for it. But two steps out the door, there he is, walking next to me.

“Brave guy,” I tell him with a scowl.

“I may have been young and reckless,” he tells me, “but I’m no deadbeat dad.”

And that’s when a thought slams me upside the head. It’s so big and so
complicating
that for a split second I forget everything else. “Are you saying I have … brothers and sisters? Or you know, stepbrothers and -sisters?”

“No!” He laughs. “At least not that I know of!”

I eye him.

Like, Very funny, you jerk.

“Look, it wasn’t like that with your mother. We were in love. Being on the road …?” He shrugs. “I can’t make excuses for my behavior back then, but I
have
grown up some.”

We’re at the edge of the stage now, so I sit down with my feet dangling, and so does he. “Well, how many
wives
have you had?”

He gives me a long, even look. “None.”

“None?”

“None.” Then kinda softly he adds, “Nobody ever
compared to your mother.” We sit there quiet for a minute, and finally he says, “I’ve got good reasons to be mad at her for not telling me about you, but”—he gives a hopeless little shrug—“it’s just so good to see her.” He eyes me. “Still, I do wish I’d known.”

“Me, too,” I tell him, but while I’m saying it, it flashes through my mind that if I
had
known … if my mom
had
told him when I was younger … I wouldn’t know Grams like I do.

And my friends would all be … different.

And I would never have met Casey!

“I’m not moving to Vegas,” I blurt out. “Or Hollywood!”

He laughs. “Well, we’ve got to figure out
something
.” Then he adds, “I want to get to know you, Sammy.”

My eyes are all of a sudden stinging again. “Don’t say stuff like that! For all I know, this is just another lie.”

“There’s no doubt that my lawyer’s going to make me do a DNA test, but everything about it makes sense.” He laughs. “Besides, look at you! Listen to you!” He shakes his head. “Marko’s right—you’re definitely my kid.” He kind of grins and says, “Your poor mother.”

Before I can stop myself, I’m shoving him and laughing. “Hey!”

“So I’m
thinking
.…”

“Uh-oh.”

“Why uh-oh?”

I look at him. “Everyone always tells me they know they’re in trouble when I say that.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, well, see what I mean?”

“So? Let’s hear it.”

“I understand your birthday’s coming up.”

And out of my mouth pops, “I don’t want a pony!”

His eyebrows go flying. “Who said anything about a pony?”

“Isn’t that what all rock star dads give their daughters?”

“Dumb ones, maybe,” he says, and he’s grinning.

But I’m serious. “Look, I don’t want anything from you, okay? I’ve got everything I need in Grams’ bottom dresser drawer.”

“That’s very rock ’n’ roll of you.”

“Stop that!”

“No, really. That’s the heart of rock ’n’ roll—all the ‘stuff’ just perverts that and ruins it.”

“So good. Don’t buy me anything.”

He snorts. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“Oh.”

“But I was thinking that I’d really like to
be
there.”

“For my birthday?”

He sorta studies me. “I missed the first thirteen?” Then he adds, “And maybe we can plan to do something over your spring break?”

I want to tell him that that sounds nice—and it does.

But it also sounds … awkward.

What would we say to each other?

What would we do?

“Look,” he finally says. “There’s obviously a lot we have to work through. What do
you
think? I can see you’re pretty upset.”

“What I’m
most
upset about is Grams. I mean, Mom’s
been flaky, you’ve been a mystery, but through everything I could always count on Grams.
She’s
my family.” All of a sudden there’s this huge lump in my throat, and my eyes are stinging
again
. “Maybe I finally know who you are, but if it cost me Grams?” I shake my head. “I need to find a way to fix things with her.”

We just sit there, me battling the lump in my throat, him quiet, until finally he gets up and holds out a hand. “Well, let’s go figure that out, then.”

I stare at him a minute, then take his hand and let him help me back on my feet.

My mother got a room with two beds, but they were right next to each other, so I chose the couch. And even though I was wiped out, I didn’t fall asleep until about five in the morning because I couldn’t stop thinking about Grams and wondering what in the world I was going to do.

I heard my mom rustling around in the morning, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep, and when I woke up again, it was noon and she was gone.

I needed a shower bad, so I dragged myself into the bathroom and took a long, hot, muscle-melting one. And since I hadn’t brought much in the way of extra clothes, I wound up raiding a pair of jeans and an amazingly soft hoodie from my mother’s suitcase.

A little big, but definitely comfy.

Next to the phone I found a blueberry muffin and a note from my mom telling me to call her cell. So I did, but there was really only one thing I wanted to know. “Have you talked to Grams?”

“Your dad and I did.”

Hearing her say it like that was too much, too early, but I just sort of shook it off and said, “And?”

“Darren offered to set her up in a house.”

“As in
buy
her a house?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In Santa Martina. But your grandmother said no.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Of course she said no. Grams isn’t the kind of person you can bribe.”

“It wasn’t a
bribe
. Darren knows you want to stay in Santa Martina, and getting her out of the Highrise was one solution.”

“It’s not a solution to her not wanting to take care of me anymore. And she already has a place to live.”

“Well, you told your dad you don’t want to move to Hollywood or Las Vegas, so what are we going to do?”

“Where is she?” I asked quietly. “I want to go talk to her.”

“She’s at the spa.”

“The
spa
? What’s she doing at the
spa
?”

“Recovering?”

Something about that made me feel worse than ever. I’d driven my poor grandmother, who never pampers herself, into the massaging arms of a
spa
? “How long’s
that
going to take?”

“An hour? Maybe two?”

“Well, what room is she staying in? And where’s Hudson?”

“She’s in seven twenty, and he’s in seven twenty-two.” Then she asks, “Are you all right on your own for a little while?”

I snort. “I’ve had lots of practice.”

“Samantha, please.”

“Well, come on, Mom!”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all of this. You think I’m not filled with regret? I’m just trying to figure out how we can move forward from here without more damage. The easy thing would be for you to come live with me, but—”

“You don’t even have a job!”

“That’s a separate issue. And I
will
get a job. The point is, I’m trying to figure out what’s best for
you
.” She takes a choppy breath and chokes out, “I love you, Samantha. Even if that’s hard for you to believe.”

And on that dramatic note, she hangs up.

I sit there a minute thinking, then dial Hudson’s room.

No answer.

So I call Grams’ room, even though I know she’s not there, and I leave a pathetic, stuttery message, begging her to forgive me and let me come talk to her. “We’re in room eleven-eleven, and I’m going to just wait here for you to call me.” Then I tell her I love her and go to hang up, but at the last minute I pull the phone back up and say, “
Please
call me.”

And
then
I hang up.

After sitting there for a few more minutes thinking, I call Casey and find out that he’s already on his way back to Santa Martina, crammed in the backseat of Candi’s sports car with Heather. “What’s going on with your parents?” I ask.

“Can’t really discuss that now.”

“Can you do yes and no questions? Are they getting back together?”

“Too early to say.” Then he drops his voice and says, “Everyone’s being weirdly nice. I don’t even know these people!”

Then I hear a female voice go, “Hi, Sammy!”

“Holy cow, was that Heather?”

“Yup. She’s still flying high about last night.”

“Are you guys anywhere near Vegas?”

“No. We’ve been on the road at least two hours.”

I laugh. “Well, I guess what happened is not staying in Vegas.”

He laughs, too. “Apparently not!”

“Okay. Well, I’ll let you get back to your
family
. Lucky dog.”

“Wait! What’s going on with yours?”

And because I don’t want him worrying about me when things are obviously going well for him, I laugh and say, “Oh, it’s a bigger mess than ever, but we’re working on figuring it out.” Then I tell him, “Hey, I need to call Marissa, okay? She’s clueless about any of this, and I want her to find out from me first.”

“Right. Okay! I’ll see you at home.”

“See you at home!”

So I hang up and call Marissa, but the minute I have her on the line, she attacks me with “Yes, I know you got to meet Darren Cole! Yes, I know you snuck into the House of Blues! Yes, I know you ditched security! Yes, I know you got to see the show from the front row! Heather keeps posting online about it, and she’s making it sound like you guys are best friends!”

I can feel myself getting hotter and hotter, but then
it hits me that something’s missing from what Marissa “knows.”

“Did she post anything about Darren Cole being my dad?”

“Did she … 
what
?”

“Well, sit down,” I tell her, “ ’cause he is.”

So I spend the next
hour
catching her up for real, and when we’re finally down to “What are you going to do?” and “I don’t know!” I switch over to
her
problems. “So what’s happening with your dad?”

“Ohhhh,” she moans, and then launches into how Hudson had taken Mikey over to her uncle Bruce’s because of the emergency trip to Las Vegas, and how Mikey had spilled the beans about the gambling, and how after a huge brothers’ blowout over that, her mom had caught her dad trying to gamble online. “It’s over, Sammy. They’re selling the house, and Mom says she wants a divorce.”

Now, normally when Marissa is in crisis mode, you can tell right away because her voice is frantic and up a notch and all twisted with stress. But now she sounds all matter-of-fact. Almost monotone. So I ask, “How can you be so
calm
?”

“I’m just wiped out, Sammy. I can’t stop my dad from gambling, and I can’t blame my mom for wanting to get divorced.”

I let that soak in. “So what’s going to happen with you and Mikey?”

“We’ll be with Mom, but I don’t know where. She’s
talking about making a clean break and starting fresh somewhere new.”

“Like, away from Santa Martina?”

“Yup.”

“No! You’ve got to talk her out of that! What would I do without you? And think about Mikey! It would kill him to leave Hudson!”

She sighs. “I know.”

“So don’t let her move out of town!”

She hesitates, then asks, “You’re coming home with Hudson and your grandmother, right?”

“I hope so! I thought we’d be driving home today, but I think probably tomorrow.”

She sighs. “I really, really want to talk to Hudson.”

“I know, huh?” And then it hits me. “You thinking about seeing if you and Mikey can stay with him?”

“Maybe we could rent his place in back?”