The Rock Star's Daughter (12 page)

That was the catalyst for him to place his
hands on my hips and start kissing me again. This time he started
kissing me softly up and down my neck and my knees became so weak I
legitimately feared I might fall over.

"I like you, too," he whispered. I began
wondering while we continued making out if he had a girlfriend back
in Michigan that he had neglected to mention, and if he had ever
slept with a girl. I would be a little terrified and a lot
disappointed if the answer to either question was "yes," so I dared
not interrupt the action to ask.

His hand began moving up my t-shirt which was
both thrilling and alarming. I was a little freaked out for things
to be progressing so quickly, but also terrified to ask him to stop
because I didn't truly want him to. My mom had never advised me
about knowing when was the right time to go all the way with a guy.
She had told me more times than I had wanted to hear that she was
sixteen when she had lost her virginity, but had only told me that
I would know when the time was right.

But she hadn't said how I would know.

Somehow kissing a guy for the first time and
going all the way in a matter of a few hours seemed way, way too
fast.

Suddenly, unexpectedly and horribly, we heard
the pop of the key card unlock the door to the suite. We jumped
about a foot away from each other as the front door opened and
Keith entered. He looked as surprised to see us as we were to see
him.

"Hi, Keith," I stammered. "Jake just brought
me home."

What an asinine thing to say. But it was all
I could think of, and it was, after all, the truth.

"I can see that," Keith said. "It's getting
late. Probably time for Jake to be heading home, himself."

"Goodnight, Taylor," Jake said, saluting me
like a soldier. I noticed that he was a little crimson in the
cheeks. He stepped past Keith and left quickly.

"You better get to bed, young lady," Keith
warned me.

My head was spinning for hours after I got
into bed. For the first time since my mom died, I was actually
happy and excited. I couldn't wait to call Allison – I had gone
from novice kisser to having made out with a cute guy twice in one
night. But as head-over-heels as I was for Jake, I also felt
disturbed and uneasy about what had happened. I suspected there was
a lot about his life both back in Michigan and on the road that I
didn't know about, and he wasn't going to share with me. And then
there was the slippery issue of when and how we would again
meet.

It occurred to me that I probably would have
been willing to go as far as Jake wanted that night if Keith hadn't
interrupted us, and I didn't know his last name.

And then I thought of Kelsey, sick at the
hospital, and was disgusted with myself for not being more worried
about her. She was my little sister, and I was beginning to realize
that behaving like a good big sister was genuinely important to
me.

CHAPTER
8

The rest of the tour shipped out to Virginia
the next morning for the weekend, while Dad, Jill, Kelsey and I
remained in Alabama. Saturday and Sunday were agony for me. I was
carefully trying to avoid one-on-one time with my dad, and
perpetually wondering where Jake was and if I would see him again
once we got to Virginia.

On Saturday morning at the hospital
cafeteria, my father mentioned casually, "You're awfully quiet
today."

I shrugged. "There's just a lot going
on."

I wanted to confront him about what I had
seen in his dressing room, but had no idea where to begin. He had
stepped into my life and taken control of a desperate situation for
me, and in many ways I was just as much his guest on this tour as I
was his kid and entitled to perks. I had no right to judge his
personal habits… did I?

"Seems like you and the boy from the t-shirt
stand have struck up a friendship."

I dared not make eye contact with him and
instead studied my cornflakes while I answered nonchalantly, "Yeah,
I guess."

I felt my cheeks turning red as I wondered if
Keith had ratted me out. It would be mortifying if my dad knew that
I had invited Jake into our hotel room when no one else was there;
my dad could not be further off from the truth if he assumed from
this bit of gossip that I was some kind of teenage slut. And the
only thing that could be more humiliating than my dad suspecting me
of being a big slut was my sex-symbol dad finding out that two days
earlier, I had only been kissed once, poorly, by one of his
fans.

A few moments of stagnant silence passed
before my dad continued.

"You know, Taylor, one of the things I've
learned over the years is to always be a little skeptical about
people's intentions. Especially on the road… it's usually safe to
assume that everyone around the band is hanging around for a
selfish reason."

I swirled the cereal around in my bowl gently
trying to control my instinct to scream at my dad to mind his own
business.

"You're wrong about Jake if you're implying
that he's after something," I said carefully. I couldn't come right
out and say that I didn't think Jake had any intention to use me to
get closer to the band, because he didn't really seem that
interested in Pound at all. "We're just friends."

"I know, I know," Dad said, backing down a
little. "I just want you to keep your head on your shoulders. I
don't want to see you get hurt. A lot of these fans, groupies, who
are with us for the tour go back to very different lives at the end
of the summer. This life is make-believe for them. It's just a
fantasy with an expiration date."

I looked him in the eye and nodded to
acknowledge what he was saying, but wondered if he was talking
about Karina, or about Jake, or even about anyone specifically
other than himself. And his choice of words had been particularly
odd, because the entire experience of being on the road and
sleeping on 1,000-count Frette sheets in luxury hotels felt like a
fantasy that was going to run its course to me, too.

His words hung in my head for hours. All
morning I fought against them tirelessly, believing whole-heartedly
that he was wrong and Jake was truly interested in me for myself.
By afternoon, when I was back at the hotel all alone, doubts had
started to creep into my feelings about Jake. How could he be that
interested in me if he had no way of contacting me when he wanted
to see me? How well could he have possibly known me after our
handful of brief meetings to be genuinely interested in me at
all?

My mother had once informed me, "If a boy
really likes you, he'll find a way to let you know." Her confidence
in those words had made me overlook the possibility that a boy
might also be shy, or afraid to make the first move. But they were
stressing me out by dinner time when I rode with Herschel, the
yogi, back to the hospital to visit Kelsey again before she went to
sleep for the night.

Maybe I was being naïve about Jake. Was there
something that being close to me offered him that I was
overlooking? I feared that the more realistic possibility was the
exact opposite; that I felt more needy and lonely than I ever had
before in my life – even more than during my first weeks at
Treadwell when I didn't know anyone – and the idea of having Jake
for my boyfriend was becoming my life jacket. The affection he had
shown me meant more to me than he could ever imagine.

That evening I was restless. I investigated
the hotel's fancy indoor pool wearing a new red striped one-piece
bathing suit that one of Tanya's minions had picked up for me at a
nearby mall, but felt self-conscious treading water alone on the
deep end while happy families and couples splashed and swam around
me. I walked through the famous rose gardens on the grounds, but it
was humid and sticky outside, even after the sun started to set,
and mosquitoes attacked me relentlessly. I was discovering that
travel was not all that fun if you were on your own and didn't
particularly care that much about the locations you were visiting.
I was so disinterested in spending time by myself at the hotel that
I actually even began wondering if Dad or Jill would come back to
the suite to have dinner with me. The thought of ordering room
service alone was not very appealing.

Around ten, I sat alone in the hotel suite,
having already flipped through all nine hundred channels available
on the television. I dared to call Allison out of desperation,
fearing that she wouldn't be home because it was a Saturday night.
But to my surprise, she answered.

"Yeah, I'm at home tonight," she grumbled. "I
have to work the dawn shift and I would have been a third wheel,
anyway."

"What do you mean, third wheel?" I asked.

"You know," she said. "Nicole and Todd. They
went to go see a movie at The Grove. I think it's kind of gross
that she's getting with my brother, but he seems to like her, so I
guess it's none of my business."

My heart stopped beating for a second. All
thoughts of Jake vanished from my mind. Todd was going out with
Nicole Farley?

The very idea made me feel so distraught that
I wanted to rid myself of every summer memory I had of spending
time with the Burch family. If Todd was going to fall in love with
any of Allison's friends, it was supposed to be me. I had been
pining away for him for years. He had been the boy I wanted to
marry since… as long as I could remember. First grade. It was just
outrageously unfair that Nicole could swoop in with her big chest
and new car and in a matter of days steal my dream boy.

"Oh," I said flatly, trying to hide the level
of surprise in my voice. Allison had dropped the bomb on me so
casually, it seemed a little like she was intentionally trying to
hurt my feelings. She knew how I felt about Todd. Couldn't she have
done anything on my behalf to dissuade Nicole from going after
Todd? "I didn't know they were together."

I heard Allison yawn on the other end of the
line. "Yeah, well, Nicole puts out and makes no big secret of it,
and Todd's leaving for college in six weeks, so he might just be
using her. But who knows."

The possibility that Todd was probably going
to sleep with Nicole – or was maybe even having sex with her at
that very second – made me feel even sicker.

"I have news," I said, trying to change the
subject and make myself feel better. "I kind of have a
boyfriend."

"Tell," Allison commanded, sounding more like
her old self.

After I filled Allison in on all of the
details I had about Jake, naturally leaving out all of the missing
pieces, like not knowing his last name or having his phone number,
Allison released a long sigh.

"Great," she muttered. "Now you're going to
have a real boyfriend and I'm going to be the last virgin on earth.
I want to see pictures of him."

After we hung up, I sat on the couch for
nearly twenty minutes feeling like a rock. My throat ached and I
felt like crying, but my eyes remained dry. If it is possible to be
too sad to cry, I think that's what I was. My entire life as I had
known it prior to that summer was completely gone. Wiped clean. And
worse than that, the entire future that I had always fantasized for
myself was gone, too.

A month before, I had truly looked forward to
the possibility of seeing Todd on the East Coast in the fall. Now,
the thought was revolting. Allison had always been my best friend,
like a sister, and I wasn't sure what had happened since my mom had
died but I felt like I couldn't even trust her anymore. She was
making me feel like our friendship was a burden.

I was so confused and just wanted everything
to be simple again. I felt like a satellite being hurled through
outer space, with no direction and no destination. Who knew where I
would end up or how I would feel when I finally arrived at wherever
it was I was headed? I was feeling less and less like myself. I
wished there was a way to just go back to Treadwell a few weeks
early… if for no other reason than to inhale its comforting stinky
dormitory smells.

And worst of all, I missed my mom. All of the
sadness I had been unable to feel at her wake had caught up with
me. I missed her so much I felt like my heart had been torn out of
my chest. Even though I knew no one would answer, I called our old
phone number at the house in West Hollywood hoping to hear her
familiar outbound greeting, "Greetings! Dawn and Taylor aren't here
to answer your call, so leave a message, and we'll call you
back."

But my dad must have had the line
disconnected, because a woman picked up on other end. "Ola?"

"Is Dawn there?" I asked foolishly.

"No," the woman said with an accent. "No
Dawn."

I curled up on the couch, frowning as I
watched television without really paying it any attention. I fell
asleep there, wishing my mom would just come to pick me up and take
me home.

I woke up the next morning in the same
position, my eyes puffy and my temples throbbing, when Tanya let
herself into the suite.

"Rise and shine," Tanya chirped when she saw
me rubbing my eyes on the couch. "Your parents are on the way back
from the hospital, and we've got a plane to catch at two."

I stretched and yawned. It was July third.
Pound was playing a big show on the fourth at Virginia Beach, with
a full fireworks show, and it was fortunate timing that Kelsey had
recovered from her illness in time for us to travel. I didn't
bother correcting Tanya's error in referring to my dad and Jill as
my parents.

"Everything all right?" Tanya asked, studying
me after I stood and stretched.

"Yes," I said, not especially wanting to open
up to a woman more than twice my age who seemed to wear wool-blend
suits by St. John's 24-hours a day.

******

As if the universe had taken the matter of my
loneliness upon itself as an issue to resolve, there was a surprise
waiting for me in Virginia Beach.