The Rock Star's Daughter (2 page)

It was hours before my mother's doctor came
out to the lobby. The sun was up outside the waiting room windows.
The View was on the overhead television. It was a freakish feeling,
being so tired in the morning, with a strange sense of urgency as
if it were not summer vacation and I was late for school. The
doctor, who was very bookish in appearance with a thick gray beard,
seemed to move in slow motion as he approached me and Julia. He
asked me to follow him to a private room. Julia, who had been
nodding off next to me on the striped sofa where we had been
sitting all night, was suddenly at full attention demanding to know
where my mother was and how she was doing. The doctor ignored her
and led me to a small office down the hall.

"Taylor," he said, reading my name off of a
clipboard. "Do you have any relatives in the area?"

"Is my mom OK?" I asked, my voice
cracking.

The doctor shrugged and looked at the floor.
I got the sense he wasn't accustomed to having to break bad news to
kids. "I'm sorry, Taylor. We did everything we could to save your
mom. She suffered a stroke, we think as a result of a drug
overdose, in the pool, and took in a great deal of water."

My hands and feet started feeling numb. It
just didn't seem real that he was telling me that my mom was dead.
All I could think about was how badly I just wanted to go home to
our house on North Laurel Avenue and crawl back under my blankets.
I wanted to wake up later that afternoon to the sound of Mom
banging around the kitchen, looking for Tylenol. I wanted to have a
normal summer day of walking to The Grove with Allison to see a
movie, or maybe her older brother Todd giving us a ride in his new
Toyota. But I could tell, in that small bare-walled office that
stank like cleanser, that my normal summer days were over.
Forever.

"Are you in touch with your father?
Grandparents? We need to contact an adult who can take
responsibility for you," the doctor told me.

Looking back on those confusing, jumbled
moments now, I guess I didn't realize how seriously in trouble I
was at the time. My mother wasn't the type of woman who planned for
the future. Sitting in that office, I thought my next steps would
be as easy as just having Julia drive me home.

How wrong I was.

Two hours later after I tried to tearfully
explain to the hospital's social worker that my dad was a rock star
on the other side of the world who could not - and would not -
drive right over to pick me up, Julia finally managed to talk her
way into the office to see me.

"Can we have a moment alone?" she asked the
social worker.

Once we had some privacy, Julia knelt down in
front of me and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Don't worry about anything," she whispered
to me. "Your mother would want me to take care of this, and I'm
going to."

"Where am I going to live?" I asked her. "Why
won't they just let me go home?"

"I'm going to do everything I can just to get
you out of here, OK?" she assured me.

She stood and patted me on the head and I
realized that a woman who just six hours ago was totally drunk and
possibly high, who was still wearing a bikini and a lab coat, was
making me promises about my future. It was then that I got really
scared. Up until that moment I had blindly trusted that adults
always knew what was right, but Julia really had no more authority
over the hospital staff than I did. I started having visions of
being sent to an orphanage. It occurred to me that my mom's parents
were still alive somewhere in Minnesota. I had never met them. I
really didn't want to be put on a plane to Minnesota.

Suddenly when the social worked returned to
fetch me in the office, he was talking nonstop about my dad. He had
spoken to my dad on the phone, he was saying. My dad was flying to
Los Angeles to pick me up. The Los Angeles Department of Children
and Family Services was sending two case handlers to retrieve me,
and I was to wait at their office until my dad arrived.

"Wait, what?" I was starting to feel like I
was going to pass out. I was lightheaded and dizzy. "Pick me up and
take me where? I don't even know him."

"He wants to speak with you," the social
worker told me, picking up the receiver of the phone on the desk
and dialing.

"No," I said emphatically. "I have people I
can stay with here. And I go back to school in September. I don't
need to talk to him."

But the phone was pressed into my hand, and
my dad was waiting on the other end. And that's when my new life
began.

CHAPTER
2

Since I didn't know my father personally very
well, I never could have known prior to our very short, very
serious chat on that fateful morning that my father is a very
emotional man.

"Are you all right?" he asked me. That was
the first thing he asked when I was handed the phone, and it
occurred to me that he was the only person all morning who had
asked me how I was doing. And in that moment as I was preparing to
tell him that I was fine, it all hit me. A huge volcano of sadness
and fear erupted inside me. It all came pouring out and I started
sobbing.

"I'm OK," I managed in between sobs and
snorts. I am sure it was more than evident to him by the tone of my
voice that I was anything but OK.

Then, incredibly enough, he started sobbing.
"You just sit tight, Taylor. We're getting on the first flight to
Los Angeles to come and get you."

To this day I am not sure how what happened
next became reality, because certainly in my head I was dead-set
against my father coming to get me. I had accepted the phone fully
prepared to tell my father that his assistance would be
unnecessary, that I could go crash at Allison's for the summer and
continue on with my part-time job mixing frozen juices at Robek's
and combing the Farmer's Market at The Grove for cute guys. But the
idea of my dad coming to get me was comforting in a way that I
can't even explain. It was overwhelming.

So instead of saying, "Don't worry about it,
man. It's cool. I'm going to just crash with a friend until school
starts," I heard myself say in a tiny voice, "Please hurry."

My father and his wife, Jill, were all the
way in Turkey, the hospital social worker informed me. Little had I
known that Pound was on a sold-out world tour promoting their
latest album, Stagger. Unrelated to my situation that afternoon,
the album was receiving rave reviews and the band was playing in
over forty cities across Europe and Asia. All that meant for me,
though, was that I was going to have to go to Koreatown with the
two Department of Child Welfare case handlers who arrived to fetch
me: Lois (the old one) and Connie (the one who wore large hoop
earrings and smelled like beef broth). And with them I would wait
at the Department's temporary living facility for my dad to
arrive.

We drove from the beautiful tree-lined
streets of Beverly Hills down Wilshire Boulevard toward the ladies'
office facility. The day was already getting kind of hazy and hot
by the time I was brought to a large corporate office and asked a
series of questions while Connie typed up a file on me. Full name?
Piece of cake. Father's name? My answer produced the expected
reaction; Connie raised an eyebrow and I added, "yes, that Chase
Atwood." Social security number? Seriously, no clue.

My mind started to wander back to my house.
Had anyone even locked the doors when we all split for the
hospital? Were they going to let me go back and at least get my
reading list for school? What about my violin? I was supposed to be
practicing every day – I had just won first seat in the Treadwell
Junior Symphony Orchestra. What about my mom's body? Where was it?
Who would plan a funeral?

Despite my panic, I was starting to get
really sleepy. It was a Wednesday, nearly one in the afternoon. I
realized I had missed my shift at Robek's and didn't even have my
cell phone to call Allison and let her know what had happened.

After I let loose a mighty yawn, Lois frowned
at me and told Connie that she could finish my paperwork later.
Connie took me up to the dormitory floors and led me to a stark
room with bunk beds. I was informed that for the duration of my
stay at the Department of Children and Family Services facility I
would be roommates with a girl named Anna who was at summer school
for the day. None of this information was making any difference to
me. I crawled under the blankets on the lower bunk and closed my
eyes until Connie stopped talking and left me alone.

I had been wearing pajamas all day. I had no
idea how or when I was going to be able to get in touch with
Allison or my mom's friends to tell them where I was. And my mom
was dead. Gone. They hadn't even let me see her body. I started
crying until I could barely breathe, and at some point I must have
fallen asleep.

When I woke up I immediately got the distinct
sensation that I was being watched. Upon opening my eyes I saw my
new roommate, a heavyset girl at least a year older than me,
standing over me with her arms folded across her chest. It was dark
outside. I had no idea how long I'd been sleeping.

"You're in my bed," the girl said
sternly.

I sat up instantly. It hadn't occurred to me
when I chose the lower bunk that the room's existing occupant
probably slept there.

"I'm sorry," I said, pushing back the
blankets and standing. "I didn't know."

"It's OK," the girl said. "Whatever."

Not wanting to make small talk, I climbed the
flimsy ladder to the top bunk and laid down again facing the wall,
my back to my new roommate.

"Your parents beat you up or something?" the
girl asked.

"My mom died," I said, trying my hardest not
to start crying again just by having to say those words.

"Yo, that sucks," she said. "My name is Anna.
I just got kicked out of my foster home and sent back here. Stupid
assholes expected me to watch their toddler every day after school.
I ain't no free nanny service."

I wanted to be cordial, or at least not make
this roommate angry, but I couldn't find the strength to roll over
and even face her. From the moment she started talking I just
wanted the room to be dark and silent again.

Anna got the picture. "Listen, it's dinner
time. I'm supposed to tell you to come downstairs if you want to
eat. They're strict about the schedule."

I made no attempt to move. Anna gave up on me
and went downstairs alone, muttering her signature, "whatever," on
her way out the door.

There's not much to say about the two days
that I spent in the facility other than that I never once had the
bright idea to ask to use a phone. Lois told me that one of my
mother's friends would be bringing over some of my clothes, but no
one ever materialized. On my second day there, after the other kids
left for their part-time jobs and summer school classes in the
morning, I braved the showers alone and got back into my dirty
pajamas.

I was in a state of shock about how my life
had transformed so quickly. No one ever thinks she's going to go to
bed in her bedroom one night and the next day find herself a ward
of the court, living in a city-run facility that smells a little
like mothballs and is still buzzing with chatter at night even
after lights-out. I was offered the services of a psychiatrist,
which I turned down. I was thinking more along the lines of needing
a lawyer. In the two days that passed it was becoming terrifying to
me that my dad was on his way to Los Angeles to claim me. I was
almost sixteen and surely I could get by alone on what he gave my
mother in child support. I could become emancipated. The last thing
I wanted was to intrude on his life unexpectedly and be a
burden.

I formulated a plan to run this scenario past
him, certain that he would be totally down with just paying me to
take care of myself. It would be a win-win situation for both of
us.

When Chase finally did arrive, I'm not sure
that the Department of Children and Family Services was any more
prepared for him than I was. For starters, the paparazzi had caught
wind of the story and had met his flight arriving at L.A.X. They
followed him in what could basically be called a motor cavalcade
all the way to the facility on Wilshire where he was coming to meet
me, and he climbed out of the backseat of the limo to a flurry of
flashbulbs popping.

"Please try to have some respect," he yelled
at the photographers as he pushed his way to the front lobby. This
I know because I was watching from the window of my tenth story
room. After I waited for almost an hour, an administrator summoned
me from my room.

On the elevator ride down to the first floor
to meet my dad, I started feeling nauseous and self-conscious. He
was an internationally recognized rock star, and I was a mess who
hadn't even touched a hair brush in two days. I had been given a
pair of jeans to wear once someone had finally acknowledged that I
had been wearing an oversized concert t-shirt and a pair of
rainbow-striped Victoria Secret pajama pants for over forty hours
straight, but the jeans were clownishly large and unflattering. In
the three years since I'd last seen my dad I'd grown nearly a foot,
had my fair share of zits, started wearing a bra and had an
unfortunate boarding school incident involving red henna in my
hair. Was he even going to recognize me?

I was led down a long hallway to an office I
hadn't been in yet, past the huge first-floor cafeteria where I
had, hours earlier, eaten a peanut butter sandwich with two fourth
graders who had convinced the staff that they were too sick to play
volleyball with their peers.

My dad was sitting at a desk across from Lois
signing paperwork when I walked in. He looked the same as he always
does on the cover of
Expose Magazine
– professionally
frosted hair, hoop earring in one ear, semi-lame goatee. He was
wearing dark washed jeans and a distressed flannel shirt, obviously
moving into a retro-grunge fashion moment. Anyone else's dad would
show up to a formal meeting of this nature wearing a golf sweater
or at the very least some respectable Dockers. Not my dad.