The Rock Star's Daughter (22 page)

"I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to
find you," he said, brushing the hair back from my face.

I was so happy to see him, I couldn't
respond.

"Let's get out of here," he said. "I want to
take you to something special."

I never once looked back over my shoulder as
we jogged out of the amphitheater. As far as I was concerned I was
leaving forever even though the mere thought made my stomach ice
over with sickness. There was no way to know if my father would
punish me for this by taking Treadwell away from me, or simply
return me there earlier than planned because I had turned out to be
such a nuisance. It no longer mattered to me. If boarding school
was my sacrifice for time alone with Jake, it was a compromise I
was willing to make at that moment.

We got out on the highway and drove out of
Auburn Hills.

"You should have told me about your mom and
my dad," I said quietly, not wanting to upset Jake but needing him
to know that I was in on the secret.

"I couldn't do that," Jake said quietly. "I
didn't want you to get angry, after losing your mom and
everything."

I stared out over the rooftops of Detroit
that we were passing. "Yeah, but my dad is just… ugh. I just don't
understand how he can be such a liar."

Jake merged into the right lane to prepare to
exit the highway. "Look, Chase isn't such a bad guy. There's a lot
you don't know about him."

"Maybe it bothers me a little that you know
more about my dad than I do," I said softly, not wanting to pick a
fight. I could sense my own discomfort heightening and changed the
topic. I had waited in agony for this night, and I didn't want my
sour mood to ruin it.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Jake broke into a huge smile. "You'll see.
I'm taking you with me to work."

"Work?" I asked. And then I noticed over my
shoulder that the back of the gold Saturn had been cleaned out, and
the back seat was crammed with milk crates of CD's.

"Work," Jake repeated. The Saturn was slowing
down on a dark street, wet with puddles from the previous night's
rain, in front of an enormous warehouse. Electronic music was
throbbing out into the street and people of all ages were lined up
outside.

"Oh, wow," I murmured, impressed. Jake had
mentioned DJ-ing parties, but I never thought he actually was
making money or a name for himself. "You're spinning here
tonight?"

Jake parked the car and dug into his back
pocket to hand me a folded flyer. The headline on the flyer read,
"DJ JK, one night only. 12AM – 2AM. The Annex."

"Yep," he said. It was cute how proud he was
of himself. In Detroit he wasn't just a kid who sold t-shirts
behind a counter, he was famous in his own right. He was on his
way. "And… there's something I wanted to ask you."

The car became really quiet and my heart
started thumping loudly.

"I have a two-month gig starting next week in
Tokyo at one of the hottest clubs like, on the planet. I wasn't
sure if I was going to take it 'cause of you know, school and
everything, but it's too big to pass up. Would you, maybe… would
you want to come with me? It's going to be all expenses paid, so
you know…"

I tore off my seatbelt and we were kissing
wildly before I could even respond with words. Two months in Japan
with Jake was the perfect solution to all of my problems. No more
Pound tour, no more Dad, no more Jill, no more trying to act like a
responsible older sister… just me and Jake, my first real
boyfriend, exploring the world together.

"Yes, yes, yes," I agreed breathlessly.

"OK, cool," Jake said. "This is going to be
awesome. So awesome."

We entered the club through the back door,
each carrying a huge plastic milk crate. The heavyset bouncers knew
Jake by name and slapped him on the back on his way in.

"Yo, Jake my man," one said.

It was infinitely cooler to me that two
bouncers in Detroit knew Jake by name than having a dad who is
globally famous.

Inside, the music was deafening. The
warehouse boasted two floors, with the top floor as a balcony that
overlooked the main dance floor. The people dancing looked fairly
older than us, in their early twenties.

"It's still early," Jake assured me. "By one
or two AM this place will be so packed, people won't even be able
to move on the dance floor."

Jake led me up to the DJ cage on the second
floor balcony. He would be one of two headlining DJ's later that
night, which was shocking to me, since he was only sixteen and
technically not even old enough to be setting foot inside
nightclubs that served alcohol. The cage was literally a metal
barred cell protecting the DJ booth, which had two turn tables, a
huge audio console, and several CD players hooked up to laptops. It
was protected with a lockbox into which Jake had to type a numeric
code for entry.

The other DJ, who would be relieving Jake
after his set at 2AM, was an Indian girl named Gloria who DJ'd as
Glorius. She was rumored to be having a lesbian affair with a
well-known lingerie model. Glorius and Susan Galbraith, a chesty
brunette teetering around in stilettos, were already present,
perched on the black vinyl couches in the cage, sipping on
beers.

"Yo, Jake," the current DJ greeted us, "Who's
your girl?"

"This is Taylor Atwood," Jake informed the
small population of the cage.

I was momentarily peeved that he had
introduced me with my dad's last name, I assumed for the
recognition it might bring. But then I remembered that he probably
had no idea that I didn't go by Taylor Atwood.

"This is DJ Slipped Disc, Gloria, Susan,"
Jake introduced me, pointing around the small circle.

"Nice to meet you," Susan said, volunteering
to be friendly. "Do you want a drink?"

She and Glorius were both smoking and tapping
the long ashes from their cigarettes right onto the floor.

I looked to Jake to see if he'd be drinking,
because I didn't want to be presumptuous or a party pooper.

"I don't drink when I'm working," he shouted
into my ear so that I would be able to hear him over the music.
"But help yourself if you're into it."

I declined and sat down on one of the
couches. Jake and the spinning DJ geeked out for a while, tweaking
the CD players and the console system. I felt a little awkward;
this was the first time I had ever set foot in a nightclub, and was
feeling both underdressed and not cool enough to be there. The
black tank top and skinny jeans I had put on earlier that afternoon
had seemed passable for a rock concert in suburban Michigan, but
seriously lame for a dance club where every girl that happened to
stroll past the cage was wearing a tight dress made of mesh or
rubber, torn or draped to show off tattoos.

Susan made her way over to my couch and sat
down next to me after Glorius let herself out of the cage in search
of drinks.

"So how do you know Jake?" Susan purred.

There was something about her demeanor that
made me unsure if she was trying to befriend me or make me feel
inferior to her.

"Through my dad's band," I responded,
choosing my words carefully. I wasn't sure if Jake's scene in
Detroit was aware of how he spent his summer vacations, hauling
boxes of t-shirts across America and sleeping in the backseat of
his mother's car. I was quick to assume that he would probably not
appreciate me exposing that side of his life to people who only
knew him as DJ JK, star on the rise.

"Oh, that's cool," Susan said. "Is your dad
like, in the Rolling Stones or something?"

She was slurring. I had seen a few of the
catalogs in which Susan modeled bras and thong panties, and even
the televised runway special where she strutted her stuff down a
runway, mostly naked. I knew she was my age, and I tried not to
stare at the premature crows' feet at the corners of her eyes.

"Eh, no. He's the lead singer of Pound," I
corrected her. I was a little ashamed of myself for relying on my
father's fame to establish myself among Jake's friends so early in
the night. So much for standing on my own two feet. But I forgave
myself because I was feeling so insecure in this environment. I
didn't have tattoos or Jimmy Choo boots with four-inch heels, but
my dad is famous. Never mind that for all I knew at that moment, he
could have been planning to disown me.

"Oh, for real? Pound? I used to love them
when I was a kid!" Susan exclaimed. "I partied with them in Las
Vegas last year. Your dad is totally hot."

I smiled weakly, feeling a little sick. Would
my dad be so gross as to party with someone like Susan, just a few
years older than me?

Slipped Disc's set was ending and Jake began
arranging his set on his laptop. He was completely focused on his
task, oblivious to the rest of us around him until he looked up
briefly.

"My set is starting," he told me. "You should
totally go explore. Hang out."

I didn't exactly want to go explore, but I
also didn't want to seem like a wallflower, either. This was the
first moment in my life when I was more concerned about how my
actions appeared than about what I actually felt like doing. Susan
volunteered to show me the way to the ladies' room, and Jake barely
seemed to notice when we left the cage and the door locked behind
us.

The first song that Jake played was a
fast-paced electronic track with mash-up samples from Notorious
B.I.G. classics. The crowd got on its feet and went wild. Susan and
I pushed through the minglers and dancers toward the ladies' room,
where we stepped into a line that was so long that its end was
outside the entrance to the bathroom and only a few feet from the
hoard of customers crowding around the bar.

"So, Jake is like, your boyfriend?" Susan
asked, practically screaming into my ear to be heard over the music
while we waited in line.

I nodded, but felt presumptuous saying the
words my boyfriend and simply said, "We're friends."

"Is he like, amazing in bed?" Susan's eyes
became huge and she smiled widely, and for a second I thought
perhaps I had misheard her and she had actually asked
isn't
he
?

I nodded again, not really wanting to admit
to someone as famous and pretty as Susan that I had no idea if Jake
was good in bed, and I also had no idea how any guy was in bed or
what would qualify as good. At Treadwell, it was pretty much a
given that just about everyone was still a virgin. Girls who
weren't virgins were the girls who had boyfriends back at home who
pretty much never talked about anything except losing their
virginity. Being surrounded by hundreds of other girls nine months
out of the year who were just as freaked out about the possibility
of sleeping with boys took a lot of the pressure off of the
prospect of it actually ever happening.

The line began inching forward. My attention
was caught by the voices of the girls standing behind us.

"He looks great, right?" one of the girls was
saying.

"Yeah. Bastard. I still have no idea where
he's been for the last two months. Beth said he came in with some
girl."

"God, calm down. I'm sure you'll get a piece
of Jake tonight if that's what you want."

My heart literally stopped beating. I tried
not to turn to take a good look at the girls behind me, but did
anyway and pretended to be looking past them toward the bar. They
were both older than me, probably in college, dressed like total
sluts in gauzy tank tops and short skirts. The girl who had made it
sound like she had a history with Jake was wearing a tank top with
silver and black stripes, and had hair dyed bright red.

I was so shaken by what I had overheard, and
what the girls' conversation had implied, that I could barely speak
when Susan took me by the hand and led me along with her into a
bathroom stall.

"You can go first," she said motioning at the
toilet. The stall was cramped and crowded and I couldn't remember
the last time I had smashed myself into a stall with another girl.
Possibly never. I unzipped my jeans and began to relieve my bladder
while Susan dug through her rhinestone studded purse for
something.

"You want some?" she offered as I
flushed.

Watching Bijoux and Betsey Norfleet score
beers off of college guys was one thing. Being locked into a tiny
bathroom stall with a lingerie model who was offering me some kind
of a drug out of a dirty baggie was quite another. I felt like I
had been plucked out of my own world of boarding school knee socks
and late night Dorito binges and dropped into an entirely different
universe where the rules were all different and the stakes were
much higher. I felt naïve and dumb and worst of all, angry at
myself for feeling either of those ways.

"No thanks," I told Susan. She handed me the
baggie while she raised her dress to pee, and during the entire
forty seconds that I held the bag I prayed that she would hurry up
and take it away from me. I was so paranoid about drugs that my
mind went straight to the worst case scenario it could conjure up.
It would be my perfect luck that police would kick down the doors
to the ladies' room at that very moment and arrest me for
possession of a narcotic. Thankfully that did not happen.

When we left the stall, a woman who looked
like she was in her early thirties sneered, "Just take your time,
ladies," implying that we had been in our stall far too long.

"Go to hell," Susan retorted smugly, wiping
her nose with the back of her hand.

It was just after midnight. The club was
becoming completely packed, as Jake had said it would be. Using an
inexplicable sense of radar, Susan led me straight through the
writhing mass of bodies on the dance floor to the other side, where
she snuggled up to Glorius at the bar. Glorius was accepting three
clear beverages in plastic cups from the bartender, and handed one
to me and one to Susan. I was about to shrug the drink off but then
happened to look up over the dance floor to the balcony of the
club. From where we were standing I could see directly into the
cage and saw Jake leaning over the DJ booth, one hand on his
headphones.