The Rock Star's Daughter (26 page)

My jaw dropped slightly. "What?"

"Oh yeah," he said. "You were born in
Trenton, just like me. Your mom was just miserable, stuck at home
all day with a baby to care for while I was at the studio. She
complained because we didn't go out at night anymore, and all of
her own career stuff had been cast aside because we weren't in
California anymore. She left for L.A. without me. I joined the two
of you for a few weeks, but things between us were really
stressful. Finally she told me she was going to want money to raise
you on her own."

He paused, tapped the steering wheel, and
continued. "That's when I knew it was over. She said she wanted
money. Not me. She wanted money and Hollywood. She wasn't in love
with me. She didn't want to be my wife and share my world."

A huge tear rolled down my cheek and I made
no attempt to wipe it away.

"I was no angel, Taylor. Lord knows I wasn't
the best boyfriend and if I had been responsible at the time I
would have toughed it out in L.A. to try to work something out for
your sake. But my feelings were hurt, my family was in New Jersey,
there were a lot of other women around and there was pressure from
the record company to outsell the first album. I let her go. I let
you go."

This was all a huge revelation for me. I had
grown up thinking that he had abandoned us, that my father had
never wanted me and had a strong suspicion, especially as I started
getting older, that my mom had just been a groupie, a hanger-on,
and that I had been an embarrassment to my dad. Just an obligation
he was happy to leave on the west coast. But this was a complete
reversal of everything about my life I had assumed to be true. My
mother had left him. She had chosen our life in Los Angeles
together.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I owe you an apology
and I owed your mom an apology. I wasn't much of a man back then,
and sometimes I fear I'm not much of one now, either."

"You don't have to apologize," I assured
him.

"Nah, I do," he said. "I've been trying to
find the right way to get all this off my chest all summer. I
needed to tell you, and if Dawn's spirit is out there somewhere, I
needed to say it for her, too."

It was a lot to take in. The windows of the
car were starting to get kind of steamy from us sitting there
parked for so long, and Dad turned the engine back on for a second
so that he could open them.

"I know you're gonna go off back to school
next week," he began slowly, "but I really hope that you'll come
home for Christmas. And next summer, if you want, you're more than
welcome to come stay with us in New Jersey. Meet your grandparents.
I know it's… not much of an offer after the way I've acted this
summer. But it's all I've got."

A cool breeze blew, bringing the smell of the
Pacific to the car. Below us, I heard cars honking and music
drifting out of thousands of cars across Southern California,
everyone having the time of their lives. For a second I felt like a
child again, with the warm night air against my skin. I sensed the
rush of pedestrians on Hollywood Blvd, the clinking of glasses at
poolside parties, everything about Los Angeles that my mother loved
so much. I knew in my heart that my mother was saying goodbye to
me, and that everything was falling into place in my life for me as
if she had arranged it herself. I was going to be all right. She
was seeing to it.

Goodbye, Mom, I thought to myself.

CHAPTER
16

"Geez, Taylor, your hair has gotten really
long!"

It was the second week of September, and I
had taken the bus all the way into Boston to meet Todd at a diner
near Harvard for lunch. The random meeting had been his suggestion;
he had emailed me out of the clear blue suggesting that we meet up.
He was going to be in Boston visiting friends for the weekend and
asked if it was a possibility for me to meet for lunch.

"Yeah," I said, blushing. He was every bit as
cute as I had remembered. I hadn't spoken to Allison since that
morning in Chicago when she had hung up on me, and I wasn't sure if
Todd had told his sister he had made plans to see me. "How was your
summer?"

"My summer was boring," Todd insisted. He had
gotten to the diner before me and was already drinking a black
coffee. "I drove around, saw movies, same old."

We had a great lunch, one that lasted over
two hours. I told him all about touring the country, and my dad's
house in New Jersey, and what it was like to meet my grandparents
in Minnesota. He was completely smitten with the International
Relations department at UConn and was already thinking about trying
to secure an internship at the UN in New York City for the summer.
He couldn't wait to see the leaves change color, something that
Angelenos never get to experience.

What was best about our conversation was that
he barely asked me about the band or being a celebrity. He seemed
genuinely more interested in how I was doing and what it was like
for me to be back in school.

"Are they going to offer you Drivers' Ed this
year?" he asked.

"No, of course not," I laughed. "If any one
of us had a license and a car, we'd all drive away as fast as we
could."

"I miss my car," Todd claimed with a fake
sob. "My parents made me leave it with Allison. God only knows what
will be left of it the next time I go home."

"What about Nicole?" I asked cautiously,
wondering what had ever happened to their hot summer romance. I was
enjoying myself so much with Todd that I genuinely wanted to know
if there was another girl in the picture.

"Nicole Farley?" Todd asked, surprised. "We
saw two movies together over the summer. She's a total airhead. Not
my type."

I felt like jumping out of the diner booth
and dancing down the aisle. I had forgotten how easy it was to get
lost in his sleepy blue eyes.

I mentioned to Todd that I was practicing
night and day for my junior symphony concert the following weekend,
and he asked if he could attend.

"Uh, sure," I said. "I mean, I can't promise
that it's going to be good or anything, but I can send you a
ticket."

We paid our bill and stepped outside. Todd
was staying with friends who had an apartment in Cambridge, and I
had to catch my bus back to school.

"It was really great to see you, Taylor,"
Todd said, hesitating awkwardly outside the diner. "I mean, it was
really weird the last time I saw you, with your mom and everything.
I thought about you all summer."

I nearly jumped out of my skin when he said
this. Todd thought about me? Not only did he just think about me
once, but all summer?

"Thanks," I said. "I'm doing really well now,
I think."

Todd reached into his jacket pocket and
pulled out a small wrapped box. "I brought you something. Tomorrow
is your birthday, right?"

I was stupefied. The next day was, in fact,
my sixteenth birthday, but I had no idea how or why Todd would have
remembered this. And yet, he had remembered it. I accepted the gift
and held it in my palm, afraid to open it. "Todd, how did you ever
remember that it's my birthday?"

Todd chuckled and looked up at the blue sky
for a second. "Taylor, I've known you practically your whole life.
Of course I know when your birthday is. Don't open it now, I'll be
too embarrassed."

"OK," I agreed, tucking the gift into my blue
Coach bag.

And then, just like magic, he leaned over and
kissed me softly on the lips. It was just perfect. A better
birthday present than I ever could have asked for.

The next day, Sunday, I was awakened early in
the morning by my cell phone ringing. Jill had gotten Kelsey up at
the crack of dawn to sing Happy Birthday to me over the phone.
There were boxes waiting for me in the dormitory mail room, and
jealous glances were cast in my direction as I hauled them up to my
room using a wheeled cart.

I still hadn't gotten used to my new status
at Treadwell. Anyone who hadn't been aware of my dad's identity
last year was certainly aware this year. Emma Jeffries had even
said hello to me on dormitory move-in day. I tried to overlook the
fact that she had been wearing a scarf loosely tied around her hips
when the event occurred. It was the best I could do to give her the
benefit of the doubt and open myself to the possibility that
perhaps she was unaware of the trend beginning with me.

Amazingly, the birthday present boxes
included sixteen cupcakes from a bakery in New Jersey, sixteen
pairs of cashmere socks, and sixteen expensive perfume and skincare
baskets. Leave it to Jill to have sent gifts that would keep me off
of every girl's Most Hated list for the year. She had sent enough
of everything for me to share with all of the girls on the floor of
my dorm. And of course, in one box, there were a few gifts just for
me, a new pair of jeans, a new sweater, a new pair of running
shoes. No car keys. Not even having a celebrity parent is a
guarantee that all dreams will come true.

And of course I had waited until my actual
birth date to open the present from Todd. Riddhi and Ruth sat
captivated on the floor of the dorm room that Ruth and I shared,
while I pulled the package out of my hand bag.

"I bet it's going to be earrings," Riddhi
insisted.

"Earrings are so cliché," Ruth rolled her
eyes.

I opened the pink foil gift wrap to reveal a
very pretty wooden jewelry box. Inside, however, was not jewelry.
Inside there were sixteen pennies and a note.

Sixteen pennies for you to make sixteen
wishes. May all your wishes come true this year. Todd Burch.

It took my breath away.

"Sixteen cents! That's all he spent on you?
Sixteen cents?" Ruth exclaimed. "I don't know about this guy."

"Her dad is rich, Ruth," Riddhi reminded her.
"There's nothing he could buy her that her dad couldn't buy her,
bigger and better."

I could barely hear them critiquing Todd's
gift. As far as I was concerned, it was perfect. As perfect, if not
more perfect, than a bag of seashells.

The following weekend, my stomach was icy as
I dressed in my black turtleneck for the junior symphony
performance. Although I had been practicing every single day before
and after classes, and Mr. Ferris was telling me he had noticed
significant improvement in my execution, I was nervous. I had not
yet even once made it all the way through the first movement,
spring, without missing at least one note or pausing in
frustration. The rest of the composition was a piece of cake, but
spring had been impossible for me to master.

Before the performance, we gathered backstage
at the auditorium that had been rented for our performance in
Boston, and Mr. Ferris gave us a pep talk. Even with the heavy
velvet stage curtains drawn, I could still hear the audience
chattering. I wondered if my dad ever got scared like this before a
show. I clutched my violin and assured myself that it was just a
bunch of Board Members, family and friends in the audience. No one
was going to stand and throw tomatoes if I messed up.

I breathed a complicated sigh of relief that
my dad was far away in Malibu in rehab and not in attendance. As
much as I felt odd being the only girl in the junior symphony who
didn't have a parent attending the show, I feared that no one would
be more critical of my performance than my dad. And yet I was kind
of sad at the same time that he couldn't be there. For whatever
reason, it was still really important to me to impress him.

"Ladies," Mr. Ferris began (he always
referred to us as ladies), "you've all worked so hard for this
moment. And it's just the beginning of what's to come this year.
I'm so proud of all of you and I know you're going to put your best
into this show."

We filed onto the stage and took our seats by
the orange glow of the house lights, and tuned our instruments for
the last time. Then we heard a whirring as the curtains opened.

I lifted my violin to my chin, and the
audience fell quiet.

I had been practicing my piece so arduously
that I barely even needed to reference the sheet music. The notes
flew from my bow and I closed my eyes, blocking out the rest of the
world, focusing on making sure that my timing remained steady. I
concentrating on making each note soar, and tried to channel
Vivaldi's spirit of spring as I struggled to keep up with the fast
tempo. I was sweating. Why, oh why, did the hardest part of the
song have to come first?

A slow rumble of applause built up as I
finished my solo, and it grew to a thunderous standing ovation as
the rest of the symphony swelled and I sat down. Mr. Ferris was
beaming with pride. I tried to catch my breath and looked around at
my fellow symphony musicians, amazed. I had made it through the
hardest part without a single mistake. Only then did I look out
into the audience and see Tanya and Kelsey sitting in the front
row, clapping like maniacs. I had no idea they were going to drive
in from New Jersey for the show. A few rows behind them Todd was
with a few friends from his school. He was standing and applauding
as well.

After the show, Jill trapped me in a huge
bear hug. I held onto her for at least a minute, so happy to see
her and grateful that she had come. Before I knew it, my eyes were
watering from joy. She was just a woman who happened to have
married my dad, and yet there she was, at my concert, carrying a
bouquet of flowers for me. She had tiny mascara streams running
down her cheeks from crying.

"I am so proud of you!" she hoarsely
whispered into my hair.

"I didn't know you guys were going to come,"
I said, blowing my nose and picking up Kelsey to kiss her on the
cheek.

"Of course we were going to come," Jill said.
She hugged me again. "You're a part of my life now, Taylor. No
matter what, I will always, always be here for you."