Writing Our Song (2 page)

On the bright side, it did let me draw it out over the course of the meal so I wasn’t sitting there like a bump on a log while everybody ate.  Over the next hour or so we relived every moment of the concert, song by song, note by note, beat by beat, until there was nothing left to say and we were quiet for a while.

“OK, I’ve got to get going,” said Darrin.  “I’ll be over tomorrow to get my stuff, say thanks to your dad again for all the help.  C’mon, Drew.”

“I’m getting a ride with Blair.”

“No, you’re coming with me,” Darrin cleared his throat loudly.

“Oh!  Oh, yeah, I forgot.  Uh, see you guys and gals around,” said Drew.

“See ya,” I said.

“Bye,” said Blair.

Drew and Darrin had been sitting on the same side of the table, leaving Blair and I sitting right next to each other.  I thought about moving to Drew’s seat, but when Blair didn’t say anything about it or make any move to swap seats himself, I stayed put.

It wasn’t intimate exactly but it was nice to be that close to him, and outside of a band practice setting too.  I glanced under the table while finishing my shake and blushed when I saw how close our legs were to touching.  I gulped the tasty beverage down and let out a sigh of contentment, cleverly disguised as appreciation for the drink.

Blair was strangely quiet on the drive back to my place, seeming hell-bent on concentrating on the road rather than talking shop like we usually did.  I soon fell silent too, after my few attempts at small talk were met with single word replies.

I leaned my head back in the seat and watched the streetlights pass my window, thinking about what school would be like on Monday.  How many people who knew us had been in the crowd?  What would my friends say when I told them I got a ride home with Blair, just the two of us?

A smile touched the ends of my mouth as I thought about that conversation, but it was a daydream that had to be cut short as we pulled up outside my house.  All the lights were out except for the one over the front door.

“Thanks.  So, maybe I’ll see you around at school on Monday?”  I asked.

“Um.  Actually, seeing as band practice is cancelled for tomorrow I was wondering if…you know… you’d like to… uh… maybe catch up and grab a bite to eat… uh… maybe a movie too?”  Blair asked, seeming to shy away from making eye-contact.

“Oh… yeah.  Are Drew and Darrin coming?”

“Well… no.  It’d be just… um… you and me.”

I swallowed hard… could this really be happening?  After the last couple of years pining for him, and the last several months of being so-near-yet-so-far, I could hardly believe what my ears were telling me.  It had to be a misunderstanding, but what if he really was asking me out on a date?

What would be worse?  Assuming he was, or assuming he wasn’t?  If he was just asking me out as a friend I’d look like such an idiot if I made myself look all pretty and stepped over some friendship-lines.  On the other hand, if it really was a date and I put out the wrong signals I might lose my one chance with him.  Oh boy.

“Would it be a… date?”

I clenched my eyes shut and faced forwards in the dim light of his car, unable to even look at him after having asked such an embarrassing question.

“Yeah… if that’s OK with you.”

My eyes opened again and I had to wrestle with my mouth to keep my smile looking sane when I turned to him.

“I’d really like that,” I said.

Blair visibly relaxed and let his hands fall off the steering wheel, shifting in his seat slightly and breaking into a smile.

“Great!  I’ll pick you up around seven?”

“Sounds good, see you then!”

I went for the door handle, my mind racing with this whole situation, but Blair reached out and put his hand on mine.  I halted, looked down, and then up into his eyes.  I could have sworn that my skin was literally tingling where he touched me.

“Bea… could I…”

Blair didn’t finish his question, instead leaning over the central console towards me.  I sat there caught in a turmoil of emotions that must have averaged out to a shell-shocked-looking expression as he touched his lips to mine for my first kiss.

I barely remembered I was supposed to close my eyes in time before he pulled away again, my own head following his for a few inches before my eyelids raised and I looked at him dumbfounded but happy.  After a few moments I closed my mouth and had to suppress the urge to giggle like an idiot.

It was so perfect, I had to get out of there before I really made a fool of myself.  I opened the door and tried to get out only to find that my seatbelt was still on and I wasn’t going anywhere.  With a distinct lack of grace I collapsed fully back into the seat again and fumbled for the release button as my face burned.  Eventually I freed myself and stepped on to the curb.

“See you tomorrow,” said Blair.

“See ya, Blair.”

Chapter
2

I was up so late sending text messages to my friends from under the covers of my bed that I slept-in the next day.  When I wandered into the kitchen and sat down at the table, my cheeks were actually hurting from all the smiling and I wondered if I had been grinning while I slept.

My Dad looked up from the local newspaper he was reading and raised his eyebrows as he lifted his cup of coffee.  My Mom gave me a quick smile from the sink where she was doing some dishes.

“Morning.  Check this out, you made the papers, can you believe that?  ‘Local band Apollo Gone set the stage alight with their crowd-pleasing covers’.”

“No way!  Already?  Let me see!”

“Your dad said you were amazing, honey, good job,” said my mom.

“Thanks,” I said, scanning the article for the paragraph or whatever on us.

“Yes, she really was,” said my dad, “all eyes were on the stage, it gave me ample opportunity to steal from all the stands immediately behind the crowd.  I’m keeping the cash for myself, but you two can choose your Christmas presents from the loot.  You’ll have to fight over the candied apple and the Seattle Shipbuilders commemorative ash tray.”

“I call dibs on the ashtray,” I said.  “I’ve been looking for a new hobby.  It’ll help me get that Janis Joplin voice down too.”

“By ‘hobby’ you mean collecting ashtrays and you’ll get the voice by yelling about how much you love ashtrays, right?” asked my dad.

“Of course, what else?” I asked.

“Can’t think of anything.  I hope the apple keeps alright for half a year, Kate,” he said.

My mom looked over with a slightly bemused look on her face.  She’d never quite ‘got’ the sense of humor that my dad and I had developed between us.  She was always, unintentionally, just on the outside of the jokes.

“I’m getting the scissors, this is one for the scrapbook,” I said.

“Be an angel and wait for me to finish reading the whole thing,” said my dad, pulling the newspaper back to his side of the table once I was finished.

I stood and set about making myself a bowl of cereal, still unable to wipe the smile from my face.  When nobody was looking I pinched myself and it hurt.  It was real, last night really happened!

When I was about halfway through my breakfast, my mom finished with the dishes and made herself a cup of coffee.  I took a few good breaths through my nose, enjoying the scent.  I’d tried coffee before but it wasn’t for me.  The smell though, that was good stuff.

My mom leaned over my dad and read from a different page for a while before sighing.  My dad glanced up at her and then followed her line of sight to the article she was reading.

“Tech guru Mitchell White sells company for reported three hundred and eighty million dollars,” he said.

“I bet he doesn’t have to steal from hot dog stands to make ends meet,” she said.

“Maybe not, but you don’t amass that kind of wealth without crushing the dreams of a lot of other people on the way up I bet.”

I began to eat faster, trying not to draw attention to myself.  It seemed like arguments about money had become more common between the two of them lately.  They rarely flared up into full-on shouting, but I couldn’t help but notice the snide remarks that had become more common in their conversations.

When I had asked if there was anything wrong, I’d been told that everything was fine and it wasn’t for me to worry about.  That didn’t help with how uncomfortable it was for me when they went so cold on each other.  It was especially sad because I’d also seen the way they looked at each other when they forgot about everything else, and
that
was a beautiful thing.

Still, they had no intentions of making me part of the conversation and damned if I wanted to be a bystander if it
did
escalate into an argument so I finished my cereal in record time and excused myself.  I had much happier things to think about today.

I escaped back to my room and shut the door, opening my closet and pulling out just about every single piece of clothing I owned.  Tonight, I had to look perfect.  I was about three hours into trying different combinations and texting my friends when I heard a knock at the bedroom door.

“Come in,” I called.

The door opened and my dad peeked around the corner, giving me a funny look as he saw the devastation of outfits that hadn’t made the cut for tonight.

“Your gig was last night, you wore the sparkly skirt, remember?  Here, I have proof.”

He held out the article from the newspaper and I took it, setting it down on my desk to deal with later.  I had a sudden thought that shot through me like an electric shock, I’d never been on a proper date before… would my parents even let me go?  I gulped and turned back to him.

“Dad… uh, can I go out tonight?”

“On a school night?  Where to?”

“It’s Blair, he’s… asked me out.  On a date.”

My Dad’s eyes widened for a moment in silence before he took a deep breath.  It felt like a million years before he said anything, during which time I felt what could only be described as terror. 
Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes
I repeated over and over again in my mind.

“Didn’t we say you weren’t allowed to date until you were sixteen?”

“No.  I don’t think we ever talked about it.”

My dad looked confused for a moment.  “Who did I say that to then?”

“Dad!  Be serious for once.  Please, I really want to go!”

“OK, OK.  Look, I
am
being serious, my honest gut reaction is to say no and go make sure my shotgun is still in good working order but… oh boy.  This is all a bit sudden for me.  Let me think.”

“But can I go?”

“What did I just say?  I think I’m out of my league here, maybe you should talk to your mother. “

“Dad, no!  Can’t you just say yes?”

“This… you’re just growing up so fast, Bea.  OK, look, you’re not a kid anymore and I know you’ll just jump out the window if I lock you in here but I really think you should talk with your mom, get a female perspective on dating.”

“Dad…”

“Here’s how we’ll play it.  I’ll tell her I’ve already
implied
you can go, but I haven’t.  If she says no, then it’s a no from me too.”

“Dad!”

“Bea, it’s not ‘no’ forever.  It’s not even ‘no’ this time yet, just give your mom a chance.”

“Oh boy.  OK,” I said, deflating down to sit on the edge of my bed.

My dad left the room and I looked down at my hands in my lap as I began to wring them nervously.  Things had never been quite right between my mom and I.  Apparently after I was born she had something called postnatal depression, which led to all kinds of problems and it went undiagnosed for a good couple of months.

It wasn’t her fault or anything, from what I’d heard it happened to a lot of women, but she was so exhausted and sleep deprived during those early days that it was always my dad that had come to cuddle me when I woke up crying in the night.  By the time she got the help she needed and was able to cope, I was already officially a little daddy’s girl.

That was all well before my first memories of course and I couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been, for want of a better word, a ‘satisfactory’ mother.  She gave me everything I needed, she wasn’t mean, cruel or unfair but sometimes it felt like she was just going through the motions.  Sometimes it felt like maybe she hadn’t forgiven me or my dad for what she had gone through, or for how close he and I were.

My looks came from my mom, everybody always said how alike we were, but everything else seemed to come from my dad.  My sense of humor, my taste in and love of music, my outlook on life, all him.  I usually knew what I was going to get out of a talk with him.

I didn’t want to have this conversation with my mom, I had no idea where it was going to go, what she might say or do.  Another thought made me cringe, what if she decided this was time for the birds and the bees talk?  I’d learned all of that in school, the last thing I wanted was to listen to my mom go over it again.

Footsteps approached from the hallway and I tensed up before she knocked and walked in at the same time.  I gave her a tight-lipped smile, feeling a mild blush rising on my cheeks.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Oh Bea… I’m sure you’re as nervous as I am.  Did your dad give you a pep talk like he did for me?”

“Yeah,” I chuckled, “sort of.”

It was an unexpectedly light-hearted start, I dared to hope that it might go well as she cleared a spot for herself to sit down on my bed.  After sitting down, she looked at my scattered clothes as if hoping to find some cue-cards before sighing.

“I don’t know about this, Beatrice, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

“You’re too…” she paused as if realizing something for the first time.  “I can’t believe you’re fifteen.”

“Closer to sixteen.”

“OK… you’re not too young.  I’m kind of surprised you haven’t already been dating.  Did I really say that?” she asked herself.

“So is it alright if I go out with him?”

“Are you
sure
you want to date this one?  These high school boys… there are some real…” she paused before adding in a low voice, “…
assholes
.”

“I’m pretty sure… he seems nice and-” I stopped myself before mentioning how hot he was, “-well, he seems nice.  I’ve spent a lot of time with him at band practice, so he’s not just some random guy.  How did you decide you wanted to date dad?”

I knew my parents had met in high school, but had never heard my mom’s take on it.  Hopefully getting her to reminisce about a relationship that had obviously lasted the distance would get her on board.

“Hmmmm.  Talk about history repeating,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know.  Your dad played the guitar in his band too, I had to fight tooth and nail to get to the front of the crowd just so he’d see me, notice me.  I didn’t have the talent for singing that you do, so that wasn’t an option.”

My mom sighed and her eyes turned upwards as if watching some movie being projected inside her mind for a moment.

“Well, he noticed me, and he was so good-looking, so talented, so charming… well, what hope did I have?  It was just so exciting to be around him, all the promises he made about how big his band was going to be, he was going to take me all over the world and we’d live in a mansion.”

Of course I’d known my dad played the guitar, he’d been playing it for me my whole life.  He said that when I was a baby I used to try to pull my own ears off when he played but I soon became more enthusiastic and started singing along, first making up my own words but then learning what the official ones were.  For some reason he never really talked about his days in the band too much and I wasn’t sure why.

“What happened to all that?”

“Lots of things, all at once.  They actually got offered a pretty decent contract to produce an album.  With the backing and marketing of the record label they actually might have made it to the big time.”

“They said no?  Why?”

This was completely out of the blue for me, I couldn’t believe my own dad might have given up his opportunity to be a rock star.  The disappointed look on my mom’s face said she wasn’t a fan of the way things had played out either.

“The record label said they needed the band to make some alterations to their songs to make them more…uh… ‘commercially viable’ I think was the phrase they used.  Well, the four of them got right up on their highest pedestals, the ones only musicians seem to have, and said that the request was an insult to their artistic integrity and the record label could take it or leave it.”

“No way!”

“I said something similar, actually.  We argued about it, I asked him what about all those promises he made and he said that they, the band, held all the cards, they were the ones with the solid gold music, the record label would almost certainly agree to their terms.  I begged him to at least, you know, soften the stance a little bit, tell the record label there was some
wiggle room
in the terms.”

“Did he?”  I asked.

“No.  This was all happening back in April of eighty seven, I started feeling kinda under the weather and went to the doctor.  I expected to leave the office with a prescription for some kind of, I don’t know, motion-sickness pills or something.  Instead I left with a stunned look on my face.”

“Me?”

“You.  When I told your dad he decided that he wasn’t sure about the rock star lifestyle and being a father.  He decided he’d wait and see what the record label said, and if they declined then he’d start looking for a ‘real job’ so he would always be close.”

“The record label declined then?”

“Yep.  Turns out that the unknown band with no previous albums proving a track record of success doesn’t actually hold all the cards.  Your dad got a job in sales, worked his way…uh…
up
to middle-management and here we are, still stuck in Seattle.”