Chapter 3
I tried my best to forget about Jessica after that, even when she’d notice me and turn to whisper something in her friend’s ear. Even when she got her friends to ignore all three of us when they were waiting for the bus. Charlie, Joey, and I just kept practicing, every single weekday afternoon. We focused on that, instead of her. And we focused on the small victories too, like the fact that Joey never got called into the office for what he’d said.
The next week, my mom got a new boyfriend, some guy named Kent… Something. I never could remember. All I knew was that when she told me, I rolled my eyes and hoped he was better than the last guy. Although, given that he was a friend from my mom’s bartending job, I didn’t think it was likely.
After practice, I usually spent my time either writing lyrics or finishing homework. Writing lyrics was easier though, since I actually wanted to do it. I was sitting on the floor of our beige-walled bedroom, working on the lyrics for a second song. After all, we’d need enough to fill a CD at some point. Hell, we’d have to come up with a name for the band at some point. I hadn’t been pushing too hard on that front though, since I knew that once we had a name we’d start trying to book gigs.
A broken slat in the wooden blinds in front of me let in sunlight at the worst angle possible, but the queen-sized bed to my right cast enough of a shadow that I could keep writing. There wasn’t much else in that room, just a six-drawer dresser that my mom and I split down the middle, and a sixteen square-foot closet.
Sometimes when I was writing, inspiration struck like a hurricane, seeming to lift off a cover off my mind, and when I looked up the lyrics I wanted to write were right there. Sometimes all I had were broken sentences and lonely phrases, without any idea how to chain them together. But sometimes it didn’t hit at all, and I had to bully myself into coming up with anything.
This day was one of the latter, a day where I’d filled countless pages with terrible puns and obvious rhymes. I decided to try rapping it out, writing down the first rhymes that came to my head until I stumbled across something cool. I shifted onto my side, giving my elbows a rest from the dark gray carpet that was rubbing against them, and set to work:
If I was better
Never feeling under the weather
Never having to deal with this confusion
An illusion, fighting against my contradiction
I circled the last two lines, feeling like they might fit somewhere, like orphaned jigsaw pieces. Contradiction didn’t fit with confusion; I’d have to rephrase that a bit, or maybe add another line. I was just about to return to rhyming when the sound of a key in the door made me jump.
From my spot on the bedroom floor, I didn’t have a view of the front door; the small hallway and doorframe at the end blocked it. But I could still hear everything with a fair amount of detail: my mom whispering something about me being home, a set of heavier footsteps following hers.
“Hey honey,” she said, stepping into view. Her hair and makeup were mussed, but I was more interested in the man following her.
The first thing I noticed about Kent Something was the sleeve of tattoos wending up his right arm. The largest one—and the only one I could see well from my position on the floor—was a spider web, with detailed lines for each strand. The artist had even incorporated his veins into it, making them look like strands of the web.
I shook my head and focused on the rest of Kent Something’s features. Muddy green eyes, brown hair, on the tall side; a cleft chin and heavy jaw… Meh, I thought, turning my attention back to Mom. “Hey. How are you?” I said, setting my paper aside and pressing a hand against the bed to help myself get up.
“Oh, I’m fantastic! Honey, this is Kent.” My mother gestured to him with the white-and-black cardboard box in her hand before holding it out to me. “And this is for you. I told you I’d get you something nice with my extra bartending money!”
I took the box from her and turned it so I could see through the clear plastic screen on the front. I didn’t know what to expect, but when I saw the white microphone there… It was the perfect gift. The color seemed unusual—I’d never seen a microphone that wasn’t black—but in some ways that made it all the more special. “Wow, thanks! I mean, no more mop!” Somehow, having a real microphone made me feel like a real musician. Not just some kid playing at music.
My mom chuckled. “You’re welcome, honey.” She held out her arms for a hug. “It was a little more than the other models, but this one came with a MIDI cable and a collapsible stand, and I figured… Well, you have to have a stand, right?”
“Yeah. Yes, thank you!” As I took a step forward and pulled my mom close, inhaling her floral scent, I could tell Kent was already feeling uncomfortable. But I didn’t much care. He’d probably be gone in a month anyway, once Mom got bored with him. As far as I was concerned, he was just as much a part of the scenery as the wallpaper.
“You’re so very welcome.” My mom released me and stepped back, a wide smile spread across her face. “So listen, Ash. We were gonna order pizza and watch Survivor. Do you want to join us?”
The mic, pizza, Survivor… I raised an eyebrow at my mom to let her know I understood what she was doing. I decided to let her bribe me into liking Kent, since she was doing such a spectacular job of it. “Sure, Mom! Hi Kent, I’m Ashley.” I held out my hand to him, and after a moment he shook it half-heartedly.
“Nice to meet you,” he said with a curt nod. Like a lot of Mom’s boyfriends, he didn’t seem like one for niceties.
Mom put a hand on my back and walked with me back to our living room. As much as it made me feel like a child, I let her do it, only pausing long enough to set the microphone down by our bedroom door.
We made our way over to the faded blue couch; I reached down and grabbed our remote from the white ash coffee table, clicking the button to turn everything on as I fell onto the couch beside my mom. The TV hissed to life as we scooted over to one side, close enough that I could still smell her perfume.
“Ashley’s in a band,” my mom said, watching Kent as he took a seat on the free end of the couch.
He grunted, his lips pulling up for a single moment in a small smile. “Really? That’s great. I was in a band in high school too. What kind of music do you guys play?”
“Oh, nothing.” I shrugged, clicking the button to bring up a menu of shows to watch. “We haven’t decided for sure yet, but right now we’re kinda going for a punk rock sound.”
“Oh, that’s cool. So you want to be like Falling Dutchman? They have that one song that’s not bad… God, I can’t remember the name of it right now. But anyway, what’s your band called? Mine was the Vengeful Minnows.”
I tore myself from the abyss of blue-and-gray on-demand menus on the TV. “We don’t know yet. I guess that isn’t too high on our list of priorities.”
“Awh, you have to have a band name. You should call yourself Return of the Vengeful Minnows.” Kent grinned, as if it was a brilliant idea.
“Sure.” It was easy enough to shrug off the suggestion and select Survivor from the list of shows. Kent didn’t even seem to mind, squirming against the couch cushion and not-so-surreptitiously working his arm around my mom. It was almost comical watching him stretch out to span the gap between them, until my mom moved away from me.
I sighed and moved closer to the armrest, focusing on the show as it began. The familiar slideshow of each contestant played across the TV, showing their faces and names for a brief second before fading onto the next. Most of them looked about average, but there was one cute guy that season; he’d looked like a boring businessman when he first started, but since then he’d grown a bit of a beard that covered up his weak jawline and made him look like a true survivalist.
My mom nudged me gently. “Do you wanna order pizza now? You can get green peppers on your half.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” I leaned over to one side in order to pull my phone out of a back pocket. The screen—with a crack strai
ght down the middle—lit up at the push of a button. I frowned at the notification that I’d missed a call, wondering who it could be. Besides my mom, Joey and Charlie were the only ones with my number.
Sure enough, the call was from Joey. “Hey mom, I’m gonna call my friend back first,” I mumbled, pushing off the couch. I pressed the button to call him as I walked toward the bedroom, even though the TV was still nearly as loud in there. The room wouldn’t provide much privacy, but at least it felt like it would.
“Hey Ashley!” Joey practically yelled over what sounded like loud cheering in the background, “Guess what?”
“Um… What?”
“Misadventure Galley is playing over at the Ford Amphitheatre! You like them, right?” The cheering died down just enough for me to catch his words, but I still felt myself straining to hear what he was saying.
I plopped down on the bed. “Yeah, of course I do. Why, do you have tickets?”
There was a moment of silence; perhaps Joey was having as much difficulty hearing me as I was him. “Oh, tickets! No, I don’t, but we’re down near the entrance and there’s this spot nearby where we think we’ll be able to hear them.”
My first thought was, Who’s we? But I decided not to ask. If Joey had a way that I could see Misadventure Galley—and for free, no less—I wasn’t about to worry about specifics. “I’m on my way!” I said. “Text you when I get close.”
All thoughts of pizza forgotten, I ended the call and launched myself off the bed and into the short hall, pausing just long enough to compose myself before peeking into the living room. “Hey Mom, would you mind if we had a little change of plans? There’s a band playing nearby that I really wanna see.”
“Really, honey? But we aren’t even ten minutes into the episode. And you haven’t eaten anything.” She looked at me with a slight smile. “And I don’t think you’ve done your homework.”
Kent, on the other hand, seemed excited about the idea. Before my mom had even gotten done telling me I hadn’t done my homework, he was nodding enthusiastically. “Come on, Nina. Stuff like this is important for young musicians. It helps them figure out what they want to do and who their influences are. Plus…” He lowered his voice, but not enough to keep me from hearing. “I’d enjoy some alone time. Just you and me.”
Mom sighed. “Who’s playing?”
“It’s Misadventure Galley. I really wanna see them. Please?”
“I was really hoping we could have a family night.” She pursed her lips. “How about—if you stay with us tonight, I’ll buy a ticket for you the next time they’re in town.”
“Fine,” I muttered, stepping around the couch to sit in the spot I’d vacated a few minutes before. I understood what she was trying to do, but I was certain Kent would either turn into an asshole or she’d dump him in the next few weeks. Either way, I didn’t see why I had to bond with him. He was Mom’s boyfriend, not mine.
If there had been another concert scheduled soon I might not have minded so much, but as it was… Well, I was pretty sure she’d forget about the deal by the time I got another chance to see them. The one thing that made it slightly more bearable was the fact that Kent seemed as reluctant to accept the deal as me. He pulled my mom close. “We can bond another time, babe. There’ll be plenty of bonding time. But does it have to happen tonight?”
“Yes,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
I mirrored the motion, feeling my chance to see the band slowly slipping away. “Fine, I’ll order pizza.” No doubt Misadventure Galley would be amazing, and Joey would brag all about seeing them. Even if it was from a hilltop.