“This is home.” I got up and headed for the door. There’s only so much a girl can take before breakfast.
“It’s your home. It’s not his home.”
I was almost out of there, but I paused in the doorway, just long enough to say, “It’s our home. And he’s our dad.”
• • •
Me, Lacey, and Mad Jaz had parked ourselves on our special area of grass at school. Lace had her legs stretched out in front of her, attempting to get a little bit of a tan. Jaz was sitting in the shade. Sometimes I think Jaz carries the shadows around with her, the way other people might have a big handbag or BO.
“What was your favorite thing about last night?” said Lacey. “If you had to choose one thing.”
“The part where I snapped Amanda’s bra strap,” said Jaz.
“You snapped Amanda’s bra?” Amanda-Jaz relations were bad enough already. “What? Are you nine or something?”
“Yeah,” said Jaz, looking very pleased with herself.
“I liked it when you got into the music and stopped shaking,” said Lacey. “Until then, I was worried you were going to puke.”
“That took a while,” I agreed, feeling my phone buzz in my pocket.
A text.
Can’t wait for the interview tonight. Car will pick you up at 5:30 and take you straight to the concert. Ten o’clock news, here we come! Chris
Oh, yes. That. The Karamel concert. It might be nice to bring some moral support. Even if the support thought I was without morals.
I glanced over to Lace and opened my mouth. Only Jaz spoke first.
“So when’s it out?”
“The single? It’s out now.”
“I might get it later,” said Jaz.
Now, Jaz isn’t one of the world’s greatest shoppers. By which I mean, she’s great at choosing stuff, but she seems to have kind of a block on the paying part of the process. So the idea of her turning over actual cash was really very exciting.
“If you buy it on CD, then I’ll sign it,” I said. “Vox Vinyl has a lot. What about you, Lace?”
“Join the dark side,” said Jaz.
“So,” said Lacey, in what was the most obvious change of subject in the whole history of changing subjects. “Are you going to ask Dominic Preston out?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because of being in love with him.”
“I am not in love with him,” I said, making our private gesture for shutting up at her, because my love life (or lack of it) wasn’t something I wanted to go into very much around the unpredictability that was Jaz.
“You said you really liked him,” said Lacey. “And he seems to like you, and the dance is next week. So ask him out!”
“Only if you ask someone out too.”
“Like who?”
“Um…Devi Lester?” I suggested.
“Katie, I don’t have to go out with someone just because you are. We are different people.”
“But I’m not going out with anyone,” I said, trying to picture asking Dominic Preston out and finding it very, very easy to imagine him saying a big fat no. “I’m…I’m too busy with my music right now. You know. Writing my album. Also, it’s not like I need a man to give my life meaning.” It occurred to me that it would be good if Lace had a boyfriend. If nothing else, it would take the heat off me. “But you should totally get together with Devi.”
“So I should go out with someone because my life is so very empty and meaningless,” said Lacey. “Thanks, Katie.” Which was not what I meant at all, and she knew it.
And I knew she knew it. And she knew that I knew she knew it.
“I’d better go,” I said. “Need to get my stuff figured out so I can make a quick getaway after school.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I said, as pointedly as I could, “I have to go all the way to the O2 for a Karamel concert, just to do a stupid, annoying interview. Total waste of an evening. Later.”
• • •
“Katie, there’s a big silver car outside. Apparently it’s for you.”
Mom did not sound impressed.
“Oh, that,” I said, peering out the window. “Yes, that’s for me.”
Which is when I remembered that I hadn’t especially told her about the whole news-at-ten shebang.
“You do not have my permission to go out unaccompanied on a school night. And—”
“Hey! Katie!” It was Dad, waving both arms.
I headed for the front door, Mom just behind me.
Dad was standing in the driveway, next to a confused-looking man in a suit.
“Sorry, what’s going on?”
“I’m supposed to be driving a Katie Cox to the O2,” said suit man.
“Oh, are you?” said Mom.
“Er…yes…?”
“Katie, we seem to be having some fairly serious communication issues. You were out last night. Fine, okay, that was a special occasion. But there is no need for you to go gallivanting off again this evening.”
I wasn’t totally sure what gallivanting meant, but I could tell it wasn’t good.
“It’s a press thing,” I said, trying to sound as reasonable and mature as I could. “For the single.”
“In what way is going to the O2 related to your single?”
“Well, I’m going to be interviewed while Karamel are singing, and I’m going to say how I think they are destroying music. It’s going to be on the ten o’clock news!” Mom was getting less impressed by the second. And she hadn’t been impressed to start with.
“If you had told me in advance, I might have said yes. But you didn’t. So the answer is no.”
The man in the suit looked awkward. “Can’t take you without parental permission,” he said.
“That’s all right. I’m her dad. Of course she’s going!”
“Benjamin…”
“Er, Dad…”
“What?” Dad was practically dancing on the spot. “He’s chauffeuring you to a concert! Take a tip from your old dad, Katie—never turn down a freebie.”
“Katie is in deep water, Benjamin. You saw what it was like last night. She needs to take a step back and—”
“Last night was a huge success!” said Dad.
“Last night was terrifying,” said Mom.
He put his hand on her arm, and I saw her try not to flinch. “Zoe, love, you’re not a creative person. You can’t be expected to understand. But I’m like Katie. I get it. I’m with her on this. And I’ll look after her.”
Mom was looking distinctly unhappy. “I don’t want her going off into the middle of goodness knows where all on her own…”
Now, I have to say, in the interests of family harmony, I was beginning to think that I might give up. Some things are worth fighting for, but a Karamel concert isn’t exactly one of them. Plus, despite my epic sleep, I was sort of feeling kind of tired. I figure even Beyoncé couldn’t deal with a concert followed by a whole day of school. An early night and a happy mother—it was an appealing combination.
“Then I’ll go with her,” said Dad. “It would be nice to have some time for just the two of us.”
“Really? Because—”
“Come on, Katie,” he said, looking up from inside the car, where he’d already sat down and—wow—even taken off his shoes.
I ducked my head, but Mom still managed to catch my eye and held it, steady and unhappy, and there was that pulling sensation I hated so much, more than anything.
Would it never go away, that feeling I’d had for years and years, every time they argued, and in those still, cold hours after the shouting had finished and Dad was “taking a nap” or Mom was just “going for a drive” where I was stretching in two directions at once, tighter and tighter and tighter, and I knew if I made even the smallest mov
ement I would tear apart—would it never let me be?
“You coming, princess?”
A whole evening with Dad, though.
“I’ll see you later,” I told Mom, climbing in beside him. Her mouth opened wide, but then we were off down the driveway, leaving her, and whatever it was that she was shouting, behind.
• • •
“This is fun, isn’t it?”
I looked up to see Dad pouring himself a glass of something from a mini fridge.
“Um, yeah.”
“I could get used to this.” He downed his drink and poured out another. “Want something?”
I lifted up what turned out to be a bottle of hard cider.
“I don’t think so,” said Dad, nudging it away. “Hey, someone has to be responsible here.”
“I wasn’t going to have any. I was just seeing what it was.”
“Of course you were,” said Dad, opening up a little bag of peanuts he’d got from somewhere. “How about one of these? They’re wasabi flavored!”
I took one before remembering that wasabi is basically mustard, which is basically disgusting.
“Hey, that Tony’s not the easiest guy to get hold of, is he?”
“Oh,” I said, making sure to look out the window so he couldn’t see my cheeks turning red, “Tony’s very busy. But I’m sure he’ll get back to you. Be patient.”
“Of course, of course,” said Dad. “And it’s nice to have a bit of a vacation. Spend some time with my girls.”
Just to get it done, so that Mands would let it drop and we could all get on with our lives, I took a deep breath and then another one and said, “Do you think it’s okay for you to be staying so long?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “It’s fine! I mean, I know your mother is a little uptight. And that Adrian, he’s, well, he’s not exactly… But they don’t mind really. They would have said!”
“That’s what I thought.”
No, Katie, do it right.
“But, Amanda, she thinks it might be good for you to…” No, I couldn’t tell him to move out. I just couldn’t. In the last second, I switched the words: “Pay some rent.”
“Ah, Miss Sensible,” said Dad. “She’ll go far.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“Thing is,” said Dad, “I don’t have much. Money.”
“I thought you were extremely busy? That everyone wanted you?”
“I am,” said Dad. “Just…not…currently.”
“But don’t you have a lot saved up?”
“Not…really.”
This didn’t seem quite right. Because the one thing we’d heard during the divorce and after the divorce and in the weeks leading up to the divorce was how Dad was, in Mom’s words, “swimming off with half a house in his back pocket.” Mom wouldn’t lie. Of course she wouldn’t. Only Dad wouldn’t, either.
“I don’t understand,” I said slowly. “I thought…the settlement…”
“It was a great apartment,” said Dad, and from the look on his face, part of him was still there. “Dolphins! From the kitchen window! And I was busy. Busy enough to justify it at the time…only, not quite busy enough. And Catriona needed money. For—”
“Her Pilates studio,” I finished for him. Catriona’s stupid Pilates. It had been bad enough when they were still together. Now, even after they’d split, it was still making my life a misery. “Dad, you have to ask for it back.”
“That might be a little…”
“And then you can pay Mom some rent, and everyone will be happy.”
“I’m not…”
I leaned my head on his shoulder, like I used to when I was tiny. “And then everything will be okay, and you can stay for as long as you want. You can do it, Dad!”
I couldn’t see his face, but I felt his voice through his chest and down my ears and into my heart. “For you, my princess, I’ll give it a try.”
We sat, like that, for maybe a couple of minutes, the car going down the highway so fast that it felt like we were flying—and I was perfectly, completely content.
Everyone at the O2 seemed to know who I was without me having to tell them. I was swept down hallways, passed from one person to another like a human relay baton, from offices to dressing rooms, then around a corner and into a tunnel, until I was standing in the hot darkness behind a curtain along the edge of the stage, with little flutters of something in my stomach.
Nerves? Well, that made no sense, since there was nothing to be nervous about.
Probably just leftover angst from yesterday, I told myself, feeling the heat of the many, many, many people out in the crowd. I couldn’t see them, but then, I didn’t have to. I could hear them singing and chanting and feel their happiness, their excitement, and their sheer energy. And as much as I wanted to find it pathetic, there was something a tiny bit infectious about all that joy. In fact—
“Katie, hi, hi.”
“Hi, Chris.” Beside me, Dad was looking expectant. “Dad, this is Chris. He’s a journalist. He’s going to put me on the ten o’clock news.”
“Chris, hi—Benjamin Cox.” Dad gave him his best smile, the one that’s like floodlights.
“Hello, Benjamin.”
There was an awful lot of helloing and shaking of hands. Then, finally, Chris said, “So, we thought we’d interview you during ‘Clap Your Hands,’ the boys’ new single. It’s toward the end. Stay here and we’ll set up, and then when the song begins, I’ll start talking.”
“So I have to sit through a whole entire Karamel concert?” A guilty part of me thought how much Lacey would have loved it. In fact, I was wondering if I should call her so she could listen in and trying to figure out whether I had enough minutes left to cover the whole thing when—“You came!”
“Kurt. Hi. Um, yes, I came.”
He was standing right next to me. “I didn’t think you would!”
“Well, I did,” I said.
And Dad said, “Benjamin Cox, musician. If you ever need someone…”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Cox,” said Kurt, looking for all the world as though he was pleased to meet my dad.
He was dressed completely stupidly, in this billowy shirt thing, over a pair of neat, sharp jeans. And his hair—it was sticking up in about thirty-seven thousand tufts, all pointing in different directions, like a kind of human mop.
“Have my card,” said Dad.
“Thanks,” said Kurt, sticking it into his back pocket. “Hey, sorry, but I have to go. The opening act finished a long time ago, and the crowd’s getting restless. See you after?”
“I don’t know. It’s a school night. I have homework.”
“What?” said Dad. “Of course we’ll stick around.”
“Cool,” said Kurt. “See you, then.”
I was just breathing a sigh of relief that he was leaving when he turned and shot me an awkward grin. “Enjoy the show.”
“I really won’t,” I said to his departing back.
Now, the noise from the audience had gone from loud to supersonic, and around me, people with headsets and radios and things were running about, doing whatever it is that they do, which seemed mainly to be trying to change one of the light bulbs in a ten-foot-high letter K.
“This is great, isn’t it?” said Dad. “Ringside seats for your favorite band.”
“Where did you get that from?” I asked him. “Karamel is not my favorite band. Not even close.”
“Really?” Dad sounded surprised.
“Did you, um, didn’t you, notice, that the new song, didn’t you notice what it was, you know, um, about?”
“The one about me? Which was terrific, by the way. Might see if I can get Taylor to cover it.”
“No, the one about boy bands. Dad, you do know why we’re here, don’t you?”
&nbs
p; Dad opened his mouth to reply. But then…the lights blazed.
The crowd roared.
And Karamel bounded onto the stage like a basket of upturned puppies.
“Hello, O2! Are we feeling it?”
“No,” I murmured.
Kolin and Kristian were clapping, and—of course—it was absolutely perfect that Kurt had a microphone and the lead guitar.
I sighed. “That guitar is beautiful.”
“It’s a Gibson Les Paul,” said Dad. “Very nice.”
“Wasted on him.”
Dad said something, but I never heard what, because as he began to speak, they began to play, and a wall of sound crashed against the crowd, making them scream and flash and fling their hands into the air.
Like puppets, I thought, just as I noticed that my left foot was tapping to the beat.
“I said, are we feeling it?”
Kurt’s supple fingers were gliding across his guitar. Exactly the sort of fingers that those idiotic girls were probably imagining brushing across their backs or running through their hair.
“Then let’s go!”
Ugh, his confidence was revolting. He should have shown at least a little bit of shame, if he had any self-respect whatsoever.
“We are so excited to be here tonight! We’re gonna start with something new…”
Streaks of yellow fire shot up from the front of the stage as they began to sing, and there was no doubt about it, Kurt really could sing—and it was sort of uplifting:
Wings beat faster in my heart
Kiss my lips before we part
I found myself leaning in. Then leaning out, because, come on.
And then leaning back in again.
Hurts inside, but now I see
I must let the bird fly free
I rubbed my finger across my wrist. Goose bumps.
Let the bird fly free
The darkness around me seemed to dissolve, and now I was in a new place, where fireflies flitted above and droplets of dew shimmered in the summer light and… No, my ears were wrong. This was Karamel. It was hopeless and awful and…
Little bird, so free
And then there was the way the chorus lifted and lingered, before collapsing into a glitter of notes that seemed to rain down over my head and…
Katie Cox vs. the Boy Band Page 11
