D.O.R.K.
Diary of a Rocker’s Kid
By Haley Despard
Copyright
Written By Haley Despard
All Rights Reserved © 2015
Cover Illustration Copyright © 2015 by Nydia S. Robles
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Dedication
To my husband, Derek, who shows me what true love is, and also what it’s like to have a rocker in the house.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 1
Nana pokes her frizzled white head into the room as I’m blasting out a one-guitar rendition of Avenged Sevenfold’s Hail to the King. “I sent you a new assignment,” she says, wagging a knobby finger at my laptop. “Quit with your devil music and get on it.”
“I'm on it, Nana, you know I'll get it done.” I flash her a smile. I enjoy writing assignments. She turns on her heels and exits the room… always busy with something.
The horses whinny outside my window, and I peep through the white plastic blinds at the typical afternoon scene. Dad’s out there patiently leading my chestnut mare out of the wooden fence and into the stables. I should be doing that job, but… well, I’ve procrastinated my homework long enough.
I bounce down on my bed and flip open my laptop, running my fingers back and forth on the black silk comforter as I wait for the damn thing to boot up. Every piece of technology in this house is ancient, except for my smartphone, and our DSL internet is crap at best. Finally, I see my desktop, an Avenged Sevenfold logo on a black background. The assignment pops up in the bottom-right corner of my screen, and I smile a little.
“Start a diary,” it says. Just “start a diary.” That’s it?
And she didn’t even have the decency to hand me a blank book.
Hmm… I think I know a good way to do this. Every teen show and movie will tell you that the only way to keep a journal anymore is with a blog. I open a blogging website, but at that moment, my smartphone rings, and I take it from my bedside table and slide it to answer automatically. “Hey, lady!”
Ana is video chatting me from Daytona Beach, looking tanned to perfection and slightly windblown. “Mads! I miss you.”
“Miss you, too. How’s Florida?” I cringe at the image of me in the right corner. My best friend’s model looks make my glasses and braces look alien.
“It’s great! I wish my parents would’ve let you come.”
I smile. She’s only said that about ten times since she left for Florida. “Me too. I never get to go on vacation.”
“Well, maybe next time,” Ana says. She flips her honey blonde hair back behind her shoulders. “I got you some things and I bought a post card, although I’ll probably just hand it to you. I mean, who actually mails those things, right?”
I laugh. “Well thanks, Ann.” I call her Ann sometimes… Mostly because I’m too lazy to say the second syllable.
“You’re welcome. I can’t talk long, Mom and Dad are taking us to this aquarium thing later.” “Us” is Ana and her four sisters and two brothers.
“Okay. How’s the weather?”
“It’s perfect,” Ana says, sighing contentedly. “I’m gonna come home looking like a Native American.” Ana insists she has Cherokee in her blood… The only evidence I see is her ability to tan, but who knows.
“Lucky,” I say. “I would come home looking like a lobster.” Ana and I both laugh. Sun poisoning is not a good look for anyone. I’ve come to accept that I will never be tan.
We talk for a few more minutes about their trip, and then a knock comes at the door. “Hey Ana, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, bye!” she says.
“Bye,” I say, hanging up. “Come in!” I say to the knocker. The white wooden door flings open, and it’s someone I haven’t seen in almost a year. “Oh, my God… Cass!”
Well-dressed, mansion-owning, bleach-blonde Cass. Dad’s best friend, who hails from none other than Beverly Hills, California. She gives me a smile that’s whiter than a camera flash. “Hey, sweetie!”
I swing my jeans-clad legs over the side of the bed and attack her with a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“I missed you guys, so I dropped in for a surprise visit. I don’t think Mike even knows I’m here yet.” My dad will be thrilled to see her. She always comes to see us, and we never visit Beverly Hills… It’s s a long distance to travel when you live on a farm in Kentucky with a crazy, dementia-addled grandmother. I have no idea what Cass did to deserve her luxury, since she never bothers to tell us anything except who she’s dating and for how long. Cass pulls back to look at me. “You look so much older than last time!”
“You haven’t changed at all,” I tell her.
“Thanks!” She acts like that’s the biggest compliment in the world. I guess it kinda is when you’re forty-five. “Is dinner soon, I hope? I’m starving. The food on the plane was inedible.”
“I think so, but just fair warning, we don’t have anything Paleo.” I grin at her. Cass is always on some new diet… Typical Californian.
“Believe it or not, for once, I don’t care,” she says, looking as hungry as she feels. “I’ll eat a horse right now if I have to.”
I take her downstairs to the kitchen, which is overrun by dated wallpaper and carved wooden horses. The tile was once white, but is now brown from years of people tramping in dirt through the back door from the stables. A modest, round kitchen table is in front of us, and Nana has already set out the table protectors for dinner. A familiar scent fills my nostrils, and I smile. We’re having fried chicken and the works, my favorite.
Nana is scurrying back and forth between the refrigerator and the stove, and I know better than to get in her way. This is Nana’s kitchen, and no one else is even allowed to step foot beyond a certain point. “Hey Nana, how long until dinner’s ready?” I ask.
“Patience is a virtue, young lady!” she barks at me.
Dad pushes his way in the windowed, curtained back door and his brown eyes come alive with happiness when he sees her. “Cass!” he exclaims in his deep, Southern-accented voice.
“Hey, Mike,” she says, and they awkwardly avoid the table as they give each other a hug. Everything on the first floor of this house is cramped. I guess they make furniture bigger these days than they did 100 years ago.
“When did you get here?” Dad asks as he releases her.
“Just a few minutes ago. I couldn’t wait until summer to see my best friend this time.”
“Is everything alright?” he asks, worried.
“Fine,” she says. “Just missing you.” They smile in a way that’s reserved for each other.
“Five minutes, everybody ‘warsh’ your hands,” Nana says, and we all head to the first floor half-bath in a line. It’s a tradition in this house.
I’m the first one to get back to the table, as usual. Nothing is going to get in the way of me snagging a drumstick and a large chicken breast. I wait behind my seat impatiently for Nana to set everything down, and then, once everyone is back at the table and seated, I grab the metal tongs and sort through the bounty to select my choice meat.
“How
are things going?” Dad asks Cass, scooping some delectably lumpy mashed potatoes onto his blue china plate with a plop. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“Well, I broke up with Tom,” Cass says, buttering a roll. Ah. That explains the surprise visit.
Dad blows out some air. “Damn, sorry to hear that, Cass.”
“It’s alright,” she says. “I think I’ve finally resigned myself to becoming a spinster.” If this woman can’t land a man, there’s no hope for the rest of us. “What’s new with you?”
“Nothin’ much,” he says, after a large swallow of sweet tea. “The horses are doing well. We’ve had a couple of new foals.”
“Good to hear,” she says. “What about you, Mads?”
“Just as much of a recluse as ever,” I tell her, in my usual snarky tone of voice. “I haven’t left the house in two weeks.”
Cass’s eyes grow sympathetic. “What have you been doing that whole time?”
“Chores… homework… rockin’…”
Cass grins. “I like that last one. You need more in your life than chores and homework.”
I shrug. “Homework is okay. Certain chores, I could do without.” Mucking out the stables, namely.
“Have you seen any friends lately?”
What friends? Ana is the only one around here who even gives a damn about me, and she’s been gone for the past week. “Nah, not really,” I say.
Her expression is getting more and more pitying. “Okay,” she says, digging into her food. “How’s sophomore year of ‘high school’?” You can hear the quotation marks. She doesn’t believe homeschooling is a real thing.
“It’s going pretty good,” I tell her. “I’m getting all As, except in Geometry.” Geometry is my arch nemesis…
“I never liked Geometry either,” she says around a bite of homegrown green beans. “I mean…” She swallows. “When are you ever going to use it in real life?”
“Damn straight!” I say, grinning and giving her a fist bump. This woman knows my struggle is real.
“Well, if you’re free tomorrow, I thought maybe we could all three go on a long ride,” Cass says to Dad, and he nods. “I’ve been needing some equine therapy.”
“Sounds good.”
“So, how’s the farm doing?”
Dad and Cass chat for a while after that about the business end of running a farm, and I completely tune them out. I couldn’t care less about the numbers, all I care about is riding the horses. I get done quickly, and I’m wiping my mouth and about to stand up from the table when Cass asks a question that utterly confuses me.
“So tell me, Mike… are you guys ever coming back to LA?” Dad drops his fork with a clink. “Back” to LA? “The invitation is open, just so you know. It always has been.” We’ve never even stepped foot in California, as far as I know, and I always thought it was because Cass is so secretive about her life.
“Cass, what are you doing?” Dad whispers. He’s glaring at her.
“I’m just saying, if you want to come back to the mansion, it’s fine with me.”
There it is again. “Back” to the mansion. “Dad, what is she talking about?”
“Nothing, Mads, don’t worry about it.”
Cass doesn’t let it die. “I mean, it’s time, don’t you think?” Her tone is getting irritable, too.
After a moment of awkward silence, Dad slams down his fork and knife and stands from the table. Through his teeth, he says, “Cass, could I speak to you privately, please?”
Cass stands and the two of them exit the room. They don’t go far enough, though, and when I go over to stand by the doorway, I can hear them whispering down the hall.
“What the hell are you doing? You know why we haven’t been in LA all these years,” Dad whispers angrily.
“I know why you left, but… I mean, I told you I would move out of your place whenever you were ready to return.” …What? ‘His’ place? Her mansion in Beverly Hills… it belongs to him? To us?
“It’s not about that,” Dad says, “it’s about my daughter. I still have to protect her.”
“She’s sixteen years old, Mike. Don’t you think it’s time you told her the truth? If you keep her locked up in this prison long enough, she’s going to find a way to bust out and it’s not going to be pretty.”
“That’s my call,” Dad says, his voice getting a little louder. “I am her father. You have no say in this.”
“Yeah, and neither does she, clearly,” Cass spits back. “I’m surprised she isn’t a complete hermit with the way you’ve isolated her. You’ve hidden the past from Madison long enough. She has access to the internet, so I’m sure she’ll find out soon enough who you really are.” A moment of silence follows, and then Cass sighs and says, “I’m just saying, you should tell her, now, before she figures it out on her own and hates you for not telling her.”
Hmm… Dad has a secret, does he? And it involves us living in Beverly Hills? I see detective work in my future. I sneak around to the stairs and tiptoe up to my room, planning on Google searching my dad the instant I walk in the door.
Unfortunately, the internet peters out on me, and I have to take time to set up the Personal Hotspot on my iPhone. I swear under my breath and my Green Day wristbands twist on my wrist as my slim white fingers connect the cord to the computer. Finally I’m able to get into a web browser, but I pause when I realize I don’t know what to search for. I guess the obvious:
“Michael Daley Beverly Hills”
…and an ass-ton of results come up for that one. Most of the articles are pretty old, and say things like:
“M.A.D. buys mansion in Beverly Hills…”
“Check out M.A.D.’s $7.8 million dollar mansion…”
“M.A.D. builds mansion from scratch…”
M.A.D.? Who the hell is M.A.D.? It’s Dad’s initials, Michael Andrew Daley, but the way they’re laid out is super familiar, like I’ve seen them before in passing.
Someone knocks at my door again, but doesn’t wait for an answer before they open the door. It’s Dad. “Mads, what are you doing?” He sounds tense.
“Uhh…” I close the laptop quickly. “Nothing, just looking something up.”
“On the internet? Were you eavesdropping, Madison?!” His voice gets loud and angry.
“Why not, Dad?” I retort, scowling. “It’s the only way I find out about anything in this house!”
“Give me that laptop, now.”
“No.”
“Now!”
“No!” I’m tearing up a little bit… Damn teenage hormones. I’ve been crying over everything lately. “Not until you tell me what’s going on!”
Cass is at the door again. “Come on, Mike,” she urges him.
“Mind your own business, Cass!” Cass gives him a stern look, which starts to break him down.
“Dad,” I say entreatingly, “please tell me the truth. Do… do you really own a mansion in Beverly Hills?”
His right hand goes up to rumple his ear-length brown hair, and he sighs heavily. Dad closes his eyes tightly, and then says, “Yeah… It’s mine. I gave it to Cass when you were a baby.”
WTF. Who gives away a mansion?? “Dad, what the hell did you do that gave us $7.8 million?”
He chuckles a little. “$7.8 million isn’t even the half of it.”
My eyes grow wide. He said isn’t, not wasn’t. “Whoa… are we still rich?”
He sits down on the bed next to me and says, “Hand me the laptop.” This time his voice is soft and non-threatening. I hand him the laptop, and he goes to YouTube and searches, “M.A.D. documentary,” and chooses one of the results on the next page.
M.A.D…. Oh, yeah! Looking through the results, I suddenly remember where I’ve seen that acronym before. It’s a stage name.
Before he plays the video, he pauses it, and turns to me. “I’m showing you this because you girls are right. You need to know the truth. But before we watch this, just know that I…” He sighs, and swallows h
ard. “I kept this from you for a reason. You may not understand at first, but just know that I love you, and I would never purposely hurt you.” I nod slowly, not sure what to expect, and he presses play on the video.
The video opens with the title in bold white letters:
“The Disappearance of M.A.D.”
It continues with an introduction to the life and background of M.A.D., a rock star who was big in the mid- to late 90s. His band, Weep With The Willows, was last active during the year 1998, and wrote songs that made it onto the Top 100 list. Millions of people worshipped him back then, and now I remember hearing his songs on the radio when I was younger and seeing them in the “other” results when I was learning music on YouTube. The guy in the pictures they’re showing looks eerily similar to younger pictures I’ve seen of Dad, although it’s hard to tell with all that guyliner.
“M.A.D., born Michael Andrew Daley, became a legend in his time,” the narrator says, “but one night in December of 1998, all of that changed for good. A little baby girl came into his life in a wicker basket, which was covered in pink ruffles and ribbons.” A picture of the basket with the baby in it is shown. “The basket was left at Daley’s mansion in LA by a dark-haired woman in a ski mask and black clothing, and there was a simple note tied to the basket which read, ‘She’s yours. Take good care of her.’ At first sight, Daley knew that the baby girl was his, and he announced her arrival to the world. Madison Daley, popularly known as ‘The Basket Baby,’ became America’s sweetheart and at first, her arrival into her father’s life skyrocketed her Daddy’s career by drawing attention to his music.” They show an adorable picture of Dad and me that is currently hanging in a frame on my wall.
Oh.
My.
God.
…that’s me.
Dad pauses the video to give me a chance to breathe. He goes to Wikipedia while I’m processing everything and opens it up to M.A.D.’s page. Dad scrolls down and points to the “Born” section, which reads:
“Michael Andrew Daley
August 4th, 1970 (age 44)
Diary of a Rocker's Kid (D.O.R.K. Book 1) Page 1
