Days Like This

by Laurie Breton

  Paige wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that Casey was wearing the hat for practical purposes, and not deliberately trying to look like Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple. The hat was still lame and ugly, but she supposed it served its purpose. “Where’s, uh—”

  “Your dad? He’s in the studio. Out in the barn. You’re welcome to go check it out. He won’t mind. Or I could show you.”

  “No! No, I don’t need to go there. I was just…curious.”

  Casey went back to weeding. “Just in case you’re wondering,” she said, “I’ve known him for seventeen years, and he hasn’t bitten me yet.”

  Good to know. “What is there to do in this godforsaken wilderness?” she said. They’d driven through what passed for a downtown yesterday afternoon, and it hadn’t looked promising. “Is there a movie theater? A McDonald’s?” At this point, she’d settle for a bowling alley.

  “Negative and negative. They have both in Farmington, though. It’s not far. About twenty miles away. There’s a video rental place here in town. The selection isn’t great, but it’s what we have.”

  Not far? Twenty miles? Was the woman on drugs?

  With the back of her hand, Casey shoved the brim of her hat away from her face. “There’s also a drive-in movie in Skowhegan. There aren’t many of those left around. But that’s not so close. I think it’s about an hour’s drive.”

  Shit. This was worse than she’d feared. She was going to be trapped here for the rest of her life with these two clueless old fogeys. She would be climbing the walls by the time school started. “I don’t suppose,” she said without much hope, “there are any kids my age around here?”

  “Actually, you have a bunch of cousins. Some by blood, others by marriage. Mikey and Luke are both sixteen. The girls are a little older.”

  Cousins. Oh, yay. She remembered now that he had mentioned them, when he’d called to introduce himself. Hello. I’m your father. I’m here to rescue you from a fate worse than death.

  She should have taken off for Fiji while she had the chance.

  “We generally get together at my brother’s house on Saturday nights.” Casey yanked at a weed until it loosened its hold and broke free. “We barbecue, play music, talk and laugh and generally have a good time. Tonight, we’ll introduce you to everyone.”

  Outstanding. Disgusted, Paige scooped up her dog, turned without responding, and stalked back across the grass to the house. She let the screen door slam behind her. Once inside her room, she locked the door—it wasn’t even a real lock, just one of those pathetic hook-and-eye things—and popped her favorite MC Hammer cassette into her stereo. With the volume on full-blast, she sprawled on the bed, clutched Leroy in her arms, and let the music take her away.

  Rob

  He could hear it from the driveway as he approached the house. Loud, repetitive, obnoxious noise. When he opened the door to the kitchen, it slapped him in the face, like walking into a wall of sound. It wasn’t a good sound.

  Casey was at the stove, stirring something in a big stainless pot. “What in bloody hell is that horrible noise?” he shouted.

  “I believe,” she shouted back, “the appropriate term would be rap.”

  He moved closer so they could converse without yelling. Peering over her shoulder to see what was in the pot, he said, “Jesus Christ on a Popsicle stick. How long has this been going on?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  “You have to be kidding.”

  She shot him a look. It wasn’t a pleased look. “You’re the one who gave her the massive speakers. Thank you for that, by the way.”

  “Does she have that poor dog in there with her? His ears are probably bleeding.”

  “I don’t know about his, but mine certainly are. It must be terribly lonely out there in the studio. I might have to go out there with you after lunch. Just to alleviate some of your loneliness.”

  He swore under his breath. “The worst thing I ever offended my parents with was Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. And maybe a little Doors. Light My Fire. The long version.”

  “Strange, but nobody in my house ever objected to Herman’s Hermits.”

  He let out a soft snort of laughter. “Have you said anything to her?”

  “She’s your kid, hot stuff. Maybe you’d like to broach the subject.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  “Gee, MacKenzie, I don’t know. How about something like this: Approach her door, tell her to turn down the music, and announce that lunch is ready. A novel concept, I realize, but it might actually work. You’ll never know unless you try.”

  “As a professional musician, I feel I have to say this: That is not music.”

  “I know, babe, I know. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “In more ways than one.” He stared at that closed door and felt a knot the size of Rhode Island tighten inside his stomach. He’d never, in his thirty-seven years, had a problem expressing his opinion. And he didn’t have a shy bone in his body. Why was he so reluctant to confront his own kid?

  “Just as a reminder,” Casey said, “you’re the one who gets to play the dad in this little scenario.”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny.”

  “I think you need to take the proverbial bull by the horns and act as if.”

  “As if what?”

  “As if you had a freaking clue what you were doing.”

  “She’s fifteen years old. Why am I so intimidated by her?”

  “I don’t know, but if you’re thinking of taking away her precious music, you should probably offer her something in exchange. Psychology 101.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a post-luncheon tour of your studio. Not the fifty-cent tour, but the full monty. Show her all the awards. Give her an in-depth explanation for each and every one. Tell her some of your more interesting road stories.”

  “Most of my road stories are dull enough to make your eyes glaze over. And the ones that aren’t are definitely not suitable for the ears of a fifteen-year-old.”

  “Then let her play with some of your ridiculously expensive toys. Let her push buttons and spin dials and pretend to be a big record producer.”

  “Bite your tongue, woman. You just want a break from the bloody massacre.”

  “I freely admit that thought was foremost in my mind. You could always give her a guitar lesson. A long one. Teach her to play Layla. All seven minutes of it.”

  It would be a small sacrifice if it would bring an end to this torture. “Okay, then,” he said, steeling himself. “Cover my back. I’m going in.”

  She flashed him that Mona Lisa smile, and he headed for his daughter’s bedroom door. He rapped twice and waited. When there was no response, he knocked harder. From this proximity, the noise had him clenching his teeth. His central nervous system, despite having been subjected to continual overdoses of screaming rock music for the past two decades, was on overload and moving rapidly toward doom. The door itself was vibrating. “Paige!” he shouted. “Lunch!”

  “Coward,” Casey said from across the room.

  “Bite me.” He knocked again, hard, and raised his voice a few decibels. “PAIGE!”

  The noise—he refused to think of it as music—ceased abruptly. The door stopped vibrating, and his central nervous system slowed in its headlong rush toward the death star. A second later, the door opened a crack. “What?” she said.

  “Lunch is ready. Come on out and join us. Leroy still alive in there?”

  “Um, yeah.” She appeared puzzled by his question. “He’s fine, but he peed on the floor.”

  “Great. Did you clean it up?”

  “I didn’t have anything to clean it with.”

  He turned helplessly to Casey, who rolled her eyes. “I’m on it,” she said.

  “Before we eat,” he told Paige, “we should probably take him outside for a walk, so he won’t do something even worse on the kitchen floor.”

  Paige didn’t argue,
just clipped the leash to Leroy’s harness and moved, barefoot, to the door. He followed her, and they ambled in a meandering circle around the house, Leroy stopping at every other blade of grass to mark his territory. “So what’s with the pink leash?” he said. “Aren’t you worried about giving poor Leroy a complex?”

  She looked at him blankly. “Why?”

  “Boy dog? Hot pink leash?” At her continued stony look, he said, “Never mind.” Apparently the kid lacked a sense of humor.

  He kept throwing her furtive little glances, trying not to get caught at it. But he couldn’t stop staring at her. She looked so much like Meg had at fifteen, it was scary. Or what the fifteen-year-old Meg would have looked like if she’d painted her face like a two-dollar hooker. As if Mary MacKenzie would have ever tolerated that from any one of her daughters. He had an overwhelming urge to grab a wash cloth and scrub all that shit off until there was nothing left but fresh-faced fifteen-year-old. But that might be a tad over the top, and would do nothing to endear him to the kid. He needed to exercise restraint. “Do you know my sister Meg? She and your mother used to be best friends. That’s how your mom and I met.”

  He’d finally grabbed her attention. “Meg is your sister?”

  “She is. You didn’t know she was your aunt?”

  “I just remember her as Mom’s friend. She used to be around all the time when I was a little kid, but I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “She moved to Seattle a few years ago. You look just like her.” When the kid simply shrugged, he said, “You hit the family jackpot with the MacKenzies, kiddo. There are nine of us, and the extended family just goes on and on.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Oh, we’re not that bad. Except maybe Kevin. And you won’t have to meet everyone en masse, at least not until Christmas. Tonight, we’ll introduce you to my sister Rose and her family. The rest of tonight’s gang belongs to Casey’s side. You’ll like ‘em. They’re good people.”

  “Woo-hoo,” she said darkly. “I can hardly wait.”

  If he’d ever spoken to his father that way, he would have ended up with a mouthful of soap. But he should probably cut the kid a little slack. This situation they’d been thrown into was awkward for both of them. She’d just lost her mother, and he and Casey were total strangers. At least she was responding to his half-assed attempts to make conversation. It might not be much, but it was a start.

  Leroy paused to sniff at one of Casey’s beloved rosebushes, and Rob snagged the leash and dragged him away before he could lift his leg and destroy it. “See that?” he said, pointing. “That’s a rosebush. Casey has a bunch of those planted around the foundation. If you let Leroy pee on ‘em, she won’t be a happy woman. And you don’t want to see my wife when she’s unhappy. I’m just offering this as a little friendly advice. Keep Leroy away from Casey’s roses. Capisce?”

  “Yeah. I capisce.”

  Leroy finally accomplished what they’d brought him outside for, and Rob handed the kid the paper towel and baggie he’d brought along for the occasion. “What’s this?” she said.

  “Poor man’s pooper scooper. You leave that lying around, Casey will really get riled up. And you don’t want to see her riled up.”

  She gave him a look so frosty he could feel his testicles shriveling, but she bent over and cleaned up after her dog. Holding the bag with the tips of her fingers, as far away from her body as she could get it, she said, “Now what?”

  “Now,” he said, “I show you where the trash cans are.”

  They deposited Leroy’s little gift and headed back to the house. He shot her a quick glance and said, “So you like rap?”

  “Yeah.”

  One of these days, he’d sit her down and they’d have a real conversation about it. He’d find out exactly what it was that made the stuff appeal to her, and maybe it would give him a glimpse into her psyche. One of these days. But not today.

  “Casey and I,” he said, “do not like rap. As a matter of fact, that stuff you were playing earlier causes me actual physical pain.”

  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Is that a broad hint?”

  He decided not to leave anything open to interpretation. “It is. You’ll have to cut the volume. Drastically. Or my wife may pack her bags and move out. Or worse, toss you and me out into the street. Considering that the house belongs to her, she’d have a perfect right.”

  “If you’re married, doesn’t it belong to both of you?”

  “I’m not sure about the legal ramifications, but she and Danny bought the house three years before we were married, so for all intents and purposes, it’s hers. And you know, it could get pretty cold living in a cardboard box on a downtown street corner, come February.”

  “We wouldn’t be living in a cardboard box. You have plenty of money.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And you know this because?”

  “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. You’re loaded. You’re a friggin’ rock star.”

  That term had always made him uncomfortable. Not to mention the kid had a potty mouth. “Danny was the star. Not me. I’m just the guy who stood up on stage behind him and played guitar.”

  “And wrote and produced all his albums. And had a successful solo career after the two of you split up.”

  His eyebrows went higher. “You make it sound like we were dating. And you seem to know a lot more about me than I do about you.”

  “You think? Considering that you apparently didn’t even know I existed.”

  Apparently? What the hell did she mean by apparently? Before he could ask, they reached the door to the shed, and he decided to let it go. For now. “After lunch,” he said, swinging it open and letting Paige and Leroy enter the house ahead of him, “I’ll show you around the studio. You can bring your guitar with you. We can jam a little.”

  “Oh, joy,” she said.

  He stepped into the kitchen, met Casey’s eyes. “Wash your hands,” he said to Paige. She disappeared in the direction of the bathroom, and he crossed the room to his wife. Took her in his arms and buried his face in her hair. Only half-joking, he said, “Just hold me.”

  “Oh, come on, Flash, it can’t be that bad.”

  “It is that bad. She accused me of being a rock star. And she hates me.”

  “She’s a teenager. She’s supposed to hate you. It’s an unwritten law of adolescence.”

  “I am not a rock star. Danny was a rock star. I am a Berklee-trained professional musician.”

  “You dropped out of Berklee after two years.”

  “Everybody drops out of Berklee. Your point is?”

  “Look, I know you have a tendency to get all hinky about stuff like this, but, well…you sort of are. A rock star, that is.”

  He looked at her in mock horror. “Et tu, Brute?”

  “Semantics, MacKenzie. You’re quibbling over semantics.”

  He sighed and said, “I’m taking her out to the studio after lunch like you suggested. That’ll give you a break from the screaming meemies. I’ll collect payment later.” He kissed her eyelid, nudged her cheek with the tip of his nose. Cupped her chin in his hand, tilted her head, and pretended to peer into her ear canal.

  “What the hell are you doing, MacKenzie?”

  “Checking for bloodstains.”

  She rolled her eyes. He couldn’t actually see them, but he knew her well enough to know exactly what she was doing. “You’re a lunatic,” she said.

  “Yeah, but you love me anyway.”

  “I do. Most of the time.” She wound those gorgeous arms around his neck and tilted her head back and studied him through exquisite green eyes. “Kids need structure. They respond well to it. We just have to provide it.”

  “Which could be problematic, as I am possibly the least structured person on the planet.”

  “Well, then, isn’t it a good thing you have a regimented person like me around to offset all that loosey-goosey stuff?”

  He pressed his mouth
to the line of her jaw. “It’s a damn good thing, Sarge.”

  “Don’t worry. Give it time. It’ll get better.”

  “I know what would make it better.” He waggled his eyebrows. “You could kiss me.”

  “Kissing always makes everything better, but can you promise to behave? We have a fifteen-year-old chaperone now. No more groping each other in the kitchen.”

  He slid his mouth down the slender curve of her neck and said, “That is a tragedy of epic proportions.”

  “It is.” She leaned into him and kissed him, sweetly, tenderly, thoroughly, with a heated, open-mouth, full-body-contact kiss that had his engines revving in high gear until behind them, the kid cleared her throat. He hadn’t even heard her come into the room. He’d probably sustained hearing damage from all that noise.

  His eyes popped open and looked directly into Casey’s, mere inches away. “Busted,” he said.

  His goddess of a wife offered him a game, secretive little smile that hinted of future delights, and gave him one last kiss for good measure. And said briskly, “Paige, the soup bowls are in the right-hand cupboard, next to the fridge. Saltine crackers are on the shelf in the pantry. I’ll get the spoons. Leroy’s welcome to stay, as long as he exhibits good manners. But if he’s going to sit and beg the whole time we’re eating, you’ll have to shut him in your room.”

  Paige

  These people she’d been sent to live with were total freaks.

  Earlier today, she’d gone into the bathroom to wash her hands before lunch. When she came out, there they were, her father and his wife, wrapped around each other and making out like a couple of teenagers, right in the kitchen. Did people their age actually do that kind of thing? Certainly not her mom. Or the parents of any of her friends. It made her ill just to think about it. And they’d acted like it was no big deal. They’d just gone ahead with lunch, as if the sight of them like that hadn’t done irreparable damage to her adolescent psyche. She wanted to scream at them to get a room, but of course if they’d really wanted privacy, they could’ve just gone upstairs.