Jill raised an eyebrow. Wade was paying attention now even though he was seated further down the table because my father's mood had shifted dramatically and it seemed to have changed the temperature in the room.
"You are excused, Taylor," my father informed me.
I looked around. We were backstage in a suite at one of the largest concert arenas in the country. Where exactly was he implying that I was excused to go?
"All right," I said. I folded the napkin that had been in my lap and placed it over my half-eaten dinner.
"Excuse me," Jill said, looking confused at me and then my dad, and then at me again. "What is going on here?"
"Some people need to learn manners," my father snapped.
I was really beginning to wonder if my dad was an alcoholic or just crazy. This side of him, which I had seen so little of that summer, was volatile and unpredictable. It was safe to say that I hated him when he was like that. I walked briskly toward the door to the hallway.
"Taylor!" Jill called after me, standing up at the table.
But I was already in the hallway, breaking into a jog toward the large gray security doors that led to the seating area of the arena. I passed another suite backstage with its door propped open, where Sigma was eating dinner and the guitarist was lazily strumming on a couch. I heard someone say, "Brice, there goes your jail bait," as I ran past. But I didn't dare look over my shoulder.
My legs were unstoppable. I was running. The red EXIT sign over those gray doors was beckoning.
"Taylor, come back here!" Jill yelled from behind me. She had followed me into the hallway but was far behind, way too far behind, as I pushed the doors open and stepped into the throngs of fans.
It was an hour before show time, but the gates had already been opened for general seating. I ran through the aisles of sparsely populated seats toward one of the arched doorways that led to the cavernous hallways where I hoped to find Jake selling t-shirts. The arena was nothing less than enormous, and as I ran past row after row, it flabbergasted me that enough people cared about my father's music to fill a venue this huge.
I reached the vestibule, cool and dimly lit. There was a chill to the night air in Detroit; it had been raining for a week before our tour bus had rolled into town. Long lines were already forming at the hot dog and beer stands. I suspected that the t-shirts would be on sale near the main entrance, but the problem with that logic was that there were several main entrances. I ran toward one, sweating slightly, and my heart sank when Jake wasn't behind its counter. I spun around wildly.
If he wasn't at the arena, I had no idea what I would do. Going back to the hotel with my dad and Jill was not an option. Moving in with my grandparents and having my grandmother punish me for all the ways in which my mother hurt her was also not an option. I would have preferred going back to Los Angeles and living in the cinderblock building on Wilshire with other displaced kids until school started. At least there, I could be myself and wasn't going to be made to feel like an unwanted guest. I roamed through the thickening crowd aimlessly, dodging any concert or arena staff carrying walkie-talkies.
I had twelve dollars in my wallet and mentally scolded myself for being such an idiot. I wasn't going to experience much success as a runaway, if running away was an inevitable course of action that night, on a twelve-dollar budget.
The faces of concert-goers whirled past me. There were girls my age, their eyes heavily lined in black pencil, giddy to be out for the night without parents. There were women like my mom in attendance, having a girls' night out, dressed to the nines in lace tank tops and stretch denim jeans. Middle-aged couples out on dates clutched beers in plastic cups and held hands. I wistfully longed to truly be one of them, just a normal person with a normal home in suburban Michigan and a life to which I would return after the concert.
I was running out of time. The lights were lowering and the crowd was scurrying toward seats. The announcer was presenting Sigma. My eyes searched the crowd. He had to be there. Absolutely had to be there.
The crowd in Detroit was ready to rock, that was for sure. At no other city so far in the tour had the crowd screamed more loudly. I meandered back into the hallway, not expecting to find Jake anywhere in the dark moving mass of the crowd, which was composed of raised lighters and jabbing elbows and joints held furtively down near knees.
I pressed my face against a window in the hallway to look out into the parking lot. It stretched out as far as I could see, every single space taken, with the sparse remains of the lowering sun's beams of light reflecting off windshields. Sigma was wrapping up their tenth song. Their set would be finished soon. I felt like crying; my chest was getting tight and a lump was growing in my throat.
It occurred to me to leave the theater and roam the parking lot, but naturally if I were to do that I would never find my way back into the amphitheater because I pathetically couldn't afford a ticket. I rested, tucked into my corner in the hallway, watching hundreds of fans leave the seating area, visit the bathrooms, and return. The lights once again went down. There was a thunderous drum roll. A burst of smoke.
Pound was taking the stage.
And then suddenly I saw him.
Jake had made his way to the entrance to seating section C, and was lingering there in the darkness, peering forward, trying to find me in the crowd.
I ran up from behind him and touched his arm. He turned and saw me, and immediately threw his arms around me and kissed me, hard. All of those days of wondering when we would next meet had been worth it. His kiss knocked the wind out of me; I didn't care what else happened in my life before or after that kiss. It was like a movie; like everything was going to be just fine now that he had arrived. When he pulled away he was a little out of breath.
"I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to find you," he said, brushing the hair back from my face.
I was so happy to see him, I couldn't respond.
"Let's get out of here," he said. "I want to take you to something special."
I never once looked back over my shoulder as we jogged out of the amphitheater. As far as I was concerned I was leaving forever even though the mere thought made my stomach ice over with sickness. There was no way to know if my father would punish me for this by taking Treadwell away from me, or simply return me there earlier than planned because I had turned out to be such a nuisance. It no longer mattered to me. If boarding school was my sacrifice for time alone with Jake, it was a compromise I was willing to make at that moment.
We got out on the highway and drove out of Auburn Hills.
"You should have told me about your mom and my dad," I said quietly, not wanting to upset Jake but needing him to know that I was in on the secret.
"I couldn't do that," Jake said quietly. "I didn't want you to get angry, after losing your mom and everything."
I stared out over the rooftops of Detroit that we were passing. "Yeah, but my dad is just… ugh. I just don't understand how he can be such a liar."
Jake merged into the right lane to prepare to exit the highway. "Look, Chase isn't such a bad guy. There's a lot you don't know about him."
"Maybe it bothers me a little that you know more about my dad than I do," I said softly, not wanting to pick a fight. I could sense my own discomfort heightening and changed the topic. I had waited in agony for this night, and I didn't want my sour mood to ruin it.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Jake broke into a huge smile. "You'll see. I'm taking you with me to work."
"Work?" I asked. And then I noticed over my shoulder that the back of the gold Saturn had been cleaned out, and the back seat was crammed with milk crates of CD's.
"Work," Jake repeated. The Saturn was slowing down on a dark street, wet with puddles from the previous night's rain, in front of an enormous warehouse. Electronic music was throbbing out into the street and people of all ages were lined up outside.
"Oh, wow," I murmured, impressed. Jake had mentioned DJ-ing parties, but I never t
hought he actually was making money or a name for himself. "You're spinning here tonight?"
Jake parked the car and dug into his back pocket to hand me a folded flyer. The headline on the flyer read, "DJ JK, one night only. 12AM – 2AM. The Annex."
"Yep," he said. It was cute how proud he was of himself. In Detroit he wasn't just a kid who sold t-shirts behind a counter, he was famous in his own right. He was on his way. "And… there's something I wanted to ask you."
The car became really quiet and my heart started thumping loudly.
"I have a two-month gig starting next week in Tokyo at one of the hottest clubs like, on the planet. I wasn't sure if I was going to take it 'cause of you know, school and everything, but it's too big to pass up. Would you, maybe… would you want to come with me? It's going to be all expenses paid, so you know…"
I tore off my seatbelt and we were kissing wildly before I could even respond with words. Two months in Japan with Jake was the perfect solution to all of my problems. No more Pound tour, no more Dad, no more Jill, no more trying to act like a responsible older sister… just me and Jake, my first real boyfriend, exploring the world together.
"Yes, yes, yes," I agreed breathlessly.
"OK, cool," Jake said. "This is going to be awesome. So awesome."
We entered the club through the back door, each carrying a huge plastic milk crate. The heavyset bouncers knew Jake by name and slapped him on the back on his way in.
"Yo, Jake my man," one said.
It was infinitely cooler to me that two bouncers in Detroit knew Jake by name than having a dad who is globally famous.
Inside, the music was deafening. The warehouse boasted two floors, with the top floor as a balcony that overlooked the main dance floor. The people dancing looked fairly older than us, in their early twenties.
"It's still early," Jake assured me. "By one or two AM this place will be so packed, people won't even be able to move on the dance floor."
Jake led me up to the DJ cage on the second floor balcony. He would be one of two headlining DJ's later that night, which was shocking to me, since he was only sixteen and technically not even old enough to be setting foot inside nightclubs that served alcohol. The cage was literally a metal barred cell protecting the DJ booth, which had two turn tables, a huge audio console, and several CD players hooked up to laptops. It was protected with a lockbox into which Jake had to type a numeric code for entry.
The other DJ, who would be relieving Jake after his set at 2AM, was an Indian girl named Gloria who DJ'd as Glorius. She was rumored to be having a lesbian affair with awell-known lingerie model. Glorius and Susan Galbraith, a chesty brunette teetering around in stilettos, were already present, perched on the black vinyl couches in the cage, sipping on beers.
"Yo, Jake," the current DJ greeted us, "Who's your girl?"
"This is Taylor Atwood," Jake informed the small population of the cage.
I was momentarily peeved that he had introduced me with my dad's last name, I assumed for the recognition it might bring. But then I remembered that he probably had no idea that I didn't go by Taylor Atwood.
"This is DJ Slipped Disc, Gloria, Susan," Jake introduced me, pointing around the small circle.
"Nice to meet you," Susan said, volunteering to be friendly. "Do you want a drink?"
She and Glorius were both smoking and tapping the long ashes from their cigarettes right onto the floor.
I looked to Jake to see if he'd be drinking, because I didn't want to be presumptuous or a party pooper.
"I don't drink when I'm working," he shouted into my ear so that I would be able to hear him over the music. "But help yourself if you're into it."
I declined and sat down on one of the couches. Jake and the spinning DJ geeked out for a while, tweaking the CD players and the console system. I felt a little awkward; this was the first time I had ever set foot in a nightclub, and was feeling both underdressed and not cool enough to be there. The black tank top and skinny jeans I had put on earlier that afternoon had seemed passable for a rock concert in suburban Michigan, but seriously lame for a dance club where every girl that happened to stroll past the cage was wearing a tight dress made of mesh or rubber, torn or draped to show off tattoos.
Susan made her way over to my couch and sat down next to me after Glorius let herself out of the cage in search of drinks.
"So how do you know Jake?" Susan purred.
There was something about her demeanor that made me unsure if she was trying to befriend me or make me feel inferior to her.
"Through my dad's band," I responded, choosing my words carefully. I wasn't sure if Jake's scene in Detroit was aware of how he spent his summer vacations, hauling boxes of t-shirts across America and sleeping in the backseat of his mother's car. I was quick to assume that he would probably not appreciate me exposing that side of his life to people who only knew him as DJ JK, star on the rise.
"Oh, that's cool," Susan said. "Is your dad like, in the Rolling Stones or something?"
She was slurring. I had seen a few of the catalogs in which Susan modeled bras and thong panties, and even the televised runway special where she strutted her stuff down a runway, mostly naked. I knew she was my age, and I tried not to stare at the premature crows' feet at the corners of her eyes.
"Eh, no. He's the lead singer of Pound," I corrected her. I was a little ashamed of myself for relying on my father's fame to establish myself among Jake's friends so early in the night. So much for standing on my own two feet. But I forgave myself because I was feeling so insecure in this environment. I didn't have tattoos or Jimmy Choo boots with four-inch heels, but my dad is famous. Never mind that for all I knew at that moment, he could have been planning to disown me.
"Oh, for real? Pound? I used to love them when I was a kid!" Susan exclaimed. "I partied with them in Las Vegas last year. Your dad is totally hot."
I smiled weakly, feeling a little sick. Would my dad be so gross as to party with someone like Susan, just a few years older than me?
Slipped Disc's set was ending and Jake began arranging his set on his laptop. He was completely focused on his task, oblivious to the rest of us around him until he looked up briefly.
"My set is starting," he told me. "You should totally go explore. Hang out."
I didn't exactly want to go explore, but I also didn't want to seem like a wallflower, either. This was the first moment in my life when I was more concerned about how my actions appeared than about what I actually felt like doing. Susan volunteered to show me the way to the ladies' room, and Jake barely seemed to notice when we left the cage and the door locked behind us.
The first song that Jake played was a fast-paced electronic track with mash-up samples from Notorious B.I.G. classics. The crowd got on its feet and went wild. Susan and I pushed through the minglers and dancers toward the ladies' room, where we stepped into a line that was so long that its end was outside the entrance to the bathroom and only a few feet from the hoard of customers crowding around the bar.
"So, Jake is like, your boyfriend?" Susan asked, practically screaming into my ear to be heard over the music while we waited in line.
I nodded, but felt presumptuous saying the words my boyfriend and simply said, "We're friends."
"Is he like, amazing in bed?" Susan's eyes became huge and she smiled widely, and for a second I thought perhaps I had misheard her and she had actually asked isn't he?
I nodded again, not really wanting to admit to someone as famous and pretty as Susan that I had no idea if Jake was good in bed, and I also had no idea how any guy was in bed or what would qualify as good. At Treadwell, it was pretty much a given that just about everyone was still a virgin. Girls who weren't virgins were the girls who had boyfriends back at home who pretty much never talked about anything except losing their virginity. Being surrounded by hundreds of other girls nine months out of the year who were just as freaked out about the possibility of sleeping with boys took a lot of the pressure off of the prospect
of it actually ever happening.
The line began inching forward. My attention was caught by the voices of the girls standing behind us.
"He looks great, right?" one of the girls was saying.
"Yeah. Bastard. I still have no idea where he's been for the last two months. Beth said he came in with some girl."
"God, calm down. I'm sure you'll get a piece of Jake tonight if that's what you want."
My heart literally stopped beating. I tried not to turn to take a good look at the girls behind me, but did anyway and pretended to be looking past them toward the bar. They were both older than me, probably in college, dressed like total sluts in gauzy tank tops and short skirts. The girl who had made it sound like she had a history with Jake was wearing a tank top with silver and black stripes, and had hair dyed bright red.
I was so shaken by what I had overheard, and what the girls' conversation had implied, that I could barely speak when Susan took me by the hand and led me along with her into a bathroom stall.
"You can go first," she said motioning at the toilet. The stall was cramped and crowded and I couldn't remember the last time I had smashed myself into a stall with another girl. Possibly never. I unzipped my jeans and began to relieve my bladder while Susan dug through her rhinestone studded purse for something.
"You want some?" she offered as I flushed.
Watching Bijoux and Betsey Norfleet score beers off of college guys was one thing. Being locked into a tiny bathroom stall with a lingerie model who was offering me some kind of a drug out of a dirty baggie was quite another. I felt like I had been plucked out of my own world of boarding school knee socks and late night Dorito binges and dropped into an entirely different universe where the rules were all different and the stakes were much higher. I felt naïve and dumb and worst of all, angry at myself for feeling either of those ways.
"No thanks," I told Susan. She handed me the baggie while she raised her dress to pee, and during the entire forty seconds that I held the bag I prayed that she would hurry up and take it away from me. I was so paranoid about drugs that my mind went straight to the worst case scenario it could conjure up. It would be my perfect luck that police would kick down the doors to the ladies' room at that very moment and arrest me for possession of a narcotic. Thankfully that did not happen.
The Rock Star's Daughter (The Treadwell Academy Novels) Page 16
