Hard Rock

by Ginger Rue

  Tig couldn’t stand it. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s about your uncle Nick,” said Mrs. Ripley.

  “Uncle Nick? What about him? Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine,” her mom said. “I mean, physically, he’s fine.”

  “Then what?”

  “Your aunt Laurie,” Tig’s dad said. “She’s leaving him.”

  As Tig listened in shock, her parents told her the whole story. How Aunt Laurie didn’t really have a sick friend out of town. How Uncle Nick had tried everything to save the marriage for Kyra’s sake. How Aunt Laurie wouldn’t change her mind.

  “So that’s what you two were talking about that day in the kitchen,” Tig said. It was almost a relief to put the pieces together.

  “Yes,” said her mom. “We didn’t want to tell you until we were certain they couldn’t work things out. But now there’s no chance of that.”

  No chance? Of course there was a chance! Why wouldn’t there be a chance? Not that Tig had ever really liked Aunt Laurie, but she was Kyra’s mother. And Uncle Nick’s wife. And they loved her. They were a family. Didn’t that mean anything?

  “Maybe they just need a vacation or something,” Tig said. “Maybe Uncle Nick could send her roses? She likes stuff like that.”

  Tig’s parents looked at each other. “Believe me, Tig,” her mother said. “Uncle Nick has tried everything he could. It’s over.”

  “No,” Tig said. “I’m sure they’ll work it out. Kyra can’t do that every-other-weekend thing that kids with divorced parents have to do. Nobody in our family has ever been divorced! They have to fix it!”

  “Tig,” her mom said, “there are things that you’re just too young to understand. The marriage cannot be fixed. Please just take my word for it and let it go.”

  “How can I just let it go? How can any of us? This is awful! Does Kyra know?”

  “They’re telling her tonight,” Tig’s dad said.

  “Oh, poor Kyra!” Tig said. “Now I feel really awful about the band. Do you think this is why she’s been so terrible at the bass?”

  “I don’t know, honey,” said her mom. “Maybe she’s been distracted. Maybe she’s just not musically inclined. It’s hard to say.”

  “Maybe you and your friends could give her a little more time,” Tig’s dad said. “These next few months are going to be tough for your cousin.”

  Tig nodded. “I’m sure when the girls find out about the divorce, they’ll cut her some slack.”

  A few hours later Tig’s mom’s phone rang. “Of course,” Tig heard her mother say.

  Shortly after that, Kyra walked in the door. Her face was red and puffy. Tig was almost afraid to speak, to move. She didn’t know what she should say or do. But when Kyra’s cracking voice said, “Oh, Tig!” and she started to cry, Tig instinctively ran to her cousin and pulled her into a tight hug. They held the embrace for some time, sobbing together.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Tig kept saying over and over. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I just don’t understand,” Kyra told Tig as they lay in bed that night. “I know Dad still loves Mom. I even asked him outright. I said, ‘Do you still love Mom?’”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He just looked away and started crying. Then Mom said that I needed to stop. So I asked her point-blank, ‘Do you still love Dad?’”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She said no,” Kyra said. “It was so . . . I don’t know. . . . Like it was nothing. Like I’d just asked if she wanted sausage on her pizza.”

  Tig almost laughed. She’d never seen Aunt Laurie eat a slice of pizza in her life, and if she did, Tig was sure it would have been on a whole grain pita with low-fat cheese and some sprinkling of wheat germ or something. Aunt Laurie would never have risked her thighs to sausage pizza.

  “What did your parents tell you?” Kyra asked. “Did they tell you the reason?”

  “No,” Tig replied. “They said I was too young to understand. That it was an adult thing.”

  “That’s such a cop-out,” Kyra said. “Look, people don’t just fall out of love and decide to tear their family apart, do they? There’s got to be a reason.”

  “I don’t know,” Tig said. “Adults are weird, Kyra. They don’t make any sense.”

  “That’s the part that kills me,” Kyra said. “I need it to make sense. At least then, if I could understand, I could deal. But this whole ‘Poof! It’s over!’ stuff . . . I just can’t.”

  “Just know I’m here for you, Kyra. And our friends will be too. They’ll be so sorry to hear about this.”

  “No!” Kyra sat up in bed. “You can’t tell them!”

  “What? Why not?”

  “It’s too humiliating!” Kyra said. “No one can know!”

  “How is this humiliating?” Tig asked. “You didn’t do anything. These things just happen. Take Will, for instance. His folks divorced when he was little. Lots of people at school have divorced parents. Olivia’s dad is her stepdad. Her real dad moved away when she was a baby. You know that.”

  “That’s fine for Will and Olivia and whoever else,” Kyra said. “But this is me. These are my parents. And I’m sure that when they realize what a huge mistake this is, they’re going to get back together. And when they do, I don’t want everyone talking for the rest of my life about how they almost got divorced.”

  “Kyra, it doesn’t sound like they’re going to get back together. My mom said it was over and there was no saving it.”

  “No offense, Tig, but Aunt Julie doesn’t know everything.”

  Tig didn’t even try to defend her mom. Part of her hoped Kyra was right. And the other part of her was just glad to see Kyra riled a little bit. Because at least when she was riled, she wasn’t crying and heartbroken.

  “Promise you won’t tell anyone?” Kyra asked.

  “I promise,” Tig said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Without giving them any reason, Tig somehow managed to convince Robbie and the others to give Kyra more time.

  “How much more time?” Robbie had asked.

  “A month?” Tig had proposed.

  But she’d been able to get only a two-week reprieve. The girls were firm. If only they’d known what was going on, Tig felt sure they wouldn’t have been so resolute. But of course, she’d promised Kyra she wouldn’t tell them, so two weeks it was.

  Naturally, in those two weeks, Kyra played worse than ever.

  Tig went to her mom for advice. “I never should’ve asked Kyra to be in the band in the first place,” she said. “I knew she wouldn’t stick with it. Kyra never sticks with anything.”

  “Mixing family and business is a tough one,” said Mrs. Ripley. “Remember that time I paid my cousin Russell to put in our new kitchen cabinets? Aunt Coila was all, ‘Oh, Russell’s so handy and he’ll do an extra good job for you and he really needs the money.’ So against my better judgment, I hired Russell to do the work, and you see what I got.” She opened a cabinet door and closed it, but it didn’t shut all the way. “But what can you do? Can’t sue him. He’s family.”

  “But would you hire him again?” Tig asked.

  “Not by a long shot,” said her mom.

  “So what am I supposed to do? Let Kyra just keep on making cabinets that don’t shut?”

  “Oh, sweetie. I wish Kyra would let the other girls know what’s going on.”

  “She won’t, though. And she’s sworn me to secrecy. She’s convinced that Uncle Nick and Aunt Laurie are going to work it out.”

  Mrs. Ripley shook her head. “The poor child.”

  “And I can’t tell Kyra the other girls want her out of the band, because it will hurt her feelings, and she can’t handle any hurt feelings right now. And besides, then I’d be going behind their backs. It’s a no-win situation.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” said Mrs. Ripley.

  Well, her mom
had no answers. So Tig decided to turn to the one place that always had all the answers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Tig typed how to kick someone out of your, the search engine offered to finish the statement with the word house but not band. But when Tig went ahead and finished typing the entire statement, there were nearly thirty-one million results.

  Well, at least she wasn’t the first person to have this problem.

  Just to delay things, she typed, how to kick your cousin out of your, and the search engine once again offered house. When Tig finished the whole statement, there were nearly two million hits, but none of them dealt with the actual problem, just contained the words somewhere.

  So maybe Tig was the first person to have to kick her cousin out of a band.

  There was actually some pretty good advice on a few musician websites about how to get rid of a band member. Tig read for about half an hour, and it seemed the consensus was to be up-front and honest about the whole thing. But there was no unless the band member’s parents are also getting a divorce and he/she is in denial about it. But honesty was supposed to be the best policy, wasn’t it? And if Tig didn’t tell Kyra herself, and tell her gently, there was bound to be a mutiny at the next practice. Robbie would blow up and say something harsh. That would be way worse.

  So Tig decided she’d rather be up-front and honest with Kyra herself.

  But maybe over the phone. And to delay the confrontation, she thought maybe it could wait until tomorrow night.

  Just as Tig had been awkward around Robbie a few weeks before, the next day she was awkward around Kyra at school. Kyra, though, was oblivious. Maybe she was so preoccupied with the divorce, she wasn’t even thinking about the band. Or maybe she knew she was in danger of being kicked out of the band but didn’t want to know. Either way, she didn’t challenge Tig on her behavior and seemed completely normal at the lunch table that day.

  “Let me guess,” Robbie whispered to Tig. “You haven’t told her yet.”

  “I’m going to do it tonight,” Tig said. “Over the phone. That way, she can be upset in private for a while.”

  Tig followed through and called Kyra after supper that evening. “I need to talk to you about the band,” she said.

  “You and that band,” Kyra said. “Don’t you ever want to talk about anything else? I’m so sick of the band all the time.”

  “Well, maybe that’s good,” Tig said. Up-front and honest, Tig reminded herself.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Kyra, you know you haven’t been pulling your weight. Not for a long time. And the other girls don’t know your situation, and you won’t let me tell them, so they can’t be very understanding about something they don’t even know about, and . . .”

  “So you’re kicking me out of the band?” Kyra laughed. “Yeah, right.” There was a pause. “You’re not laughing,” Kyra said.

  “No, I’m not laughing because I’m serious,” Tig said. “Kyra, I don’t want to hurt you. I know this is a difficult time for you.”

  “Tig, come on,” Kyra said. “If you’re trying to get my attention, then fine. You’ve got it. I’ll practice more.”

  “Come on, Kyra. We’ve already been down that road,” Tig said. “Just think of it as a nice long break. You just said you’re sick of the band. Now you won’t have to worry about it anymore. You’ll have plenty of time to focus on feeling better, and then maybe you can come back when things have calmed down and you can give it more effort.”

  “This is coming from Robbie, isn’t it?” Kyra said. “Oh, that’s just perfect. One minute you’re all ‘it’s our band and Robbie can’t push us around,’ and the next, you’re doing whatever she wants! Well, Olivia and Claire won’t go along with it.”

  “Kyra, they already have,” Tig said as gently as possible.

  “What?” Kyra said. “So you’ve all been conspiring against me behind my back, huh?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, you must’ve discussed it sometime, and I certainly wasn’t there for it, so I’d call that going behind my back! How could y’all treat me like this?”

  “We didn’t conspire, we aren’t ganging up on you, and we’re not trying to treat you unfairly. You know this is nothing personal,” Tig said. “We all love you to death, Kyra. It’s just that the band thing isn’t working out for you. We all still want to be your friends.”

  “Friends don’t treat friends like this!” Kyra said. “And neither do cousins! How could you? Wait until my mom hears about this! And then you can be sure she’ll call your mom, and then your mom will kill you!”

  “I don’t think so,” Tig said.

  “You mean Aunt Julie knew about this?”

  “I mentioned it to Mom, yes.”

  “And she’s letting you do this to me?”

  “Come on. Be fair. No one is doing anything to you. It’s just not working out. It’s been a long time coming, and you know it.”

  Seeing that anger was getting her nowhere, Kyra switched to pouting. “I think you’re mean,” she said.

  “Kyra, you know I’m not trying to be mean! You know I love you! And the other girls do too. If you’d just let me tell them about the divorce—”

  “No!” Kyra shouted. “I keep telling you, there isn’t going to be any divorce! Why do you keep trying to gossip about my family to the band?”

  “That’s not fair,” Tig said. “You know that’s not what’s happening. Kyra, please—”

  “You think this is over, but it’s not,” Kyra said. “You’re not going to get away with this.”

  “Please, calm down. It’s going to be all right.”

  “Oh, trust me. I’m calm. I’m seeing things very clearly now. And soon so will everyone else!”

  “Kyra . . .”

  But all Tig heard on the other end was silence. Kyra had hung up on her.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Anybody seen or talked to Kyra yet this morning?” Tig asked when she joined her friends in the gym before school. She’d filled them in last night via text that she’d given Kyra the boot and that it hadn’t gone well. At all. But of course, she’d kept her promise and hadn’t told them about the divorce.

  “Talked to? No,” Robbie said. “Seen? Yes.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Tig.

  “Yeah,” said Robbie.

  “We said hi to her this morning, but she just walked right past us,” Olivia said.

  “Wouldn’t even look at us,” added Claire. “She acted like we didn’t exist.”

  Tig sighed. “She’ll have to forgive us eventually. Everybody else is already cliqued up for the year. There’s nowhere for her to go, right?”

  “Not exactly,” said Robbie. She nodded toward the place in the gym where the popular girls sat.

  Tig looked. “Oh no,” she said. “Kyra’s trying to sit in the Bot Spot?”

  “Trying is the operative word, obvs,” said Robbie. Kyra was tentatively perched on the end of a bleacher, one hip on and one hip off. She seemed to be working extra hard to steady herself so as not to fall. None of the popular girls were looking at Kyra or talking to her. It was clear to anyone observing that Kyra was not an invited guest but an interloper.

  “Why does she keep trying to join the Bots?” Tig said. “Doesn’t she see that they don’t want her? Why does she keep humiliating herself?”

  “I suppose she thought this might be an opportunity,” Robbie said.

  “An opportunity? How?” Tig asked.

  “Let’s see . . . last year, when we kicked Haley out of the band as lead singer, she and the other Bots did everything they could to destroy us. Or have you forgotten all that unpleasantness?”

  Tig absolutely had not forgotten. The Bots had been vicious in their attempts to drag her reputation through the mud and put her on the level of pond scum in the social hierarchy. “Of course I remember,” Tig said. “But it’s weird. Regan’s in my math class, and she’s been pretty human to me so far
this year.”

  “Three words,” said Robbie. “It’s. A. Trap!”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Tig. “I just can’t figure out her game.”

  “But you can be sure there is one,” Robbie said.

  “I’ve hardly had time to give Regan a passing thought in the last few weeks, what with worrying about Kyra.” Then Tig quickly added, “And the band, I mean.”

  “I’m still waiting for one of you to explain how kicking Kyra out of the band is an opportunity for her to become a Bot,” said Olivia. “What’s she going to say, ‘I stink at the bass so don’t you want to be my friend’?”

  “More like, ‘Oh, Haley, we have so much in common because mean old Tig kicked me out of her stupid band too,’” said Robbie.

  “Oh,” Olivia said. “Gotcha.”

  “It doesn’t appear to be working,” Claire said. “Is it just me, or are they going out of their way to freeze her out?”

  The girls watched the scene playing out in the Bot Spot. The back of the popular girl right next to Kyra seemed to be inching closer to her. Now only about a third of Kyra’s butt was still on the seat. And the Bots still weren’t looking at or talking to her.

  Tig’s heart couldn’t help but go out to Kyra, in spite of the way she’d acted last night. First her parents, then the band, now this fresh embarrassment. Poor Kyra. “This is unfortunate,” Tig said. “Just very, very unfortunate.”

  “What’s unfortunate?” asked Will as he and his friend LaDarius walked up to the girls. “You mean Kyra over at the Bot Spot, looking desperate?”

  “You noticed too?” Olivia said, making room for the boys to sit.

  “Girl drama in a gymnasium,” LaDarius said. “It’s hard to miss.”

  “I hate girl drama,” said Olivia.

  “It’s really ridiculous,” Will said. “At least with guys, we know where we stand. A wedgie here and there or they ‘accidentally’ slam you in PE or sports practice, and then everybody gets on with real life.”

  “Oh, is that why you always get owned in PE?” LaDarius said. “And here all this time, I thought it was because you stink.”