Praise for Untitled…
“Untitled is a coming of age story. It is the story of the power of love to both crush and inspire greatness. Chanel has created a bi-racial world that will be familiar to music lovers. The story is simple, but compelling. One only has to believe in destiny.”
T. Lee
“This isn't just another rise to fame story, it's a life changing event that just happens to be focused in the music industry. A definite must read.”
S. Owen
“Jackie Chanel takes you on a riches to rags to riches ride within the music industry creating characters that you will love!”
S. Laidlaw
“Untitled is a great read, full of rich narrative and natural dialogue, and it takes the reader through the heart and mind of one who seems to have found his way to his dream fulfilled but, possibly, at the expense of his heart.”
K. Edwards
“Movie in the making! From the first chapter, this book screamed movie script. I immediately connected with Aiden's character. While reading this book, I just kept picturing it as a movie, from the rock star lifestyle, to the drama with Aiden's family, this book needs to be a movie asap! I can't wait for the sequel!”
A. Luckett
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Table of Contents
“Whenever they say it can’t be done, remind them that they make a jellybean that tastes like popcorn”
John Mayer, musician
Chapter 1
A small twelve year old hand pushed my door open just enough to see if I was still asleep. I wasn’t but I faked a snore and rolled over. The door shut quietly but I still heard my little sister’s giggle. I know she’s aching to get in here so she can be the first to scream “Happy Birthday”.
I rolled back over on my back and stared at the ceiling. Coming up with a plan to convince my dad into letting me skip football practice today was more important than my impatient little sister. I’ve been thinking about what to say to him all night. I even woke up before my alarm went off.
I’m actually kinda glad that I woke up before my alarm clock jarred me out of my sleep. I hate that thing. My father bought the cheap clock radio last Christmas because he was tired of me missing breakfast. A few swipes off the nightstand and the damn thing broke after only a week. The dial button fell off and now I can’t get any other station except our local rock station. The alarm part doesn’t even work anymore.
My dad is notorious for getting me lame gifts. He spends a lot of money of crap that I just don’t need. Last year he bought me a three hundred dollar suit in preparation for me getting drafted, like that’s ever going to happen. The year before that, a lava lamp. With my name on it. Like that made it cool. I’m still trying to figure out if he knows what year it is.
I pressed my ear against the wall and listened for movement in my older sister’s room. Silence. I jumped out of my bed and ran to the door.
“Happy birthday, Aiden!” Delilah yelled as I raced past her. “Where are you going?”
“Give me a sec,” I yelled back. “I have to pee!”
I shut the bathroom door as fast as possible. Three cans of Pepsi before hitting the sack probably wasn’t a good idea. Thank God Sara hadn’t made it out of her room yet. I’d still be holding it if she had.
While I got my stuff together for my shower, my mind started to wander, heading straight towards my birthday gift. Dad better come through for me this year. No more autographed sports paraphernalia that ends up in glass cases in his study, no more lame suits. I’m sixteen! There better be a car in the driveway for me.
Sara got a car when she turned sixteen. That’s one of the reasons he had to get me one. I’m his only son. He wouldn’t ruin my sixteenth birthday by getting me something stupid. I’m definitely getting a car. I already have an appointment to get my driver’s license on Monday. Dad better not screw this up.
I had my eye on the perfect ride too, a sexy black ‘94 Pontiac Firebird I saw in AutoTrader. Custom painted, chrome rims and my football number 79 embroidered on the headrests.
I showed my father the car months ago. He liked it. He even got a little excited about it, started talking about the engine and horsepower. It was the first time in months that he said something to me that didn’t end up with us arguing.
“Aiden,” Delilah called and knocked at the same time. “Come out of there! It doesn’t take that long to pee!”
I opened the door and ruffled the mass of blonde curls on Delilah’s head.
“Go away, munchkin. I have to shower before Sara gets up.”
“Aren’t you excited about your birthday? You’re sixteen!”
“Hell yeah, I’m excited,” I told her. “Is my car outside? Did Mom say anything about it? I know you know.”
I’m pretty sure that Delilah had been up since the ass crack of dawn, along with my mother. Delilah and my mother are the only people I know who are happy to get up before the sun rises. It was still dark outside but my mother had probably been up for an hour and Delilah woke up with a smile on her face, I’m sure. My older sister and I struggled every morning to resemble human beings.
“I don’t know,” she giggled. “Mom’s cooking your favorite breakfast so get dressed.”
“Pop Tarts and OJ?” I guessed.
“Nope. Blueberry pancakes.”
“Not those gluten-free things Dad has to eat, right?”
Delilah laughed. “I know. Those are gross. You better hurry up. Dad’s going to be mad if you’re late to breakfast on your birthday,” she added. “I’m going to finish wrapping your present.”
I shut the door as my little sister scrambled down the hall. I saw Sara poke her sleepy head out of her door and frown when she realized that I beat her to the bathroom. I had to get in the bathroom before Sara wakes up. On the days that I don’t, we’re both late to school. She takes forever! I don’t know what the heck she does in there. I don’t want to know. Every day I wish I didn’t have to share a bathroom with her.
Or that she was a boy. Having a brother would be better than an older sister.
I can’t be late for school today. It’s my birthday and Sweetest Day. I can’t wait to see which girls are waiting at my locker with gifts and boobs pressed against my arms waiting to see which one I’m going to take to the dance next weekend.
I only spent ten minutes in the bathroom in order to make sure Sara got her required forty-five minutes in there. Three of those were spent checking my face for any new hairs.
Not a single one.
I check every day. I’m convinced that once I grow a little facial hair the girls at school will let me get further than second base. Not that some of them don’t already, but I’m not interested in cheerleaders anymore, at least the sophomore ones. I’m a starting wide receiver. I should be getting ass from senior girls by now.
I’m probably cursed like my uncles. None of my mother’s brothers can grow a beard. My uncle Sean tried once. He ended up looking like he had five o’clock shadow all day. Nothing more than peach fuzz. My dad just laughed at him.
I hope I can grow a beard. I’m going to grow my hair out and a nice long ZZ Top beard. That would make my dad freak out for sure. He’s really into appearances and it’s annoying. I can’t help that my hair grows faster than I can get to a barbershop. Listening to him bitch about my hair is almost as bad as listening him talk about my grades.
Who cares that Sara is a straight A student and I’m not? I’m doing just fine. He should be happy that I’m not failing any of
the boring classes on my schedule this year. I have to maintain at least a C average just to stay on the football team and mine is better than that, I think.
I ran into Sara, literally, when I stepped out of the bathroom. She was walking with her eyes closed again.
“Sara!” I grumbled. “Open your eyes, damn it! You’re gonna hurt yourself, or more importantly, hurt me, one day!”
“Happy Birthday,” she mumbled and stepped around me and shut the door.
“Mom’s making pancakes,” I called. “So hurry up!”
“Not those gross gluten-free ones, right?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.”
I turned down the hall towards my room, just in time to see my little sister scurry out of Sara’s bedroom; the only room in the house that she has been permanently banned from entering.
“What were you doing in there?” I yelled after her.
She held up a roll of scotch tape and kept running to her room. I’m sure she had something else tucked away in her pajama pants like Sara’s lip gloss or hair scrunchies. She’s always stealing Sara’s stuff.
The last time Sara caught Delilah in her room, a screaming match worthy of a Jerry Springer episode happened along with a plea to my parents to please put locks on our bedroom doors. Of course, they refused.
My parents have a long list of rules that gets longer as we get older. Their “No Locked Doors” rule is just one of the many that bother me, especially when Delilah was going through her sleepwalking phase.
I can’t even count all of the times that I woke up in the middle of the night with her standing in my doorway looking like some spooky ass kid ghost in a white nightgown. Any moment I expected her to open her mouth and say something like:
“You’re all going to die,” as she faded away.
Scared the crap outta me.
All my mother said was for me to stop watching horror movies before bed, like that would help with Delilah’s sleepwalking problem.
I peeked into Sara’s room to make sure that Delilah hadn’t left a thing out of place in “the room that Random House built”. Sara has so many books that our father had to have custom made bookshelves installed.
Custom made bookshelves.
Sara is funny. Guys think she’s cute, but she’s a nerd. Any seventeen year old girl who would rather have a huge dry erase board than posters on their wall or have custom made bookshelves for their thirteen birthday is a nerd. That’s just how it is. I didn’t make the rules. I laughed at the message written prominently in big block letters on her board, next to her girly pink handwriting.
THIS LIST SUCKS!
I’d written it days ago after Sara threatened to cut off my balls and hang them from the security gate at the entrance of our subdivision if I erased her list.
Sara’s list makes me want to puke. It’s a gut wrenching, projectile vomit inducing list that she refers to as The Plan.
1. Graduate High School (valedictorian)
2. Attend a prestigious university and get a Bachelors’ degree in Biology, minor in Chemistry
3. Go to medical school – Johns Hopkins
4. Meet a great guy, date for two years while I’m doing my residency
5. Get married, move back to Mt. Vernon, start my own medical practice.
6. Start a family
One through four are okay, I guess. My parents expect all of us to graduate and go to college. That’s what kids from successful families do…blah blah blah. Since my Dad wants Sara to be a surgeon, she has to go to medical school.
Number five is what makes last night’s dinner threaten to come back up. When I read it, I actually tasted the meatloaf we had in the back of my throat.
Move back to Mt. Vernon? Why?
This place is a trap! They make movies about cities like this: The Truman Show, Pleasantville, and The Stepford Wives. Just like those movies, Mt. Vernon is an illusion. It’s the type of place where people come because “it’s a great place to raise kids” and “Mt. Vernon has such great schools” and “there are a lot of great opportunities in Mt. Vernon”.
Yeah right. This place is boring! There is nothing to do here. I’ve seen retirement communities on television that are more active than our neighborhood. All of my friends feel the same way. We can’t wait to graduate and leave our parents here to enjoy monthly Kiwanis club meetings, ladies’ luncheons, and gardening.
My parents had a chance to live exciting lives. Dad was an All-American wide receiver at the Northwestern. My mom was a theater major, for God’s sake. They could have done much better than Mt. Vernon! I don’t know when things went left, but somehow they ended up in Mt. Vernon with my dad hocking legal drugs to doctors and now my mother is president of the PTA.
All-American wide receiver with a chance to go pro to living in suburbia hell? The only thing my dad is missing is a dog. If this is his idea of the American Dream, I'll pass. I’m not following in his footsteps. When I leave, the only time I want to see this place is if I’m flying over it.
I don’t belong in a place like this. I don’t know where I belong, but it can’t be here. I don’t want paint my car with the high school logo before every Friday night football game. I don’t want to spend summers taking my kids to boring places that are within driving distance. Hell, I don’t know if I even want kids. I’m getting out of here. There’s a huge world beyond our security gate and I want to see it.
That’s why I don’t have a list. I only have one goal: to not live an ordinary boring life. Sara thinks I need a plan but her plan isn’t hers at all. It’s our parents. They have all three of our lives planned perfectly. It’s not fair. Why should we be expected to live their life? I won’t do it.
Two more years and I’m taking my Firebird and getting outta here.
****
“Hey, did you see Marcie in third period?”
Kevin tapped me on my shoulder breaking my concentration. I was staring at the clock above the door during Geometry class while Mrs. Paulo rambled on and one about…umm…proofs, I think. The second hand on the clock was moving. My theory that time really does stand still during Geometry class, the last class before lunch, flew out the window.
“Huh?”
Kevin repeated his question.
Marcie…right. How could I miss a hot chick in a tight skirt and low cut sweater? Every time Marcie leaned over to pick up the pencil that kept rolling off her desk I could see right down her shirt.
She wasn’t wearing a bra.
Happy Birthday Aiden!
“I saw a lot of Marcie today,” I laughed.
“She wants to go to the dance with you.”
“I know.”
“Who doesn’t want to go to the dance with Aiden? Must be this new surfer boy look he’s going for,” Jordan tried to bait me. He’s been giving a hard time about my hair all week.
“All the girls can’t wait to run their hands through his golden locks.”
I moved away before Jordan could yank on my uncut hair.
“All the girls or just you?” I asked, narrowly avoiding a shoulder punch. Instead, Jordan’s fist sent my Geometry book crashing to the floor.
“Boys!” Mrs. Paulo yelled sharply. “Do I need to separate you three again?”
“No, Mrs. Paulo,” Kevin quickly answered. “Sorry.”
“She’s such a bitch,” I mumbled low enough for only my friends to hear. “Like we’re the only ones not paying attention.”
“Yeah, but if we get kicked out of class again, Coach will have us running laps until our legs fall off,” Jordan reminded us.
“Or stick us in the weight room with the kicker,” Kevin added. “Be quiet. We only have fifteen minutes left.”
“Let’s go to Burger King for lunch,” I suggested. “We can take my sister’s car for one last spin.”
“You’re so sure your dad’s getting you a car, huh?” I sensed the doubt in Kevin’s voice.
My friends know of my dad’s tract record of g
etting me lame gifts. But not this year. Not this birthday. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have a car parked in the driveway when I get home from football practice.
“Yeah, I’m sure. So are you two skipping out on the mystery meat in the cafeteria and coming with me?”
Jordan shook his head. “Can’t. Coach is on lunch duty this week, remember? He’ll notice if we aren’t there.”
I scowled at my friends. They take this football thing way too seriously. We’re only sophomores. Nobody is watching us that closely…except our dads.
Our dads have had us playing football since we were six. It’s fun most of the time. Plus I get to hit people…hard. Comes in handy when my dad starts bitchin’ about my hair, video games, or football practice.
Jordan and Kevin think they have a shot at the NFL. They probably do. I’m sure a Big Ten college will offer each of them scholarships.
Not me.
I don’t care enough. I don’t want to play football for a living. Football is hard work. Practice every day, getting hit by guys twice your size, and constantly competing for a spot on the field is not for me. I do just enough to stay off Coach William’s radar and keep my starting position. No one wants to be a football player that doesn’t start. That’s embarrassing. Cheerleaders like Marcie don’t let you see their tits if you ride the bench.
“What else did you ask your parents to get you for your birthday?” Jordan whispered.
“Nothing. I’m getting a car. Why would I ask for anything else?” I answered in my normal voice. Mrs. Paulo shot me a stern warning glance.
Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t your mom say you couldn’t get a car until you brought your grades up.”
I pulled my folded progress report out of my pocket and slapped it on Kevin’s desk.
“Read it and weep boys! Straight B’s! I won’t be seeing you suckers in study hall this semester! The Firebird is mine!”
“Aiden!” Mrs. Paulo yelled. “See me after class!”
“Ha!” Jordan whispered. “All you’re going to see is detention and the weight room! Better eat your spinach, Goldie Locks.”
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