“This isn’t a game. We can get you tested properly, but it’s completely up to you whether you want to or not. I understand if you’d rather wait. It’s a lot to take in—your father coming home, him having a disease, things changing as we adjust to it all. You may not want to know if you’re likely to develop it. You’re allowed to not want to know.”
Silence.
“Would you?”
I switched my attention from the coin to her. She didn’t look nearly as happy as she had earlier. She rested her body against the doorframe for support, her freshly ironed skirt pressing against her knees.
“I—I don’t know.” Mum’s voice was quiet. “When I was at an age where I was thinking about having kids? Absolutely. Now, though? I … I don’t know.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. If I had Huntington’s, my children could get it, too.
We remained in silence for a few minutes. One part of me felt relief. Leaving, running away with Dave, suddenly sounded a whole lot more appealing. I wouldn’t have to deal with it—I wouldn’t have to be here for this.
The other part of me was shocked I could try to live a normal life when everything I’d ever thought was real was crumbling.
“Tails, I have it. Heads, I don’t.”
I flipped the coin. It flew up in the air, circling its way inches from the ceiling then crashing back down to the floor where it landed next to an empty soda can.
I watched it bounce once, twice … then looked away.
“Well?” Mum asked.
I pursed my lips. I didn’t want to look anymore. It had seemed like a good idea, but now—now it just seemed scary. I didn’t want to know about my problems. Dad’s were enough to deal with.
My shoulders started to shake, and I fought to control them. Mum came rushing over, her arms around me, rocking me back and forth as all mothers are programmed to do.
I didn’t cry. I just sat there, arms by my side, and let her hug me, stroking my hair like she’d done when I was a little girl. When she eventually stopped she picked up my bin and the empty soda can, taking them outside to empty into the trash.
After half an hour, I managed to swing my legs out from under my quilt and put them on the floor. They felt steady, fine. I was in control.
I grabbed my suitcase from the corner of the room and did a final check, and then zipped it tight so none of the items inside could escape.
I wasn’t leaving for two days, but Dave had a show in Sydney tonight, and I was going to watch. Maybe I could stay with him till we left town for good.
Breathe, Kate.
Breathe.
There were eight hours till the gig. I could go downstairs to the house computer, check all the travel arrangements and finalise the band’s request lists for the gigs.
As I pulled the door closed, something caught my eye in the middle of the bedroom floor.
I walked over to it, seeing the coin where it had finally landed after its third or fourth roll. I took a deep breath.
I needed to know.
It was tails.
Chapter Four
EVENTUALLY I left the sanctity of my bedroom, had breakfast, and mucked around on the Internet for a little while. I checked that all the tour information was correct, that we did indeed have accommodation and transport and funds for petrol organised for the entire two-week trip. Next, I updated the band’s social media sites, tweeting and posting that “we are so excited to be on the road soon” and blah, blah, blah, “isn’t it going to be amazing, there will be so many babes.”
It was so weird. I often wondered if the band’s fans would be in such a rush to DM me naked photos of themselves, or shots of their boobs, if they knew the person writing on the website was a girl.
Although, the fact that I monitored it meant the band didn’t know about the constant and gratuitous offers of sex, either, and that certainly wasn’t something I was about to let slip.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked Mum. She was in the kitchen, hovering over the chopping board, bread, ham and tomato in orderly piles next to the knife.
“In the bedroom.” She delicately arranged the ingredients and cut her sandwich into two precise triangles. “He’s a bit clumsy today.”
“Oh.” I took a soda out of the fridge and sat at the counter, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“He’ll be out soon.”
I took a long gulp, letting the cool bubbles swell in my mouth. I didn’t want to be in a house where my father was locked up like a little kid. Tour couldn’t come fast enough.
The more I thought about it, the more I struggled to breathe. The air was thick, choking my lungs, invading them with a sense of despair I wasn’t sure I could cope with.
I pushed back the hair from my face and clenched my jaw.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I had to get out of there. I grabbed my suitcase from upstairs and clunked it down the hall, two steps at a time, rolling it past the kitchen.
“Bye Mum,” I yelled, as I slammed the door behind me and headed out to the first show of the tour.
The relief I felt as I walked out the front door, the weight lifted off my shoulders, was astronomical. My steps were lighter. The sun was shining out from behind a particularly dark-lined cloud.
There’s something to be said for the art of running away.
After the hour-long drive to Sydney I found an easy park, just around the corner from the club. Stacey and I met out front, arriving what we hoped was fashionably late. Unfortunately, so did the other four thousand fans attending the “intimate” Coal gig that night, meaning four thousand other barely-dressed females stood in line with us, waiting to have their IDs checked and stash their oversized bags, some of which seemed to use more material than their outfits. Apparently, some of the girls attending had taken the term “intimate” as a dress code, not a venue size.
“When are they on?” Stacey checked her watch for what felt like the millionth time. For someone whose boyfriend wasn’t in the band, she sure was keen on seeing the start of the show.
“How come? Are you worried you’ll miss seeing hundreds of girls screaming at Michael?” I teased, nudging her with my shoulder. Stacey coloured, just the tiniest bit.
“Oh, Kate. Stop looking at me like that.” Stacey laughed, and fished around in her handbag for some lip gloss. She found it and reapplied, even though her lips already flashed with the sheen of glossy perfection.
“Well, you know, it is a little odd.” I took the proffered gloss from her hand and quickly swiped it over my own lips. “Usually you ignore Michael, or pretend to vomit if he so much as accidentally brushes your shoulder.”
“Did you ever think that maybe I miss the attention?” Stacey looked out at me from wide blue eyes as we shuffled forward in the queue.
“Stace, don’t toy with him. I know he acts all goofy, but I’m fairly certain he actually does have a heart.”
“Tickets and ID,” the burly security guard instructed, and I handed them over, noting the tribal tattoos on his incredibly thick arm.
I wondered if he’d have much work to do tonight, shielding Coal and their incredibly hot lead singer, Lee Collins. Then I wondered if he’d have to protect Dave and the band from all the scantily-clad, super boozy girls strutting around the place. The band had played a few gigs lately, and Dave sure seemed to get a lot of attention from the girls. Would he prefer to be with one of them, and have a no-doubt Huntington’s-free lifestyle?
I shook the thought from my head, grabbed my card and ticket stub back from the security detail and walked inside the club, lifting my feet with extra effort as they stuck to the thin, dirty carpet.
The room was brightly lit with a red-painted bar in the corner, next to the doorway that led to the room with the stage in it. All around us people were hanging out, draped over railings, slumped against chairs, or milling in the drinks line.
We joined the queue and slipped through the gaps, trying hard to avoid to
uching other fans and covering ourselves in their sweat.
The main room was more packed than the foyer, people crammed in together near the front of the stage where I could see the familiar amps and drum kit of Dave & the Glories. The ratio of girls to boys was about 70:30. The chance of my toes being trod on through my flat sandals by a girl in stilettos was dangerously high.
“So, did you see your dad after graduation?” Stacey cupped her hand around her mouth to yell at me.
Huh. You could say that.
“Yeah,” I yelled back.
“Did he apologise? What was his problem?” A girl dressed in a black, shiny miniskirt rammed into my back, sending me reeling forward till I crashed into someone else’s arm. This venue was hardly the ideal location to share my family’s deep, dark secret.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said, and she left it at that.
“Do you want to stand near the front?” Stacey leaned close to me, and I smelled a hint of beer on her breath. She’d been in Sydney all day. Clearly she was ready to party.
“It’s okay. It might be a little lame.” I didn’t like being front and centre when Dave played. It made me embarrassed, which I knew was silly. After all, if he played football I wouldn’t have any hesitation standing on the sidelines to watch him at our local clubhouse.
But your local clubhouse doesn’t have a 70:30 ratio of girls to boys, Kate.
And the girlfriends at football games attend these outdoor events during winter. They’re definitely wearing more clothing than the ones in attendance tonight.
The noise became deafening as the lights dimmed. Stacey gripped my wrist in excitement, flashing me a huge grin. This was it. The moment had come. The boys were going to go on stage.
Dave strode out first, followed by Michael, then Benny, and Nick, the newest member to the group. The girls screamed and squealed, and I saw the flashes of hundreds of cameras go off, highlighting the boys’ frames against the backdrop. My heart started to beat faster. That was my boyfriend people were cheering for.
A rush of pride enveloped me, and I screamed out with the rest of them. It was a wordless yell, just noise contributing to noise, but it felt good. I’d helped organise the tour and here they were, on the first night. This was really happening.
“Sydney, you are looking good tonight,” Dave said, as if he didn’t live just over an hour’s drive away. He picked up his guitar and extended his arm ninety degrees from his body, sweeping across the audience. “We’re so excited to be here, supporting one of our favourite bands, the awesome Coal!”
If the screams had been loud before, they were deafening once he said the other band’s name. Not waiting for the din to die down, Michael struck his guitar, the drums let out an almighty smash and the band kicked into motion. I lost myself in their music, swaying slightly to the beat. It was one of their newer songs, a high-energy, fun number I’d only heard a few times. Dave sung the lyrics into the microphone, his hips gyrating against the stand as his guitar hung, unused, from his neck.
The chorus started and he grabbed the guitar and strummed it, power emanating from him. The crowd yelled in approval, and I saw Dave bounce back from their energy, giving more and more, playing harder, louder, and faster than I’d ever seen him play before.
“I’m gonna kiss that girl goodbye,” he snarled the hook line of the chorus with no backing behind him. When the music roared back in, the cheers started again. The excitement was palpable.
“That’s your boyfriend,” Stacey squealed in my ear, shaking her hands up and down.
Dave launched into a guitar solo, ripping through notes and flinging the neck of his instrument around like it was the most consuming musical break known to man. The crowd loved it. I saw the girls at the front of the stage screaming, their hands in the air, reaching up to try to touch him whenever he’d come dangerously near the stage’s lip.
The solo finished, and Dave let the guitar hang again, then clasped both hands around the microphone as he sung the chorus one final time. The girls down the front screamed appreciatively once more. I could just see their platinum-blonde hair highlighted in the stage spotlights.
“I’m gonna kiss that girl goodbye.”
When the last line was sung, I saw Dave make direct eye contact with somebody in the front row. And he winked at them.
Winked!
My boyfriend … He’d winked at someone?
Was I allowed to be upset about this, or not?
Should I be?
The crowd erupted, jumping up and down and applauding for a band that only two months ago was virtually unknown. I pushed the thought from my mind and instead tried to focus as they launched into their next song, a slower number with a driving bass line, one they’d written years ago.
Stacey thrust her hips in time to the music, shimmying with the beat, and soon, a pair of male arms snaked around her waist. I smiled. Trust her to get the attention of what felt like one of only five males in the building.
I turned my attention back to the set, losing myself in the music as the boys played a short collection of songs I knew like my own personal anthems. When Dave let out his final cry—“We are Dave & the Glories, good night!”—my heart swelled with pride. The crowd was screaming. They’d played well. My boyfriend’s first major gig had been a success.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I said to Stacey, who still had her arms wrapped around her new friend’s neck, even though the music had stopped.
After showing the security guard my stamp, I strolled up the stairs, wondering what I’d do to kill time for the next five minutes or so. Of course, once alone, my thoughts flew to Dad.
How much worse would he get?
How long would he have?
And—shit—what should I expect from this stupid counselling appointment tomorrow?
A girl in a silver skirt barged my shoulder as she walked past and I stumbled into the wall, catching myself with my blunt nails.
Am I invisible, I wanted to yell.
If I get the disease, will I be? I knew that kind of disappearing act. It was the kind of invisible people are when they’re publicly drunk, or have a mental illness; everywhere they walk, people turn away, busy their eyes, their hands and their minds.
I turned around and headed back to the foyer. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I searched out Stacey, and found her with her mysterious new suitor, lips locked.
I just couldn’t find the words.
“They’re signing autographs.”
“The opening band?” A girl standing behind me squealed. I pricked up my ears, full eavesdropping-mode kicking in.
“Yeah, Dave and the something-or-others. They’re just inside the doors to the room.”
Treasuring this nugget of information, I made my way back toward the stage area. Talking to Dave, feeling his arms around me, his voice telling me everything would be all right was something I needed to get through the rest of the night.
I scanned the room and found a clump of girls surrounding a small table with some shirts and CDs pinned to the wall above it.
I approached, seeing the boys talking enthusiastically to a group of six girls in front of them. They were all smiling and laughing.
I took a deep breath. Was I jealous that the girls talking to Dave were pretty? Or was I jealous that with them he seemed happy and carefree, whereas his last two interactions with me were all about my family problems?
When I was three feet away, Dave leaned over to the leader, a girl with blonde hair wearing a low-cut black singlet. The girl lifted up her singlet, holding the front over her head so she could see out underneath it … as my boyfriend, Dave from Dave & the Glories, slowly signed her boobs with a black Sharpie marker.
He didn’t use his hands to hold the Sharpie in place.
Instead, he used his lips.
Chapter Five
WHEN I saw my boyfriend sign another girl’s chest, it was too much. Instead of marching up and confronting him, embarrassing him
in front of his newfound fans, I ran to the bathroom, shut myself in a cubicle and concentrated on breathing.
Which was I more upset about, the boobs or his smile?
This really wasn’t a big deal, was it?
But why did he look so happy?
Even as I heard the sentence in my mind I knew it sounded lame. What sort of a rock star wouldn’t sign boobs? It was bad marketing for him to refuse that kind of attention. And it wasn’t like he kissed her, or anything.
The delicate notes of the start of a Coal song filtered into the bathroom, mixed together with the sound of faucets and flushing.
Keep it together, Kate.
I pulled up my pants and pulled myself together, running downstairs to the sold out main room where thousands of girls were now pulsing to Coal’s beat. It was easy to fall into their music, and I found myself swaying, hypnotised by the talented lead singer, Lee Collins, the first singer I’d ever had a celebrity crush on. I tried to ignore the sick feeling twisting my stomach into knots and watched the rest of the gig with Stacey and her new friend who, by the final song, were shamelessly making out on the dance floor.
Dave found me leaning against a wall next to the overly affectionate couple when the music stopped, and I was so glad to be getting out of there I’d all but forgotten the incident earlier. This was our night. The night.
As soon as his hands wrapped around my waist and his lips pressed against my cheek, I shivered, desire flashing through me.
“Can we get out of here?” I whispered in his ear. Dave snapped his head around to my face and kissed me on the lips, hard and passionate, tasting of beer and sweat and success.
“You bet,” he said into my mouth. He grabbed my hand and led me to the backstage door so he could get his guitar, flashing his pass to let me through security.
Backstage was nothing like I’d expected—no red carpet, no chandeliers. Instead, it was stark white light in a messy room with carpet that needed a serious cleaning. A table of untouched food was set up in one corner and an empty cooler in the other. The back wall was covered in graffiti, signatures of bands that’d played at the venue before. I stared at the wall, trying to see what the famous people wrote, how different it was from standard high school graffiti.
The Problem With Crazy Page 4