“I’ll come with you.”
“No,” I answered quickly, “stay. You’re having fun. I’ll be okay. I just need some quiet.” The crowd had its hands in the air, waving them as the crystal ball sparkled in the lights. The room spun.
She looked at me doubtfully, but I gave her a weak smile and pulled my arm out of her grasp. “Seriously. I’m fine.”
I made my way toward the door to the upstairs. Thoughts swirled in my head, making a mix of their own, colliding and repeating until I couldn’t hear just one. What would happen if Georgia heard the mixes? Would she recognize the recordings? Dad had signed her out of my life, made a decision for me. But it was his signature on the paper, not mine. I didn’t like going against Dad. I wished I didn’t have to, but Georgia needed to know I was here, waiting for her. And I wasn’t going to let a piece of paper get in the way of that.
- 25 -
Lou
I tracked Dad as he headed for the office, bumping into Maya in the doorway. Until Dizzy played her last mix, it had been a good night. People were dancing and having fun. Nights like tonight almost make the daily grind worth it was what I had been thinking. But the look on Dad’s face had brought things to a crashing halt.
“Everything okay?” Donnie asked. He was standing at the back with Rudy. The two of them stood out in the crowd, thirty years older than everyone else. Like a couple of kind uncles, they’d come for Dizzy, not because they were into the music.
Trust Donnie to notice something was awry. There were too many people around to tell Donnie what I thought had happened. I brushed away his concerns. “Dizz probably got overwhelmed or something. Nerves,” I said with a shrug. But Donnie raised an eyebrow, seeing through my weak story.
Jeremy appeared by my side. “Can you help me set up?” he asked. “Dizzy took off.” And left all her gear on the table: headphones, vinyl, playlist, laptop — a big no-no for a DJ.
I couldn’t say anything to Jeremy about why Dizzy had left the turntables so quickly. In fact, I’d have to lie about it to him, too, if he asked. Make up a story about Dizzy not feeling good, or something. I followed him up to the front. It took a while to get his gear plugged in, untangling the cords and carting over his vinyl and laptop. Finally, when everything was how he wanted it, he slipped the headphones around his neck and checked the sound levels. “You good?” I asked. He nodded and dropped the needle on the first record.
I shouldered my way through to Dad’s office door, but it took a while because I knew too many people. Lots of back slaps and Hey, how are yous as I made my way across the store. A few people asked about Dizzy, curious to know how old she was and how long she’d been spinning. From the corner of my eye, I saw her burst out of the office and beeline for the upstairs. Maya caught up with her, but Dizzy left on her own, and Maya got folded back up into the crowd swelling toward the front as Jer’s set took off.
“Dizzy okay?” I asked Maya.
“Headache,” she said, pointing at her temple. She frowned and opened her mouth to ask something else, but I nodded agreeing with the lie and walked away quickly.
I opened the door and stepped inside the office. Dad was sitting on the couch, elbows resting on his knees, head hanging to the floor. I shut the door behind me, locking it. The relative quiet was a relief. He ran a hand through his hair and looked up at me. “Did you know Dizzy was going to use those songs?”
I almost lied. The word no was on the tip of my tongue. “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know she was going to, but I heard that mix before. I knew they were in there.”
Dad swore under his breath. “Sit down,” he said, abruptly. I did. The springs of the couch creaked under my weight as he stood up and went to the safe behind his desk. He pressed the buttons to open the combination. Cash from the register sat on the top, and underneath it, important papers: deeds to the store, our birth certificates, passports, tax and bank papers. He came back to the couch with a manila envelope and dropped it on my lap. It was addressed to the store and the return address was a law firm in New York. I looked at Dad, unsure of what to do with it. “Open it,” he said.
I pulled a thick stack of pages out, dated ten years ago. Dad’s signature was on the front. There was another one below.
Dad waited a minute before he spoke. “Remember that last time, when she came back?”
How could I forget? I nodded.
“I thought she wanted us back. Thought that was why she’d come.” He shook his head. “I remember how she looked at you when she was leaving. Tried to fool myself into thinking it was regret. That she wanted a fresh start with us.”
I looked at Dad, confused.
A pained look crossed his face. “Then, a few days later, I got this.” He pointed at the papers like they were filthy. “Wasn’t regret on her face. It was guilt. She knew what was coming.”
“What do they say?” I asked, thumbing through them. Pages and pages of legal mumbo jumbo.
“If I do anything to ‘jeopardize Georgia’s career,’ they’ll come after me. Sue me.”
It was hard to swallow. My mouth had gone dry. “Who will?”
“Record company, management. Her lawyers have it all written in there.”
“Is it legal?”
Dad shrugged. “Hell if I know. I didn’t have the money to check. Just signed the damn thing. Didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t want us in her life.” Agitated, he stood up and started pacing. “Tried to explain this to Dizzy. Those mixes she made with Georgia’s songs, they could be trouble.”
I raised my eyebrows at Dad. He usually let things roll off his back. Seeing his hands balled into fists and the furrow in his forehead meant he was worried.
“Georgia’s lawyers hear those songs, they might think I’m breaking this contract, trying to stir things up.”
“And then what? You think they’d come after you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just an empty threat.” But there was too much doubt in his words for me to be reassured.
“Does Dizzy know all this?”
“Not everything. Told her about the contract, but not what happens if we don’t follow it. She’s still a kid. Shit like this is hard enough for me to figure out.” He was right. It knocked the wind out of me to know the lengths Georgia would go to make sure we stayed buried in the past. It reminded me of The Elders of Warren and the Shadow Children. This village lived their whole lives underground, hidden from the world. We were the Shadow Children, to Georgia at least. In the end, it was the Shadow Children who rose up from the darkness to help the hero defeat the evil wizard. Not sure Georgia could be considered an evil wizard, but she’d sure as hell trapped us.
Jeremy’s set was reaching a crescendo. The walls reverberated with the beat of the music. “What are you going to do?”
Dad sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “Dizzy’s gotta stop with the mixes. I know it’s her way of working through things, but it’s a bad idea.”
I’d seen how Dizzy looked at the poster when she thought no one was watching, the way she’d been slaving over her mixes, determined to make them perfect. Dad didn’t know, but Dizzy’s songs had gained more listeners than I’d expected. A fifteen-year-old girl who could spin was fodder for the internet. People loved sharing stuff like that. And with DJ Erika as one of her biggest fans, her songs were gaining momentum. Telling her to pull them would be a bitter pill to swallow; she had to put on the brakes just when she was getting started.
- 26 -
Dizzy
The music from Jeremy’s set pumped through the store, vibrating the walls upstairs. I’d spent the last half hour staring at the baby picture of me with Georgia. I kept studying it, hoping to get some answers — as if her expression would give something away or she’d suddenly open her eyes and speak. There was a knock on the door and Lou poked his head in my room. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” I said and tucked the photo under my pillow, safe with the other picture of Lou as a toddler, peeking through Georg
ia’s legs. Lou stayed in the doorway, leaning against the frame. His lanky body stretched along most of it. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically.
“Your set was good. Up till the last song.” Stepping into my room, Lou sat on the floor cross-legged, like how he used to when we were kids.
“Guess you talked to Dad,” I said. “He told you about what he signed? That agreement?”
Lou nodded.
I frowned at him. “I can’t believe he did that.”
“I can,” Lou replied. “He thought he was doing the right thing.”
I glowered at Lou. “He lied to us. He signed away our chance to get to know her.”
“He was looking out for us.”
I snorted. “He made it impossible for us to have anything to do with her.”
Lou looked at me, pissed off. “She gave him the contract, not the other way around.”
I clenched my jaw, not sure who I was angrier at: Dad for signing or Lou for arguing with me. “She’s our mom. He can’t just sign away a future.” That was what bothered me the most. It was so final. He’d shut the door on me ever getting to know Georgia. He was my dad, he should have known better.
“Dizz! It wasn’t Dad, it was Georgia. Why aren’t you mad at her?”
“I am! I’m mad at everyone. It’s all bullshit.” I waved my arms in the air. “But she’s not here. Dad is.”
“That’s a lot of misplaced anger,” Lou muttered.
I huffed at him. “What do you care, anyway? You’re always saying she doesn’t matter to you.”
“I don’t care about her. But she pulled some sneaky legal manoeuvre and I’m pissed off. One more reason I don’t want anything to do with her.” He took a breath and looked at me. “And I’m pissed at you, too, for being mad at Dad,” he added.
We sat in stony silence, the beat of the music from downstairs filling the quiet. “Maybe it wasn’t her idea. Maybe she was forced to sign it.”
Lou arched an eyebrow. “Held at gunpoint and forced to sign? I don’t think so.”
“Is it so bad to want to believe she didn’t disown us?” I asked him. It might have been from the pressure of DJing or the argument with Dad and Lou, but tears prickled behind my eyes. “I don’t want to believe the worst about her.”
The music downstairs stopped and Jeremy’s amplified voice thanked everyone for coming. “I better get down there,” Lou muttered. He stood up and looked at me. “You can’t keep using her music.”
I raised my chin defiantly. That was what Dad wanted, too, for us to slink away. The easy thing would be to forget about Georgia, put her records back on Dad’s shelf, hide the photos, and pretend she meant nothing to me. Lou had done that, or he claimed he had. Would I feel better if I did that? Or was it like pulling a blanket over my head? It would work for a while, but eventually, I’d need to come up for air.
“Dizzy,” he said warningly. “I’m serious. There was more in the papers, stuff Dad didn’t tell you. It’s bad for all of us if you keep stirring things up.”
I hadn’t stirred anything up, not yet. He gave me a final glance, heavy with warning, and then left. His feet pounded down the stairs to the store for a final round of goodbyes and to help Jeremy put the store back together. I slid lower on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what he’d meant.
He’d only been gone a few minutes when there was another knock on my door, more tentative than Lou’s. “Dizzy?” Maya called softly. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” I said. She opened the door gently and came inside. Her face was flushed from dancing. I curled my legs in to make room for her on my bed.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked, sitting down.
The secret swelled in my chest. It rose and fell like a breath. I couldn’t keep it bottled up inside me. I needed my best friend to know what was going on. But, if I blurted it out, told her about who my mom was and why she’d never come back, it would change things. Maya might be mad I’d kept the truth from her, or maybe she wouldn’t believe me.
There was noise downstairs, the door chime beeping steadily as people left. Furniture scraped the floor as it was moved into place. I swallowed, suddenly feeling shaky. I’d shared lots of my deepest secrets with Maya — embarrassing moments, who I had crushes on, how much I wanted to be a DJ — but this one was so big, it was burning a hole in my throat. “I need to tell you something,” I began. “This is going to sound crazy.” I paused, unsure about where to start. I pulled the photos from under my pillow. I lay the photo in front of her and watched her face. “That’s me.” I pointed to the baby.
She blinked and bent closer to the picture. “Is that your mom?”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing. “Can you tell who she is?”
Maya scrunched her eyebrows together, taking a closer look. “No.”
“She was Georgia Hay then. She changed her name to Waters later.”
“Georgia Waters.” Maya’s jaw dropped. “Georgia Waters?”
“Yeah.” I exhaled. The secret was out. “And this one” — I pushed the one of Lou, Dad, and pregnant Georgia to her; Georgia’s red hair hung long on either side of her face — “is everyone. She’s pregnant with me.”
Maya swore under her breath. “Is this — are you serious?” she looked at me doubtfully. “Is this a prank?”
I shook my head.
She gaped at me. “Georgia Waters is your mom?”
“I can show you my birth certificate, if you want. It says Georgia Hay, but it’s her.”
She was quiet for a while, digesting it. She picked up the photo of Georgia holding me and examined it, then looked at me, unsure. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Dad didn’t want us to tell people. He still doesn’t. You have to promise to keep it a secret. You can’t tell anyone,” I pleaded. “Not your mom, no one!”
“I won’t, I swear. But …” She shook her head. Her mind was probably spinning with questions. “Why don’t you see her? Why is it such a big secret? God, Dizzy.” Maya looked at me dumbstruck. “She’s loaded. You should be living in a mansion somewhere.”
“She left when I was a baby, before she was famous. Just disappeared one day. Dad didn’t hear from her for years, and then one day, when I was about five, she showed up. It was just before ‘I Will Run’ came out.” That hit song had propelled her to international fame.
Maya looked at me expectantly. “And then?”
“That’s it. That’s the last time we heard from her.”
“You’re kidding? She’s never visited or called or anything since then?”
I shook my head. “It’s like we don’t exist to her. Dad signed something when she came back the last time, some kind of agreement. We can’t ever talk about her or try to see her.” An angry lump made it hard to swallow. He’d signed away my right to ever know her.
“Wow.” We were both quiet for a few minutes. Maya looked at me, her eyes filled with sympathy. “It’s hard to believe. I mean, to have her as your mom and keep it a secret. It’s nuts, right? You’d think someone would have figured it out by now.” Maya sighed, shaking her head in shock. She twisted a tendril of hair around her finger. She frowned and studied the photos again. “I can’t believe it. You’re Georgia Waters’s daughter!”
“Are you mad I never told you?”
Maya furrowed her brow. “No, but I keep thinking you’re going to say, ‘Just joking.’ You’re telling the truth, right? This isn’t some crazy practical joke.”
Part of me wished it was. In a weird way, it would have been easier to know I’d been abandoned by an ordinary person.
“It’s not a joke.” I sighed.
Maya held up the picture of Georgia holding me and studied it. “She looks so peaceful.”
“Like she’s dreaming of somewhere else,” I added quietly.
“What about when she’s in town for her co
ncert? Do you think she’ll try to see you again? Are you going to go?”
I wanted to go, to see Georgia perform. Now that Maya knew, I wouldn’t have to go on my own. But it would mean breaking the stupid contract and going against Dad. “I’d have to keep it a secret. Dad and Lou would freak out if they found out I went.”
“We could try to get tickets online or something.” Maya screwed up her mouth and I knew she was trying to figure something out.
“We?”
“Yes, we. As if I’m letting you do this on your own.”
I wanted to lunge across the bed and hug her.
“We could take the bus into the city and find someone selling tickets,” she suggested.
I shook my head. Even though Dad paid me when I worked, most of the money went toward my phone. I knew I didn’t have enough in my bank account to buy a ticket. “They’d cost a fortune and your mom would ground you forever if she found out.” But her idea gave me hope. Maybe there was a way we could see her. As surreal as it would be to see Georgia on stage, it might be the closest I’d get to her.
Footsteps, Lou’s, from the sound of them, came upstairs. There was a knock on the door and he poked his head in. “You staying over or you want me to walk you home?” he asked Maya. She jerked upright and checked the time on her phone. “Oh, crap!” she groaned. “I better go.” Amid all the drama, I’d forgotten she was grounded. Apparently, so had she. She jumped off the bed and gave me a hug goodbye. “Call you in the morning, unless I get caught and Mom takes away my phone,” she whispered to me. “Thanks, for, um, telling me.” She shook her head in disbelief and made big eyes at me, a silent signal for Holy crap! as she left with Lou.
I listened to their footsteps retreat down the stairs and the door chime as they left. I wished I’d told Maya years ago. It felt good not to have the secret between us. Dad had been wrong about the dangers of telling people, certain people, anyway. The guys knew; why shouldn’t my best friend know, too? I slid under my covers, tucking the photos under my pillow.
There could have been a hundred reasons she’d signed that contract. She might not have known what she was signing; record companies are infamous for sketchy behaviour. I needed to know for myself that Georgia didn’t want to be a part of our lives.
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