Riot Girl

by Laura J Whiskens

  “You’re a real rebel you know, Indi. You’re basically running away from home, but you won’t cut your last class? And I’ll bet you’re hating the thought of missing a couple of days school too, aren’t you?” Daniel shook his head and laughed gently at me. “You’re a real puzzle, you know?”

  “Cut class?” I feigned horror. “Never! And actually, yes, I’m not looking forward to missing school, okay? If I could wait until I could pay for a plane ticket, I would but ‘it’ would be in high school by then.”

  I pushed my apple across the dining table to him and he picked it up, sinking his teeth into the luscious flesh of it while I pushed a handful of fries into my mouth with a smile.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You need to eat more fruit, it’s good for you,” I said with a mouthful of greasy fries.

  “Yes ma’am,” he rolled his eyes playfully. “Just make sure you call me when you get there, okay? Call me at the diner so I know you’re safe.”

  “Yes sir,” I smiled.

  I turned to wave goodbye as I boarded the bus; Daniel had insisted on driving me to the station. He made his hand into a mime-phone, gesturing for me to remember to call him and I nodded in response.

  He’d loaned me his Walkman and I’d loaded the front pocket of my backpack with tapes to listen to on the trip. Tucked away in the larger compartment of my bag was a book and assignment from English class. Rebel indeed, I thought to myself. Daniel had even put together some food for me from the diner. He was such a worrier.

  Under normal circumstances I might think he was cute; but these were definitely not normal circumstances, the movement in my stomach reminded me.

  The bus pulled away and I took one last look back at him. I was a little sad. If things worked out the way I’d hoped, I might not see Daniel again.

  I settled back in my seat and felt a light tap on my shoulder.

  “When are you due, honey?” a grey-haired lady smiled kindly and nodded to my stomach.

  I was a little taken aback; no one at home had noticed-even my own father-but this stranger had taken one look at me and spotted the pregnancy right away.

  “I have ten weeks left,” I rubbed my belly with a smile before settling in for the long ride ahead.

  I arrived at the record label building in the early afternoon. I was tired and my clothes were crumpled but I was relieved to have finally arrived.

  My relief was short lived after being taken into a side room by a guy who called himself Paulie. He was apparently The Riots manager now

  I’d spent the last ten minutes trying to explain that Roy, the scout, had arranged with Joel and the others to send for me once they’d signed to the label. I’d told him that Joel had promised he would send me a bus ticket so I could join them out here.

  “Listen honey, I’m sure that he made all kinds of promises to you, but that was before he came to LA! This is no place for a nice girl like you, and at this point in his career it’s no place for a girlfriend.”

  “But please, it’s important,” I pleaded with him. “I can’t get through on the number Ray gave me and I have to speak to Joel.”

  He looked me up and down and sighed.

  “Sweetheart, this is California. They’ve got no time for girlfriends, or babies.” He put his hand into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of notes. “Take this, and take care of it – for everyone’s sake.”

  Paulie pushed a wad of crisp notes in my hand and walked away down the corridor. I placed a hand on my swollen belly. I was eighteen, thirteen weeks pregnant and I had just risked life and limb to hitchhike half way across the country to come here, to the label offices, after failing to get hold of any of the boys.

  The guys had left twelve weeks earlier and had been signed immediately after they’d auditioned. In the first couple of weeks I’d gotten three or four calls a week; sometimes from Joel on his own, sometimes from the three of them from their hotel room.

  After I’d started throwing up into the third week and feeling dizzy, I tried to call the hotel they’d been staying at and was told that they’d moved on. Thanks to a helpful receptionist I knew that the studio had set them up with a small apartment because they’d agreed to stay on in California to work with the label’s management team, but Paulie had refused to tell me where the apartment was.

  I was positively furious with Joel. How could he just leave me? How could they all have just forgotten me like this?

  I felt light-headed. It had taken just over two days to get here, jumping from bus to bus on my travels. It had been almost a day since I’d last had anything to eat or drink. I looked down at the money in my hand; there must have been a few hundred bucks there. I balled my hand into a fist and cried tears of anger and frustration.

  I knew that there was no way I was going to get past this wall of people to get to the guys; not in this ‘condition’, they probably had pregnant teens traipsing in and out of the place all the time in their line of work. Drug fuelled parties and drunken orgies–pregnant girls were a dime a dozen in rock star land.

  I thought over what Paulie had said to me–‘Take care of it.’ I knew exactly what he meant, but I didn’t know if I had the courage to go through with that, not by myself. It was way too late for an abortion anyway, and I had wanted to talk it over with Joel before I decided whether or not to go through with adoption.

  I’d come here to speak to Joel, my best friend and father of this child growing inside me, and ask him what to do. I couldn’t make the decision about its life without talking to him first. I wiped my eyes on my shirtsleeve and resigned myself to the knowledge that I’d be leaving here without doing that.

  After an exhausting, frightening journey over here, I would be leaving just a couple of hours after arriving. I’d get some food, for the baby’s sake–though I felt too sick to eat in all honesty–and then I’d get a bus home. Paulie was paying, after all.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I sat on the bus on the way home in a numbed state. I was afraid that if I allowed myself to feel anything that I’d break down in tears and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from falling apart.

  Paulie’s words kept playing on my mind. I didn’t know if I could just give my baby away. He or she was all that I had now. The thought of abandoning it like my mother had done to me made me sick to my stomach.

  Joel had left me-Billy and Waz too-and it stung. They’d been my best friends, my family, and we had gone through thick and thin together, until now. They had simply forgotten me.

  It had been more than six months since I’d had so much as a phone call from Joel. I had genuinely believed that he loved me, or at the very least that our friendship had meant something, even if our relationship had been a complete lie.

  Now I had to go back home with my tail between my legs. Thank God that only Daniel knew where I had been; that in itself was humiliating enough, without anyone else knowing.

  I would have to tell my dad about the pregnancy now, and the school guidance counsellor, Miss Smith. There was no avoiding it any longer, it was time to confess to my stupidity and deal with the fall out of it all.

  My stomach did a flip, which had nothing at all to do with the baby.

  We met at the park and sat on the grass in the late evening sun. Daniel listened to my tale with disgust and surprise, just as a good friend should.

  “They wouldn’t even let you speak to him?” he was outraged for me. “What assholes!”

  “Nope; so the whole thing was a complete waste of time and money,” I replied, wiping a tear from my face. “And I’m still no wiser about what to do. I did come to the conclusion that it’s time to tell people though, my Dad included.”

  “I can’t believe no one’s noticed already,” he admitted, putting a protective arm around my shoulder. “Those shirts shouldn’t be fooling anyone, least of all your own dad.”

  I looked down at my faded black Aerosmith t-shirt and shrugged. “No one ever noticed me before, why would they star
t now?”

  “I noticed you,” he said quietly, retracting his arm and looking at his hands self-consciously.

  There was an uncomfortable silence and I noticed that Daniel’s cheeks had the faintest pink blush across them.

  “So. Who are we going to tell first?” he asked, to break the silence.

  “We?” I replied, eyebrows raised questioningly.

  “Yes, we. You don’t think I’m going to let you go through this part on your own do you?” he took my hand in his own and squeezed it gently. “You’re my friend and you need me, whether you’ll admit it or not Indi.”

  “You don’t need to do this Daniel, you don’t owe me anything,” I argued. “No one has to know you were even aware of the pregnancy.”

  “I want to. I hate the idea of you having to face these judgemental assholes on your own; it’s just not right,” he replied stubbornly.

  I was conscious that he was still holding onto my hand; I was even more conscious of the fact that I didn’t actually mind. It felt surprisingly comforting that Daniel, of all people, had my back. I just wondered when and how our unlikely friendship had blossomed from mild irritation to this.

  I squeezed his hand back. “Thank you. You really don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “I know. But I want to; as long as that’s okay with you.” He smiled and bumped my shoulder with his own.

  We stood in Miss Smith’s office. She was the school guidance counsellor. She had hardly spoken as I had confessed my pregnancy secret.

  She finally broke her silence.

  “How irresponsible of you Indiana; you’re not planning to keep it, surely?” the disapproval dripped from her words.

  Miss Smith was a round, middle-aged woman who had never married or had children of her own. With her life experience, or lack of, I wondered how she was qualified to give guidance. Her greying hair was pulled back into a low, tight bun and her pale blue eyes were watching me with a look of disdain.

  "It's my baby," Daniel spoke up, causing my jaw to fall open in shock. "Indi and I plan to keep it, giving it away isn't an option."

  I was vaguely aware of being swept up into Daniel's lie, although I wasn't quite sure where it had come from or where it was heading.

  Daniel took hold of my hand, gripping it tightly as a show of unity-or, possibly to stop me from falling down in shock.

  "Daniel, bringing up a baby is a life changing decision," the guidance counsellor replied. "There are other options for people in your position."

  "We made this baby, we'll be the ones to bring it up," he insisted while I stood there like a human goldfish, my jaw bobbing open and shut in an attempt to find my voice. "That's all there is to it."

  "Right, well we need to call both of your parents and arrange a meeting," she said. "Arrangements need to be made for Indiana's schooling. Indiana?"

  "Uh?" was all I could manage in response.

  "Sit down, dear-you look very pale. I'll get you some water and arrange for your parents to be called," she pulled out a chair for me and I fell into it gratefully. "Stay here both of you, I'll be back in a few minutes."

  She glided out of the room and the door clicked shut behind her. We waited a few moments before speaking.

  "What the hell?" My voice returned at last. "What were you thinking?"

  "I'm sorry Indi, I was thinking on my feet," he looked quite pale himself. "If they knew you were on your own, that the father is gone, then they'd push you into giving it up. If it's both of us together they'll back off."

  "But your parents!" I felt sick to my stomach, all of the ways this could go horribly wrong were rushing through my mind.

  "I know," he groaned. "But it's done now, we'll have to ride this out. There's no going back, okay?"

  I paused to think. What choice did I have? Daniel was right, they’d push and push until I felt I had no choice but to give the baby up. But with a father by my side they'd have to listen to what we wanted. The fact that Daniel wasn't actually the father was just a technicality at this stage; we'd work the details out later.

  "Okay, you're crazy but okay," I agreed.

  We sat in horrified silence as we waiting for her to return and tell us our parents were on the way. I wondered if my dad would bother to come. He'd never been called to school about me before; I wondered what would be going through his mind on the way here.

  The thought of announcing my pregnancy to him made my head spin. He'd be angry, I knew, but I fantasised that for once he'd be the father I wanted and needed instead of telling me I was a disappointment and no better than my mother.

  And Daniel's parents! I knew of them, of course. In a town as small as this I'd have been hard pressed not to have seen them around. They were quite well-to-do and lived on the nice side of town in a beautiful big house with preened gardens. I imagined his mother fainting when she was told her precious son had gotten a piece of trailer trash knocked up.

  "Your mother..."

  "She'll faint, for sure," he finished my sentence with a small smile.

  I laughed; I couldn't help it. It must have been hysteria, or hormones. Daniel joined in and before long tears were streaming down my face as I gasped for breath. We must have looked like lunatics when the guidance counsellor finally returned.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Oh my, Daniel!” Daniel’s mother, Rebecca, cried out, her hands flying to her mouth with dramatic flair. Her perfectly styled blonde hair was cemented with hairspray and her manicured hands screamed: “stay at home wife”.

  Daniel’s father, James, helped her into a seat before she fell down; he was a handsome older clone of his son with grey hair starting to creep across his brown mop of hair. James hadn’t had a lot to say so far, he was apparently the strong and silent type, taking it all in stride. But there was a lot going on in his head, I could see it in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Ma,” Daniel looked genuinely upset and I felt a pang of guilt to be the cause of their distress. “Indi and I, we didn’t plan this. But it’s happened and we would like to keep our baby, it feels like the right thing to do.”

  Our baby, I thought. The lie rolled so easily off his tongue; I wanted to confess- to tell them all that this was really Joel’s baby and that Daniel was just trying to help me. I couldn’t understand how this had escalated so quickly.

  “Oh my,” Rebecca repeated breathily. “What will people say?”

  Miss Smith nodded sympathetically, her duty to her two students temporarily forgotten as she revelled in the drama unfolding around her.

  “She’s not keeping it, not while she lives under my roof,” my father growled, speaking for the first time since he’d arrived. He reeked of stale alcohol and cigarettes.

  If we hadn’t been in a room full of people he might have tried to hit me; as it was, he was barely keeping his anger under wraps. I shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware of both the physical and emotional differences between my father and Daniel’s.

  “People will think what they want to think,” James finally spoke up, drawing the surprised attention of everyone in the room. He had a quiet, determined tone. “And Indiana and our grandchild will not live under your roof, Mr Jones.”

  Daniel’s face transformed, confusion causing his brow to wrinkle. “Dad?”

  “The apartment over my office has been gathering dust, we can set the three of you up in there,” James continued. “But, there is one condition.”

  Rebecca and my father looked at James in something like horror-or perhaps utter shock.

  “What’s that Dad?” Daniel looked paler than his mother by now; clearly he hadn’t been expecting this reaction any more than his mother or I were.

  “You must both,” he said pointedly, looking from Daniel to myself, “finish school, and- if God willing you get the grades- you will both go to college. You will need your education if you want to give this child the life it deserves; that you deserve.”

  I stared at James in disbelief, my mouth hanging open in surprise. I gl
anced briefly at my own father, who was glaring at me with pure hatred. I knew that James had his own law firm, a small local business with a two-storey building in the middle of town. I presumed that the apartment must be above his offices.

  Daniel looked at me and gave a small nod before turning to his parents. He stepped forward tentatively before embracing James; I thought that I heard him give a small sob but he was standing with his back to me so I couldn’t be sure.

  “I expect you to provide for your family Daniel,” his father stepped back and looked Daniel right in the eye. “Your mother and I will help you but you’ll need to learn to manage school with your job alongside the baby. It’s going to be hard work, son, especially once you’re both in college. But if you want this, truly want it, then we will help all that we can.”

  Rebecca sobbed into a tissue that Miss Smith had passed to her; she was no doubt worried about what her friends from the tennis club would say. My father stormed out of the room, slamming the office door behind him.

  I felt overwhelmed and abandoned by the only family I had left, and I burst into tears. I was embarrassed about crying in front of people I barely knew, but I couldn’t stop it. Tears streamed down my face as Daniel embraced me; it felt awkward and I found myself hoping that his parents and Miss Smith didn’t pick up on it. After all, we were supposedly in a relationship and expecting a baby together, a hug shouldn’t be awkward between two people who were meant to know each other intimately.

  Mostly I was overcome with emotion at the understanding and incredible generosity of Daniel’s father, but I also had an undeniable feeling of drowning in this web of lies. I felt trapped by it all and out of control of, not only my own life, but that of my baby’s.

  But if I confessed now, what would happen? Where would I go? My dad had made it clear that I couldn’t go back to live at the trailer if I wanted to keep my baby.

  And, in spite of the overwhelming fear, I did want to keep my baby.