"For real," Allison insisted. "On your way out of the funeral home."
"Great," I grumbled. "My big television debut, and I'm sure it was my finest hour."
"Your hair looked really good," Allison assured me. Allison knew I was sensitive about my hair. "You're in Fame & Fortune, too. They referred to you as Chase Atwood's long-lost secret daughter with Sunset Strip scenester Dawn Beauforte."
"Scenester? Are you sure you're not making that up?"
"I'm reading it right now!" Allison exclaimed. "Wait, a customer just came in. I'll call you back."
I tucked my cell phone into my backpack and reclined on my deck chair, wishing that I could instead be across the city at Robek's making smoothies with Allison. There seriously might have been something wrong with me that I would prefer serving wheatgrass to lounging around a celebrity hot spot, but I was finding my sudden deliverance into the high life a little jarring.
For the last few days my dad had been hard at work on his Blackberry trying to get his summer tour back on track. It was the middle of June, and the tour was supposed to resume the last week of June at the Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. We were still staying at the hotel; I was passing as much time as possible floating on my back in the pool to avoid having to talk to anyone. The suite was amazing; I had my own huge king-sized bed and fancy marble bathroom, but I felt like strangers were holding me captive. I was growing tired of being on good behavior.
"You're getting quite a tan out there," Jill commented as I was passing from the kitchen area of the hotel suite to my room, drying off my hair.
"I guess," I said.
"Kelsey and I were going to go over to The Grove this afternoon to catch a movie. Any interest?" Jill asked.
I entertained the idea of walking through one of my favorite places on earth with my spray-on-tan vegan stepmother and her happy, skipping spoiled brat of a child and immediately decided against it. In my awkward week of hotel life with my dad's family, I had come to understand that the entire world revolved around Kelsey. Her allergist traveled with the family. He had flown to Los Angeles from Turkey with them. Once, Jill commented quietly that this little unexpected trip to Los Angeles was causing Kelsey to fall behind in her French and Spanish lessons. I had caught my half-sister messing with my violin case and when I asked Jill to please make sure Kelsey didn't touch my instrument, Jill instead asked Kelsey if she wanted to learn how to play the violin.
"No thanks," I said. "I think I'd like to just hang out here and take it easy."
"I think it might be helpful for us to have you meet with someone," Jill called after me.
"Like who?" I asked. I automatically sucked in my gut assuming that she was implying that I meet with a stylist. The only thing I had on my mind was slipping away and taking the #20 bus back to my house. I was getting antsy. My dad and Jill were flying to Florida on Wednesday morning and I hadn't had a chance to privately talk to him about what was going to happen to me.
"A therapist," Jill said, as if I should have known. "You've been through a traumatic experience. I think it might be helpful for you to have someone to talk to."
"I'm OK," I assured her.
Jill looked me over skeptically. "When we get back to New Jersey I'm going to have you meet with Dr. Rothstein, my therapist. I really think it would be good for you to share your thoughts."
I was fuming when I got back to my room. I stood under the shower for probably thirty minutes wondering why Jill had the audacity to think I would want to see her therapist or what had given her the idea that I would be accompanying her and Dad to New Jersey. Dad and I had agreed that we would take this thing day by day, but it had been six days already, and I was eager to have my privacy back.
Jill knocked on the door to my room while I was drying my hair to announce that she and Kelsey were leaving, and I took advantage of having the suite to myself for the first time by whipping out my violin for practice. I'm not exactly a tragic band nerd; I feel obligated to point out that making it into the Treadwell Academy Junior Symphony is pretty prestigious. I've taken lessons since I was six years old and planned on majoring in music if I could get accepted into Berklee College of Music or Juilliard. Of course, I had never told my mom any of this. She always encouraged me to try to learn guitar because I think she would have been much more comfortable if I joined a garage band than if I was a concert violinist.
Anyway, that summer I was pretty sure that I wanted to have a career in music. I pulled the sheet music for Vivaldi's Le Quattro Stagioni out of my suitcase and stumbled through it. The composition is four movements, each dedicated to a season of the year. In September I would have to play that composition on a huge stage in downtown Boston and I realized with a bit of humiliation that I had a lot of practicing to do. The first violin solo of "spring" was maddeningly fast and furious, and at its end, when the rest of the symphony joined in, the volume was overwhelming when played live. I aspired to do the violin solo enough justice to make that moment when the other strings are raised as emotional for the audience as it was for me the first time our band leader, Mr. Ferris, played the piece for us.
I struggled with the music; it had been three weeks since I'd even tried to spot read sheet music, and stopped after having completely bungled the piece. I was horrified when I heard clapping outside my door.
"Dad," I exclaimed. "That is so totally wrong of you to listen!"
"Why? You're fantastic," he told me. "I had no idea you were a musician. Although it makes sense since music's in your blood."
I don't know why, exactly, but this comment made me blush. I never really thought about any of my talents or traits having come from my dad.
"I need a lot of work," I informed him. "I have this big thing coming up in September and I need to practice."
"Oh yeah? What kind of a big thing? A gig?"
I was finding myself getting a little tongue-tied. My mother never showed much interest in my violin playing. She had only been to Treadwell once, to drop me off my first year, and had never come to any of the junior symphony concerts. It was a little disarming to have someone taking an interest in my abilities.
"Um, yeah. A big concert in Boston for all of the board members of my school. And I have a solo, so I really need to practice," I told him, and was planning to segue into how this was part of why I really wanted to stay in Los Angeles all summer.
"That is totally, totally awesome," my dad said, smiling like a huge geek. "Can parents go? The tour will be over at the end of August. I'd really like to be there if it's allowed."
I stammered. My plans for securing my escape from his clutches for the summer were dashed when he then invited me to hang out at the studio with him and the rest of Pound the next day while they rehearsed for their tour. For one split second I forgot that my dad is the lead singer and felt totally excited to get to meet the band.
Pound, one of the top-ten selling bands in American history, formed in 1989 when Chase Atwood, Wade Norfleet and Tommy Castro were juniors at Trenton High School in New Jersey. They recruited Dusty O'Shea from a nearby Catholic high school to play drums and began performing gigs up and down the Jersey Shore at legendary clubs like The Stone Pony, where Bruce Springsteen got his start. Their first album, No Rest For The Wicked, was released on Atlantic Records, and the video for the title track, which featured a scantily clad young Cindy Crawford as a waitress on roller skates, got a fair amount of play on MTV.
After the moderate success of their first album, the band members moved to Los Angeles, where they signed with Geffen Records. Their new manager was convinced that they were destined for greatness, and they began playing frequent shows at all of the big clubs in West Hollywood: The Viper Room, The Troubador, The Roxy. Their second album, Stake in the Sound, went triple platinum and solidified their status as major rock stars.
I know this only because the night before I met my dad's band for the first time, I had to look up their history online. Probably half the kids my age acros
s the globe could state the band's basic facts from memory, but I didn't know more than the lyrics to a few of their songs that got a lot of radio play.
The current band line-up consisted of my dad, lead guitar and vocals, Wade on bass, George Bolivar, rhythm guitar, and Dusty O'Shea, on drums. My mother had always told me when I was a kid that drummers are all nuts, and Dusty was no exception. He had frizzy white hair and wore a bandana tied over his forehead to keep sweat from getting in his eyes when he was jamming. George was not an original member of the band; he had stepped in to replace Tommy Castro when Tommy's cocaine problem got too out of hand (I know this from reading Spin Magazine). George was originally from Argentina and was quiet, well-read, and a gentleman. Wade was another story. Wade, my dad's oldest friend, was enormous; a solid 300-pound walrus of a man, with long curly hair and a wicked grin. He was on his third marriage, this time to a sitcom star named Phoebe Morris who played Janice on Allison's favorite show, Seven Seas, about the romantic entanglements of the staff aboard a cruise ship.
"Nice to meet you, little mama," Wade said the next day, shaking my hand so hard that it felt like the bones might break.
I had taken my dad up on his invitation to go to the studio in Beverly Hills where the band was rehearsing, getting their act back together to continue the tour.
"Nice to meet you, too," I said.
"And that over there is Dusty," my dad informed me, pointing to the guy drinking bottled water behind a drum set. "Wade," he said in a stern voice.
I turned to find Wade shrugging his shoulders with an innocent grin, and I deduced that Wade had been checking out my butt. Gross.
"She looks a lot like Dawn," Wade said.
For the record, I do not look much like my mom at all. When my mom was younger, she had a killer body, long wavy hair that cascaded to her waist, and dimples when she smiled. I was still waiting for my curves to show up. As far as boys went, I would have probably attracted more attention from the male species if I were a skateboard.
That morning, I watched the band rehearse all of their classic favorites, and came to realize that my dad was kind of a difficult person to work with. He was somewhat of a perfectionist, and would make the band stop and start over if he heard a missed note or beat. At one point, I saw Wade roll his eyes and then wink at me.
Around lunch time, the band's touring manager, Keith, arrived with a full spread of El Pollo Loco.
"Don't tell Jill," my dad warned me with a smile. Eating junk food at the studio when she wasn't around was his dirty secret. One of several dirty secrets, I would come to understand in the next few weeks.
"This must be the world famous Taylor," Keith said, extending a hand to shake mine. Keith was British and balding, with a big pot belly. One of his front teeth was noticeably chipped and he wore a dangly gold earring in his left earlobe. Despite looking like a stereotypical dirty old man, Keith was instantly likeable.
"None other," my dad told him, tearing into a greasy drumstick and dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.
"Rumor has it you're coming on the road with us," Keith told me.
I had been piling my plate high with Spanish rice and refried beans, but froze. I couldn't very well tell my dad's tour manager and his whole band that I had no intention of traveling with Pound all summer.
My dad was enthusiastically nodding. "Taylor's going to see the whole country this summer," he said proudly. "You ever been to Disney World, Taylor?"
I shook my head. I had never been much of anywhere, other than Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Mom was not too fond of vacations; we never had any money to go far, anyway. One of her boyfriends once drove us all night to see the sunrise at the Grand Canyon. That was as close to a vacation as I had ever been on. Mom reasoned that we had a pool at home and the beach twenty minutes away; why travel?
"Uh, no," I said uneasily, wishing I could ask him to talk privately.
"What about Texas? You ever been to a game at the Astrodome?" my dad continued.
"They've got deep-fried Snickers bars in Texas," Wade added enthusiastically.
"Or New Orleans? You ever walked through the Garden District at dusk? Smelled those roses blooming?"
"San Francisco," Dusty piped up. "She looks like she'd like walking around The Mission and poking around in all those book stores."
"You'll have to take her up to the top of Telegraph Hill," George told my dad. "I just saw a documentary about how they've got wild parrots up there. Cherry-headed and blue crown parrots, just flying around from tree to tree in the middle of the city."
And before I even had a chance to remember that I was firmly against leaving Los Angeles, my head was spinning with the exciting prospect of traveling. Being out on the open road. Nosing around from city to city, shopping for souvenirs, sampling the local cuisine, seeing it all before school started.
"Wait til she gets a load of the Pounders," Dusty muttered under his breath.
I was too caught up in the fantasy of having hours to myself to prowl around new cities to wonder what Pounders were.
********
"So, you're going?"
It was Tuesday night, hours before our red eye flight to Florida departed L.A.X. Dad had dropped me off at Allison's for dinner since it would be the last night, for who knew how long, I would get to hang out with her. We were stretched out on lawn chairs in her back yard watching the sun set, drinking cans of diet soda and waiting for our toe nail polish to dry. Of course my mind was on a loop wondering if Todd might happen to come home early from his part-time job at the ritzy bowling alley at the Hollywood and Highland mall even though he typically worked until midnight.
"I'm going," I said.
"Thank God," Allison told me. "I was really afraid you were going to miss this opportunity."
"An opportunity to be berated by my stepmother all summer for drinking diet soda?" I rattled my can for effect.
"No! To travel with Pound!" Allison insisted. "I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat. You're like… a celebrity now."
"I am totally, absolutely, one hundred percent not a celebrity," I reminded her.
Allison smirked uncomfortably. "Uh, I wasn't going to show you this, but you need a reality check." She stepped inside the house and returned with a dog-eared copy of the previous week's InStyle. She flipped open to the style section full of paparazzi photos and pointed to one of me.
Me. In InStyle. Sitting at the Polo Lounge eating dinner with Jill, Kelsey and my dad. I was grimacing and picking at salad in the photo, not looking especially glamorous. Completely unaware that I even was having my photograph taken. Dressed like a bum with my hair damp from the pool and in a sloppy ponytail. I made a solemn vow to myself to do in the future exactly what Jill had told me: make more of an effort.
Chase Atwood spends some quality time with his girls, the caption read.
"Oh my god," I whispered. "This is horrible. People from school are going to see this."
"Uh, yeah, and they're going to be freaking jealous!" Allison exclaimed. "Do you even know who your dad's opening band is? Sigma! You're going to be on the road with Brice Norris for two whole months. You guys could end up like… becoming close personal friends."
I wasn't interested in becoming close personal friends with Brice Norris or any of the other members of Sigma. I was worried about my dad actually liking me once he got to know me. I was worried about my future, and every element of my life being up in the air. I guess I was worried about everything that might possibly happen, and about missing home.
I have to admit, it was kind of exciting going to the airport at four in the morning in a limousine, and even more exciting flying on a private jet. We boarded the plane with the other members of Dad's band, Keith, and several other members of the touring crew, who all looked decidedly un-rock & roll. Wade and Phoebe's son, Drew, who was Kelsey's age, squirmed in Phoebe's lap. Tanya, Pound's publicist, was already wearing a beige suit and heels at that insane hour of the morning, and was calling ahead to Flor
ida as soon as we were seated on the flight to ensure that the tour bus would be meeting us at the airport.
It seemed like everyone on board the plane had a job to do; there were laptops open and newspapers being read and conversations being had about ticket sales and refunds across Europe. All I really wanted to do was go back to sleep, but it was too loud on board the plane to even think about that. We idled on the tarmac waiting for a runway, and I sat back in my leather chair, watching the sky slowly start to turn pink.
My father had told me the night before that his lawyers had been able to secure parental custody with the city of Los Angeles without having to go to court. He was my legal guardian now, and was having a cleaning crew pack all of the items in my mom's house and place them in storage. My whole life was being put in a warehouse in Santa Monica, and I could go and claim it when I was 18. I was leaving everything I had behind.
"It's a lot to get used to," Jill told me, noticing how overwhelmed I looked. "But you will."
We would be visiting sixteen cities in just nine weeks; an abridged U.S. tour across the South and Midwest, wrapping up back in Los Angeles. It would be more traveling than I had ever done in my whole life.
I put my headphones on and listened to Vivaldi's composition, which somehow I would have to learn by September, and watched the patchwork of lawns and pools that composed Los Angeles grow tiny beneath us after we took off.
********
Now might as well be the best time to mention that I had only kissed one boy in my whole life at that point. And I had decided that my first kiss didn't even really count, because the boy who kissed me never even told me his name. Treadwell Preparatory Academy is two towns over from the St. John's Academy, a private boarding school for boys. Every December, Treadwell hosts a Winter Ball. The girls wear prom dresses and the St. John's boys arrive on a very un-cool school bus wearing their dress uniforms. The whole affair is pretty nerdy but it's all we have; there's no such thing as prom in boarding school life.
The Rock Star's Daughter (The Treadwell Academy Novels) Page 4