Her mother pulls her into a hug before she can give into the urge herself, and she doesn’t resist. She lets her parents help her into her chair and continues to hug them both, doing her best to tune out whatever stupid thing is being said.
When everyone is all cried and hugged out, the real lecturing starts. The bandmates are told how stupid the whole trip was, how disrespectful it was to run away, how they’re all underage and how they know nothing of the world yet.
In the midst of this, a woman walks up to the group. She leans against the van and listens for a moment. “You see, this is why it’s important to get parental permission,” she says. The whole group turns to her. She wiggles her fingers at them with a smile.
The woman has short-cropped blue hair and light-brown skin. The shade of her lips and nails matches her hair perfectly. The silver bangles she wears around her wrists tinkle as she moves and her earrings hang down so low they almost brush her shoulders. Junie’s aunt Nelle. The Angry Whirlpool belongs to her.
“I have to say, kiddos, I’m a little disappointed in you,” she says, taking a few steps forward, her smile hardly wavering. “You said that parental permission was no problem. Then again, I suppose it wouldn’t be if you never got it.” She chuckles. Altogether, she seems far too nonchalant for the situation. “Now, lying and manipulation are wrong. I’m sure you all know that,” she says.
The bandmates nod, all their focus on her. Sure, their parents can yell and ground them and make them feel guilty for what they’ve done, but they can’t actually stop them from getting onto that stage. The Beauty School Dropouts have come this far. They’re not going to be deterred by parental disapproval. Only Nelle has the final word.
“However,” Nelle says, “seeing as all of your parents are here with us, right now, we may be able to come to some sort of understanding.” She looks to their parents. Their parents look at her and then back at their children.
Shawna steps forward first. “Dad, Papa,” she says, “I know we messed up. We shouldn’t have disobeyed you, and I’m sorry. But we’ve come all this way. It’s just . . . it feels like it would be a waste to just quit now.”
Her parents look at one another. She can see in her Papa’s eyes that he’s struggling, not wanting to crush his little girl’s dreams. Her Dad seems to be, as well.
Cass, having gotten past all the mushy stuff, is glaring at her parents, daring them to tell her no.
“Well, you all do whatever you want with your own children. Margaret is coming home with me,” Rev’s mom says.
“Mom, please . . . ” Rev says.
“No!” her mom says. “This is ridiculous. You didn’t even tell me that you had been offered something like this.”
Shawna and Cass look over to Rev. She had told them that her mom had said “no,” not that she had never even asked her.
“I knew you would have said ‘no,’” Rev mutters.
“And you!” Rev’s mom looks over to Nelle, not even acknowledging what Rev said. “Why the hell didn’t you think to contact us? They’re minors! Honestly!”
Nelle smiles and shrugs. “Guess I just trust too easily,” she says. “Besides, I didn’t have your numbers.”
Rev’s mom huffs. She grabs her daughter’s arm and starts to pull her away. “Come on. We’re going home.”
Rev pulls her arm out of her mother’s grasp. “No,” she says, planting her feet and straightening her posture.
“What did you just say to me?” her mom says.
“I-I said no!” Rev says. “This is really, really important to me, Mom. I-I love this band, and I want to . . . I want to do this. I want to do this.”
“Oh, don’t be stupid,” her mom says, rolling her eyes. “You won’t care about this at all in a couple of years, and then you’ll be glad that I dragged you home and set you straight. And remember your stage fright? I’m just looking out for you.”
Rev cringes for a moment, but then Shawna takes her hand. She squeezes it and gives Rev a little smile. Cass is giving Rev’s mom the same glare she gives people who pity her. They’re both behind her, both in her corner.
“No, you’re not,” Rev says. “You’re always telling me that I’m too stupid or weak to do things. You’ve never supported me, not once, and I’m not gonna let you bully me into thinking that I can’t do this, because I can! I know I can.”
Her mother is staring at Rev, mouth open. “How dare you talk to me like that, young lady? I am your mother,” she says. “You get in the car, right now.”
“No,” Rev says. She squeezes Shawna’s hand tighter. Shawna has never seen her speak to her mother like this.
“Alright, fine,” her mom says. “Be like that. Be selfish. I have been worried sick about you for the past two days, but fine! Go and play with your little band and leave me alone to contemplate what a terrible mother I am. Go on! You can find your own ride back home.” She storms back to her car and gets in, slamming the door behind her. She starts the car and drives away.
Rev is clearly trying not to cry.
Shawna pulls her into a hug. “It’s okay,” she says. “That was great. You did great. You’re not being stupid or selfish or anything.”
“Yeah, Rev!” Cass says. “That was totally awesome! For real!”
“I told you there was something I didn’t like about that woman,” Shawna’s Dad mutters to her Papa, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Well, I choose to take that as permission,” Nelle says. “What about the rest of you? I’ll throw in free admission for you to watch your kids play.”
Their parents are silent, each thinking while Rev does her best to calm down.
Shawna’s Dad is the first to speak up. “Okay, look,” he says, “I can see that you all understand that what you did was wrong. You disobeyed us and you could have gotten yourselves hurt. However, I have to admit that it’s hard not to be proud that you managed to pull it off.”
Smiles creep onto each of the bandmates’ faces.
Shawna’s dad turns to the other parents. “Clearly this means a lot to them,” he says. “Maybe we refused to understand just how much, or maybe they’re all just spoiled, rebellious teenagers . . . ”
Shawna giggles. Her dad is making jokes. That’s always a good sign.
“ . . . but I just can’t tell them ‘no.’ And maybe that’s part of the problem, but I’ve never seen a Beauty School Dropouts performance, and I feel like I’m missing out. We can always ground them later.”
Shawna’s Papa is smiling at him. Cass’s parents seem to be going over it in their minds, the cogs visibly turning.
“I . . . I don’t know . . . ” Cass’s mom says.
“Please, mom,” Cass says. The woman’s eyes widen in surprise. So do Shawna’s. Cass being polite to her parents is also something she’s never seen.
Cass’s mom turns to her husband. “What do you think, honey?” she asks.
“I . . . ” he says, then sighs. “Alright. Yeah. Go do your thing.” He smiles at Cass and Cass, for once, smiles back at him.
“Excellent!” Nelle says, smiling and clapping her hands together. She glances at her watch. “I’ll have to push your stage time back a few minutes so you have time to set up, but that won’t be a problem.”
She puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles. Two buff women march out of the club and start unloading the back of the van. Nelle hops into the arms of a third. “Follow me, kiddos!” She laughs like a nineties anime villain as she is carried to the club’s back entrance.
The bandmates and their parents stare after her for a few moments, but the bandmates decide that they have seen weirder in the past forty-eight hours.
“Livin’ the dream,” Shawna says with a shrug. She leads her friends to the back entrance, excitement bubbling in her chest.
THE GUITAR SINGS, AND SHAWNA SINGS ALONG WITH it. She feels her heart beating to the rhythm Cass is banging out. There are lights, there are people, there’s a microphone in her hand that didn’
t come from a thrift store. She’s on a stage, a real stage, singing Rev’s lyrics about running away. Her parents are in the audience, cheering for her. Cass’s are there, too. Rev’s mom is mercifully absent. The crowd cheers for them, loving every minute, loving the Beauty School Dropouts. They even call for an encore.
Well, five days ago, they did. Today, Shawna sits alone in her room, bored out of her skull. Her dads grounded her for three weeks. Cass’s parents grounded her for four and Rev’s mom . . . well, the situation is complicated, at best. She spends a lot of time at Shawna’s house, now. After her mother’s little outburst, Shawna’s dads encourage it.
Shawna hears her phone ping. An email. She picks it up to see an address she doesn’t recognize and the subject It’s Cici.
She fumbles with her phone and opens it immediately.
Hey, Shawna!
I found a part of your show on YouTube. (Attached is a link to the video). You guys are awesome! I’m so glad you were able to make it to your gig. It looked like the crowd loved you.
The cops finally raided my place because of those crackheads, and I had to bounce. It’s whatever, really. I mean, I’m pretty pissed, but I can find another place. I’ll be okay.
You probably shouldn’t come looking for me. It’s pretty dangerous and stuff. I don’t want you getting hurt or in trouble, but who knows? Maybe fate has other plans. But probably not.
Goodbye.
-Cici
Shawna stares at the email, reading it and rereading it at least four times. She closes it and starts to do as much research as she can on her phone about underage homelessness.
Over the next week, she compiles a list of helpful links and numbers and locations. She sends it to Cici’s email address. She tells Cici that she shouldn’t give up, that Shawna is in her corner. She describes everything that happened on the crazy road trip and encourages her to keep in touch. She concludes it with her address and full name.
She anxiously waits around the house for another week, checking her phone every couple of minutes. Once she is released from her grounding, her phone checking dies down a little. The email continues to hang around in the back of her mind, though, and for the rest of the summer she wonders if Cici ever got it. She wonders what she’s doing, where she’s staying, if she’s okay.
She doesn’t get her answers until three days before school begins. She and Cass are helping Rev check things off of a list, helping her calm down and making sure she has everything, when there’s a ping on her phone. She opens her phone and the ping turns out to be from an email she doesn’t recognize with a .edu address. The subject says It’s Cici. She gasps.
“What?” Cass asks.
“Cici!” Shawna says. “The girl from the motel!”
“She finally emailed you back?” Rev asks.
“’Bout time,” Cass groans. “You’ve been yapping about that girl all summer. What’s so important about her, anyway?”
Shawna doesn’t answer, just opens the email.
Hey,
School address. They just give these out to us. It’s nice.
Thanks for that comprehensive list you sent me a while back. Been reading through. Didn’t have much time to research before. It was a good start. Sorry I never emailed you back till now. It would’ve made your offer to crash at your place too tempting. I can’t do that to you.
I’m gonna be going to school again, though. Don’t know how that will help, but it’s what everyone says to do. At least I’m staying in a place that’s not going to send me back home. And there’s food here!
Don’t worry about me too much, okay?
-Cici
Shawna doesn’t read this one through as many times, but she does give it a second look. She imagines herself on the run for real. She imagines herself getting ready for the school year without Rev or Cass or the budget for most of the things on the list Cass is holding. She imagines not coming home, not hugging her dads, not knowing if the place she’s staying is going to kick her out or send her into a dangerous situation. She imagines just being provided with food being worthy of an exclamation point.
She looks up at her friends. None of their crazy road trip would have been possible without the safety net their families provided. Maybe they need to stop singing about running away with such wistfulness.
She looks back to her phone and types out a quick reply. She sends her support again and tells Cici she’s proud of her. She tells her to come visit, if she can, and tells her that she’ll come visit her if Cici wants. She asks Cici to tell her if she needs anything, and that any kind of keeping in touch is wonderful, no matter how long the time gap. After she sends it, she looks back up to her friends.
“If there’s ever a benefit concert for youth homelessness, I want to be a part of it,” Shawna says.
She must have said it with some level of severity, because Rev and Cass don’t say anything back. They just nod.
After a few moments of silence, though, Cass lets out a small chuckle. “Heh. ‘Stay in School!’ featuring the Beauty School Dropouts!” she says.
Rev snorts and starts to giggle.
Shawna just smiles at them both and plucks the school list out of Cass’s hands. She looks it over, intending to buy doubles of everything and find a shelter to send them to.
Rocky Road Page 9