“I mean about the ‘next show,’” says Val. “The next tape.”
Suddenly Caleb breaks into a wide grin. “Are you kidding? We’re going after it.”
Val grins too and holds up her hand. “That’s the right answer.”
Caleb turns to me. “You think?”
My heart is racing, because here we are again. Now what, then? But Summer knows the answer. “I think.” I hold up my hand, knowing it’s corny. Caleb smiles like he agrees, but we high-five anyway.
“Ohhh-kay, now that that’s settled . . .” Val leans back on the couch, yawning. “I think I will now sleep for a week.”
I check my phone. “We’ve got a Harvest Slaughter to rock in just about thirteen hours.”
“Okay, bed,” says Caleb. He looks at me. “Upstairs couch okay?”
“Sure,” I say. We stumble up the stairs, and he kisses me in the kitchen before I collapse on the couch. Woozy feelings are gone now. There is only the desire to be unconscious pulling me under. And also the sense that I will need as much sleep as I can get, because this . . . is only the beginning.
25
MoonflowerAM @catherinefornevr 15m
There is nothing, I repeat nothing, that pancakes and music can’t cure.
I wake up to a busy kitchen and the smell of frying foods. The complete lack of adequate sleep is partially made up for by mugs of coffee and faces full of pancakes and eggs from Caleb’s mom, whose first reaction to the news about Val seems to be a determination to set the world record for number of pancakes made in a morning.
I find her by the stove as I’m getting thirds. Val and Caleb are immersed in a conversation that has something to do with whether Dave Grohl is a better songwriter or drummer. Charity is dabbing her eyes with a kitchen towel.
“This is probably hard for you,” I say, more because it seems like something you’d say than anything else.
She sort of nods and shrugs at once. “It’s a lot,” she says. “But I’m happy.” She glances back at Caleb and Val. “It’s always just been the two of us here. For a lot of years, I made sure of it. This wasn’t what I was planning on, but . . . it’s good. It’s right.”
I feel a squirm of guilt hearing this, thinking of how dissatisfied I always am with all the family I’ve always had.
Her hand falls on my shoulder. “I hope you’ll be part of it, too.”
I’m completely unprepared for such a not-typical-boyfriend’s-mom kind of thing, but I find myself saying, “That’s the plan.” We share a smile and I bring a stack back to the table, where Val and Caleb are bickering like I used to with my brother. For the first time in a couple years, I miss him.
Later, at the Hive, the band takes it well, too, Jon’s only comment being, “Cool, just now please don’t do any Luke Leia Hoth action or I will slit open a tauntaun and crawl inside.”
“Technically Luke and Leia didn’t know they were siblings at the time,” Matt points out. “But yeah, what he said.”
“Except we’re only half siblings,” says Val. She says it with all the blank stoicism that she’s always had, but this time, I can actually detect the joke, and laugh and be cool with her. Well, mostly.
After practice, I have to return home. Caleb gives me a ride to Aunt Jeanine’s, where I wait until she pulls in, looking exhausted and delighted. “Wonderful,” she reports of her weekend. “I will be making many more weekend flights north. And you?”
“All kinds of amazing,” I say.
“Excellent. I’ll tell you all about the opera on the way, what we ate after, where we stayed.”
“Jeanine, thank you,” I say seriously as we drive.
Her smile fades for a moment. “Long term, we should make it our goal to be truthful with your father. He does deserve that. And so do we.”
“Yeah,” I say, the guilt returning.
“But for today, we are just two ladies full of thrilling secrets!”
My parents buy the story.
“Both schools were delighted to reschedule for a girl to see Tosca,” Dad reports. “We’ll go up on Thanksgiving weekend?”
“Sounds good,” I say, flipping to the calendar on my phone.
“Maybe we’ll make a whole long weekend of it.”
“Well, I’ll have had midterms all week and I might be exhausted.” I say this as I am noticing that the big Homecoming Concert is the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. “Could we wait to leave until after the holiday?”
This of course works, and yet, it makes me sad. After all this, I find myself back in the same role, lying to keep my parents satisfied, with bigger lies than ever before, rather than being seen for who I really am. . . . How much longer can I keep doing that? How much longer can I survive it?
Luckily, my eye notices two other words on my calendar, for the weekend before: Homecoming Dance. I’d been planning to ignore that with malice . . . unless Caleb wants to go. I could actually wear the opera dress. We could be fancy and not care what anyone thinks.
But for tonight, I need to tear up the hideous pink prom dress I bought last week at Goodwill, cover myself in brown, black, and red makeup, and make my hair stick this way and that. My costume is basic zombie princess. It never gets old to imagine a Disney princess as a devourer of brains. It works on so many levels.
Dangerheart is on third at the Harvest Slaughter. They’ve kept it simple with a unified zombie prep school theme. Shredded jackets and ties, faces painted, and all in the shorts and socks like Angus Young from AC/DC. Val looks the best of course.
Freak Show will close out the night, and I see them strutting around the cafeteria bragging about their gig the night before. And when I say cafeteria, I mean Mount Hope’s version, as in, one that has a wall that slides back to reveal a complete stage with professional lights and concert-quality audio. Supreme Commander is playing when I arrive, and the crowd pulses in a frenzy of bizarre costumes.
Right before Caleb goes on, I grab him around the neck and plant my lips against his, right there in the green-and-blue light in front of anyone who might care to notice. I may still be in hiding at home, but not here, not anymore. I know him, I know it’s right, and I know me.
Then I pull back and we bump fists seriously. “Give ’em the ear lube,” I say.
“Pluto strong,” he replies.
And then we kiss again.
“Please stop!” Jon calls from the stage.
Caleb leans his forehead against mine. “Gotta go play a show.”
“Gotta go check out a hot new band.”
“Summer.”
“Caleb.”
Encore kiss. And Caleb bounds up onstage.
“Hey, everybody,” Caleb says, sounding as free and easy as I’ve heard him. “We’re Dangerheart. How’s everyone doing?” He smiles, no Fret Face, and the band proceeds to kill.
Maya appears beside me mid-set. “Hey!”
“Hey! Awesome costume!” I say of her David Tennant outfit. Always a great look on a girl, and her brown suit and spiky hair are perfect.
“You too!” she shouts back. “They sound amazing!”
“Yeah!” I agree. Something about the trip has made the band gel. Exhausted and painted gray and black, you can feel the internal steel of the group. They don’t need to glance at each other anymore. Don’t need to check the songs. Don’t even need to take deep breaths. They just are. I hear a couple things that could be better, of course. But I’ll save them for a while.
“I just sent you a link!” Maya shouts.