dad, the one who took me on camping trips and to Cubs games and shot hoops with me in the driveway on Sunday afternoons. But good-guy Dad had left the building.
“Matt already asked Jessica if she could baby-sit, and she said yes,” I said. Matt played bass and sang lead in the band, and his girlfriend thinks Rosie is the cutest kid on the planet. “It’ll just be in Chicago so it’s no big deal. Joey’s uncle will be there. The meet isn’t until late afternoon tomorrow, so I’ll have plenty of time to rest up.”
Dad avoided my eyes. “I’m sorry, Danny,” he said. “The meet is just too important to take that chance. The whole team is counting on you.”
Figured he’d pull that “whole team counting on you” thing. Like my life wasn’t my own. Like the purpose of my existence was to fulfill the expectations of other people. And usually, that’s exactly what I did.
Well, almost. There was still that one huge secret I was hiding from Mom and Dad. I never did get around to telling them, not after everything that happened.
“But—”
“End of discussion.” Mom got up, gathering plates and silverware, clattering them in the sink like punctuation. Period. Exclamation point.
After they kissed us good-bye and reminded us to do our homework and lock up the house at night, they left for their trip and Rosie and I went out into the garage. Mom was letting me drive her Toyota for the weekend, and I needed to drop Rosie off at school before I went to Naperville South.
Rosie peered out the window and grew silent, which was unusual for her. Usually she gabbed away about school and her friends and the solo she was working on for dance class. And maybe this sounds cheesy as hell, but I listened to her too.
“You okay?” I finally asked her. “You’re not worried about Mom and Dad, are you?”
“Nah.” She loosened the light blue scarf around her chin. “Not more than usual anyway.”
Sometimes she sounded more like a sixteen-year-old than a kid who was nine. It made me a little sad, like she was growing up too fast. “I know what you mean.”
When I stopped the car at the curb in front of the school, Rosie just sat there, face nestled into her pink parka, not getting out.
“I want you to go to that concert tonight,” she said at last, turning to look at me.
“What?”
“I want you to go to that Blues House place. I like your band. And I really like Jessica too.” Her face was solemn, determined. “And I won’t tell.”
I guess it’s pretty clear that Rosie and I were not your typical seventeen-year-old guy and his bratty nine-year-old sister. We’d been through a lot together and were the only people in the world who really understood what it was like to be inside our screwed-up family.
“You mean it?”
“I mean it.”
Rosie gave me this huge smile as she grabbed her backpack from the floor, got out of the car, and twirled around once, twice, three times on the grass, before skipping up the front steps to school.
As it turns out, the guys and I never did get to meet the band backstage at the House of Blues that night. I have a vague memory of the concert itself—a head-banger of the first degree—but Joey’s stupid Uncle Phil was full of shit.
“I never promised I could get you backstage,” Uncle Phil told us after the concert, standing at the stage door with his arms crossed like he was made of stone. “All I said was that I could try and deliver your CD if you wanted.”
“That’s not what you said yesterday,” Joey shot back. “Are you serious, Uncle Phil? Man, I should’ve just listened to Mom.”
“Why? What’s she saying about me now?”
“Forget about it.” Matt grabbed Joey’s shirtsleeve. “Let’s just go.” He nodded politely at Joey’s Uncle Phil. “Thanks for getting us the tickets. It was a great show.”
When a defeated Joey handed Phil our CD, I was embarrassed by how amateurish our cover art looked—some guitar in flames that Joey’s sister painted for us in art class. But whatever, our sound was good, and that’s all that mattered. Phil accepted the CD and nodded at us, purposely avoiding Joey’s blazing expression.
“I’ll make sure this gets to the right people,” he promised us, like he was this amazingly generous guy instead of a total douchebag.
Matt thanked him profusely, I managed a non-committal-shrug, then we all turned and walked in