CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Getting back to the apartment with Amber and Sam’s help is no big deal. I’m limping a little, but there’s no serious injury to my kneecap. Situating my paints, brushes, and other materials in my room is also no biggie. My bedroom is large enough to set up the big floor tarp, easel, canvas, and supplies, no problem. The nap I take for the next several hours flies by like it was nothing. It’s exactly what I needed to settle my nerves. But the telephone call that Amber gets while I’m relaxing into the pillows on my bed . . . now that’s a really big deal. A really big, horrible, awful deal.
“What do you mean you need me in Japan?” she asks. She looks at me in confusion, as if I can explain what the person on the other end of the line is trying to say to her.
I sit up, my heart going cold. Somebody wants her to leave, and it sounds very urgent. I pray that our mothers are okay and that no one has gotten hurt.
“I thought everything was fine. What’s going on with Ted?” She falls silent, listening to the explanation that I can’t hear. I feel slightly less panicked knowing that Ted’s the issue and not our moms or Ty.
I try to lean in so I can eavesdrop on the call, but I have to bend my knee to do it, and the twinge of pain I get reminds me that I really should just lie back and relax. I can wait for the news she’s getting until after she hangs up the phone.
Amber, who was sitting next to me on the bed, stands and starts pacing the floor. “How could you guys let this happen? He was supposed to hang on at least through the end of this leg of the tour.” As she listens to the caller’s explanation, her expression morphs through several emotions: confusion, anger, frustration, and then, finally, acceptance. “Are you sure you can’t handle this without me? Em is here. She came all the way from Maine.”
I turn and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My knee doesn’t hurt that much. It’s just a bruise. My sister is seriously stressed-out, and if I’m understanding this right, she’s about to take off across the globe. I need to get up and do something.
“Can Em come with me?”
I nearly have a heart attack hearing that. I wave my hands at her and frown, telling her Hell no as best I can without actually shouting it like I want to. The day I go to Japan will be the day after Hell freezes over. I don’t care that more than half my family is there. My feet are not leaving American soil. I have a hard enough time communicating with strangers in my mother tongue, so I can only imagine how I’d handle Japanese people trying to speak to me. Holy nightmare.
She sighs heavily, brushing me off with what looks like disappointment. “Fine. I’ll book a flight out as soon as possible. I’ll send you a text with the details. I assume you’ll send me a car?” She nods when she gets her answer. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you soon.”
She hangs up the phone and sighs. “You’re never going to believe this.”
I try to smile. “Don’t tell me, let me guess . . . They need you in Japan and you have to leave yesterday?”
She stares at her phone as if there will be answers on its screen. “Yes. Apparently, Ted just got fired, so now they’re over there in Japan and everything is falling apart and they need me to help put it back together. Our mothers being there probably isn’t helping. My guess is they had something to do with this shake-up.” She hisses out a long sigh and looks up at me apologetically. “I am so sorry. I dragged you down here to spend time with me, and now I’m abandoning you. I feel like a serious jerk.”
“No, don’t say that. But don’t they have anybody else who can handle this . . . whatever it is?” The comment about our moms is worrying me, but they’re grown women; surely they don’t need their twenty-five-year-old daughter to come to their rescue.
“They don’t, actually. Ted was the guy who took care of everything, and I’m the number-two person . . . or I was the number-two person. I guess I’m temporarily the number-one person now. The band really counts on me for a lot of stuff. They trust me. They’re a little paranoid about who has their best interests at heart after all the things Ted did.”
Bitterness rises up in me over her prioritizing these men over our plans, burning me up. “Maybe they don’t like the idea of us spending time together.” That would be in keeping with the way they’ve acted for the last twenty-five years. They don’t really care about our family; they only care about themselves and what’s convenient for them. And Amber being attached to me and our home is very inconvenient.
“No, that’s not it at all. They would never do that. They totally respect the bond we have and are happy for us. Honestly, I’m more worried about Ty than I am about the rest of them.”
“Why? He’s a big boy, isn’t he? Can’t he handle his life by himself?” My sister thinks she has the solution to every problem in the world, and normally it makes me proud of her . . . but today, not so much.
She gives me a scolding look. “Of course. He’s a grown man and a professional musician, but his integration with the band hasn’t been the easiest thing in the world—as you well know because I’ve already told you all about it—and right now with them being in a foreign country and their manager taking off and all that crap . . . and Sam being here after Ty hasn’t seen him in years or even talked to him besides inviting him out here . . . It’s just a lot to deal with. I think it would be easier for all of them if I were there to help smooth things over. I’m part of the team now, and that’s a big deal for me.”
Anger and sadness that she’d leave so easily bubble up inside me. “Since when did you become so integral to the band’s success?”
“Since when did you become such an angry person?” she counters. “Usually you’re very understanding. You never begrudge Rose the time she spends at the clinic doing her thing, so why are you giving me such a hard time? Is it because I’m leaving you behind? Because you could come, you know . . .”
I look at her like she’s crazy, hoping to be able to deflect the truth I feel in her words. “I’m not angry, and I’m not begrudging you anything. I’m just asking you a legitimate question. You’re right . . . you did ask me down here . . . or you begged me to come down here is more like it, and now here I am and you’re leaving. Is the band more important to you than I am?”
She walks to the door, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m not going to justify that not-legit question with an answer. You’re in a bad mood because you hurt your knee and because I’m leaving you behind right after you came to visit, and I get that. It sucks. But I don’t really have a choice if I want to do my job properly and help keep the band from imploding. Now . . . I don’t want to say anything in anger that I’ll regret, so we can talk about it some more after I pack.”
“Fine. I’m going to pack too.” I move toward my suitcase.
She stops in the doorway and spins around quickly. “Pack? No! You can’t!”
“What do you mean, I can’t?” I’m already halfway done, and my leg is working just fine.
“You have to stay.” She sounds panicked, when what she really is, is crazy.
“I’m not staying here; don’t be ridiculous. You won’t be here, so why should I be?”
“Because Sam is here! You can’t just leave him here by himself.”
I laugh. She’s making zero sense. “Why not? You are!”
She sputters, at a loss for words.
A bratty, evil comment jumps from the recesses of my brain and out of my mouth before I can stop it. “What’s the matter? Are you worried he’s going to steal your peacock feathers while you’re gone?”
“Feathers? What . . . ? What are you talking about?”
I fold my arms over my chest as my breath heaves in and out and my ears burn with the angry emotions building up. I want to stop, but the words keep spilling out. “You know that’s not a real Jackson Pollock in your foyer, right?”
She holds up a hand and closes her eyes for a few seconds before opening them again. “Okay, you’re obviously still suffering the effects of that wine, so I’m just going to let this stuff go. I’ll be back in a half hour after I’ve packed, and we can finish talking about this if you want. But maybe you should take a little nap and sleep it off in the meantime.”
“I already took a nap. Maybe you should take a little nap and sleep it off.”
So, yeah . . . That was the lamest comeback ever delivered in an argument, but nothing else is coming to mind, so I’m stuck with sounding like an angry third-grader. I’m so mad at that stupid band, I can’t think straight. What a bunch of jerks. They’re destroying my family! Red Hot, my butt. More like Red NOT. They’re so used to the world revolving around them that it doesn’t mean anything for them to pull my sister away from her short visit with me. The fact that they’d even ask her to come when they know I’m here just to hang out with her tells me that they think they’re top priority over everyone else. Who am I anyway, right? I’m just the girl who refuses to acknowledge that they’re these saints who think they can buy us out and pretend like they never knew we existed before three months ago or whatever. And our mothers are just going along with this garbage, apparently. I’d say the band is doing a pretty good job of ruining everything in my life, but they’re not doing it single-handedly; they’re getting help from the women I love most in the world, and it’s killing me.
Amber leaves without another word, so I grab my suitcase and go back to the bed, taking a seat on the edge of it with my bag next to me. What am I going to do? Pack or not? She wants me to stay here with Sam. Craziness! Does she actually believe that Ty’s brother and I would hang out? Go do touristy things together and get along like long-lost buddies? How ridiculous can she be? Has she not lived with me for the past twenty-five years?
I know for a fact how it will turn out: I’ll spend the entire time in my bedroom, and he’ll either do the same or disappear into New York City and have a good old time with all the women who will throw themselves at his broody, handsome self. He doesn’t need me here any more than I need to be here for him. In fact, I’ll probably just get in the way of him turning this place into his own personal sex lair.
I go over to my purse and pull out my cell. After dialing the farm’s number, I wait for someone to answer the phone. Our mothers aren’t there, but Harold is. When I left, he moved into the house to help take care of things, but I’m sure I’m needed back there. Without me, the entire operation is going to be barely stuttering along. This doesn’t have to be about Amber or Sam; this could be just about my life missing me. Harold will make the decision for me, telling me I’m needed back home. I just need to hear the words and I’m gone, gone, gone. Like Gone Girl, but without the fake murder part.
“Hello, Glenhollow Farms,” a man’s voice says. He sounds younger than Harold.
“Hi, this is Em. Who’s this?”
“Hey, Em, it’s Smitty. How are you? How’ve you been? Are you enjoying New York City?”
My stomach suddenly feels hollow. I do not want to talk to Smitty right now, but I guess I have no choice. “I’m okay. Just wondering how things are going over there. Do you need me back, by any chance?”
He laughs. “You’ve been gone for less than a day, and you already want to come back?”
God, he’s so irritating. “No, not really.” I lift my chin, annoyed that he’s laughing at me. “I was just, you know, wondering about the animals.”
“Everything is fine. Five of your regular long-stay visitors came in today, and they’re getting settled in. All the chores have been divvied up, and everybody seems happy to do their part. General consensus seems to be that it’s about time you guys had some time away from the farm.”
“Oh.” My heart plummets into my toes. I had no idea my life was so boring to people on the outside of it. Am I the only one who likes my life?
“You sound disappointed that everything is going so well.” I can hear his big, fat smile in his voice. I’d so love to throw some dirty straw in his face right now. He did it to me once when we were ten years old, and his payback is long overdue.
“I’m not disappointed.” I chew my lip, trying to come up with an explanation for my call that makes any sense. “Maybe just feeling a little useless.” I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth. I don’t need to invite Smitty into my private life. He’ll probably see it as me making a move on him. He knows me well enough to recognize that I don’t volunteer personal details very often.
“Hey, if you want to come back, come back; this is your home. But don’t come back because you’re afraid to be there.”
I pull the phone away for a couple seconds to frown at it. Ugh . . . that word again: afraid.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say when the phone is back at my ear, offended that he’d say such a thing to me. Pfff. Like he knows me at all.
“You know exactly what it’s supposed to mean. You don’t like the city. You don’t like people outside of your little circle. You’re probably just looking for an excuse to come home because you’re afraid.” He laughs. “Bawk, bawk!”
My face goes hot. What is he . . . ten years old? Why am I even talking to this idiot? “You know what, Smitty? Shut up. You’re a jerk.”
He laughs. “I love you too, kid. So are you coming back or not?”
“No, I’m not coming back. I don’t need to come back there. I’m not afraid of the city. I love it here. I went to the September 11 Memorial today. And it was crowded. It was loaded with people from everywhere. Total strangers. It was very moving, too. Very emotional.”
“Oh yeah? I think I’ve read that about that place.”
I let out a long sigh at the laughter I can hear in his voice. He’s hopeless, and it’s pointless to be mad at him when I know it’s just myself I’m disappointed in. Smitty is right: I am scared. I don’t want to be, but I am. “You are such a boob. I’ll talk to you later.”
He laughs out loud this time. “Yeah, I’ll see you soon.”
I hang up. Smitty’s wrong; he’s not going to be seeing me soon, because I’m staying here. And then when I get back, I’m going to avoid him like the plague he is. I chew my lip as I think about the space between the rock and the hard place I’ve just wedged myself into. I don’t want to do what Amber has ordered me to because she’s not the boss of me and I’m mad at her; but I’m also not going to give Smitty the satisfaction of chickening out. Ergh, this is so frustrating!
I really don’t have much of a decision to make. My sister wants me to hang out here with Sam? Fine. That’s easy enough to do. Heck, I’m already here and totally unpacked. So I’ll stay, but not because she expects me to. I’m staying because I know what it’s like to be dumped in Manhattan and left to fend for myself not knowing anyone, and quite frankly, it sucks. Sam might be cool with that kind of thing, but then again, maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s like me. He seems like a sensitive person who might appreciate having someone he knows nearby. And if that means I have to go do some touristy things with him, well, so be it. This has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that I think he’s handsome either. I sure hope he won’t think that. I’ll have to come up with a way to explain to him why I stayed behind so he doesn’t get the wrong impression.
Smitty and Amber are wrong about me. I am not afraid. Smitty and I may have gone out a few times, and we may have slept together once, but that doesn’t mean he knows me. Nobody knows me. The tiny mean-girl voice in my head is saying maybe even I don’t know me, but I ignore her; she’s full of shit.
I leave my bedroom on a mission. I’m going to notify my sister of what’s what and tell her not to worry, that everything is being handled. She can run off to be with her precious band and I’ll stay behind to handle things, just like I did when she left us to live in Manhattan. And then I’m going to go find Sam and ask him what he wants to do while he’s here, and we’ll make plans to do it. Every single thing he wants to do, from walking to the top of the Empire State Building to inline skating in Central Park . . . it is going to happen. I am going to be the best damn hostess anyone in this city has ever seen. Stranger danger . . . thhhppbbtt. Please. But first, before I do any of that, I’m going to use the bathroom, because my guts are suddenly in knots.