Chapter Eleven
Everything about the last thirty minutes has been strange, not the least of which being the room I unexpectedly find myself alone with my father in. Not the plush backstage green room set up with food and drink. Fuck, this isn’t even one of the stark dressing rooms. Just a small, dank closet filled with…cleaning supplies?…and my dad sitting on a folding chair dressed rock star chic in leather pants and an open flowing black shirt, holding a crystal glass of no doubt scotch in his hand.
My gaze darts around the room before landing on him. “The crew couldn’t find you a better dressing room than this, Dad? Or was this Eric’s idea?”
He laughs at the joke when even I can tell that struck an off key. “Small venues are a pain in the ass to find private space. Dillon found this for me.”
“Resourceful guy. He also stole my car tonight. My ’69 Chevelle, no less.”
Alan quirks a brow, amused, but I can see through his façade. The car comment isn’t a news flash to him and he knows that wasn’t a joke. I can also see that he’s tense, very tense over something. The strongly carved features of his face are taut and his burning black stare more forceful than usual tonight.
I lean back against the door, my hands shoved deep in my pockets as I try to figure out what this is. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on? First Dillon shows up at my door to drag my ass here. Then my car turns up missing. And then I get shoved into a storage closet to find my dad waiting for me, looking very intense. Not my average preperformance routine while on tour. I’m starting to feel like I’m in a Tom Clancy novel.”
“No. It’s more like John Grisham, I think,” my dad says thoughtfully, setting his glass on the concrete floor. “Yes, one of his stories where no one is as they seem and you don’t know the truth of what’s going on until the end of the book.”
Now this is starting to alarm me. Stupid—there’s nothing about him that should get my worry to run away with me, not even that weird nonsense about Grisham—but, oh, I can feel it. Something isn’t right here right here. Inane chatter out of Alan; never a good sign.
“OK, Grisham it is. Now why don’t we move on to you telling me why you wanted to speak alone with me in a storage closet”—I check my watch—“about twenty minutes before I’m due on stage, Dad?”
I’m not sure which causes his gaze to sharpen, my tone or my words. “That seems reasonable. Only that’s not how it’s going to go, son. I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do tonight, you’re going to do it until you’re told you can stop, and you’re not going to ask questions, Ethan. Not of me. Not of the bodyguards. Not of anyone. You speak to no one about this and you just do. Understood?”
Frankly, no, not understood, and where the hell does my dad get off talking to me that way? My reply is only loudly thought in my head. From my mouth, nada, because here’s the rub: when your dad’s Alan Manzone you don’t argue shit, not even totally bizarre shit like this.
I jut my chin. “You got a bottle? Something tells me I’m going to need to get loaded before we’re through.”
He retrieves his glass from the floor and brings it to me, holding it out. “Not enough to get a halfway decent buzz, but be my guest.”
I wave off the drink. “I was only joking, Pop. I’m not Eric. I don’t need to get wasted to talk to you.”
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, and what registers on Alan’s face sends prickles across my body. Fuck, that comment was uncalled for—true, but it wasn’t right to say it.
All families have ugly truths they never speak. That was one of ours, and my inability to get my head around what’s happening here is no excuse for letting it rip in what I can already tell is a difficult moment for my dad.
I meet his steady stare. “Hey, I’m sorry. It’s been a stressful night. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
His lips pucker as he nods. “I’ve had a bit of that today myself.”
He shakes his head and his fingers claw his shoulder-length jet hair, the first visible sign that something is bothering him.
“Are you going to tell me why we’re in a storage closet together?”
His eyes widen and he pats me on the shoulder. “As good a place as any to start, I suppose. Why is it the things we have clearest in our thoughts are always the hardest to talk about?”
I shrug. “I guess because they’re the important things to us, usually. People only think a lot about the things that matter.”
“That’s probably it. I used to think a hell of a lot about things with your mother and invariably screw them up with my mouth.”
I smirk. “I hate to tell you this, Pop. I don’t think you’ve changed. Mom’s just gotten better at knowing what you mean, not actually what you say.”
He’s laughing now in a loose, semi-exhausted way. “God, I love that woman.”
There was no need for him to say that since it’s the one thing about my dad that none of us kids have ever been confused by or questioned. Alan wears his heart on his sleeve for my mother. For damn sure I know where I inherited that trait.
There’s a loud knock on the door, then Dillon shouts, “Fifteen minutes, Alan.”
My dad’s humor vanishes, and he’s all seriousness again. “Your brother’s not here tonight, Ethan.”
Not exactly a surprise. Not with what went down with Hugh and the guys at the label. Fuck, I wonder if he knows about that and the trouble Eric’s been in, and if that’s what this is. I do a fast once-over of my dad. I can’t tell for sure.
“You’re going to go on stage for your brother tonight.”
He says it like an order, and now I get what’s happening here. Yep, he knows my brother’s in trouble. And everything that’s happened since Dillon showed up at my door has been just another exercise of Eric screwing up and Dad fixing things for him.
Some things never change. Down to the ambiguous, overly intense minutes preceding clarity, and my dad expecting me to help shovel shit with him. Only the circumstances have changed, because if this is about saving my brother’s career it’s a lost cause.
My temper flares. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Saving Eric from himself again. We didn’t need to have private father/son time for you to tell me my brother fucked over the band tonight by not showing. Not exactly something new. It’s not even the first time this tour he’s skipped out and left us hanging.”
“I know. There isn’t anything that happens with any of you kids that I don’t know. But tonight is different. More important. Tonight we need to pull together as a family for your brother. You need to go out there on stage for Eric and put on a flawless show.”
I shake my head, crossing my arms at my chest. “No, Dad, not this time. I’ve already covered for him more than I should have this tour. It’s not going to make a difference with the band or the label or anyone. His career is finished. He doesn’t come back from the shit he’s done this tour, and I’m fucking tired of trying to keep him above water when he doesn’t try to swim for himself.”
My dad’s gaze turns razor sharp. “You misunderstand, Ethan. I’m not asking you to stand in your brother’s place. I’m asking you to be Eric tonight. To put on a flawless show of being him.”
My head spins and I’m not sure I heard him correctly.
“You’ve done it before—pretended to be Eric—when you were kids. No one can tell you apart if you don’t want them to. That’s all I’m asking you to do tonight. One night, pretend to be him to help your brother.”
“What? That’s insane, even for you, Dad. How could you even suggest that? To walk out there on stage, perpetrate a fraud for the audience and the media, and pretend to be Eric. No fucking way. Have you lost your mind? Why would you ask me to do something like that, and how the hell could you think I would?”
The elegant lines of my dad’s face harden. “I don’t appreciate your tone, Ethan.”
“And I don’t appreciate a single thing you’ve done to me tonight or expecting me to do something that’s fucking wrong.”
I grab my dad’s glass from the floor and down two-thirds of what’s in it. I can feel his heavy stare on me, but, no, I’m not ready to look at him yet.
Not after that.
Not with how the anger is pulsing through me.
Alan’s tunnel vision whenever there’s a crisis with Eric is unbelievable. Hello, you’ve got another son here. A pretty pissed off, tired of being screwed over, and pulled into insanity he doesn’t want to be involved in son here.
“Why are you angry?”
I spin around to face him. “Because you fucked up my night, without a thought, out of panic over Eric then you asked me to fuck up my life. Or didn’t the thought ever cross your mind what pulling a lame stunt like that might cost me if anyone finds out and it blows up? I’ve covered for Eric. More than I should have. But I’ve never pretended to be him on stage, and I won’t start now.”
“I would never trade your wellbeing for Eric’s. That’s not what’s happening here. Factual, but none of it accurate.”
“Fuck. Are you really that blind? Sounds accurate to me. Over-the-top Eric crisis management like always. Face facts. Your son is a fuckup and nothing’s going to change that. Accept it. It’s amazing with five kids in the family that Eric’s the only fuckup in the bunch.”
Alan looks sad, achingly sad, and his expression lands in my gut like a knife. “Your brother has issues, but he’s not a fuckup and he’s still your brother. I won’t have you talking about him that way.”
I lower my eyes to stare at the ground because I can no longer meet my dad’s flashing gaze. “I’m sorry. But sometimes you’ve got to stand back and just let people crash, don’t you think, Pop? That’s what Grandpa Jack would do, not this.”
My dad leans against the door, suddenly looking weary as he watches me. “Not this time. Not this bottom, son. And no, I’m not blind. Far from it. He’s been using again for about a year. He’s broke. Owes money to everyone and is mixed up with the kind of people it doesn’t end well not paying. That’s why Tara threw him out. That’s why Hugh and the guys are done with him. That’s why the label and the management cut him loose today. And that’s what you’re sitting there struggling not to tell me. Don’t look surprised. Did you think your mother and I didn’t know?”
I shake my head and swallow down the lump in my throat. If there’s surprise on my face it’s because there’s a whole lot there I didn’t know. Eric’s broke? Owes money to the wrong kind of people? I didn’t know any of that. My brother didn’t mention a word to me. “I didn’t know it was that bad, Pop. Did Eric tell you that?”
The look on my dad’s face turns me cold. “No. He hasn’t said a word to me and hasn’t asked for my help. You want to blame me for something, Ethan? Blame me for that fuckup. My son is drowning and he won’t ask for my help.”
“Fuck.” And because I don’t know what to say, I whisper fuck again. I close my eyes with my forehead in my palms and try to think, but I can’t. I lower my hands and lift my chin to find Alan patiently waiting for me to process this. “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have said any of that crap I said to you. You’re a great dad and I know you always do the best you can.”
The way his eyes burn shames me. “I love you both. It’s not always easy the decisions I’m forced to make. Sometimes the best I can do is not ask too much from one of you to give what help I can to another. I make mistakes and I often don’t say everything I should but it’s not because I don’t love all of you kids.”
That slingshots Tara into my mind, the memories of how my parents went with the flow of Eric marrying her after doing me wrong that way, everything I waited for my folks to say that they never said to me, and I don’t want to think about that.
There’s a heavy silence between us and I can’t believe I’m considering what my dad asked me to do. “Just tell me one thing. If I walk out this door and pretend to be Eric all night will it help him?”
My dad’s mouth tightens as he shakes his head. “I don’t know, Ethan. I only know your brother’s taking off, disappearing, and the longer they think he’s here, the farther he gets without them looking for him. I don’t even know from whom or why he’s running, but if there’s a chance it helps him, I’m doing it.”