Beige (20 page)

“She probably regrets it now,” I say.

“I doubt it. You know, you’re not so far from the age she was when she had you,” Trixie says.

I stop. I am nearly fifteen. And Mom was eighteen. I try to imagine having my own baby three years from now. I can’t. It seems impossible. I would never be able to do it.

That makes me cry again. It must have been so hard.

“Don’t you see?” Trixie says. “Your mom and I are kind of opposite, you know. Now I am in my forties and I have Auggie, and my whole life has changed. I can’t do anything that I used to do. And that’s really hard. I have had to make a lot of sacrifices. But I’m happy to do it. I’m ready. Just like your mom was when she had you. You’re old enough to be your own person now. She’s just letting loose a little.”

“But I don’t want anything to change,” I say, and — I can’t help it — I start crying harder. Trixie hands me a Kleenex, ’cause I’ve got snot bubbles coming out of my nose.

“She might be ready for a change, but I’m not.”

“Ah, sweet Katy, nothing ever stays the same,” Trixie says. “The only thing you can take care of is yourself and how you feel. You can only make the best of it.”

I want to tell her that I can’t bear the idea of spending years in Madrid wishing I were home. Just like I spent the whole summer in L.A. pretending I was somewhere else.

I’m so not depressed anymore.

I’m angry.

We are dropping off the flyers at Amoeba Records for the Grown-Ups’ warm-up show at Skooby’s Hot Dogs.

“So, wait. You’re moving to
Spain
?” Lake says.

“Yeah, I’m going to go to an international school there.”

“Too bad you still don’t
habla español,
” she says.

I slam the pile of flyers down on the counter.

“Could you just not do that?” I say.

“Not do what?”

“Pick on me and make me feel worse about my already horrible situation,” I say.

“Well, it’s true!” Lake says.

I shoot her a look.

“So what
should
I say?”

“How about ‘That sucks.’ Or ‘Good luck.’ Or ‘Whoa. Bummer.’”

“OK, I hear you,” Lake says. “It
is
a bummer.”

I thought we were just going in and out, but Lake pulls me deeper into the store and starts browsing. I don’t know what to do here. I’m standing in the aisles surrounded by rows and rows of CDs.

The clicking of the plastic as people flip through the discs starts to have a soothing effect on me. It’s got a rhythm. It must lull everyone else, too. All around me, people are concentrated and dreamy-looking as they flip. It’s so Zen.

A song comes onto the speaker. It startles me. I know it.

The boy next to me, flipping through the racks, glances at me and nods in approval. As though I’m in the know.

I
am
in the know.

It’s Suck.

Sam’s voice is screaming through the speaker. I look around. Nobody is panicking. Some people’s heads are bobbing up and down in time.

I check myself. I’m fine. I’m not panicking. It’s not making me crazy. It’s not taking me anywhere I don’t want to go.

I head toward
S.
Suck has its own divider.

Then I start looking for all the bands on Garth’s mix CD. I pull the CDs out and examine the covers.

“Did you find something?” Lake says, pulling the CDs out of my hand.

I nod. I did find something.

“Huh,” she says. “Not bad.”

I hear The Rat talking on the phone. I can hear him through the open window. He thinks he’s being clever ’cause he’s stepped outside, like he is going to smoke a cigarette or something. But he’s not being clever.

He’s coming in loud and clear. He’s talking about me.

“Is she upset? How would I know?” he says. “Right now she’s kind of always upset.”

It’s true. I am upset at everything.

“That’s true — I remember my teen years. Kind of.”

Then he laughs.

“I’m glad that she’s been here, because it’s about making up for lost time. But now Suck wants to go on tour,” The Rat says. “Two months is a long time.”

I move away from the window so I won’t have to listen to him, but he’s still coming in loud and clear.

“Yeah. I guess I’m ready for her to leave. It’s going to be kind of nice to be selfish again.”

I forget to breathe. Everybody is ready for me to leave. Everybody is ready to forget about me.

I know what I need to do. I need to leave
first.
Who am I kidding? I would never do that. I couldn’t. I’m just not that kind of girl. I just don’t have that much rebel in me. But my body starts moving. My hand is turning the knob.

Instead of just thinking about it, I do it. I head out the front door.

My feet hit the pavement hard. I feel it through the bottom of my brand-new Chuck Taylors. My pace quickens. It’s dark, and nobody walks in L.A.

I push the gate open and head down the driveway. I stand on my tippy toes and feel behind the wing of the angel. I got it. The spare key to the jam space.

I open the door and then lock it up behind me. I flick on the lamps and get a good vibe going. At last I can let it all out. In here it doesn’t feel stupid to cry or scream. This jam space is the only place to go.

The instruments seem to beckon to me. But no matter how hard they try, I’m not tempted to bang on the drums — even though a part of me knows deep down inside that banging on them will probably make me feel better. I don’t want to feel better. I pull out the blanket and lie down on the couch.

“Oh, thank God.”

Through crusty eyes I see The Rat standing above me. Lake is standing next to him.

“I told you,” she says. “Nothing to worry about.”

It must be like four in the morning.

“Do you know how worried I was about you? Don’t you ever do that again!” he yells.

“Do what?”

“Run away! You do not have permission to run away.”

“I thought you said by the time you were my age, you’d run away like five times, gotten a tattoo, been kicked out of three bands, and had sex.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It just is.”

“It’s not different.”

“You’re different, Katy,” The Rat says. “I thank God you’re different than me.”

“I wanted to be alone.”

“You could have gone to Trixie’s.” He takes off his cowboy hat and rubs his head.

“I told you she’d be here,” Lake says, piping up from the doorway. “And it’s no wonder. I’d be pissed off if I were Beige, too.”

“Lake, please stay out of this,” The Rat says.

“Rat, be a little more grateful,” Lake says. “I showed you where she was.”

“And I thank you for it,” The Rat says.

“I can take care of myself,” I say. “I didn’t do anything stupid. I just had to get out of the house.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to run away,” he says.

I bet he’s run away for stupider reasons in his time. I can tell that he hates that he sounds like a parent, but I know he has to say it.

“If I’m different, don’t you trust me?” I ask him.

“I do.”

“If you trusted me, you’d know that I would have come home tomorrow like a good little girl and packed my stuff up to go to Madrid,” I say.

“But now you’ve broken the trust. I can’t trust you when you leave without a word.”

“
I
can’t trust
you.
”

“Yes, you can,” The Rat says.

“I
heard
you. I heard you say you were ready for me to leave. I heard you say that two months was a long time. Well, you got off pretty easy, don’t you think? Two months out of fifteen years?”

“Katy, you misunderstood me. When you say it like that it does sound awful.”

“It
is
awful,” I say.

“Yeah, it’s pretty awful,” Lake says.

“Lake, shut up. I can speak for myself.”

Lake looks kind of surprised. She throws her arms up in mock surrender.

“You didn’t hear what I said on the phone, right,” The Rat says.

“Yes, I did.”

“No,” he says. “You didn’t hear the full context of the conversation. I was talking to Frank about how I’m going on tour in the fall for two months. I’m going to be on the road all that time. I meant that I need to be selfish and completely focused if Suck wants to make it this time.”

It doesn’t even register.

“I didn’t
want
to come to Los Angeles. I didn’t
want
to meet you again. I hate it here!”

“Katy, I want to talk about this,” The Rat says.

“I’m a bother. Now you can have your life back. I’m going to be out of your way and in Mom’s way.”

“It’s not true!” he says. “You’re not in anyone’s way. I love having you around!”

The Rat doesn’t have anything else to say. He just rubs his face with his hands, like he’s tired. I’m tired, too.

I’m so tired.

“You know what? Go away. Just let me sleep,” I say.

“I’m not letting you sleep here.”

“Have you ever slept in a jam space, Rat?” I ask.

“Yeah, I had to live in one for three months when I couldn’t afford an apartment.”

“So I can stay here for one night.”

I pull my blanket up and roll over, away from him. He kind of stands there for a while and then he finally leaves me the hell alone.

I let myself in, not knowing if The Rat is going to be home or not. I just want to go straight to my room. I didn’t want to come home yet, but I was feeling kind of bad about being away.

The Rat is sitting on the couch working on a model airplane stretched out in front of him.

“Whoa! It’s hot,” The Rat says, glancing up at me.

He doesn’t say, I’m glad you’re home, or anything about last night. I think he’s trying to be cool. He stops working and goes into the kitchen.

When he comes back, he’s cracking open one of his nonalcoholic beers.

“Where’s my beer?” I ask.

“You can’t drink beer,” he says. “You’re under twenty-one.”

“You can’t drink beer either,” I say. “You’re sober.”

“It’s an O’Doul’s. It’s nonalcoholic,” he says. “I like the taste.”

“Me, too,” I say.

I go to the kitchen and I grab myself an O’Doul’s, sit down on the couch next to The Rat, and throw my legs up on the table. The bottle feels cold in my hand.

We kind of stare at each other for a minute, waiting for the other one to say something. I kind of want him to say something. I want to go ballistic. I’ve been extra quiet for so long. I put the bottle to my lips. It smells skunky.

The Rat sits back down on the couch.

“You know it’s genetic. You’re susceptible to becoming an addict because of me and your mom,” The Rat says, cringing.

“A cold fake beer on a dry, hot day sometimes is the only thing that hits the spot. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It sure does.”

He nods. Takes a swig.

I take a swig.

It hits the spot.

I let out a sigh.

“It’s not like I haven’t tried a beer before. I had one a week ago at a party with Lake.”

“I remember,” The Rat says. “Do you want to talk about this thing with your mom and moving to Spain?”

“No,” I say.

“Do you want to talk about running away last night?”

“No.”