Somewhere in the middle of the strangeness that was the Troublemakers’ after-party, it dawned on me that I’d been really harsh on Grams. She’d known the real reason my mother was coming to Las Vegas and was just trying to hold it all together for a little while longer.
I tried to block out my guilt over how I’d treated her, because I also needed to apologize to Casey for being such an awful girlfriend. And even though I was interested in everything he’d told me—like how Grams and Hudson had tracked him down and how they’d all pieced together what had happened and then how he’d stowed away in Hudson’s car and hadn’t shown himself until it was way too late to turn back—in the back of my mind I was fretting about Grams.
But then he says, “Your mom was actually trying to do the right thing, Sammy,” and I kind of snap out of it.
“How’s that?”
“Well, I overheard a bunch of stuff before they knew I was there.”
“Like what?”
“He …”
His voice just trails off, so I ask, “He who?”
“Do you want me to call him Darren or your dad?”
“Darren!”
“Okay. Well, his first album was just getting traction, he was touring, she was nuts about him and went out to see him on the road to break the news about you and discovered he was doing the typical rock star thing. So they got in a huge fight and broke up, and she was done with him.” He eyed me. “Single moms scraping by have a tough time chasing their Hollywood dream. But your grandmother promised she’d help raise you … which is why your mom felt like she could leave you at the Highrise.”
Hearing this from Casey was somehow easier than hearing it from Mom.
Or Grams.
From them, things always sound like excuses. From Casey?
They sounded … tragic.
Betrayed by the love of her life, woman returns home to have baby, whose eyes and smile are just like her cad dad’s.
I wanted to change the subject fast because I always seem to get burned when I find some sympathy for my mother. And since Casey was just holding my hands, kind of waiting for me to say something, what I said was “I’m sorry I’ve been such a rotten girlfriend.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day? Or at least it was? I stood you up, I didn’t get you a present.… I was really possessed about my mom getting married when I should have been thinking about you.” I give him a guilty look. “I tried to call you. Really, I did.”
“My cell?”
“I thought your mom confiscated that.”
“She did, but I knew where she stashed it, so I dug it up before I stashed myself in Hudson’s car.” He grins. “Which is how I got in touch with my mom and how I found out about your talk with her.” He digs something out of his jeans pocket, saying, “So you managing to get her to say it’s okay for us to see each other is a way better present than this”—he loops a chain around my neck—“but this is all I have.”
On the chain is a little skeleton key.
And a silver heart.
They’re both tarnished, with cool scrollwork … like they’ve been around forever and will last forever.
My eyes brim full of tears. “This is the coolest necklace ever.”
Now, at that moment I had completely forgotten my guilt over Grams. But then I hear, “Excuse me for butting in …,” and when I look up, there’s Hudson. “Oh, Hudson, I’m so sorry!” I tell him. “I can’t believe you drove all the way here! And in Jester? I didn’t think you were supposed to drive classic cars that far.”
“The car and I held up just fine. Your grandmother?” He cocks his head and gives a tisk. “That’s another story.”
“I gotta go talk to her,” I tell Casey, but then I notice she’s standing with my mother and Darren and they’re all looking pretty glum. “Uh … maybe later.”
“No,” Hudson tells me. “You should go now.”
If there’s one adult in my life I can count on to always give me good advice, it’s Hudson Graham. So I nod, and I’m about to head over when Casey says, “Wait up.” So I do while he reads a text. “Sorry, but I gotta go,” he says. “Mom wants Heather and me to meet her at the hotel room right away.”
“Glad you’ve got your phone,” I tell him as he sends a text back. Then we give each other a big hug, and in my ear he says, “I guess I’ll see you back in Santa Martina?”
“Don’t let your mother drive too fast,” I whisper back.
He gives me a quick kiss, then goes to pry his sister away while I head over to where Grams is still standing with Lady Lana and Darren Cole.
“I’m sorry, Grams,” I tell her straight up, trying to focus on just her. “It was a big hodgepodge of emergencies and misunderstandings and—”
“Samantha, I’m done with hodgepodges of emergencies and misunderstandings. My heart just can’t take this anymore. It is too exhausting for me to be looking after a teenager.”
“Especially such a troublemaker,” Darren says with a grin.
Now, I can tell he’s just trying to lighten things up a little, but obviously he’s clueless about how serious this is sounding. “Hey!” I say, pointing at him. “You stay out of it! If you hadn’t gone and broken my mother’s heart, none of this would be happening.” He looks at me like, Ouch, and my mother stares at me like, Wow, so I look at her and say, “Casey just told me.” Then I turn to Grams and drop my voice when I ask, “What are you saying?” ’cause my gut is all topsy-turvy over what I’m afraid she’s saying.
She pinches her eyes and shakes her head. “You staying with me was never supposed to be long-term. You and your mother will have to figure it out.”
“No!” I cry. “Please, Grams! Please! I promise I won’t stow away in any more cars or jump on any more planes or … or do anything I’m not supposed to!”
“I can’t do it anymore, Samantha. Now that Heather knows? It’s unworkable.”
“Grams! No! Heather and I are having a truce. Things will be fine! You’re just tired. It’s one in the morning! You drove a long, long, long, long, long, long way! We’ll get a room, we’ll get some sleep, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”
She shakes her head and sighs. “Where’s Hudson?” And all of a sudden there he is, putting an arm around her. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she says to me. “I was never so worried in my life.” Then she strokes Hudson’s cheek and says, “Let’s go.”
“What? Wait! You can’t go!”
Hudson gives me a reassuring look and whispers, “She’s exhausted.”
But I can tell—this is different than all the times before.
Grams means it.
And then they do go.
“They have rooms at the MGM,” my mother says, holding me back as I go to chase after them. “I’ll get us one there, too, and we’ll go see them in the morning.”
And since I’m now crying and being the total after-party downer, I tell her, “I’m going to go sit out there for a while.”
“Out where?”
“I don’t know! Somewhere out there,” I tell her, pointing through the door. Then I look at Darren and say, “I’m sorry. I really am. I know this is weird for you, too.”
All he does is give a little nod—probably ’cause he’s already learned that if he says something, I’ll bite him for it. But two steps out the door, there he is, walking next to me.
“Brave guy,” I tell him with a scowl.
“I may have been young and reckless,” he tells me, “but I’m no deadbeat dad.”
And that’s when a thought slams me upside the head. It’s so big and so complicating that for a split second I forget everything else. “Are you saying I have … brothers and sisters? Or you know, stepbrothers and -sisters?”
“No!” He laughs. “At least not that I know of!”
I eye him.
Like, Very funny, you jerk.
“Look, it wasn’t like that with your mother. We were in love. Being on the road …?” He shrugs. “I can’t make excuses for my behavior back then, but I have grown up some.”
We’re at the edge of the stage now, so I sit down with my feet dangling, and so does he. “Well, how many wives have you had?”
He gives me a long, even look. “None.”
“None?”
“None.” Then kinda softly he adds, “Nobody ever compared to your mother.” We sit there quiet for a minute, and finally he says, “I’ve got good reasons to be mad at her for not telling me about you, but”—he gives a hopeless little shrug—“it’s just so good to see her.” He eyes me. “Still, I do wish I’d known.”
“Me, too,” I tell him, but while I’m saying it, it flashes through my mind that if I had known … if my mom had told him when I was younger … I wouldn’t know Grams like I do.
And my friends would all be … different.
And I would never have met Casey!
“I’m not moving to Vegas,” I blurt out. “Or Hollywood!”
He laughs. “Well, we’ve got to figure out something.” Then he adds, “I want to get to know you, Sammy.”
My eyes are all of a sudden stinging again. “Don’t say stuff like that! For all I know, this is just another lie.”
“There’s no doubt that my lawyer’s going to make me do a DNA test, but everything about it makes sense.” He laughs. “Besides, look at you! Listen to you!” He shakes his head. “Marko’s right—you’re definitely my kid.” He kind of grins and says, “Your poor mother.”
Before I can stop myself, I’m shoving him and laughing. “Hey!”
“So I’m thinking.…”
“Uh-oh.”
“Why uh-oh?”
I look at him. “Everyone always tells me they know they’re in trouble when I say that.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, well, see what I mean?”
“I understand your birthday’s coming up.”
And out of my mouth pops, “I don’t want a pony!”
His eyebrows go flying. “Who said anything about a pony?”
“Isn’t that what all rock star dads give their daughters?”
“Dumb ones, maybe,” he says, and he’s grinning.
But I’m serious. “Look, I don’t want anything from you, okay? I’ve got everything I need in Grams’ bottom dresser drawer.”
“That’s very rock ’n’ roll of you.”
“Stop that!”
“No, really. That’s the heart of rock ’n’ roll—all the ‘stuff’ just perverts that and ruins it.”
“So good. Don’t buy me anything.”
He snorts. “I wasn’t planning to.”
“Oh.”
“But I was thinking that I’d really like to be there.”
“For my birthday?”
He sorta studies me. “I missed the first thirteen?” Then he adds, “And maybe we can plan to do something over your spring break?”
I want to tell him that that sounds nice—and it does.
But it also sounds … awkward.
What would we say to each other?
What would we do?
“Look,” he finally says. “There’s obviously a lot we have to work through. What do you think? I can see you’re pretty upset.”
“What I’m most upset about is Grams. I mean, Mom’s been flaky, you’ve been a mystery, but through everything I could always count on Grams. She’s my family.” All of a sudden there’s this huge lump in my throat, and my eyes are stinging again. “Maybe I finally know who you are, but if it cost me Grams?” I shake my head. “I need to find a way to fix things with her.”
We just sit there, me battling the lump in my throat, him quiet, until finally he gets up and holds out a hand. “Well, let’s go figure that out, then.”
I stare at him a minute, then take his hand and let him help me back on my feet.