“WOW, JACOB, YOUR handwriting’s actually legible,” I comment, looking over at the Spanish work sheet he turned in to my mom. “Yo puedo leerlo.”
He smirks. “Y yo puedo kick your butt.”
My mom waves her hands between us, ever the peacemaker. “Relájense, mijos,” she says, smiling. Her Spanish is better than either of ours now. She says teaching us is like a refresher course for the stuff she’s forgotten after all these years. I’ve made the case that if we’re just going to forget it, anyway, why learn it at all? My brothers totally had my back, but our logic didn’t fly with the folks.
“Dinner’s in five,” Dad says, setting a stack of bowls down in front of us.
A friend of my parents is on tour for the next few months and has offered to let us stay at his place in Nashville while he’s gone. He said it’d be sitting empty, and now he won’t have to worry about somebody feeding his cat. I have to say, having my own bedroom the past couple of weeks has been awesome.
“Wow, son, your handwriting is a little better than I remembered,” Dad adds, reading over my mom’s shoulder.
“Hey!” Jacob says defensively. “It’s a lot easier now that I don’t have to worry about you taking a hard right turn when I’m midsentence.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! It’s all smooth sailing when Captain Judd’s behind the wheel,” Dad says, brushing off his shoulders. So lame. We roll our eyes and shake our heads, much to his delight.
I look back at my own work sheet and am scribbling in the future tenses of my vocab words when my dad’s cell phone rings. He looks first at the screen, then quickly up at me before walking over to the kitchen, where I can see the lid of the Crock-Pot dripping with steam. Mom put her famous vegetarian chili on this morning, and the smell has been tempting us the whole day. I’d forgotten what a good cook my mom is when she’s not confined to canned veggies and a minifridge in an RV galley.
“Well, Dan, she can’t talk just now, actually,” I overhear my dad say. “She’s in the middle of a Spanish lesson with her brother.” My back stiffens.
“Is that Dan?” I call, pushing back my chair. “Is that for me?”
Dad holds his hand up and turns away. “Tomorrow at ten?” he asks. He looks over at my mom, who nods her approval. “That’ll be fine. We’ll see you then.”
He hangs up the phone and walks to the fridge. I follow him.
“Dad, was that Dan? What’d he want?”
“He wants to see you in the morning,” my father answers, grabbing a gallon of milk and heading back over to the table. “Dinner’s almost ready, kids,” he says. “Let’s wrap it up.”
I stack my books and papers into a messy pile and throw it all on the couch, eager to get back to my dad so I can ask him more about what Dan said. Then Jacob’s cell beeps.
“Oh, cool,” he says offhandedly. “Adam might have a gig in Nashville.”
I stop in my tracks, halfway between the dining room and kitchen. “What? When?” I ask, but Jacob’s in another world, already texting Adam back.
“Bird, set the table, please,” my mom says, getting up to check the bread in the oven. “Jacob, go tell your brother that dinner’s ready.”
“Ugh.” I sigh, my head spinning. In the kitchen, I grab a fistful of spoons and interrogate my father. “So what’d he want, Dad? Did he like the song? What’d he say?”
“He said he wants to see you in the morning, Bird,” he repeats slowly.
“You could’ve let me talk to him,” I say, following him back into the dining room.
“Bird, he called me.”
“Well, you didn’t have to tell him I had homework,” I complain, placing the spoons next to everybody’s bowls. “It makes me sound like a kid instead of a professional.”
“Listen,” my dad says, looking me firmly in the eyes. “Record contract or no record contract, your schoolwork is still a priority.”
My eyebrows arch in surprise at his hard tone. Annoyed, I take a seat at the table as my mom sets the big pot of chili on a hot pad in front of me. I know I’m only sixteen, and honestly, my dad’s been a great manager so far, but you’d think I could at least take my own phone calls. It’s like he and Dan and now Anita are deciding everything about my life, and I’m lucky I don’t have to ask permission to go to the bathroom.
Just as my mom comes back to the table with the bread and my brothers plop into their seats, I hear my own cell phone beep down the hall. I perk up, springing to my feet.
“No phones during dinner,” my dad orders, stopping me in my tracks.
“But—”
“No phones,” he repeats and points to the seat of my chair.
“Oh my gosh, Dad,” I grumble, sitting back down. “You know it could be important. Shannon might want to reschedule tomorrow or—”
“Then you can call her back,” my dad says, folding his hands. “Bird, why don’t you say grace tonight?”
I roll my eyes. That is so my dad. “Dear Lord,” I begin, bowing my head.
And then a thought slips into my mind: What if it’s Adam? But that’s stupid because he doesn’t even have my number. I shake the thought and continue, keeping it short and sweet. “Amen,” we all chime, and my brothers are digging in before I’ve even unclasped my hands.
“You guys want to have a family jam after supper?” my dad asks during dinner. He’s unaware of his dripping milk mustache.
“Oh, that sounds fun,” Mom says, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “We can go out on the patio. It’s a nice night.”
Dylan nods.
“Definitely,” Jacob says. “I’d love that.”
But when everybody looks at me, I shrug. As nice as it would be to play together like we used to, I’ve been playing all day, every day lately, and I’m exhausted… and still a little annoyed with my dad. “I’m actually pretty beat,” I say.
Jacob looks up at me, a long lock of black hair hanging over his eye. “Seriously?” he asks, midbite.
“What?”
He just stares.
“What?”
“Whatever, Bird,” he says, shaking his head.
I look at Dylan for support, but he avoids eye contact and turns back to his near-empty bowl. I look at my mom, who gives me a small smile, and then to my dad, who doesn’t seem to know what to say.
“What?” I ask Jacob again, feeling a little defensive. “I’ve been playing all day! I’ve been at Shannon’s every morning this week, and now Dan wants to see me tomorrow for who knows what reason, probably because he hates my song. I just want to watch TV or read a magazine or something, okay?” Nobody says a word. In fact, everybody’s pretty intent on their dinner. “Rain check, okay, you guys?”
“Okay,” Dylan says simply, looking at me straight on. He stands up and grabs his dirty dishes. He starts to walk into the kitchen but turns back toward me, a soft but sad look on his face. “Wait, you know what? Not okay. Bird, I get it. All you do is play music, and all we do is talk about when we used to play music. You’re tired. Fine. I really do get it. But as for me, I’d like my guitar back, and I’d like to play some music with my family tonight.”
He doesn’t seem angry, just matter-of-fact.
“May I be excused?” I ask my dad.
He nods, and I get up, joining my brother in the kitchen as we put our dishes in the dishwasher. I might be burned out and tired, but it would actually be nice to play some songs that aren’t my own—to play for fun, without Jack or Dan watching me and scrutinizing every note—to play Maybelle again instead of a guitar. “You’re right, Dylan,” I say. “Let’s play tonight, like we used to.”
“Really?”
“Your guitar’s by the front door,” I call over my shoulder in response as I head down the hall to my room.
I unplug my phone from its charger and flop onto the bed, but the message I see on my phone is not from Shannon. And not from Adam. It’s from a number I don’t recognize:
Hey. Mom gave me ur #. Gonna check out the flea market at the fairgrounds on Sat. Wanna come? It’s Stella, btw.
“Aw, that’s so nice,” I say to myself as I type back a reply:
Yes, def.
I stare at the phone, waiting for her response. It may not be the president of a Nashville music label, or the one boy on earth I wish would notice me, but I’m as pumped as if it were. Finally her reply comes through:
Cool. Call u.
With a smile on my face, I hop up and go to my closet, swatting a pile of dirty clothes off my fiddle case. I bring dear Maybelle out to the patio, where Dylan is setting folding chairs into a circle. The others join us, and we all sit together as the sun settles low on the horizon, tuning and prepping our instruments, just like the old days, the Barrett Family Band back together again.