Hayley: Another theory about the Vagabonds hiatus.
Hayley: Go check it out!
I guess Hayley’s not mad at me anymore.
My fingers are instantly at work, rushing over my screen, tapping out directives to the Vagabonds website, then to blogs that discuss it.
Since the band abruptly went on hiatus, the fandom has uncovered all sorts of cryptic clues as to what they might be up to.
I scan through the latest evidence that a tour may be on the horizon. It’s an interesting theory, although fans are often on wild-goose chases. Some people are interested in the mystery aspect of it all. Some people are simply jonesing for more music.
Me? All of the above.
But the real reason I’m addicted to rumors of a return: I relate to the need to fade away every now and then. Just like Vagabonds.
They’ve made it to where I want to be. Everyone knows their names, but that doesn’t mean they want the world to scrutinize every move they make.
I’m the same way. I love music. I love the stage. I can’t imagine a day when I won’t love performing.
But I know it comes with an intense, heated spotlight. There’s no way around it.
The stage equals invasion of privacy. Society doesn’t generally respect that some of us don’t want notoriety; we just want to perform.
I screenshot the new theory, file it in an album, and text Hayley.
Me: I think you need a degree in astrophysics
Me: To figure out all those clues!
Me: But secretly, I totally want to do what they did.
Me: Disappear on my own terms.
Me: And if someone pays enough attention
Me: They’ll know where to find me.
Just as I hit send on my last message, another from Hayley shows up:
Hayley: They’ll know where to find you.
Hayley: HA!
Me: HA!
Me: You still finish my sentences.
I wish I could find just one Hayley at Saint Mary’s.
It’s fair to say I don’t exactly fit in at school. First, because at fifteen years, ten months, and three days old, I’m the youngest in the junior class. My parents started my education early because they say I was already reading—music and words—at age four. But really, I think they just wanted to be kid-free a whole year faster so they could travel the world together, attending operas and ballets and musical productions—all of which, they assumed, I’d eventually be starring in.
When I first started performing, we celebrated every role together. We ate pastries at my favorite little café, and my parents held hands across the table. They cuddled and dreamed out loud together. Little did they know they’d end up hating each other’s guts just a few years later.
They’ve been fighting over me ever since they separated when I was six. Sole custody versus joint. This percentage visitation against that. And now, I see Dad for mere hours at a time, and Mom’s very often out late.
It’s nearly ten by the time my mother walks in the door tonight. The murmur of her conversation with Nana echoes down the hall.
“Ella?” Nana asks. “How’d it go?”
“Oh, you know. Just about as expected.” She sounds sad.
Like I said, she’s not good at the dating game. She trusts too quickly and too broadly. She’s a terrible judge of character. She sees the good in everyone, which means she sets herself up almost daily for heartbreak. She once told me that if she were in a room with twenty straight men, she’d be a magnet for the one who was the worst for her.
That’s what’s weird about Ted. He didn’t seem bad. He didn’t even seem bad for her. Until he just split.
I pop in my earbuds and let my own notes sift through my ears. I lounge on my bed, drifting between homework, the Vagabonds website, and Lyrically, where I’m making little progress on my score.
I meander to my recent friend request from Dylan Thomas.
A name like Dylan could belong to anyone—guy, girl . . . And not that it matters, I guess, how they identify, but I don’t want to this to turn into some kind of weird romantic entanglement. There’s enough drama on the stage, is how I see it, not to mention all the theatrics involving my parents, and I need to remain focused on my aspirations, not whether someone else thinks I’m worthy of a relationship. This person’s underlying motives for contacting me could get in the way of my focus. Besides . . .
What if I inherit my mother’s bad judgment where men are concerned?
Dylan Thomas lives in Englewood, just a few trains away. I wonder what they were doing at the Factory. Surely, they can get a cup of coffee in their own neck of the woods. But this person, like the artist for whom they’re obviously named, is a poet, and I’m in desperate need of words.
What the hell.
I accept the request and text Hayley, bringing her up to speed.
Me: I just accepted the origami moon poet’s friend request on Lyrically. Someone going by the name Dylan Thomas.
Hayley: HOLD ON
Hayley: Some random guy is messaging my BFFLS?
That’s short for Best Friend Forever Little Sister.
Me: Not sure it’s a guy. And not totally random either.
Me: I’m thinking we could maybe collab on a song.
Hayley: Well, I’m all for that.
Hayley: You could use a little push from your comfort zone.
Hayley: For some of us it’s dating, for you I guess it’s this.
Me: Ugh
Me: You know I don’t like to get distracted with dating.
Hayley: I don’t know how you do it.
Hayley: Or DON’T do it
Hayley: As the case may be.
Me: I’m changing the subject!!!!
Me: Wanna go meet Andy Randy with me?
Hayley: The openly gay Broadway star you insist you’re going to marry one day?
Me: That’s him!
Hayley: When’s that happening?
Me: Dad just set it up.
Hayley: Seriously? You’re meeting your idol?
Me: I don’t joke about my openly gay future husband.
Hayley: Ha!
Hayley: Your life is so different than mine.
Me: Well?
Hayley: Not sure.
Hayley: When are you going?
Me: Not sure yet.
Hayley: In all honesty, I probably can’t.
Hayley: Finals.
Me: :(
This is one thing that sucks about not having friends. Real friends, anyway, who want to hang out with me whether or not my dad’s paying their way into some amazing experience. If my sister can’t make it, who’s going to come with me to New York?
“Lainey?” Mom’s voice. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
She doesn’t say anything about the basket of laundry I still haven’t folded. She doesn’t ask why I’m here when I should be at Dad’s. She doesn’t ask about my audition or ride me about the homework I’m obviously not doing.
She wades through the clutter of my room and curls up at my side. She’s so small and thin. And for a minute, I feel so sad for her. I want her to be happy and comfortable. I want to see her dancing in the kitchen again.
I want to tell her what she used to tell me when she’d tuck me in at night when I was little: Love you to the end of the universe and back a million times.
The scent of cinnamon rolls filters through my memory, and I flash back to our kitchen in our Kenilworth house. The Thoroughly Modern Millie soundtrack is playing in the background, and we’re all dancing around the island—Mom, Hayley, and me—singing “Forget about the boy. Forget about the boy . . .”
It was an idyllic existence.
But it’s been supplanted by memories of screaming fights echoing down the hall from my parents’ room, an ugly five-year court battle, and insults disguised as compliments: Oh, your father sent a car . . . .how nice that he wants you to arrive in style . . . how nice to provide stuff for your teenaged daughter. Stuff goes a long way . . . almost as long as love.
I’m just plain sick of it. All of it.
I shrink away from her and pop in my earbuds to listen to the track I’ve been working on. Dylan Thomas’s words—the few that I’ve committed to memory—seem to flow with my notes.
“Lainey?” She touches a curl at my temple.
I flinch. Don’t want to be touched right now. But I pause my track and look at her.
“I love your hair,” she says.
I look at her. “Court again? Really?”
She sits up straighter. “I’ve been compiling receipts and cataloging all I’ve done pro bono for your career since the divorce. Your father, as your manager, should have been paying me to scuttle you all over town the same way he pays Giorgio. What he owes me in back charges would more than cover your tuition at the academy next year. My lawyer says it’s a slam dunk. We just have to put up with his contesting, with his continuances. And if a judge awards me for the back charges, you’ll be at that school next term.”
I sigh. “But Dad’s contesting it.”
“Let him. He can’t intimidate me. Everything I do,” she says, “I do for you.”
We stare at each other in silence for a few seconds.
“What’s in Minnesota?” I ask. “New guy?”
She shakes her head. Her hair—pin straight and golden—ruffles against the pillow. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
“I do, actually. In the five years since you and Dad have been divorced, and even in the five years it took you to get divorced, I’ve watched these guys absolutely crush you, and I don’t like it.”
“Oh, Lainey.”
“It’s true. You’re awesome. They’re all idiots.”
“Yes.” She laughs a little. “You’re right about that. It’s okay, though. I tried. I did my best. Just like an audition, baby girl. You do your best. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. How’d it go today?”
“Don’t change the subject. You lose a lot these days.”
“I’ve fallen for twenty idiots over the course of my life,” she says. “The twenty-first time I fell in love was forever. It doesn’t matter if I lose for the rest of my life.”
“Who’s the twenty-first? Dad?”
She sighs, and one corner of her mouth turns slightly upward. She shrugs a shoulder.
It was Dad.
I think about the day her diagnosis came in. The first thing she did was call Dad. Ted and I were in the next room, and we heard it all.
Jesse, I have cancer. After all we’ve been through, you need to know I love you.
“Is that what happened with Ted?” I ask. “Did he realize that you were never going to get over Dad? Is that why he left?”
“He left”—she rolls out of my bed—“because he couldn’t handle the reality of the situation.”
“But—”
“Cancer’s no picnic. He couldn’t deal.”
“Sure, but I just think that maybe if he hadn’t heard you tell Dad you loved him—”
“He had to go. When you’re older, you’ll understand.”
“But—”
“All you have to do is focus on you. And that’s all I have to do, too. Focus on you. You make everything worthwhile.”
I wish that were true.