“Her Royal Highness has arrived!” My voice echoes throughout the empty house. I look at the boxes still lying around unpacked. Nobody answers, but I hear some laughing coming from the room my dad’s been using as an informal studio. I throw my backpack onto the couch, walk through the living room, and open the door.
“Hey, girly!” Dad says when he sees me. I like his new casual look with the jeans and the buzz cut. The long hair just wasn’t working anymore. Especially since his scalp shows more now than when he was twenty-five.
“Hey, Dad.”
He’s sitting with his acoustic guitar in front of a stack of sheet music, a sight I’ve known all my life. There’s a girl no older than twenty-one opposite him, someone I recognize but can’t pinpoint. She smiles at me.
“Des, this is Faith Adams, from The Madmen,” he says. Oh. Right. I’ve never seen her in person, so I didn’t recognize her without the clown makeup and freaky hairdos.
“Hey, I liked your video for ‘Real.’ It was cool,” I tell her.
Actually, it sucked.
“Thanks,” she says, and looks at my dad kind of funny. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like she’s sending him some sort of message and will probably tell him something about me when I leave the room.
So I walk in and make myself comfortable on the couch. “Where’s Mom?”
Dad fingers a chord then points his pick behind him. “She’s out back, getting sun, I think. How was school?”
I shrug and look at Faith. I don’t know why it bothers me that she’s here. I’m used to my dad working with different musicians and having them over, but it’s usually other men. “It was okay, I guess. You’ve got fans there.”
“Is that a bad thing? You say it like it is.”
“No, of course not. It’s just that I don’t know how long I have before they find out, you know?”
“Well, they shouldn’t find out. I don’t think it’s out yet that we’re here, so you should be okay for a while.”
“Hope so. There’s a girl I met who seemed real nice, but now I don’t think I can be friends with her.”
“Why not?” Faith asks.
Who invited her into this conversation? I look at her long nails, obviously acrylic, since one of the pinky ones is missing, showing an ugly nail-bed. “’Cause she’s a big-time fan. It’s all over her notebook.”
Dad presses his lips together and gives me a sympathetic look. I know he feels bad sometimes. Like he’s putting me through something I don’t want to go through. It is his fault, in a way, but I know there’s not much he can do about it. Which is why I just try to deal with it the best I can.
“Well, how can anyone not be a fan of your dad’s?” Faith asks, batting her eyelashes at him.
My jaw almost drops. What the hell is that supposed to mean? She must think I’m retarded to not see what she’s doing. Why is Mom out back, anyway? Shouldn’t she be in here making sure this tiger chick doesn’t pounce on her man?
Dad is staring intently at his hands, forming one chord after another and humming quietly to himself. Good, he didn’t even see the bait. Maybe Faith will realize he’s not biting and give up fishing altogether.
I shoot her a look, the same one my mother gives the hard-bodies who line up backstage after each concert, and get up to leave.
“Love you, babe,” Dad sings, and I know he’s talking to me.
“Love you, Dad.” He’ll be fine. My dad doesn’t ever seem to get distracted by all the women who sometimes surround him, but still it’s annoying. I don’t know how Mom deals with it.
The house is freezing. They must’ve turned the temperature down to like fifty or something. I open the French doors to the patio and feel the burning heat roast my eyes. Could Miami be any hotter?
My mother, Crossfire’s manager from the very beginning, from even before she hooked up with Dad, is lounging on the deck, slathering sunscreen on her perfect skin. She’s with Marie, her assistant for the last ten years. Assistant and friend. Marie’s the one who makes calls, answers calls, denies, accepts interviews, etcetera. She also serves as my personal counselor sometimes, so I love her like a sister. Especially since I’ve got no siblings.
“Hey, Desi,” Marie greets me with that pretty smile of hers. If she’d only lose like thirty pounds, she’d have any guy she wants.
“Hey, Babalú,” I kid back. We’ve always done this I Love Lucy thing.
“Sweetie!” Mom cries. “How was school?”
Can parents ever think of anything else to ask when we come home from school? Did they forget the repetitive, brainless work, the incompetent teachers, the moronic kids who spend their precious energy trying to impress one another? Oh, wait. It was my first day.
“Hey, guess the good news,” she says, totally forgetting the school question.
I lean over and kiss her cheek. “I dunno, Dad’s getting a complete identity change, allowing us to roam Disney World freely without being recognized?”
And her eyebrow goes up.
I thought it was funny.
“Desert…” she says, like a reminder of everything we’ve ever talked about.
“Sorry. What? Tell me the good news already!”
“Faith Adams is working on some of the new songs for our next set!” she announces, as if this is supposed to be exciting.
“Why? What’s wrong with Ryan?” Ryan’s our current producer and big-time collaborator when it comes to lyrics. He’s like a young grandpa to me. I don’t want to lose a third grandpa.
“Nothing’s wrong with Ryan, hon. It’s just that we’re trying to go with something a little more modern and, well, the last songs, as much as the critics liked them, didn’t hit big with the twenty-five-and-under bracket.”
And?
“But you can’t pay attention to that. You have to do what you feel is right. Isn’t that what you always said? And besides, if the twenty-five-and-under bracket didn’t like the songs as much, then why’d we nab the Grammy?”
Mom and Marie exchange smirks like I obviously still have a lot to learn. “Do you really want to explore that one, Desert?”
“So Ryan’s not going to work with us anymore?” Because if he’s not, I’m gonna throw myself on the floor and have a tantrum right here with those seagulls watching.
“No, honey, we’re not replacing him. We’re just trying out new blood.”
“But Mom, Faith’s songs are all, ‘Dance tonight, dance tonight, rock your body, feel all right.’ That’s crap.”
“Desert, we’re trying to come up with a more up-to-date sound. You know, to appeal to the younger crowd.”
Great. I was hoping they wouldn’t do this. I’ve seen it before. A twenty-year-old band, like Powerhouse, tries appealing to the younger crowd, and they suddenly look stupid. Forty-year-old rockers dying their thinning hair, trying to look cool for the kids. Why don’t they just let the new bands take care of this? Crossfire has been around longer than I have—seventeen years. Their time is ending. Just let it be and accept it. But nooo.
“Isn’t this risky?” I ask. “I mean, what if this brings bad reviews? Why can’t we just stick to our sound, to what’s worked in the past?”
“Desert, sometimes we have to take risks. How do we know what we’re capable of if we don’t try?”
She’s right. She’s always right, damn her. That’s why I picked public school, to take a risk, try something new.
“Besides, we are sticking to our sound. It’s just a few songs we’re going to play around with. It’s no big deal. I thought you’d be excited to have Faith around. She’s the hottest thing right now, isn’t she?”
I guess. Brianna, Marie’s niece and my friend back in LA, likes her a lot.
“Yeah, she’s way hot right now. Maybe you should go in there and cool her off.” I turn and walk back toward the house.
“Desert, relax,” my mom huffs.
I don’t know what to make of all this. It’s just that a new album means touring, and touring means we’ll take off again. I’ve lived on and off the road my whole life and seen about as many hotels and cities, sound checks and catered meals as one sixteen-year-old would care to see. All I’ve ever wanted is one place to call home. Stupid, I know, but a little slice of Seventh Heaven, with Mr. and Mrs. Camden as my folks, the picket fence, and the freakin’ dog. That’s all I’m asking.
Plus, new songs mean new videos. Some kids last year talked about Crossfire’s videos, like the one for “Between the Sheets,” where Dad looks like a semidork, dressed in leather pants that someone else obviously picked out for him. He looked so lame, but for some reason, it hurts more when you hear someone else saying it. “I mean, please, he’s thirty-nine, not twenty,” some insensitive imbecile said straight to my face.
I go up to my room and close the door. All right, so fine. A new album with a new sound. Would I be a total jerk to wish they’d just call it quits this time around? When do we put rock ’n’ roll past us and become a normal family, hmm? Does anybody care what I want?
I sit at my desk and stare at my favorite shot of me and my folks. I’m between them, arms around their shoulders, and my long, wavy hair is draped over their heads, like a blond three-headed monster. Sigh. That answers the “normal family” question.
I should check on Brianna. She was pretty pissed that I wanted to leave LA. I start a new e-mail:
From: saharagobi@crossfire.com
To: “Brianna Roman”
Subject: French Literature 101
Hey mama-san, what’s up? just checking up on ya. How’s LALA Land? u gotta come visit me! we got a place in coconut grove on the water, short drive from south beach. It’s hot as hell here…95 degrees in the shade. school’s all right so far. one down, 179 to go. still incognito. I’ll fill ya in later. write me back, k?
Love ya,
Desert :-)~
P.S. faith adams says hi.