Authors: Laura J Whiskens
“I don’t know where your head’s at lately Indiana,” I cringed as Daniel called me by my full name.
I hated it to the point that it actually made my blood boil. Indiana reminded me of the cosmic joke my parents had made of me from birth. It was worse now that Daniel didn’t do it by way of teasing me, but that he actually meant it to scold me.
“Oh, I’m sorry
Daniel
,” I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm. I had only forgotten my car keys–it wasn’t the end of the world. We were out on the porch and I knew where I’d left them. “Just unlock the door and I’ll grab them, no harm no foul.”
He unlocked the door with a huff and I ran inside. Jacob was giggling at his silly mommy; he certainly hadn’t inherited his father’s straight-laced personality. When I returned to the porch I jingled my keys and Jacob gave me one of his heart-melting smiles. He really was the best thing to have ever happened to me, I thought as my heart swelled with love for him.
“Come on Jakey, let’s get outta here!” I ruffled his blonde hair and chased him to the car as Daniel locked up again.
“Jacob!” he called seriously and Jacob’s shoulders sagged as he stomped back to his father. Daniel leaned down and pointed to a spot on his cheek for Jacob to kiss. He did so obediently; he hadn’t inherited my urges to punch people who did things like that. More so the pity.
Jacob ran back to me and climbed into his booster seat in the front of the car. I closed the door after making sure his seatbelt was buckled properly and made my way round to the driver’s side. As I settled into my own seat Jacob looked at me intently.
“Daddy’s a real dummy,” he said and I stifled a laugh at the serious look on his face.
“That’s a mean thing to say Jacob,” I half-heartedly scolded him. His daddy
was
a dummy. “Why would you say that?”
“He’s no fun, the other kids’ daddies laugh and play games,” he was so solemn as he spoke that I almost laughed again. He leaned over seriously and whispered, “Shall we run away?”
“Not today kiddo, today we have to go to school,” I replied and turned the radio on as I pulled off the drive. Jacob pulled a face at me and we laughed. “Maybe we can run away on Saturday to the lake.”
As we neared the end of our street a familiar tune came on the local radio station. I groaned and rolled my eyes. This was happening all too frequently of late.
“Dreaming of coming home to you; talking like we used to do…”
I reached to turn off the radio but Jacob pulled my hand away from the dial.
“Stop! I like this one mommy,” Jacob smiled at me and drummed his hands on his legs in rhythm with the beat. I forced a smile on my face and gritted my teeth as the song played out.
As the end of the song faded out the radio presenter cut in: “That was ‘Coming Home’ by our very own local band, The Riots. Rumour has it that Joel, Billy and Waz will really be back in town in coming months! Tune in next week for more news on the boys’ return to town.”
My breath caught and my stomach lurched–I can’t have heard right. My mind went blank as horror pulsed through my body at the news.
“Mommy, mommy!” Jacob’s voice cut into the void in my head. I looked down at his terrified face and then out through the windscreen.
We narrowly missed a car coming towards us. I was driving on the wrong side of the road! The other driver blew his horn at us loudly as I swerved out of his way. I pulled on to the grass shoulder and pulled Jacob to me, my heart racing and my head thumping with the start of a headache.
“I’m so sorry baby, I’m so sorry,” I was sobbing into his dark blonde hair, hardly believing what I’d just done.
“Mommy you’re crazy,” he told me as I clung onto him.
They were coming back. Here. Back into our town; my town. And, oh God, I just almost killed my son.
“Mommy, are you sleeping with your eyes open?” Jacob prodded me as I sat staring into my bowl of porridge.
“Huh?” was my bleary-eyed response as I tried to focus on his curious face.
“Excuse me, not huh, mommy.” He chastised me. Daniel gave him an approving nod across the table and I fought the urge to punch him in the face. Daniel, not Jacob.
“I’m sorry baby, I have a headache today. What were you saying?” We spent the rest of breakfast listening to Jacob tell us about the naughty kid in his class and how he’d said a bad word and the teacher had sent him to the principle.
I drifted in and out of the conversation. I needed to snap out of this, it was no good for me or for Jacob. Not to mention the fact that Daniel was getting increasingly pissed off with me. No doubt he’d heard the rumour that The Riots were coming to town soon and that paired with me acting like a nut job had him completely rattled.
Jacob finished his breakfast and ran out to the garden to play soccer with our golden Labrador, Bonnie. She was getting old now but loved to race Jacob around the garden and steal the ball away from him.
I cleaned up the dishes and started loading them into the dishwasher, feeling Daniel’s eyes on me the whole time. I forced myself to ignore it; I really wasn’t in the mood for him this morning.
“It’s bothering you that he’s coming back,” Daniel stood beside me at the kitchen counter. “I know that’s why you’re acting strangely.”
I stopped what I was doing and closed my eyes; I really didn’t want to talk about this, not with him. But then with who? I was friendly with the other moms but I had no real friends, just people I passed the time of day with at children’s parties and school events.
“Yes, it bothers me. I don’t know why. I also don’t know why they’re coming back here – there’s nothing here for any of them.” I replied honestly and looked away at the hurt look in Daniel’s eyes.
Almost a year after he’d gone, Joel had moved his mom and his sister Casey out of the trailer park and into a fancy house in California. Waz’s mom still lived in town but he’d washed his hands of her years earlier; so I’d heard she’d spent all the money he’d sent on drugs and booze and he’d cut her off. There was no reason I could think of that they’d be coming back after all these years.
“It’s some MTV thing,” Daniel told me and put a print out from the internet on the counter. I looked at him in surprise and he shrugged. “I needed to know why they–why
he
–would come back here.”
I scanned the page, avoiding Daniel’s gaze; it was a gossip column post about the band and that they’d signed up for an MTV show where they would go back to their hometown and talk about their rags to riches story. That explained it then; another chance to get their mug shots around for all to see.
“Oh, well I guess they shouldn’t be around for long then. That’s good,” I tried to sound dismissive and unbothered by it but my mask must have slipped. Daniel clearly knew me a bit better than I’d given him credit for.
“We could take a vacation? Get out of town for a little bit,” he suggested hopefully.
It seemed that the boys’ sudden return to town had Daniel as off kilter as I was. He must have felt under threat in some way and wanted us out of town while the band were around.
“Yeah, maybe. We’ll see okay.” I closed up the dishwasher and threw the print out into the bin as I made my way out to Jacob and Bonnie.
Truth be told, I wanted to be here when they arrived. I wanted to see if Joel had the nerve to look me in the eye. There was something I wanted speak to him about that I was sick of carrying around with me after all of these years.
I took my seat at the long table without a word. I’d had the good grace to grab my notepad and pen from my bag before I entered the room, so as not to cause any further disruption to the meeting. I only worked three days a week, not even full school hours and yet I always managed to get to team meetings by the skin of my teeth. Except today, today I was just plain late. Sleeping with my eyes open again as Jacob had termed it.
I’d decided to Google the band after I dropped Jacob to school and got lost in endless sites spouting gossip about them. I’d just about had enough when I saw the time and had to run, high-heeled, from my office to the other end of the school to the staff meeting room. My feet were screaming at me and my cheeks were flushed from the run; it had been quite a while since I last attempted anything at all like exercise and I made a mental note to use my gym membership more than once a year.
I was rarely called upon to contribute to the staff meetings, I was there more as a nod to the fact I was part of the faculty rather than actually needing to be there. Each head of department took their turn to debrief the principle on their news and put forward any requests or concerns.
I allowed myself to tune out and mull over what I'd read online about the band. Waz had apparently married a former Playboy bunny girl and I'd giggled to myself when I saw their ridiculously over the top wedding. I also made a mental note to ask him if my invite had gotten lost in the post. From the local gossips I’d gathered that the wedding was reminiscent of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee but with the bride dressed in actual clothes-barely.
Billy was a player; as I knew he would be, and he'd been linked with different models, pop stars and actresses almost monthly. Man whore. I could have guessed he hadn't been married; he was too wild to settle down.
And then there was Joel. I'd tried to skip over any romantic links since it made me feel strange but in actual fact he'd hardly been linked to anyone. There was something about him dating an English actress for a while. She was sickeningly photogenic, but other than that he seemed to keep his private life hidden from the gossip columns.
Since hearing they would be back I had looked at recent pictures of them and was surprised to see how much they'd bulked up since I knew them. All three had quite a collection of tattoos; Joel seemed to have the most, with both arms covered from wrists to shoulders.
Waz looked like he'd fallen into the rock star lifestyle of sex and drugs, heavy emphasis on the drugs and I’d seen no pictures of him with the wife I’d been told about. Billy was as handsome as I remembered him, he still had his hair dyed black and wore it spiked and his blue eyes still held the sadness of his trailer park upbringing.
Joel...
"Sorry to interrupt your thoughts Miss Jones but perhaps you'd like to give us your opinion?" Ah damn. Principle Hardy was giving me daggers.
I looked around in utter panic. What did I miss?
"With you having been such good friend with them perhaps you could ask them if they wouldn't mind giving a talk to the students. The Riots I believe they're called?" Rob Shaw looked at me with a smile on his eyes. I loved that man right at that moment for catching me up.
Hang on; he wanted
me
ask them to give a talk? Now I absolutely hated Rob.
"Well, I'm not sure. I can't say I know them at all anymore," I stammered. "They might not even know who I am, you know these rock star types."
"I do believe quite a few of their early hits were written specifically about you and your time together as friends?" I could kick Rob so hard right now. "I'm pretty sure they won't have forgotten you. You're quite the character after all."
Rob was in his mid-thirties and had moved here from another town, but I was fairly sure that if he'd gone to my high school I'd have hated him. Lucky for him my 'character' was quite a bit tamer these days and that I classed him as a friend of sorts.
"Ah Rob, you're quite the character yourself," I replied with a smile through gritted teeth.
I stepped out of my front porch that Monday morning to find my front yard had been invaded by a stream of reporters and cameramen once more.
Jacob opened his mouth wide and whispered, “Woooowww.”
I lifted him up in my arms and hid his face in my shoulder as I pushed through the crowd to get to my car. I had to force the passenger door open, shoving several of them off balance as they fought each other to get close to me. The noise was incredible and the flashes from the cameras surrounding us blinded my eyes.
"Miss Jones have you been in contact with the band regarding their return?" A microphone was shoved in my face as I tried to buckle Jacob into his car seat.
“Please step back, you’re upsetting my son,” I told them all with a stony faced expression.
The Riots were due to arrive in town the following week and for the last couple of days there had been a media frenzy outside my house. Daniel had taken to working from home as much as possible and was getting increasingly fed up of the attention we were getting. Tensions inside our four walls were rising; we’d not even been able to take the dog for a walk because crazy fans and reporters had quickly descended us upon.
“So have you made plans to meet up with Joel at all Miss Jones?” One reporter pushed herself to the front of the crowd and almost hit me in the face with her mic.
"No comment." I pushed it out of my face and pulled the blanket high over my baby's head before pushing my way through the gaggle of reporters to the driver’s side door. "Please leave my property or I'll be forced to call the police."
Daniel had insisted on taking legal advice from his lawyer friend and I repeated what he'd instructed us to say on these occasions. The town was turning into a circus. Someone must have blabbed about my past relationship with Joel because within the first twenty-four hours the media had swept down on me.
They knew where I worked and lived, they knew where Jacob went to school and what class he was in. One tabloid had even gone as far to question who his father was. At which point I thought Daniel might explode. I knew he'd considered taking Jacob out of school and staying with his parents until this whole thing was over.
"It's okay baby, keep that over your face until were down the street," I squeezed his hand then started the car.
The reporters and cameramen stood back to let us pass but I was almost blinded by camera flashes as we passed more on the street outside our house.
"Are you famous mommy?" Came his muffled voice from under the blanket.
"No." I considered how much to tell him, but figured he'd hear all kinds of things from his classmates. "When I was younger I used to be friends with some people who are famous now. I dated one of them for a little while. They're coming to town soon and these people, the reporters, want me to tell them about my old friends."
I pulled the blanket down now we were clear of the cameras. Daniel and I had released a statement saying that we didn't give permission for any images or recordings of Jacob to be used and if they were we would sue. Nonetheless, we'd agreed to hide him as much as we could just in case.
"That's so cool!" He was truly in awe. "When can I meet them? My friends will be so jealous."
"Jakey... I actually think sometimes you're as crazy as your momma." The mind of a small child. If only his father were so relaxed about it all.