Riot Girl (7 page)

I pulled into the high school car lot after dropping Jacob at his school. I wasn't due to start work for a couple of hours but I couldn't stand the thought of fighting through the press to get into the house again. Besides, what was there to go home to? Daniel would just pick a fight as though it was my fault that the vultures had invaded our home.

No, thank you I'd rather be at school
. I laughed at the thought. Ten years ago I'd never imagine myself thinking this way.

My laughter quickly turned to tears, what the hell was wrong with me? I was so hormonal and emotional that I could barely think straight. My life had been ticking along just fine and then BOOM, it was like a bomb had gone off and I didn’t know left from right anymore.

It was coming to ‘that’ time of year I realised suddenly. The anniversary.

“Oh my God, what am I doing?” I cried to myself and rested my head on the steering wheel.

Maybe Daniel had been right; we should have taken Jacob and left while the circus was in town. Jacob thought he had a crazy person for a mother at the best of times, he must think I’d completely lost it these past couple of weeks.

There was a sharp knock on the window.
Great.
I wound the window down without moving my head from the wheel.

“Can I help you?” I asked from my hiding place.

“Can you imagine what you must look like to the kids in the classroom over there?” Rob asked mocking me.

“Shit… is there really a class in there?” I tried to peek over the dashboard of my car without showing my face.

“Yup. Now scoot over.” I did as I was told and sat up, trying to hide my face behind my loose hair. Thank goodness I’d decided against tying it up this morning.

Rob turned the key and drove us out of the parking lot and headed towards town. I glanced sideways at him; he was handsome in the conventional sense but he didn’t have the look that appealed to me. He was too wholesome and ‘pretty’ for a man with his soft face, plump lips and slender body. He wasn’t skinny but he wasn’t overly muscular either. I turned my attention back to the road when I realised he’d spotted me watching him.

“Now they’ll tell their friends that you were talking to yourself and crying and then I came to take you away,” he said matter-of-factly. “And hey presto, we’ll be having an affair according to the entire population of the student body.”

I groaned loudly; he was right of course. I hit my face with the palm of my hand. Now I was crazy for all to see and apparently having an affair with my colleague. Who I hated, for the record.

“The girls will all hate you of course,” he laughed at me, his grey eyes shining with mischief.

“Oh, and why’s that then?” I mumbled.

“Because I’m like
so
desirable,” he said impersonating a typical teenage girl. “And so they’ll totally have to hate you because you have what they want.”

“A mental condition?” I said, my voice dripping in sarcasm as I rolled my eyes at him. He looked at me curiously so I continued. ”Well I do talk to myself, cry in the car for all to see and not to mention my apparent
terrible
taste in men.”

“Ah Indiana, I do love our little talks,” Rob pulled into a space outside a small coffee shop that the teaching staff frequented.

It was in the style of an antique bookshop and looked entirely unappealing to teenage eyes. Of course school staff in the town loved it; the coffee was good too but the bonus was definitely that it was a childfree zone.

“I thought you’d appreciate a little grown up time with a mature, sensitive man,” Rob smiled and held out his arm for me to take. In spite of myself I hooked my own arm into his and rested my head on his shoulder.

“I’m crazy, aren’t I?” I asked.

“Certifiable, baby.”

“So, you used to date one of the guys from the band?” Rob and I were walking through to the lunch hall after that morning’s faculty meeting.

“Who told you that?” For a guy who didn’t come from this town he sure picked up a lot of old gossip.

“I have my sources,” he replied, tapping his nose. “So did he break your teenage heart or did you stamp his into a million pieces?”

The guy was a joker. If I’d had a teacher like him when I was a student here I might have enjoyed history more. I gave him my best evil glare and ignored him.

“He broke your heart then, nasty.” Rob laughed and put his arm around my shoulders jovially. “Indiana Jones I’ll break you one of these days and all your dirty secrets will come gushing out of that pretty mouth of yours.”

“Go fu-.” Rob put his hand over my mouth mid-profanity.

“Ah ah ah, students might hear that filth Miss Jones!” He cut me off mid-curse. “So are you looking forward to seeing them? I also heard you’d been great friends with them all but only went out to California once to see them?”

“My God, where do you get your information from!” I was surprised that he knew so much and I had no idea where he’d gotten his information from since I sure as heck never told anyone.

“Yes, we were good friends,” I gave in, shaking my head at his pushiness. “There was no reason for me to go back to California, it’s not my kind of place. Yes, I dated Joel for a while. Yes, he broke my heart. We were teenagers; don’t all teenagers break each other’s hearts? It’s all part of growing up.”

“So you are excited to see them again, him specifically?” He pushed, winking at me jovially.

“I am actually going to beat you to death and bury you in the school basement if you don’t mind your own business!” I growled, only partly in jest. Half the time I gave in and told him things only because if you didn’t he’d keep asking questions anyway and stare at you with his grey eyes until you felt like your head might spin off. “I doubt I’ll see or speak to any of them. We were friends a long time ago, a lot’s happened since then.”

“You’ll see them. I have a feeling about that.” Rob smiled and left me in the doorway to the lunch hall open mouthed.

If he said it would happen, it would happen. Most likely because he’d
make
it happen.

I froze at the entrance to the school theatre, my feet rooted to the ground. As usual, when put on the spot, my brain turned to mush. The only clear thought I has was
‘Rob, I am going to kill you’.

“Ah, I did wrong,” he whispered guiltily at my side.

“Yeah ya did,” I finally managed between gritted teeth. “What were you
thinking
?”

“Revenge? Confrontation?” he tried helplessly.

“What!” I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Well, they wanted a scoop and I thought you could dish the dirt on them,” Rob blanched at the look on my face. “I got this really wrong.”

I stared at him in disbelief, murder in my eyes. “Does my privacy mean
nothing
to you Rob?”

“I thought maybe it was time to confront your past, left to you it would stay buried,” he shrugged ruefully.

Laid out on the high school stage in front of us was a set that looked like it had come right out of a daytime chat show. People were mulling around angling cameras and adjusting lighting. Dead set in the middle of it all were two long couches with a presenter perched at the end of the one on the left-hand side.

On the right-hand one sat The Riots, all eyes on me and shifting nervously. The blonde coiffed one followed their gaze and stood up to come and meet me.

“Indiana,” she rushed towards Rob and I. “So wonderful to meet you darling.”

She then had the audacity to air kiss me on each cheek and grin at me toothily. When I didn’t respond except to stare at her like she was an alien, she moved on to Rob.

“Robert, darling, thank you for making this possible!” she kissed both of his cheeks too. “We’re
super
excited about this–thank you again for the loan of the theatre.”

She clicked her manicured fingers and a young guy seemingly wrapped in wires and wearing a headset appeared at her side obediently.

“Wire her up,” she ordered dryly, glancing at her watch and then turning on her sparkling smile for me once more. “Indiana, I’m Betsy and we’ll be looking to roll in eight minutes. Don’t be shy, just pretend the cameras aren’t there.”

She was ushering me to the stage as the wireman shoved something rubber into my ear and clipped a miniature microphone to my blouse.

“Hey buster!” I exclaimed as he began to tuck his hand inside my blouse to secure the mic. “Move it or lose it.”

He looked mortified but I was furious about being man handled. He carefully took his hand out of my top and held it up and rushed away from me, backwards. Next a woman with caramel skin and big red lips appeared and started powdering my face with a huge make up brush. I put my hand out to stop her for a moment.

“I didn’t agree to any of this,” I fumed, twisting around to glare at Rob. He was now seated in the front row of the theatre, immediately behind the lighting set up.

Betsy’s jaw dropped. “But you’re the focal point of this section Indiana.”

“Focal point–section? What are you talking about?” I snapped at the stupid, annoying Betsy.

“The ‘memory lane’ part of the documentary we’re making sweetie,” she replied patiently, as though speaking to a small child. “We’re going to speak to you about the origins of the band; a kind of ‘before they were famous exposé if you will.”

I looked at Rob again and gave him a death stare as Betsy continued to push me on stage, waving the make-up girl away. I couldn’t bring myself to so much as glance in the direction of the boys on the other sofa; I was torn between kicking their asses and running away.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to regain my composure. My heart was racing and I was a wreck. There was no use denying it. But I was a grown up now, a mother for goodness sake–I could handle this.

Except for Rob
, I thought,
he was a dead man walking
.

Closing my eyes for a moment I took another breath before forcing myself to look in the direction of the other couch. For the first time in almost seven years I was looking at them in the flesh once more.

Waz looked shocking, his eyes were drawn with dark circles underneath, and he looked like he needed a good home–cooked meal. Billy waved his hand at me with a nervous smile.
Good
, I thought,
so he should be nervous.
He was still handsome but with more ink on his skin than I remembered.

Joel stared at me intently, drinking me in. I felt sick to my stomach.

“So, Indiana, tell us about the guys you knew and loved growing up,” the bottle blonde airhead with bright red lips known as Betsy began. Her hair was like a helmet, it had been sprayed to within an inch of its life and I was mesmerised by it.

“Oh well I didn’t really know them all that well back then,” I lied.

The boys looked at me with confusion; but I had decided that the sooner I got out of there, the better – if Betsy thought I didn’t know them then she’d surely cut the interview immediately.

“Now don’t be so coy
Indiana
,” God I hated her for using my full name. “I have video tapes from your old days in the band! You were their original ‘fourth’ so they tell me. How did it feel when you got cut from the band?”

I glared at her.
What a bitch
, I thought.

“In actual fact I left the band of my own volition. I quit before the scout even noticed them. The band being famous that was always their dream and I was just dragged along as a vocalist for a while,” I told her straight. “I was there the night the scout picked them up and I was–and am–happy for them. I’m proud of what they’ve achieved.”

“Can you tell us what they were like before the fame?” Betsy pushed.

“They were my best friends,” I confessed. “The only real family I had around. They were funny and kind and everything a friend should be.”

I looked at each of them in turn, looking them right in the eye. A tear slipped down my cheek and I glanced away quickly, wiping it with the back of my hand.

“How did you feel when they were signed?” Betsy smiled. “It must have been exciting to think you knew them before they were famous?”

“Actually I was over the moon for them,” I leant in conspiratorially. “Because I’d helped write some of their earlier songs, they were good enough to send me a few checks from those first couple of albums. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, I was delighted when they got signed and started to make it big. Who needs friends around when you have checks rolling in?”

Joel closed his eyes and pinched his nose. I wondered what was going through his mind. Did he understand what I had really meant in my thinly veiled comment?

“And…” Betsy was struggling now; she really hadn’t expected that little titbit of information. “What did you do with the money?”

“I put myself through college and brought the house I live in now,” I replied without skipping a beat. “In short, I support myself and my
son
with that money. The guys will tell you, growing up the way we did, you learn not to depend on anyone but yourself. That money made sure I never had to rely on anyone else. And that’s why you won’t hear a bad word about a single one of them from me; they could easily have cut me out but they didn’t. They made sure I was taken care of and paid for the part I played in the band until that point. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to fetch my son.”

Joel looked up in surprise at the mention of Jacob he hadn’t been expecting that. Perhaps he thought I’d sat alone and pined for him all this time without building a life of my own.

I hadn’t told anyone about the royalty checks until then. Little did I know, that day after I’d left my Dad’s trailer for the last time, I was carrying in my pocket the first of several royalty checks. There was a short note inside–
For you, Indi.
That was all the contact I had from them.

Only the bank had any idea about the extra cash that came into my account and where it had come from. As I marched out of the room I realised I had been mad long enough. It was time to face him one to one.