Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel Read online

  “You know…maybe if your parents saw how much you loved music, they would allow you to go to concerts like this.” I waved my hand at the crowd. “You have to admit, this is pretty harmless.”

  He snorted. “I wish they could see it like that. It’s not like I have a fascination with creating bombs or something. It’s rock and roll!”

  “Maybe you could ask them next time?”

  “I tried that. Trust me. I once asked if I could try to record a Christian album. They’re so adamant that today’s music goes against their strict religious beliefs, I figured they couldn’t argue with a Christian album. But my dad freaked!” He raised his hands. “I still don’t understand.”

  “Okay, I see your point. I’ll stop pressing. Secret concerts and warehouses it is.”

  In front of us, the roadies carried equipment off the stage and packed it neatly into black trunks. Gavin stared at me, then back at the stage, then at me again.

  “What?” I glanced down at my shirt, worried I had missed a stain from lunch.

  “It’s just…I think my dad actually likes music too. A few years ago, right before I got the laptop for Christmas and Sabrina went all Stepford daughter, I found a few photographs tucked into some sheet rock in the basement walls. This was when my dad was refurbishing the basement.”

  “Wait, there were pictures in the sheet rock?”

  He gave me a guilty smile. “If I questioned every weird thing my parents did, I’d have more unanswered questions than that most mystery novels. Besides, that’s a lot less weird than some of the other stuff they do.” Gavin squinted into the sun, and then covered his eyes with his sunglasses. “Anyway, I found these photos in the basement wall, right? It was of my dad at all these concerts, smiling while Aerosmith or Nirvana performed on the stage behind him. And then…there was one of him sitting behind a piano in what looked like a classroom. It was from high school, according to the printed date.”

  “The boarding school?” I asked.

  The lead singer of the next band stepped onto the stage, tapping the microphone for a sound check.

  Gavin nodded. “It just doesn’t make sense. Why would he be so opposed to music when he used to play? When he seemed to be obsessed with it?”

  The crowd trickled back from the concession stand, smoke wafting from their French fries. I fanned myself to cool off. “Maybe he just realized he hated popular music. That could be when he embraced religion.” Though, that didn’t explain why he never went to church.

  Before Gavin could answer, the band hit their first guitar chord, and we lost all hope of conversing.

  After the fourth song ended, someone behind me giggled. I’d know that voice anywhere. Isla Gibson. Her blue eyes traced the contours of Gavin’s backside.

  Isla’s eyes shifted to mine, and her brow furrowed. I grabbed Gavin by the hand and guided him toward the concession area. He didn’t even question my leadership. Probably a result of Tully brainwashing.

  His hand felt warm inside mine.

  We snagged an empty table, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I scanned the area and didn’t see Isla. She knew too much about me. And I wasn’t ready to share that info with Gavin. I’d tell him when I was sure he wouldn’t run away.

  “Are you hungry?” He glanced at the concession stand.

  I grabbed a stray napkin that remained on the table and wiped the sweat from my forehead. “No, I just want to sit for a sec. My feet hurt.”

  “Who was that girl?” Gavin nodded toward the crowd. “I saw some blonde staring at you.”

  “She’s no one,” I said fast.

  He raised an eyebrow at me.

  I sighed. “She’s kind of my ex-best-friend.”

  He raised a brow, waiting for more.

  Maybe warning Gavin of Isla’s wrath would prevent him from talking to her. “She basically turned the whole school against me. Enough said.”

  “How? Why?” His eyebrows slanted into sincere worry.

  I’d been burned once for sharing and also coveting secrets. And now I was being offered the same choice. My friendship with Isla ended because I kept too many secrets about myself from her, and she felt couldn’t trust me. So she used the one thing I did tell her against me. We’d exchanged stories about our deadbeat mothers. Her mother had dumped her on her dad and took a job in New Zealand. I thought I could trust her, so I told her about Krystal. Thanks to Isla, everyone at school showed up where my mother worked, brandishing fake IDs. The boys antagonized Krystal while throwing dollar bills her way, and then bragged about it in homeroom the next day. That was why Krystal slapped me. She thought I encouraged them to visit her because I wanted to embarrass her.

  She didn’t realize it only embarrassed me.

  Would Gavin ditch me if he knew the truth about my homelife? About my heart? Or would he feel like he could never really know me if I kept myself closed off? Keeping secrets only hurt me last time, I decided to take an alternate route with him.

  I took a deep breath, ready to reveal the whole story, but Gavin’s attention flitted beyond me. I turned to see Isla and her best friend Becca Anderson approaching.

  Isla swung her legs into the spot next to Gavin and sidled up to him.

  Becca smoothed her stick straight hair down her back before brushing off the empty seat next to me and scooting to the far end of the bench.

  Just to be annoying, I inched closer.

  Isla shot me a triumphant glare and turned her attention to Gavin. “I’m Isla.”

  “Gavin.” He held out his hand, which she promptly shook. Then strung her fingers between his.

  She squeezed his hand. “So, are you new in town?”

  Gavin held my pleading stare. I knew he wouldn’t want to answer this question. I’d just told him these girls weren’t trustworthy.

  “Not really.” He shook his hand out of her grasp and picked at a splinter on the table.

  “Do you go to Milf? Or another school?”

  “Milf?” He pushed his hair behind his ears, which he probably meant as a cast-off gesture, but looked like a model selling a hair product. “I thought it was called Milford Brook.”

  Isla’s gaze cut to me. “It used to be.”

  My stomach lurched.

  “Oh, yeah,” Gavin said. “I’m going there in the fall.”

  “And how do you know this one?” Isla nodded at me.

  Gavin shot me an apologetic look. “Uh. We’re in a band.”

  Isla’s eyes lit up. “Do you know about The Mermaid Lounge?”

  Gavin shook his head, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. I figured he didn’t know about it. After all, I never told him.

  “It’s an awesome place. We have amateur nights, run by yours truly,” she said in a sing-song voice. “So what instrument do you play? Because if you need lessons, I’m a master at almost everything.” She swung her blonde locks, and sunlight glinted off them like the delicate strings of a harp. “Not to brag or anything.”

  “Isla, where’s Zack?” I asked pointedly.

  She scoffed. “Zack and I broke up ages ago.”

  Couldn’t have been that long, since they were together when school ended.

  Isla put on a flirty smile and turned back to Gavin. “So what do you play?”

  Beneath the bench, someone nudged my foot. I glanced at Isla, but she was focused on Gavin.

  “I compose most of my stuff on my computer.” Gavin’s eyes met mine. His foot. He was checking up on me.

  I fought back a smile.

  A t-shirt flew over the heads of some people in the mosh pit, landing in front of the picnic tables. Isla glanced at it, then turned to me, a serious expression on her face. “Oh, is your mom in there?”

  Becca scanned my face for a moment, probably thinking about any upcoming school elections she’d need my vote for. She was president of the student council, organizer of the school’s mock trials, born to be a lawyer and just biding her time until she legally could. Her shoulders relaxed, and she allo
wed herself a chuckle.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bench. I didn’t need to subject myself to this.

  “Are you going to abandon Gavin here too? That seems to be your specialty,” Isla said, referring to the incident that ended our friendship.

  I jammed my feet back under the table. One thing I promised myself: I’d never run away again. While I waited for my death sentence, I thought about what went wrong with Isla and me. In seventh grade, we’d trekked home from school to her house, cutting through the woods where she tripped on a fallen branch. She screamed and crumpled to the floor. Tears spilled from her eyes.

  “I’ll get help. Stay here,” I’d told her, trying my best to keep my voice composed.

  “Where am I going to go?” Sniffles muffled her words. She clutched her ankle in pain.

  I took off through the trees, wishing her dad caved on that cell phone rule, hating myself for suggesting the small rebellion of the forest. My heart vibrated in my chest, but I pushed on. I didn’t want her to suffer any longer than she had to. As I ran, my breath came in desperate gasps, and soon I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. Panic overtook me. For Isla. For my heart.

  I overexerted myself too much. Almost immediately after I emerged onto a residential street, I collapsed to the ground while a witness called an ambulance. I didn’t remember anything else, except the mundane walls and putrid smell of the ICU unit where I spent the next few days. Isla never visited even though Krystal insisted she’d called her.

  When I finally returned to school, Isla confronted me, leaning on crutches. “Thanks for ditching me. The doctor says I made my ankle worse by walking all the way home on it.”

  “I didn’t ditch you, I tried…”

  She rolled her eyes. Didn’t she know about my own hospital journey?

  A choice lay before me: confess about my heart problems or keep this secret to myself and let her believe the lie. The stuff about Krystal’s job was external, attached to me by a cord I planned to sever one day. But this heart issue would always be part of me. I’d always be broken. And I didn’t want anyone to know. My dad abandoned me when he found out about my heart. I couldn’t risk the same thing with Isla. She had everything. The only thing I had was this secret.

  “I thought you were faking,” I finally said, my voice cold.

  Back at the picnic table with Gavin, I dragged my eyes to Isla. She smiled vindictively at me. Yes, I’d hurt her with my blatant lie, but she hurt me too by spreading the truth.

  “So, Gavin. I think you’re cool,” Isla said, catching me off guard. “So I’m going to give you some tips on making a smooth entrance at Milf.” With Isla acting as event planner for the Milford Brook students’ social calendar and Becca holding the authority over all school rules and enforcements, these two had diplomatic immunity for all their wrong doing. “If anyone tries to sell you a skeleton key, it doesn’t exist. They always get the freshman with that one. And be nice to Becca here, because she’s got your back.”

  Becca twisted her nameplate necklace so it sat in the center of her chest.

  Isla tapped the table to the beat of the band’s performance. “Try to request Mr. Mancini for US History. If you bring up baseball, he’ll talk the whole period and forget about teaching.” She shifted in her seat, facing Gavin completely now. “And of course you’ll want to know who’s who at school. So tell me, what do you know about Jan here?”

  My mouth dropped open. What shocked me? That she didn’t use her ammo on Krystal right away.

  Gavin squinted in confusion. “Jan?”

  I could almost hear the squeal Isla squelched. She now had confirmation that Gavin’s ears were virginal to her gossip.

  “I go by Moxie now.” I glared at Isla, determined to hold my own and show that she couldn’t hurt me with words.

  “I’m guessing Jan here hasn’t told you much about herself. You need to learn this before you get to Milf. Calling it by its full name a faux pas, by the way.”

  Gavin’s foot pressed against mine again, tapping, once, twice, three times. I left mine limp.

  Isla trailed her fingers up Gavin’s arm. He stopped looking at me and set his eyes on her. “Okay, first, the name,” she said. “Moxie. It sounds badass, right? And then she acts like this tough cookie, but did you know she’s really a prissy little girly girl?”

  I scoffed. “That’s absurd.”

  “Oh really, Jan? You’re not? How come you never participate in gym? Too concerned about messing up your precious streaked hair to get sweaty during the mile?”

  I chuckled. “If you’re jealous, why don’t you try out that excuse since you think it’s working so well for me.”

  Isla threw her purse onto the table and rifled through it. She pulled out a small business card, scribbled something on it, and slid it over to Gavin.

  Gavin scanned the note. “Foxy’s? Ask for Krystal?” He looked at me quizzically.

  “Krystal is Jan’s mother. She works there. You do know Foxy’s, right, Gavin?”

  “That’s enough, Isla.” I jerked out of my seat.

  “Not nearly enough. At least that’s what I hear Krystal says to her customers.”

  Gavin started to get up, worry written all over his face. Isla pulled him back down and swung her legs over the bench and onto his lap, locking him in place. “Leaving? But we’re just getting to the good stuff.” She smiled. “Her mom’s the hero of Milf High, after all. The namesake. Gavin, have you ever seen American Pie? It’s an oldie but goodie.”

  Gavin didn’t answer. He just stared at me.

  “It means mother, I’d like to—”

  “Isla…” Becca pleaded. At least she was diplomatic in who she represented during arguments.

  Isla sighed. “Fine.” She removed her legs from Gavin’s lap and grabbed the Foxy’s paper. She wrote something else on it, quickly, as if she might run out of battery. He didn’t move for it so she set it down in front of him.

  “My phone number,” she said. “I can get you some cool gigs.”

  Gavin tucked the paper into his palm as we fled the scene. I steered him toward a garbage can so he could get rid of the evidence, but instead he stuck his hand in his pocket. When he pulled his hand out again, it was empty, Isla’s phone number tucked safely inside his pants.

  After Gavin and I left our picnic table at the free outdoor concert, we weaved through the crowds. I gave him a darting sidelong glance, trying to interpret his drooping eyelids, furrowed brow, and ruler-straight lips. Would he ever speak to me again?

  A dirt path curved into a hiking trail between the trees. I headed down the trail, not looking back to see if he followed. That was his choice. He could break free of my grasp right now and save himself. But if he decided to go along with me down this path, I’d know it would be safe to tell him everything.

  Even though the crunching sounds coming from behind me indicated that Gavin did in fact follow, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. So I imagined a very gentle, very obedient deer latched onto me.

  Trees surrounded me, shade cooling me down. Sounds of the concert and the gabbing crowd gave way to chirping birds.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Gavin asked, the hurt evident in his voice.

  I turned around. He stood in the center of the path, his hands balled into fists. Sunlight escaped through patches in the trees, illuminating rays that guided my path, like the lanterns that first day in the warehouse.

  “You have to understand what it’s like to find someone who doesn’t know about my mother,” I said, trying to get enough courage to look him in the eye. “When we’re together, I can be myself. You don’t judge me for her choices.” I swallowed and met his stoic expression. “I didn’t want that to change.”

  “Your mom? I don’t care about that.” He kicked a stone as he continued walking, this time side by side with me. “I wish you could’ve trusted me. You didn’t even tell me you’re real name.”

  I bent and picked up a long stick, which I
used to help me keep a more brisk pace with Gavin’s long legs. “I hate it. It’s just so…not me.”

  “You could make it your own, though. I think Jan could suit you if you owned it like you do Moxie.”

  I shook my head. “Jan just has too many negative connotations to me. Krystal—my mother—picked the blandest name she could think of for her daughter. Jan. Plainer than Jane. The ignored Brady. It’s everything unwanted and forgotten.”

  “I’m not following.” Gavin ducked underneath a low branch I didn’t even notice.

  I took a deep breath. “Krystal always feels her lot in life had been determined by her stripper name. When she turned eighteen, she got the job. Soon after, she had me.” I tapped my fingertips on my chest.

  “When did your dad pass away, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Oh.” He would have taken that quick excuse I told to his mom as fact. I’d never given him reason to think otherwise. “Actually, I don’t know who my dad is. Krystal won’t tell me. I’ve decided she must be embarrassed because he was a client. Or maybe she doesn’t know who he is.”

  “Maybe you should give her the benefit of the doubt. Like, what if your dad was this great guy who got shipped off to the army or something and never returned, and your mom is too sad to talk about it?” He stared at me with big, hopeful eyes.

  “I wish the truth was that romantic.” I sighed. Before Isla showed up at the picnic table, I’d made the decision to tell him everything. But I’d been about to tell him for the wrong reasons. I wanted to avoid the same mistake I’d made with Isla. Now, as we walked, I justified telling him my secrets for the right reason: I trusted him.

  “I was born premature. With a heart condition. The doctors didn’t think I’d make it. I don’t know the exact details, Krystal’s memory is fuzzy and that’s all I have to go on. I always wonder if she made this part of the story up, if she ever told my dad about me. But sometimes, you have pick out the facts and decide your own truth.”

  He whipped his head toward me. “If you believe that, then why do you focus on only the negatives about your mother? Couldn’t you decide on only positives?”