The Rockstar Chronicles

Take One

When I got home that night, filthy once more from helping Mrs. Crabtree in her garden, Mom was livid.

“Lindy! How dare you just jump out of the car and take off running like that?” She slammed a frozen bag of corn onto the counter. “Whatever possessed you?”

I realized then she was going to take her pent up anger out on me. I swallowed hard. Just a few hours earlier, I would have fought her. I would have yelled and screamed and cried. I had been at that point. But now, my tears were gone, all cried out on Mrs. Crabtree’s porch. And my anger was gone, replaced by a quiet strength I hadn’t realized I had. Maybe, before Mrs. Crabtree’s porch, I didn’t.

I felt older somehow, like I had aged several years in one afternoon.

But as adult as I felt, I was still terrified of Mom and I no longer had rage as my ally. I took a deep breath and sighed. “Sorry, Mom,” I mumbled. “I was helping Mrs. Crabtree with her garden. I thought the storm might have hurt it.”

I hadn’t taken all those acting classes over the years for nothing. I saw Mom soften and I felt a stab of guilt. But then I realized it was because, despite paying the best people she could find to train me, she still didn’t think I had any talent. She didn’t realize I was acting.

“Lindy,” Mom said. “This is a very busy and trying time for me. I mean, I’m out there fighting with the sharks for your brother’s sake. I don’t have time to go chasing after you or worry about what you’re up to. You need to be responsible.” She slit open the bag and tumbled the frozen chunks of vegetables into a pot. “You need to be mature.” She raised one eyebrow at me.

I realized several things as I listened to my mother. Number One: She was too tired to argue with me. And Number Two: She was too wrapped up in herself and Grady to worry about anything I was doing.

Mom added water to the pot and waited, stirring the vegetables as the heat melted the ice. I expected some type of punishment or even yelling, but it didn’t come. The phone rang and Mom grabbed it. It was always within arm’s reach of her now.

“Hello?” Mom rubbed her forehead. “Oh no, Honey. She’s back. Off helping some old lady with her flowers or something. Really, I thought she had grown up some since….” She stopped talking as my Dad’s voice rang out. I could barely hear him and couldn’t understand a word he said, but it didn’t matter. Mom was already growing calmer, the wrinkles between her eyes relaxing. She even smiled. Slightly.

I backed away, sure now that I was free. I had escaped without being punished. Now I just had to shower and avoid all five members of the newest boy band in the country for the rest of the night while I planned my own battle strategy.

It was time to go to war with Mom and my brother Grady. And I had a lot of work to do to prepare for it.

But that’s what life is like, I guess, when your annoying older brother is a rockstar.