And Then He Held My Hand, chapter 1
The tears began to well in her eyes.
"OH MY GOD," She said with tears running down her cheeks. "Mom, thank-you so much! This is by far the best thing you've ever gotten me!", It was July 1st and it was Dessi's birthday. She had opened a small package with four tickets in it to paradise. A Green Day concert. Green Day is her favorite band, after all. She could already hear Basket Case in her head. She distinctly heard Billie Joe Armstrong's voice. He's sooooo gorgeous thought Dessi, "Mom I can't wait! This is so exciting! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!"
"I didn't get them for you by myself. Brad pitched in." Brad is Dessi's stepdad.
And her least favorite person in the world. The name is actually quite ironic because there's a Green Day lyric, "The living room of my private wound while the mom's and Brad's are away." Well at least Dessi thought it was kinda funny how it really seemed to relate to her and her life. Her mom and Brad were always on a vacation and she seemed alone and her mom didn't understand why she always spent so much time avoiding her and Braddy-Boy. Oh well, Billie understood her. At the sound of his name, Dessi flinched and remembered that she was really hurting inside. Then she felt the tickets, clutched together in her palms and she smiled
"Who can I bring?" Dessi asked, tension in her voice, she was afraid her mom would make her take Brad along with her.
"Well, you have four tickets. I'm most certainly coming and you are too, that gives you two tickets. You can bring anyone you'd like." Dessi knew exactly who she would bring.
"Can I bring Giulia and Maria?"
"Of course!" Giulia and Maira Giovanni are Dessi's best friends and they all have been since they were young. Giulia and Carmen are twins and looked, acted, and ARE exactly the same. It's a bit scary. But that's beside the point. They met before they were born. There mothers had taken a class together. Some weirdo pregnant lady class. It was a yoga type of thing. Well anyway, that's where their moms met. Dessi was born July 1st and the twins were born July 2nd. As Dessi's mom came out of labor, Mrs. Giovanni went into labor. Dessi thought this through as she pinned her tickets on the back of her door. Right next to her favorite picture of Billie Joe. It was the one that she had gotten out of the newspaper the day after the Grammy's. It was the one of him performing and holding his guitar up in the air. It was a great picture and he looked really good in black and white.
She called Marias' cell and got her voice mail.
"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODWEAREGONNASEEGREENDAYSEPTEMBER 1ST ANDICAN'TWAITIGOTTICKETSFORMYBIRTHDAYANDYOU'RECOMINGSOIS GIULIAOHMYGODOHMYGODTHISISSOOOOCOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Said Dessi, in one breath while screaming it. She hung up the phone and listened to each and every one of her Green Day CD's and sang every word and played guitar to a few. It was the best day of her life.
~*~*~*~*~
"Dessi, Maria and Giulia are here." Brad said. She wanted to shout at him and tell him to leave her friends alone but she was too elated to hear him. She had Nimrod on, currently "All The Time" was blasting from her stereo. It was August 31st and Dessi was impatient and tired of waiting for the concert.
"We have come to night to cause mass destruction and wear out your Green Day CD's, as we have worn out our own personal collection preparing for tomorrow." Giulia said, trying to sound intellectual, it wasn't working.
"Can we start with 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours?" Maria asked, slapping her sister across the back of her head. She looked real Italian when she did it. She seemed to be right out of The Godfather. Her mother, Mrs. Giovanni, was Italian and married into them. The twins were 100% Italian and they looked it. They came to spend the night and get ready for the concert tomorrow. Hair was to be done, out fits to be picked out, and the things they should say when they met Green Day needed to be rehearsed. Dessi was determined to be the one that Billie Joe was going to pick out of the crowd to play guitar for a song. She could play all of them anyway and she had been practicing them all for two months.
"I just can't wait to go on stage. I'm gonna hug him and never let go. I bet he'll smell good." Dessi said, apprehensively.
"What makes you think he'll pick you, when I am the clear choice for the matter?" Maria said, only half teasing.
"You can't even play guitar, you dimwit, shut-up." Giulia said. I always liked her best, thought Dessi.
"Yeah well, miracles happen to those worthy, or something like that." Said Maria crossly at her sister.
"Well, whatever let's get ready," Dessi said.
~*~*~*~
"I'm so excited!!!" That was the first thing Dessi said when she woke up. She jumped out of bed and changed immediately. The twins looked up at her, rolled their eyes and told her to go to bed because it was only 5 in the morning, in perfect unison.
"But, aren't you guys ready to have the best experience of your ENTIRE lives?"
"Yes, but only after a long nights sleep." Maria said.
"Dessi go to sleep. At least give us 'til 8." Giulia mumbled. At this Dessi got back in her pajamas and tossed and turned in her bed. She finally fell asleep around 7 and slept until after 11. The twins didn't seem to mind, they slept right along with her.
At 11:30, Dessi woke up and screamed.
"We aren't gonna have enough time! Hurry up! Get up, get up, GET UP! All three of us have to get in the shower, straiten our hair and get dressed." Dessi said, panic rising in her voice with each word. At this, Maria and Giulia shot up and ran for the shower. As they shoved each other out of the way, Dessi slipped passed them and got in the shower first. When she came back to her room, Maria was sitting on Giulia and had somehow bound her feet together with one of Dessi's belts. Dessi walked in and shook her head. When Maria got up to use the bathroom, Dessi noticed Giulia's mouth had a sock in it and her arms both had Indian burns on them. Dessi laughed and took out the sock and unbound her ankles.
"You ok?"
"Yeah, my arms are sore. Do you have any ice?"
"Yup, but I doubt you'll need it. By the time you get in the shower, the hot water will be all used up. Me, mom, Brad and his good for nothing son already took showers. Maria will be lucky if she gets any."
"Oh well, that's okay because there are 6 people who take showers before me. I'm used to cold water. So is Maria. She's number 8 in the shower line up."
When Maria came back in Dessi's room, Giulia got up, tripped her, and headed towards the bathroom. Maria landed with a thud, but didn't seem to mind.
"I brought my hair straightener, but will that blow a fuse if I leave it on long enough for Gi?"
"Nah, and if it does the first thing we go for are the tickets and the pictures of Billie, Mike and Tre." Maria laughed at this, because she knew Dessi wasn't joking. She could picture Dessi jumping up to save the precious Green Day tribute collage and all of her pictures from the back of her door. She wouldn't leave without taking down all of the posters on her walls and pictures from the closet door. Dessi laughed too, knowing she would do as Maria was thinking. Then both girls began to blow out and straiten their hair. Giulia finally came back in and her hair was already blown dry. As the girls were getting ready they listened to a mix of Dessi's favorite Green Day songs. Including Basket Case, her all time favorite, Scattered, Whatsername, Sassafras Roots, and Rotting. Dessi knew every word and every chord like the back of her hand. She knew that tonight was the moment she had been living for, for the past two months. And it was all coming to an end tonight. She would see Billie Joe LIVE and IN PERSON. She would see Tre Cool going crazy and setting his drum set on fire. She would see Mike Dirnt smash his bass guitar from amp to amp and then scream into the microphone. But most of all, she would see Billie Joe jump around and talk to the audience and sing, and play guitar for hours. It was truly a moment to live for.
~*~*~*~
"Mom, please let us get out! The line is so long! We aren't gonna make it on time!" Dessi was looking out of the car window and stared at all of the people she would be behind in line waiting to go into Pepsi Arena. And then it began to hail. Because this is how God gets his ya-ya's, Dessi thought, halfheartedly to herself.
"Mrs. Gronstram, could you possibly let us out here, park, and then meet us, because we want to be able to see the band and I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of people in front of us." Said Giulia. I never liked her anyway, Dessi said to herself. But the way Gi put it, in such a mature matter, she sounded like a 30 year old. Whatever.
"I just hope they play "Maria". I love that song!"
"Maria, just because Green Day happened to name the song "Maria" doesn't mean the song's about you. You definitely aren't natural radio and we know exactly where you are, unfortunately." Dessi said, referring to the time when the three of them called WRRB, a local radio station, to request a Green Day song and Maria really wanted to request it. Dessi and Gi reluctantly did. When Doris and Ben, the WRRB DJ's, answered, Maria went blank and forgot completely what she was doing, who she was, and where she was from. Gi eventually said, "Can you play Green Day's 'Macy's Day Parade' "? And when Ben said, "Sure who are you?" Dessi said, "The biggest Green Day fans EVER! I'm Dessi, Gi requested and Maria's the one who's on the other phone, but she's a moron." Doris laughed and said that their song would be up after some MCR. No need for the radio, we're gonna get to see and hear them LIVE.
"Girls, I'll let you out but watch the puddle. Dessi, do you have the tickets?"
"Of course!" Dessi hadn't let go of the tickets in hours, why would she right now? Maria opened the door on the silver BMW and scooted out. As Dessi got out, the unthinkable happened. The wind blew and it began to instantaneously pour. Dessi tripped and dropped the tickets. She watched, uselessly, as the tickets floated their way down the side of the street and into a nearby water drain. She began to cry. She hadn't cried in a long, long time. It felt good. But as she sat in the puddle, thinking about what had just happened, she felt those waiting in line mumbling and staring at her and the twins. Maria watched it happen and Gi saw the tickets float to the drain. They stood in disbelief and thought Dessi was playing some terrible mind game with them. The they saw the tears rolling down the cheeks and knew what had happened, happened. Nothing they could do about it now. They hugged Dessi and told her that it was ok, because they could always watch it on the TV or hear them on the radios and of course, their CD's. Dessi's mom parked first and said she'd find scalpers, but known close by had 4 general admission tickets. Dessi took the immediate blame.
"We can sit outside or try to sneak in. It can't be that hard, look how many people are in line! We can go in as a group. Please don't cry Dessi." Gi was trying so hard to make up for Dessi's stupidity, but that only make her think more about her foolish action. Her mom looked around in disappointment, trying to spot a scalper, one they hadn't already asked.
"Dessi, it's up to you. We can leave or stay and sit outside and listen to the concert."
"I wanna listen to the concert. I still can try and climb over something and get in. There's gotta be a backstage entrance or something right?"
"Dessi, I think we should just sit and listen. We can still have a good time." Her mom said, a tone in her voice, Dessi could tell that she didn't want to be there in the first place, much less wait outside and listen to a concert, she most defiantly spent a fortune on.
~*~*~*~
"That was a great concert!" Maria said with a smile on her face. How she enjoyed barely hearing Green Day at a Green Day concert was beyond Dessi.
"Shall we leave girls?" Mrs. Gronstram said patiently.
"Can I just sit here a minute or two?" Dessi said. She was sitting by the back door. She had persuaded her mother to allow her and the twins to walk to the backstage entrance of the arena and listen to the concert. Maria was probably happy because they did play "Maria".
"That's fine. We'll get the car and the twins will get you." Dessi began to watch them walk away but then she turned her head. She sobbed like crazy for about five minutes.
"My God, I knew we were bad, but I never expected tears over a concert." Said a voice Dessi recognized. She snapped her head up to find Green Day standing behind her. Billie Joe had made the comment and was now walking towards her. Mike and Tre Cool followed. Billie Joe asked Dessi what was wrong and she stared at him.
"You guys aren't bad....I mean I love you.....er.. You're my favorite band...um..omigod." Dessi managed to sputter through heavy gasps of air. Mike repeated Billie Joe's question while Tre Cool smiled at her.
"No..nothing...I dropped my tickets to your concert outside and they fell in the drain and I lost them. I'm here with my friends and mom and we sat outside right here and we heard most of the concert. It was awesome. Mike smiled at her. God they are all so beautiful and talented and everything. Dessi pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
"Here, I'll help you up and we'll give you and your mom and friends a private performance." Said Billie Joe. And then he took my hand.
"OH MY GOD," She said with tears running down her cheeks. "Mom, thank-you so much! This is by far the best thing you've ever gotten me!", It was July 1st and it was Dessi's birthday. She had opened a small package with four tickets in it to paradise. A Green Day concert. Green Day is her favorite band, after all. She could already hear Basket Case in her head. She distinctly heard Billie Joe Armstrong's voice. He's sooooo gorgeous thought Dessi, "Mom I can't wait! This is so exciting! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!"
"I didn't get them for you by myself. Brad pitched in." Brad is Dessi's stepdad.
And her least favorite person in the world. The name is actually quite ironic because there's a Green Day lyric, "The living room of my private wound while the mom's and Brad's are away." Well at least Dessi thought it was kinda funny how it really seemed to relate to her and her life. Her mom and Brad were always on a vacation and she seemed alone and her mom didn't understand why she always spent so much time avoiding her and Braddy-Boy. Oh well, Billie understood her. At the sound of his name, Dessi flinched and remembered that she was really hurting inside. Then she felt the tickets, clutched together in her palms and she smiled
"Who can I bring?" Dessi asked, tension in her voice, she was afraid her mom would make her take Brad along with her.
"Well, you have four tickets. I'm most certainly coming and you are too, that gives you two tickets. You can bring anyone you'd like." Dessi knew exactly who she would bring.
"Can I bring Giulia and Maria?"
"Of course!" Giulia and Maira Giovanni are Dessi's best friends and they all have been since they were young. Giulia and Carmen are twins and looked, acted, and ARE exactly the same. It's a bit scary. But that's beside the point. They met before they were born. There mothers had taken a class together. Some weirdo pregnant lady class. It was a yoga type of thing. Well anyway, that's where their moms met. Dessi was born July 1st and the twins were born July 2nd. As Dessi's mom came out of labor, Mrs. Giovanni went into labor. Dessi thought this through as she pinned her tickets on the back of her door. Right next to her favorite picture of Billie Joe. It was the one that she had gotten out of the newspaper the day after the Grammy's. It was the one of him performing and holding his guitar up in the air. It was a great picture and he looked really good in black and white.
She called Marias' cell and got her voice mail.
"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODWEAREGONNASEEGREENDAYSEPTEMBER 1ST ANDICAN'TWAITIGOTTICKETSFORMYBIRTHDAYANDYOU'RECOMINGSOIS GIULIAOHMYGODOHMYGODTHISISSOOOOCOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Said Dessi, in one breath while screaming it. She hung up the phone and listened to each and every one of her Green Day CD's and sang every word and played guitar to a few. It was the best day of her life.
~*~*~*~*~
"Dessi, Maria and Giulia are here." Brad said. She wanted to shout at him and tell him to leave her friends alone but she was too elated to hear him. She had Nimrod on, currently "All The Time" was blasting from her stereo. It was August 31st and Dessi was impatient and tired of waiting for the concert.
"We have come to night to cause mass destruction and wear out your Green Day CD's, as we have worn out our own personal collection preparing for tomorrow." Giulia said, trying to sound intellectual, it wasn't working.
"Can we start with 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours?" Maria asked, slapping her sister across the back of her head. She looked real Italian when she did it. She seemed to be right out of The Godfather. Her mother, Mrs. Giovanni, was Italian and married into them. The twins were 100% Italian and they looked it. They came to spend the night and get ready for the concert tomorrow. Hair was to be done, out fits to be picked out, and the things they should say when they met Green Day needed to be rehearsed. Dessi was determined to be the one that Billie Joe was going to pick out of the crowd to play guitar for a song. She could play all of them anyway and she had been practicing them all for two months.
"I just can't wait to go on stage. I'm gonna hug him and never let go. I bet he'll smell good." Dessi said, apprehensively.
"What makes you think he'll pick you, when I am the clear choice for the matter?" Maria said, only half teasing.
"You can't even play guitar, you dimwit, shut-up." Giulia said. I always liked her best, thought Dessi.
"Yeah well, miracles happen to those worthy, or something like that." Said Maria crossly at her sister.
"Well, whatever let's get ready," Dessi said.
~*~*~*~
"I'm so excited!!!" That was the first thing Dessi said when she woke up. She jumped out of bed and changed immediately. The twins looked up at her, rolled their eyes and told her to go to bed because it was only 5 in the morning, in perfect unison.
"But, aren't you guys ready to have the best experience of your ENTIRE lives?"
"Yes, but only after a long nights sleep." Maria said.
"Dessi go to sleep. At least give us 'til 8." Giulia mumbled. At this Dessi got back in her pajamas and tossed and turned in her bed. She finally fell asleep around 7 and slept until after 11. The twins didn't seem to mind, they slept right along with her.
At 11:30, Dessi woke up and screamed.
"We aren't gonna have enough time! Hurry up! Get up, get up, GET UP! All three of us have to get in the shower, straiten our hair and get dressed." Dessi said, panic rising in her voice with each word. At this, Maria and Giulia shot up and ran for the shower. As they shoved each other out of the way, Dessi slipped passed them and got in the shower first. When she came back to her room, Maria was sitting on Giulia and had somehow bound her feet together with one of Dessi's belts. Dessi walked in and shook her head. When Maria got up to use the bathroom, Dessi noticed Giulia's mouth had a sock in it and her arms both had Indian burns on them. Dessi laughed and took out the sock and unbound her ankles.
"You ok?"
"Yeah, my arms are sore. Do you have any ice?"
"Yup, but I doubt you'll need it. By the time you get in the shower, the hot water will be all used up. Me, mom, Brad and his good for nothing son already took showers. Maria will be lucky if she gets any."
"Oh well, that's okay because there are 6 people who take showers before me. I'm used to cold water. So is Maria. She's number 8 in the shower line up."
When Maria came back in Dessi's room, Giulia got up, tripped her, and headed towards the bathroom. Maria landed with a thud, but didn't seem to mind.
"I brought my hair straightener, but will that blow a fuse if I leave it on long enough for Gi?"
"Nah, and if it does the first thing we go for are the tickets and the pictures of Billie, Mike and Tre." Maria laughed at this, because she knew Dessi wasn't joking. She could picture Dessi jumping up to save the precious Green Day tribute collage and all of her pictures from the back of her door. She wouldn't leave without taking down all of the posters on her walls and pictures from the closet door. Dessi laughed too, knowing she would do as Maria was thinking. Then both girls began to blow out and straiten their hair. Giulia finally came back in and her hair was already blown dry. As the girls were getting ready they listened to a mix of Dessi's favorite Green Day songs. Including Basket Case, her all time favorite, Scattered, Whatsername, Sassafras Roots, and Rotting. Dessi knew every word and every chord like the back of her hand. She knew that tonight was the moment she had been living for, for the past two months. And it was all coming to an end tonight. She would see Billie Joe LIVE and IN PERSON. She would see Tre Cool going crazy and setting his drum set on fire. She would see Mike Dirnt smash his bass guitar from amp to amp and then scream into the microphone. But most of all, she would see Billie Joe jump around and talk to the audience and sing, and play guitar for hours. It was truly a moment to live for.
~*~*~*~
"Mom, please let us get out! The line is so long! We aren't gonna make it on time!" Dessi was looking out of the car window and stared at all of the people she would be behind in line waiting to go into Pepsi Arena. And then it began to hail. Because this is how God gets his ya-ya's, Dessi thought, halfheartedly to herself.
"Mrs. Gronstram, could you possibly let us out here, park, and then meet us, because we want to be able to see the band and I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of people in front of us." Said Giulia. I never liked her anyway, Dessi said to herself. But the way Gi put it, in such a mature matter, she sounded like a 30 year old. Whatever.
"I just hope they play "Maria". I love that song!"
"Maria, just because Green Day happened to name the song "Maria" doesn't mean the song's about you. You definitely aren't natural radio and we know exactly where you are, unfortunately." Dessi said, referring to the time when the three of them called WRRB, a local radio station, to request a Green Day song and Maria really wanted to request it. Dessi and Gi reluctantly did. When Doris and Ben, the WRRB DJ's, answered, Maria went blank and forgot completely what she was doing, who she was, and where she was from. Gi eventually said, "Can you play Green Day's 'Macy's Day Parade' "? And when Ben said, "Sure who are you?" Dessi said, "The biggest Green Day fans EVER! I'm Dessi, Gi requested and Maria's the one who's on the other phone, but she's a moron." Doris laughed and said that their song would be up after some MCR. No need for the radio, we're gonna get to see and hear them LIVE.
"Girls, I'll let you out but watch the puddle. Dessi, do you have the tickets?"
"Of course!" Dessi hadn't let go of the tickets in hours, why would she right now? Maria opened the door on the silver BMW and scooted out. As Dessi got out, the unthinkable happened. The wind blew and it began to instantaneously pour. Dessi tripped and dropped the tickets. She watched, uselessly, as the tickets floated their way down the side of the street and into a nearby water drain. She began to cry. She hadn't cried in a long, long time. It felt good. But as she sat in the puddle, thinking about what had just happened, she felt those waiting in line mumbling and staring at her and the twins. Maria watched it happen and Gi saw the tickets float to the drain. They stood in disbelief and thought Dessi was playing some terrible mind game with them. The they saw the tears rolling down the cheeks and knew what had happened, happened. Nothing they could do about it now. They hugged Dessi and told her that it was ok, because they could always watch it on the TV or hear them on the radios and of course, their CD's. Dessi's mom parked first and said she'd find scalpers, but known close by had 4 general admission tickets. Dessi took the immediate blame.
"We can sit outside or try to sneak in. It can't be that hard, look how many people are in line! We can go in as a group. Please don't cry Dessi." Gi was trying so hard to make up for Dessi's stupidity, but that only make her think more about her foolish action. Her mom looked around in disappointment, trying to spot a scalper, one they hadn't already asked.
"Dessi, it's up to you. We can leave or stay and sit outside and listen to the concert."
"I wanna listen to the concert. I still can try and climb over something and get in. There's gotta be a backstage entrance or something right?"
"Dessi, I think we should just sit and listen. We can still have a good time." Her mom said, a tone in her voice, Dessi could tell that she didn't want to be there in the first place, much less wait outside and listen to a concert, she most defiantly spent a fortune on.
~*~*~*~
"That was a great concert!" Maria said with a smile on her face. How she enjoyed barely hearing Green Day at a Green Day concert was beyond Dessi.
"Shall we leave girls?" Mrs. Gronstram said patiently.
"Can I just sit here a minute or two?" Dessi said. She was sitting by the back door. She had persuaded her mother to allow her and the twins to walk to the backstage entrance of the arena and listen to the concert. Maria was probably happy because they did play "Maria".
"That's fine. We'll get the car and the twins will get you." Dessi began to watch them walk away but then she turned her head. She sobbed like crazy for about five minutes.
"My God, I knew we were bad, but I never expected tears over a concert." Said a voice Dessi recognized. She snapped her head up to find Green Day standing behind her. Billie Joe had made the comment and was now walking towards her. Mike and Tre Cool followed. Billie Joe asked Dessi what was wrong and she stared at him.
"You guys aren't bad....I mean I love you.....er.. You're my favorite band...um..omigod." Dessi managed to sputter through heavy gasps of air. Mike repeated Billie Joe's question while Tre Cool smiled at her.
"No..nothing...I dropped my tickets to your concert outside and they fell in the drain and I lost them. I'm here with my friends and mom and we sat outside right here and we heard most of the concert. It was awesome. Mike smiled at her. God they are all so beautiful and talented and everything. Dessi pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
"Here, I'll help you up and we'll give you and your mom and friends a private performance." Said Billie Joe. And then he took my hand.
