16, chapter 8
I felt the car come to a complete stop and for the second time in my life, I looked up at Mike's house from the passenger seat of his car. I didn't wait for him to open my door like he had been lately, but I got out my self and stood for a moment, looking up at the house that was now my home. I began to slowly walk to the front door. Mike grabbed the one bag of things I had with me, leaving the larger items in the car, before following me down the path.
"Go in," he said from a few paces behind me.
I raised my hand to the door knob but hadn't even turned the handle when the door opened to reveal Sam, who pulled me into a hug.
"How are you honey?" she asked me. I shrugged; it was hard to believe that only a few hours ago I had seen Sam at the funeral. She had gotten a lift home with Billie and Adie to leave me and Mike alone to go through the apartment.
"I think I'm ok," I said quietly.
The afternoon went on in kind of a blur. Thankfully, Estelle was at her Mum's, which probably wasn't a coincidence seeing as Mike knew how tense things between me and Estelle were. I didn't do much that day. I tried to read and watch T.V. but I couldn't keep my mind focused so I went down into Mike's basement to have a bash at the drums. I paused in my drumming to take a sip of the soda I had brought down with me. In the quiet that came with my break in playing, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I looked up and saw that it was Mike.
"Hey," he said. I gave him a weak smile but didn't say anything.
"I just wanted to see how you're doing," he said, hinting in his voice that he was asking if I was coping and whether or not I minded living with him.
"I'm ok," I said. "I'm glad that I can live here."
He didn't say anything for a while and I'm guessing that's because he couldn't think of anything to say. He smiled a very small smile and turned around to walk back up the stairs.
I could have stopped him and told him how much it meant to me that he was there for me and how I was glad that I had somewhere to go, but I didn't. He left the basement and I continued on with my experimental and improvised drum solo.
That night I managed to drag my feet up the stairs to my bedroom after saying goodnight to Mike and Sam. When I entered my room, I noticed that my block mounts, and other things I had saved from the fire, were waiting for me to go through them and find a home for them. For the moment I decided to ignore my only possessions and I collapsed onto the bed. Exhausted from the emotional strain of the day, I fell asleep almost instantly.
I was awoken a few hours later by a buzzing sound coming from my bag. Then my ring tone, "My Generation" by The Who, began to play. I quickly got out of bed to answer my phone before it woke Sam and Mike who I assumed were asleep by then.
"Hello?" I said groggily to whoever was stupid and annoying enough to call me at this hour.
"Hey," said a familiar voice.
"Alex?" I could almost hear the smirk on her face as she replied with, "Of course."
"Why the hell are you calling me at this hour?" I asked, rubbing my eyes and crawling back into bed.
"I didn't want to ring the doorbell," she said.
"What?"
"I didn't want to wake everyone up."
"I... you're... what?" I stuttered, still feeling half asleep.
"Just look out your window."
"Why?" I said cautiously, even though I somehow knew the answer.
"Just do it," Alex said.
I got out of bed again and made my way across the room to look out the window. There Alex stood on the front lawn holding her duffel bag and her bass, smiling and holding her cell phone to her ear.
"Let me in, would you?" she said and I watched her hang up the phone and walk closer to the front door.
I crept out of my room, down the hall and down the stairs where I quickly and quietly opened the front door. I was instantly pulled into a big hug by Alex who then pulled back and looked at me before looking around at her surroundings to take in the size of Mike's place. I grabbed her arm and pulled her quietly up the stairs to my bedroom where I quickly closed the door and led her over to the bed to sit down.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked her.
"I had a big fight with Carol," she said, speaking of her aunt. "I couldn't stand to be there any longer. Do you think it would be alight if I stayed here for a bit?"
I nodded and told her that I didn't think Mike would mind, and besides, I really wanted her there.
Alex changed into her pajamas and we both crawled into the queen size bed.
"Dani?" Alex said a minute later as I felt my self drifting off.
"Yeah..." I managed to say although I never heard her reply as we both fell into a deep slumber.
When I woke up the next morning I noticed that Alex was no longer asleep next to me. I would have assumed that her arriving in the middle of the night was a dream had her bags not been sitting in the middle of the room as though they had been dumped there and her bass not been leaning up against the wall. I quickly got out of bed to find Alex knowing that Mike and Sam did not know that she was here and it would probably be quite a shock to find her fishing through their fridge or something. I made my way to the kitchen, but stopped when I heard Mike stuttering.
"Um...what? But?" he spluttered. "You're Dani's friend, aren't you."
I quickly but silently moved to watch what was happening in the kitchen.
"Yep," Alex said. She had reached the fridge, opened it and pulled out the carton of milk. "I'm Alex."
Mike seemed shocked at the way this random girl was pottering around his kitchen and going through his fridge, that he was unable to say anything from where he was sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar.
I watched as Alex shook the almost empty milk carton before opening it and bringing it to her lips, draining its contents.
"You're out of milk, by the way," she said to a speechless Mike before wiping away a milk moustache and throwing the empty carton into the recycling bin and leaving the room. When she saw me standing there she gave me a quick hug and said good morning.
"I'm going to take a quick shower," she said before slowly shuffling down the hall and out of sight. It amazed me that she could be so at ease and managed to find her way around so easily.
I shook my head at her and entered the kitchen where Mike was still sitting in a stunned silence.
"Morning," I said, wandering of to the fridge. "I hear we're out of milk." I smirked and poured my self an orange juice before walking over and sitting on a stool different to the one I had argued with Estelle a few months prior.
"Yeah," he said, lifting his coffee to his lips. "Apparently we are." He took a sip of his drink and then spoke again. "Why is Alex here?"
"Well, she has been living with her Aunt because her parents are crazy, and they got into a huge fight and she has no where to go," I said. "Is it okay if she stays here for a while?"
"Yeah," he said, getting up to put his now empty coffee cup in the dish washer. "She can stay as long as she likes. Just, next time a friend is going to show up in the middle of the night, let me know."
I nodded. "Thanks."
"She can stay in the guest room if she likes," he said, sitting back down at the bench and turning the page of his paper. "That way you can both have your space and all that crap."
I thanked him and he told me that the bed in the spare room was made up and that the sheets were clean. I finished my orange juice and left the kitchen jogging upstairs to my room.
Why is it that it is so much easer to arrange your bedroom when it is really small and there is no room to put anything? I never had a problem with my old room. My new room is huge and I am having a hell of a lot of trouble deciding where everything should go.
"What about here?" Alex asked me, holding my sex pistols block mount against the wall above my bed.
"Nah, I don't like it there either," I said, fiddling with the hammer I was going to use to put up the hooks for the things I wanted to hang.
"Hurry up, woman!" Alex said, sounding exasperated. She jumped off the bed, onto the floor and leant the wood against a wall. "Make up your mind already."
I hadn't bee trying to come to this decision for as long as she was making it out, but I suppose I had been rather difficult. I just wanted my room to be perfect, I'm not usually a perfectionist, but for some reason I as feeling like that about this.
"Ok," I said. "Um... How about we put it on the same wall as the Green Day one?" I said, pointing to the large heart grenade that was hanging on the other side of the room.
She sighed and dragged the poster across the room and standing on a chair she held it up level to the other one.
"About a foot lower," I said so that she lowered it to create a staggered affect with the two posters. "Perfect," I said.
Five minutes later and we had finally finished arranging my room.
"We did it," I said and I fell back onto the bed as Alex did the same next to me. I sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
There was a knock at the door and I looked up and saw that it was Mike. I sat up completely and said hi to him.
"Hey Mike," Alex said.
"Hey Alex."
"Thanks heaps for letting me stay," Alex added. "I really appreciate it."
"It's no problem, I'm glad to help," he said, standing just inside the door as though he wanted to say something to me, but felt slightly uncomfortable.
"I'm just going to go get a drink," Alex said, sensing that mike wanted to talk to me about something. "And watch some T.V. or something," she added and left the room.
"So..." Mike started as he scratched the back of his neck. "I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go and get a cup of coffee. We could talk some more and get to know each other a bit."
I looked down at my hands and nervously opened my mouth to speak. "Alright."
"We can go now if you want," he said.
"Sure." I got up from my seat on the bed.
I grabbed my bag from the floor and we both left the room, neither of us bothering to make small talk as we walked down the stairs to the front hall.
"I'll just say bye to Alex," I said and I wandered to the living room where Alex was lying on one of the couches watching re-runs of Family Guy.
"Do you mind hanging around here on your own for a while?" I asked. "Mike and I are going to go out for a drink or something. I think he wants to spend some time with me."
"She nodded. "That's cool. You deserve some time with your dad."
"Will you be alright here on your own?"
"Yeah I'll be fine. I'll just watch re-runs, I love re-runs."
I laughed at her love for Family Guy and said goodbye. "Ok, we'll be back later," I said.
She said bye and I went back to the front hall where Mike was still standing, waiting for me.
"Ready?" he asked me. I nodded and we headed out the door and to the car.
Small talk was made on the way to Rudy's where we had decided to go for a drink and maybe a bite to eat. We entered the café and headed to a table in the kiddy area.
"Do you always sit with the little kiddlywinks?" I asked him as he handed me a menu.
"Of course," he said, leaning back in his chair.
A waitress came over and greeted us, Mike having a quick conversation with her about something or other.
"What do you want, Dani?" he asked me and I noticed that he didn't introduce me at all, let alone introduce me as his daughter which I think would have been the polite thing to do.
I asked for an iced coffee, smiled at the waitress and looked down at the table and began to pick at a small sachet of sugar. Mike cleared his throat in a way that shows me he had noticed the sudden tension between us.
"So-" Mike couldn't finish his sentence because I interrupted him with the questions that had been bugging me.
"Why didn't you introduce me to that waitress? Shouldn't people know that I'm your daughter? Does anyone apart from Tré, Billie and Sam and everyone know who I am?" I asked him quietly and slowly, because although I was really angry, I couldn't find the energy to have a go at him.
He sat in silence for a few moments, mulling over what I had asked and accused him of. At that moment the same waitress from before brought our drinks over to us. I thanked her quietly and looked down at my drink, fiddling with the straw as the waitress walked away.
'Well?" I said.
"Sam, Estelle, Billie, Tré, Jason and their wives and kids are the only ones who know the truth," he said. I could tell this outing was not going as well as he had hoped, but at least we were both going to be on the same page now. "And Ana," he added.
In my mind I was having a fierce argument with my self about whether to be sad or angry. I'm his daughter, the secret had been out basically for three months or so and he hasn't really told people. When we're together I'm not introduced as his daughter. Is he ashamed of me or embarrassed? Probably... I mean, I'm just this kid from some small place and he's this big, rich, rock star. Maybe he's not happy about the way I turned out. If that's the case, it's his fault for not being there.
"Look, Dani," he said as he looked up from his drink. "It's not that I don't want everyone to know you're my daughter, it's just that I don't want all the bad press, for Sam, me and you. This is something that's going to take some getting used to, for all of us."
"It won't be that bad will it?" I asked him; surely he was used to seeing himself in magazines.
"Believe me," he said. "It will be. There will be a lot of questions about why you weren't around before and about your being my 'Illegitimate Love Child.'"
I couldn't help but snort with laughter when he said those three words, a snort which caused him to flush a slight pink before continuing.
"Rumours will start and their will be stuff in all the magazines about... your mother."
The slight smile that was still on my face after the laughter a moment before fell and once again I looked down at my drink.
"I don't want that, Dani," he said. "Especially after everything that has happened lately and knowing that things are already pretty tense between us."
I nodded and we were both quiet for a few moments.
"It's just..." I began. "When we see people that you know well, like that waitress and you don't introduce me as your daughter or don't introduce me at all, it feels like... you're ashamed of me or something."
"I really don't want you to think that," he said. "I am definitely not ashamed of you. I love you Dani, you may not think I do, I always have and I always will."
After we had our drinks and talked at Rudie's, we left the café and began to head home.
"Do you want go get an ice cream?" Mike asked me, not long after we had left the café.
"Sounds good," I said.
So we turned left down the next street and went to a small ice cream parlor near by. We got our ice creams and as we walked outside towards the car I looked up at Mike.
"I had a good time today," I said.
"Me too," he said and we both got back in his car and drove back home.
"Go in," he said from a few paces behind me.
I raised my hand to the door knob but hadn't even turned the handle when the door opened to reveal Sam, who pulled me into a hug.
"How are you honey?" she asked me. I shrugged; it was hard to believe that only a few hours ago I had seen Sam at the funeral. She had gotten a lift home with Billie and Adie to leave me and Mike alone to go through the apartment.
"I think I'm ok," I said quietly.
The afternoon went on in kind of a blur. Thankfully, Estelle was at her Mum's, which probably wasn't a coincidence seeing as Mike knew how tense things between me and Estelle were. I didn't do much that day. I tried to read and watch T.V. but I couldn't keep my mind focused so I went down into Mike's basement to have a bash at the drums. I paused in my drumming to take a sip of the soda I had brought down with me. In the quiet that came with my break in playing, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I looked up and saw that it was Mike.
"Hey," he said. I gave him a weak smile but didn't say anything.
"I just wanted to see how you're doing," he said, hinting in his voice that he was asking if I was coping and whether or not I minded living with him.
"I'm ok," I said. "I'm glad that I can live here."
He didn't say anything for a while and I'm guessing that's because he couldn't think of anything to say. He smiled a very small smile and turned around to walk back up the stairs.
I could have stopped him and told him how much it meant to me that he was there for me and how I was glad that I had somewhere to go, but I didn't. He left the basement and I continued on with my experimental and improvised drum solo.
That night I managed to drag my feet up the stairs to my bedroom after saying goodnight to Mike and Sam. When I entered my room, I noticed that my block mounts, and other things I had saved from the fire, were waiting for me to go through them and find a home for them. For the moment I decided to ignore my only possessions and I collapsed onto the bed. Exhausted from the emotional strain of the day, I fell asleep almost instantly.
I was awoken a few hours later by a buzzing sound coming from my bag. Then my ring tone, "My Generation" by The Who, began to play. I quickly got out of bed to answer my phone before it woke Sam and Mike who I assumed were asleep by then.
"Hello?" I said groggily to whoever was stupid and annoying enough to call me at this hour.
"Hey," said a familiar voice.
"Alex?" I could almost hear the smirk on her face as she replied with, "Of course."
"Why the hell are you calling me at this hour?" I asked, rubbing my eyes and crawling back into bed.
"I didn't want to ring the doorbell," she said.
"What?"
"I didn't want to wake everyone up."
"I... you're... what?" I stuttered, still feeling half asleep.
"Just look out your window."
"Why?" I said cautiously, even though I somehow knew the answer.
"Just do it," Alex said.
I got out of bed again and made my way across the room to look out the window. There Alex stood on the front lawn holding her duffel bag and her bass, smiling and holding her cell phone to her ear.
"Let me in, would you?" she said and I watched her hang up the phone and walk closer to the front door.
I crept out of my room, down the hall and down the stairs where I quickly and quietly opened the front door. I was instantly pulled into a big hug by Alex who then pulled back and looked at me before looking around at her surroundings to take in the size of Mike's place. I grabbed her arm and pulled her quietly up the stairs to my bedroom where I quickly closed the door and led her over to the bed to sit down.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked her.
"I had a big fight with Carol," she said, speaking of her aunt. "I couldn't stand to be there any longer. Do you think it would be alight if I stayed here for a bit?"
I nodded and told her that I didn't think Mike would mind, and besides, I really wanted her there.
Alex changed into her pajamas and we both crawled into the queen size bed.
"Dani?" Alex said a minute later as I felt my self drifting off.
"Yeah..." I managed to say although I never heard her reply as we both fell into a deep slumber.
When I woke up the next morning I noticed that Alex was no longer asleep next to me. I would have assumed that her arriving in the middle of the night was a dream had her bags not been sitting in the middle of the room as though they had been dumped there and her bass not been leaning up against the wall. I quickly got out of bed to find Alex knowing that Mike and Sam did not know that she was here and it would probably be quite a shock to find her fishing through their fridge or something. I made my way to the kitchen, but stopped when I heard Mike stuttering.
"Um...what? But?" he spluttered. "You're Dani's friend, aren't you."
I quickly but silently moved to watch what was happening in the kitchen.
"Yep," Alex said. She had reached the fridge, opened it and pulled out the carton of milk. "I'm Alex."
Mike seemed shocked at the way this random girl was pottering around his kitchen and going through his fridge, that he was unable to say anything from where he was sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar.
I watched as Alex shook the almost empty milk carton before opening it and bringing it to her lips, draining its contents.
"You're out of milk, by the way," she said to a speechless Mike before wiping away a milk moustache and throwing the empty carton into the recycling bin and leaving the room. When she saw me standing there she gave me a quick hug and said good morning.
"I'm going to take a quick shower," she said before slowly shuffling down the hall and out of sight. It amazed me that she could be so at ease and managed to find her way around so easily.
I shook my head at her and entered the kitchen where Mike was still sitting in a stunned silence.
"Morning," I said, wandering of to the fridge. "I hear we're out of milk." I smirked and poured my self an orange juice before walking over and sitting on a stool different to the one I had argued with Estelle a few months prior.
"Yeah," he said, lifting his coffee to his lips. "Apparently we are." He took a sip of his drink and then spoke again. "Why is Alex here?"
"Well, she has been living with her Aunt because her parents are crazy, and they got into a huge fight and she has no where to go," I said. "Is it okay if she stays here for a while?"
"Yeah," he said, getting up to put his now empty coffee cup in the dish washer. "She can stay as long as she likes. Just, next time a friend is going to show up in the middle of the night, let me know."
I nodded. "Thanks."
"She can stay in the guest room if she likes," he said, sitting back down at the bench and turning the page of his paper. "That way you can both have your space and all that crap."
I thanked him and he told me that the bed in the spare room was made up and that the sheets were clean. I finished my orange juice and left the kitchen jogging upstairs to my room.
Why is it that it is so much easer to arrange your bedroom when it is really small and there is no room to put anything? I never had a problem with my old room. My new room is huge and I am having a hell of a lot of trouble deciding where everything should go.
"What about here?" Alex asked me, holding my sex pistols block mount against the wall above my bed.
"Nah, I don't like it there either," I said, fiddling with the hammer I was going to use to put up the hooks for the things I wanted to hang.
"Hurry up, woman!" Alex said, sounding exasperated. She jumped off the bed, onto the floor and leant the wood against a wall. "Make up your mind already."
I hadn't bee trying to come to this decision for as long as she was making it out, but I suppose I had been rather difficult. I just wanted my room to be perfect, I'm not usually a perfectionist, but for some reason I as feeling like that about this.
"Ok," I said. "Um... How about we put it on the same wall as the Green Day one?" I said, pointing to the large heart grenade that was hanging on the other side of the room.
She sighed and dragged the poster across the room and standing on a chair she held it up level to the other one.
"About a foot lower," I said so that she lowered it to create a staggered affect with the two posters. "Perfect," I said.
Five minutes later and we had finally finished arranging my room.
"We did it," I said and I fell back onto the bed as Alex did the same next to me. I sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
There was a knock at the door and I looked up and saw that it was Mike. I sat up completely and said hi to him.
"Hey Mike," Alex said.
"Hey Alex."
"Thanks heaps for letting me stay," Alex added. "I really appreciate it."
"It's no problem, I'm glad to help," he said, standing just inside the door as though he wanted to say something to me, but felt slightly uncomfortable.
"I'm just going to go get a drink," Alex said, sensing that mike wanted to talk to me about something. "And watch some T.V. or something," she added and left the room.
"So..." Mike started as he scratched the back of his neck. "I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go and get a cup of coffee. We could talk some more and get to know each other a bit."
I looked down at my hands and nervously opened my mouth to speak. "Alright."
"We can go now if you want," he said.
"Sure." I got up from my seat on the bed.
I grabbed my bag from the floor and we both left the room, neither of us bothering to make small talk as we walked down the stairs to the front hall.
"I'll just say bye to Alex," I said and I wandered to the living room where Alex was lying on one of the couches watching re-runs of Family Guy.
"Do you mind hanging around here on your own for a while?" I asked. "Mike and I are going to go out for a drink or something. I think he wants to spend some time with me."
"She nodded. "That's cool. You deserve some time with your dad."
"Will you be alright here on your own?"
"Yeah I'll be fine. I'll just watch re-runs, I love re-runs."
I laughed at her love for Family Guy and said goodbye. "Ok, we'll be back later," I said.
She said bye and I went back to the front hall where Mike was still standing, waiting for me.
"Ready?" he asked me. I nodded and we headed out the door and to the car.
Small talk was made on the way to Rudy's where we had decided to go for a drink and maybe a bite to eat. We entered the café and headed to a table in the kiddy area.
"Do you always sit with the little kiddlywinks?" I asked him as he handed me a menu.
"Of course," he said, leaning back in his chair.
A waitress came over and greeted us, Mike having a quick conversation with her about something or other.
"What do you want, Dani?" he asked me and I noticed that he didn't introduce me at all, let alone introduce me as his daughter which I think would have been the polite thing to do.
I asked for an iced coffee, smiled at the waitress and looked down at the table and began to pick at a small sachet of sugar. Mike cleared his throat in a way that shows me he had noticed the sudden tension between us.
"So-" Mike couldn't finish his sentence because I interrupted him with the questions that had been bugging me.
"Why didn't you introduce me to that waitress? Shouldn't people know that I'm your daughter? Does anyone apart from Tré, Billie and Sam and everyone know who I am?" I asked him quietly and slowly, because although I was really angry, I couldn't find the energy to have a go at him.
He sat in silence for a few moments, mulling over what I had asked and accused him of. At that moment the same waitress from before brought our drinks over to us. I thanked her quietly and looked down at my drink, fiddling with the straw as the waitress walked away.
'Well?" I said.
"Sam, Estelle, Billie, Tré, Jason and their wives and kids are the only ones who know the truth," he said. I could tell this outing was not going as well as he had hoped, but at least we were both going to be on the same page now. "And Ana," he added.
In my mind I was having a fierce argument with my self about whether to be sad or angry. I'm his daughter, the secret had been out basically for three months or so and he hasn't really told people. When we're together I'm not introduced as his daughter. Is he ashamed of me or embarrassed? Probably... I mean, I'm just this kid from some small place and he's this big, rich, rock star. Maybe he's not happy about the way I turned out. If that's the case, it's his fault for not being there.
"Look, Dani," he said as he looked up from his drink. "It's not that I don't want everyone to know you're my daughter, it's just that I don't want all the bad press, for Sam, me and you. This is something that's going to take some getting used to, for all of us."
"It won't be that bad will it?" I asked him; surely he was used to seeing himself in magazines.
"Believe me," he said. "It will be. There will be a lot of questions about why you weren't around before and about your being my 'Illegitimate Love Child.'"
I couldn't help but snort with laughter when he said those three words, a snort which caused him to flush a slight pink before continuing.
"Rumours will start and their will be stuff in all the magazines about... your mother."
The slight smile that was still on my face after the laughter a moment before fell and once again I looked down at my drink.
"I don't want that, Dani," he said. "Especially after everything that has happened lately and knowing that things are already pretty tense between us."
I nodded and we were both quiet for a few moments.
"It's just..." I began. "When we see people that you know well, like that waitress and you don't introduce me as your daughter or don't introduce me at all, it feels like... you're ashamed of me or something."
"I really don't want you to think that," he said. "I am definitely not ashamed of you. I love you Dani, you may not think I do, I always have and I always will."
After we had our drinks and talked at Rudie's, we left the café and began to head home.
"Do you want go get an ice cream?" Mike asked me, not long after we had left the café.
"Sounds good," I said.
So we turned left down the next street and went to a small ice cream parlor near by. We got our ice creams and as we walked outside towards the car I looked up at Mike.
"I had a good time today," I said.
"Me too," he said and we both got back in his car and drove back home.
