16, chapter 9
Three days after we had gotten drinks and ice cream and everything was relatively normal, for my new life anyway. Estelle had come back from her Mum's. She apologized for being a bitch and told me that she was sorry for what happened to my Mum, but things were still pretty strained between us. I didn't want to hold grudges but I didn't want to let her off that easy either. It didn't help that Alex was living with us and she, having heard all the bad things from me, didn't like Estelle one bit. I hadn't seen Joey yet, Mike had gone over to visit Billie a couple of times but I never went with him.
I was at a shop, a few streets away from the house, with Alex looking at music magazines when she ran over to me with an issue of some gossip magazine that I had never read in my life.
"Oh my god Dani." She said. "You have to see this."
I looked at the cover of the magazine and saw a bunch of paparazzi pictures and captions explaining the latest goss. Alex's finger was pointing to a picture in the very right bottom corner of the page. What I saw both shocked and scared me. It was a picture that looked like it had been taken from behind a bush or tree, of me and Mike walking towards his car with ice cream cones in our hands. The caption below read 'What is Mike Dirnt hiding?'
"Holy shit." I said.
Alex opened the magazine to the contents page to find out what page the article was on. As she flipped through the pages I heard someone whispering. I looked up and saw two 'fully hard-core punk' girls standing a few feet away, looking at me. One of them, wearing a Simple Plan t-shirt, was holding a copy of the same magazine we were looking at. Both of the girls quickly stopped looking at me and averted their gaze back to the article. As they looked down I noticed another picture of me on the page.
I grabbed Alex's arm.
"Let's go." I said. "Now."
She too had just noticed the two girls, so she nodded and we walked quickly to the counter where we bought the magazine and headed outside into the sunshine.
"Look at this." Alex said as we walked over to stand near my car which Mike and Billie had gotten from the old apartment building the day before. She opened the magazine to the article.
I looked at all the pictures that surrounded the text. There was one of Mike with Billie and Tré, one of Mike and Sam at some award show, one of Mike and Estelle when she was a baby and a few snaps of me. There was me and Mike leaving Rudie's and the two of us eating ice cream together.
Alex was about to read the article out loud to me when I heard the same excited whispering from before. I looked up and sure enough, there the two girls were again. This time they didn't look away but continued to openly stare at me, not even bothering to make it subtle. Alex, wanting to know what I was looking at, brought her eyes away from the article to rest on the two girls, who I noticed were about our age.
"Hey," Alex said to them. "It's rude to stare... so piss off."
The two girls hurried away as Alex and I quickly got into my car. When I sat down I leaned forward and put my elbows on the steering wheel, placing my head in my hands and sighing as I did so.
"Hey," Alex said. "Let's not worry about it now. Let's just go home and we'll look at the article then. You alright to drive?"
I nodded and leaned back, putting the keys in the ignition. I pulled the car out of the car park and we drove back to the house in silence.
When Mike arrived home, Alex and I were both sitting at the table in silence, the magazine, open to the page of the article, lying in the middle of the table.
"Hey guys." He said. "What's going on?" he added, more slowly having noticed the mood that we were in.
Alex picked up the magazine and began to read the article out loud to him.
"Mike Dirnt, 39, of Green Day, has recently been seen around his hometown of Berkeley with a new woman at his side. Perfectly normal, until you take in the girls appearance.
Mike's new 'friend' appears to be not much older than a college student, and if this is true, could Mike be cradle snatching?
Friends and family of Mike have refused to comment, and nothing is known about Mike's wife, Sam's, reaction.
Mike was seen buying the girl an ice cream, as well as shopping and eating in his café, Rudie's can't Fail...
Yeah, it goes on but that's the basic gist of it." She finished.
"Shit." Mike muttered as he slowly sunk into the chair across from me, putting his face in his hands.
None of us spoke for a few moments and the room was silent until Mike spoke.
"The... I think the best thing to do... " he said. "Is to ignore it."
"What the fuck?" Alex muttered.
"H-how the hell is that supposed to help the situation?" I said, struggling to speak through my anger and fear. "You're supposed to be my dad. Everything is supposed to start going right now. But instead, everyone's gonna think I'm a fucking slut!"
"Look, Dani." Mike said. "I know its hard but its just... I've dealt with this shit for a long time, the best thing to do is ignore it and let it blow over. We know the truth and that's all that matters. If people ask us about it personally we set them straight, but other than that, its best to just pretend the article was never printed."
***
I sighed and looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My hair was out. I don't usually wear it out but I was trying to make my self look as different as possible to the pictures of me in all the magazines. The first article was definitely not the last; a week had passed and a few more rumours had begun. A few of them along the same lines as Joey's theory of me being a money and fame hungry teenie. The articles became to much and Mike's plan of ignoring it all, didn't seem to be working. The truth was printed in my favourite magazine four days after we found the original article. Mike and I wanted the record set straight and now everyone, well everyone that read good magazines knew everything, about Mum and Mike, who I was and even what happened to Mum.
I took one last look at myself. I was wearing black skinny leg jeans, red and black converse and a black the Clash T-Shirt. My hair fell around my face and I was hoping that I would be able to keep a low profile that day. It was my first day of school. Summer was over, everyone knew my business and I was about to go to a new school, without James, without Alex (she dropped out) and with Joey Armstrong. Oh boy today was going to be fun. I was really looking forward to going to school with him wasn't I? I hadn't seen or spoken to him and I didn't want to.
I flicked the bathroom light off and headed down the stairs, ready for the first day of school, the day that usually determines what the rest of the year will be like.
***
"Thanks for dropping me off." I said to Alex as I got out of the car.
"Hey, it's your car." She said shrugging.
I smiled weakly and closed the door.
"Have a great first day sweetie." Alex said through the open window, smiling and waving as though she was a mother saying goodbye to an 8 year old.
I waved and turned around, hearing the car drive away behind me.
The first hour or two were okay. I got my timetable and managed to find my way to my classes. I hadn't talked to many people, mostly because no one bothered to talk to me, but it didn't look like my day was going to be too bad. I didn't bump into Joey until I got to my third class, History. As I approached the class room, I saw him standing outside it, talking and laughing with two friends. He looked up and the smile on his face fell when he noticed me. I held his gaze for a few moments but eventually looked away before leaning back against a wall and looking down at my feet. A minute later I saw a pair of old black converse standing near me. I looked up and saw Joey.
"Hey." He said.
"Hi." I said to him, my voice hostile.
"I want you to know that I'm sorry for what happened to your Mum, it must be really ha-"
I didn't let him finish.
"I don't need your sympathy Joey." I said. "And I don't need you to be nice to me. I don't like you and you don't like me, so just leave me alone." I walked away from him and, noticing that everyone else was now entering the classroom, I walked through the door and took one of the only remaining seats next to some girl with blonde hair and a look on her face that told me that she thought she was the bee's knees. (AN - I had a sudden urge to put that saying in my story :P)
She looked at me as though something dead and rotting had been shoved under her nose before turning and whispering to the guy next to her. I sighed and looked to the front of the class where a balding man, who I presumed to be the teacher, was standing ready to begin the lesson.
History dragged on. Just like it did at my old school and just like it would at my new school. The class finally ended and everyone quickly filed out of the room and began to make their way to wherever it was they all went at lunchtime.
I got my food and, having no one to sit with, went and sat at an empty table. About 5 minutes later, the same blonde from my history class approached me.
"Hi." She said. "Can I sit here? I've got no one else to sit with."
"I suppose so." I said and she sat down. I found it hard to believe that she was a loner like me but pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and turned back to my food.
"Hey guys!" the blonde called out across the room and a group of people came over and sat at the table with us.
"Hey, your Dani right?" said the guy that was sitting next to the blonde, his arm already around her shoulders; I recognized him as the guy sitting next to her in our history class.
I nod and look down at my food, feeling uncomfortable at them all smirking down at me.
"So," The girl said." Did you have sex with Mike Dirnt today?"
I felt my whole body seize up.
"What's he like?" The girl continued. "He's pretty old isn't he?"
I stood up and began to walk away.
"What does your mother think about you hooking up with an old man?"
I froze, she had taken it too far. Tears began to slowly slide down my cheeks.
"Oh... Oh my god" The girl said through her laughter. "Are you crying?"
"Shut up Cassie." a voice that I recognized said warningly.
"You gonna make me, rich boy?" The girl, Cassie said.
The guy began to reply but I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying as someone placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"You ok?" I looked up at the owner of the hand. She was a girl who looked around my age, she had long black hair, full of bright blue streaks and she had dark brown eyes. She was wearing a black Rancid shirt and bright red skinny leg jeans and she had a kind smile.
"Yeah, I guess I'm alright." I turned around to see Joey standing in front of the Cassie girl and her boyfriend.
They seemed to be in a very heated argument.
"Just leave her the fuck alone!" Joey yelled before walking straight past me. "Come on." He muttered as he walked off with another of his friends.
The black and blue haired girl led me after them.
"Fuck!" I heard Joey yell as he kicked a nearby tree.
"Hey Joey." His friend said. "Calm down all right, there's no need to beat up the scenery."
"You okay Dani?" Joey asked me.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I said.
We had all reached an area outside at the back of the school with a few trees and a low wall, this was obviously where Joey and his friends spent their time. I suddenly realized that the only person I knew there at that moment was Joey. They all obviously realized the same thing and the girl opened her mouth to speak.
'I'm Wensdai by the way." She said "And this is Robert, but we call him Bob, so yeah, this is Bob"
I looked over to Bob and actually looked at him properly for the first time. He was really tall and skinny and had long blondish brown dreadlocks, bright blue eyes and an eyebrow ring. He was wearing a black Jimi Hendrix t-shirt, yellow hemp pants and Black Doc Martins.
He waved and smiled at me as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"Thanks for helping me guys." I said.
"It was nothing." Wensdai said. "Cassie's just... well... a bitch basically."
I nodded and an odd silence fell over the group.
In the distance a bell sounded, signaling the end of the lunch break.
"Yeah," I said." I'm gonna... go to class now. Thanks again." I waved to them and began to head back up to the main area of the school, feeling like somewhat more of a loner and an outsider than I had at the beginning of the day.
I was at a shop, a few streets away from the house, with Alex looking at music magazines when she ran over to me with an issue of some gossip magazine that I had never read in my life.
"Oh my god Dani." She said. "You have to see this."
I looked at the cover of the magazine and saw a bunch of paparazzi pictures and captions explaining the latest goss. Alex's finger was pointing to a picture in the very right bottom corner of the page. What I saw both shocked and scared me. It was a picture that looked like it had been taken from behind a bush or tree, of me and Mike walking towards his car with ice cream cones in our hands. The caption below read 'What is Mike Dirnt hiding?'
"Holy shit." I said.
Alex opened the magazine to the contents page to find out what page the article was on. As she flipped through the pages I heard someone whispering. I looked up and saw two 'fully hard-core punk' girls standing a few feet away, looking at me. One of them, wearing a Simple Plan t-shirt, was holding a copy of the same magazine we were looking at. Both of the girls quickly stopped looking at me and averted their gaze back to the article. As they looked down I noticed another picture of me on the page.
I grabbed Alex's arm.
"Let's go." I said. "Now."
She too had just noticed the two girls, so she nodded and we walked quickly to the counter where we bought the magazine and headed outside into the sunshine.
"Look at this." Alex said as we walked over to stand near my car which Mike and Billie had gotten from the old apartment building the day before. She opened the magazine to the article.
I looked at all the pictures that surrounded the text. There was one of Mike with Billie and Tré, one of Mike and Sam at some award show, one of Mike and Estelle when she was a baby and a few snaps of me. There was me and Mike leaving Rudie's and the two of us eating ice cream together.
Alex was about to read the article out loud to me when I heard the same excited whispering from before. I looked up and sure enough, there the two girls were again. This time they didn't look away but continued to openly stare at me, not even bothering to make it subtle. Alex, wanting to know what I was looking at, brought her eyes away from the article to rest on the two girls, who I noticed were about our age.
"Hey," Alex said to them. "It's rude to stare... so piss off."
The two girls hurried away as Alex and I quickly got into my car. When I sat down I leaned forward and put my elbows on the steering wheel, placing my head in my hands and sighing as I did so.
"Hey," Alex said. "Let's not worry about it now. Let's just go home and we'll look at the article then. You alright to drive?"
I nodded and leaned back, putting the keys in the ignition. I pulled the car out of the car park and we drove back to the house in silence.
When Mike arrived home, Alex and I were both sitting at the table in silence, the magazine, open to the page of the article, lying in the middle of the table.
"Hey guys." He said. "What's going on?" he added, more slowly having noticed the mood that we were in.
Alex picked up the magazine and began to read the article out loud to him.
"Mike Dirnt, 39, of Green Day, has recently been seen around his hometown of Berkeley with a new woman at his side. Perfectly normal, until you take in the girls appearance.
Mike's new 'friend' appears to be not much older than a college student, and if this is true, could Mike be cradle snatching?
Friends and family of Mike have refused to comment, and nothing is known about Mike's wife, Sam's, reaction.
Mike was seen buying the girl an ice cream, as well as shopping and eating in his café, Rudie's can't Fail...
Yeah, it goes on but that's the basic gist of it." She finished.
"Shit." Mike muttered as he slowly sunk into the chair across from me, putting his face in his hands.
None of us spoke for a few moments and the room was silent until Mike spoke.
"The... I think the best thing to do... " he said. "Is to ignore it."
"What the fuck?" Alex muttered.
"H-how the hell is that supposed to help the situation?" I said, struggling to speak through my anger and fear. "You're supposed to be my dad. Everything is supposed to start going right now. But instead, everyone's gonna think I'm a fucking slut!"
"Look, Dani." Mike said. "I know its hard but its just... I've dealt with this shit for a long time, the best thing to do is ignore it and let it blow over. We know the truth and that's all that matters. If people ask us about it personally we set them straight, but other than that, its best to just pretend the article was never printed."
***
I sighed and looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My hair was out. I don't usually wear it out but I was trying to make my self look as different as possible to the pictures of me in all the magazines. The first article was definitely not the last; a week had passed and a few more rumours had begun. A few of them along the same lines as Joey's theory of me being a money and fame hungry teenie. The articles became to much and Mike's plan of ignoring it all, didn't seem to be working. The truth was printed in my favourite magazine four days after we found the original article. Mike and I wanted the record set straight and now everyone, well everyone that read good magazines knew everything, about Mum and Mike, who I was and even what happened to Mum.
I took one last look at myself. I was wearing black skinny leg jeans, red and black converse and a black the Clash T-Shirt. My hair fell around my face and I was hoping that I would be able to keep a low profile that day. It was my first day of school. Summer was over, everyone knew my business and I was about to go to a new school, without James, without Alex (she dropped out) and with Joey Armstrong. Oh boy today was going to be fun. I was really looking forward to going to school with him wasn't I? I hadn't seen or spoken to him and I didn't want to.
I flicked the bathroom light off and headed down the stairs, ready for the first day of school, the day that usually determines what the rest of the year will be like.
***
"Thanks for dropping me off." I said to Alex as I got out of the car.
"Hey, it's your car." She said shrugging.
I smiled weakly and closed the door.
"Have a great first day sweetie." Alex said through the open window, smiling and waving as though she was a mother saying goodbye to an 8 year old.
I waved and turned around, hearing the car drive away behind me.
The first hour or two were okay. I got my timetable and managed to find my way to my classes. I hadn't talked to many people, mostly because no one bothered to talk to me, but it didn't look like my day was going to be too bad. I didn't bump into Joey until I got to my third class, History. As I approached the class room, I saw him standing outside it, talking and laughing with two friends. He looked up and the smile on his face fell when he noticed me. I held his gaze for a few moments but eventually looked away before leaning back against a wall and looking down at my feet. A minute later I saw a pair of old black converse standing near me. I looked up and saw Joey.
"Hey." He said.
"Hi." I said to him, my voice hostile.
"I want you to know that I'm sorry for what happened to your Mum, it must be really ha-"
I didn't let him finish.
"I don't need your sympathy Joey." I said. "And I don't need you to be nice to me. I don't like you and you don't like me, so just leave me alone." I walked away from him and, noticing that everyone else was now entering the classroom, I walked through the door and took one of the only remaining seats next to some girl with blonde hair and a look on her face that told me that she thought she was the bee's knees. (AN - I had a sudden urge to put that saying in my story :P)
She looked at me as though something dead and rotting had been shoved under her nose before turning and whispering to the guy next to her. I sighed and looked to the front of the class where a balding man, who I presumed to be the teacher, was standing ready to begin the lesson.
History dragged on. Just like it did at my old school and just like it would at my new school. The class finally ended and everyone quickly filed out of the room and began to make their way to wherever it was they all went at lunchtime.
I got my food and, having no one to sit with, went and sat at an empty table. About 5 minutes later, the same blonde from my history class approached me.
"Hi." She said. "Can I sit here? I've got no one else to sit with."
"I suppose so." I said and she sat down. I found it hard to believe that she was a loner like me but pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and turned back to my food.
"Hey guys!" the blonde called out across the room and a group of people came over and sat at the table with us.
"Hey, your Dani right?" said the guy that was sitting next to the blonde, his arm already around her shoulders; I recognized him as the guy sitting next to her in our history class.
I nod and look down at my food, feeling uncomfortable at them all smirking down at me.
"So," The girl said." Did you have sex with Mike Dirnt today?"
I felt my whole body seize up.
"What's he like?" The girl continued. "He's pretty old isn't he?"
I stood up and began to walk away.
"What does your mother think about you hooking up with an old man?"
I froze, she had taken it too far. Tears began to slowly slide down my cheeks.
"Oh... Oh my god" The girl said through her laughter. "Are you crying?"
"Shut up Cassie." a voice that I recognized said warningly.
"You gonna make me, rich boy?" The girl, Cassie said.
The guy began to reply but I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying as someone placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"You ok?" I looked up at the owner of the hand. She was a girl who looked around my age, she had long black hair, full of bright blue streaks and she had dark brown eyes. She was wearing a black Rancid shirt and bright red skinny leg jeans and she had a kind smile.
"Yeah, I guess I'm alright." I turned around to see Joey standing in front of the Cassie girl and her boyfriend.
They seemed to be in a very heated argument.
"Just leave her the fuck alone!" Joey yelled before walking straight past me. "Come on." He muttered as he walked off with another of his friends.
The black and blue haired girl led me after them.
"Fuck!" I heard Joey yell as he kicked a nearby tree.
"Hey Joey." His friend said. "Calm down all right, there's no need to beat up the scenery."
"You okay Dani?" Joey asked me.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I said.
We had all reached an area outside at the back of the school with a few trees and a low wall, this was obviously where Joey and his friends spent their time. I suddenly realized that the only person I knew there at that moment was Joey. They all obviously realized the same thing and the girl opened her mouth to speak.
'I'm Wensdai by the way." She said "And this is Robert, but we call him Bob, so yeah, this is Bob"
I looked over to Bob and actually looked at him properly for the first time. He was really tall and skinny and had long blondish brown dreadlocks, bright blue eyes and an eyebrow ring. He was wearing a black Jimi Hendrix t-shirt, yellow hemp pants and Black Doc Martins.
He waved and smiled at me as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"Thanks for helping me guys." I said.
"It was nothing." Wensdai said. "Cassie's just... well... a bitch basically."
I nodded and an odd silence fell over the group.
In the distance a bell sounded, signaling the end of the lunch break.
"Yeah," I said." I'm gonna... go to class now. Thanks again." I waved to them and began to head back up to the main area of the school, feeling like somewhat more of a loner and an outsider than I had at the beginning of the day.
