I need more information, but it’s going to be a long wait for Maya to get back to her internship and get the gossip. Despite the suspicious mom connection, at least I now half believe Val’s story last night: her home life is more than a mess; she has no home. And no matter what wild plots I might suspect, I have to try to remember it’s innocent until proven guilty. I can’t let my own issues with Val get in the way.

Also, the fact that Val’s mom was arrested and Val ran off isn’t something I can discount. There was a real police report. Real danger. Real pain. I can’t let my snooping lead to Val’s mom finding out where she is.

“Brunch first?” asks Jeanine as we park. “I’m starving.”

We go to the outdoor café and both order Belgian waffles. As we are digging in, Aunt Jeanine says, “So, your dad tells me you’re going on a college trip next weekend.”

Crap. “Yeah.”

“Let me guess: that lack of enthusiasm is because you don’t actually want to do law and he’s totally jumped on it?”

“I don’t know that I wouldn’t want to do law someday, but yes, that’s part of it.”

Aunt Jeanine smiles. “Your father has always been like that. And is your lack of enthusiasm also because you have plans to go to San Fran?”

I swallow a rush of anxious energy. “How did you know about that?” I wonder if she, too, is following my movements on Twitter. I keep all this stuff off Facebook, because I know most of my family is there. I thought Twitter was a family-free zone.

“Actually, I saw the listing in the SF Weekly,” she says. “I wasn’t looking for it, I just happened to be reading the last bit of an article and there were gig listings on the facing page, and there was Dangerheart.”

“There we are. . . .” I feel myself deflating. At least obsessing about Val had kept my mind off this. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”

Jeanine nods. “Donald is probably not going to go for the idea of you trading college visits for a band gig. He still pictures you as the twelve-year-old with braces who hangs on her father’s every word. He’s not quite ready for you to be your own person.”

“Especially if that person isn’t the one he was picturing.”

“I’m assuming that you plan on there being other gigs,” says Aunt Jeanine. “Is this one really so important? Couldn’t you just miss it and be at the next one?”

“It’s kinda the opposite,” I say. “This gig is more important than any future ones.”

“I see.” Aunt Jeanine feeds a chunk of waffle through the top of her bag to Cocoa Bean’s snapping jaws. Then she places her purse on the table. It’s a woven bag from Niger. It’s gorgeous but the leather was cured in camel urine, a very distinctive smell that tends to linger. She shuffles through the contents and produces a thin red envelope.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Somebody’s favorite aunt happens to be going to San Francisco this weekend. She’s going to see an opera. Puccini’s Tosca. And she has an extra ticket.”

I kind of gape at her. “You . . .”

“Are providing the perfect alibi, yes.”

I slip open the envelope. “These are two-hundred dollar seats,” I say.

“Yes, and I have the perfect date to take.”

“Um,” I say, trying to keep up, “but I’d be at the show . . .”

“Not you,” says Jeanine, batting her hand playfully at me. “I have a long-time ‘what-if’ in Berkeley. She and I have been on four well-installation trips together. And on this last one we realized our shared love of Tosca, among other things.”

“Oh,” I say. I smile, wanting to add something about this news, about this life that Jeanine has kept completely under wraps during all family get-togethers ever.

Jeanine seems to read my mind. “Something else that Donald isn’t ready for, despite the changing times.”

“This is . . . amazing.” I’m nearly crying with relief. “Thank you.”

“You just do your thing, and we’ll educate your father at another time. But, keep my cell at the ready, in case we need to coordinate. We’ll tell them that you’re coming to my place the minute school ends Friday, and that we’re grabbing the five-p.m. shuttle from Burbank.”

“Sounds good.”

“And, now that that’s settled, you have to humor me and let me buy you something to wear to the opera.”

When we enter Bloomingdales, we are greeted by Franca, Aunt Jeanine’s personal shopper. She’s a stout, peppy little thing in a black sales suit, her red-dyed hair back in a severe bun, exposing her gray roots. “Ahh, there you are, and oh . . .” She smiles tenderly and rubs my forearm. “You brought my Vivien.”

“Hi, Franca,” I say. Franca says I look like Vivien Leigh, an actress from the golden age who was in Gone with the Wind. I’d say the resemblance is a stretch but I haven’t spent much time comparing the finer points of our features. And I haven’t ever yearned to be one of those movie stars with the soft filter around them.

“Me first,” says Jeanine, “and then Summer needs something for the opera.”

I spend some time hating everything I try on: jeans, boots, sweaters. The world is fitting wrong today, despite the good news about San Fran. Maybe I don’t like looking in the mirror and seeing the girl who jealously stormed out last night. Of course it’s not my fault I didn’t know the whole story. I still feel like my anger was valid. Maybe I’m just exhausted.

By the time we meet back up, I’ve managed to pick one cardigan that I can live with. It disappoints Aunt Jeanine if I don’t find something. She’s chosen a very classy sweater and skirt combo and some killer black boots for her date.

“And now, Vivien’s turn.” Franca takes my arm with her ring-covered fingers and leads me toward the escalator. “We will make you look so elegant.”

I have to talk Franca down from getups with no back and no shoulders and all kinds of frills, eventually settling on a black thing that’s formfitting, with a shimmer but still seems like me. Not that I’m even going to wear it, but still . . . Franca seems satisfied. She says it’s a great brand.

“You would of course want to perm your hair,” says Franca.

Has anyone gotten a perm in thirty years? “Maybe I’ll just put it up,” I say, piling it atop my head and flashing a stylish pose at the triple mirrors. I do look pretty good. I think for a moment that I could do this, be a dressed-up classy girl, but would everyone still see me? Or would they automatically assume the Catherine? Maybe, on occasion, I’d like to be both. You should be able to be both, but it never quite feels like an option.

Still, mugging in this thousand-dollar dress makes me wonder: last year, Ethan and I shunned all things prom. But what about this year? With Caleb . . . Except I’m still wounded from last night.

“Okay, this will work,” I say.

“Of course it will, but you must let me dress you up in some more things, Vivien.”

I smile. “Fine.” Some more time before Caleb and I see each other is probably best anyway. I text him that I can’t make practice, and then for the next two hours allow the ridiculous pleasure of shopping to take over.

18

MoonflowerAM @catherinefornevr 3m


We have entered the Red Zone. #ROCKreferencenotJOCKreference

It’s Monday before I see Caleb again. I have my cousin Mike’s birthday on Saturday night, and Caleb is busy Sunday doing a day of house projects with his mom. We’ve texted enough since the failed Friday date that everything seems cool, and I guess it is, but I’ve still been avoiding him. I’m going to have to tell him what I found out about Val, both the serious facts and the suspicions, and I can’t shake this worry that he’s not going to listen to the second part. So, I’ve been holding back, wondering when the right time to tell him is.

I enter the Hive churning about that, and also wondering how I’m going to deal with Val herself, how I’ll keep my mouth shut when she gives me her usual scowl, but when I walk into the room, I realize that none of it matters, because we’ve entered the Red Zone.

There is something delicate about the week before a show. Any slight conflict can get totally blown out of proportion and lead to someone either bailing on the gig, or playing poorly, or worse, quitting altogether. The day after a gig? Great time to talk about anything complicated, as there’s still success right there in the short-term memory, keeping everything in perspective. But right before is the most dangerous time. If you’re lucky, everyone in the group senses the Red Zone, and sets aside their annoyances, mistrusts, and fears. I can feel the eggshells when I arrive, and hear the short, quick cadence of everyone’s voices. So, all these things I’ve been fretting about? Post-gig.

Practice is usually a wave form, oscillating from funny highs with jokes and great takes of songs, to intense lows when parts aren’t working or somebody’s just off. But tonight, everything is tight. For Caleb, the pressure must be double. Not only is there the gig, and the desire to make amends for what happened at the Trial, but there’s also the anticipation of what we might find in San Fran. So I do my best to stay out of the waves. When Matt still isn’t quite there with the beat on “Chem Lab,” I decide not to mention it.

Unfortunately, Val does. The bass suddenly drops out midway through the song. “Can you straighten out the chorus?” she asks with typical Val severity.

Matt flashes a glance at me, then sends his gaze to its usual space by the kick drum. “I did.”

“Maybe, but it’s still busy and it’s losing me. What does everyone else think?”