Page 113 of Summer Reading

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The question caught me off guard, which was ridiculous, because this was Stephanie. She never missed so much as an eye twitch. Of course she noticed how I felt. I nodded and a tear spilled down my cheek. “Yeah, I do.”

“Oh, honey.” She leaned over the arm of her chair and wrapped her arms around me. I sank into her softness, which carried the maternal scents of lemons and laundry detergent.

Stephanie had never gotten much of a chance to mother me. I had spent our first years hissing and spitting at her so much that she’d always treated me like a stray cat that she fed from time to time but wasn’t sure was feral or not. I couldn’t blame her. By the time I had matured a bit and was decent to her, I was a grown adult and out on my own.

This was the first time I could ever remember needing her, really needing her, and I was so grateful she was here.

She brushed my hair back from my face and kissed my head. “It’s going to be all right, Sam. He’d be anidiot to let you go, and he did not strike me as an idiot.”

“You only met him for a minute,” I said.

“Still, a man with his formidable intelligence—Tyler has told us all about him—is not going to let a catch like you get away. Not if he’s worth having, he isn’t,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “Have I told you that you’re the best bonus mom ever?”

She laughed. “Yes, repeatedly.”

“Well, I’m right.”

“Thank you.” She let me go and I sat up straight already missing her warmth.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s been up in the attic all morning,” she said. “You sent him on quite a quest.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’d better go see if I can help. If this causes him to start wearing parachute pants and a Members Only jacket, I apologize in advance.”

“No need,” she said. “Even those would be an improvement on the skinny jeans.”

I laughed and pushed to my feet. I headed into the house, hoping my dad had found something, anything, that might help Ben get an idea of who his dad was.

The screen door swung shut behind me, and I saw my dad sitting at the kitchen table with a large cardboard box in front of him. He was holding an old-fashioned cassetteplayer and wearing an ancient pair of headphones. His eyes were closed and he was listening to something, the tinny sounds of which I could just make out.

“Hi, Dad,” I said. Obviously, he didn’t hear me so I stepped close and tapped him on the arm.

“Ah!” He jumped. When he registered that it was me, he pulled his headphones off while fumbling with the cassette player. “Sam, you’ll never believe what I found. Session tapes.”

I gave him side-eye. “I have no idea what that means.”

“When we formed the Procrastinators that summer, we were dreaming big of getting signed, being rock stars, touring the world—as you do.”

“Asyoudo,” I corrected him. “And?”

“And I have hours and hours of tapes of conversations, song recordings, stupid jokes, and a couple of fistfights.”

“Rock and roll.” I made the universal hand gesture. Dad grinned.

“So, what happened? Why didn’t you guys make it to the big time?” I asked.

“I had to go back to college, Mikey the bass player had enlisted in the military and was shipping out, and Doug our lead singer had a bit of a drinking problem and by the end of the summer his family staged an intervention and he was sent to rehab. Steve was the only one who remained a musician.”

“Really?” I asked. I sat down in the chair beside his.

“Yeah, I did some digging and found out that he became a studio musician in Nashville and taught guitar lessons as well,” he said. “He never made it to the big time, but he was working in the industry and he was well respected.”

“I think Ben will be happy to hear that,” I said.

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