Fangirl (14 page)

Judith just sat on a chair a few feet from the table. “What do you feel in your body?” she asked calmly.

Peter took another couple of breaths, followed by equally deep and long exhales. He could feel his legs and arms sinking into the table. He hadn't yet drifted into a meditative state, but he could sense he was getting close.

“I feel still.”

“That's good, Peter. Feeling still is peaceful. What else do you feel?”

Peter kept his steady breathing and softly replied, “I feel tingling in my fingers.”

“Ooh, that's a good thing. That means you're getting
oxygen to your body. The breathing is working. Focus on your breathing. Do you see any colors, shapes, or images?”

“Yes. I see my mom's face.”

“What's she doing?”

“Sleeping.”

“But your mom is no longer alive, right, Peter?”

“She isn't.”

“So she isn't sleeping.”

“No.” His bottom lip began to quiver.

“How does that make you feel?” Judith asked.

Peter sucked in a pocket of air and filled his lungs to the stretching point and released. His lip trembled. “I feel sad. Real sad.”

“Peter,” Judith continued. “If your mom were here, what would you tell her?”

“I miss you. I really miss you.”

The tears trapped under his eyelids were now leaking through the sides of his eyes. They rolled down each of his cheeks, collecting in his ears. His arms were too heavy to lift them. He felt their warmth.

“Were you close to your mom?” Judith asked.

“I was closer to her than anyone. And anyone since.”

“I could see why you would miss her.”

Judith gently placed her hands on his abdomen. “Breathe through it, Peter. It's okay.”

Peter took a deep inhale and out came a burst of air and a wailing sound—a sad, crying, choppy rush of air ending with
a slight moan. And then came another. Judith continued to rub his stomach as if loosening up the blockage that had been keeping him from totally releasing his emotions. “I miss my best friend. She was my best friend.”

An hour after the session began, it ended. He gradually came out of his hypnotic state, opening his eyes and wiggling his toes, focusing his gaze on his surroundings.

“Why are you smiling?” Judith asked.

“Because of a girl.” He was now sitting up on the padded table.

“A girl you like, I take it?”

“Yes. I think I'm ready, definitely ready.”

“Ready for what?” she asked softly.

“I'm ready to move on with my life, be my own man.”

Peter swallowed, then breathed in deeply and out and calmly added, “I'm ready to really love someone.”

Josie lay on
her back staring at her bedroom ceiling. Despite her profound exhaustion, she couldn't fall asleep. Her nerves were so frayed, her mind so busy with a confusing stream of consciousness, that a Sunday afternoon nap was out of the question.

The scene kept playing out in her mind: after the cops had arrested her dad inside the house, they had cuffed him and had walked him out to a van as Connor and Josie had sat beneath the giant oak tree in stunned silence.

“I'm sorry,” he had mouthed before the cops had placed him in the van and took him down to the Kern County jail. That's where they had also taken Josie and Connor, though they hadn't placed them in custody. They had done nothing wrong; they were just “victims of circumstance,” the cops had explained to Josie and Connor before calling their mom to come get them at headquarters.

Around midnight, Josie's mom had arrived. She had been in L.A. with Thomas, and when she had gotten the voice mail from the police she had immediately sped up the freeway, going over a hundred miles an hour. She had seen Connor and Josie sitting on the floor in the lobby next to the reception desk when she had arrived, and had hugged them both like she would never let go.

Josie had told her mom the police had said they were free to leave, that they were only witnesses and likely would be asked to testify at some point down the road. Now they could just go home.

Officer Rick Sanchez, a short man with a friendly smile whose wife had worked with Josie's mom at the clinic, approached the three of them. “Kimberly, everything is fine. We just wanted to protect the children. We didn't know if there were smugglers in the area, and we needed to lock the place down. We took good care of them.”

“Thanks, Ricky. Now can you tell me what the hell is going on?”

He had explained that for the last year or so Kyle had been illegally growing medical marijuana in the field behind the house. In fact, they had found 1,160 plants on the property with a street value of $4.6 million, along with another 55 pounds of cultivated pot worth about $220,000. “Kimberly, it's the biggest pot bust in this county in the last ten years,” he had said. “Kyle could go away for a long time because of this. He really needs to lawyer up. I'm so sorry.”

Josie's mom had let out a throaty sigh. “So where is he now?”

“In the lockup. There'll be an arraignment on Monday morning. Because of the seriousness of the charges, I doubt the judge will set bail. So he could be in custody right through a trial.”

“And how long could that be?”

“Hard to say with these things. The courts are so backlogged. I mean, we could be talking a year.”

Josie had sat slumped on the floor and against the wall listening to the cop. The glee of getting that Tweet from Peter Maxx earlier in the day seemed forever ago, and the happiness she had felt in getting that piano, of sitting on the porch talking to her dad, now all seemed like a farce. How could he be so stupid? How could he keep such a big secret from her?

His jittery paranoia now all made sense. So did his newfound money to afford a piano.

Moreover, the cops had seized every piece of property at the house, including the cell phone she had dropped in the backyard when the officers had rushed the compound. She'd had enough.

Fool me once, I say okay

Fool me twice, I can forgive, okay

When it comes to being wronged, third time is no charm

Good-bye to you

Josie kept replaying the events, over and over. Eventually, though, she fell asleep, and a few hours later she jolted awake, her heart racing and her T-shirt soaked with sweat. She sat up straight and looked around. She gasped when she realized she wasn't inside a jail cell—just a nightmare.

She got up from her bed and flicked on her computer to check the time. It was five o'clock.

Peter. It was almost twenty-four hours since he had sent her that message asking her if she had written any good songs
lately. Now was the first moment when she had collected her thoughts enough to reply. That is, assuming it was even him.

How do I know this is you?

But she didn't want to risk offending him. So she added:

The answer to your question is obv yes—I have written a song. Always

Peter stood
on the front balcony of his house and looked down at the beach. To his left, a half mile away, he saw the Manhattan Beach pier, and to his right up the coast in the far distance he could see the green mountains above the Malibu coast. If there was any material trapping of his success that he appreciated, it was the five-thousand square feet of Spanish-style mansion on the beach that he could afford to relax in.

The fresh salty air, the constant faint sound of waves crashing, the laid-back vibe of the neighborhood. For a boy from Tennessee, it felt like always being on vacation.

In the sand in front of his house was a group of teenagers playing beach volleyball. They were playing guys-versus-girls and laughing the entire time. Peter didn't have a group of local high school friends like those kids. He had his bandmates (but they were all much older), his other TV show cast members (but they all lived up near Hollywood), and, until a few days ago, a girlfriend. Peter often fantasized about what his life would be like if he decided to be a normal teen and enroll in local Mira Costa High School and just give up the celebrity life.

“What's up, kid?”

Dad.

“Just chillin'. Nice to have a day off.”

“You're tellin' me. Recharge those batteries of yours. We got eighteen more shows left after Tuesday.”

“I know.”

“We're down the home stretch.” Bobby leaned on the rail beside Peter. “After this tour, we can catch our breath. I think we should do a family vacation. Bora Bora or Cabo or some place like that.”

“Or home.”

“Nashville? Well, I'm sure Gramma and Grampa would love to see you. We could do that. Sure.”

What Bobby failed to mention was that as soon as the tour ended, they were scheduled to release a new single, which Peter would be contractually obligated to promote, launching with the first live performance of this single at the Hot Hollywood Music Awards. Then there was the new season of
For Pete's Sake
that was scheduled to begin taping in late September. Peter computed that would leave them a grand total of six or seven days—max—to “catch their breath.”

“Dad, we need to talk about me taking a break soon. Like a real break. I don't want to burn out.”

“I get it. I get it.” Bobby rubbed the back of his son's neck. “I hear ya. Let's just get through this little bit here.”

Bobby fidgeted in his pocket for his car keys. “Look, Petey, I gotta run out to dinner at Fonz's for some Mexican. I'll bring y'all home somethin'. Got it?”

“Got it.” Peter continued staring at the high school kids in
the sand diving around the volleyball net as his dad walked back inside.

Maybe it was all the oxygenation from his mediation session earlier in the day. Maybe it was having a day off at home and realizing how alone and isolating his life could feel at times like this. Maybe it was he would be turning seventeen in October and was starting to feel the urge to assert his independence, no matter what pressure his dad would put on him to “stay the course” or “keep the eye on the prize” or whatever cliché he spouted to keep Peter on the money-making train. Maybe it was meeting the girl in Bakersfield and sensing the possibility of connecting with a normal life and a normal girl. Whatever the cause of the stirring inside of him, Peter felt different, more alive. He had clarity about what
he
wanted out of his life.

As sunset neared, Peter could see a bank of dark gray clouds a few miles off shore that would be blowing in toward the beach, blanketing the coastline in what the locals called “June gloom.” But Peter's view of his life was far from cloudy. In fact, when he walked back inside to his bedroom and looked at his phone and saw the reply message from Josie, he sensed a future as bright as a high-noon sun.

Peter had read the other day that the Earth was inhabited by seven billion people living in 195 different countries, speaking thousands of different languages—from English to Spanish to Mandarin to Japanese to German to Bengali. It got Peter to thinking that more than the Internet, more than television,
more than jet travel, more than even Google Translator, there is one thing that shrinks the world and connects all those people more than anything else. It cuts out all the noise, all the distractions, all the worries, all of the madness. And it is the simple act of two strangers discovering each other for the first time. They realize that they aren't alone and that the world is only as big as the space they share between the two of them.

For Peter, it was the chance meeting in a high school classroom and the unrelenting urge he had to talk to Josie again. It was the feeling of wanting to let her into his life, because the more he did, the less alone he would feel. It was like feeling a blanket that was safely wrapped around him.

Josie and Peter were, on paper, very different people from two very different worlds.

But they both were artists, and they both were searching for their blanket.