Following Trouble (7 page)

I grabbed Katie’s purse from next to the mattress and followed, warning Rob about the hole in the stairs, but he remembered.

“I’ll drive.” He slid Katie in my back seat. “You stay with her.”

It was easy to get back to the freeway and I sat with Katie’s head in my lap, trying not to cry, wanting to both hug and slap her simultaneously. Rob was on the phone, talking to Sarah, but I wasn’t listening.

I stroked Katie’s hair and thought about the sleepovers we’d had as kids, staying up and painting our nails and faces, practicing kissing our pillows. I thought about Katie the day we gradua
ted from high school, a huge yellow smiley face pasted to the top of her mortarboard. I thought about all the Trouble concerts we’d been to. We’d both been super-fans, forever, but neither of us could have imagined those little rock and roll fantasies we’d dreamed of could possibly come true.

How had it come to this? Our dreams had
turned to very real nightmares, with real world consequences.

“Shouldn’t we take her to a hospital?” I asked as Rob pulled up at my little yello
w house.

I saw someone peering
out my window and there was a Taurus—clearly a rental—parked in front of my house. Sarah, of course. This was the same Sarah who roomed with Tyler and Rob, the one who was attending UCLA. They were apparently on spring break too.

“No. She’ll be in rehab by tonight.” Rob opened the door
and helped me out. I stepped back, watching while he carefully lifted Katie, shutting the car door with his hip before heading for the house.

Sarah opened the door for us. I barely registered her presence as Rob put Katie on my sofa
and started telling Sarah to do things. Everything he asked for, she already had for him. Somehow she knew the drill. I knelt beside the sofa and just watched, my heart caught in my throat, fighting angry tears.

“She’s going to be okay?” I finally asked.

Sarah rang out a cloth and put it on Katie’s forehead. Sarah, I noticed for the first time, was both young and beautiful. She had long, thick dark hair, dark eyes, a heart-shaped face, a little dimple in her chin. She was quite petite and maybe that’s why she looked so young, but I was betting she was years younger than us. She looked like she was barely out of high school. Why in the world had Rob asked her to do this?

“She will,” Sarah assured me, her voice soft. “This time.”

“She’s so out of it.” I frowned, not quite believing Sarah’s words. I was a cop’s daughter, which meant I knew a hell of a lot, but I’d been strangely sheltered and protected.

“She’s high.” Sarah gave me a sad little smile. “This is what a heroin high looks like.”

It didn’t make sense to me. If you were going to get “high,” shouldn’t it be fun? This didn’t look like any fun to me at all. Was that initial rush so amazing, so compelling, that it was worth passing out for hours afterward?

“Hope she’s enjoying it.” Rob glared. “Because if I have anything to say about it, it’s going to be her last.”

Katie moaned and thrashed, rolling to her back. Sarah moved to shift her back to her side, glancing at my puzzled look as she shoved a pillow behind her to keep it from happening again.

“She could vomit,” Sarah explained, covering Katie up to her shoulders with a blanket from the back of my couch. “And choke on it.”

“Nice.” I made a face, glancing at the bowl on the floor. They’d thought of everything. Sarah had definitely done this before. She was quite a pro.

“
Thank you,” I said, touching Sarah’s shoulder as she bent to adjust the pillow behind Katie’s back. “For what you’ve done, what you’re doing for Katie. You don’t even know her.”

“I know heroin. That’s all I need to know.” Sarah pulled my chair closer to the sofa and sat, looking up at me with sad, knowing eyes.
“And it’s not over yet… but you’re welcome.”

“What do you mean?”
I frowned. Katie was home, safe. She was coming down from this high, hadn’t overdosed. She would be okay. Wouldn’t she?

I felt Rob’s hand on my shoulder
and glanced up at him as Sarah answered my question.

“We still have to get her to sign the admission papers, or she’ll just keeping doing this.”

I shook my head, looking at Katie’s inert form. I was determined to get her into rehab, to get her help, no matter what it took.

“She’ll sleep it off. It’s going to be a while.
Sarah, keep an eye on Katie, would you?” Rob squeezed my shoulder as he bent to help me stand. I looked at Sarah, standing guard. She wasn’t going to leave her post.

“
Sabrina, come with me.”

“What are you doing?”
I protested as he pressed me down the hall and I twisted to try to see Katie, still passed out of the couch. I knew Sarah was there, and that was a comfort, but I wanted to be there too. She didn’t know Sarah, and Sarah didn’t know her, not like I did.

“I’m getting you into a bath.”
Rob shut the bathroom door behind us, locking it.

“I don’t want
a bath!” I cried, but he was already running the water and stripping me down. I continued to protest, but weakly, as he stripped down too and got into the tub, pulling me with him.

“We can’t both fit,” I complained, but I was wrong. We did fit. Just.

I couldn’t get my mind off Katie. Her body was out there on my couch, but she was gone, far away, flying above us all.

“Sabrina.” Rob whispered my name, wrapping his arms around me, the water warm, steam rising around us. It was a far cry from his big tub, but somehow it felt safer, womb-like, enveloping us both in comfort. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t want this to happen.”

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against his chest, feeling the tears I’d been holding back start to fall. Some part of me wanted to blame him, but that wasn’t fair. Katie was a big girl. She’d made the decision to go along, she’d made the decision to follow Tyler down this rabbit hole. Just like I’d made the decision to stay home.

But what if I hadn’t? What if I’d gone on tour? Would I have been able to see the warning signs, to stop this?

A sob escaped my throat and Rob’s arms tightened around me, his lips moving against my ear, whispering words of comfort about it being
okay, all right, over now,
except it wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be, not ever.

“I love you,” I whispered back. It was all I could think of to say, the only truth I knew anymore.

And I did. I loved Rob, more than I could ever say.

But I loathed the world he lived in.

“She’s going to be okay, Sabrina,” Rob assured me.

Everyone kept saying that. Sarah said it before we put her on a plane back to California. Tyler said it when I talked to him on the phone, part of his fourth step, something about making amends. Rob had pleaded for me to take that call and I’d grudgingly agreed. Ultimately, I’d been glad. I’d been able to let Tyler have it, and he took it all, every word, and still apologized in the end. We’d both cried.

“But I don’t understand why I can’t talk to her!” I parked my Kia in the teacher’s parking lot. Yellow busses were already lined up out front, letting kids off.

“It’s just part of the treatment. Remember what Sarah told you?” His hand moved in my hair, brushing it out of my eyes as I sighed and sat back in the driver’s seat.

“I hate this addiction stuff.” I closed my eyes, feeling a wave of nausea starting. It was always worse in the mornings, although Daisy’s ginger drink helped. She’d given the recipe to Rob and he got up every morning to make me one before I left for work.

“Me too.” His hand moved to my neck, massaging.

“The only thing I’ve ever been addicted to is you.” I opened my eyes and smiled over at him. “Unless you count sugar.”

“That white stuff will get you every time.”

“Come on, the kids are so looking forward to this.”

I’d been preparing them for the past two weeks, since Rob had agreed to come in and play for my classes. We’d listened to some of Trouble’s songs and I’d been answering questions all week about every aspect of the music industry their active little minds could come up with. I loved my kids so much and I often thought of them as “mine,” in some Socratian or Platonic sense. I was “the teacher” and I loved it.

Unfortunately, I worked with a lot of jaded teachers with tenure who saw themselves more as babysitters than anything else. And I got it—it wasn’t easy teaching in a low-income district. I could have moved to the suburbs and made double the money and probably had half the headaches, but in spite of its problems, I loved this city. I’d grown up there.

Rob carried his guitar with him down the quiet hallway. The kids were lined up outside, out in front of the building, waiting to go through the metal detectors. People were always shocked when I told them I worked in an elementary school with metal detectors, but this wasn’t a Columbine reaction. Detroit had used metal detectors since the eighties.

“How many kids?” Rob asked again as I opened the door to my classroom.

“Twenty to thirty.” I laughed. “You give concerts to thousands and you’re worried about thirty elementary school kids?”

This was the first year we were offering music full time for all the kids. The year before, I’d only taught music part-time and had team-taught a second grade classroom the rest of the time.

“This is different.” He grinned sheepishly. “Kids are perceptive.”

“You’ll do fine.” I patted
his arm. “Just play the guitar and answer their questions. It will be easy.”

“It’s the questions I’m worried about.” He pulled his phone out of his leather jacket when it rang, frowning as he looked at who was calling. “I gotta get this.”

He walked over to the corner of my room, over where I stored the soft mats I’d purchased with my own money for all the kids to sit on. I didn’t have any desks, but I didn’t really care about that. We couldn’t do much in desks anyway. My class usually consisted of half music, half gym. We played a lot of musical games and mostly had fun. I liked teaching them new things, but I also wanted them to always associate music with fun.

I went to my desk, stashing my purse in
a drawer and locking it—unfortunately, that was one thing you quickly learned in any Detroit school. You had to lock up your valuables. It wasn’t even just the big kids who stole things. The little ones would take things without a second thought too.

I pulled out a stack of “happy notes” to work on. I’d already stenciled each
quarter note onto construction paper and cut them out. Now I peeled off stickers and pasted them in the middle of each one. I handed three of these out after every class. They were a strange little incentive for kids to behave and pay attention. They all
loved
getting happy notes.

“Okay, Celeste, I got it.” Rob leaned against the wall, listening, nodding.
I couldn’t help admiring him, still wondering just exactly how all of this had come about. He was still the most beautiful man I’d ever seen in my life. “Yeah, I’ll call him… right now? Really?”

Obviously it was his assistant, Celeste, with some sort of news.
She’d called every day since he arrived, which I knew shouldn’t annoy me, but it did anyway. He spent a lot of time on the phone dealing with things long-distance. I’d suggested just once that he might want to consider going back, but he’d been adamant about staying, and I didn’t really want him to go. In the few weeks we’d been in Detroit, I’d gotten used to having him there when I got home.

Mostly I found him barefoot and shirtless, wearing just jeans and sitting cross-legged on the floor in front
of the sofa with his guitar, his music spread out in front of him, a pencil tucked behind his ear. He was writing songs for the next album, deep into it, but he always looked up and smiled when I walked in the door, abandoning his endeavors for the day to make dinner or take me out—the Thai restaurant waitresses knew him by name now—and then cuddle with me on the sofa. I usually fell asleep far too early, during
Masterchef
or
How I Met Your Mother.

And then he’d take me to bed and we’d wake up all night long to make love.

If I thought I was tired before? I was a walking zombie now. A very satisfied, starry-eyed, pleased zombie. And I couldn’t even drink caffeine!

“I have
to make a call.”

Rob dialed while
continued to put stickers on my happy notes, putting the completed ones in a special box I’d purchased with lines of music all over it. The kids loved seeing the box appear at the end of each class session and I always made sure it was full, even if it meant spending way too much money on stickers and far too much time cutting them all out.

“Hey, it’s Rob.” He
bent low to peer out the windows. My room faced the front of the school and we could see all the kids, the line growing out front as the busses let them off. “What’s up?”

I’d finished pulling off the last batch of scratch and sniff stickers and reminded myself to get more. I’d found them online and they were reminiscent of my own childhood. The kids thought they were the best.

“She wants
what?
” Rob pulled the phone to stare at it for a moment, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Then he put the phone back to his ear, his eyes darker than I’d seen them in a long time. Maybe ever. They always got dark like that when he was angry, or when he was determined.

“Tell her…” Rob swallowed, glancing over at me. “You know what to tell her.”

He obviously didn’t want me to know who he was talking to or what he was talking about. But of course I knew it was his lawyer and the “she” was Catherine. I just didn’t know the “what,” exactly. He was still listening, eyes growing even darker, like a sudden storm moving in.

“No.” He shook his head, adamant. “Nothing. I’m not budging on this. I don’t care what she’s threatening.”

The first bell rang and I glanced up at the clock. They’d be letting the kids in now.

“Tell her I’ll see her in court.” Rob slipped the phone back in his pocket, glancing over at me. I raised my eyebrows in question but there was no time. The kids were trickling in, saying good morning, running over to the corner to grab a mat.

“Hey, I know you!” Trevor, one of my favorite second graders, piped up when he saw Rob standing in the corner. Trevor recognized him, of course, since I’d been talking about Rob’s visit, but they’d actually already met back in February, when I took Rob to the Detroit Institute of Arts. There’d been a puppet show there that day for the kids, and I didn’t know who liked it more, Rob or Trevor.

“Hi Trevor.” Rob winked and I smiled when he remembered his name. “How’s it going?”

Trevor was the first student who noticed him standing there, but the rest quickly caught on, crowding around and looking up with big eyes, already peppering him with questions, vying for his attention. This quickly became a competition, each kid trying to one-up the next with their attention-grabbing story.

“Well I got to get my tonsils out next month!” Trevor announced, crossing him arms as if this was the definitive story to end all stories. He looked around at his classmates like
“Beat that!”

For a moment, no one could. Rob opened his mouth to make a comment, but then he was interrupted by Mikhala Watson, who looked at Rob like he was a god walking around on Earth. Of course, I was familiar with the feeling.

“Big whoop!” Mikhala scoffed, flicking one of her beaded braids over her shoulder. “My
dog
had his tonsils removed.”

Rob looked over at me, our eyes meeting, and I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh.

“Um, I didn’t know dogs got their tonsils out,” Rob replied, keeping a poker face, although I don’t know how.

“You dummy!” Trevor rolled his eyes. “Those aren’t
tonsils.
Those are
technicals.
My dog had his cut off so he couldn’t make babies.”

I snorted laughter, covering it by clearing my throat as I walked over to the assembled group surrounding Rob. I couldn’t meet his eyes or I would burst out
laughing and Rob clearly felt the same, because he turned to lift his guitar case up onto a table.

“Don’t call names, Trevor,” I admonished, as Rob fiddled with his guitar, his shoulders still shaking with laughter. “”Let’s all get our mats and sit on the floor
so we can listen to Rob sing.”

The kids grabbed their mats and started gathering in the middle of the tile floor and I finally dared to meet Rob’s eyes. We both burst out laughing at the same time. I just kept hearing Trevor’s righteous indignation, “Those are
technicals!”
and every time I thought of it, I laughed harder.

We finally calmed, wiping tears from the corners of our eyes, and I went to shut the door. The other teachers often complained about the noise coming from my room, even though we were tucked at the other end of the school from the classrooms, on the other side of the cafeteria where the janitor and storage closets were. In fact, if it didn’t have windows, I would have sworn my room had once been a closet.

Rob sat on a stool I pulled over to the front of the room and the kids sat on the floor, their faces turned up, expectant.

“So what song would you like to hear first?”

There were a few dissenters but most of them agreed that Trouble’s biggest hit, and my favorite song—
Can’t Break a Broken Heart
—should be first on the list.

Rob nodded, indulgent, and began to play. I grabbed my own mat and sat on the floor with the kids, tucking my long, wrap-around skirt under my knees. For me, it never got old, the sweet, dark notes of his voice, the lick of the guitar, like a tongue trembling along my skin, giving me goose flesh. I had never understood how the man could move me so much, from a million miles away, a complete stranger, but of course, I wasn’t the only one. He had hundreds of thousands of fans who felt the same way. The man was a musical god and even a group of second graders knew it.

He fielded questions in between songs, some of them quite amusing. I’d seen him in concert again and again and he always entertained the crowd, even in between the music, and today was no exception. He had them eating out of his hand, me included. It was strange to still be star struck by this man, who I was coming to know so intimately, but I couldn’t deny the way he made me want to get on the ground and worship him. I doubt that feeling would ever go away, especially when he played and sang.

Old habits died hard, maybe. But it was more than that. He had an
incredible power in his fingertips, his voice, and he proved it with every song he sang. We were all disappointed when our hour was almost up and he asked what song he should play last.

“Play a new song!” Trevor chimed in, waving his hand in the air as if we could miss him. “Something no one has ever hear before.”

“A new song?” Rob hooked his boot in the stool support, strumming idly, looking thoughtful. “Hmm… let me think…”

His strumming morphed slowly into a pattern, then into something more—the beginning of a song. A new song. I’d heard the melody already. He got up in the middle of the night sometimes and grabbed his guitar, sitting on the edge of the bed, strumming and humming, working something out, scribbling in a notepad he always kept on the night table. I would smile to myself and drift off, knowing I was the only one in the world so privileged to hear his earliest creative endeavors.

“I just wrote this song in the past couple weeks. It’s mostly finished, I think…” Rob strummed, his fingers moving back and forth on the frets.

“You write your own songs?
” Mikhala piped up, looking impressed. “The words and everything?”