5. Young Blood – Stella
The summer after Riggins graduated high school, Atlas Oaks picked up any and all gigs they could in the area, from countless shows at the Atlas, where they got their name, to dives up and down the Jersey shore and even a few in the city. It didn’t take long for a label exec to catch wind and sign them. Throughout the winter of my senior year, they recorded their first in-studio album, and now they’re traveling as an opening act for a larger Jersey band this summer.
The first tour for Atlas Oaks started in May of my senior year and spans to almost September. Of course, my parents said there was no universe where I could go with them. I suspected as much and even accepted it, knowing I would be finishing up my senior year and wanting to spend as much time as possible with Evie before she went to school in the fall, but now that they’re gone for real, I wish I had fought more.
They’ve only been gone a week, and I’m miserable.
I’m quickly learning this town is nothing without Riggins, nothing without the band. It’s strange realizing you have nothing and no one in your hometown other than your twin sister and a boy you’ve been in love with since you were a kid.
A week after Riggs leaves, I’m sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when my mother walks in, her designer bag hung over her shoulder, a pile of mail in one hand. She hangs the bag up as she walks into the kitchen, not acknowledging me, though I don’t mind. The more invisible I am to her, the better my day goes.
She tosses her keys and phone on the island, eyes on her hands as she flips through the thick stack of mail. She eventually speaks to me, and the words make my stomach churn and send anxiety rolling through me.
“Lenore and I have decided you will be going on a date with her son next Friday.” She says the words as if I’m not 18 but a child, and she’s decided I’m going to the dentist for a cleaning rather than a date with a near stranger. Finally, my head moves up, and I stare at her, my brow furrowing as I fight my instinct of shouting, absolutely the fuck not.
Things with my mother have been tense for as long as I can remember, but in the past year, they’ve gotten even worse. I don’t know if it’s my decision not to go to college in the fall or the recent urge to step out of the perfect mold she built for me, but either way, it feels like I’m constantly on the verge of feeling her anger and disappointment.
“Thank you, but I’m not interested,” I say diplomatically. I can’t wait to tell Riggins how she wants me to go on a date with the douchey lacrosse captain when he calls me next. He’s going to get a kick out of this one. Especially since Tripp constantly made fun of Riggins and me when Riggs was still attending Ashford High.
“It wasn’t a choice, Stella. I phrased it very specifically,” my mother says, her hands moving a bit slower as her fierce stare hits me. “You’re already embarrassing me by not going to school, giving up on everything. I’ve convinced my friends it’s because you want to help take over the diner, but I can’t explain away you just staying in the house and doing nothing.”
I wonder if she was always like this, cold as ice and only concerned with public appearance, money, and status. And if she was, why the fuck did my dad ever marry her?
I take a deep breath, knowing that gaze doesn’t bode well, but standing my ground. “I’m not dating right now, Mom.”
“And why is that, Stella? Your sister is dating the mayor’s son. I just don’t know why you can’t be more like her. She trusted me to set them up, and look how happy she is.” If by happy you mean she does everything in her power to avoid him, then yeah, she’s happy as can be.
“Well, I’m not Evie,” I say. I don’t add unfortunately, even though I know she’s thinking it. She always thinks it. Why aren’t you more like your sister? is a common refrain from her. Still, if I want to escape this conversation without a blowout, I need to do some damage control and explaining. “I’m just… I’m not interested in dating. I have my whole life to date and I’m in my senior year.”
“It’s not like you’re going to be meeting any good boys at college,” she says with an angry edge, and I should have known that would come next. When I told her my decision to forgo further schooling, it became a huge blow-up fight that boiled down to her cursing the Greene family for moving in next door to us, and Riggs was ruining her life, as if my life and hers were so closely intertwined and my not going to college would ruin her life.
What am I going to tell my friends, Stella?
It was always about appearances, after all, and your daughter”s choice not to go to college was apparently social suicide in her circle.
“I’m just not interested in dating right now. I’m focusing on my…” I hesitate a bit because I want to say songwriting, but that would only make things worse. Instead, I say, “School work and enjoying senior year.” When her jaw goes tight and her eyes go flinty, I know she’s about to hit deep, about to say something with the intention of hurting me and causing pain.
“What are you waiting out for? Riggins Greene? Grow up, Stella Jane. He’s a loser. To his credit, he left town to get away from his drunk of a dad as soon as possible, but do you really think he’s out touring with his little band and thinking about you? You’re here, wasting your senior year away, sad and depressed, missing some boy, and he’s out living his life. Without you.” She looks at me and sees she hit her mark of my insecurities, and smiles.
“If he really wanted to be with you, Stella, he would have before he left. But he wants to go on tour, be single, forget about his silly little neighbor who’s been prancing after him like a lost puppy her whole life.”
“Mom, that’s not?—”
But what am I even going to say?
It’s not true? I haven’t been in love with Riggins since I was a kid?We both know that’s bullshit, even if I stopped confiding in my mother when I was 10, and she started to use my secrets shared in confidence against me.
Somehow, still, she knows I’ve been worried about exactly that since he left, that he already forgot about me, that he’ll move on with his exciting new life and leave me behind.
“Use your head, Stella. Before you waste your best years on him, use your head. Grab a good boy who’s going to have a good job and who will uplift this family’s standing. Stop walking around with your head in the clouds, delusions, and convincing yourself he cares about you.”
I just stare at her, biting on my lip until it bleeds in an attempt not to say something I’d regret or show some kind of emotion she could weaponize against me. A minute passes before she shakes her head in disappointment and walks to lean against the kitchen counter, redirecting her energy and attention to the mail.
My body starts to relax, and I turn my face back to my math homework.
“What is this?” she asks a few moments later as she flips through the mail, her brow furrowing. She must be confused, seeing as she would never risk fine lines and wrinkles for nothing.
“I…” I start, but then my eyes focus long enough on what she’s holding up. My chest fills, my day brightening for the first time since Riggs left.
She flips the paper, and I see his messy scrawl on the back. I can’t stop myself from standing and snatching it from my mom’s hands, excited and not even worried about her giving me a hard time for manners, instead hungrily reading his words.
The front clearly shows it came from Maine, one of the first stops as they tag onto the tour halfway through. The words, Greetings from Portland scrawled in pretty font above an image of trees and stars.
Little star-
We’re in Portland, Maine, our first show on the tour Blacknote set up for us. I miss you like crazy. It’s so pretty here, you’d love it. When it’s dark, the stars are the brightest things I’ve ever seen. We should come back some day, go star gazing.
All my love,
Riggs
I sigh as I read it, letting my head drift to a world where Riggs isn’t just my best friend who sees me as a sister he writes songs with, but a woman he loves, the one he writes his songs about.
He doesn’t know all the songs we write together, I write with him in mind.
“What is that, Stella?” my mom asks, annoyed.
“Oh. A postcard from Riggins. Atlas Oaks made a stop in Maine first,” I say, stuffing it into my agenda for school and trying to play it off.
“I still can’t believe his father is letting him throw his life away like that,” my mother says, moving around the kitchen, grabbing a glass and a bottle of too-expensive wine.
“Well, I mean, he has a record deal.” I don’t remind her that Mr. Greene has been falling apart more and more since Riggs’ mom passed and doesn’t care much about what he does.
“Anyone can get a record deal, Stella. It’s not that hard. They’re always looking for idiots who will work cheap and who aren’t hard to look at. One in a million. He’ll crash and burn just like that loser father of his, then come crawling back to this town, probably a drunk like his father, too.”
“Mom, that’s mean.”
“It’s the truth. I’m glad he got out before he could drag you into that world, too.” Her look turns to an icy glare. “Even if you are still throwing your life away.”
I got offers, scholarships, the whole nine from good schools, but I knew from the start it’s not for me. School is not for me. I want to write music, I want to tour the world, I want to be with Riggins
And I’m good at it. All of the reviews for the debut EP of Atlas Oaks mention the beautiful songwriting. It’s healing, some reviews say. Real and raw, another said.
I’m good at this, and for the first time in my life, I understand what I’m supposed to be. Who I’m supposed to be.
“Mom—” I start because this might not be the best time to talk to her about it, but there probably won’t be a better one. But I’m put off when her face turns to one of horror.
“That’s why, isn”t it? Why you’re refusing to do the right thing and go to college?”
“Mom,” I try again, but she steamrolls me as she’s wanted to do.
“Stella Jane, you are going to fail. You are going to fail and come crawling back. Don’t be a fucking idiot.”
“I like writing, Mom,” I whisper.
“Then go to school and write papers.”
“I like writing songs.”
“Stella, there are a million and seven foolish young girls just like you, falling in love with rockstars and convincing themselves they’re different. You aren’t special. You aren’t different. But if you abandon your future for this, you are stupid.” The burn at the back of my eyes starts. We’ve tiptoed around the topic of why I decided not to go college, but this is the first time we’ve talked outright about my dreams.
I think a part of me truly thought when I said it out loud, my mother would concede. She”d see and hear the music I’ve written and agree it’s a worthwhile dream.
I should have known better.
“That’s enough, Rhonda,” my father says, walking into the room, his hand loosening his tie. Her face snaps to him, pure venom there.
“No, it isn’t enough. We’ve been ignoring this disaster for years, and it’s starting to ruin Stella’s life. I will not have a loser of a daughter, and that’s where you’re headed, Stella,” she snaps in my direction.
“Rhonda,” my dad barks in a loud voice even I don’t expect. My mom’s eyes go wide slowly, and she turns her entire body to his. “Can I speak with you in the other room?”
For the first time in my life, I watch my mother obey someone else’s command without arguing, her back straight as she leaves the kitchen stiffly. My father follows her close behind, his eyes meeting mine for a brief moment before he nods once and walks out of the room.
For the rest of the summer, I get the mail before my mother every day until Riggs comes home.