36. Family Ties
NICKY
I might not have been brave enough to introduce myself to Ian’s family if I hadn’t had Charlotte with me, but the puppy had no respect for social awkwardness.
The first the O’Rourkes knew that I was near was when Charlotte’s tail went into overtime. She dropped her boot on a young man’s foot and rose up to plant her plate-sized paws on his lap to lick his face.
“Hey!” He was surprised but not at all alarmed. “I’ve seen pictures of this dog! You’re Charlotte, aren’t you?”
Charlotte had discovered that all the new people smelled like Ian, and she was wriggling between knees and the back of the seats to spread her drool and hair and doggy bliss across the four people now coming to their feet.
“Oh my god,” the young woman said. “This is supposed to be a puppy?” She tried to wrap her arms around Charlotte’s neck, but Charlotte decided she wanted to turn around to come back up the line, which didn’t work at all. I dropped her leash in the hopes that it wouldn’t make things worse.
“She’s four months old,” I said. “She knows ‘come’ and ‘sit,’ and we’re working on ‘stay,’ but she’s a little overexcited. I think you guys must smell like Ian’s pack.”
“Well, we are that!” The older woman untangled herself and made it out to the aisle to stand by me. “I’m Magda, Ian’s mom.”
“Nicky,” I said, shaking her hand. Here was the source of Ian’s almost-black hair, his broad-shouldered V shape. In distant past generations, Magda’s forebears must have needed those strong shoulders to work in the fields or something. She looked formidable—and kind.
“We’ve heard a lot about you,” she said. It could have been a loaded statement, but she spoke with warmth. “You’re the one who got him to cut his hair.”
A pang. Was she missing her son’s beautiful long hair? “I am—or anyway, I suggested it.”
“It’s a little short for my taste,” she said dryly, looking to where Ian was playing the same chord over and over again. “But seeing him come out from the shadows? Yeah.” She sighed as she watched her eldest. “I think we have you to thank for that.” She turned back to me, inspiring a matching smile in me. She approved of me. I relaxed. “Let me introduce you. This is Dom, my third child. Stand up, for god’s sake, Dominick. You weren’t raised in a barn.”
All three O’Rourke siblings stood, providing Charlotte with room to turn around at last. Her eager, boneless wriggling really was the best antidote to social anxiety. Dom wiped his hand on his jeans and shook with me. He shared Magda’s dark hair, but his eyes were blue, and he had a pug nose instead of the blade Ian and Magda shared.
“Call me Betts,” the sister said when I shook her hand. “They all do.”
“Betts,” I said, smiling. Her hair, and the hair of the teenager beside her, was a glorious red-gold. Hair of the missing father, I thought. Here’s the Irish in the group.
“And this is Finn, Ian’s youngest brother.”
Ian’s nose, the red-gold hair—Finn was clearly the perfect amalgam of his mother and father. Plus, he had an excellent grin. “I’m supposed to paint your portrait,” he said, pulling out his phone.
“You are?” I was startled.
“Ian said. I can take your photo, right?”
No one else seemed to think this was at all odd. “He’s pretty good,” Magda said, “if it’s not boastful for me to say it.”
“You don’t want to do Charlotte instead?” I was uncomfortably aware that he was watching me through his phone camera.
“Already done her. Want to see?” He flipped through his phone and held out an image of a pen-and-ink drawing of Charlotte, ears forward and forehead wrinkled. It was a beautiful version of a photo Mal had taken when Archer had been working with Charlotte on stay.
“That’s gorgeous! You did this?”
Finn shrugged. “The perspective isn’t right. I have to work on that.”
The perspective looked perfect to me. “Ian said you were good,” I offered. “I guess I didn’t realize—” I came to a halt, and Magda nodded at me.
“Yep,” she said. She raised her eyebrows in emphasis but said nothing more. The whole battle between the union and nonunion lives snapped into sharper focus. Who was the mother supposed to support in that battle? Her husband? Her youngest child? What a mess.
I felt a new sympathy for Magda.
“So, no Mr. O’Rourke?” I asked. I’d helped to get five passes—where was the missing person? The person Ian most dreaded and most wanted to see?
“He couldn’t make it,” Magda said, and I thought we were still somehow having the same discussion. Should she side with her husband or her oldest son? No wonder Ian played scales all day long.
“Are they going to play or what?” Dom pulled the attention to him. “What are they doing here?”
We sat, and I stepped on Charlotte’s leash so she had room to sniff around but couldn’t get lost. “See those guys there?” I gestured to the sound booth halfway up the floor. “The guy in the yellow shirt is Yago. He’s the front-of-house engineer. He and his assistant are checking to make sure the band will sound good throughout the stadium and ensure everything has been hooked up properly.”
“Why check?” Betts asked. “Didn’t they set it all up?”
I shook my head, happy to present a topic they were sure to like. “All the tour equipment is set up by union workers. Once it’s set up, the techs can adjust things. But like, the guitar techs can’t even carry the guitars in from the truck. Once they’re in the stage area, okay, but not before then. Same with the sound equipment.”
This was a big hit with the O’Rourkes. “Unions for the win,” Betts called out.
The family cheered.
Dom got back to the sound check. “So, once the yellow-shirt guy checks the levels, then what?”
“Then the guy in the striped sweater—see him? he’s sitting down right, oh, there he is. That’s Zeke. He’s the monitor engineer. He’s in charge of what the band hears through their earpieces. Pity that guy. Whenever anything goes wrong in a concert, he’s the first one they blame. He’s a really nice guy.”
“So, all they’re going to do is stand there and thunk notes on their guitars?”
“Wait until they get to Mal. That’s really, really boring! But if you sit here long enough, Sheree and her whole band will be out here, and they’re who the sound engineers are really waiting for. They’ll probably play something—at least a fragment of the songs. And did you notice the lighting techs?”
I shared with them what little I knew about how stadium shows were set up and found them easygoing and friendly.
When Aftermath was finished, they left their instruments to the guitar techs and joined us in the audience. I stood to let Ian sit next to his mother, and he leaned down to give me a soft, quick kiss. In full view of his mother and everything. I felt my skin warm with a happy blush. “This is Nicky,” he said unnecessarily to his family. “She’s special.”
Was I grinning like a dork? I tried to hold it in, but probably no one was fooled.
“We’ve met,” Magda said. “And I agree.”
Score! She wanted me to have her son’s babies!
Charlotte took the occasion to rear up on her back feet and plant her forefeet in Archer’s stomach. “Oof! You bad dog! No jumping!” He ruined the lesson by cuddling her, and she rewarded him by sitting obediently when he commanded it. We erupted into applause.
Time to let the assembled masses know their schedule. “Guys, you’ve got about an hour before your first interview. You can stay here and watch Sheree’s sound check, or I’ve got a pressroom for you that will be empty for now. You can hang out there if you want.”
“You’ve got a press interview?” Betts looked surprised and impressed.
Mal and Archer looked cocky. “Just one, Nicky?” Archer asked.
I shook my head and consulted my tablet. “One print newspaper, three bloggers, a TV news crew, and a pair of social media influencers. It should take about two hours to get through it, and then you can have dinner.” I included the O’Rourkes. “That will be in the greenroom, and you’re all invited to join.”
“In the greenroom?” Dom asked. “With Sheree?”
Ian grinned and slung an arm around his brother. “I’ll introduce you.”
“Fuck yeah, you will!”
“Then you’ve got passes for the VIP area down front and for backstage. Or, if the crowd and the noise are too much, you can join me in the VIP suite up there. I’ll be working, but I can keep an eye out for you.”
Magda raised her hand. “I think I’d rather be up there, if you don’t mind. I’ve never been much of a mosh-pit kind of girl.”
“Old lady,” Betts said, nudging her mother companionably. “They don’t have mosh pits at big shows like this anymore. Too much security, right, Ee?”
It took me a moment to realize she was addressing Ian.
“None that I’ve seen,” he reassured his mother. “Everyone in the VIP area will be mosh-free.”
“Good.” She put her arm around her smallest child. Finn was already taller than Dom and Betts, but he had that teenage look of growing up faster than out.
“Mo-ther,” he said in protest.
“Oh, hush, you. I’m allowed to worry about my baby.” It seemed clear to me that Magda worried about all her children, but Finn was the only one still young enough for her to pet.
“Our bus is scheduled to pull out for San Francisco at one this morning,” I went on, “so I’m afraid you won’t have a lot of time together. But you can do the VIP line after the show with Sheree and Aftermath. And just so everyone knows who you’re here for . . .” I retrieved my tote bag and pulled out my haul: five white Aftermath hoodies.
“Oh! Gimme!” Betts was the first to dive in.
“If anyone asks, they only have the black ones at the merch stand,” I said. “If they want a white one, they have to go to the band’s website. And they’re going fast too. Every city we go to, the sales bump up.”
“Cool!” Finn looked adorable in his hoodie. “Can I get a black one too?”
“You can,” Ian said, “but you’ll have to buy it yourself. We’re protesting the merch booth.” He put an arm around me protectively.
“Oh, right,” Dom said. “Because Nicky’s too light-fingered, huh? A little five-finger discount, right, Nick?”
His teasing was so obvious that I didn’t bother taking offense—more like I was astonished and pleased that his whole family was apparently very invested in our tour. “Don’t even tease, Dom. You know they threatened to call the police on me?”
“The bastards.” Magda looked huffy on my account, and I was suddenly her willing slave.
“There’s Sheree!” Finn’s loud whisper brought everyone up short. I had to head up to the VIP suite to do whatever menial chores Bruce had for me (his favorite was to send me out for coffee if it was raining), but by the time I left, Aftermath was slumped into seats with the O’Rourke family, their legs sprawled over the seats in front of them. The male half of the O’Rourkes had aped the position, and they were all gabbing together like old friends.
Nice.
I was in the VIP suite, fielding questions from the assembled press, when everyone on the balcony came to attention. I looked over. Sheree had left the stage to see who her opening band was sitting with.
Even nicer. Ian introduced his family, and I watched with the press from miles away as Sheree charmed them all. “Who’s she talking to?” an on-air reporter asked.
“The family of one of the members of Aftermath,” I answered.
“Well, obviously. They’ve got the dog with them. But whose family? The blonds could be Archer’s family, but the dark-haired ones could be Mal or Ian.”
This was success, I thought. People not only knew of Aftermath, they also knew who was in the band.
The show that evening was so excellent that I was mad anew that Ian’s father hadn’t come. The band deserved to know he heard the applause for “Charlotte’s Lullaby,” and he should have seen the people moving to “Street Dancing.” He should have stared, proud and astonished, as his son provided the guitar solo when Sheree performed Pearl Jam’s “Alive” for a screaming crowd. He should have been there.
Big Pat and I were going to have some words.
But if Ian was angry with his father, he didn’t show it. He stayed in the semidarkness of the VIP room with his family long after he, Archer, and Mal usually left. I was handing Sheree the commemorative programs for her to sign when Ian appeared at my side.
“There’s a box of Sheree stuff in that office,” he said quietly under the hum of voices. “Some shirts and CDs and programs. Can I give some of that to my family?”
I didn’t have to see where he was looking. “That’s merch that Bruce gives to the press. I’m sorry, he won’t let them take anything.”
“Okay. No problem.”
He stayed by my side instead of going back to his mother and siblings, who were grouped around Mal and Freddy, Sheree’s drummer. Archer was nowhere in sight. Either he was walking Charlotte, or he’d picked up a groupie.
I bumped into Ian when I reached for another stack of programs. “Sorry,” he said, but it was clear he was lost in thought.
“What’s up?” I handed Sheree another program, opened to the page she preferred to sign, and turned back to Ian.
“Well, have you ever seen any press leave with merch?”
“What do you mean? Sure—I’d be happy to take the photo.” Another ecstatic group stepped up to shower Sheree with praise, Emmett always at her back. Ian was still standing there.
“Still thinking about that merch? The press all have these huge bags for laptops and recorders and stuff. I’m sure they put their free stuff in there when they leave.”
“Right. Of course. Yeah. Okay. I’m going to—okay. Back to Mom.”
“Give her my love. Oh yes, I’d love to take the photo. Everybody ready?”
When I finished my chore, Ian was back with his family. But still looking thoughtful.