I just nod. A car pulls in the driveway, the family’s home. I smile, Rick then smiles as Ben runs over, and he joins the soccer game. I sit and watch for about five minutes then Tay and Sara walk out the back door. Tay sits next to me and Sara sits on his other side.

Tay shouts at Rick, “What’s the score?!”

Rick stops in his tracks and raises his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun, “It’s three to five, wanna play?”

Tay looks at Sara. I feel sick. Ben throws the ball at Tay’s head, but he catches it and punts it down the field. Sara just pouts and watches.

Tay looks happy to be playing soccer with his friends again, and they look happy to have him back, if just for a second. Sara cheers him on and laughs, I sit quietly watching him smile. The ball comes straight to me and I throw it back to Tay. He laughs, and comes over to me.

“Come on, Molly, play! You, too, Sara. ”He pulls us both up towards the field.

She giggles and takes the ball from him. She kisses him and runs to the field. I hang back, looking at him as he watches her. You know, love sucks.

“Come on!” he pulls me toward the field, “you gotta play too.”

I hug him, which is nothing new. I hug him, and my other friends all the time. This one’s no different...to him.

I run to the field and join the team of Rick, Zac, Ben, Todd, and Chris. Chris punts the ball across to the goal, but Tay passes it to Sara, who passes it to Jaime. The game continues until Mrs. Hanson comes out and sends everybody home, we agree that the score is nine to seven, my team won. Zac and I head to the house, Tay follows after kissing Sara good-bye. Rick picks up the soccer ball, waves to Mrs. Hanson, and runs down the street. The other boys all run in separate directions, and the yard is left empty.

A car pulls in the driveway, and Ike gets out and waves to the driver. The car pulls away and he walk up to the door. Zac yells to him from the yard.

“Hey, Ike!” he yells to his older brother. Ike waves to Zac and runs over.

We all head in through the backdoor. The whole family sits at the table; Zoe, Mackie, Avery, Jessica, Zac, Taylor, Isaac, Mom and Dad H., and me. There’s blows and spoons in the middle of the table. Time for dessert . The way it works here is you have dinner, go out and play, then everyone comes in again for dessert , you stay inside and watch TV or whatever, then you go to bed.

Mom dishes it out, and the younger kids dig in, getting chocolate syrup smudged over their faces. Tay eats while reading, and Zac’s playing with his food. Zac looks up from his ice-cream.

“Hey, Tay, are you going to practice with us tonight?” he asks.

Tay nods, “Yeah, I’m going to practice. And I want you and Ike to take a look at something I wrote yesterday. It’s not a full song, but it’s a few verses.”

Ike looks surprised, “You’re finally going to practice with us?” He sighs, “We have to get in gear, Tay, including you. This isn’t going to work if you keep running off to call your girlfriend and Zac storms off all p.o.ed.”

Zac stares at his bowl. “Yeah Tay, we can’t be a band if our keyboardist and one of our vocalists keeps running off with his girlfriend.”

“And the drummer keeps getting mad and frustrated with his brother,” their mother adds.

“All right,” Tay says, “I know. I spend too much time with Sara and not enough time with you. I know, alright? I’m sorry. I know all my parts!”

“Yeah, which is good, Tay. But you have to know them with us. Not only as a band member...” Zac sulks.

“But as my brother, too!” his little eight year old sister, Avie, pouts.

Tay looks frustrated, “All right! I know, it’s just...” he shakes his head. “Just what? Tay, this is your family, friends and your career,” his mom chimes in. “Close enough,” Rick adds from the doorway.

“Hey, Rick,” Tay looks up at his friend.

“Hate to say it, but they’re all right. You don’t play soccer or basketball with us unless she’s busy, and you’re letting your career suffer,” Rick looks so serious, and so sad.

Taylor looks annoyed, “I...” He looks at everyone in the room.

Avery and Mackie are playing with each other’s ice-cream. Zac is staring at his plate, Isaac is eating quietly. His mom and dad look at him, concerned. Rick and I just look hurt.

He shakes his head. As if on cue, the phone rings, and of course, it’s Sara. Walker Hanson picks it up.

“Sorry, Sara. He has to practice right now. Yeah, I’ll tell him you called, okay. Yeah, bye.” He hangs up and turns to Tay, “she called.”

Tay sighs and turns to his brothers, “let’s get practicing.”

Rick smiles, “I just wanted to stop by and return this,” handing Tay a Game-BoyR cartridge.

Tay smiles and turns it over in his hands, “Thanks.” Rick leaves, through the back door, and Zac and Ike drag Tay to the upstairs room where the drums, guitars, and keyboards are kept. Avery and Jessie clear the table and I help Mama wash the dishes.

Notes from the keyboards and guitar chords float from upstairs, accompanied by Zac’s drum beats. Taylor’s voice blends in and soon it’s a sweet three part harmony. Their mother smiles softly.

“I’m glad they finally said something to him. But I doubt he’ll listen. He’ll shape up for a week or so, they’ll let up on him, and it’ll go back to the way it was until he sees, or admits to seeing, what’s going on,” she sighs.

“You’re probably right. Why’s he letting her do this?” I ask.

“Maybe he likes her that much, oh I hope not, poor boy. Or there’s another reason. I don’t know,” she shakes her head, “I just don’t.”

I scrub the bowl in my hands, thinking, trying to understand. I sigh, I don’t want her to hurt him. I wonder why he’s doing this, is he that much of a fool? What reasons could there be? Do I really want to know?

“Mom, why don’t you tell him he can’t see her?” I ask, suddenly hit with the idea.

She shakes her head, “he’s got to learn.”

I drift of into the thoughts of what he would learn, or would he ever? The phone rings, bringing me back to earth. I pick it up, and it’s Sara. I look over at Mom, and mouth to her that it’s Sara. She shakes her head, sadly and angrily.

“Hi, Sara,” I say into the receiver.

“Hi, is Taylor there?” she asks sweetly.

I’m tempted to say ‘no, he’s at his other girlfriend’s house, sorry’ but I’d get in trouble for that one.

“Sorry, he’s rehearsing,” I say softly.

“Oh,” she says like she’s thinking. Stop before it starts to hurt.

“Can you have him call me when he’s done? I have to talk to him,” she sound like a ditz, what a surprise.

“Sure,” I say. The phone beeps, meaning someone else is calling. “Bye, Sara.”

I answer the other call. It’s Vivian.

“Hey, Molly!” she laughs.

“Hey, Viv. What’s up?” I smile.

“Not much. I’m bored, but in a good mood. I’m eating rocky road ice-cream,” she informs me.

“Interesting,” I reply, “I just hung up with Sara.”

“Hung up with or hung up on?” she asks.

“Hung up with,” I answer.

“Oh, come on! You should have just hung up on her, man!” she mutters.

“I was going to tell her he was cheating on her when she asked where he was, but I thought better of it. I like it better when I’m on speaking terms with the guy I like,”

I listen to Zac and Tay laugh upstairs and think about what Mom Hanson had said, about it not lasting.

Viv laughs, “I like that one. Of course, I probably would have said it, but then again, it’s not that big of a deal if he’s mad at me.”

“You know those drug interventions?” I ask.

“Yeah?” she has no idea what that has to do with anything.

“Well, we had a ‘Sara-intervention’ tonight. Ike started, and he and Zac complained that he was pulling the band and their friendship apart, Avery said she wanted her brother back, and Rick said how much he missed his best friend, even his parents spoke up.”

“Wow,” she’s quiet for a minute, “so they finally said something?”

“Yeah,” she can’t see me, but I nod anyway, “he got kind of upset. And he was frustrated. I don’t know, maybe he realizes it, or maybe he was just annoyed with the accusations.”

“Knowing Tay, it . . . could be either. He probably sees part of it, to an extent that its not that bad, but he was probably upset with being accused, too. There’s no way of trying to get ‘why’ out of him. Do you think that it’ll change anything?” she sounds as confused, concerned, and pissed off as everyone else.

“I don’t know. He’s practicing with his brothers and his father told her that he couldn’t talk. I think Mom H is right, she said that he’ll probably be better for a while then it will fall apart again,” I switch to the portable phone and walk down to my room in the basement.

“Sad, but she is probably right. He’s got to realize this.” Her voice is angry now, “Or does he care?”

“I think, I think he does. I don’t know, no one does,” I can’t help it now, the tears start to flow down my cheeks like rivers of pain, “I don’t want him to love her that much, Vivian.”

She snorts, “That’s not love. Not on her part anyway. You don’t want to take someone’s life if you love them, you want to share it.”

I can’t stop the tears that pour down my face. Love sucks.

“Molly?” Viv says softly, making my nickname a question.

“Yeah. I’m trying not to ask questions I know you can’t answer. Oh, jeez,” I respond.

“It’s okay, Molly. There’s no wedding date, and Tay hasn’t given in to her yet, I don’t think he will. We’ll pull him out of this,” she whispers into the phone.

Tears streaming down, I can’t help this one, “What if he doesn’t want to be pulled out of this?”

You know, shit, I hate getting all @#$% emotional about this. Vivian sighs, thinking. Probably about Tay and his mystery reasons, and my loving cynicism.

“Viv?” I whisper back through the tears.

“Oh, Mel... I don’t know what to say to that. How could he want to be pushed? To be dragged away from his life? But then why doesn’t he break away himself? He’s not weak like that or he never was before,” she doesn’t know any more than me, or any of Taylor’s friends. And she’s furious about it.

Zac yells down the stairs. I tell him to hold on.

“Viv, I gotta go, see ya tomorrow?” I whisper, drying my own tears.

“Yup, now just smile. We’ll figure it out, all of us,” she assures me, referring to family and friends of the accused.

I hang up just as Zac screams my name down the stairs, “Melissa!”

“What do you want, Zachary?” I yell back up to him.

“Get your butt up here! Come on, we need you.” he says.

I reach the top of the stairs and Zac is smiling that familiar cute, stupid, and friendly grin. He drags me up the stairs to the band room. Ike is standing with his guitar in one corner, Tay stands behind his keyboards, and Zac scrambles behind his drums.

Isaac smiles, “We finished ‘You Showed Me.’ Listen.”

They jam away at a song they were working on putting together. The parts fitted together and the lyrics polished, it sounds so good. They smile, playing from their hearts. They end it, and Zac adds a little drum solo.

“That sounds really good. I like the keyboard part at the beginning, and that drummer solo at the end!” I comment to Ike.

I smile softly at Tay as he looks down at his keyboards. I wrote a song with Zac about Sara, we dubbed it ‘Too Much Of You.’ Tay’d probably figure out who its about, and wouldn’t be too happy, so its not a band song. We’re still trying to come up with the right melody.

Just to ruin the moment of happiness, the stupid phone rings again. Tay dashes for it and picks it up. Zac rolls his eyes and puts down his drumsticks, and Ike slowly retires his guitar. Tay watches, talking to Sara. Mom yells for Ike downstairs and Zac runs after Jessie, who was standing in the doorway when the phone rang. I sat behind Zac’s drums, tempted to beat them just to piss him off.

He walks around in slow circles, concentrating on the conversation. I wonder if he even knows I’m here. He’s talking about nothing at all, laughing and then shaking his head. I stare out the window, my thoughts all drift into space, catching pieces of his side of the conversation. His voice changes, the way everyone’s does when they’re about to say good-bye.

“Yeah, Sara, okay. Sure. Love you,” I cringe when he says that, “bye, Sara.”

He hangs up and starts walk away when I stand up. He jumps. He didn’t know I was there.

He smiles a soft, tired smile, but looks a little irritated that I listened to the conversation. He turns off the light. We walk into the hallway. Downstairs on the couch we can hear Mrs. Hanson read a bedtime story to the four youngest, and maybe even Zac and Ike. Tay says goodnight to his mother and heads up the stairs again.

“Goodnight, Taylor,” I call after him.

“’Night, Mel. See you in the morning,” he turns and looks back at me, then walks, well, drags himself, up the stairs.

All the other family members except Dad run up the stairs around me, laughing and yawning. They stampede to their bedrooms, and Mom tucks

Ike and I lug the cooler from the garage to the back of the van and swing it into the trunk. He grabs the life jackets from the shelves and Walker hands me the fishing poles. I stash them in the back an walk into the kitchen to finish eating.

Diana is washing the dishes in the sink, Taylor is in the seat next to mine, still reading. His mother must have told him to sit down.

I finish my bowl of cereal, rise the bowl and stick it in the dish washer. Taylor reluctantly gets up and walks to the doorway, reading as he walks.

Ike passes him, “what’s so interesting?’

“Huh?” Tay says, looking up, “oh, it’s a music thing, I’m reading about the new album releases.”

Ike nods, and walks into the living room. I follow Taylor out to the car. Avie and Mackie have their books and toys, Jessie walks out with a pad and colored pencils. I have my book, The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K. Hamilton, in my back pack in the car, along with my lyrics notebook and camera. We cram into the car, and wait for Mr. Hanson. Diana climbs in, and Walker takes the driver’s seat, and starts the car. We turn onto the road and Dad truns up the stario. I sit between Taylor and the window, on the other side of him is Zac.

After about half an hour of solid reading, we pull up to A.J.’s house on the edge of Lake Cooley. He greets us with the wave of a fishing pole. We pile out, leaving everything but the picnic basket, life jackets, and fishing poles.
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