Family

Homesickness is bullshit. Just saying. Wherever you are in the world you should be surrounded by people who love you, and that should always make you feel at home. 

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I miss Newark. Sometimes Christina and I make an emergency stop there when we’re touring in the east, visit my parents, have a cup at Stephano’s. 

But after Ricky left for Louisiana, and Christina’s bruises faded the five of us left to tour and promote the album we had just finished and Christina came with us, because she had no reason to stay in New York and no place else to go. 

Our first big stop was Detroit. Absolutely the scariest place to play. We had a day there before we played the following night. We pulled into town at one, had a late lunch at the local pizza hut, it was a Friday so Christina was nibbling on a salad. Keith teased her about ordering chick food, leaving him to finish a personal cheese pizza himself, since the rest of us unanimously decided on meat lovers. 

She smiled, but said nothing. I knew something was wrong then, but Pizza Hut wasn’t the place to deal with it. 

At the end of the day I stood beside Christina’s bunk, listening. I could hear James and Zachary playing video games in the “living room”. I could hear Keith chatting with Carlee on his cell phone in his bunk. She usually tours with us, but she was back home due to a family emergency at that time. Finally I heard what I had been expecting, barely audible above everything else, a single, pained whimper coming from within Christina’s bunk. 

I knocked on the wall and waited until she answered, teary and clutching a small, doughy doll with yarn for hair like it was her last possession

She told me she was homesick, the word was like cold water thrown in my face, but after it was said it hung in the air like a mist.   

“For Louisiana?” I asked, bewildered. 

“I don’t know.” She admitted, she missed her aunt, she missed picking wildflowers in Louisiana, but she missed Stephano’s too, and the stray tabby that slept under her car in Newark. She said she liked making music with us, and that we were all really nice people, but she didn’t feel like she fit in. And as much as I hated hearing it, she was right, she’s shy, quiet, and polite. We aren’t. She was nervous about doing a big show with us. People came from all over the country when we did big shows, all over the world even. People screamed and threw things at us. It was hard to picture Christina in that setting.

I told her she had every right to be scared, but convinced her to do the show anyway. 

“If you hate it, then that’s it, you’re free, go back to Jersey and be the best singing barista the world has ever seen. But you have to try it, you’re really talented and the rest of the world should see that.”

She smiled weakly, “Detroit just doesn’t feel like home.” 

The next day Richard was the first one up. He has a recurring dream about a clown who kills people using cheese which has been getting him out of bed far before anyone else at least once or twice a month since he was eleven. 

I joined him at the table at about eight. 

“Who’d the clown get this time?” I asked as I poured myself some coffee. 

“My childhood next door neighbor, Mrs. Gleason.” He sighed, staring out the tour bus’ enormous windows at the thrift store we were parked across the street from. “With gouda.” 

“Has Keith been through here yet?” I poured myself a bowl of lucky charms and sat down, tried not to think about gouda as a murder weapon. 

“Nope.” He looks at me sideways.

It wasn’t long before Keith did wake up, he was adorable in the morning: bed head, a wife beater, lots of yawning and stretching. He went for coffee first too, then Lucky Charms, in a bowl the size of his head. 

He stared at me through half-open eyes as I told him my plan for the day, barely closing his mouth enough to swallow mouthfuls of colorful marshmallows and cereal bits. If I didn’t know him I would have thought he wasn’t listening. When I finished he asked when we were going to leave. 

When Christina got up she looked like a ghost in her baggy, faded blue pajamas. She had coffee, half-diluted by milk, but she didn’t drink it, just held it and sat at the table, staring vacantly into the swirling brown fog in her cup.

“So, Christina, Keith and I were gonna’ go out to the mall today. I need jeans and. . .”

“I need undies.” Keith added, raising his coffee cup. “Come with us, you can keep the dressing room attendants from hitting on me.”

Christina smiled, “Okay.”

“I’ll come too.” Richard added. “I need sunglasses.” He explained, biting into the blackest piece of toast I had ever seen. Richard is camera shy, so he has a staple pair of dark sunglasses he wears at all times. Back then we didn’t really get “noticed” that much, but it happened, and Richard hated it. On top of being camera shy, he’s also clumsy. Consequently those sunglasses he wore every minute of every day were constantly falling off and breaking, getting stepped on, forgotten at airport security, etc. 

So the four of us hit the local mall. Richard split off immediately on a methodical quest for the cheapest, darkest pair of sunglasses in the city. Our first stop was men’s underwear. Christina was noticeably uncomfortable among the scantly clad torso segments which lined the walls. Keith only exacerbated this discomfort, but the store employee, Jenna, who wandered over to offer her assistance, made the situation almost unbearable for poor Christina. 

“Do you folks need help with anything?” She asked with an exaggerated rising intonation.

Keith slung an arm over Christina’s shoulder. “Yea, what did you say we were looking for, sweetie pie, pima cotton?”

“Uhhhm, boxers or briefs?” Jenna’s training did not cover this scenario.

“Boxers. Briefs emphasize the bulge too much, then she’ll be grabbin’ at it all the time. . .”

Christina covered her face. This was not my plan for the day. My plan was to build Christina up a little bit with some new clothes. Clothes always make girls feel better. Keith was essential to this plan. He could talk his sixty year old mother into buying a leopard print pencil skirt, so I was pretty sure he could talk Christina into buying some more stage appropriate clothing. Up until that point Christina had a black t-shirt and a favorite pair of ripped, flare-leg jeans that she wore for almost every performance. For the tour and the music videos from that album the boys and I had gotten suits, except for James who can’t stand collared shirts, he just got the jacket and wore it with bleached jeans and his favorite band’s shirt. So I had a feeling Christina might feel like she fit in a little better if she wasn’t up there wearing her usual raggedy old outfit. 

When Keith had finally settled on some tasteful black boxer-briefs we headed toward men’s jeans. It was Keith who stopped beneath a snow-colored mannequin wearing a red dress. 

“What?” Christina asked, staring at him.

“That’s a pretty dress.” Keith said, nodding toward the mannequin. 

Christina gave it a cursory glance. “Mhm.”

“You should try it on.” I suggested.

Christina looked at me. She had her hands buried in the pockets of a black sweatshirt, her jeans ended in a pool of crumpled, worn denim and her hair was pulled back into the classic I-don’t-give-a-f**k ponytail. 

“Yea, it’ll be foxy.”

Christina raised her eyebrows at Keith. “That dress?” She jerked her thumb at the mannequin. 

“Yea, come on.” Keith located the dress in a size two unnaturally fast and placed it in her hands. 

She shook her head, walking toward the dressing room. 

When she came out a few minutes later I was shocked at how perfectly the dress fit her. It had a fitted skirt and a square neck and the straps crossed, forming an X on her back.

Christina smoothed the front of the dress with her hands. “How does it look?” She meeped. 

Keith looked her over, walking behind her and taking her hair down, he tussled it, then nodded in approval. “You should get it.”

Christina laughed. “Where am I gonna’ wear a dress like this???”

“You can wear it to the show tonight.” I offered.

She looked at me, lips parted in silent question. 

“It’ll match Sammy’s tie.”

“You can always return it after tonight.” That felt sucky to say, but Christina needed to hear it. 

“You look dead sexy.” Keith added. 

Christina looked at herself in the mirror, shifted slightly. “Fine.”

When the purchase was made Keith asked her what shoes she was planning to wear. Christina didn’t have an answer to that so he lead us toward ladies’ footwear. Christina was shoe shy back then, gravitating toward thick, stubby heals. Naturally, it was Keith who found the shiny, black platform pumps and presented them to her like she was a queen and they were her scepter. 

“I couldn’t.” She stared at the lidless shoe box in his hands. 

“You could in that dress.” Keith winked.

“I’ll trip.”

“We’ll carry you.”

She laughed. “I don’t have this kind of money.”

“You will when we get paid for tonight’s show.” I pointed out, standing just behind her left shoulder. 

She bit her lip, looked at us.

“You know you want to.” Keith sang, making the box dance a little in front of her.

After a few practice struts around the store, with coaching from Keith and, mercifully, a less awkward store employee, the shoes were purchased and we moved on. Christina was more talkative after that.

It only took one pair of jeans for us to leave the mall after that. 

“How do they look?”

Keith smacked my a*s, “Bang-able.”

Christina hid her face again. “They look good.” She added from between her fingers.

When we met with Richard it was clear that he had also been successful. 

“Nice shades.” Keith said.

Richard lifted his chin in silent acknowledgment. “Did you buy every pair of jeans they had?” He asked, looking at me. 

I was carrying three bags, one for each of us because Christina had been too excited to let go of her new shoes. “No, this is Keith’s and this is Christina’s. . . Wait, why am I carrying your underwear?”

Keith smiled. “I’ll reward you later.”

We walked toward the tour bus, which was about a mile away, but it wasn’t long before Keith stopped again, this time in front of a salon with glossy posters of black girls with shimmering curls framing their movie star smiles hanging in the windows. 

“What?”

Keith looked at Christina. “When was the last time you got your hair cut?”

She laughed, “You’re not done talking me into things yet?”

“They don’t look busy.” Richard added, lifting his sunglasses to peer into the windows at the empty salon. 

Keith pushed the door open and motioned for us to follow. 

The four of us trouped into the salon, which smelled like wet hair and hair products. A tiny black man with graying facial hair and nice clothes stood just behind the counter. “All y’all here fo’ a trim?” He asked, looking us over like we belonged in the circus. 

“Nope, just her.” Said Keith, putting an arm around Christina, who was shrinking. 

“Okay, come on sweetheart, I don’ bite.” He said, inviting Christina into one of the chairs in the back of the room.

Keith flipped through one of the hair magazines until he found something he liked then showed it to the barber, whose name was Jerome. 

Jerome looked down at Christina, “She don’ get to see it?” He laughed. 

“It’s a surprise.” Said Keith, coming to join the rest of us in the waiting area. 

“You trust him?” Jerome asked, looking at Christina again. 

She shrugged, smiling coyly, “Sort of.”

He laughed harder, “Well you kin trus’ me. I won’ let ‘im make ya look like a fool.” 

Jerome was a talented barber. While he worked he asked us where we were from, a question with a large and complex answer. Keith and I are from Jersey, Richard came from Chicago and Christina is from Louisiana. 

“What’re y’all doin’ in Detroit?” Jerome asked when the list was finished.

“We’re a band.” Richard said, still wearing his new sunglasses. “We have a gig here tonight.”

“Oh really? What instrument do you play, sweetie?”

“I guess I’m vocals. . .” Christina laughed a little and tried to explain, but I don’t think Jerome understood or cared very much so she stopped. 

When Jerome had finished he spun Christina around so she could see. She covered her mouth, shifted her head side to side. 

Jerome laughed, exposing every tooth in his mouth in one big grin, “Tha’s right, baby, check it out.” 

Using Keith’s pick as an inspiration Jerome had crafted a Bettie Page style bob with sleek piecy bangs. 

She laughed. “It’s fantastic, thank you!”

When I introduced Christina that night at the concert, and thousands of our fans screamed and applauded her for the first time, she was a force of nature. She didn’t keep up, she led the pack. 

When we got back to the tour bus at one in the morning the guys took off their shoes and went to bed. Christina sat on the edge of her bunk and stared at her feet. 

I sat down next to her and she looked up. “I don’t wanna’ take them off.” She looked so different with her hair cut, and the smeared stage makeup, but the shy smile and wide blue eyes were so familiar already. 

“I guess you have to stay then. I’m no expert, but I don’t think you’ll get much use out of those serving coffee to people.”

She smiled. “Yea, sorry about last night, I know that was like crazy and everything, but. . .“

“Hey, don’t worry about it. If you’re not happy I wanna’ hear about it.”

She looked at her shoes. “I guess I don’t really have a home, but at least I have a family.” 

“Yea, I guess we’re a sort of dysfunctional family.” I smiled, “So you had a good time?”

She nodded, smiling reflectively, “You know,” She said, “I was so scared before, but once we were up there. . . It was the same feeling I got on stage at Stephano’s. It didn’t really matter who was watching.”

At that moment I felt a throb deep in my heart. I wouldn’t call it love, but it was something close. Up until then, I had never heard anyone describe so clearly, so perfectly, the feeling I get when I’m on stage. Perhaps we had grown up in different worlds, but I knew then that Christina and I were kindred spirits. 

A guitar pick came sailing through the air and hit me in the side of the face. 

“Come to bed, sweetie.”

“Goodnight, Christina, I have to take care of that.” I said, standing to leave.

She giggled, said goodnight and took off her shoes.