Free The Rock Star's Daughter by Caitlyn Duffy Page A

day with me. And it didn't matter if I
was ambivalent about that possibility; what mattered was that Jill
was embarrassed by my style.
    Her comment kind of ruined the afternoon we
had just had. In the few hours we had spent together I had allowed
myself to really want Jill to like me. I was beginning to wonder if
my father had even consulted her before inviting me into their
lives.
    *****
    Later that night, during the show in
Alpharetta, no one seemed to notice when I left the backstage area
in one of my new outfits and tucked my VIP pass under my t-shirt. I
roamed around the amphitheater for an hour, wondering how weird it
would be to live in Georgia and be attending this concert as a fan.
At first I wasn't sure what I was looking for as I pushed through
the packed crowd, but then I admitted that I actually knew exactly
what I was looking for.
    I saw Jake doing precisely what he said he
would be doing.
    "I'd like that wife beater in a small," I
told him, pointing to a cheesy t-shirt with the POUND logo on it
hanging up behind his table. There was no line at that point,
half-way through the show. He was behind the t-shirt counter with
two other guys, both a lot older than him.
    "Hey," he said, surprisingly happy to see me.
"What are you doing out here?"
    "It's a free country," I told him. "I'm
allowed to walk around during shows."
    He hopped over the counter to join me on the
other side. "I'll be back in a few," he told his coworkers.
    We walked around the outer perimeter of the
amphitheater, past all the beer stands and vendors selling nachos
and hotdogs. When we passed windows, I got the sense that there was
even a bigger party going on outside in the parking lot, where
tailgaters were standing on the hoods of their cars and playing
Pound songs at top volume on their car stereos.
    "How'd you get that job?" I asked, genuinely
curious as to how or why someone my age would want to tour with
Pound.
    "I didn't get it," Jake said bashfully. "It
was just given to me. Basically, whenever Pound goes on tour, my
mom and some of her friends follow. Sometimes we only do half the
tour, sometimes just a couple cities. But two years ago when we
were on tour, Micky asked me if I wanted to make some money selling
t-shirts with him. My mom was all over it. It kind of gave her an
excuse to come on this tour, even though, you know…"
    He trailed off.
    I didn't know. "Even though what?"
    "You know," he blushed. "She's kind of old to
be a groupie for a rock band."
    Jake told me that his mom had been taking him
on the road to follow Pound since he was a baby. And on summers
when Pound didn't tour, they followed Phish. One summer they
followed the Monsters of Rock reunion tour, featuring Metallica,
Skid Row and Sepultura.
    "That's crazy," I told him in wonderment.
    The rest of the year, he lived with his mom
in Michigan and went to high school like a regular kid, but he was
on the fence about starting senior year. He was already working as
a DJ on weekends, making pretty good money, and figured he could
drop out of high school and just work, since he already knew that
he wanted to be a DJ and produce dance music anyway.
    "Dance music!" I teased. "You're not a Pound
fan?"
    "Not exactly," he said.
    His mom worked the school year as a
substitute teacher and sometimes waited tables at a pancake house
when she needed the money. She basically saved up all year so that
she and Jake could follow bands. I guessed there was more to the
story than Jake was telling me but I didn't dare ask.
    I was a little surprised at myself, the way I
was behaving around him. I dismissed his desire to drop out of high
school as completely practical. At Treadwell, I would have thought
any guy who sold t-shirts at concerts and would consider dropping
out of school to instead spin records at night clubs to be a total
loser. But here I was, in Alpharetta, Georgia, wanting nothing more
than for Jake to think I was cool. And I was terrified that I was
anything but cool; I was a