Dedication Takes a Lifetime

Kal really did snore like Satan, as Jocelyn had pointed out over half a year before. I knew this, of course. Living with her meant hearing the faint grumble floating up from the downstairs bedroom on nights when she forgot to close her bedroom door, but I had never slept right next to her until this moment. Her head was rested on my shoulder as she slept through the plane ride to Baltimore, mouth wide open and nose wrinkled. She was off the Richter Scale entirely.

Across the aisle, in the middle row, Jocelyn, Deveraux, and Tomas were all squeezed in next to each other. Deveraux, like Kal, was afraid of planes and had decided to pass out in self-defense, his head rested carefully on Jocelyn’s chest. She, in turn, was listening to her iPod and absentmindedly playing with his hair, twirling individually strands around her fingers and popping her gum, bopping her head to music we could not hear. Tomas was clacking away at his laptop keyboard, completely focused on the screen. He was taking off a week of school to come to Maryland with us and was already paranoid about falling behind. I didn’t blame him though; the first few weeks at Camellia were usually the worst.

We were set to land in less than forty minutes, and I was finding it harder and harder to breathe with each minute that ticked away. Not only were we going to Baltimore to play a three day concert with some of our favorite bands, and probably make more connections than we could ever dream, but we were also going to be staying at Jack’s house for the duration of our stay.

Jack’s house. The one he shared with Alex.

And this was how I was choosing to spend my birthday week.

I smacked my hand against my face and rubbed it irately before grumbling to myself and pulling a novel out of my carry-on bag, determined to distract myself from such negative thoughts. But I couldn’t. In my head, I was going over every song, every vocal trick, every step I took during my performance. Though I was not doing this to spite Alex Gaskarth, I still wanted to show him how wrong he had been about me. I had to be perfect.

“S’gonna be fine.” I jumped, a tiny squeak escaping me. So lost in thought, I hadn’t even noticed when Kal’s snores stopped, and she was now looking up at me from my shoulder with sleepy eyes and a lazy grin. “The concert. Us. Alex.” She yawned, her eyes slipping shut again, “S’all gonna be all right, you know?”

I smirked and leaned my head down against hers, “Love you, babe.”

“Love you more.”

“Not possible.”

She laughed lightly, “If you say so, bitch.” We made casual conversation for a little while, mostly talking about the famous bands we were going to meet, before the plane landed at BWI and stumbled around, trying to locate our suitcases and instruments at baggage claim. After that, we made our way to the exit and found an older man in an expensive suit and driver’s hat waiting in front of a stretch limo, a sign in his hand. Upon drawing closer, I laughed as I realized it had only the word Jackasses written in thick black marker.

“I think that’s for us,” I pointed to the man and Kal smiled widely, shaking her head. I led our group to the man and cleared my throat, “Hi, uh, we’re the jackasses.” He gave me a tired look and I realized he’d probably had more than a few people say they were ‘jackasses.’ I bit my lip and tugged my mouth to the side, “I’m Annette Vader, and this is Kalila Aberman, Jocelyn Cheshire, and Aaron Deveraux. These,” I pointed to the guitar case I was carrying for Kal, “Are our instruments, and we are friends of Jack Barakat.”

He looked at me for a few more moments before nodding. “Very good; I am Alfred, and I will be your chauffer today.” He turned to open the back door of the limo, but when none of us followed he looked back quizzically, “Is something wrong?”

“Uh,” I shook my head, “Um, well, not really; we’re just--”

“You’re name is seriously Alfred?” Of course, my band mates are not as subtle as me. It was Kal’s big mouth that was running off now, “I mean, it’s a cool name. But you’re…” she trailed off, finally realizing how bad her train of thought would sound out loud.

Alfred, on the other hand, just laughed easily. “But I am an old, kindly looking English gentleman in a rich, dark suit and snow white hair?” He smiled and gave Kal a little wink, “Your Batmobile awaits, Master Wayne.”

Kal blinked a few times before laughing and skipping over to the limo, handing Alfred her bag when he asked for it and then disappearing inside. Jocelyn and I followed while Deveraux helped the driver load our things into the trunk, and then we were off. At least our Maryland experience seemed to be off to a good start. “Uh, Alfred?” I said once we’d pulled out onto the highway, clicking the intercom button that allowed the backseat to communicate with the front.

“Yes, Miss Vader?” His voice returned.

I chuckled awkwardly, “Please call me Annette. How long does it take to get to wherever we’re going?”

He made a thoughtful noise, and then there was a whirring sound. I jumped a little, ending up at an odd angle in Kal’s lap as the glass that divided the front from the back went down to reveal our driver. He looked over his shoulder at us, smiling at my startled position. “I apologize, Miss--I mean, Annette. It’s roughly a forty-five minute drive to Timonium from here, so I thought I would inform you that Mister Barakat has prepared a basket for you.” He gestured to the best of his ability to a small cupboard on the floor of the limo, “He wanted me to be sure that you indulged accordingly.”

We thanked him and he gave us a smile in the rearview mirror before rolling the glass back up. It wasn’t until then that I slid away from Kal, apologizing, and watched as Jocelyn pulled a large picnic basket from the cabinet. I was looking forward to sandwiches, or even bags of McDonalds, but that would not be Jack enough. Instead, Jocelyn opened the basket to reveal a six pack of beer, a bottle of champagne, a fifth of Jager, and a couple bags of peanuts that seemed to have been thrown in as an afterthought. At the bottom of the basket were five plastic cups and a folded piece of paper. Deveraux reached for the paper, unfolding it and reading the sloppy print on the lines.

“Dear Jackasses,
Sorry that I can’t be there to pick you up like I said I would. We got called in for a last minute promotional shoot and I couldn’t really say no. I hope this basket makes up for it. Get drunk. Be crazy. Alfred will take you straight to my house so you can drop off your shit and shower or whatever you need to know. I’ll see you after that (hopefully). Sorry again.
Love you a million Swedish fish,
Jack (aka Kitten, aka Jack-Jack, aka Jack-Attack, aka Honey, aka Loverboy)”

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow as Deveraux began refolding the note, “Did he seriously quote that Amanda Bynes movie? And who calls him Loverboy?”

“I think that one is probably directed at Kal,” Deveraux said teasingly, wrestling the cork out of the champagne bottle with some effort. Kal just shot him a dirty look, but took the glass he offered her nonetheless. Then he handed one to Jocelyn and Tomas and kept one for himself.

After they all started drinking, I cleared my throat, “Uh, ahem?” They looked at me, “Where’s mine?” Deveraux tilted his head thoughtfully and handed me the Jager, and I was immediately tempted to throw it at his head. Ever since that drunken night when I apparently sang a line from “Six Feet Under the Stars,” Jack teased me about Jager. Apparently, that was what I was being forced to drink now.

Not that I minded. It would get me drunker, faster, and that would definitely come in handy with dealing with (or trying to forget about) a certain pretty-boy lead singer. So I took the bottle and did a shot straight from it, chasing it with a beer that Jocelyn handed me. This was going to be interesting.

Thirty minutes later, I’d found the radio in the back and cranked it up as loud as possible. “Won’t you beg me, and then tell me how to love you like anybody else would? I know you’re risking failure…” I took another swig from the Jager bottle--though I was already far past drunk--and kept singing.
Deveraux grabbed the bottle from me haphazardly and took a long gulp, singing along at the top of his lungs. “Go run for cover; you better fucking love her so much you’re moving on.” He naturally had a sweetness to his singing voice that I loved, but when I was drunk, my feelings for it apparently became inappropriate.

“Mister Deveraux,” I told him, moving from the backseat I was sharing with Kal to the sideseat where the bassist sat, “You’re such a beautiful singer.” I looped my arms around his neck and nuzzled his neck playfully, making him giggle.

“Why thank you, Miss Vader,” he replied, pushing me away a little so that he could look into my eyes, “Can I tell you a secret?” I nodded and he leaned in close, his lips almost touching my ear as he whispered, “I always…wanted…” he inhaled deeply, which made me shiver and grin, “To be a member of Evans Blue.” I immediately fell backwards and started laughing, grabbing back the bottle along the way.

I cooed, “Ooh, baby, me too!”

“Jesus,” I heard Tomas mumble, covering his face with his hand and shaking his head. He’d had half a cup of champagne before abandoning us for the seat opposite of the driver’s side wall and scribbling in one of his work notebooks.

Jocelyn rolled her eyes at us from the second sideseat, “Would you two drunk asses compose yourselves? I think we’re here.” It wasn’t until then that I noticed we’d stopped moving and the gentle rumbling of the engine was gone.

“Hm?!” Kal, who’d almost single-handedly drank a bottle of champagne, threw herself against one of the doors, pressing her ear to the window as if that would give her an answer. Seeing this, I threw myself on top of her and did the same, waiting for any sort of sound. Seconds later I felt Deveraux do the same, and for a skinny man, he was crushing me.

Then the door opened quickly, “Welcome to--”

“AGH!”

“Oh, my.” Alfred was looking down at us with amused eyes as the three of us laid sprawled out on the asphalt. Deveraux’s sharp elbows were in my lower back, his knee pressed painfully against my hip. Kal had somehow flipped on her way down and now I was laying with my arms across her collarbones and my face pressed between her breasts.

“Whoa,” I mumbled into them, “I think I’m unintentionally motorboating you, dude.”

“Oh shit, son,” was her only response as we all slowly picked ourselves up off the ground. She stretched a little, checking herself over for bruises and cuts, and then threw her arms up in a sort of “TADA!” pose.

Deveraux reached into the car and offered Jocelyn a hand to help her out, but she brushed it away and crawled out on her arm, straightening her shirt as she stood. Tomas followed, taking her hand when she offered it and shielding his eyes from the setting sun. Alfred smirked at them, “I see we limited ourselves?” They nodded, and he returned the gesture, moving to open the trunk of the limo.

We all took a moment to look at Jack’s house; it was not what any of us had expected. We’d expected it to be nice, of course, because he could afford nice. Not a mansion or anything, but not a little shack in the woods. But at the same time, I think we had all expected it to look like…a party house, somehow. Or the mini-version of the Playboy mansion. I’m not sure. But definitely not this. Definitely not a two-story house with powder-blue vinyl siding, dark blue shutters on the windows, and a white door with a golden sun knocker. And to top it all off, there was a huge oak tree in the front yard with a tire swing suspended from one of the branches; it was little a cutesy, cliché family home. All that was missing was a white picket fence.

After we carried our things in (Alfred, Tomas, and Jocelyn were kind enough to carry the instrument cases so nothing got damaged by our drunkenness), we took a little while to explore. There were five bedrooms in the house--three upstairs and two downstairs, not unlike my own home--and each door had a Post-It note. Stay away or suffer the wrath of Kahn! --Jack, one read. The others weren’t as interesting; just our nicknames scribbed in Sharpie. Cat && Husband meant that Jocelyn and Deveraux would be sharing a room. Net && Sweetheart was the one for Kal and I, which made her blush. The one on Tomas’s read Little Brother (‘cause little brothers need their privacy), and he smiled at the fact that he got his own room. The final bedroom door had a number of Post-Its stuck one after the other, a long note written there. I knew his bedroom this had to be, so I had to force myself to read the words. Jack did not ask before he invited a band to stay here, nor will be tell me who the fuck you are. I don’t really mind, as long as you’re not raging psychopaths…but knowing the people Jack hangs out with, it wouldn’t surprise me. So please, for the sake of my sanity, stay out of my room, psychopaths! Other than that, I look forward to meeting you. --Alex. I wrinkled my nose and then felt a funny lurching in my stomach. Whether it was the alcohol, the anger, or the nerves (or a combination of all three), I wasn’t sure. All I know is I was charging headfirst through the door that was labeled Shitter/Pisser/Puker and did the last of the three, purging myself of all the booze in my system. Gross. Stupid Jack and his stupid Jager Meister.

“Are you all right, Mis--Annette,” Alfred caught himself. I looked up to see him standing in the doorway with a concerned expression and a glass of water. He handed the water to me and rubbed my back gently.

I coughed into the toilet before wiping my mouth and taking a drink of the water. “Th-thank you, I gasped, my voice now hoarse. “You’re really sweet; you’re like a full-service chauffer.”

He laughed, “Well I’m not actually a chauffer.” I gave him a look and he smiled, “I am Alex’s godfather.” I threw up again at the sound of the name; wow, this was bad.

When I’d finished, I looked up at him again, “Sorry, go on.”

He gave me a sympathetic grin, “Well, I knew his parents when they still lived in the UK; his mother is my best friend. They named my wife and I his godparents and when the Gaskarth’s moved here, we followed a few years later.” He sighed with a shrug, “That crazy boy is very important to us.”

I actually smiled at that against my will, “That’s so sweet. But why are you chauffeuring us around then?”

“Jack,” he said simply. “Impossible to refuse, no matter how humiliating the situation.”

“Is your name really Alfred?”

“Yes,” he laughed, “That part is honest.” I laughed along with him, and then he helped me to my feet so that I could get my toiletry bag and brush my teeth, then rejoin the others downstairs. I apologized to them and they forgave me (and Deveraux, because apparently neither of us can hold Jager down), and I revealed Alfred’s true identity to them.

Tomas raised his eyebrows, “I thought Batman was supposed to be the one with a secret identity, not Alfred.” We all laughed at this.

Alfred took his hat off and ran a hand over his cropped white hair, still smiling at us. “Well, my friends, I have to be going. But I’m sure we will see each other again soon.” He took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Kal, who was still teetering slightly, not having thrown up any of her alcohol, and gave us a small wave before departing.

Tomas took the envelope from Kal and opened it, reading the note inside aloud:

“Dear Jackasses,
Are you guys drunk? Tsk tsk, bad kids; you should learn to control yourselves. Okay, well go shower, because I’m sure you stink. Especially you, Deveraux; I can smell you from here.
After you’re done, relax for a bit; help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Then you should get cutesied up because I’ll probably want to take you guys out after I get done at the shoot.
Love you a million red M&Ms,
Jack (aka Kitten, aka Jack-Jack, aka Jack-Attack, aka Honey, aka Loverboy)”

My brother shook his head, refolding it, “He’s insane. Do you think he’s serious?”

Kal and Jocelyn jumped up at the same time, “Dibs on the shower!”

“No, me,” Kal shoved her playfully.

“You’re drunk; you won’t even be able to wash yourself right,” Jocelyn shot, taking a few steps forward.

Kal stopped her, “Yeah, but the shower will sober me up, so I should go first.” Soon they were wrestling on the floor, tumbling around on the carpet of the living room before Jocelyn finally pinned Kal and then jumped up and took off running down the hall. Kal ran after her, but we heard a door slam and Kal whine, and we knew that Jocelyn had won. Especially when the guitarist screeched, “There’s gotta be another shower around here somewhere,” and clumsily darted up the stairs.

After the five of us showered between two bathrooms and made a quick meal of peanut butter sandwiches, we went about getting ready. I wasn’t sure what Jack had meant by “get cutesides up,” so I opted for a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and a white halter top cami with a handkerchief design that fanned out at the stomach. Casual but also incredibly cute. I topped it off with a pair of polka dot flats (I was so glad I’d decided to bring different shoes with me; originally I was just going to wear my Converse the entire time), and wandered back to the living room. I was almost entirely sober now, my stomach still turning a little, but I think I was ready to dive headfirst into this week.
Tomas and Deveraux were already in the living room when I got there, and Jocelyn joined soon after. When we called for Kal, she just snapped that it would be a little longer, and we all settled into the couch. After all, she was getting dressed for her Jack Barakat; this would take a while.

As we were waiting, there was a light tap on the door and Deveraux went to answer it. On the other side of the door was a little boy, barely six years old, with an envelope in his hands. He furrowed his brow in confusion, “Hey mister, are you Jack’s brother?”

Deveraux threw his head back and laughed, then leaned forward to ruffle the child’s hair. “Nah, kid; just a good friend.”

“Oh,” the boy smiled a goofy smile, missing one of his teeth. “Well Jack made me promise when we was playing cars this morning that I would bring this to you at e’sactly six o’clock, or else he’d steal my Tonka truck.” He pouted and handed the letter to our bassist, “Couldja tell him I brought it so he don’t take my truck, mister?”

“Of course,” Deveraux smiled, taking the note and waving at the boy as he departed. He shut the door and came to sat behind us, letting us read the note together.

Kal skipped out to the living room a few minutes later, in a pair of sparkly skinny jeans and a flowing purple mini-dress with flower print and a huge bow beneath the chest. She was wearing a pair of black ankle boots, a long pearl and flower chain necklace, and purple arm warmers, and--when she saw us--a very confused look on her made up face. The four of us were sitting on the couch, still staring at the piece of paper, eyes wide and eyebrows raised.

“What’s going on?” She asked quickly, concerned.

Without a word, Deveraux turned the paper around so that she could read it. In thick black print, it said only five words:

MEET ME ON THAMES STREET.