“But you said–”
“Meredith,” Mom warns. She looks at me and Mel. “I’m going to take her. Why is that a big deal?”
“It’s a little out of the blue,” Mel says, frowning. “Almost as if a campaign person heard you talking about it and suggested you go instead.”
Mom’s face hardens. “Neither of you even like this band. You’re about eight years older than their target audience.”
“And you’re about thirty years too old,” Mel says.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” our mom says briskly to Meredith. “I’m your mom. I’m taking you.”
“But I’ve got three tickets,” Meredith says.
“Even better. Do you want your brother or your sister to join us?”
Meredith looks back at both of us, looks at Mom, looks at both of us, looks at the floor, mumbles something.
“What was that?” our mom asks.
“I want them both,” Meredith says, sticking her brave little face up into the air, her chin trembling a little. She’s so freakin’ brainy you sometimes forget that she’s still only a kid.
“Well, you can’t have them both–”
“I want them both,” Meredith says, more strongly. “They both said they would take me. I got tickets for all of us. If you had wanted to come, I could have tried to get four, but you didn’t. You said you didn’t want to come–”
My mom’s eyes flash. “There’s always the possibility that no one gets to go.”
“I thought this campaign wouldn’t interfere with our lives,” I said.
“When did I ever say that?”
“What about Ferocious Mama Bear?” Mel says. “Did that mean you were just going to be ferocious to your kids?”
My mom throws her hands up. “I genuinely don’t understand what the problem is–”
“They’re leaving,” Meredith nearly shouts. She’s really crying now, her little arms crossed against her chest.
“Hey,” I say to her, picking her up before my mom has a chance to. She’s big, getting bigger, an unrecognizable teen before too long, but I can still lift her, even if it makes my still-tender ribs ache.
She cries into my neck, the brim of her cowboy hat cutting into my ear.
My mom looks at the ceiling, hands on her hips. She taps her foot so fast Mary Magdalene comes running over and starts whapping at her shoelaces.
“Stop that,” Mom says, under her breath. She looks at us. “Fine.”
She leaves the kitchen. I can feel Meredith relax in my arms. “Good,” I hear her say, her voice thick. “Can we leave now before she changes her mind again?”
“We’re younger than every single parent,” Mel says, looking around, “and older than every single fan.”
The performance space at our pitifully small county fairgrounds is an outdoor amphitheatre, built next to a huge, sheet-metal stable where they have the livestock competitions during the fair. The biggest star that’s ever performed here before now was a local girl who came third on a TV singing competition. Bolts of Fire are playing in the domed arena in the big city tomorrow night, where there’ll be approximately eight million times as many fans.
We’re about nine rows from the back, but the amphitheatre is so small and deep – dug partially into the ground – that there really isn’t a bad seat. There are actually fewer parents than I expected, though it’s also possible they’re commiserating with each other at the coffee bars before the actual music starts. Mostly it’s just little girls. More than you’ve ever seen. More than you would think could possibly fit into a small county fair amphitheatre. So many it’s like space and time folded together and every little girl who ever lived will arrive eventually.