Don't Blame the Music Read Online Free Page A

to worry about, with Ashley here. Not Ash, but Mom.
    â€œDinner,” said my mother tensely, as though “dinner” were yet another appalling guest. She glanced around helplessly, unable to imagine what step to take next.
    â€œI’ll fix it,” I said. “You talk to Ashley.”
    I got the pot roast out of the oven, spooned off some fat and began beating flour into it for gravy. My mother folded her hands like a little girl and put on a bright voice to match. You could almost see her dressing a little Ashley for dancing class. “Well, darling! How have you been?”
    â€œHow does it look?” said Ashley.
    Mom withered.
    â€œYou look good to us, sweetheart,” said my father. Dad is an electrician and a football coach. He has a tendency to talk as if he’s in a perpetual halftime meeting. “You’re alive and you’re home,” he said, as if priming her for a better quarter. “We’ve done a lot of worrying in the last few years, sweetheart.”
    If he thought that would thaw his daughter’s heart, he was wrong. “I’m not your sweetheart,” she said. “Or your team either. And don’t try to lay some guilt trip on me just because you wasted your time worrying.”
    Mother cringed, but Daddy simply nodded. In his view you won some and you lost some and you never worried about a play that was over. “Were you in New York?” he asked.
    How odd that would be—Ash barely forty miles away all this time! I had pictured her in California, which seemed suitably remote in distance and style.
    â€œI’ve been everywhere,” she said. “Don’t hassle me. I didn’t come home to be interrogated.”
    Why did you come home? I wondered. Are you desperate? Hiding?
    â€œWarren, darling,” said my mother nervously, “don’t question her so much. She’s been home only ten minutes.” Mom patted Ashley frantically on the shoulder, the hair, the back. Ashley removed her hands as if they were dead fish.
    â€œI think it’s fairly reasonable for a father to wonder when it’s been twenty-four months since the last communiqué,” Dad pointed out.
    â€œWe don’t share reasons,” said my sister. “We never have. Don’t shove me, Warren, and I won’t shove you. I just need a little space. And tomorrow I’ll need the car.”
    Her demand was so sudden nobody was prepared for it. I knew they wouldn’t give her the car. I could still remember years ago a high-speed chase on the turnpike that ended when Ashley totaled the car. Nobody got hurt. I don’t remember what punishment Ashley got, if any, from the legal system.
    â€œDon’t call me Warren,” said my father, rather pleasantly, and rather firmly. “And you may not have the car. It’s your mother’s car. When you have a job, and you’re earning money, you can buy your own car.”
    I finished setting the table and putting the serving dishes out. My mother found the harsh talk unbearable and compensated by getting even more bubbly. “Well, darling,” she said to Ashley in a giddy voice. “What a good night you chose to come home! Pot roast, buttermilk gravy, biscuits, mashed potatoes, and green beans.” She looked at the food happily, and I knew she rejoiced she had made a big dinner. What if Ash had walked in the night we had frozen fish sticks or ordered pizza? But pot roast with buttermilk gravy—that’s homecoming food.
    â€œI can see what you’re having. Don’t run through a menu for me.”
    At least she didn’t call my mother “Janey.” I changed the subject, making a real effort not to sound bubbly like Mom or football-coach stern like Dad. “You know what, Ashley?” I said. “It’s my senior year in high school. I’m on the yearbook staff. I’m music editor. And I’m taking trigonometry, and British