“Well, if you promise…” I could give him another chance. There was no harm in that.

“Cross my heart.” He did, which made me laugh.

Dale came back around the corner, slamming the phone down on the receiver.

“Uh oh, now what?” I groaned. I couldn’t stand one more thing.

“Greg says they’re presenting us with our platinum album plaques today.”

“Oh no, what a disaster.” Chrissy rolled her eyes.

There was the Chrissy I remembered. I looked over at her and she grinned, shrugging one shoulder.

Dale ignored her. “They want the band there at four.”

“Today?” I made a face. “We had dinner plans with Aimee and Matt.”

“I know. And the band’s got a show at eight. He promised we were supposed to get a little break this week.”

“Well, we’ll just have to go,” I said. “I’m not missing it.”

“Go where?” John asked, coming over, wiping his hands on a dish towel.

And of course John wanted to come. And when Chrissy found out it was going to be on Sidney Clare Ramirez’s talk show, she wanted to go too.

“Want to come, Ben? Sounds like the whole family is going to be there!” I wondered if I would ever start calling him “Dad.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “It’s Saturday. I don’t have to work.”

I called Aimee and Matt and told them to come to the show taping—we’d squeeze dinner in afterward. Then I called Greg to make sure he held enough tickets for all of us.

“Some of you may have to sit in the green room,” he said.

“Fine, just as long as we can be there.” I wasn’t missing Black Diamond receiving their platinum album awards for anything. We’d barely even had time to celebrate, but I mentioned it to Chelsea last night and she had given me a grin and a thumbs up so I knew she was on it.

Ben went home to get changed and we all started getting ready. There were four of us to get through the shower and Dale alone could take an hour. He liked to just stand there under the water.

John knocked on our bedroom door while Dale was in the shower, asking if he could bring a date.

“Debra?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Getting serious.”

“Maybe.” He actually blushed. He’s stopped bringing her home when Chrissy was being such a brat. John called it her “testing” phase. I called it her “psycho bitch” phase but not out loud.

“Hey, what’s up with her.” I nodded my head in the direction of Chrissy’s room.

“You know, she’s gotten a lot better,” John said. “Her attitude’s improved since you two have been gone. I think she felt jealous—she hasn’t wanted to spend a lot of time with me since the divorce. I think she blamed me.”

I looked at him, not saying anything. Chrissy knew the real reason for the divorce—her mother was dead set on getting Tyler Vincent to leave his wife for her. And after having met her, I could tell she was a woman who got what she wanted—and if she didn’t, well… I was sure her daughter came by her “psycho bitch” side honestly.

Of course, I couldn’t say that. John knew nothing about Tyler—still thought Tyler was his friend. And of course, Tyler continued to play into that delusion. It was so sick and twisted it made everything in my family—alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide—pale in comparison.

“We’ve had some long talks,” John went on. “And she’s started school and is doing well. I’m… hopeful.”

“She really is like a whole different person,” I said. It was true—although I was still wary. “Maybe she was just possessed by a demon before? Because I’ve seen crazy, but that was…”

“Chrissy’s always been a little dramatic,” he said with a smile.

“Right. And you’re the master of understatement.”

That made him laugh.

By three o’clock we all looked fabulous—except John, who was still in his room.

“The van’s waiting,” I called, knocking. “Are you coming?”

I gasped when he opened the door.

“John!” I even took a step back. “Your beard! Your hair!”

He always wore a bushy beard and his hair had been longer and thicker than mine. Well, it had been. Now it was gone. It wasn’t quite as short as Dale’s, but almost! He had always looked to me like the long-haired hippie English professor and that’s pretty much what he was. The haircut and clean-shaven face gave him a totally different look.

“What’s Debra going to say?” I wondered out loud.

“It was her idea.” He grinned and blushed at the same time. “What do you think?”

“It makes you look younger.”

“Well that’s a plus!”

We got to see Debra’s when the van drove around to pick her up. Her eyes lit up and a slow smile spread across her face. And all of a sudden I felt like we needed to leave the two of them alone because she looked like she might eat him alive, which was rather awkward. She sat next to him and they held hands, talking quietly together for the rest of the ride.

And for some reason, I couldn’t stop smiling, the whole way there.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sidney Clare’s studio was downtown New York. We met Ben at the door, along with Aimee and Matt. Greg wasn’t there but he left tickets for all of us. Someone came to direct special guests to their seats and a pretty brunette took Dale’s sleeve and said, “You’re coming with me.”

“Not with me, he’s not,” I countered, taking Dale’s other hand.

I’d been in green rooms before. Lots of snacks. Lots of waiting. I glanced at the clock. It was almost four and the rest of the guys in the band hadn’t arrived. I was getting worried.

“Greg did call them right?” I asked.

“I’m sure he did.” Dale looked nervous—as nervous as I felt.

The intro music for Sidney Clare’s show was starting. She a small woman who wore big, thick framed purple glasses—her trademark—and everyone said her name as if it was one word, SidneyClare. She was one of the more controversial talk-show hosts, pushing the boundaries of topic to the edge, although other talk show hosts were jumping on that bandwagon too. But her show wasn’t taped. It was live and whatever happened—happened. The audience loved it, both at the show and at home. People got angry, threw chairs, punched each other. Sometimes when I flipped by, there was a free-for-all brawl. She actually kept security guards standing sentry on either side of the stage for every show.

And she liked to surprise people for even greater impact. I remembered one story she did about a gay teenager who had a crush. She brought the crush on television under false pretenses and then sprang the gay crush on him. The crush didn’t appreciate it too much, and after the show, he had murdered the gay teen and then killed himself.

I glanced up at the screen and saw the show was starting. I felt Dale tense beside me.

“Turn it up!” he urged, feeling around on the couch for the remote. It was next to me on a table and I grabbed it, pushing “volume” until we could hear the end of Sidney Clare’s introduction.

“And here to talk about that is the man himself, Tyler Vincent!”

The crowd burst into applause.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked. “Is he giving you the award?”

It made some logical sense—Tyler had been the announcer at MTV’s Battle of the Bands, although he hadn’t been a judge. All the rumors already flying about nepotism were patently false. Tyler Vincent didn’t have a direct say in whether Black Diamond won—there was a whole panel of judges who had decided that.

“I don’t know.” Dale frowned at the screen. “But I don’t like it.”

I didn’t like it either.

Dale stood, arms crossed over his chest, as Sidney Clare asked Tyler questions about his music career, his movie career, his family, his wife. She’s lulling him into a false sense of security, I thought. I imagined her like a viper, ready to strike.

“So I know you’ve heard the reports, the rumors going around about Dale Diamond, lead singer of Black Diamond, being your son.”

I froze. No. No no no no. John was in the audience. With Chrissy. And Debra.

“He does look a lot like you,” Sidney Clare noted.

They showed two pictures, side by side, of Tyler and Dale. They’d chosen two pictures that were alike. Both of them were holding guitars. Both of them were smiling at the audience. Thick, dark hair, that dimpled chin. The audience actually gasped when they saw both of them like that, next to each other. I remembered Dale coming into my chemistry class the very first day. Rumors were already flying about how he looked and acted a lot like Tyler Vincent.

“Stay here.” Dale pointed a finger at me. “Do not move from that spot.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked as he headed for the door.

“He’s not doing this. I’m not going to let him do this.” Dale strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I stared after him, thinking I should follow. If he walked out on that stage… and then I realized, that was exactly what she wanted to happen. This was a setup!

“Well, looks can be deceiving, Sidney.” Tyler went on. “I can tell you with a very high degree of certainty that Dale is not my son. He’s a great kid and an amazing musician. And I do know him and his family, they’re wonderful people. But he isn’t mine.”

“The papers are saying you had an affair with his mother,” Sidney Clare prompted, crossing her legs and leaning forward on the arm of her chair. “Is that true?”

“I…” Tyler hesitated, glanced out toward the audience and then back at Sidney Clare. “Yes, that’s true.”

A collective gasp went up from the audience.

“How did it happen?” Sidney Clare prompted.

“It was a long time ago. I was teaching at a university in Maine and I met a man on the faculty named John Diamond. We became friends.”

The television flashed to John, in the audience, and my stomach sank. They knew. They knew everything. This whole show was being orchestrated. So why was Tyler lying? Then I remembered John telling Chrissy—he’d talked to Tyler, he said. They were going to fix it.

I couldn’t look away from the screen.

“John and I started hanging out, doing things together—boating, fishing. Our wives got along. It was great for a while. Then…”

“Then?” Sidney Clare prompted.

“Then John’s wife, Stacy… started coming on to me.”

“How? What did she do?”

The camera panned to the audience and they all looked like me—on the edge of their seats.

“What didn’t she do?” Tyler gave a short, bitter laugh. “At first it was just verbal. Telling me how much she admired me. Talking about how unhappy she was in her marriage. Then she started finding me alone, brushing up against me. Trying to kiss me. I was shocked at first. Then… flattered, I guess. And my wife and I—we were going through a rough time right about then. I guess it just all fell into place.”