Summer is always rough at my house. Every year my mom goes off on some tangent about some insignificant thing. She packs up the house and moves upstate to her friend's farm until I have to go back to school. That's not an exaggeration either; for the last fifteen years, my mother has done this to me.
Sometimes I luck out. A few times my best friend spent the summer with us. Sometimes his mom came and took me to their home for a few days then brought me back. Sometimes Luke, my mom's friend, brings me back to the city to stay at his place for a few days too.
This time, I probably won't be that lucky.
Simon's band is reaching a highpoint on the internet. It's their fifteen minutes of fame, and they are literally loving it. They're not famous for their music though. Their music is awful. On top of that, their ever-changing name makes it impossible for them to develop a real following. The band is Youtube famous for their ridiculous "behind the scenes" videos. I mean, they were bound to get good videos of three teenage boys goofing off.
In light of this newly acquired fame, Simon's busy all summer. He won't be coming to the farm with me to help pass the time. I won't be able to come to see him, and my mom, for some reason, refuses to let me stay by myself. I'm almost sixteen, perfectly capable of looking after myself. I mean, it's not like I never took a self-defense class. And Simon's mom would totally let me crash on their couch for the summer.
"It's horrible Simon," I sighed slinking down in my desk at school. It was finals week, we had already finished our last final of sophomore year. I was counting the minutes until I walked through the door of our house and mom would tell me about the trip upstate.
"It might not happen this year," Simon offered shrugging. "Last year you were here for three whole weeks before she went up to Luke's farm."
I grunted in response, sliding further down in my desk so my head lay on the desk behind me.
"You know you can always stay at my place," Simon continued. "My mom doesn't mind, and Rebecca's not staying with us this summer. You could just use her room."
"As nice as that sounds, it won't work," I stared at the ceiling of the classroom, willing a solution for my problem to appear there. "Mom would never leave me here for the summer, even if it was with your family. She won't even let me stay with Luke for more than a few days, and he's basically her boyfriend."
"She's just trying to protect you," Simon agreed looking over his shoulder toward the clock mounted on the wall. He was checking to see how much longer we had before the final bell released us for the summer. "She is your mom."
"Are you making 'your mom' jokes over here Lewis?" Eric set himself down on my desk, pulling out his journal of rejected band names. "I thought Fray banned those from your conversations?"
"I banned you from our conversations actually," I pushed myself up into a sitting position, glaring at Eric.
"Psh," he smiled knowingly. "Anyway, I wanted to invite the two of you to my poetry reading at Java Jones this weekend."
"I thought you gave up on poetry," Simon frowned, accepting a flyer for the poetry reading from Eric. "It was really horrible, and not worth the trouble anyway."
"It's all a farce my friend, for our channel," Eric smiled shoving a flyer in my face.
"Do you even know what that word means, Eric?" I snatched the flyer from him hand, "the poetry reading is on Monday."
"I know most I used it correctly, it's in my piece for the reading," Eric replied smugly, pulling out another flyer and waving it in my face.
"Oh, getting big words in are you?"
"Come Fray, it's just a poetry reading," Eric protested as the bell finally rang, dismissing us for the summer.
"We'll come, Eric," Simon took the flyer Eric was still waving in my face. He shoved it in his backpack along with the one Eric had given him as he came to his feet. "Don't worry, we'll be there."
Simon caught my elbow as we joined the rush of students trying to get out of the building.
"I don't want to go to some dumb poetry reading, Simon," I frowned as we emerged in the bright sunlight of the late spring day. "My life is about to end, again. The last thing I want is to spend any of that time listening to Eric regurgitate words he googled for English papers."
"He probably won't even do anything. He just said it was for the band's Youtube channel," Simon shook his head. "It'll be something stupid."
"Even more reason for me not to go," I gave Simon a look.
"Come on, you could be in the video," Simon held his hands up in surrender. "The whole video could you be mocking his poetry, people love that!"
He had a point. Some of the band's most popular videos had me in the background, openly mocking Simon and the others. According to Matt, who posts the videos and keeps track of the promotional details, I have a pretty decent following.
"What if it's actually good though?" Simon laughed at that.
"Eric, have good poetry?" he chortled. "That's as likely as me dating Isabelle Lightwood."
"Right," I laughed in response. Fifteen minutes of fame or not, there was no way international supermodel, singer/songwriter, actress Isabelle Lightwood would have any interest in Simon. It was nothing against Simon; he just wasn't famous enough for someone born in the spotlight. And that is exactly was Isabelle, and her darling brother Alexander, were.
"So, if your mom's still in town will you come to the poetry reading? I really don't want to go alone."
"If mom hasn't hauled me to the farm for two months of isolation," I sighed, my shoulders falling in dejection. "But I highly doubt mom will wait that long to go to the farm."
When I got home from school my mom wasn't home yet. I dropped my backpack inside the door of the house and made a hasty retreat from the area. If my mom couldn't find me, she could hardly drag me off to the farm.
I didn't travel far though. I only made it to Java Jones, a local coffee shop. Simon thinks a lot like me, he had already laid claim to one of our favorite couches near the back. He also had two cups of coffee waiting for us.
"Fray!" he called loudly, waving frantically as I picked my way across the room to him. "I have the best news," he announced brightly as I sank in the chair.
"Doubtful, but carry on," I wrapped my hands around the coffee mug meant for me, and breathed in the sweet aroma of the freshly brewed drink.
"We changed the name of the band," Simon answered.
"Again?"
"Yes, again," Simon frowned mockingly at me. "It's a good one this time, I think it'll stick."
"Yeah? What is it now?"
"You're just going to say it's stupid," Simon responded, his smile broadening to a grin. "You always say it's stupid."
"And you always tell me anyway," I inhaled a deep breath of the coffee aroma before taking an appreciative sip. "So come on, just tell me so I can laugh and we can move on."
"What else do you have to do today?" Simon asked, picking up his own cup and taking a long drink from it. "I mean besides avoiding your mom."
I leaned back into the couch cushions, wrapping my fingers around the mug as I held the drink just below my chin. What else did I have to do? Very little in all honesty, but anything that kept me away from home kept me in the city longer. And away from complete isolation at the farm.
"I was thinking of going to the park," I answered at length. "Get some sketches of the runners, the fountains," I trailed off.
"The Lightwoods filming their newest movie?" Simon offered, cracking a huge knowing grin at me.
I laughed at the accusation. "More like watch the madness caused by the Lightwoods filming their new movie in the park," I corrected Simon, still laughing at the thought of me trailing like a lost puppy after Alexander Lightwood with his sweeping jet black hair and impossibly blue eyes. "I've always loved the chaos, it's entertaining."
"Is that why you ruin all Eric's videos with weirdness?" the third member of Eric's band leaned over the back of the couch. Matt was easily the most normal of the three people in the band, which I felt bad for not knowing the new name of.
"It's adding character to his mindless blathering," I turned a dark look up at Matt. "What are you doing here anyway? I thought you did things on Thursday afternoons?"
"It's summer, Fray," Matt rolled over the back of the couch taking up both of the remaining seats. "My Thursdays are free until August, maybe even longer."
"Besides, how can you expect him to function without coffee?" Eric came up behind us too, carrying four mugs of coffee. "Black, two creams and sugar, three sugars, black," Eric sat the respective mugs in front of their owners, "and I have an idea for a new video."
"To announce the new band name?" I suggested, finishing the coffee Simon had bought and picked up the one Eric had bought. "Or just to release another dumb video?"
Eric frowned thoughtfully at the question, looking at me with narrowed eyes. "None of our videos are dumb, Fray," Eric finally responded. "They're smart marketing tools to get our band out there, for people to hear us."
"Oh, look he learned a buzz phrase," I mocked him with a sly smile. "Marketing tools, where did you learn about that?"
"Ha," Eric barked with forced laughter. "But I do have a great idea for a new video."