Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

931 FAME

FAME

Remo picked me and Ziggy up at the Memphis airport. He looked like hell.

"There's a motel about a half mile from your sister's place but there's no vacancy," he said. A light rain was falling, looking almost like snow in his headlights as the wind buffeted it around.

"Which sister is this?" Ziggy asked, from the back seat of the rental car. "Janice?"

"Janine," Remo said, his voice more gravelly than usual.

"She's the oldest?"

"Second." Remo cleared his throat.

I got my tongue working finally. "Don't be expecting them to be like Court. They're carbon copies of my mother."

"I'm not expecting anything," Ziggy snapped, then softened. "How long until Court gets here?"

"Two weeks, I think?" The previous couple of days were already kind of hazy in my mind, the hurried purchase of plane tickets, a million phone calls back and forth to people about things, the sudden change of the tickets to a day earlier to try to get out of Boston before a snowstorm... "As soon as she's done with exams."

"I know it's expensive to fly this close to Christmas–" Remo started to say.

"She's already got her ticket," I said, to forestall him offering to pay. "What were you saying about the motel being full?"

"Yeah, about that. I couldn't even get a rollaway bed." His eyes were on the road, his face showing no emotion, which for Remo meant he was holding it all in. "So I'm taking you to the house."

"Janine's house?" I asked, trying not to panic, or at least trying not to sound like I was in a panic. Well, I wasn't. Yet.

"Yeah. Her ex-husband lives down the street and he's got the kid for the weekend, so you two can sleep in there."

"Kid?"

"A boy. Landon. He's a trooper."

I took that to mean the kid didn't cry much. "How old?"

"Five, I think. I haven't seen that much of him. He's been at his dad's a lot."

I tried to let that sink in, but something wasn't absorbing about that. My sister had a child. That meant I was an uncle. And... "Holy shit, then Claire's a grandmother now?"

Remo nodded gravely. We were on the highway by then. Traffic was very sparse this close to midnight. "Yep. Has been for a couple of years."

"Wow. Courtney never mentioned." I didn't know if that was because I didn't want to hear it, or if Claire didn't want people to know, or what.

"Your mother is ripshit that I'm a new dad and she's a grandma," Remo said. "Hey, we better grab some chow before we get there."

"Good idea." The roadside signs advertised a Denny's coming up at the next exit. I could almost taste a Moons Over My Hammy.

We didn't talk much while we sat, ordered, and ate. Ziggy attracted a couple of curious looks from the waitresses, but they didn't seem to outright recognize any of us. Ziggy was in stealth mode, but when you're such a strikingly gorgeous man you're going to turn some heads even if people don't twig to the fact you're famous.

One of the fry cooks did recognize Remo, though. We found out at the end of the meal, when he came out of the kitchen. He was a slim guy with a dark blond beard. "I'm so sorry to impose on you, sir," he said, "but I was hoping you might be able to settle a bet between myself and a co-worker of mine and it sure seems likely you would know."