The next morning, the team was on their way to the ice rink for practice, seeing as they had another game the following night. Julie almost couldn't believe what she was hearing as Herb began to lecture her, his face stern.
"Now, Julia, I swear, if you're not back here in three hours, I'll have more cops after you than you can count," Herb warned his niece, the bus getting closer to the ice rink.
"I swear, I swear I'll be back on time. Thank you, Uncle Herb!" Julie was nearly bouncing with anticipation. She could've screamed she was so elated.
Her uncle had agreed to let her go explore Amsterdam by herself while the boys practiced. It would be the first time she would be alone--besides sleeping--since the car accident. The minute the bus arrived at the rink, Julie barely took a second to say goodbye to her friends and uncle before she hailed a cab, off to explore the city.
"Don't you think it's a little backwards that Herb's letting her go off her own in a foreign city?" Jack asked Rob as they walked towards the locker room to get ready for practice.
"Maybe not. Maybe he's just testing her. She probably won't be able to find any ways to get into trouble," Rob reasoned. As soon as he said it, he paused. "Okay, well Jules can find trouble anywhere, but if she gets in trouble, she'll get kicked out of the band, and she knows that," Rob shrugged, as the boys began to get changed.
"Really? They're gonna kick her out?" Jack questioned, stripping off his clothes to put on his practice uniform.
"Oh yeah, that's the only reason she agreed to leave. She never would've agreed on her own. Believe me, OC, she's been on incredibly good behavior since she's been here, and that's only because her future with them is on the line."
Jack was thoughtful for a moment, wondering if Julie really would hop a flight back to LA given the chance. He shook the thought from his head, getting ready for practice.
Julie listened to the sounds of the city, basking in her glorious freedom, even if it was only for a short while. She had done some shopping and gone through an art gallery. She was enjoying the last half hour before she had to be back at the ice rink, sipping on a coffee at an outdoor cafe. She allowed the September sun to warm her face, pulling her sunglasses down to cover her blue eyes. To her credit, she had remained fairly inconspicuous throughout her morning adventure. Her fame in Amsterdam wasn't nearly what it was in Los Angeles, but she could never be too careful. She happily took in the sights of the colorful city, before a news kiosk across the street caught her eye. Julie stared at it curiously, thinking that one of the pictures looked familiar. She carefully made her way across the street, becoming more and more drawn to the magazine. She groaned internally as she recognized the picture. Of course, it was of her, and she looked awful. She was outside The Troubadour, being led out of the club by Matt, the guy she had met the night of the car wreck. She rushed over to the kiosk, picking up the magazine.
"Can I help you, ma'am?" The kind older man at the kiosk asked her, speaking English with a strong accent.
"Could you tell me what this says please?" Julie asked, handing the man the magazine. If he recognized that it was Julie on the cover, he didn't say anything. The man skimmed the cover, before flipping it open to the page where the story was, his eyebrows raising as he read.
"The writer of this article seems to think a rock singer has died. Julie Brooks, says she was in a car accident at the end of July and hasn't been seen since," the man explained. Julie's jaw dropped, her mind racing. She dug into her purse, handing the man some money for the magazine before hailing a cab, magazine in tow. Looking down at the magazine in her hands, she realized she did look like absolute hell on wheels. In the photo that graced the cover, she was wearing a tight leather skirt, an Aerosmith t-shirt that she had turned into a crop top, tall heels, and plenty of makeup. You could see in her eyes that she was incredibly high, and her body was skin and bones. She had filled out some since the picture, and she almost couldn't believe she used to be so skinny. She looked incredibly unhealthy. Once the cab arrived in front of the ice rink, she paid and thanked the driver, hopping out quickly when she saw the boys walking towards the bus that would take them back to the hotel. She stopped in front of Rob.
"I'm fucking dead!" She burst, her face distraught. Her regular group of friends had come over to greet her, but stopped dead at her words. They looked at her curiously, before Mac shook his head.
"No, I think you're fine. Herb is still inside going over some paperwork. You're not even late or anything," he pointed out, sounding almost surprised himself.
"No, Mac, I'm dead!" She repeated, holding up the magazine. The boys blinked at her, looking between the magazine and her.
"Jules, you're holding a Dutch magazine in front of us like it's supposed to mean something," Jimmy said cautiously. Clearly Julie was going on about something none of them could understand.
"I had someone translate it, and guess what the fuck it says?" She threw her hands up, tossing the magazine to Mac.
"Who translated, your little boyfriend, Lenssen?" Jack snickered, before she gave him a look of death.
"Shut up, Jack, I'm freaking out!" Julie ran her hands through her hair, before reaching into her purse and pulling out a cigarette, lighting it quickly and taking a long drag.
"Jules, just calm down and explain what's going on. And put that thing out," Jimmy told her, looking at the magazine Mac was holding.
"That fucking magazine thinks I'm dead! Word about the car wreck got out and no one has seen me since so they all think I'm fucking dead!" She yelled, taking another long drag. The boys looked among each other, all biting their lips to keep from laughing. It didn't last long, and slowly the boys broke into chuckles
"What the hell are you laughing at?" She was appalled with her friends. She was in crisis mode, and they were laughing at her.
"Jules, who cares if some obscure Dutch magazine thinks you're dead?" Jack asked, shaking his head. She was certainly living up to her drama queen reputation.
"If they think I'm dead, who else thinks I'm dead?" Julie shrieked.
"Well, certainly not us, you're screaming at us over a Dutch magazine," Rizzo grinned at her, taking the magazine from Jimmy.
"Don't take this the wrong way, Jules, but this certainly isn't the best picture I've ever seen of you," Jack couldn't help but chuckle, looking over Rizzo's shoulder at the magazine.
"You guys are killing me!" She finished the rest of her cigarette, lighting another one almost immediately.
"We're not, but cigarettes and Dutch magazines are," all the boys guffawed at Mark's comment. Julie pulled her sunglasses down onto her face, putting one hand on her hip as she continued to smoke.
"Come on, Jules, it's not so bad," Mac said after calming down his laughter. She just stared at him, taking another drag. He walked closer to her, taking the cigarette out of her hand, throwing it on the ground, and stomping it out. Julie couldn't help but think that boys were purposely testing her patience today. The rest of the boys had loaded the bus, only Mac, Jimmy, Rizzo, Mark and OC were waiting for Julie. They watched their coaches walk out of the arena doors, walking toward the bus.
"How exactly is it not so bad?" She questioned her best friend, as Mac began to lead her onto the bus. He sat down on a bus seat, pulling her down into the one beside him.
"Who cares what they think? You're alive, your friends and family know you're alive. And honestly, you're doing a lot better than you were a couple months ago. I know it's a weird adjustment for you not to be in the spotlight all the time, but it's really not so bad," Mac tried to reassure his friend, as she now pouted.
"We're sorry for laughing at you, sweetheart," Jack said in his thick Boston accent, popping up over the seat in front of her.
"Yeah, it's just kind of funny to us because we can't imagine what it would be like to have our pictures plastered on a magazine proclaiming our death," Jimmy shrugged, which made Julie grin a little bit.
"It's a first for me, too, but I can't say I'm not a little bit honored," she admitted quietly, before breaking into a big smile, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "I mean, obviously they're missing me in Hollywood."
"Ah, there she is," Rob rolled his eyes, laughing at the vanity his best friend was so plagued with.
"Yeah, and when you come back, it'll be such a great comeback," Rizzo pointed out from across the bus aisle.
"Unless they think I've been replaced by my own evil twin," Julie reminded him.
"Don't take this the wrong way, Jules, but I think you are the evil twin," Mac sniggered. Julie scoffed at him, raising her sunglasses onto her head.
"I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who would refer to me as evil," Julia gave her friend an attitude with her words.
"David Lee Roth," Mac muttered, smirking as the bus pulled out of the parking lot. The boys looked at Julie, curiosity peaking. Rizzo's mouth was even hanging open. Julie glared at her best friend, her face painted with shock.
"Robert Bruce McClanahan, you were sworn to secrecy!"
"God, I am dying to know her secrets," Mark laughed, looking over at Rizzo and shaking his head.
Julie sat out on her hotel balcony that night, overlooking the city, lit up with people. She looked to all the cars passing on the road below, thinking how every person in every one of those cars was living their own life, totally unaware to the young rockstar smoking a cigarette above them.
"How many times do we have to warn you about those damn things, Julia?"
Julia looked to her right, seeing the balcony door of the room next door was closing behind the voice that had spoken.
"And how did I get so lucky to have the most annoying boy on the team as my neighbor?" Julie asked over to Jack, who was taking a seat on the wicker chair nearest to Julie's balcony.
"Hey, that's not nice," he complained, shooting Julie a mean look. "Jimmy is not that annoying. He's just in there sleeping."
She couldn't help but giggle quietly, looking over at the boy just a few feet away from her.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" She asked him, taking a puff of her cigarette.
"Couldn't sleep," he shrugged. "You?"
"I was just enjoying some alone time."
"Well, I'll take that as my cue to leave," Jack said, starting to get up.
"No. No, Jack, that's not what I meant," she said quickly, putting a hand up to stop him. He froze, looking back at her. Jack gave her a bit of a smile, sitting back down in his seat. She allowed for her hand to drop down onto the balcony railing, a little embarrassed at her eagerness. They sat in quiet for a moment, Julia inhaling smoke from the cigarette. Jack watched her blow out the smoke, before allowing his gaze to fall down to her face. Julia was pretty, and everyone knew that. But Jack was busy noticing the little things. There was a small scar going through her right eyebrow, making her eyebrows look slightly uneven. Her hair was messy, especially in the back. When she was sitting in deep thought, she bit her bottom lip, her brows knitting.
"What are you looking at, O'Callahan?" Julie asked him, ashing her cigarette.
"You. I'm trying to figure you out," he admitted, looking at her with the confident grin that often adorned his attractive face.
"Well, instead of trying to figure it out, you could just ask. Go ahead, ask away."
"How did you get addicted to cocaine?"
Julie almost inhaled her whole cigarette, coughing on the smoke.
"Damn, you weren't wasting any time," she said, shaking her head, settling into her chair and facing Jack. "I didn't get addicted the first time I did it. Not for a while. I used to get really exhausted on tours, and people just always had coke around. I would do a bump before a show or before a party to keep me awake. I used to never get fucked up by myself. I didn't even buy any coke myself until I was 20. Before that it was always bumming it off other people. All of a sudden, we're going out on our own tour. There was coke everywhere. Everyone did it. And I so did I. One night, it's a party drug, and before you know it, it's all you think about. I couldn't record or perform or write without it. I wouldn't go out to a bar or a party without coke on me."
"How did you just leave to go to Los Angeles?" Jack didn't say anything about her coke story, he was clearly trying to gain all the information he could.
"I was 16, living with Uncle Herb and Aunt Patti. They knew I wanted to be in a band, I've been singing since I was little. Well, Herb and I got into a pretty big fight one night, and I packed up and left. I went to the Greyhound Station, caught a train to Los Angeles. I took all the money I had, and I worked as a waitress in LA. After a couple weeks, I finally called Uncle Herb. Well, he was livid. They'd been looking all over Minnesota for me, but the police gave up after deciding I had simply run off. Uncle Herb and I eventually made up, but I had already decided I was staying in LA."
"And Stonehead?"
"I met them a couple months into living there. I had been looking for bands to join since I got there. I met a few groups, but it never seemed to work out. Finally I met Jim, Steven, and Tommy. A few weeks later we found Cyndi, and that was that. We worked our asses off in Hollywood, playing any gig we could get. We were spending all of our spare time writing an album, and we finally got signed to a record label. We spent a couple months in the studio recording and perfecting the album. Then Steven Tyler heard of us, asked us to open for them on the Rocks tour, and that was that."
They were both quiet for a minute, as Jack sat taking in her answers. The city was still very much alive below them, but the silence between them seemed overwhelming. They both stared out into the city, not looking to each other.
"Why did you live with Herb and Patti?" Jack finally asked. He finally looked at her, noticing the melancholy look on her face. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that."
"No, Jack, it's fine. I told you to ask away," she assured him. She took a deep breath before she began. "It used to be me, my mom, and my dad. We lived in Pennsylvania because that's where my mom is from. I guess my parents weren't really planning on me, or even being together long term. They met while my dad was playing college hockey, playing at her college. After he graduated, my dad went to go visit her but my mom got pregnant so he stayed there and they got married. My mom wasn't a bad mom, but it was always kind of obvious she had other life plans that I wrecked with my existence. When I was eight, I woke up one morning and she was just...gone," Julie shrugged. She put her feet up on the railing of the balcony, tilting her head up to look at the sky above her. Before Jack could say anything, she continued.
"So Dad and I moved back to Saint Paul. He always missed living in Minnesota. But my dad kind of had a drinking problem. He would always make sure I got to school, and he would go to work, but I spent a lot of time with Herb and Patti or with my grandparents because he would be passed out drunk. Herb says he had a drinking problem when he was younger, but I think Mom leaving kind of triggered it because I don't remember him drinking when I was a little girl, unless he hid it that well. I used to get home from school and find him passed out on the couch,so I would call my grandpa or Herb and someone would come pick me up and I would stay the night with them. Sometimes I would stay with them for a couple of days if Dad was going through a particularly rough patch. The weirdest part was the fact that he loved me so much. He was a good dad when he wasn't passed out. He bought me my first guitar, he saved up for it for months. He always supported my dreams. But he just couldn't lay off booze. It was starting to get way worse. He was missing work, and I was basically taking care of him all the time. It was December 6, 1971. I was 13, almost 14. I got home from skating with Mac, and Dad was passed out on the couch, per usual. I threw a couple logs on the fireplace and went into my room. In the middle of the night, I woke up choking on smoke. I barely made it out before the house was entirely up in flames. But my dad....smoke and flames don't wake you up after that much vodka," she said bitterly, her eyes closing.
"I watched the house burn, waiting for him to come out. He never did. The neighbors came outside and brought me into their house. It was so fucking cold that night. Fire marshall said it started as a chimney fire, but the house went up quick. Luckily, I had some clothes and stuff over at Herb and Patti's, and the guest bedroom was practically mine already. That was that."
Jack had no idea what to say. He didn't know what he was expecting her to tell him, but it certainly wasn't that. He only knew one other person who had lost a parent, that being Jimmy, who's mom had passed during Jimmy's junior year of college.
"I'm sorry, Julia. I wish I knew what to say in situations like this," he said, barely loud enough for her to hear him.
"You don't need to be sorry. It's just life, and it was almost eight years ago," she said matter-of-factly. Jack was almost concerned with how emotionless she seemed to be towards all of this. He didn't know her all that well, but it seemed to Jack as if she was shutting down a little bit as she talked to them.
"I didn't mean to make you get all personal," he told her, not sure how to move forward.
"I'm kind of surprised you didn't already know. And anyway, I think it's my turn to know about you," she said, changing the subject.
"What do you wanna know, rockstar?"
"What's your full name? Where are you from? Where and when were you born?"
"I asked you about your coke addiction and family business, and you ask me that? Weak, Brooks. But it's John Joseph O'Callahan. Born on July 24, 1957, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. It's a suburb of Boston. I know how much you love Boston," he grinned at her.
"Hey, I'm becoming a little more tolerant of Bostonians, I think. And John Joseph O'Callahan? You're Irish through and through, huh," she noticed. "Tell me about hockey."
"Hockey? I mean, I've been playing since I was a little kid. I played all through high school and college at BU. I was team captain my last two seasons. I was All-East twice, All-New England, All-America, team MVP twice, Beanpot MVP, NCAA tourney MVP, and I won the Cochrane award twice. I was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks in 77, so I guess that's where I'll go after the games,"
"Are you trying to impress me, OC?" She grinned at him. Julie couldn't help but notice the pride in his voice as he talked. She knew Jack wasn't bragging about his awards, he had earned those. Jack was a hard worker, and he deserved everything he had.
"Oh, stop," Jack rolled his eyes at her. "Besides, if anyone is impressive here, it's you."
"A 21 year old cocaine addict who's been exiled to Minnesota on account of bad behavior?" Julie chuckled, looking back up at the stars above them.
"Don't do that to yourself. Yeah, you messed up, but you've still done a hell of a lot, Jules. God, I couldn't believe it when I saw you standing in Herb's doorway. I thought I was dreaming."
"Shut up, Jack," she couldn't help but blush, looking away from him. "You should get to bed, you have a game tomorrow."
"You should get to bed, you've got a big day of being alive tomorrow," he laughed, remembering the fit she'd thrown earlier over the magazine. "Oh, and dating Dutch hockey players."
Julie glared at him, trying not to let a smile creep onto her face.
"You know, everytime I start to think you're not so bad, you remind me what a prick you are," she said, getting up from her chair and walking towards the door to her room. "Goodnight, OC."
"Goodnight, Julsie," Jack grinned at her, heading into his room.