I'm Glad My Mom Died(39)
I suspect this tour is going to be my first time away from Mom. And not because she’s told me that outright, but because we share an email account and I saw an outgoing message from her to Marcus, where she told him the very thing I’d been dreading for my entire life.
“How come you’re crying, Mommy?” I ask her as tears spill out of her eyes.
Mom arranges a bite of lasagna on her fork, then sets the lasagna’d fork back down in the frozen-dinner tray, as if taking a bite of it would just be too much for her right now in her emotional state.
“You just sound so beautiful,” she says, but I know she’s lying. Mom’s I-think-you-did-well joy is not at all a tearful joy. It’s more of an exhilarated, amped-up kind of joy. This here, whatever I’m witnessing right now, is something more, something deeper. I wish she’d tell me. I wish she’d just admit what I already know.
“Mommy…” I trail off, terrified for what I’m about to ask. Even though I already know what’s happening, I want to believe it can’t be true. I need to hear it from Mom. I need to confirm it.
“So much power in your voice. The chorus is really just… wow.” Mom blots her eyes with a Kleenex.
“Mommy,” I say again, slightly louder this time. I’m terrified of knowing, but I’m even more terrified of not knowing.
“… And then when you get back into the verse and you go to your lower register. I love your lower register,” Mom says through tears. “It’s got a kind of sultry thing.”
“Mommy, do you have cancer again?”
I feel the color drain from my face right after I ask it. I’ve shocked myself that these words have come out of my mouth. I feel frozen. Mom looks just as shocked as I do. Her tears stop.
“What? No.” She tries to laugh it off. “Why would you think that?”
I take a deep breath because I know she’s lying right to my face, and I know she’s doing that to try and make me less scared, but it’s making me more scared. Why is she lying to me about something so significant?
“I saw your email to Marcus. Where you said your cancer came back.”
Mom looks down and the tears return, no different from the ones a half minute ago. My heart feels heavy as I watch her little body shake and heave with sadness. I get up from my seat at the desk and sit next to her on the edge of the bed. I hug her. She feels so small in my arms.
“I don’t want to miss your tour,” she sobs, sounding like she really means it. I’m baffled. How can she care about that stupid tour right now?
“I’m not gonna go on the tour,” I say, like it’s as obvious of a decision as it feels to me.
Mom breaks away from our hug and lifts her head as her sadness switches to anger.
“Net, you have to go on this tour. Don’t talk crazy like that, okay? You scare me when you talk like that. You have to go on this tour, no matter what, all right? You’re gonna be a country music star.”
“Okay.”
Mom goes back to crying. I go back to hugging her.
38.
THE GENERATION LOVE TOUR IS a mission to get my new single, “Generation Love,” on the radio. The reps at Capitol have arranged for me to perform for a bunch of radio stations across the country, in what they consider an “unconventional radio tour.” Most artists go perform radio tours in the soundproof boxes that are radio stations, in the hopes of impressing a few radio execs enough for the execs to add the artist’s song to their lineup, but my label suggested that we leverage my fanbase from iCarly to show radio heads the “value” I carry. So instead of performing in soundproof boxes to two or three radio reps, I’ll be performing in each radio station region’s local mall to thousands of screaming tweens.
Our first stop is in Hartford, Connecticut, or maybe it’s Philly, Pennsylvania. It’s hard to keep the schedule straight. Regardless, I get used to it quickly enough.
I wake up at eight, groggy. We usually have a few hours left to drive on the bus, then Stewy, our bus driver, pulls into the motel that the label’s rented for a half day, just enough time so that each of us on the bus can shower. I go first, and then Paul, the sweet guitarist with the thick twang, goes next. I have a crush on him. Josh, the other guitarist, who looks like a shorter, beefier Conan O’Brien, goes after that. Then goes Dave, the earring-wearing videographer documenting the tour. Next is whoever this week’s regional representative from the record label is, then the press representative from the label.
While the rest of the group is showering, I do press on the bus. We find a place to eat lunch, then have a sound check, then we have two or so hours to kill before the show. After the show, I sign autographs for three hours, get back on the bus, and then Stewy drives us to the next place.
The experience itself is overwhelming, performing in malls for thousands of kids. I get so nervous that I practice the songs twenty to thirty times before our set begins, and sometimes blow out my voice before I even get onstage. Press and the autograph signings afterward are emotionally exhausting. There are a few interactions that feel worthwhile, that seem like this experience actually means something to the kids and their families, but the rest of the crowd just feels like sheep to me.
“Hey, Samantha Puckett! How’d you get outta juvie?!”
“Ha ha, good one.”