Rose

Chapter One

Well, here she was.  Seventeen-year-old Rose Matthews was here.  Here was New York, Madison Square Garden to be exact.  Why was she here?  Well, most groupies cut their teeth on MSG, she figured she'd be no different.    Seventeen was a bit old for a groupie, true, but Rose looked sixteen.  She played up her youthful appearance, though it had dogged her through high school.  Rosie the Runt had been the moniker she had been christened with.  But, high school was done for Rose.  She had quit at sixteen and gone to work.  Her job at the notions shop didn't pay her very much, so she took a second job at the one and the only diner in town.

Rose was a pretty girl, perhaps on the plump side, but she had a weakness for vanilla ice cream.  And her weight seemed to settle into all the right places, giving her a voluptuous body that did not go unnoticed by the male clientele.  She was having trouble with her stepfather too.  Why her mom ever married that jackass she didn't know.  But she kept hard at it, working and saving all she could until one night when Steve had come home drunk.

Steve was her son-of-a-bitch stepfather and he was intent on having her.  He played nice until her mom had to go on a graveyard shift at the hospital.  There was no way her mom could have missed the leers and innuendos.  But she left her anyway and went to work.  Her mom was not even out of the house before he began.  He gave her compliments, lavished her with attention, and when she still said no, he got nasty.  He grabbed her and she fought him off like a wildcat.  She kicked him between his legs, left four bloody furrows in his left cheek, and hit him in the head with a lamp.  The lamp shattered, the bulb blew and Steve went down like a sack of potatoes.

Rose made sure he was still breathing, then ran to her room.  She had been preparing for this for a while.  She grabbed the stuffed duffel she had packed and her purse.  All the money in the world she had was in it. And Rose left the small town of Bearittsville, Tennessee for good.  She bought a bus ticket to New York and here she was.

She found a dingy hotel room for the night and slept for the first time in months.  She didn't want to get up when the sun poured through the grimy windows but she was a bit anxious about finding a good room and trying her hand at becoming a groupie.  Rose had always loved music, had tons of music magazines, fanzines, and posters back home.  Correction she thought, back at her mother's home.

So she grabbed her duffel and checked out feeling the clerk's greasy stare on her breasts.  Men were the same everywhere it seemed.  She found a relatively clean diner and had a coffee and a stale donut.  As she sipped her second cup of coffee, she looked at the paper.  Naturally, she looked at rooms and then at jobs.  Damn!  New York was way more expensive than she had realized.  She sighed and turned the page.  An announcement in the entertainment section caught her eye.

She read it, blinked, and read it again.  Greta Van Fleet, one of her all-time favorite bands, was playing a sold-out show at MSG!  OMG!  She had to go!  Time to look for work tomorrow, tonight she was going to try her hand at groupie-dom!  Rose paid her check and rushed out.  She wasn't sure what she was doing, but the first thing she needed was a decent room.  She ended up renting a mid-priced room at one of the better hotels and realized half her money was already spent.  She needed a job and soon. But she couldn't think about that now.

Rose luxuriated in the bath for almost two hours.  She washed her hair vigorously and then she rinsed off in the shower.  She wasn't exactly sure what groupies wore but she was sure she didn't have anything like that anyway.  She chose a pair of very low riding denims, a short crop top sweater, and pearl gray, calf-high, suede flat-heeled boots.  She brushed out her slightly curly burnished copper hair and took a good forty-five minutes applying her make-up until she was happy with her look.  She was sure she didn't look the groupie type but she was going anyway.

Rose knew it was much too early to go to the venue, so she chose a small cafe across from the venue and ordered tea.  She pulled out a magazine and read while she sipped.  At about six o'clock she got up to go to the ladies' room.  The cafe had gotten a bit crowded and she smiled a small smile.  Quite a few patrons were wearing Greta Van Fleet tee-shirts.  Lucky them, they probably already had tickets.

Rose went into a back hallway and found the ladies' room at the very end.  There was also a closed-door before the men's room.  Probably storage ---- or an illegal casino.  Rose giggled a bit at her flight into fantasy and she turned the knob, pulling at the same time as someone was pushing.  The motion threw Rose backward.  She knew she was going to fall hard ---- but she didn't.  Someone caught her.

"Knock before you try to come in next time, bitch."  An older woman who reeked of Chanel shoved past Rose and whoever had her.  Rose's good Samaritan put her back on her feet.  She turned to thank them.  And stopped dead. Standing before her was Jake Kiszka and looking out from the closed room were Josh Kiszka, Sam Kiszka, and Danny Wagner.  

"No way" whispered Rose.

"Way" Jake replied and laughed.  "Well, I've saved the fair maiden, the least you can do is tell me your name."

"Uh, it's Rose, Rose Matthews."

"Well, Rose Matthews I insist you have a drink with us."

Never in her wildest flight of fancy could she have imagined this.  Rose forgot all about the ladies' room.  She damn near forgot her name.  She was having a drink with Greta Van Fleet!  She followed Jake inside the small room and thought, "This is Nirvana" as the door closed behind her.