Center Stage - Chapter 23

I was glad when the school day ended. While I’d wished to be back in school and normal all during the tour, now my public life had invaded even that. Between kids still making comments about my being a millionaire and the weird... I don’t even know what to call it. Intervention slash strong arm meeting in the principal’s office, school had suddenly stopped being a refuge for me.

Which sucked.

When I got inside, I saw Hanna was sitting on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest, just staring straight ahead. It’s where she’d been all weekend, either there or locked in her room. She hadn’t showered for days and her hair was a mess.

“Hey,” I said, setting my backpack down and sitting next to her. “How you holding up?”

Hanna shrugged, not even bothering to look at me.

“I know it sucks. What Cross did to you was messed up. But it’s not the end of the world, Han. You’ll get through this.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who got expelled because some asshole professor decided to paint you as a crazy stalker.”

“No, but I do know a little something about having people out to get you, to hurt you, and making your life miserable.”

She actually gave a small smile at that and actually turned to look at me. Her eyes red and puffy from crying.

“I just feel so stupid, Charlie. I really thought he loved me.”

“I know, and he’s been doing this for a long time. He’s really good at taking advantage of students. I won’t say it’s not your fault, but I’m not blaming you either. And it doesn’t matter. What matters is you don’t give him this much control over you.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do now,” she said, as a single tear slipped down her cheek.

“Well, for starters, you could go take a shower. You’re kinda rank.”

That actually got a laugh, “Sure.”

“Hey. I love you. You know that, right.”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” I said, pulling her into a hug. “You’ll get through this Hanna. I promise.”

She didn’t say anything to that, but she hugged me back incredibly tightly, like I was a lifeline. Maybe I was. She wasn’t actively fighting with her mom, but there was still a ton of tension there, and she wasn’t getting the support from her mom she would have liked.

Not that I begrudged Mrs. Phillips being upset. She’d tried to convince Hanna this was wrong so many times, telling her it would end exactly here, and now she’d seen her daughter throw everything away.

She got up and headed upstairs. At least she was moving again. I grabbed my bag and headed for my own room. There was something I needed to do now that it was Monday, and I needed privacy to do it.

I closed the door to my room, sat on the edge of my bed, and pulled out my phone. I’d looked up the number I needed on Friday, but I hadn’t been able to do anything about it until today.

“UNC admissions office, this is Tara. How may I assist you?” a chipper voice answered.

“Hi Tara, my name is Charlie Nelson. I know this is probably an unusual request, but I was hoping to set up a meeting with someone from admissions about changing my mind on attending UNC next year.”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t typically schedule meetings for students who have already declined admission. If you’d like to reapply, you can do so during the next admissions cycle.”

“I understand that’s the policy, but I was hoping my situation might be a little different. I … there’s no way to say this without it coming off incredibly bad in a ‘do you know who I am’ kind of way, but could you maybe check with someone before telling me no? I promise I’m not trying to be a di … jerk and I know you’re probably busy. But could you please ask?”

The girl let out an audible sigh and said, “Fine. I’ll see what I can do. Hold, please.”

The line went silent, and I was left listening to generic hold music. I couldn’t blame her for being annoyed. She was probably just a student worker trying to get through her shift, not expecting to deal with some random guy trying to throw his very minor celebrity status around. She probably had parents demanding to talk to her manager or whatever, and I was hoping I didn’t come off in that category.

I just hoped it was enough to hint that I might change my mind to get me in the door so I could talk to someone in a position to do something, anything, about Cross. They were letting a predator walk around and punishing his victims, and that was worth trying to abuse my status if I could.

After almost five minutes, the music on the phone suddenly cut off and the girl’s voice came back on the line, sounding significantly less annoyed.

“I’m so sorry for the wait, Mr. Nelson. I’ve spoken with my supervisor, and we would be more than happy to set up a meeting with you to discuss your potential enrollment at UNC.”

“That’s great, thank you so much.”

“We’ll email you with some potential meeting times, although it could take a few days. Dr. Kincaid, our head of admissions, has indicated she would like to be at this meeting, so we have to find some times that will work.”

“Fantastic. And I know this is probably an unusual request, but is there any way we could have someone from the Dean of Students’ office join as well? Someone who deals with current students and not just admissions?”

There was a brief pause and something muffled like she was covering the phone and talking to someone else. “I’m sure we can arrange that. May I ask why you need someone from that department specifically?”

I hesitated, not wanting to give too much away. “It’s just... there’s a situation with a current student that I think needs to be addressed. It’ll be critical to my decision to attend UNC.”

“Then, uhh, I’ll make sure to pass along your request. Someone from the Dean’s office will be at the meeting.”

“Thank you, Tara. I really appreciate you going above and beyond to help me out.”

“Of course, Mr. Nelson. We look forward to meeting with you and hopefully welcoming you to the Tar Heel family.”

We exchanged a few more pleasantries before hanging up. I flopped back on my bed, staring at the ceiling. This was risky and it could backfire on both me and Hanna, but it was the only thing I could think of. I couldn’t just sit by and watch my best friend’s life fall apart while the person responsible faced zero consequences.

***

Surprisingly, UNC got back to me quickly, with an email showing up in my inbox the next day. Unfortunately, they might have actually gotten back to me too quickly. They set up the meeting for Wednesday, but ARC had already arranged for them to go to a recording studio in Raleigh to lay down the master track for the mini-ep. It was supposed to be two days of recording, but the meeting at UNC was at ten in the morning and who knew how long that was going to go.

I hoped the producer, who ARC had assigned us and I’d never met, would be cool about it, and we could make enough progress today that I could finish it with a half day after that. The only good thing was that the mini-album was only three songs, so it wasn’t like we’d need as much time as a full album. Of course, our last album we’d only been able to finish like two songs in one day, and that was at our absolute fastest, with other songs taking us multiple days for just one.

The studio wasn’t hard to find, but was a different one than the one we’d used when we were at MAC, making me wonder how many recording studios a city like Raleigh, big enough but not exactly huge, could support.

The producer, a Vietnamese guy I thought, named Tran, was already waiting for us. And so was Hal, which made me nervous. Explaining my sudden half day unavailability to an unknown producer was one thing. Explaining it to the guy who was ultimately my boss was quite different. Hal had also gone out on a big limb for me, so the last thing I wanted to do was let him down.

“Hal, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I couldn’t miss the chance to see my newest star in action,” he said with a grin. “I’m very excited to hear what you’ve got for this third song of yours.”

He meant Dirty Little Secrets, which was the only one he hadn’t heard, since he’d been a judge when I’d played the other two at Christmas.

“The credit for that one goes to Lyla. She’s who’s to blame for all of our fun songs.”

Lyla beamed at him.

“Well, then I’m all the more excited to hear it.”

“Uhh,” I said, trying to figure out how to broach the subject of leaving. “I do have a problem though. I know we’re scheduled for two days of recording, but I have an emergency around my college signing, and I have to be at a meeting at UNC at ten tomorrow. I don’t know how long it will take, but I promise to come right back after.”

Hal frowned, something I hadn’t seen a lot from him, and my heart sank a little. He’d stuck his neck out for me, so the last thing I wanted to do was let him down.

“Charlie, we’re on a tight schedule here. Every minute counts.”

“I know. I really do, and I wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t an absolute emergency. I know how this looks, considering everything you’ve done for me, and I promise I’ll give everything I have to make sure we put out a good product that all of us will be happy about.”

Hal studied me for a moment. “All right. We’ll make it work. But don’t make a habit of this, okay?”

“Thank you so much. I promise I won’t.”

Hal left, headed off to do whatever people who run labels do, leaving us with the producer.

“So, I know we have a lot to do and apparently not a lot of time to do it, so let’s get down to it,” Tran said. “I figure our best bet, since they’re three different styles, is to start with the rock while we’re all feeling fresh, and work down to the ballad at the end. I know they all require a fair amount of energy, but I’ve found rock needs that energy to work, kind of like how you can hear a person smiling when they’re talking on the phone.”

“Works for us,” I said.

“So I listened to the rough cut you sent over of all three, and I really like the vibes of secret, and I think honestly it’s almost there. It just needs a bit of polishing.”

Lyla beamed at the statement. A real vote of confidence for her. We got set up quick, running through the song a few times to get a feel for the space. I really did like this song and I was almost certain it was going to kill in concert like One Night Stand did. The chorus was catchy as hell, all crunchy guitars and pounding drums.

“I’m thinking we amp up the end of the second verse,” Tran said from the booth. “Really punch it before we hit that last chorus. And Lyla, lean into those harmonies more. Charlie’s drowning you out.”

Lyla gave him a thumbs up. We played it again, and I backed off a little, realizing I was drowning her out, only to have him wave us off and stop the track.

“No. She needs to step up, I don’t want you to back off Charlie.”

“Sorry.”

We did it again and again swapping out a few rearrangings here, making small changes to likes there, but nothing major. After just two hours, much faster than anything we did on the first album, we managed to get a really solid take that Tran said was workable.

“One down,” I said as we took a break, chugging water, trying to keep my throat loose. “Not bad for a morning’s work.”

“Told you it was a banger,” Lyla said, looking amazingly smug.

She deserved it.

We finished up a few things and then moved on to Ashes and Sand. We’d gotten only a third of the way through the first verse when Tran stopped us.

“I love the emotion in this one, but I think we need to pick up the tempo a bit. It’s dragging.”

I frowned. We hadn’t played enough for him to decide about the overall tempo of the song, which meant he listened to an earlier cut of it and had already made notes on what he wanted to change, without hearing it in the room. I hadn’t worked with enough producers to know if that was unprofessional, but it felt like it.

It was also the most personal song I’d ever written, and it was purposefully designed to be slow, to really let the pain and loss come through.

“Wouldn’t changing the tempo change the whole message of the song?”

“I don’t think so. It’s a great song and if it was by itself, maybe it would be right. But for this EP, we need to keep the energy up more coming off. We’ll have the blues song in between this and Secrets, but tis’ still such a drop off in energy, and will lose people who listen to it as a whole. Just try it once with a faster beat, see how it feels.”

I sighed but nodded. This was why we had a producer, right? We ran through it again, Seth picking up the tempo on the drums. It felt wrong, the words losing some of their punch. He doesn’t stop us though, so I keep going.

Tran waved us off halfway through. “Better, but let’s take it from the bridge. Really lean into that section, Charlie.”

Part of me wished Rowan was still producing for us. He’d been really good at guiding us and making the songs better, while still being our vision. Tran seemed more interested in getting our songs to be what he wanted them to be.

The problem was... the song was better. Yes, it was less melancholy than I’d originally intended, but there was an argument to be made that didn’t make for a better song. This would be more listenable, especially with the other songs it was paired with.

We made a few more passes until Tran finally locked us in on a version he could accept. I’ll admit, the end product was good. What had been a melancholy ballad kind of like stuff that had been popular in the late eighties was now a much more contemporary pop song. It still had the same subject matter, which just goes to show how much the tempo of the song can change the meaning of the words.

The sun had gone down at some point while we’d been finalizing Ashes and Sand, and my stomach was growling, which is why I was glad when Tran said, “How about we break for some dinner and come back to knock out this last song?”

“Thank God. I could eat a horse,” Lyla said, setting down her bass.

Instead of going out, we ordered some pizza and sodas while Tan headed out to do whatever. For a little bit, we were too busy eating to actually talk. I don’t think any of us had realized how long we’d been going, skipping right through the lunch break.

“Sorry guys. I didn’t mean to work everyone like this.”

“It’s fine. Until he mentioned a dinner break, I hadn’t even thought about it, actually,” Seth said. “I forgot how excited it was to be back in the studio.”

“Did they say anything to you about recording a full album?” Lyla asked.

“Not yet. Warren and I had already started talking about this release, since with your song we were close enough to having something without much work, so I guess this was just an easy layup for them. We’re going to have to get to work, though, cause I’m not sure if any of these songs can be on the full album after this release, and even if they can, we’re still like twelve songs short.”

“I have a few ideas,” Lyla said.

“Good, cause I think the label, at least, likes your stuff more than mine.”

“That’s not true. These two songs won you The Stage and you’re the name that got our contract.”

“It’s okay. I really wasn’t fishing for compliments, I just meant the harder rock stuff you do seems to hit well with both producers and the audiences. Rowan really liked One Night Stand, remember. I’m not saying we should go all the way in that direction, because even your stuff would be tame if we went into the harder end of rock. Next to the slower stuff I tend to gravitate to, it works. Like a palate cleanser, or whatever.”

As we ate, we discussed possibilities for new songs we could do next. I had a few ideas of my own and even Seth had some. For now, it was only a little bit, since they weren’t even the beginnings of songs, just start thoughts, but it would get us to work once we got back home. Maybe it was something about being in a studio, but it really got our creative juices flowing. If it wasn’t so damned expensive to rent studio space, I’d want to do all of our practices somewhere like here, if it meant this kind of productivity.

Tran eventually came back from whatever he’d been doing and it was time to get back to work.

“Alright folks. One more to go. I just listened to the test track you sent, and I’ve already got some ideas.”

My good mood evaporated. While he hadn’t been wrong about some of his changes to Ashes and Sand, his suggestions for The End of the Blues were wrong in almost every way. After seeing what he did to the last song, it was clear he had a singular view of music and pushed everything toward that view, which explained why he was so satisfied with Dirty Little Secret.

His first suggestion was to make the guitar line harder, ramp up the drums more, and change the tempo from a four-four shuffle to a six-eight driving tempo, essentially turning the soulful blues number into a standard paint-by-numbers rock song.

“No,” I said flatly. “That gets rid of everything blues about it. This is supposed to be a tribute to the old Delta blues sound. If we make it more rock, it loses that whole vibe.”

“Charlie, I hear you, but we need to think about the overall flow of the EP. After Secret and then the changes to Ashes and Sand, this is going to feel wrong and out of place.”

This time I didn’t back down. We went back and forth, with me advocating for staying true to the blues and Tran pushing for a more modern, radio-friendly sound. Lyla tried to interject once, but it started to get heated. We went for almost an hour like that, arguing back and forth. It didn’t help that we’d been going for a long time and I was getting tired. I was just about ready to say screw it, let’s call it a night, when Hal walked in.

“Charlie, damn it, you need to start listening…” Tran was practically yelling, to be heard over my current argument, trying to cut me off.

“What’s going on here?” Hal said, interrupting him.

Tran and I both started talking at once, trying to explain our positions. Hal held up a hand, silencing us.

“One at a time. Tran?”

Tran laid out his thinking. How it needed to fit the scheme of the whole EP and how the sound of it was wrong for something that needed mass market appeal.

I, on the other hand, talked about the intention of the song and how this was a song specifically about the blues. Even about how modern music was killing the blues, and how taking blues out of it destroyed everything the song was. Finally, Hal held up a hand, stopping us.

“How important do you feel about this, Charlie?”

“Very.”

“Then do it how Charlie wants it,” he said to Tran. “It’s his song and his vision, and we promised to honor that.”

Tran seemed less than thrilled.

“Thanks, Hal. I really appreciate you backing me up on this,” I said.

“Then don’t let it flop.”

Hal left again and we started up. At first, I thought Tran might decide to stop really producing, as he got quiet while we laid down the track, offering nothing, which he didn’t do on the other two songs. Thankfully, after staring at me through the glass for a minute, he finally started offering corrections and small changes. I honestly think he wanted to cold shoulder us, but he couldn’t stop himself.

I would take it. He was actually a really good producer, in spite of the fact that he seemed to want to shoehorn everything into a single vision. We went through it a few dozen times, making small adjustments, all of them honestly necessary. Around midnight, we locked in our final run, which meant we’d managed to get it all in one day, as promised.

“My throat is killing me,” Lyla said. “I don’t think I’ve ever sung for fourteen hours straight before.”

“Welcome to the major leagues, young lady,” Hal, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, said from the control booth. “I have to say, I’m very impressed with you three. Thrilled even. You managed to get what sounds like three good tracks to me in one day, which will save us an entire day of studio time. I’m very impressed.”

I gave him a tired smile. I had to agree with Lyla, I was beat.

“Give us a few weeks to get this through all the final post-production and get some marketing, and we’ll have it out. I know you are all very tired, so go ahead and get out of here, and I’ll have someone reach out to Warren with updates.”

“Thanks, Hal,” I croaked.

I was exhausted, but I definitely couldn’t knock the sense of accomplishment I felt.

That was truly a good day’s work.