Center Stage - Chapter 5

After a final bow from everyone in the final number, we all ran backstage. Despite the power outage, our first tour date was a success, and everyone was in a great mood. While I joined them in that, I was also curious what had happened, and I went to find a PA.

Finding one of the line producers for the show, I grabbed him as he hustled by and asked, “What was that power outage about?”

“A car crashed into a nearby power station. Knocked out power for the whole block. They were able to switch us over to another grid temporarily, or however the power company does that, but from the sounds of it, the neighborhoods near here will be out of power until probably tomorrow.”

“A car crash? Seriously?”

I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but that hadn’t been it.

“Yeah, some sort of medical emergency with the driver that caused him to lose control, from what the power guy told me. He said they were able to get to him and rush the guy to the hospital, but it blew some transformers, so the damage was done.”

“Geeze. I hope he’s okay.”

“The power guy said he walked into the ambulance, so I can’t imagine it was life-threatening.”

“Well, that’s good at least. Everyone else is okay though, right? No one got hurt?”

“As far as we know, it was just the driver. Could’ve been a lot worse.”

“No kidding. Man, what a crazy night.”

“It’s always something,” the producer said, taking that as an opportunity to go back to whatever he’d been doing, and walking off.

“Charlie, there you are,” Phoenix West said, making his way through the crowd just as the other guy walked off. “Could we talk for a minute?”

He gestured to a small room a few feet down a side hall.

“Sure.”

Following him into the room, he closed the door behind me and said, “You put us in a bind out there, playing a song that wasn’t cleared.”

“What else was I supposed to do? People were getting restless. It was the only song everyone knew off the top of their heads that would work with just an acoustic guitar and drums, which is all we had to work with. I would have thought you’d be happy. News of unhappy fans on the first show wouldn’t go well for the rest of the tour. As it is, they’re all out there having a good time now. What could’ve been a bad experience turned good.”

Phoenix held up his hands defensively and said, “I’m not criticizing your decision. Truth is, I think you made the right call, but I wish you would have taken a couple of minutes to at least run it by someone. These kinds of decisions can have long-term consequences. I’m not saying it will, just that it’s worth taking the extra time.”

“Noted,” I said.

While I got where he was coming from, it’s not like anyone came out with any instructions either. I was a performer, not a producer. If it was such a big deal, one of his staff should have seen the problem and come up with a solution. Instead, all we got was “we’ll know something in ten minutes.” If that was all I went to the audiences with, there would have been a riot.

Not that I was going to throw that in his face. West might have been a little bit of an asshole, but I was going to have to work with him for at least the next several months, and this tour did bring me benefits, so it was better to just shut up and take the lumps.

“Look, Charlie, I get it. You’re used to handling things on the fly, making decisions in the moment. That’s great when you’re playing small gigs, but now you’re in the big leagues. Everything you do has consequences, and licensing is the name of the game at this level.”

“Okay.”

“You should consider there’s a level of experience you need to get behind you as you start to play in the big leagues. If you were on my label, one of the first things we’d do is sit down and go through all of this stuff with you, so you understood the ramifications of decisions and what your options were in given situations. Your current team, they’re doing their best, but they don’t have the resources you’d get at a major label, and it’s going to end up biting you. Lawyers and managers are essential, but if you really want to take your career to the next level, to become a household name, you need the power of a label behind you.”

I knew a sales pitch when I heard one, and could see where this one was going, and didn’t say anything.

“You know, ‘ve been thinking a lot about our last meeting, and I agree, that contract was harsher than it should have been,” he said, still going by the script he’d come in with, regardless of what I said. “Some of my people, they were trying to earn favor in the wrong ways, thinking if they got just a little more from new artists, the executives would reward them for it. I’ve dealt with that, and I want you to know it won’t happen again.”

Phoenix reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded document.

“I had my team draw up a new contract, one with much better terms for you. A bigger piece of the pie, including merchandise and a direct cut from concert revenue. And we’re not just talking about what you get from us. to show you we’re serious, we’re putting our money where our mouth is and show you what we can do for you. This contract commits GLR to a serious marketing push for your next few projects. We’re all in on making you a star, Charlie.”

He held out the contract. I didn’t move to take it. He’d picked this moment to spring it on me, instead of going through Benny, which is how I knew things were usually done. It all sounded great, but I had no doubt those promises came with a whole lot of caveats and addendums.

I was, however, willing to play the game a little.

“I appreciate the opportunity, Phoenix, I really do. I’d be happy to have my people take a look this over, if you would send that over to Benny directly.”

That was not the answer he was hoping for, and he did a bad job of hiding it. Even with the sour expression, he tried to power through his script.

“You’re a smart guy, Charlie, and normally, that would be the right move. But I’ll tell you, there’s a clock on this. I had to go to the mat with my board to get this deal, since it’s way outside of what we normally give new artists, so it’s not going to be on the table long enough for a bunch of back and forth. If you want this, Charlie, you have to decide now. That’s what separates the bit players from the superstars. The ability to make the big decisions when it counts.”

“You’re right, it is. I understand you went to a lot of effort for this, and I’m grateful. But I can’t sign anything without my lawyer and manager reviewing it first. That’s not me being indecisive, that’s actually my decision.”

Phoenix stared at me for a long moment before tucking the contract back into his pocket and opening the door to the small room he’d pulled us into.

Half way through, he stopped, turned back to me, and said, “I hope you don’t regret this, Charlie. Opportunities like this don’t come around often.”

With that, he left, letting the door slam behind him. I had a feeling this wasn’t the last time he was going to try and push me to sign something.

***

The next day I’d woken up late and just lay there, staring at the ceiling and enjoying the idea that I didn’t actually have to get up. This really was the life. The last time I’d done a full tour, I’d shared a cheap motel with four other people, rotating who was sleeping on the floor, and booking them as tight as possible meaning in between sleepless nights, we’d spend the day driving to the next venue, smashed inside a van with all of our equipment.

We had two more shows at the Hollywood Bowl, which meant there was no need to rush off to the next gig, and the hotel the show had picked was significantly nicer than what I would have paid for out of my own pocket. I would have been happy with something a lot lower down the list, but I wasn’t going to complain either.

It also explained why they’d decided for shows where we didn’t go straight to the next city, they’d fly me home instead of to the wherever the next show was. Even with a two day wait, at the prices this place was costing, it was cheaper to pay for two plane tickets than two to four nights in a hotel plus meals.

That was probably doubly true of our next shows, which were scheduled to start Thursday in Vegas. So I’d get to spend Monday traveling, go to school Tuesday and Wednesday, and then catch a flight to Vegas to do Thursday through Saturday shows. That was a lot of travel, but at least it made the school work a little easier.

I finally pushed myself out of bed and found my phone. I’d sent Warren a text the night before about the whole blackout thing and had asked him to find out what had happened. I’d slept the morning away, which I hoped was enough time for him to find something on it, because I was still having trouble wrapping my head around the idea that someone had just crashed into a light pole and taken out a block’s worth of power.

“Hey Charlie, how’s it going?” he said when I called.

“Good. I wanted to see if you found out what happened last night.”

“Yeah, I managed to get ahold of a friend of the family,” Warren said. “Turns out the guy had a heart attack while driving. That’s what caused the crash.”

“Damn, is he going to be okay?”

“I talked to his sister briefly, and she said they managed to stabilize him, but they’re in a tough spot. He’s going to need to have a stent put in, which means heart surgery, but he got laid off seven months ago, and his carryover insurance lapsed last month, so they don’t have any insurance. It’s pretty bad.”

I know all about being in extreme poverty. Health insurance wasn’t something people at the bottom got to consider, let alone have. Even if you had a job that provided insurance, the premiums were expensive enough that getting it was essentially the same as trying to buy a private plane. It just wasn’t possible.

If this family was in that spot, they probably didn’t have car insurance either, which meant they would have lost their car, making getting a job even harder.

“I feel terrible for them. We had a similar kind of situation when I was little. Dad, of course, didn’t have insurance, and Mom came down with something, they would never tell me what, that put her in the hospital for four days. They fixed her, but we had this huge hospital bill, and Dad had already gone through bankruptcy like two years before, so that wasn’t an option. Only the fact that we didn’t have any property or really anything for them to take when they sued him. Mom finally managed to settle it when we moved to Wellsville, because she needed to clear up her credit enough to get the trailer.”

“I get that,” Warren said. “But there’s not much you can do, Charlie. It’s not your responsibility.”

I didn’t blame him for being uncomfortable by the conversation. He hadn’t grown up in those conditions, so for him, it was sad, but also kind of abstract. He didn’t know these people, so it wasn’t his problem.

“I know I’m not responsible, but still...” I said, trailing off as something popped into my head.

“What?” Warren prompted after I was quiet for a moment.

“I have a wild idea,” I said.

“What?” Warren asked again, a lot more dubious than the last time.

“Right now, I’m still getting a lot of press coverage. You said I have some phone interviews set up next week, right?”

“Yeah, a few.”

“People are bound to ask about the power outage. There’s a chance I could use the situation to help both of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, hear me out. People are going to ask about the power outage in the interviews, right? It’s the kind of thing that makes for a good story.”

“Probably,” Warren agreed.

“So, what if we use that to help this family out? I mean, they’re in a tough spot, and we’ve got an opportunity here. First off, I want to give them what I made from last night’s show that isn’t set aside to go to the band. Every penny of my cut. They need it more than I do right now.”

“That’s really generous, Charlie, but doing this is keeping you from being able to perform elsewhere. You went for quite a while without getting paid, and most of what you made on the show got split, so there isn’t that much of it. You’ve got college coming up next year, and you’re going to need to pay for it. Are you sure?”

“Hear me out,” I said, waving off his concerns. “I was also thinking we could start a donation campaign for them online. You know, through one of those sites like Helping Hands. One of the farmers outside of town did it after a fire took out his barn, and everyone gave like ten dollars, and he was able to get the stuff to build a new one. I’d also like to commit to using a percentage of my part of album sales or streams to match whatever people do that for, I don’t know, a few months. I can bring this all up and announce it when I’m doing the interviews, as a way to induce people to help donate to the campaign. 

“Charlie, this is all really nice, but that’s a huge commitment you’re agreeing to. I get you want to help people out, but maybe you’re overdoing it.

“I’m not. Think about it. News outlets love a feel-good story, right? And the publicity I’m getting off of winning the show and the tour, that will only last for a little bit. Next week, something else will happen and I’ll be yesterday’s news. Sure, more people would have heard my name, but that’s about it. But if I put this with that publicity, I can break out of just music news and break into something bigger. News shows are always looking for stuff to pad out their coverage and this is right up their alley.”

“That’s … actually not a bad idea. If this was a smaller market, it probably wouldn’t work, but an LA story like this tends to get picked up by smaller markets. If we play it right, we can probably get you on radio shows outside of top-forty, and make even some syndicated stuff.”

“During every one, I’ll have to mention the name of the album when I’m talking about giving away a portion of the proceeds, which guarantees it gets in front of more people. Maybe even mention where I’m touring. We couldn’t get that kind of publicity just doing it the normal way. We’ve talked about how to transition what happened on the show and build it to the next level, and how so many people who win these things kind of fade after a few winks and drop into obscurity. The tour helps, but …”

“No, you’re right. It’s not the same. This is a really good idea, actually.”

“And best of all, it actually helps these people out too. It’s a win-win.”

“You know this only works once, right? I appreciate having a big heart, and when you have a label and their money behind you eventually, there’s a way to drive some of their money to helping people. But this isn’t the kind of well you can go to over and over.”

“I know. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and white knight my way around the country. I just thought it might work.”

“It very well might. It’ll be pricey, but if it pays off, you’ll make a lot more money in the long run.”

“Great. Just let me know so I can start talking it up. If we really want to hit hard, I want to mention it on stage tonight or tomorrow night. And I’ll have Kat set up a very hard social media push on it. If you talk to the family and get them to agree to it, I want it to work, but make sure you keep their expectations low. I don’t want to get their hopes up.

“I’ll reach out to the family today and explain the situation. If they’re on board, we can get the campaign set up and start promoting it right away.”

“Perfect. And make sure they know I’m serious about this. I don’t want them thinking it’s just some publicity stunt.” 

“I’ll make it clear,” Warren said.

“Good. I know what it’s like to be in that position, and it sucks. If I can do something to make it a little easier for them, I want to.”

“I’ll take care of it. You know, this might just work.”

***

After the excitement and craziness of the three concerts we played over the weekend, it was strange to be back in school again, sitting behind desks, listening to teachers lecture. While I’d done homework over the weekend and a lot of reading on the plane ride home the day before, as the bell rang and everyone else around me was packing up to run to lunch, I just sat there, staring at my paper, trying to figure out the worksheet we’d been assigned. 

I’d actually thought I’d have a good handle on economics, considering I’d been more in the “real world,” as far as work went, than most of my classmates, but there was a whole section on opportunity, non-monetary opportunity costs, and implicit costs. It felt like I had missed something. Especially since everyone else breezed through the worksheet while I just stared at it, trying to figure out what it was talking about.

I eventually gave up and started packing before I was the only one left in the room. I’d see if any of the guys at lunch knew what to make of this.

I’d almost got everything in my backpack when Ms. Hayes said, “Charlie, do you have a minute?”

“Sure,” I said, shoving the last of my stuff in my backpack and walking over to her desk. “Actually, I wanted to ask about the worksheet away. I’m really confused.”

“I can see that,” she said. “I’ve noticed a decline in the quality of the work you emailed me yesterday morning. Did you have any difficulties understanding the material? Did you watch the class recordings you were sent on Thursday when I covered this material?”

“I did, but I had to space them out. I had a bunch of recordings, and rehearsals, and everything, so I did them whenever I had a chance.”

That was mostly true. Most of them I’d actually watched on the flight at two-times speed. I knew that was my own mistake, taking it too easy in the mornings while I was in LA, but I really did think I understood everything when I finished the videos. It wasn’t until I was in the classes that I ran into trouble. Most of my classes, like English and even math, it was building on stuff I’d already learned, so I’d been able to make it work. It was the classes where I was learning new stuff without a previous foundation that I’d run into problems.

“Honestly, it shows,” Ms. Hayes said, not unkindly. “Both in your work and the questions you have now. It feels like there are some fundamental concepts you didn’t quite grasp. Concepts I know for a fact I covered in my lectures.”

“I really did try and pay attention, go back and watch everything I didn’t fully understand. I thought that was enough. There’s just so much going on.”

“I get that, and we all knew this was going to be a challenge at first. This isn’t like the classes you missed last semester. That, at least, was well into the semester, and you only had to make up when you got back, which means you put school on hold for a week, instead of trying to do it remotely.”

“Yeah, but I committed to being able to do this, and Dr. Wallace made it clear he’d only keep this going as long as I was showing it was working. I don’t want to fall behind, especially not this early.”

“I can respect that, and I wasn’t suggesting we give up. I was more thinking we should look at our approach. I talked to some of your teachers your sophomore year, who told me you struggled when you first came here. They also said you found a tutor and really worked at getting caught up. That’s more what I was thinking. You need more than just support. Treating this like it’s a normal class you’re doing elsewhere, as opposed to a unique situation where you are being pulled in dozens of directions, is a mistake. Can you get the tutor you had back?”

“Maybe. I’ll check.”

“Please do. If that doesn’t work, let me know and we’ll see what we can do, although private tutors can be expensive, and I’m not sure how much that would be in the school’s budget.”

“Sophomore year, I was getting tutoring from other students.”

“Ahh, yeah, that could be a problem. Set tutoring times is one thing, but asking a student to adjust to your schedule might be an issue.”

“I’ll talk to my manager. There’s a chance maybe I could hire someone and write it off or something. At least, it’s worth checking on,” I said.

“Good. Do that. You have a lot of potential, Charlie, and this work is all well within your abilities, but not even the best student can do the level of work needed and focus on everything else they’re given to pay attention to. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness.”

“I would never think it is. I guess I just thought, since it went well last semester, we could just do the same thing. But I guess not.”

“No, probably not. Okay, I know you have lunch, so run to that. Can you come back after school, even for thirty minutes, so we can go over everything you don’t understand?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Thank you, Ms. Hayes.”

“No problem. We’re all rooting for you, Charlie. You just need to let us know when you’re having trouble. Anyway, run along.”

“Okay,” I said, grabbing my bag and heading to the cafeteria. 

It had only been a week since I’d been in the cafeteria for lunch, not even the longest time I’d been away during this school year, yet I still felt a little out of place. Not like everyone was looking at me. A few were, their eyes following me as I made my way to where our lunch table was, but most just ignored me. It’s what I’d wanted just a week ago, but now I felt a little … weird about the whole thing.

Still, I was happy to see my friends again and, thankfully, they were too.

“There he is, the big celebrity!” Cameron exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear, announcing my arrival.

“Shut up, man,” I laughed, taking a seat but returning his smile.

“Charlie, we were just talking about you yesterday,” Amy said. “We all saw you on Saturday’s show. It was wild. I mean, we saw you on your show, but you were on the Late Show, which is freaking huge. How was it? You have to tell us everything.”

“Was Hayden as charming as he is on TV?” Peyton asked.

I shrugged, unwrapping my sandwich. “It was pretty cool, I guess. The band was great to play with. But honestly, Hayden didn’t really talk to me much between segments. Everyone was kind of standoffish.”

“Really?” Lily asked, surprised. “That’s weird. It seemed like you were getting along, based on the stuff he was saying.”

“Yeah, that’s mostly for the cameras. Once it went off, he went back to talking to Olivia. But I mean, do you blame him? She’s a huge and I was on reality TV. We’re in different worlds.”

“I guess that isn’t surprising. It’s Hollywood, after all,” Cameron said. “So how about your show. How was it? The Hollywood Bowl, man. I can’t believe you played there.”

“Now that was incredible,” I confirmed. “It was everything I’d want it to be. The acoustics of that place are insane. You’d love it. It started weird, though. Night one, someone ran their car into a power box or whatever and caused a massive blackout. We ended up pulling out acoustics and doing an unplugged show for a little bit till the power came back on to keep the crowd from rioting.”

“Wow, that’s wild,” Thea said.

“It really was. Oh, and I did a duet with Dakota Rayne.”

“One of your judges?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, her and Dexter had spots in the show right before me.”

“That’s awesome,” Cameron said. “So when’s the tour coming near here so we can go see it.”

“Well, we have stops in Atlanta, Nashville, and DC. Those are probably the closest to us. The rest of the shows are mostly on the west coast, some in Texas, the northwest, and the midwest.”

“Nashville isn’t too far,” Peyton said. “Maybe we could road trip it, come see you play.”

“Really? Yeah, you guys should totally come. I could try to score you some passes. Get you backstage and everything. They give each performer a few, and it’s not like I know anyone in the other cities.”

“We could be your entourage, hit up all the wild after-parties with you,” Jake said.

“I’m not sure there’s much in the way of parties. I pretty much went from hotel, to venue, to hotel, again and again.”

“Sucks,” Jake said, looking crestfallen. “I thought being a rock star was all about the partying and living it up.”

I just shrugged. Most of my friends knew I didn’t drink, but still, I didn’t want to seem like a stick in the mud, saying I wouldn’t have gone to anything anyway.

 “Well, it would still be cool to see you perform,” Jake said.

The conversation lulled for a moment, and I took a bite of my sandwich.

“Did you guys hear about Emilia Wilson and Daniel Clement?” Peyton said, changing the topic.

“No, what happened?” Lily asked.

“They hooked up at Savannah Mae’s party last weekend.”

“I thought Daniel was dating Lanney Prescott,” Amy said.

“So did Lanny,” Peyton said.

I kind of sat back and just listened. I didn’t actually know who either Emilia or Daniel was, and I think I’d met Lanney once. None were seniors, and I didn’t have any classes with them. Eventually, as they switched off to some kind of thing going on with the football team, I started to tune it out, getting lost in thought.

Last semester, I had started to feel strangely separate from everyone, but now it was even worse. I almost felt like an outsider, and I didn’t love it after fighting so hard to get a friend group like this.

Okay, so I did like having everyone gush over me and the cool stuff I was doing, but that only lasted for a little bit. It was cool, but it wasn’t really part of their lives, and they had stuff they dealt with every day that was more important. Rightfully so.

Still, it was a little unsettling, feeling like I was losing what I was, and becoming something new. Something I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be.