From the Top - Chapter 37

The hoopla didn’t die down, although I didn’t know if that was because this was more lasting, or that the show aired three nights a week during the first month of its run as it got through the auditions and all the prelims.

Tuesday’s episode featured parts of the interview I’d done with them, although mine was more truncated, I guess because they had to spread it over three weeks, while people like Candi—this was their only week on the show—so they could use up as much as they wanted.

It also had a lot of stuff from the cast house that week, including that first night of partying where Candi hit on me. The reactions around school Wednesday were mixed. Some people were just fanning out over me being on TV. Others, mostly guys, were calling me an idiot for not taking Candi up on her offer. And just about everyone was mocking me for being a nerd, since so many of the shots showing everyone partying had me in the background somewhere, doing homework.

Although I didn’t particularly want to see myself on TV, I’d begrudgingly watched the episode at home to get a feeling for how they were showing me. While it was mostly neutral or positive, I did notice it felt like the party was over maybe several nights or the shows that week also happened over a week, instead of being shoved into a short three days. Which made it a little more reasonable for people to get the impression I’d blown off so much stuff to study, when in reality I was working with a very limited time window.

Wednesday night I’d promised Chef I’d go to the Blue Ridge again for another showing. The last time his place had been packed and his sales had been through the roof, especially stuff from the bar. While I’d had just about all the public attention I could stomach, I couldn’t begrudge him the business, so I drove myself up to the Blue Ridge that night.

Kat and Hanna were still at school and Mrs. Phillips was at work, so for tonight it was just me. The place was packed, with cars filling every spot and spilling out onto the grass. Chef had set up several large TVs outside, and a huge open-sided tent set up nearby with rows of chairs underneath. There was a spot near the front, where someone had put a bucket and taped a piece of paper with my name to it, which was thoughtful, although it didn’t help with my weird feelings toward all the special treatment I was getting.

As I got out of my car, a cheer went up from the crowd gathered under the tent in front of the TVs. I grinned and waved. It was nice how supportive everyone was being, which was maybe one upside of very low-level fame. I wasn’t big enough to be reaching that ‘hometown boy made good’ status, but not so big that people felt like they needed to knock me down a peg or two.

Making my way inside, I saw that the restaurant was overflowing as well. Every booth and table was occupied, some hosting more people than they were designed for. Another cheer went up, but at least this time there wasn’t going to be a speech or anything. Waitresses were running food, and Vinny was behind the bar looking absolutely swamped. I hoped Chef was giving everyone a bonus for tonight because they were working their butts off.

I pushed my way through the crowd, getting smiles and waves from familiar faces along the way, until I reached the kitchen entrance. I pushed through the double doors to find Chef directing the controlled chaos within, standing at the stove, holding a pan with a piece of fish in it.

“Chef, it’s a madhouse out there!” I said. “And what’s with the tent?”

Chef nodded, not taking his eyes off the sizzling pans in front of him. “The fire marshal said we had too many people last week, and warned me not to do it again, and I was getting more calls this week about if we were doing it again. I didn’t want to turn people away, so I thought, ‘Tent.’”

I leaned against a prep table, out of the way of the guys running here and there. “It feels like half the town showed up tonight. There’s what, three or four hundred people out there. Do you have enough food to feed all these people?”

“Almost five hundred, actually, which is like, I don’t know, a fifth of the town? Math was never my thing. And yeah, I put in a big order with my supplier last week. I’m glad I went overboard because I was sweating it when it all showed up Tuesday morning. You should see the walk-in.”

“I’m glad you’re getting all this business, but I feel bad for my thing making you guys have to work hard.”

“Pickup,” he yelled, sliding the fish he’d been cooking onto a plate and pouring sauce over it, and then placing it on the wire rack he used for ready orders. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been getting calls from booking agents too, wanting their bands to play here.”

“You talked to Warren, then?” I said, leaning back to dodge out of the way as Tommy came past with a steaming pot of something.

“Yeah. I didn’t really expect it to come through this fast. I only talked to him this weekend. I just wanted to give you a heads up for this weekend, since I’m giving them Willie’s old spot after you.”

“What about Dwight?” I asked.

“He said they are good to play when I need them, but he and the rest of the guys were actually kind of looking for an out. They were about ready to hang it up when Willie stopped, but didn’t want to leave me hanging.”

“See, communication works,” I pointed out.

“Whatever,” he said, smiling at my gentle jab. “Anyway, I wanted to give you a heads up because on nights you’re here, Willie’s slot is great, but if you’re not here and we don’t book anything...”

“Chef, please don’t hold nights open for me. That’s crazy. If you don’t have anyone go up until eleven, you’re going to get like five people in here. I really do want to keep playing here every weekend I can, both because I love it and for Lyla and Seth, but I’ll make sure we give you a heads up about our schedule. I’ll try, at bare minimum, to let you know a month ahead of time, if not more. Like, we know I’m out of town for filming over Christmas, so fill those slots. Okay?”

“Okay. Good,” he said, seeming very relieved.

“Were you worried about talking to me about that?”

“Honestly, a little. We wouldn’t have anyone if you hadn’t gotten Warren to help us out, and I know he’s been kind of using your name, saying this is the venue you got a start at. That might not mean a lot for big bands or venues, but local people? You’ve played enough clubs and now you’re on ‘The Stage’, people are mentioning it when they talk to me.”

“Chef, I don’t know how many times I need to say this. I owe you for everything. I want this to work for you, and I want you to have all the success you can. Even with this, I still owe you.”

“Okay. I mean, if it was just for me, I’d be fine, but the drink sales and stuff really go up on music nights, and I think Vinny and the rest would miss the extra cash.”

I hadn’t realized he was giving a cut of what he made on those nights to the staff, but it fit with everything I knew about him. It really did back up his saying he didn’t really care, though. I was pretty sure he and Warren had worked out a more standard session pay for the musicians, but the band was taking half the night’s take. If he was then splitting the rest with the staff, that didn’t really leave much for him to take home.

“Good. I feel bad enough about abandoning you guys or letting all of the stuff we’ve set up over the last couple of years fall apart. People around here are starved for entertainment on the weekends, and I know the kids at school love it, since it’s as close to going to a club as many of them are going to get. Besides, Vinny and the rest have done almost as much for me as you have. I owe them too.”

“Well, they all thank you,” Chef said.

“My feet don’t thank you,” Tommy said, rushing past.

He was grinning, so I knew he was just messing with me. I hadn’t worked in Chef’s kitchens long, but I had learned quickly that bitching was the kitchen staff’s number one pastime, regardless if they meant anything they complained about or not.

“Shut it,” Chef said to the line cook, smiling back at him.

I hadn’t been back here during a rush in over a year, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. Not so much that I wanted to come back to it, since I did remember how back-breaking it could be, but there was a kind of camaraderie here that I really had enjoyed.

“Okay, your show’s coming on in a second and I have a ton of orders to finish. We’re not doing a big hoopla this time until the end, when I’m sure they’re all going to have questions about it. So go find a place in the back and take a break for a little bit until it’s over.”

He shooed me out of the kitchen and went right back to yelling at everyone as I made my way to the bar, so I could sit out of the way and watch all of the people watch the show, since the last thing I wanted to do was actually watch myself up there. I slid into an empty barstool just as someone slid onto the stool next to me. I turned to see Sydney grinning at me.

“Hey,” she said cheerfully. “Hating all this?”

We’d hung out a couple of times since mutually deciding to try being friends again. It had gone pretty well overall, although there were still some awkward moments. It was enough, though, that it didn’t feel weird for her to come over and chat, like it would have before we started talking again.

We hadn’t talked much since things went crazy at school, but she knew me well enough to know how much I’d hate that kind of attention.

“It’s been... weird,” I admitted. “The attention, I guess I could get used to, but seeing myself on TV is still just too weird.”

“I bet!” Sydney laughed. “From what I’ve seen so far, though, you’re coming across great. Very charming and talented. And your audition was amazing!”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat a little at the praise. “I’m glad people seem to be liking it so far.”

The chatter in the packed restaurant lowered to a hush as the show’s theme song started playing from the TVs spaced around the room. I glanced up to see a shot of the exterior of the large house they put all the contestants in.

“Ooh, it’s starting!” Sydney whispered excitedly. She swiveled her stool so we were both facing the same direction, our attention focused on the screen.

Since they’d gotten a lot of the house drama out the night before, tonight’s show was all about performances, although according to the brief clip for the “coming up this week” section, they were splitting us into two groups, I guess because there were so many of us. I assumed half of us would be shown tonight and the other half on Thursday, with the judging held off until Friday night’s episode.

They finished the intro stuff and there we were, in the living room as the producer explained that week’s competition and everyone getting their assignments. I was a little surprised they didn’t show any of us pulling our instructions, until they shifted to the first contestant.

It seemed like they’d decided to do each contestant one by one, showing them get their assignment, meet their mentor, and then their performance, instead of interspersing each one. First up was Dillon, who I’d remembered being okay, but with editing, he came out a lot better. One of the rougher parts I remember was missing.

Candi, on the other hand, seemed to show things only going bad. They showed her hungover in the morning, struggling with her mentor, and then stayed on the judges’ faces a lot every time she screwed up, showing their reactions. I hadn’t realized when we filmed it how little that actually was. Seeing Dillon and Candi, it was so obvious that how they edited you was so much more important than how you actually did. Some of the parts of Candi screwing up I remembered as not being as bad as they presented them in the show, but out of context and maybe even a little audio adjustment, they made her into a complete clown.

I may have had no love lost for her, but they really did Candi dirty. If that was me, I’d be incredibly pissed. They were going to make it impossible for her to book gigs if anyone remembered this episode. It showed how much the way the show was presented could change how your performance was received, and the performer had no control over it. I didn’t know if they could make a good performance look bad, but they could make a mediocre performance look good and a bad performance look terrible.

It was a little scary, really.

“That was rough. I feel kind of bad for her,” Sydney said when Candi’s section ended.

“It wasn’t great on the day, but a lot of that was the show’s editors, because it wasn’t that bad. They really made her look terrible.”

Sydney looked at me with an open-mouthed expression. I didn’t blame her; until seeing what they did to Candi, I thought most of these shows were more or less what happened. Yeah, they might not show you everything, but what they showed you was what happened. It was eye-opening.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, reading her mind.

She just shook her head and was about to say something when I popped up on the screen.

“Hey, there you are,” she said, excited.

Sure enough, they had a shot of me being called up and pulling Bluegrass out of the box.

“That’s not so bad. You’ve played some bluegrass stuff before, right?”

“Dabbled, but yeah, I got lucky. There are a lot of other styles that would have absolutely torpedoed me.”

The scene switched to me arriving at a sprawling mansion and walking up to the front door, looking really uncomfortable. Everyone watching probably thought that was from nerves or something, not knowing there had been a producer in the car grilling me the whole way to JoDee’s mansion.

When JoDee Blanchard flung open the door and enthusiastically greeted me, the crowd around me went wild. I heard whoops and hollers from the tents outside as well. She wasn’t from North Carolina, but she was from Nashville, which was closer to us than Raleigh, so she was pretty beloved in this part of the country.

“Aww, she seems like she was so much fun!” Sydney said as they showed some of me and JoDee’s interactions.

“She really was. I know they tell you not to meet your heroes, but she’s quite possibly the nicest person I’ve ever met. She one-hundred percent lives up to the hype.”

The video package continued, showing snippets of JoDee and I working together over the course of the day. She was animated and high-energy as she coached me through learning the banjo parts. I was a bit stiff and nervous at first but gradually seemed to relax and get into the groove.

Then it came time for my performance. They showed a little bit of my interview video, more than they had for some of the others, really focusing in on the whole dead parent thing. Not awesome, but I knew it was coming.

And then the video stopped, and the camera swooped down to me on stage, mostly in shadow. Although everyone had been watching, they’d also been talking and eating and having a good time, but now it fell quiet enough I could hear the guys in the kitchen talking.

As the lights came up, the camera panned across the judges’ faces, then zoomed in on me as I launched into the wicked fast banjo intro. I’m not going to lie... I did absolutely kill it. I don’t know if I was ever as on as I was that night, but I really hit it out of the park. Normally I cringe at my singing, but I loved the way my voice sounded with the banjo.

I wasn’t the only one. The crowd around me was eating it up too. It wasn’t until I hit the big finale that the people around me finally woke up again, breaking into raucous applause and cheers. I smiled sheepishly. I might have been proud of what I just did, but having everyone turn around to look at me and cheer me on to my face was a little more than I could deal with.

“Charlie, that was amazing!” Sydney said when it finished. “I had no idea you could play the banjo like that... just wow!”

“Thanks.”

“No, seriously. That performance was incredible. You’re going to win this whole thing.”

“It’s too early to tell, and there’s still really talented people. But I’m glad you liked it.”

She nudged my shoulder playfully. “Oh come on, don’t be modest. You were fantastic up there! Everyone here knows it too, look around.”

I looked around the restaurant, and sure enough, people were still cheering and applauding. A few raised their glasses to me in salutes of congratulations. It was incredibly humbling.

Luckily, Chef chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen. He climbed onto the stage and whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention.

“Alright, alright, settle down folks,” he called out with a smile. “I think we can all agree, our boy Charlie did us proud tonight!”

Another cheer rose up. I gave a small wave of acknowledgment.

“Now Charlie’s got some big competitions ahead of him, but he’ll always have a place to play right here at the Blue Ridge!” Chef declared. More applause.

“So let’s give another round of applause for Charlie and wish him the best of luck!”

The crowd erupted into deafening cheers and applause once more. I stood up and raised my hands, mouthing ‘Thank you!’ to the room.

I was a little embarrassed and didn’t want to come off as egotistical or whatever, but this was the kind of fame I could handle. A crowd cheering, even a small one like this, was a little more faceless and not as personal.

And it felt good.