From the Top - Chapter 34

Tuesday was the airing of the first episode of The Stage. They would have three more episodes that week with auditions from different cities, but Warren had called the producers and found out when my particular part was airing. I wasn’t sure if being on the first day was a good thing or not. On one hand, we’d be the first ones people saw, and maybe they’d remember us and judge everyone else against us.

On the other hand, maybe by the end of the four episodes scheduled this week, including one on Thanksgiving itself, they would have forgotten about us by the time the audition episodes were done, and next week I’d show up on screen and the audience would be like, ‘Who’s that?’

Not that I had any say in the placement I got. Hanna was still at school and wasn’t going to make it to my viewing party. I’d truly hoped she would because this was a big moment for me, but I know how easy it is to get wrapped up in your own thing. Besides, I’d had enough drama she’d been with me through over the last three years that missing one was going to be inevitable.

Mrs. Phillips didn’t take it well. We managed to talk her down off the fence from calling Hanna, but she was still a little pissed as we pulled into the Blue Ridge. The big sign by the highway said, “Closed for Private Event/Viewing Party for Charlie Nelson’s Stage Audition.” Since I’d helped get that sign changed once, I knew what a massive pain in the butt it was, which is why most of the time, it always said the same thing, no matter how current or out of date.

While I knew Chef probably sent Vinney to go do it, it still meant a lot that he’d go through that effort for me, or at least have Vinney go through that effort for him for me.

“Oh wow, he really went all out decorating!” Kat exclaimed as we pulled up.

She was right, there were colored lights strung up along the porch railing, a red carpet rolled out to the front door, and even an actual spotlight placed right at the entrance. She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. I swear she was more excited for this than I was.

The inside was even more decked out than the exterior. Vinney had moved most of the tables to the edges of the room and covered them with red tablecloths, upon which sat an assortment of party foods and drinks. In the cleared middle space were rows of chairs facing the big TV on the wall, currently playing music videos. As Kat and I walked through the door, a huge cheer went up from the crowd gathered inside. I had a huge grin on my face.

“You kids go have fun. I’m going to go talk to Ronni,” she said, pointing at one of her friends who’d come out, along with a lot of the rest of the local community beyond just my friends.

The place was packed, in fact, more so than on music nights. I would have been worried that the fire marshal was going to shut us down, except I saw him by the bar talking to Sheriff Gibbs. I was surprised to see the sheriff since we hadn’t spoken since Mom’s funeral, after Sydney dumped me.

There were other faces, more friendly ones, too. The entire lunch group, including the guys who went to college, were back and had come out. Kat and I walked over to them, and Jordan Hains, my other ex-girlfriend’s sister, jumped out of her chair and gave me a huge hug.

“Charlie, oh my gosh! It’s so good to see you!”

I laughed, returning the enthusiastic hug. “Great to see you too, Jordan. How’s school going?”

“Great! My nutrition classes, well class since I have a bunch of pre-reqs to get out of the way, are really interesting. The campus is huge though. It took me weeks to figure out how to get around.”

“Man, I have the opposite problem. RISD is tiny. It’s actually smaller than Carr, if you can believe it,” Megan said.

Peyton punched her lightly in the arm and said, “That’s what you get for going to an art college.”

Megan just shrugged. I mean, what else was she going to say? It was a pretty small field.

“Kat’s rooming with Hanna,” I said. “And killing it on the swim team.”

“Yeah, she’s been emailing all of us,” Laura said. “Where is Hanna? I thought she’d be here.”

I hadn’t realized Kat was emailing back and forth with everyone. She’d only joined the friend group late in my sophomore year after she’d finally broken from Aaron and his crew and started facing her condition. It was good to know she’d kept in touch with them. Especially since I was terrible at staying in touch.

I also noted they hadn’t seemed to have been talking to Hanna, who was completely lost in her relationship with Professor Cross. I hadn’t talked to her since I left for the competition.

“She had schoolwork. She plans on coming tomorrow or Thursday,” I said, sticking to Hanna’s cover story.

Kat made a face but otherwise didn’t say anything.

“Speaking of Kat emailing. What’s up with you? You don’t call. You don’t write. What, you become a TV star and get too big for us?” Megan asked, nudging me with an elbow.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I mean, this whole thing has been crazy, but yeah, it’s my fault. I could have done better.”

Kat slipped her arm around my waist. “I think you can forgive him this once. His life has been kind of crazy.”

“Says the girl he calls every night,” Jordan said.

It was then that I wondered just how in detail Kat had been getting about things with them.

Before I could find out just how much they knew, Chef hopped up on the stage and started tapping the microphone to get everyone’s attention.

“I just wanted to say a few words about our guest of honor tonight,” he said. “I’ve known this kid for a few years now. When he first walked into my restaurant, he was just a scrawny fifteen-year-old looking for an after-school job.”

A chuckle rose from the people who knew me when I’d moved to town. In my head, I didn’t think I looked that different, but looking back at pictures from when I cleaned up Mom’s trailer, he was right. The end of that first summer here, before I’d made friends and really started anything, I was so thin. It was kind of shocking to see how malnourished I was. Looking at a recent picture of me, I wouldn’t even really know it was the same person. I’d put on weight, picked up an additional almost three inches in height, and put on a ton of muscle. I was very much a different person, physically, from who I’d been when I first walked into the Blue Ridge.

“Jennifer,” he continued, pointing over to Mrs. Phillips, “sent him my way for a job, and I gotta tell you, I liked Charlie from that first meeting. Smart as a whip, eager, and just a really solid foundation. And that’s before I ever heard him play a note. I’d like to take credit for that discovery, but that goes to Willie. Like so many other things, Willie could see right to the heart of things, and saw greatness in Charlie from minute one. He told me, two days after he heard Charlie play for the first time, that he was going to do something big. He told me to do whatever I had to do to back Charlie, ‘cause one day we’d all be looking at his name up on a billboard saying ‘I knew him when.’ It might be the best advice Willie ever gave me.”

Chef fell silent for a moment, and I knew he was thinking about Willie. I was thinking about what Willie had said to him. I’d never heard that story. Chef had always backed me, and I knew it was because he liked me and saw something in me, but I didn’t know it was Willie who’d given him that first push. Yet another thing I owed Willie that I’d never be able to repay.

“So here we are, a few years later, and this kid is about to be seen by millions on national TV. He’s out here living the dream. And I gotta say, I’m incredibly proud of him. I know we all are.”

Chef looked at me, and I put my hand on my heart to let him know how much that meant to me. He just gave me a little nod and went back to the microphone.

“Now, it looks like the show’s about to start. If you need anything, Vinny’s up by the bar and the guys are back in the kitchen ready to make whatever we need. Otherwise, let’s see Charlie kick some ass.”

Chef walked off the stage, and the lights dimmed as the show’s opening theme song began playing on the large TV. I was suddenly nervous, my stomach doing a little float, which was wild, because I knew how this was going to turn out. I hadn’t thought it would bother me, I mean, I’m up on stage in front of people all the time. Everyone in this room had seen me perform lots of times, so why would this make me nervous? And yet, it did.

The intro finished, and Dexter popped up to explain the contest and the stakes in an over-the-top fashion, like he had other seasons I’d watched. I knew they rotated some of the judges, but every one I’d seen had Dexter in it, and he’d always acted as a host. I hadn’t thought about it before, during the contest, but I wondered what their contracts were like, and if maybe Dexter’s production company was part of the show, explaining why he was always the host. He hadn’t been big in a while, so if he had managed that, it was smart. The show got huge ratings, so it would be a good way to keep going even later on into your career.

Atlanta was first, and after some sweeping shots of the contestants backstage, the first few were up. We weren’t inside the audition rooms, so I didn’t have any clue how these went, well, except Marissa. I hadn’t known she auditioned with me and Cole, but there she was. She’d done a straight country song, which made sense, and got ‘yeses’ from all four judges.

They kept to their winning formula for the audition episodes of about fifty-fifty, equal parts good singers who made it through and terrible ones. After a few more singers, they went back to the crowd shots, showing contestants talking, most nervous and just trying to distract themselves.

“There he is!” Joseph yelled out when I appeared on camera.

A chorus of cheers rose up from my friends. This was so bizarre, like an out-of-body experience watching myself on TV. I was talking to Amber, and she was telling me how she was definitely going to win the whole thing. I hadn’t remembered the conversation being so awkward, but I guess it had been because the producers decided to use it. Or maybe it was because of what happened next.

They showed Amber’s audition and the absolute tantrum she threw on the way out. The conversation I’d had with Cole must have not been that interesting, though, because they didn’t show that, even though there had definitely been a camera pointed at us the whole time. I did see him behind me when Amber was talking to me, though.

Then came my audition. I shifted self-consciously as my on-screen self launched into “Supposed to Be.” It was all I could do to keep from cringing. To my ear, I made a ton of mistakes. I could hear every time I rushed a verse or didn’t hit a note quite right. Everyone else was clapping and shouting at the TV, so it must not have been that bad, but I felt a little like I wanted to crawl into a hole.

Everyone quieted down as they listened to the judges talk about my song, how much they enjoyed it, and giving me my four ‘yeses,’ sending me on to Hollywood and the next stage. As soon as they finished, The Blue Ridge exploded in deafening cheers and applause. I kind of gave a bashful wave as Kat gave me a push and several people behind me patted me on the back.

After the commercial break, they moved on to the Denver auditions. I couldn’t help but notice Cole got left out of the auditions, and hoped that didn’t mean he’d get cut out of a lot of the show altogether. Thinking back to other seasons I’d watched, they tended to focus on the people who made it through to the semi-finals, along with anyone who had really faltered along the way. If they had thirty people every year, then there were a lot of people who didn’t get screen time at all in other seasons, which would really hurt his ability to capitalize on the whole thing.

Although Peyton and a few others who were big fans of the show moved closer to the screens to watch the rest of this set of auditions, most of the people had come to cheer me on, and now that my section was done, started milling around, talking.

As the last set of auditions ended, the whole thing basically became a party. Everyone was eating, drinking, and having a good time. Everyone had really nice things to say about my performance, and a whole lot of questions about what happened next, once we got to Hollywood, that I couldn’t answer.

All in all, it was a good night.

***

I was woken up by two voices shouting at each other, although at first, it was hazy and dim, and I wasn’t sure who was yelling at whom. The party had gone pretty late, since most of us had the week off, so I didn’t get to bed until well after one.

Looking at my phone, I realized it was barely seven. At first, I thought it was Kat and Mrs. Phillips, since it was two women’s voices, until I realized I was hearing Hanna. She must have just gotten home, because she definitely wasn’t home when we got back from The Blue Ridge. It was a good drive back, though, and she would have had to have left incredibly early to be here before eight.

Pulling on a shirt and shorts, I crept out of my room and to the top of the stairs to see what was going on. I wasn’t one to interfere with a mother and her daughter arguing, but the volume was loud enough that it was hardly private at this point.

“...out of your mind?” Mrs. Phillips was saying.

“It’s none of your business who I date, Mom! I’m an adult, I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“It is my business when my daughter is sneaking around with her college professor!” Mrs. Phillips said accusingly. “Do you have any idea how inappropriate that is?”

“It’s not like that. Horace loves me, I love him. Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

“Happy? You’re barely an adult, Hanna, and he’s more than twice your age! He’s taking advantage of you.”

“I may be barely an adult, but I’m still an adult and I can decide who I date.”

“Clearly you can’t, or you wouldn’t be dating him. I can’t even imagine why you’d want to be with someone like that. It’s not just that it’s unethical, or that it could get you kicked out of school, or that it’s incredibly predatory. Isn’t he married? What kind of life can you have with a man you know for a fact would cheat on you?”

“Don’t you dare judge him! You don’t know anything about him, or his life. He cares about me in a way no one else does. He makes me feel loved, supported, respected…”

“Respected?! If he respected you, he wouldn’t date you while he was still married to his wife. He doesn’t respect you, he uses you. You’re nothing but a cheap whore to him.”

That was over the line. I knew Mrs. Phillips, and knew it was in the heat of the moment, but I winced as soon as she said the words.

“Don’t call me that!” Hanna shrieked. “You’re just bitter because no man would want you after Dad. It’s not my fault you’re dried up.”

I heard the sound of palm hitting flesh. I don’t know if Mrs. Phillips slapped Hanna, or the other way around, but this had gone too far. I didn’t want to get in the middle of a family argument, but once people started getting hit, things had gone too far.

I was halfway down the stairs when Hanna shouted, “FUCK YOU! You can’t stop me from seeing him. I’m going back to someone who actually cares about me. I hate you.”

She stormed out, glaring at me as she passed.

“If you go back there, then I hope he has a room for you, because you’re never coming back here again.”

“Fine,” Hanna screamed, slamming the door behind her.

I rounded the bottom of the stairwell to see Mrs. Phillips in the doorway to the living room, her fists in balls, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Mrs. Phillips said, shaking her head. “I was just so angry. I’m worried for her, Charlie. This man is going to ruin her life and she refuses to see it.”

“I know. But she has to figure it out in her own time, when she’s ready. Nothing we say will change her mind until then.”

“I just want what’s best for her, what will make her happy. But this... this can only end in disaster.”

I took her by the arm and led her back into the living room, sitting her down on the couch. I’d seen the two of them go at it before, but never like this. And not in a million years did I think she’d ever hit Hanna. Part of me wanted to just tell her it was okay, Hanna would snap out of this like she did with Troy, but I think the situation was worse than she knew.

“So, I know you’re worried, but... we might have a bigger problem,” I said, sitting next to her. “I probably shouldn’t say anything because it was told to me in confidence, well, and Kat in confidence before that, but Kat mentioned some things to me about this guy.”

“Like what?”

“Like, he’s telling her he wants to leave his wife for her, but she’s sick, and he couldn’t do that to her. He told her she’s only got a year left to live, and then they’ll be free to be together officially.”

“You’re kidding me?” she said, more as a statement than a question. “They’ve made entire movies around people using that line, it’s so common. How can she fall for that? I bet he’s told every college girl he’s slept with the same thing... and you know there’s been others.”

“Probably. I think... Hanna’s desperate to find a man to love her. It’s how Aaron almost talked his way into being with her before he... before all that stuff happened. It’s how Troy happened, and it’s happening now. She’s ready to believe any man that tells her what she wants to hear. It’s my fault. She’d sworn off dating, and I talked her into going out with Marcus. While that worked out, it wasn’t ever going to last, and it kind of opened the floodgates.”

“It’s not your fault. She wasn’t going to be single the rest of her life. I wouldn’t have wanted that for her, anyway. I don’t know, maybe it’s because her father died when she was so little, she really wants some kind of male figure in her life. If anything, it’s my fault. She clearly didn’t get what she needed as a girl, a male role model or whatever, and it’s coming back to hurt her now.”

“There’s enough people messed up by stepfathers that just having a new male figure in her life might not have been the answer to everything. I mean, maybe it would have fixed this but created new problems. Who knows,” I said.

“But... where do I go from here? I want her back, but I also don’t want her to date that creep.”

“I know, but I’m not sure we can stop it. All we’d end up doing is chasing her to him, and cutting off the only support system she has. We’d make her a bigger target for him than she is now. Him and guys like him.”

Mrs. Phillips exhaled wearily, dropping her face into her hands. “I shouldn’t have hit her. I was just so angry...”

“Hey, it’s okay. You both said things you didn’t mean. You can’t take it back, but you can make up for it.”

“How?” she said, lifting her head back up.

“I don’t know. I think maybe by not approving of him, but not yelling at her about it either. If she brings him up, we can tell her we don’t want to talk about it, but other than that, we leave it alone.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Then she’s going to keep running. It’s like with Troy, she’ll have to figure out she was wrong on her own. We don’t have to endorse it or accept it, we just have to not push her away because of it.”

“This is so much worse than Troy but... maybe. I should go get her, apologize for slapping her. I don’t want her thinking I’ve abandoned her over this,” she said, standing up.

“Wait,” I said, motioning for her to sit back down. “Given how things ended, it might be better to give her some space first. Emotions are still running high.”

“It’s Thanksgiving. We should all be together. Am I supposed to just leave her there with him?”

“No, definitely not,” I assured her. “But let me and Kat try talking to her first. She’s more likely to hear us out, well, more likely to hear Kat out, but I want to go too. We’ll explain how worried you are and that you want her home. I think we may have to negotiate a truce between the two of you over him, but I think that’s for the best. For both of you.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Which would you rather, a truce or not to see her again until this blows up, and leave it so when it does, she doesn’t feel like she can come back home?”

She was quiet for a long time, thinking about that. I didn’t know how far Hanna was willing to take this, but Hanna was one of the most stubborn people I’d ever known. If pushed, she’d do things to hurt herself just to keep from being proven wrong.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Thank you.”

“I’ll go get Kat. She’ll have maybe a thirty-minute head start on us. Hopefully, she’ll go to her dorm and not... somewhere else.”

“Do you think she’ll go to him?” Mrs. Phillips asked, I think realizing she might go straight to Professor Crosses instead.

“It’s Thanksgiving, and I think he might even have kids, so I’m not sure that’s an option.”

“I... I hadn’t thought about that.”

“I don’t know if Hanna has either. We’ll find her though. I promise,” I said, getting up and heading to the stairs.

Kat was maybe the heaviest sleeper I had ever seen. When we’d been on that first tour, all staying in one hotel, she’d slept like a rock while everyone else tossed and turned, so there was a chance even with all the yelling, I’d still have to wake her up. It meant we’d probably end up an hour behind Hanna once we all got going.

I just hoped I was right, and she’d end up back at her dorm.

“Charlie,” Mrs. Phillips called after me when I was halfway up the stairs. “Bring my baby back home. Please.”