From the Top (Country Roads #5) - Chapter 1

“Morning,” I said, sitting down at the dining table across from Kat.

She was an early riser and usually beat me downstairs in the morning. This had, more or less, been our pattern since school had gotten out and everything had settled down. I wasn’t all that busy, but Kat’s schedule was packed, so this was basically the only time I got to see her all day. Knowing she was heading to college in a few months, I wanted to get every moment we could together, even if it was just morning small talk.

I knew she felt the same way too.

“How’d you sleep?” she said, shutting off her phone and setting it to the side.

“Good. Had breakfast?”

“I already ate. I got up early and ate some cereal,” she said, and then paused for a second, as if she was considering if she should continue or not. “You were making some noise this morning. Another bad night?”

“I guess.”

I’d been having on and off bad dreams for weeks now. So far, I’d kept them to myself, only really talking to Kat about them. After months of drama, I just wanted everything to get back to some semblance of normalcy. The last thing I wanted was to have to start explaining to everyone that I was spending most nights reliving my parents’ deaths. Of all the people in my life, I knew Kat would get that. She was concerned still, but she never pried.

“So, any word on tour dates yet?” she asked, instead of digging deeper.

“Nothing yet,” I said. “Warren’s been making calls, checking with venues he knows and whatever, but so far, we haven’t booked anything outside of the Blue Ridge. It’s a little frustrating. I mean, we did basically the same thing when we were with MAC, and he was always able to find something, but now he calls the same people he would have called then, and nothing.”

“Do you think maybe Warren isn’t up to it?” Kat asked.

“I think so. It’s not like his contacts dried up or anything. I think, or at least hope, that this is just growing pains. Figuring out how to do this without a label behind him. It’s only been a couple of weeks since he started doing this independently for us, so we need to give him time.”

“Okay,” she said.

I knew she wasn’t doubting him, but she’d been with me every step of this journey and had seen all the ups and downs. While I was being positive, at least out loud, she wasn’t asking anything I hadn’t thought.

“You know, if you need to, you can stay here in July, focus on your music,” she continued, looking down at the table, drawing small figure eights with her fingertip. “This is more important than my trials.”

“The hell it is,” I scoffed. “You’re so close to making the Olympic team. This is huge, and way bigger than me playing in some dank basement bar for fifty people. Millions will be watching you swim. No, I told Warren that week is off limits and I can’t do any shows or anything because I’ll be in Indianapolis with you. Besides, he said he had something to talk to us about at practice, so maybe we’re going to have some progress on that front. Worse comes to worst, he can set up some gigs in Indianapolis for us, right?”

“Ohh,” she said, looking almost embarrassed. “Thanks, Charlie, it really means a lot. I just didn’t want you to put any of your stuff on hold because of me.”

“That’s your anxiety talking. I can work around one week and not have it mess up my career and still support you in yours. You’re crazy if you think I’m going to miss you making the national team.”

“Well, I mean, I am kind of …”

“Kat!” I said, stopping her there.

I knew she sometimes poked fun at her condition, but I hated when she talked herself down.

“I know,” she said.

“Speaking of that, how’s everything going with Dr. Rothstein? With how crazy the last few months have been, we haven’t had a lot of time to talk about it.”

“It’s going really well, actually,” she said, her apologetic tone gone as she looked up from the table. “We’re making really good progress.”

“Really? That’s great. Does he have any idea, if it’s going well, how long you’ll have to stay under treatment?”

“I mean, forever, I think. It’s not a broken arm or something like that. You can’t just fix it. What I can do is learn to deal with it, recognize my triggers and stay away from those, and recognize when my anxiety is getting out of control. Best case, I can lose the anxiety meds and just deal with everything by controlling my own situation. It’s why he has me pushing my boundaries so much. He says if I can recognize when it’s my condition telling me to give in or not stand up for myself, I can then ignore it, or at least work around it.”

“And that’s been going okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t get as much chance to practice outside of our role playing in therapy, at least, not since school let out, but hopefully I’ll get to travel with you to some shows and get more chances. And I can just keep telling you no and seeing how that goes.”

“You’ve gotten really good at that last part,” I said with a laugh.

She actually had. When we’d first made our strange agreement, she’d never been able to say no to me. Now, even when I really pushed her, worded something like a direct command, she was still able to say no. If she was able to do that everywhere, then she really was making great progress.

She just shrugged, but she couldn’t hide the pleased look that crept onto her face.

“I’m really proud of you, Kat. You’ve made so much progress since two years ago. There are times you’re almost like a different person.”

“Not different,” she said. “I think more like who I’m supposed to be. This is the real me.”

“Well I, for one, like the real you,” I said, reaching across the table and putting my hand on hers.

“Thanks, Charlie,” she said, giving a shy smile before pulling her hand away. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I think back to how things were, when I was with Aaron, and I don’t even recognize myself. You’re the only reason I got out of that, and started getting help. Really, I can never repay you for it.”

“I got a best friend out of it, so I think I did okay in the deal.”

She rewarded me with one of her rare, beaming smiles. They were less rare these days, as she slowly came more and more out of her shell, but it still felt special every time I got it.

The conversation turned lighter after that as I grabbed some breakfast. I really did love these quiet mornings together before Kat took off for her training. Mrs. Philips was out of town for some real estate thing, which meant I had the house to myself all day, so I spent the rest of the morning working on music. I’d started thinking through a new song just after Mom’s funeral, I think as a way to help work out my feelings, but things had been so crazy, it had lived only in my head until a few days ago, when I’d started putting some music to the words flowing around my brain.

It was still too early to show it to anyone, and a little too raw to me personally, but I also couldn’t stop either. Sometimes it happened like that, I’d get a song in my head, and I couldn’t stop until I got it out on paper.

After the end of the lunch rush at the Blue Ridge, I headed over to start setting up. That was the one downside of playing there over dedicated clubs. Because the stage was just up in front of everything, we had to have our stuff set up before the dinner rush started, which meant it was hours between checking the sound and when we actually started to play. We hadn’t had a lot of problems, but a few times something had come unplugged in between, causing chaos at the start of our set.

I let the afternoon get away from me a little bit and was the last one there. Seth had already checked over his drum kit, which we just left from Friday afternoon through Sunday nights unless we had a gig in between, and Lyla had already hooked her bass up and checked everything. We’d played here enough times that getting set up had become almost mechanical, although we’d still go through a few songs beforehand. If anything, it was good to keep the habit up, even if it was always the same.

“Hey, guys,” I said, setting down my case and starting to pull out my guitar. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re good,” Lyla said. “We’ve still got time to go through a few before they open up for the early dinner people. Did you get the message from Warren?”

“About wanting to have a meeting after our warm-up,” I said. “Yeah. Is he here?”

“Not yet. Let’s go ahead and get started. I don’t know how long he needs, and I have to run home and get dinner started for Tabitha.”

“Sure,” I said, hopping up on stage and plugging my guitar in.

It was weird to hear Lyla, of all people, talking about needing to go home and prepare dinner for her significant other. Lyla, our wild child, who had a new playmate after every show and hit on any girl within a fifty-foot radius, was not only no longer hitting on other girls but was rushing home to make sure she had dinner on the table when her girlfriend got home from work. Things certainly had changed.

Our actual practice went well. We’d played the Blue Ridge a lot of times by now, and we had our rotating set list well worked out. It hadn’t even taken us long to work Marco’s keyboards out of the music and adapt to being a more standard three-piece band. We even managed to finish our sound checks at almost the same time every day. It was clockwork enough that Warren walked through the door as I finished the last note.

“Ready for tonight?” Warren asked, I think more feeling like he should say something than any actual concern that we might not be prepared for our show.

“Yeah. We should be good.”

“Good,” he said. “Can we find a place to talk?”

“Sure. Let’s go around back.”

“Is this going to take long?” Lyla asked.

“She has a hot date,” Seth said, getting a punch in the arm that sounded really solid.

He was still rubbing it as he walked through the kitchen and out the back door. She may have been domesticated, but she wasn’t tame.

“You should’ve known better,” I said.

“Man, I always forget to wait until I’m out of arm’s length.”

“I’ve seen you run,” Lyla said. “You’re never out of arm’s length.”

We all laughed. It had been just about a year since we’d formed up, but we’d really gelled. Even Seth, who’d spent most of that first year making explanations for Marco and his tantrums. I’d say we were now more like family than just bandmates, except I never had siblings, so I didn’t really know if that comparison worked. We got along well, though, and spent as much time just hanging out and socializing as we did playing these days. Although that might have had more to do with not having anything new to play at practice. All of our main songs were well-rehearsed at this point and didn’t need much work or focus, so practice had become as much social time as actual rehearsal.

“Now that things have settled down a bit, I thought it would be a good time for us to talk about what our plans are, moving forward,” Warren said as we went out the back door and into the rear area of the restaurant where I spent so many hours training with Chef.

“So, I know Charlie got us all pumped, ready to hit the ground running, once he decided to make this go at it. That’s great, but I think we need to talk about what that means.”

“I was hoping it would mean we start booking some shows. Maybe not a whole tour like last summer, but at least one here or there,” I said.

“I know, and ultimately, that is what it’s going to mean, but I think we also need to all be realistic on what our options are. A lot of the shows you had before were the venue taking a shot on a more or less unknown act because they wanted to stay in the label’s good graces when it came time to book the bigger acts. We don’t have that muscle anymore, and it’s going to mean some closed doors.”

“What about the ones we’ve played for?” Seth asked. “We had good-sized shows and they went well. That should mean something.”

“And it does, but only to a degree. Even though MAC didn’t put that much money into marketing your performances, regardless of what they claimed on the balance sheets, the venues still believe they did. They also got you on drive-time radio promoting the show, which again, the venues are going to credit at least partially with your performances. You also had a record with actual distribution behind it, adding more legitimacy, which is important for these places. They want their crowds to believe they can book the real thing and keep coming in even when they have the smaller names. That isn’t to say they won’t touch you without the label, but they are going to pause and re-evaluate. What we need to do is show you can be a draw even without the label.”

“How do we do that, exactly?” I asked.

“Same way we did it when you were still with MAC. Show them you can fill a venue, slowly step up the size of where you play, using each to get the next. Walk the show sizes up. What you need to be prepared for, and what all my warnings were about, was that you’re going to basically start that climb all over again. You can’t trust the venues to use any of your previous successes to decide if you should get stage time or not. That being said, it should go faster than last time. You have a track record with many of these places, so they just need some reassurance.”

“We’re not going to try for any of the larger places we played at last year?” Lyla asked. “I mean, we can at least try, right?”

“I am going to reach out to them, but I want to set realistic expectations. It’s very unlikely you’re getting any of those. Once we get some buzz going regionally, we can start expanding again. And we’ll keep trying for everything we can, because you never know, but you need to keep your heads in the game. Stay focused on what we know we can get and knock those shows out of the park. That’s how we get things kicked off again.”

“What about the album?” I asked. “You mentioned having distribution being part of it.”

“It is, and that’s another piece I’m going to work on. Since the record’s already cut and you have the masters, it’s just not one you’re going to see or hear a lot about until after we make some headway. I’ll keep you updated, but there won’t be much to tell you until we at least get some meetings set. Of course, as with anything else, having an active tour schedule would help, so that has to remain the focus.”

“Starting all over, though. Man, that sucks,” Seth said. “We’ve done all this work. Played big open venues. Played the massive New Year’s show in front of a hundred thousand people. Right back to where Marco and I were before meeting Charlie.”

To Seth’s credit, while he was clearly upset, he stayed calm even when complaining. Marco would have probably smashed through the door or kicked a puppy if he’d found out this news. The problem was, Warren’s description made sense, based on everything I’d experienced so far. No one in the industry cared for what you did yesterday. It was always ‘what have you done for me today.’ I was starting to really build something, and MAC had been willing to throw it all away the first time we hit a bump. It made sense everyone else in the industry was the same way.

“I get it, man. It’s frustrating to start over,” I said, “but being mad about it isn’t going to change anything. We all knew trying to keep going after losing the contract was going to be hard. Maybe we didn’t think it would be this hard, but we knew something like this was coming. We did it once. We can do it again. We just have to grind a little bit. On the bright side, at least we don’t have to start just playing covers. We have a lot more time together and the start of a catalog to play from this time. We also already have some fans, people who want to listen to us and don’t care what a record label thinks about us, which will also help us get back to the bigger places quicker.”

“Exactly,” Warren said. “I’m not trying to say this is long term. I just wanted to make you all aware of what is happening.”

“Okay,” I said, “consider us informed. We’ll try not to bitch too much about where you book us to play.”

“Good,” Warren said with a chuckle. “I guess I better get to work on it then.”