Dissonance - Chapter 11

It was after midnight when we finally got back to Hanna’s aunt’s house after the show. I’d spent enough late nights with my dad over the years to know this was what our schedule was going to be like; extremely late nights followed by sleeping until noon. Although we’d have to travel some days, none of the cities we were appearing in were more than five hours apart and we didn’t normally have to start setting up till five or six most nights, since we wouldn’t go on until eight or nine. My sleep schedule was going to be ruined by the end of the summer when we had to go back to being at school at seven-thirty every morning, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

This was our second to last night in Raleigh, although after the gig in Durham, we’d have to get up and drive to Virginia the next morning, so this was the last day we’d actually get to spend time with Hanna’s aunt and Sam. The rest of the tour, at least until we had the break in the middle to go back home and do some shows around Ashville, would be spent in very cheap motels and eating fast food, so I was enjoying this last day in a real home.

Durham was very similar to Raleigh, except it seemed a lot more industrial. We passed several factories on the way in and there was even a noticeably tall smokestack in one area, about as tall as the water tower not far from it. Maybe my impression of it being industrial was because there were a lot of two and three-story rectangular brick buildings on the way in and the streets seemed smaller somehow.

As we got close to Duke, things got nicer, although it still had a different feel to Raleigh. There were a lot more trees, for starters. It also seemed like a lot of the clubs and restaurants frequented by the students weren’t right next to the campus. They were further down, around main street, which was only two lanes instead of six like the main drag in Raleigh. A lot of the old brick buildings had been renovated into restaurants, clubs, and businesses, giving everything an almost quaint feeling. It’s being only two lanes also made it feel very small, while still feeling like a big city, probably because these two-lane roads with businesses on either side seemed to go on forever.

What they didn’t have a lot of was parking! This meant we had to have Kat sit in the driver’s seat while we unloaded. She was ready to move the van in case a cop showed up, since we were double-parked in front of the club. The city must have had good bus service, because I couldn’t imagine where anyone who wanted to come out to one of the several clubs I could see from where I was standing would park.

The club itself was also a lot tighter than other clubs we’d played at, except maybe the Blue Ridge. There wasn’t really any kind of backstage or curtain. We got set up right in front of the crowd, which really reminded me of the Blue Ridge, except this place only had a bar and didn’t do food. There was a door next to the stage that led to a thin set of stairs leading down to the basement, which the club used as a kind of storage room.

It also meant we were going to have to leave our instruments on stage, since carrying them up and down these thin stairs, especially Seth’s keyboards, would be treacherous. We decided to set everything up now, just as the people were starting to come in, and either Kat or Hanna would sit next to the stage to watch everything, while the rest of us relaxed and got into the headspace to start the gig.

Kat and Seth had parked the van in a lot almost two blocks away, which meant it would be a pain to retrieve it and get everything packed up and out at the end of the night, since we had to carry it through the crowd or wait until the bar closed to break down, but I guess not every place we played would have a back door and loading area.

I could hear the noise from above as it got late and the club started to fill up. We actually had to go back up the same set of stairs and back out to the street, and then in through a fire door when it was time to play, which also seemed really strange, and had us pressing through the crowd to get to the stage.

When we got there, Kat was sitting on the edge of the stage, talking to a girl who looked vaguely familiar. She occasionally looked around, making sure no one was messing with our instruments, which is when she noticed us and hopped off, and pulled the girl she was talking to into the crowd.

In spite of the strange start, the show itself went well. The crowd was really responsive and the floor stayed packed the whole time, although that might just have been an illusion because of how the club was set up. It was hard to tell the area in front of the stage where people were listening and dancing, from areas further back where people were just hanging out or lined up next to the bar getting drinks.

We’d redone the lineup again, making adjustments from the previous show where we weren’t getting much response, and it seemed to help. When this tour was over, I needed to start thinking about more high-energy songs, to counter the slower, more melodic stuff. Marco made another push to get his song in, but it still wasn’t ready and he wasn’t open to hearing critiques or changes that he needed to make for the song to work.

That was something else we were going to have to deal with when we finished the tour. It was starting to be a point of conflict between Marco and the rest of the group. Even he and Seth, who’d known each other the longest, had started to argue about it, since the conversation around Marco’s song kept happening again and again, but was the same every single time. I could understand why he was upset, since everyone else had contributed something to the band’s lineup, but we all listened to the input of others and made adjustments, and he took offense every time changes were suggested, even when a professional like Rowan was the one making it.

Dealing with it, though, was going to be difficult, since I knew him well enough to know that he would take even talking to him about why there was friction or his refusal to take criticism as criticism, and get defensive. My best bet was to talk to Seth and see if he could convince Marco to cool off, since they were closer than the rest of us. I wasn’t sure where to go from there, if that didn’t work, since besides his little side comments and general pouting every time his song got turned down, he was a pretty good guy and really added something to the band.

The show ended well and the floor in front of the stage stayed full the entire time. Again, that could have been an illusion, since this venue was almost too small for us and the last one had been much too big, making the contrast even starker, but the energy from the crowd was good enough that I was happy when we finally made it off stage.

As with the last show, Marco and Seth were in charge of getting everything back in the van, which they’d have to go get and find parking near the side door to the club, while Lyla and I made our way to the small table where we were selling merch in the back. Lyla headed back while I stayed with our stuff until she could send Kat to swap out with me, since the open nature of the club meant we couldn’t just leave our stuff unattended on the stage.

Kat came bouncing through the crowd, full of energy, which made me smile. It was great to see her in such a good mood. She’d been slowly coming out of her shell with more people outside of our friend group the longer she was away from her father and living with Hanna, and that process had accelerated once we got on the road.

“Everything okay?” I asked when she jumped up on the edge of the stage, kicking her feet like a little kid.

“Yeah. Hanna’s psyched. Stuff is selling really well. A lot better than the last place and everyone seemed to really like the show.”

“Good. I thought the vibe felt a little better, but it’s hard to know from up here, especially with how small this place is. Well, I’ll go back and help her. Marco and Seth already went to get the van, so you shouldn’t have to wait long.”

I was already taking a step towards the crowd and the back wall where the merch table was set up when Kat grabbed my arm and said, “Hanna needs you to grab something from the storeroom place first.”

“What?” I asked.

She’d had us unload several boxes there before the show that she and Kat were going to bring up while we played, but I thought she left most of it back at her aunt’s house, since there was no way we were selling everything this early in the tour. I hadn’t really been paying attention, since I was always in my head before a show, but there hadn’t been that many boxes.

“I don’t know; a box of something. She said you’ll see it. It’s right when you get down the stairs.”

“Okay,” I said and diverted to the side door.

Thankfully, the light switch to the basement room was at the top of the stairs, so I didn’t have to climb down in the dark, although I did have to basically watch my shoes the whole time to keep from missing the narrow steps and crashing to the concrete below. When I looked up, there was a girl in just her underwear sitting on a stool in the middle of the room. Oddly, I actually knew her or at least recognized her. She’d been one of the people to stop by the merch table after the previous show.

“Uhh …. Hello,” I said, stopping in surprise as soon as I saw her.

“You took your sweet time getting down here. It’s a little chilly.”

It wasn’t hard to work out what happened and why she was down here, and I looked up the stairs, although I knew the real culprit behind this wasn’t actually there.

“I think there might be some confusion here,” I said, not sure how to tell this girl she was a pawn in someone else’s scheme.

“No confusion,” she said, getting off the chair seductively and stalking towards me, one leg stepping in front of the other how I imagined a runway model might walk. “I could feel the connection between us the last time, and your friend said you’d felt it too.”

I was backed against the stairs, so I couldn’t exactly back away from her as she reached me and put her hands on my shoulders. As she leaned in to kiss me, I grabbed her around the waist and spun the both of us, so she was by the stairs and I had room to back up, which I did, putting enough space between us so that her hands dropped off my shoulders.

“Y’ name’s Holly, right?” I asked, remembering it from the other night.

“Yes?” She said, finally picking up that something was off and things weren’t going how she probably expected them to go.

“How old are you?”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“You’re in college, right?” I asked.

I wasn’t sure, but this club was for twenty-one and up and the last one was eighteen plus, which pretty much ruled out the possibility that she was my age or even in high school.

“Yes. I go to UNC.”

“I thought so. I think you should know I’m sixteen and still in high school.”

“What?” this time she said it more in shock than confusion.

I didn’t think I looked like someone in college, but people had their own preconceived notions, and probably just being up on stage was enough to make people guess I was older and assume I just had a baby face.

“Look, I’m really sorry. The girl who sent you down here, there’s a history between her and me and she’s been doing this lately. I’m really sorry.”

“I feel like an idiot,” she said, scrambling around to pick up her clothes.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing her as she tried to rush up the stairs, carrying her clothes and still in her underwear. “You should get dressed first. You don’t want to go running out in the street like that.”

I think it just dawned on her how she was dressed, because she suddenly tried to cover herself, even though I’d clearly already seen everything there was to see.

Turning my back, I said, “You shouldn’t feel stupid. You had no way of knowing. There’s a lot going on here that you couldn’t know about. It’s really complicated. I’m really flattered, and if I was older and this wasn’t a whole thing, I’d be into it, because you’re really attractive.”

“Uhh … thanks,” she said hesitantly.

I turned around as she was pulling her shirt down over her head. She already had her skirt back on, although it was still half unzipped on one side.

“Do you want to come back up and hang out with us? We’re just working the merch table, but the rest of the guys are pretty cool and I think you would all get along.”

“I couldn’t. I’d be too embarrassed.”

“Yeah, I get that, but I promise I won’t tell anyone about this. They’ll just think you’re a new friend, which you are. If you go home now, you’re just going to think about how you feel right now, and it will pop up in your memory that way for the rest of your life. Or, you could hang out with us for a little bit and make new memories, then this becomes a funny story about something dumb that happened one time between friends. I don’t know about you, but I know which one I’d prefer.”

“Are you sure?” she said, as she finished putting the last of her clothes on.

“I am. Although it wasn’t the kind of connection my friend told you it was, I do remember our conversation after the last show, and I remember thinking you seemed pretty cool. I can’t think of a reason we wouldn’t want you to hang out with us.”

“Okay. I’ll stay. Thanks for being so cool about this.”

“If you heard about some of the dumb ass stuff I’ve done, you probably wouldn’t want to hang out with us. Come on.”

She followed me up the stairs and through the side door, where the club was still packed. We’d stopped well before last call, so people were still drinking and dancing to the music being piped in over the speaker. I stayed away from the stage, where Seth and Marco were loading up stuff to carry to the van and made my way to the merch table.

“Hey guys, I want you to meet my friend Holly. She’s going to hang out with us for a while if that’s okay?”

“Sure,” Hanna said.

“Ohh, she’s pretty,” Lyla said, looking her up and down.

“You know what,” I said, taking Holly by the shoulders and maneuvering her to the other side of me so I was between Lyla and her. “I don’t think you’re ready for Lyla.”

“Hey!” Lyla said, punching me lightly on the shoulder.

She knew I was joking, and I was mostly, although Lyla could be a bit much for the unprepared.

“This is my friend Hanna. She’s actually the one who came up with and arranged all our merch and is kind of our manager, aside from being my best friend. Holly goes to UNC.”

“Really?” Hanna asked. “I’m starting there in the fall.”

“Ohh, you’re going to like it,” Holly said.

“Hey,” I said to Holly before they got too far into the conversation. “I have to run deal with something real quick and make sure everything gets loaded in the van. I promise I’ll be back and I won’t be gone for long.”

“I’ll look after her,” Hanna said.

Although she still seemed a little bewildered, she was smiling as I stepped back to let Hanna pepper her with questions about what it was like living on the campus. Lyla was already busy talking to someone else who was looking at one of the shirts, so I slipped back around the table and made my way to the stage where Kat was still sitting as a human guard dog.

She grinned at me as I walked up, only to stop grinning as she noticed the look on my face.

“I think you should go back home,” I said, trying to keep my anger in check.

“I thought …” she started to say, tears welling up in her eyes.

“No. You didn’t think,” I said, the ‘no’ loud enough that a few people near us turned around to see what the commotion was. “I told you the last time that you had to stop doing this. You need to let me handle finding my own women. I don’t need your help and, more importantly, I don’t want your help. You’re the smartest person I know, so how can you not understand that?”

“But. You two got along so well.”

“Except, she’s in college and I’m in high school, and she didn’t know I had no idea she was down there. I’m not looking to just hook up with a girl I don’t know. Did you even stop to think that she has feelings too? Did you think about how she would react when I said no? You, of all people, should realize what it’s like to have other people treat you like that.”

“I just …”

I didn’t actually expect an answer from her. She hadn’t thought it through because she wasn’t thinking. That’s what made this frustrating. I knew she wasn’t being malicious. It’s also what made this harder to fix than if she had some kind of specific agenda.

“No,” I said, holding her shoulders as she started to shake, trying to keep from breaking down. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to yell at you, I’m just really frustrated. We’re going in circles, and we need to figure this out. I’m still committed to helping you get better, but I can’t be your friend if you don’t respect my boundaries.”

“I’m trying.”

“Kat, you aren’t, otherwise you would have listened to me at the club. So I need you to hear me out. No more finding me dates. No more setting me up with women. No more doing anything that involves romance, or dating, or anything like that. If you have an idea that involves me and a third person, I want you to talk to me about it, before you do anything.”

“Okay,” she said, looking away.

“No,” I said, grabbing her chin and making her look at me. “This isn’t a suggestion. It’s an order. Anything like that, you have to talk to me about it first. First!”

“Okay,” she said again.

“And when you do your next online therapy session, you need to tell your therapist about this. Both the thing with the girl downstairs and the thing at the club the other night. This is something you need to work on.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. If our friendship is going to survive, you have to get this under control.”

“Okay,” she said a third time.

I really hoped this was the last time we had to go through this. We still had a few weeks to go until we got back home, and I was serious when I said I didn’t know if our friendship could take much more of her meddling.