Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 36

We got back to the beach house, but all three of us were too keyed up to go to sleep. This was pretty much the last day of our trip, since the next day would mostly be spent driving home. We had to go clear across the state, and I wanted to be back in time to play my Sunday set at the Blue Ridge, since I’d missed the previous Sunday and this Friday and Saturday.

I knew Willie didn’t mind covering for me a little longer, skipping Sunday along with the rest would mean one more day the rest of the band didn’t get to play. While it would mean less money for me to give Mom, I didn’t really need the money, at least not in the same way they did. They were all trying to make an actual living doing this and had rent and things to pay. Sure, we’d picked up a good amount of money at the festival, but it wasn’t ‘take the week off’ kind of money, and they’d had to spring for gas and a hotel room on top of everything else.

With stops, it was going to take us six or seven hours to get home and I’d agreed to a short practice beforehand, since we’d had to skip Saturday. I’d mostly worked out the beginning brush strokes for Jesse James, the new song I’d been working on, and I wanted to run it by them. I knew I veered a bit more country than they did in my music tastes, so I figured they’d try to pull it further to rock, which was kind of what I was looking for.

I’d been thinking over the changes we’d made to my songs and to Seth’s song, and I was starting to see some patterns building that, long term, would help define us as a band if we made a go of this thing. Between my country/rock combo, Marco’s pop, Seth’s rock, and Lyla’s alt/grunge rock, we’d actually started to blend our own sound that kind of made a combination of the whole lot. If I had to call it anything, it was a rock/pop fusion, since what country sounds we had kept getting turned more pop, leaving only a trace of its country roots.

The fact that I’d started to figure out who we were as a band was why I wanted to get back for the practice. I was honestly interested to find out what they were going to do to the country sound of Jesse James.

When we got to the house, the girls had gone to their rooms to take off their makeup and get changed into comfortable clothing, while I went out onto the back porch one last time, since I didn’t really have anything more comfortable than the t-shirts and jeans I was already wearing. I’d found I really enjoyed sitting out here, smelling the sea air and thinking.

Although I spent my youth living in an RV in state parks, I hadn’t actually done much sitting outside. If I wasn’t doing something active, like playing baseball, I’d just be back in the RV. Even when we moved to Wellsville, which was a pretty quiet mountain community, I hadn’t really spent much time just outside. I was either in school, playing ball, or in some other building. When I got back, I planned to find time to just sit outside at night when it was quiet and see if it was the quiet or the sea air that I was really enjoying.

Either way, I wanted one last night out on the pouch before we had to go back, sitting on the swinging bench that I really liked. The only downside of sitting out here at night was that the temperature had dropped. We were heading into spring, but the last cold of the year hadn’t cleared all the way yet and a chilly breeze was coming off the Atlantic.

I must have been shivering when Hanna came outside, because she stuck her head through the back door and hollered to Kat, “Bring a blanket when you come out. Charlie’s cold.”

She’d been more sensible than me, wearing a hoodie, thick sweat pants, and furry slippers on her feet. She actually looked really cozy and part of me thought it was unfair that guys didn’t get to dress all comfortably like that. Of course, we also didn’t have to wear high heels, so maybe it balanced out.

Hanna took one of the rocking chairs that kind of faced the rocking swing and sat down.

“You should have gotten a coat at least,” she admonished me.

“It’s not that cold,” I said not being that believable.

Kat came out dressed about like Hanna was and carrying a big fluffy blanket. Sitting right up next to me, she tucked her legs under her, threw the blanket over both of us, and leaned into me, putting her head on my shoulder. Between the blanket and our body warmth, I quickly warmed up and stopped shivering.

“Last night,” Kat said almost wistfully.

“Yeah. I take it everyone had fun this weekend?” Hanna asked.

“Absolutely. It was so relaxing, getting to forget about all of the problems and stuff going on back home and just hang out. Thanks so much for inviting us.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Kat said. “Tonight was fun too, even though Charlie likes to pretend he doesn’t like to dance.”

“I don’t. I feel like a fool every time.”

“You don’t look like a fool,” Hanna said. “You’ve been doing all that martial arts stuff with Chef, learning to control your body. I’m surprised you haven’t worked out how to translate that into dancing. I bet if you really watched people and thought about it, you’d be pretty good. You’re just too self-conscious, all up in your head like you get when you start worrying.”

“I guess, but they’re pretty different.”

“Still, if you just let yourself go, I think you’d have fun. Besides, you got to play tonight, and we all know that makes it a good night for you.”

“It does. Plus, I’ve got two new songs brewing, which puts me at eight songs. Nine if Lyla comes through with the one she said she’s been working on. Two or three more and we’re ready for the audition.”

“Good,” Hanna said. “Well, you two hang out a bit longer, but I’ve got to go to bed, since we’re leaving by eight and I’m doing most of the driving.”

Hanna had a thing where she didn’t really like other people driving her car. It was a long drive and she’d agreed, tentatively at least, to let one of us drive for a bit, but I half suspected that was just to get us to shut up and she planned to do all of it, herself.

“Night,” Kat said, not opening her eyes.

Hanna went inside and Kat and I just sat in silence, listening to the ocean crashing ashore down at the beach. A strong wind blew in and Kat tried to snuggle up closer into me, but my arm was in the way. She tugged on it a few times before I finally lifted it and put my arm around her so she could push into my side a little more. She sighed and I swore if she were a cat she’d be purring.

“You’re not going to play all twelve songs at your audition are you?” Kat asked, not opening her eyes.

“I don’t think so. We aren’t just playing for him. He’s going to come to one of our performances. So we’ll be playing whatever set we put together for that night, but I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear any covers. We play about an hour to an hour and a half and even with a break that means, like, fifteen to twenty songs, depending on how much stage patter I do and which songs we pick. I don’t think we’ll have that many, but I’m also not sure how many he’ll stay and listen to, since he’s probably a busy guy and he hears a lot of unknown bands play. Mr. French said we should also pay attention to the lineup, because it’s not just about how good individual songs are, but how the experience makes us feel. Like, we don’t want to go from a goofy story song into something deep and sad, since the audience wouldn’t really feel what we want them to with the second song. He said he’d have Rowan, his producer friend, to come down and help us come up with a setlist though.”

“That’s nice of him. So what are these two new songs?”

“The first one is what I was thinking of when I said it was goofy. It’s a story song about someone on a train robbery with Jesse James. It’s the first thing I’ve written that didn’t directly relate to me and I don’t really know about it. I’m actually happy with the lyrics and the music for it, but it doesn’t have the emotional depth Seth’s song or my other songs have.”

“Is it fun?”

“I think so.”

“Then keep it. You can’t have everything be all deep and serious, can you? Like, if you’re going for emotional depth, wouldn’t you burn out the listener a little bit?”

“Huh,” I said, tilting my head and thinking about it. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“See, I’m useful to have around.”

“Sometimes,” I said, and then jumped back as she poked me in the ribs. “Sorry, I meant to say always.”

“That’s better. What about the other one?”

“It’s still got a long way to go, but I’m going to call it Tomorrow’s Lullaby.I thought about it the other day watching the water roll in and out. Originally it’d be about how time rolls in and out like the waves, but I’ve kind of explored the idea from there. It’s going to be more about doing the things we should do tomorrow, today, instead of waiting. I know as a premise, it’s kind of hacky, but that doesn’t make it a bad idea.”

“Do you have the tune or words for it?”

“A little. I’ve got part of the first verse and most of the chorus.”

“Could you sing it for me?”

“It’s a little late to bring my guitar out.”

“No. Just sing it. I know you think you’re best at the guitar, but I love your voice. It’s soothing. Sing a little to me.”

“Okay. Umm … this is kind of what I have for the chorus,” I said, taking a second to get what I wanted into my head.

The morning is a promise that’s not always kept

Like the tide gone back to sea,

Like a tear that’s left unwept.

Tomorrow’s lullaby is the lie we always tell ourselves

The dream we’ll have the morning,

The hope we’ve had our last farewell.

“That’s kind of sad,” Kat said, lifting her head and looking up at me. “Why are so many of your songs sad?”

“I don’t think they’re all sad. Country Roads ends on a happy note.”

“Yeah, but like a sad happy note and everything before the last verse is sad. I’ll give you the song about breaking up with Rhonda, but the thing about your growing up backstage with your dad is sad. If I didn’t know Cherished to Death was about Aaron, I might sympathize with the kid you’re talking about and feel sad. And then there’s this one. It’s all about losing stuff.”

She had a point, except for Country Roads they were all basically about facing loss. Even Jesse James, involved the narrator talking about losing his friend Jesse, who died to protect him.

“I don’t know. When I first started writing, Mr. French talked about writing stuff that fills the audience with emotion, and the only way that happens is about tapping into something I find moving when I’m writing.”

“That makes it sound like the only thing you feel is loss, but that doesn’t really match with how you are.”

“It’s not; at least I don’t think it is. I think I’m happy more than sad most of the time.”

“You should try writing about happy things sometimes. People don’t want to just be bummed out all the time. It’s like with that other song. You have to give people a variety of emotions to feel if you want to really connect. Unless you’re planning on only being popular with the emo kids.”

Once again, she had a point. I didn’t want to ditch any of the songs I’d already started working on, ’cause I liked them all, but I did need to find a way to make some more up-beat stuff if we really wanted to make a go of this.

“You’re right,” I said, looking down into her eyes. “How’d you get so smart?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” she said.

Our eyes locked and I started to find myself getting lost in her eyes, noticing specks of green scattered across the deep pools of brown. She started to lean up, her lips getting close to mine. When her eyelids started to drop as she closed her eyes, the spell broke and I straightened up, pulling my face away from hers.

“Sorry,” I said, looking away.

“Don’t say sorry,” she said, annoyed. “I wanted you to kiss me.”

“I know, but we can’t. We’ve talked about it.”

“You’ve talked about it. I know you’re in charge, but I’m not an invalid. I know what I want, and what I want is this. You’re not taking advantage of me.”

“I know,” I said, looking back at her but still leaning back. “It’s not about me taking advantage of you or not. I know you want to, and honestly, so do I.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because everything Dr. Rothstein said and everything I’ve found when looking up how to deal with your condition says we shouldn’t, at least not before you’ve gotten help. This is treatable, but only if we do it the right way. You’re doing so much better, but only because you’re using me as a crutch. One day, after you’ve gotten treatment, if we’re still both available, then there’s nothing I’d want more than to date you. But I care enough about you to want you to get that treatment first.”

“You keep saying that, but you don’t know. You don’t know if I’ll get worse. I think it’s just an excuse.”

What’s amazing was, she was getting better as long as she had me for a crutch, especially since she got out from under her father’s control. Two months ago she would never have been able to confront me like this, and now she was fuming mad at me. Of course, pointing it out wouldn’t help.

“I can see why you think that, and all I can say is that I’m sorry.”

“Whatever,” Kat said, pulling the blanket off us and storming inside.

I hadn’t realized how much I liked Kat until that moment, and now she was pissed at me. I guess maybe that was better than her trying to win me over time and again. Of course, it was possible this would push her away from me and she’d end up on her own, vulnerable again. She had Hanna now, which was a good place to start, but it made me sad that I liked her enough to throw away any chance of us getting together in the future, after she’d recovered some, to make sure that recovery actually happened.

Sometimes, not being an asshole sucked.

The ride back to Asheville was tense. Hanna clearly felt it, because she kept giving me looks, but thankfully she didn’t actually ask me what had happened. Kat talked to Hanna and I stayed mostly quiet, sleeping in the back seat or just staring out the window.

Even though we didn’t stop for more than bathroom breaks and a very quick fast-food meal, it still took us longer than we thought to get back and we didn’t pull into Hanna’s driveway until almost three. I called ahead and told the guys to set up and I’d be running late, and they all understood. I was driving myself, since Hanna wanted to wash clothes and go to sleep early, since she’d been awake for the whole time and we had school in the morning. I didn’t ask Kat about going, since this was the first time she’d been openly angry at me and I didn’t want her to think I was downplaying it, since this was a big step.

I did need to get something clear before I went home to get my car.

“Stop,” I said as Kat followed Hanna inside.

Both of them stopped, although Kat didn’t turn to look at me, just freezing in place. Hanna did turn with an expression somewhere between concern and confusion.

“Hanna, I need to talk to Kat for a few minutes.”

She nodded and went inside. I knew she still didn’t really understand how things were between Kat and me, but she did at least respect it, since it seemed to be working.

“What?”

“It’s okay that you’re angry at me, but I want to make sure we both know where we still stand. Do you want to end our deal?”

“No,” she said angrily. “You’re still in charge. I’m just mad at you.”

“Okay. That’s all I needed to know. You don’t have to talk to me but I’ll still see you for the drive to school tomorrow. Okay?”

“Fine,” she said. “Are we done?”

“Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She stormed inside and I crossed the creek, thankfully that it hadn’t rained in a while so the banks were solid, since I was carrying my duffle bag and my guitar, and didn’t have time to do more than change into clean clothes and get out the door.”

“Where’s Hanna,” Seth asked as I came hurrying up to the stage to start practice.

“We left the beach this morning and she did all the driving, so she was kind of beat.”

“Ahh, I get it,” he said.

I found it interesting that he’d been the one to ask about her, since thinking about it, he always found a reason to talk to her about something every time we all got together.

“I’m still riding on a high from Thursday,” Marco said.

“Get this. We went to a club last night and there was this band playing, and they recognized us from the festival. They asked me to go up and play one of the covers we did with them.”

“Really?” Seth said. “That’s cool. People are starting to recognize us.”

“Don’t count your chickens too fast, speedy,” Lyla said. “It wasn’t that big of an audience and a small regional band is kind of a self-selected audience to recognize us. Let’s get excited when someone recognizes us getting on a plane or in another city.”

“It’s still cool,” Seth said.

Lyla, as crazy as she was, was also the biggest realist in the group. Every time someone started talking about ‘when we get big’ she was the one to dump cold water on the idea. It was one of the things I appreciated most about her.

“It is. Since we’re running late, let’s just practice our set, but I’m going to send y’all some new music to look at for next week.”

“Damn man, do you ever stop?” Marco said.

“Can’t help it. Stuff just pops into my head. That being said, my friend, Kat, brought up a good point. Everything I write is kind of sad. She said she thought we needed to have some more upbeat stuff if we didn’t want to end up being one of those bands that is constantly bumming everyone out.”

“She’s got a point,” Seth said. “Your stuff can be a bit melancholy.”

“Look at the big words on Seth,” Marco said, teasing him.

“He’s not wrong,” I said. “I don’t know why, but once she pointed it out, I went over everything I’ve written and no matter if it’s one of the slow songs or the harder stuff, it’s all generally either sad, or negative, or both.”

“That doesn’t make it bad,” Marco pointed out.

“No, I think they’re good. I just think that we might want to get more upbeat fun stuff into our lineup before we have to audition. He’s only going to listen to a few songs at most, so we want to mix it up and show him we have range.”

“I might have a fix for us,” Lyla said. “I’ve been trying to perfect it before I showed y’all, but I have a song that isn’t about anything sad.”

“What’s it called?” I asked.

“Have a One Night Stand,” she said with a straight face.

“You’re joking?”

“No. It’s a good name.”

“You did say you wanted something a lot different than what we’re currently doing, right?” Marco asked.

“So it’s what, about having a lot of one-night stands?”

“Kind of, but not really. It’s about how just being fun and letting go when you’re young, and putting off other stuff till you’re older.”

“Give us a taste of it,” I said.

She held out her hand for my guitar and I handed it over. I actually hadn’t heard her play anything but bass before and she wasn’t bad. A lot of people think that playing a bass and playing a lead are transferable skills, but they really aren’t, even excluding that the instruments themselves had major differences. I mean, I could play a bass if I needed to, but what makes a good guitarist and what makes a good bassist are different things, and you need both. Sure, we both played a similar instrument, but we were specialists.

That being said, she was definitely a better guitar player than I’d be a bassist. I could see where we’d need to make some changes. She had a good riff at the beginning and it was really up-tempo, but it was all simple chord progressions and could really stand to be jazzed up a bit. The tempo changes were interesting, and I actually liked the lyrics.

The chorus was the part I liked the best, because it was a call and response that, if we ever got fans who knew our music, could be fun to play at shows.

Don’t worry about what you’re gonna be, have a one-night stand.

Don’t worry about what happens in the morning, have a one-night stand.

Don’t worry if you haven’t found the one, just have a one-night stand.

Have a one-night stand.

Have a one-night stand.

“That’s … interesting,” I said.

I hadn’t meant it in a bad way, I’d just been surprised by what she came up with. It was very much Lyla in just about every way.

“You hated it,” she said, seeming very vulnerable for maybe the first time since I’d known here.

“No. Not at all. I was just surprised is all. I think it's what we need. Something fun. How about this for that intro riff though,” I said, reaching out to get my guitar back.

As she’d been playing it I’d been thinking about how I’d change it. I liked the typo and the basic rhythm of it, but I wanted to work it up a bit. I also thought it might be nice to add a bit of the call and response into the intro riff as well, hinting at the chorus.

I plucked slowly through some of my thoughts, not really playing and then said, “Okay, how about this.”

I played through my initial thoughts on the riff and then dropped into her chord progression for the first verse that I’d heard her play.

“Did you learn the song just from hearing me play it and improve the riff at the same time?”

“He’s a freak,” Seth said. “He did that the first time we met him, too. He hears something and he can just play it.”

“I’m just good with music, it’s nothing big.”

“Bullshit. You just made that intro like ten times better.”

“I think it still needs some work. Do you mind if I work on it and figure out some stuff? I wanted to change up the verses too if that’s okay.”

“It’s fine with me. I’ve never been much good at writing music. Every time I’ve tried it always sounds so basic.”

“I don’t know, this is really good. I just have some thoughts is all.”

“You don’t have to butter me up, Charlie. It’s okay to say it’s simple. I’m glad you liked it and yeah, go make it better.”

“All right. I’ll work on it and bring it back.”

“Just keep it slutty,” she added.