Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 30

Saturday I swung by Hanna’s on the way to the Blue Ridge, to check on Kat. We’d talked for a few minutes before they’d gone home, but Mrs. Phillips had asked that we give her a couple of days to adjust, since Thursday had been an emotionally trying day.

Kat was practically bouncing off the walls when I got there. Mrs. Phillips had taken her to a room bedding and furnishing store in Asheville Friday night to pick out some stuff for her room, and had ended up with some interesting choices. I’d never actually seen Kat’s room, since we’d never been allowed inside her home, on the off chance that we might leave evidence behind that her dad would find.

Hanna’s room was pretty Spartan, with everything in fairly dark colors and only a few band posters up on the wall. There were no trophies or mementos, even though she’d been in cheerleading from when she was little up until the end of her sophomore year. I was pretty sure she’d gotten them, but she must have either tossed them or packed them away when everything had gone bad with her teammates.

Rhonda had been the exact opposite, with bright pink colors, trophies prominently displayed, and posters up on the wall. It was the classic teen girl room to the point of being somewhat recognizable just from having seen decorated versions of it on TV.

Kat fell somewhere in between. I’d actually expected her to go closer to Rhonda’s bright pink, since Kat always dressed in very bright colors. The bedspread and whatnot she’d picked out for herself however, was closer to Hanna’s color scheme. There weren’t any posters on the wall, which was probably because they didn’t have that kind of thing at the store they went to. I still had a feeling if they’d sold those kinds of things, Kat would have picked some up too. She did, however, have a whole ton of trophies. Enough that I was considering just how little of her suitcase had been clothing.

I’d originally thought she’d gone overboard bringing her whole wardrobe, but I guess she’d taken the ‘only bring important mementos and a few clothes’ to heart. It just happened that her ‘important mementos’ collection was a fairly large haul. There were a few youth gymnastics trophies, one very unexpected junior bowling trophy, and a ton of swimming trophies. I knew she was good, considering the level she competed at, but that didn’t really spell it out as much as all the hardware did.

Hanna had told me Saturday morning that Kat was having really bad dreams though. She woke up the rest of the house both Thursday and Friday screaming, even though she herself slept right through it. Kat had already asked Mrs. Phillips about finding a psychiatrist for her and I think the dreams were what convinced her. I could imagine it would be hard, since they weren’t actually getting money from the state to support Kat, let alone pay for something as expensive as a psychiatrist. Still, I gave her Dr. Rothstein’s information and told her that he was already familiar with Kat’s condition. We’d tried to explain what he’d told us about Kat, but I don’t think she’d really understood just how bad Kat’s mental health was until spending two nights getting woken by blood-curdling screams.

Kat was excited to get back to school. Now that Mrs. Phillips had the guardianship papers, she could go by the school on Monday and get her re-enrolled. I wasn’t sure about the process, but she was fairly confident it could be done without much issue. I was glad she was taking care of it. Now that Kat was free of her father and Mrs. Phillips was dealing with stuff like making sure she got a psychologist and everything, I didn’t have to spend so much time tied up with worrying about her.

Both Chef and the band noticed my lightened load, since I was noticeably more focused in both. Victor hadn’t made it back this weekend, but the sparing with him the weekend before had given me a lot to work on, and I was starting to feel a little more confident about the entire competition in spite of myself. On the music side, most of the songs we already had were more or less finished, at least until we got a producer to work with us on them if we ever recorded anything. I’d been thinking about some additional material to write about, but nothing was really speaking to me. I had plenty of things in my life and ideas I thought would make good songs, but I also needed an idea of how to do that, and I just wasn’t having any inspiration yet.

The whole band had been working on some ideas, but none of them had really solidified yet. I think the main problem was we didn’t have anything really pushing us. We have enough of our own music to play a good set for the talent scout, so the only reason we needed more, besides being able to put more variety in our sets, was to one day record an album. That, however, seemed an impossibly long way off. So, it wasn’t actively driving any of us to produce.

“I swear to God Lyla is going to drive me insane,” Hanna said, sliding into a booth with a bowl of rice and chicken Vinney had made for the family meal.

Since Hanna was up at the Blue Ridge Saturday and Sunday nights anyway, she’d started working nights both days, which meant she only had an hour between the end of practice and the beginning of her shift to eat and get ready.

“What did she do?”

“Someone told her I used to be a cheerleader.”

“So … something, something, uniform?”

“No. She said she’d heard stories about what happened at team sleepovers. She then went on to describe those stories in frighteningly graphic details.”

“I think I’d like to hear some of these stories?” I said, waggling my eyebrows at her.

“Shut up,” she said, throwing her napkin at me. “I’m already getting enough shit from her! I don’t need it from you, too.”

“She’s just screwing with you ’cause you let it get to you.”

“I know, but it’s hard not to react. That girl’s mind is filthy. I think she spends all week in between practices thinking up the freakiest thing she can.”

“Hey, guys,” Kat said, nudging me over and sliding into the booth.

Her hair was still wet from swimming practice. We were still getting down the new schedule, since we didn’t have to balance everything around keeping her dad from getting angry so she now had a social life. She’d only been able to come to a couple of my gigs, and she’d decided that, after her training on Saturday and Sunday, to start joining us at the Blue Ridge.

“How was practice?”

“Good. I checked with them like you asked and Daddy paid the fee for April yesterday, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

Even though he’d agreed to continue to pay for her training, I’d wanted to double-check and make sure he was following through. I wanted to keep any of us dealing with him to a minimum, since each interaction might be the time he decided to say screw it and renege on the whole deal. So, I’d had Kat check with her coach, instead.

“Now that you’re here, there’s something I wanted to run past you two,” Hanna said, looking serious.

“Okay?”

“So you know how Mom applied to UNC for me?”

“Yes. I thought you didn’t want to go in-state though?

Hanna’s original application list had no schools closer than a thousand miles away on them. I was a little sad thinking about her going to school so far away, but she’d applied to them before we’d become friends and before she’s started coming out of the shell she’d built around herself. She hadn’t even known her mom had applied to any in-state schools until the acceptance letters came in.

“Well, I never did any school visits and the acceptance deadline is coming up pretty fast. I’ve been looking around and they’re one of the few schools with a full entertainment management track as a focus in their business management degree programs, and the only school with a program better than theirs is USC, which I didn’t get into. I also thought if I did this I’d probably end up with class projects where I could come back out and work with you, or at least watch and get information. But, I’ve never actually visited the campus, since I hadn’t planned on going anywhere around here when I’d done my original campus visits. So, my thought was maybe we could go see the campus during spring break.”

“All three of us?” Kat asked hesitantly.

“Of course all three of us. I think it might be fun, and I’m not really one for the whole Myrtle Beach or Florida spring break trips.”

“I’m not even sure what those are,” I said.

“Every spring break a lot of kids get hotel rooms at places like Myrtle Beach, Miami Beach, places like that and party all weekend. There’s lots of drinking and … other stuff. I went with Aaron last year.”

“That doesn’t sound like my kind of thing.”

“No,” Hanna agreed. “Some years you might end up going just because a lot of local bands get booked to play shows out there, since drinking on the beach gets old after the first day, but it’s probably too late for that this year.”

“Going to Chapel Hill sounds fun to me, though. I’d have to talk to my mom. I can guarantee she’s going to want to know if any adults are going.”

“I’m eighteen,” Hanna pointed out.

“Yeah, she’s not going to buy that.”

“Well, to save money I thought we could crash at my Aunt Shirley’s house. Sam would love to have you there. Besides, that week is the same week as Trianglecon, and you’d promised him you’d go with him to it, remember?”

“Shit, I’d forgotten all about that.”

“We’re going to Trianglecon?” Kat asked, suddenly excited.

“Well, I was going to try and get out of it, but I think Charlie has to.”

“Can I go too? Ohh, I don’t have any of my cosplay stuff anymore. It’s all still at my dad’s house. Damn, I’d almost finished my Dark Taloness costume.”

“Sometimes I forget what a massive nerd you are,” I said, smiling and shaking my head.

“Shut up, it’s cool. It’s only a week away, but I think if I focus I can get something together. It’s not going to be as good as the stuff I’ve done before, but I think I can at least not embarrass myself. What would you want to go as?”

“I was thinking I’d go as ‘guy who’s being forced to go to a comic convention.’ It’s a stretch, but I think I can pull it off.”

“You’re no fun,” she said, fake pouting.

“Hey, you dress up. I’m sure it’ll be fun and Sam will probably appreciate someone else being as into it as he is. Hanna and I will try not to spoil y’all’s fun.”

“I’m not going.”

“The Hell you’re not. If I have to go, you have to go.”

“This is going to be great,” Kat said.

“Anyway, I figured your mom would want to make sure there was some kind of supervision, so we can give her Aunt Shirley’s information. Do you think that’ll satisfy her?”

“Maybe. I’ll see what I can do. Did you already run it by your mom?”

“Yes. She’s so happy that I’m seriously considering an in-state school she’s willing to go with just about anything else I ask.”

“So we do the comic-con one day and UNC another, that still leaves us like five or six days. As much fun as hanging with Sam will be, I’m hoping we have more plans than that.”

“I haven’t worked out everything, but my mom and Aunt Shirley went in on a timeshare at a place called Ocean Isle. It’s a lot quieter than Myrtle Beach and I don’t think it’ll be overrun by college kids, so it could be relaxing. I was thinking we go up there Friday and Saturday night, and then drive back Sunday. You might not want to tell your mom about that side trip.”

“That might be fun,” I said. “How much is this all going to cost?”

“Not that much, actually. Since we’ll either be staying with Aunt Shirley or at their time-share, all we have to pay for is gas, food, and whatever entertainment we decide on. As trips go, it’ll be pretty cheap.”

“Okay. I’m in.”

“Me too,” Kat said. “I can’t wait.”

Of course, coming up with a plan for summer break was the easy part. The hard part was going to be convincing Mom to let me go. For all of the times she’d let me sit in the back area of clubs and bars unsupervised as a small child, she was fairly overprotective when it came to going off on my own.

Normally that didn’t matter much, since my schedule was always pretty much the same and it wasn’t like I was going out partying all the time. This, however, would be the first time I’d be asking for something like this, so I was a little concerned about how it was going to go.

I decided to just get it over with and ask her that night, partially because I was tired of having things hanging over my head and partly because if we were going to do this we had some planning to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

“You’re up late,” Mom said when she got home.

Even though it was my own band now and not just playing with Willie, I still only did the first set so I could be home before eleven. Mom hadn’t wavered from her stance that she didn’t want me coming back after midnight every Friday and Saturday, even though I didn’t have school the next day. She had made some exceptions for when I’d played in Asheville, but I hadn’t wanted to try and push it just because I had my own band now.

I think the rest of the band would have preferred if we played a little longer and I was sometimes worried they might eventually get tired of having the band fronted by a minor. True, it would only be two more years, but that was like a lifetime, especially when these guys had bills to make that were directly affected by the kinds of gigs we could get. Sure, we were getting paid every Saturday and Sunday, but we couldn’t go after some of the opportunities other bands did. Except for maybe in the summer, we couldn’t expand how far we looked for better-paying gigs or things like music festivals to play for.

Even though we all got along, I still couldn’t shake the suspicion that if the audition for the record label scout went bad, they might all bail and try to find a better opportunity.

Since Saturdays were usually pretty busy, with training, practice, a full set, and tutoring again now that Kat was free to do what she wanted, I was usually wiped out by the time I got home. Most nights I was asleep by the time Mom got home.

“Yeah, I had some stuff I wanted to talk about.”

“Stuff that I’m going to like, or stuff that I’m not going to like,” she said, suddenly suspicious.

“Neither. Stuff I need to get permission for. Spring break is coming up and Hanna wants to go tour UNC, since she got in and hasn’t looked at the campus yet and the acceptance date is coming up. I’d also promised her cousin after the thing at the beginning of the year that I’d go to a comic book convention thing with him, and it’s that weekend in Raleigh, so we’d do that too. We’d be staying with them, so we’d be back with her aunt every night, which means we’d have adult supervision.”

“Beyond going to this comic convention and touring the college, what else were you planning on doing?”

“We hadn’t gotten that far, because I wanted to get permission first. I also thought I might go visit Victor, since he lives in that area. Did I mention him to you? Chef’s old student who’s been coming up to help me train. He’s got a place he trains at and I thought it would be fun to see how he does it, just to get a feeling for what other people do, before the competition.”

“Any partying? Clubs? That kind of thing?”

“Mom, you know me. Do you think that’s likely? If I wanted to go to parties and drink I could do that here. Heck, I have gone to parties where people are drinking, and I’ve never touched the stuff. I don’t need to go halfway across the state to do it.”

“We’re going to circle back around to these parties in a minute. Who else is the ‘we’ in this trip?”

“Hanna and Kat.”

“I thought so. So you want me to allow you to go to another city with two girls unsupervised. Is that right?”

“Like I said, we’re not unsupervised. Sure, we’re on our own during the day, but that’s true here too. Besides, none of us have that kind of relationship. There really won’t be that much different there as it is here, except we’re all staying at the same place instead of our own houses.”

“I still don’t know. Spending a week in another city on their own isn’t something most sixteen-year-olds do.”

“Maybe, but don’t think about it like I’m spending a week on my own. Think about it like I’m going with my friend to her relatives’ house. If you okay it, once Hanna has arranged it with her aunt I’ll give you her number and you can talk to her before we go. Would that make you feel okay with this?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, Mom. I know you like being protective, but I’ve done pretty good this year, even with all the crap that’s gotten thrown at me. Have I done anything to tell you I’m irresponsible?”

“No, you’re not irresponsible. It’s just that I worry about you being so far away, in case something happens.”

“In two years I’m going to be off to college. You’re going to have to let go at some point. Think of this as a test run for that day.”

She considered it for a minute and then said, “Fine. But this is only a provisional yes until I talk to her aunt. I want you to tell me your entire plan before you go. I want to know where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing, and I reserve the right to say no if I don’t like any of it.”

That might put a damper on the whole beach house thing. I’d have to talk to Hanna about it, because there was no scenario where she’d be okay with just the three of us going and she would definitely ask the aunt about our full itinerary. I knew for a fact trying to play one off the other would end up blowing up in our faces. Still, a ‘provisional yes’ was good enough, for today.

“Thank you,” I said, jumping up and wrapping her in a big hug.

“You’re a good kid, Charlie,” she said, hugging me back. “I just worry about you.”

“I know. I promise it’ll be fine.”

***

Kat wasn’t in school again on Monday. She was supposed to go with Mrs. Phillips to get re-registered and I half thought she’d show up by lunch. I wasn’t worried yet, since I didn’t really know what was needed to get someone re-enrolled. I just found it a little disappointing, since I’d been looking forward to having my friend back again.

I decided to go talk to Mr. French about new song ideas instead.

“You don’t mind that I keep bringing all this stuff to you, do you?” I asked him after we’d gone over a bunch of thoughts I’d had and talked about options.

It was something that had started bugging me last week after Hanna and I’d gone to talk to him. He’d offered to help, but I was here two or three days a week, taking up his whole lunch period.

“Charlie, I wouldn’t have offered if I hadn’t been okay with it. Hell, it’s been fun, actually. I love teaching, don’t get me wrong, but I miss the really creative stuff. I’ve actually been brushing up some of my own unfinished works and giving them another go. Not to actually do anything with, but I’d gotten so used to the grind of being a teacher that I’d forgotten what it was like to really work out those muscles. So no, I don’t mind at all.”

“Okay, just checking.”

“So, you have spring break coming up. You know that’s a good time to pick up some work at bigger clubs in Asheville, since you don’t have to worry about your school schedule. I know it’s not one of the spring break destination spots, but not everyone leaves their college town to go somewhere else for the break. Some stay on campus and go out clubbing and partying in town. They’ll be a definite uptick in business and I’m pretty sure a lot of the venues have already started looking for additional talent to book. You should consider talking to Willie and see if he could sound out any of his contacts.”

I haven’t even considered that. For a moment I wondered if I was making a mistake going to UNC with Hanna and Kat and leaving that kind of opportunity on the table. The band would probably be pissed at me if I bailed and left town. They could probably use the money of some additional weekday gigs and I’d be skipping out on at least one and maybe two weekends at the Blue Ridge on top of it.

“Damn, I hadn’t even thought about it. Hanna is planning on going to visit UNC and looking at the campus, and she’d invited me to go along with her. If I go instead of picking up gigs over spring break, how much money do you think I’m leaving on the table?”

“I don’t know. We’re getting pretty close to it, so a lot of places would have already booked their entertainment. I should have mentioned something to you earlier. It’s one of those things most musicians know about so I didn’t even think that you wouldn’t know about it until today.”

“I’m surprised Willie didn’t say anything.”

Of course, it wasn’t really on Willie to tell me what I should be doing. I was grateful for all the help he’d given me this year, but maybe I was becoming too reliant on just waiting for him to tell me what I should be doing. I guess this is something I really needed a manager for, since there was still so much I didn’t know about the business.

“Willie probably doesn’t really deal with spring break performances much. Keep in mind when he was coming up it was pretty different. There weren’t these big week-long events for it like there are now, plus he started out on the classic blues circuits, which are very different to where you’ll be playing.”

“I guess,” I said. “I was just thinking this was why I probably need a manager at some point. There’s still so much I don’t know about. Hell, even if I did know about spring break being a big booking opportunity, I’m not sure I’d know who to call about spots being available. I mean, the only places I know enough to not just cold call would be Chef and Eugene at the Wild Cat, and I don’t think Chef’s doing anything special.”

“He wouldn’t. This is really only something you find in college towns and party destinations. Asheville isn’t even that good of a spot to find gigs, since it doesn’t have the same concentrated student population like you find in the triangle.”

“I guess I should talk to the band and see if they have any contacts to check with before I up and take the week off.”

“Maybe not. I might know of something. Wait here a few minutes,” he said, leaving me at the piano and going into his office, picking up his office phone and dialing.

He talked for a few minutes, gesturing with his hands as if to accentuate what he was saying, even though the guy on the other end couldn’t see him. Eventually, he started nodding and I could make out things like ‘yeah’ and ‘okay,’ before he finally hung up and came back out.

“I was talking to a friend from the old days last night and he’s working on this music festival smack dab in the middle of spring break down in that area called the Spring Break Bash. They apparently lost their opening act and they were having trouble finding anyone that would work. It’s close enough to spring break that a lot of the local bands would either be traveling to party spots like Myrtle Beach or would have already booked up for the week. I just called him and told him about you. He knows I know you personally, so it isn’t a blind recommendation, and that you’re very new. Normally, they wouldn’t let a band with little to no track record open for something like this, since it’s a big jump over small bars and clubs, but he’s going to give you a shot on my recommendation. I told him I hadn’t talked to you yet, but I was pretty sure you’d do it. Now, you don’t have a lot of time, because he’s going to keep looking, since he doesn’t have the time to wait to hear back and then you say no. If we get back to him soon enough though, I can get you the spot.”

“Really? That’s amazing. I can go call the rest of the guys now, so you can call him back, if that’s all right.”

“Sure. You can use your cell phone. Just make sure you shut it off again before going to class. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble over it. There’s another thing. He’s no fool and he realizes this would be a break for you, so he’s going to shaft you a bit on the payment. He’s offering a thousand flat for a forty-five-minute set. It’ll be a lot more than you usually get paid, but make sure you let your guys know, because I don’t want anyone going after my friend for underpaying. It’s a raw deal, but I think it’s still worth it. You’re going to get a lot more exposure than you currently do.”

I still wasn’t clear on what was a good rate or a bad rate for a gig. We made about five hundred a night at the Blue Ridge playing for two hours, but we got a piece of the food and drinks sold during our show, which I knew was unusual. My gig at the Wild-cat had been three hundred for just me, since he’d arranged for the rest of the band and paid them separately and we were getting two hundred for playing Prom, although everyone knew that was wildly underpaying us.

A thousand sounded like a lot of money, but if Mr. French said that was low, then I’d go with it. I didn’t know anything about the festival like how many people went, how many bands were playing or anything like that. It was also a pretty long drive for the rest of the guys.

Seth was on board right away, and sounded like he was out and doing something. As soon as I told him the name of the festival he started excitedly talking to someone next to him, although I couldn’t make out much of what they were saying. He said the pay was good for him and he’d be good driving down with the other three, and that they’d work that out and arrange to meet up with me.

I had to call Marco three times, since it kept going to voicemail, before he finally answered, sounding rough. I explained what was happening and his only response was ‘sure’ before hanging up. I’d check back with Seth to make sure he talked to Marco and get it all smoothed out, since I wasn’t going to wake him up again.

Although this was my first time experiencing it, Seth always teased Marco for being a terrible morning person. My last call was to Lyla, who was equally as enthused about it as Seth was.

“Hell yeah, I’m in,” she said after I explained. “See, I said you’d be bringing in the gigs, and you aren’t failing to disappoint. I … what? No, go back to sleep.”

I knew Lyla didn’t have roommates and wasn’t dating anyone so I asked, “Where are you?”

“I have no idea. Hey, where are we? Walnut?” she said, clearly talking to the voice nearby, her tone going up when she repeated the name. “Damn, that’s a long drive home. I’m up Twenty-Five in a place called Walnut.”

“You don’t even know what city you’re in?”

“Hey, she said she lived close. I guess her idea of close isn’t the same as … oww. I’m not saying that, I just … Hey, Charlie, the gig sounds great, thanks for letting me know. I’ll talk to Seth and Marco and work out getting down there. Now I gotta go so I can teach this bitch a lesson.”

I moved my ear away from the phone at a large squeal that happened right as she hung up and just shook my head. I’d realized knowing Lyla was going to be interesting the first time I’d met her, but she was the gift that kept on giving.

“They’re all in. Call your friend back and tell him we’re on. Should I talk to him at some point and get the details?”

“I’ll get it for you before you head out for the holidays, and I won’t even take my cut,” he said, smiling. “Just be prepared. This is a large open-air venue, so be ready for a really large crowd. They won’t know you, so open with some popular covers before you do your own stuff, otherwise, they might get a little rowdy.”

“Should I be worried?”

“No, you’ll do fine. I just want you to be prepared for a much larger audience than you’re used to. You haven’t been bothered by audiences before, but you’re used to more contained clubs and bars. Did your dad ever play a festival?”

“No, or at least not that I remember.”

“Okay. Well, the crowds can get big. Last year they had almost seventy-thousand people show up, but you’re the opening act and a lot of the people don’t get there until a few bands have gone, so you’re not going to get that much. I also don’t know if you’re playing the main stage or one of the side stages, so that could change stuff. Either way, you’re going to be looking out at a sea of people, so just be ready for it. Focus on the music and you’ll do fine.”

“Now I’m nervous,” I said.

When he’d first mentioned it was a larger audience than I was used to, I thought maybe a few hundred people, not tens of thousands. Even if only ten percent showed up when it opened, that was still many times our normal audience.

“Should we do anything to get ready for this?”

“Normally you’d want to have some merch to sell, but it’s too late for that and you don’t have the budget for it anyway. The best thing you can do is make sure you have some way for people to follow you and come see your shows later. Besides the pay, these festivals can be a good way to build up your brand, if you’re smart and take advantage of it.”

“Ohh, I hadn’t even considered that. Okay, I’ll talk to the guys and we’ll get on it.”

Just a few weeks ago I’d doubted we even needed a manager, since we just played local gigs and most of those were the same set at the Blue Ridge three days a week. I hadn’t even been sure of what a manager would do for us. Now I realized there was some business end stuff I hadn’t even considered that we’d need if we ever wanted to expand beyond just being a band that played at the Blue Ridge for the rest of our lives.