Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 24

I had to be late for school again on Wednesday for my, hopefully, final doctor’s appointment. Mom had to take off work again to take me. I could tell she was worried about all the days she’d taken off over the last few weeks. She didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was worried by the way she kept looking at her watch while we sat in the reception area, waiting on my appointment.

Mom had scheduled for the first appointment available and we’d been ten minutes early to make sure we could get in as soon as possible. We actually beat the nurse who worked reception and were waiting by the front door when she walked up. However, all that planning had been pointless since the doctor himself was running late, showing up ten minutes after my scheduled appointment. It was another five minutes after that before we were called in.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said as soon as we were ushered into his office.

“It’s okay,” Mom said, always too polite to cause a fuss. “Charlie has school though …”

“I understand completely,” he said. Mom might have been polite, but it would have been impossible to miss how antsy she was to get going. “Let’s take a look at this, shall we.”

As happened in the previous appointment, he pulled off the boot and unwrapped my foot. It was still a little tender, but didn’t hurt at all. He went through all the same motions as before, pulling, twisting, and poking my foot. He had me get up and walk around, rotate my ankle and point my toes to show I had the full range of motion.

“The muscles feel a little tight?” He asked when I winced at one of the movements.

I’d tried to not say anything. While not telling your doctor everything was usually a bad idea, I really wanted to avoid the chance of him deciding I needed to wear the boot for another four weeks. Sadly, my face didn’t cooperate with the rest of me as I pretended everything was perfect.

“Just a little.”

“That’s completely normal. You haven’t used these muscles in weeks now, so they’re a little out of practice. As long as you didn’t have any acute pain when you moved it, that should be fine. The more you walk around today, the better it should feel. I’d suggest you take it easy for a few more days, just in case. Avoid running or things like that. Otherwise, it looks good and I think you should be able to get back to life as normal.”

“That’s it?” I asked, surprised it had taken less time for him to look me over than the time it took to wait for him to show up.

“Yep, that’s it. You were probably pretty close to being healed up on your last visit, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t accidentally refracture it by just walking. You’re lucky the break wasn’t worse, or you would have had to wear that thing for a whole lot longer. You need to be careful and try to avoid getting into any more fights.”

“I’ll try.”

“You better,” Mom said, giving me the parental glare. “Thank you, Doctor Halcott.”

Again, we didn’t have to pay when we left, since Mrs. Phillips had taken care of it. Normally, Mom would have fretted over that, but she was too distracted by her being late for work to think of much else. She dropped me off at the front of the school, barely rolling to a stop before saying ‘have a nice day.’ She gave me a quick wave and drove off.

I presented my doctors’ notes and got a late pass. Thankfully, the appointment had been short and Mom had driven fast, since I was able to get to my first class just before it ended. While I’d missed all of that period, I hadn’t had to be late to Coach Bryant’s class, which avoided another needless confrontation.

“So the theater kids are having a big party on Saturday for Halloween. I asked around and they said it would be cool if you guys wanted to go.” Cameron, the kid I’d helped out on the football field, said. “Are any of you interested in coming?”

Everyone started looking around at each other no one really committing to anything at first. Besides the beginning of the year athletics party, I hadn't really been to any high school parties, so I wanted to wait and see what everyone else said first.

“I know what some of you were thinking,” he continued when no one responded to his invitation. “I promise you it isn’t going to be boring. If none of you have been to a theater party before, let me tell you they’re amazing. There’s as much drinking, making out, and getting busy as you get at any football party, but without any of the sexual assault and brawls. Theatre kids are certified freaks; they just keep it hidden most of the time. Plus the music, food, and drinks are way better. I swear that any of you who come will have a good time.”

“I don’t know,” Rhonda said, giving me a side-eyed glance that I think was trying to tell me that she didn’t want to go. ”Charlie and I had another party we were thinking about going to.”

This was the first I had heard about another party. I wasn’t sure if this was just Rhonda trying to get out of something she didn’t want to go to before I agreed or she had scheduled something for the two of us without asking me. I wasn’t crazy about either of those options. Besides Cameron looked a little hurt that no one was taking him up on the offer and he clearly looked to me with almost the exact opposite expression that Rhonda had had.

While I definitely wanted Rhonda to be happy, I didn’t like it when she manipulated me, especially when it was to do something specifically to hurt someone else’s feelings. This was the shallow Rhonda, the part of her I like the least, raising its head.

“Really?” I said looking at Rhonda with a feigned expression of surprise. “I wish you would have said something sooner. Cameron talked to me about this on Monday and I agreed to go. Maybe I can go to his thing and then meet you at the other party afterward if that’s okay. ”

Okay, so I was a little hypocritical, lying to Rhonda to get her back for lying to me after a fashion. I felt it was justified, however. Plus, I felt really bad for Cameron, since no one looked like they’d agree to go to his party.

Thankfully, Cameron figured out what I was doing and didn’t say anything or act surprised, since we had absolutely not talked about it before today. Rhonda looked taken aback, but quickly changed her expression.

“No, that’s okay. I’d love to go to Cameron’s party.”

“Actually,” Cameron said, “since we talked on Monday, I've talked to some of the other guys and they were wondering if you’d be okay playing for a little while. They promised it wouldn’t be the whole time so you’d get a chance to party too. It’s just that everyone’s heard about how things have been going at the Blue Ridge and those of us who haven’t gotten to come to see you play really want to hear it.”

Since we had never talked about me going to the party before, that was clearly a clever ruse to get something out of me for not calling out my lie to Rhonda. Thinking about it, I bet they had asked him if I could play which was where this sudden invitation for our whole lunch group had come from. Otherwise, someone would have said something earlier, and not waited until just a few days before the party to invite all of us. I couldn’t be mad since he had backed me on the lie I told Rhonda.

“I don’t have my own amp or equipment outside of my guitar,” I said.

“Oh, I can get that stuff no problem.”

“It would just be me playing and nothing else. There wouldn’t be like a band or anything.“

“Yeah, they know. They wanted you to play, anyways. With as good as I hear you are, it should be great.”

“I guess, sure, as long as it’s not the whole night, I can play a few songs.”

“Great!” he said, almost bouncing in his chair.

That seemed to break the dam, with most of the rest of the gang all started agreeing to go as well. For a second I thought maybe they’d all started agreeing because I had agreed to play, but that seemed a bit too egotistical. Most likely the real reason was because the social stigma had been somewhat lifted now that one person had agreed, breaking the dam so to speak.

We spent the rest of the lunch talking about costumes and who was going as what. Well, Rhonda wasn’t super happy, but once we started talking about a couples costume, she had become more interested in the idea. By the end of lunch, I think she had even decided it was a good idea.

Of course, this would mean a very long Saturday. Even if I wasn’t working daytime for Chef, I still had to be there after the lunch rush to do training and then play two full sets that night before going to the party. It also meant I’d have to tell Mom I was staying out late. Considering all the permission I’ve gotten recently that might have been pushing it a bit, although she had said she wanted me to have more of a normal teenage life. What could be more normal than a high school Halloween party?

Study hall rolled around and I made my way to the library. I stood looking around for my tutor. Mrs. Seidel had told me my tutor’s name and said she knew who I was, but I hadn’t considered that I didn’t know who she was. So I was left standing in front of the library, the librarian looking at me like I was lost, hoping she found me soon.

“Charlie,” a voice behind me said.

I turned around and was honestly shocked. If this was my tutor, then I actually did know her, and the connections weren’t good. In front of me was the brown-haired girl I’d seen with Aaron multiple times, including when he’d tried to convince her to have sex in the bathroom at homecoming.

“Kathrine?” I asked.

“Yes, although most people call me Kat.”

“Okay, Kat. I’m not sure this is such a good idea. I appreciate you volunteering to help me, but I’m going to go see if Mrs. Seidel can assign me someone else.”

I didn’t want to be rude to her, since we didn’t know each other, but I also didn’t want to be involved with anyone who spent their time with Aaron and his goons. I walked out of the library and turned to look behind me, only to see her through the windows next to the door still standing in the entranceway, looking at her feet.

She looked almost helpless, and I felt bad. Part of me wanted to say screw it and keep walking, but the rest realized that she hadn’t done anything to me. It wasn’t fair of me to condemn her just because she was associating with Aaron, even if she was dating him. Sure, it didn’t speak very well to her character, but that wasn’t an excuse. Besides, she did know who I was, obviously because of Aaron as well, and she’d still volunteered to tutor me. I sighed and walked back in.

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t very fair of me.”

“It’s okay, I understand,” she said, still not looking up.

I noticed the librarian staring at us.

“Can we step outside for a moment?”

“Sure,” she said, turning and following me, still not looking up very much.

“Look,” I said once we were outside, “I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate you offering to tutor me, I’m just confused. I’ve seen you with Aaron, and since you seem to know who I am, you clearly know of the issues between us. I can’t help but be a little skeptical, you know. Hey, you can look up, I don’t bite, I promise.”

She finally looked up at me. I hadn’t actually given it much thought before, but she was actually very pretty. She was also pretty tall for a girl, nearly my height, with startling green eyes. The emerald green was framed between a dark line around the outside and a pool of black at the center, making the green stand out even more. Her skin was a deep tan that went well with her dark hair.

“You’re dating Aaron, right? I don’t understand why you would agree to tutor me if you’re with him. He and his friends all hate me.”

“I know you probably didn’t mean to, but you kept me from having to go with him into the bathroom on homecoming. I didn’t really want to, and when you showed up I was able to get away. Plus, I’ve seen how you’ve been with some of the other people. I don’t know, I thought maybe you were nice and I kind of owed you.”

“Won’t you tutoring me be a problem between the two of you, later?”

“I don’t know. He usually doesn’t care what I’m doing when we’re not together. I thought maybe he wouldn’t know.”

I was honestly confused more than anything else. I’d thought she was Aaron’s girlfriend, but the way she was talking, it sounded like their relationship was something else, although what, I had no idea. She didn’t seem to be like him and his friends, but I still couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea that someone would be generally decent and yet spend their time with some of the worst people. What I did know was that I needed a tutor, preferably a free one, and I needed it fast, before my grades went down any lower.

“Okay, we can give it a shot. I just want to make it clear I don’t want to be involved with Aaron in any way. There’s already way too much drama between us as it is, and I don’t want this adding to the pile.”

“I promise I won’t say anything. He and all his friends are in the weight room this period and we have one of the study rooms assigned to us. There shouldn’t be any reason for him to be involved. Ms. Seidel said you needed help and I wanted to be able to help someone. That’s all it is.”

“Okay. I’m sorry if I came off mean at first. I guess we’ve already wasted a bunch of time, so we should go get started.”

“Okay,” she said.

We headed back in. I found out the reason we had a study room was she’d arranged for one for us ahead of time. Once I got over the weirdness of her being my tutor, I found it actually incredibly helpful. She was really patient and didn’t mind when I needed more and more basic concepts explained to me. She also really knew her stuff. I had lots of questions, and she wasn’t ever stumped or flustered by them.

We started with just math today, since that’s where I was the furthest behind. Ms. Seidel had given her some ideas of what the next test would cover so Kat could focus on what she was helping me with, although she wouldn’t tell me specifically the things Ms. Seidel had told her. That actually moved her up a bit in my eyes, although once again it reinforced how weird it was for someone like her to be dating Aaron.

We made quite a bit of progress, enough that if we were able to keep up these tutoring sessions, there was a chance I would be able to get caught up before we got too much further into the year, and before my grades had a chance to drop any further.

That night I got home and once again had to ask Mom for permission. I was once again waiting for her in the living room when she got home.

She rolled her head back and said, “Charlie, you gotta give me a break. It’s like every time I get home, you’re sitting there waiting to throw me a curveball. I love you, Kiddo, but I can’t take any more time off work.”

“It’s not that this time, I swear. There’s a Halloween party on Saturday, and I wanted to go.”

“Really, that’s it? I mean, sure. You went to that other party, why would you need permission to go to this one?”

“Because it’ll be after work, so we won’t get there until almost eleven. I’m betting we won’t be home till really late, like after two.”

“What kind of party is this?” She asked, suspiciously.

“The theatre kids are throwing a party. Remember that kid who was being chased on the football field?”

“The one who you helped and then got suspended over? Yes, I do seem to recall something about that,” she said sarcastically.

“Anyways, he invited our lunch group to go to the party. It sounded fun, but since it’s going to keep me out really late, I wanted to make sure you were okay with it. Hanna will take me to it straight from work and bring me back home.”

She thought for a moment and said, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Really? That easy?”

“Why not. I know you, Charlie. You don’t drink and you don’t do drugs. I’m hoping you’re smart enough to not do anything that will get you arrested or get a girl pregnant. I’ve wanted you to experience what being a normal teenager was like, and this is pretty normal. You haven’t shown me any reason yet why I shouldn’t trust you to do something like this. I’m actually happy to see you getting out there and making friends.”

“Thanks, Mom. I promise I won’t do anything that will make you ashamed of me.”

“Let’s just make sure you don’t do anything that makes me miss more work any time soon. I’m not my boss’s favorite employee right now, and I’d prefer not to have to start looking for another job.”

“I’ll try to stay out of jail.”

“Good, that’s all I ask,” she said, laughing and giving me a one-armed hug.

The rest of the week sailed by without much notable happening. My second session with Kat went well, although I still couldn’t help notice how reserved she was. Any time I disagreed with her on something or made a joke, she would back down, almost physically shrinking back from me. I still couldn’t wrap my head around how someone like her ended up with someone like Aaron. I could understand why he’d want her around. Bullies like him needed people who’d agree with him at all times and couldn’t stand anyone who might question them. It was her I didn’t get. With as afraid as she seemed to be, I’d have thought that his abrasive personality would have sent her to the hills.

That aside, we stayed focused and got a lot done in the tutoring session. We were still working on building blocks for the stuff in class and hadn’t gotten to any of the actual topics I’d need in class itself, but I already felt like I understood a lot more than I had before. It felt pretty good to not feel like a complete idiot when doing math for once.

Saturday was the first time in weeks I hadn’t needed to be ready at the crack of dawn to go to the farmers market with Chef. If I was being honest, I’d admit I kind of missed it. Those early mornings cooking with Chef, just the two of us doing prep work, had been pretty great. I did enjoy the sleep, though. I’d played my first Friday night set the night before, so I’d been home later than on previous Friday nights, which also meant I’d gotten to sleep a lot later, so the extra sleep did me a world of good. I also had time to finish off all my homework, which was probably a good thing.

Hanna swung by and gave me a ride to work shortly after lunch. The other thing I knew I was going to miss was eating lunch at the Blue Ridge. We didn’t have much in the house, since Mom had been used to me eating at work Saturday for both lunch and dinner. I was surprised when Chef told me to grab a bowl of the family meal that he’d made for the kitchen staff. Since I’d already eaten a sandwich at home, I didn’t stuff myself, but it was good to have a hot meal. It probably wasn’t the best idea to eat right before doing exercise, but I needed the calories if I was going to get a good practice in. I did make sure to not eat very much, though.

He realized it too, because he had me do a good amount of stretching before we started, giving me time to digest everything. It felt good to really stretch my leg, free of the boot. While the foot and basically the entire lower leg on one side felt tight, I did notice it loosen up a bit after stretching.

“Ready?” Chef asked when he finally came out of the kitchen.

“Yep,” I said, hopping up and giving a few test bounces, to see how everything felt.

“Your foot feeling okay?”

“Yeah. The muscles are still a little tight, but the doctor said that would pass the more I use it.”

“Okay. We’ll take it easy today, since it’s your first day of full practice. I want to keep working on the blocking and dodging we’ve been working on, and start working on the footwork that’s part of it. You’ve gotten pretty good at the handwork, but having your legs do one thing and your hands do something else is hard until you practice it enough, since a lot of it’s going to come down to muscle memory. Take your stance.”

Instead of facing me, he took the same stance next to me.

“We’ve talked about the importance of maintaining a solid stance, setting yourself into the ground, so you have a base to work from. That remains true as we start moving. One of the keys to this is that, when moving, you don’t always need to pick up your feet. Sometimes, you want to keep them on the ground, doing the exact opposite. When turning like this, you want to dig your foot into the ground instead, pushing down.”

He demonstrated, his heel drawing a deep circle in the dirt that layered the concrete pad. I could hear his shoe scraping against the cement as he turned.

“You see how I pressed down. I maintained my base as I twisted and built up all that potential energy I can use, pushing against the ground and redirecting that power into my movement.”

He demonstrated again, foot digging into the ground hard as he twisted, his fist exploding out in a punch.

“Now, you can’t always keep both feet on the ground. Turning around, forward movements, and kicks all require at least one foot lifting off the ground. The same principle applies, however. You dig your back foot into the ground as you move the lifting foot. Also, pay attention to where the rest of your body is. In some cases, as you lift up, you can lower your center of gravity, dropping your upper body, to maintain balance and power.”

He stepped forward on his right foot, twisting and crouching down before his left foot exploded forwards. Instead of pulling his body in immediately, he held the position, leg extended.

“See how I’m leaning. The crouch let me build power for the kick, but instead of just standing up as I kicked, or remaining crouched, I went diagonally with my upper body, tilting so that my torso went out this way, counterbalancing the kick. With my body like this, I’m able to hold this position because my balance is still good,” he said, standing back up.

“Of course, you wouldn’t want to hold that in a normal fight, because you have less base on one foot, but you get my point. The other part of this is how you use the kicking leg itself, but we’ll get into that another day. For now, I want you to look at the foot I have on the ground, watch how I keep my weight balanced on the ball of the foot, to keep me planted. Also, notice how the foot turns. If the toe is pointing forward, you’re using your foot as a narrow balance point. Watch what I do instead.”

He did the kick again, and I watched the foot. It didn’t stay pointing forward. As he twisted, digging his heal in, the planted foot went to parallel with the rest of his body instead of pointing forward.

“You saw how my foot turned. I’m using the entire length of the foot as a set point instead of relying on rocking my weight from the rear of my foot to the front. If you just shift your weight forward, you’re relying on your toes digging into the ground, which is a small contact point. My foot turned like this I can use the entire edge to dig in, giving me a wider contact point with the ground. The wider your contact points, the more stability you have.”

I got into the initial stance he used and then tried the same move, immediately stumbling, barely catching myself from falling. I hadn’t thought through what I was doing and subconsciously pivoted on the foot that had just come out of the boot. I’d known it felt weaker, but hadn’t realized how much weaker it was until I put my entire body weight onto it.

“For now let’s just work on the footwork until you build your strength.”

“I could switch legs, kick with the other one?”

“We’ll be doing that, but it’s best not to start that way. Just like you’re right-handed, you also favor your right leg, so it’s more natural to kick with that leg. You have to make some adjustment when kicking with your off leg, and it’s best not to learn with those adjustments, since in an actual fight you’ll almost always default to your stronger leg if you can.”

We kept going for another thirty minutes, after which Chef put me through a grueling workout, focusing on strengthening my legs. By the time we finished, I felt like a wrung-out noodle, my legs wobbly with each step.

Despite that, I felt great. Partly, I was excited because I was doing real training now, not having to adjust for my injured foot and the damned boot. Mostly though, it was because it was time to get cleaned up and meet Willie for the trip to Ashville. I managed to push the anticipation down while I worked with Chef, but now that it was time to get going it all bubbled to the surface, a combination of anticipation, jitters, and terror making it hard to focus on anything else. I knew this was a big moment and, if this was something I was going to pursue long term, this was one of the big steps that would get me there.