Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 18

Thursday, I got to school late, which meant I  would get to miss Coach Bryant’s class. It also meant I would miss  math, which I really couldn’t afford to do; but today was a follow up on  my foot.

The Doctor had decided to just put me in the boot, with  hopes that it would mend without another cast, which would have left me  more immobile for longer. I’d made Mom promise to get me back to school  in time for lunch, which she found weird. I didn’t mention that the only  reason I wanted to be back was to see Rhonda, but I’m sure she figured  it out, anyway.

We didn’t have a regular doctor, since we really  couldn’t afford it. Health care was a luxury poor people didn’t have. We  usually just hoped nothing bad happened and went without things like  checkups.

Mrs. Philips had promised to cover my medical expenses,  since I had gotten hurt helping Sam, and she’d meant it. She’d paid for  not only the hospital, but also got me an appointment with their Doctor,  which in a small town like this was basically the only Doctor.

“Charlie, good to see you again,” Doctor Halcott said when he walked in. “How’s the foot.”

“It’s fine, just a pain in the ass to move around with this thing.”

“Charlie! Language!” Mom said, shooting me a look to make sure I knew to mind my manners.

“It’s  fine, Mrs. Nelson,” the Doctor said, chuckling. “Just teen boys being  boys. I had a boy his age at one time. I tell you, I wish mine had been  half as polite as your son has been. Well, let’s take a look here and  see how it’s coming.”

He took the boot off and unwrapped the  bandage around the foot. I’d made sure to wash it regularly, since the  boot made my leg and foot sweat like crazy. I could only imagine the  smell if I hadn’t. I’d also changed out the bandage several times,  because it had absorbed a lot of sweat and dirt and got rank after a  week. I’d planned on just washing them, because ACE bandages could be  pricy, but Mrs. Philips had given me a bunch when she found out.

Even  with all that, the boot itself was starting to stink. You couldn’t  really smell it when it was on, but when you took it off, a definite  funk filled the air. Thankfully, everyone politely ignored it.

He  poked and pulled on the leg, gently at first, then a little more firmly.  It was a little tender but didn’t hurt like it did on that first day. I  hadn’t really noticed the pain going down till now. After the first few  days, I’d adjusted to the being careful with my foot and stopped  banging it on things, so other than having a bulky weight strapped  around it, I hadn’t really thought about it much.

“This is looking  pretty good,” he said. “Everything seems to be healing nicely, and if  you keep being careful, you should be able to stop wearing this by the  end of next month.”

“Do we need to take any x-rays or anything to make sure?” Mom asked.

The  Doctor probably thought she was cautious, but I heard the worry in  Mom’s voice. She was still on the fence about Mrs. Philips paying for my  Doctor’s visits, and I’d bet she was worried about the costs of  something like that.

He looked at Mom and said, “No, I think we  should be fine. If he starts exhibiting any pain when walking or  standing, then we’ll take some more images and look to see if the  fracture is starting to get worse,” Turning back to me, he added, “I  know boys can sometimes be hesitant to tell us if they’re in pain, but  it’s important you tell us if it hurts, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I’m  serious, now. If you try and hide it hurting from your mother, you could  make everything worse, and still have to get a cast. I know you don’t  like wearing this thing and want to be able to lose it completely, but  re-fracturing it or expanding the break after going a month wearing it  would be worse, since you’d then have to get a cast anyways.”

“I  promise I’ll tell you if it hurts. Except for the first few days, where I  hit it against a few things, since I wasn’t used to it, it hasn’t been  that bad. Honestly, I don’t even think about it much.”

“Good.  Good. Well, I think that about covers it. We’ll make an appointment near  the end of October to take one last look at taking this boot off for  good.”

“Great,” I said, with actual enthusiasm.

We made the appointment and headed back to the car, so Mom could take me to school and then go in to work.

The combination of seeing an end in sight for  getting the boot off my foot, and Rhonda being my girlfriend, was  enough to make the week fly by. It was capped off with my expanded set  on Saturday. I’d worked several of my lunch friends’ suggestions into  the new, expanded setlist, which we worked all week to get ready.

Willie  had talked to the regulars who stopped by throughout the week, and word  had gotten out about the format change. Crowds for the first hour this  week were even bigger than last week, and it wasn’t just kids from my  school. I saw a lot of faces of people that looked to be college age in  the audience. I also noticed many of the faces that I’d started  recognizing as regulars missing from the audience.

When it was  time for me to stop and Willie to take over with the normal music is  when things got different. Normally, we took our break and then came  back out and started playing right away. This time we had to wait for  the audience to settle down, since a lot of the new people got up and  left, which made room for the missing regulars who all started to show  up at about the same time.

I thought Willie and Chef might be  annoyed, since the whole thing was a lot more chaotic than normal, but  they weren’t, although for different reasons. Willie waved me off and  said that it was only because this was the first week. He said that  people would get used to the new format and work it out among  themselves.

Chef was just happy because the plan worked exactly  the way he’d hoped it would. Normally, he’d get the music time audience  who would come in on time and just stay for the two hours. This time we  turned over about a third of the tables, which meant not only a larger  audience for the first half, but a third again the size since they left  and new people came in. Since there was a cover for people who weren’t  eating, many of those people ordered drinks and food, which helped his  bottom line. When we finished for the night, Chef said this was probably  the single best day they’d had, outside of a couple of holidays.

Rhonda  stayed for both parts, sitting as close to the stage as she could get.  We even managed to find some time alone around the side of the building  before Hanna took us both home, which was starting to become a pattern  for us.

It ended up being a fantastic end-of-the-week.

Rhonda  and I had started holding hands as we walked from English to lunch.  We’d made it through eating with her friends and telling them that we  were now together. Camille did her best to stir the pot, making several  cutting remarks, but Rhonda seemed to ignore her. I think partly it was  because word of my playing on Saturday was getting out, and the rest of  her friends seemed to think my being a musician was still enough to make  up for being poor, at least where school standing goes. For whatever  reason, it made me good enough for Rhonda to date without getting crap  from her friends.

That attitude didn’t seem universal, however. We  were just getting to the cafeteria when Aaron came around a corner,  stopping directly in our path.

A teacher was in the hall not far  behind us, so he knew he couldn’t actually do anything other than glare.  There was no point getting into it with him, so I started to pull  Rhonda around him when he noticed us holding hands.

“Shit, look at  this,” Aaron said to the minion he had with him. “Girls must be  desperate around here if they end up with this faggot. Hey, you know if  you want a real man, I’d be happy to help you out.”

I didn’t take the bait. He was looking to pick a fight, and I knew it. I squeezed Rhonda’s hand tighter and dodged around him.

“Just ignore him,” I said in a whisper.

The  two idiots laughed together as they walked away from us. Several people  in the hallway were looking at us, but I ignored them too. I felt  Rhonda relax slightly and she gave me a shy smile, before letting go of  my hand.

I knew she hated being called out in public and was very  concerned with how others saw her, so I didn’t press it. She’d been  popular in middle school and did alright in the lower class social  circles. As with most schools, she wasn’t on upper-classmen’s radar at  all, but she wanted to be, since that would instantly boost her standing  with her peers. While I didn’t care about that, I wanted her happy, so  if she needed to have a little space to deal with someone like Aaron, it  was the least I could do, even if her reacting to him exactly like he  wanted stung a little.

Wednesday, Rhonda and I were at lunch with  Hanna and the rest, having worked out a rotation of where we sat each  day for lunch. Hanna and Rhonda’s sister found our antics funny, while  Rhonda’s friends seemed almost offended that she’d agree to sit with  ‘those people,’ as Camille put it. Rhonda was clearly bothered by this,  and I almost caved and agreed to just keep sitting with her friends.

The  only thing that kept me from giving in was seeing that Rhonda was  actually happier and more engaged when we weren’t sitting with them. It  was so obvious that she watched every word she said around them, to keep  the status she seemed to find so important. I couldn’t understand why  Rhonda would choose that over being actually happy, but if I had started  lecturing her on why she should do what I think was right instead, I’d  have been no better than Camille. Still, seeing that she seemed actually  happier when we were away from her normal group is what kept me from  giving in.

The other thing was, I really needed help with math,  and it wasn’t like I could ask them for help. Jordan and Payton were  both pretty good at math and patient enough to explain things to me.

“I still don’t get it,” I said, head in my hands. “Why can you just move the letter from here to here?”

“Because  that’s how it works. You have to get everything to balance out to solve  for x, and you’re not just moving it. You have to subtract here if you  want to add there, for instance.”

“But whhhyyy?”

I managed to channel my whine into an eye roll and annoyance, but only barely.

“Let’s start over, if you …”

She was interrupted when Megan came walking up as fast as the lunch monitors would allow and slid into her seat.

“Hanna, have you checked social media today?”

“No, but I don’t use it much.”

“Umm, there’s a thing that just went up on Twitter.”

“What does it say?”

Megan  suddenly seemed unsure of herself. It was obvious whatever it was  wasn’t good, and that she didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news.

“Just tell her,” I said.

“It’s  from an account called Hanna’s Diary, and it’s very clearly about you.  They tagged like half the school, in a series of posts, so everyone’s  seeing it.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s written like it’s you  writing in a diary, and it talks about … umm … how badly you want to  sleep with a bunch of different people.”

“So someone made an account to trash me, probably Karen Brooks. That bitch seriously has it in for me.”

“It doesn’t make you mad?” Rhonda asked, genuinely surprised.

“At Karen making a stalker account about me, no. It’s desperate and sad.”

“That isn’t all it said,” Megan said, still sounding worried.

“Fine, what other juvenile bullshit did she write?”

“She talks about you sleeping with Greg Carlson.”

“The guy on the basketball team? I don’t even know him.”

“There are pictures.”

“Of what, I’ve only spoken to him, like twice.”

“Here,” Megan said, handing over her phone.

Sitting  next to Hanna, I could see the phone, which had a scroll of messages,  including a picture where it looked like she was holding some guys hand,  who was probably Carlson.

“What? That never happened.”

“Maybe it did,” Joseph said.

He, and several others, had pulled up the posts on their own phones.

“Could  have been during a prayer at a pep rally or something, maybe one held  last year. I remember you wearing that jacket at some point, but it  hasn’t been cold enough for it in a long while.”

“It’s just the two of us here.”

“Yeah,  but they could have picked a good moment or even photoshopped everyone  else out. See, it’s outside by the flag pole. We did some things out  there. Weren’t you in that before school prayer group for a little while  last year?”

“Yeah, but I only went twice at the beginning of the  year. Mom thought … it doesn’t matter, it wasn’t really my scene. Hell, I  don’t even remember who was there.”

“Clearly, someone found this picture and using it to make you look bad.”

“God, some of the stuff after that gets really graphic,” Fatima said.

“So much fucking bullshit.”

“No one that matters believes this. We all know it’s not true.”

“I  know, but it’s still going to be a pain. For at least a week I’m going  to have people whispering and shutting up as I walk near them. I thought  I was done with that shit.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Not really. I gotta go to class.”

Lunch  was only half done, but no one said anything as she got up and left.  She clearly needed some time to come to grips with the gossip being  spread about her. Rhonda had pulled it up on her phone, but I didn’t  want to read it. I’d gotten the gist of it from the way everyone else  talked as soon as Hanna left, which, sadly, is exactly what she  predicted was going to happen.

Since I was several grades behind  her, the gossip didn’t really go around people I had classes with, so I  wasn’t sure how bad the damage was for her. My first clue was when I  beat her to the car again that afternoon, which was rare. She came out  of the school a few minutes behind me, walking slowly to the car,  shoulders hunched and head down.

Despite what she’d said about it being no big deal at lunch, she was clearly hurt by the posts and all the drama they caused.

“You okay?” I asked as she got up to the car.

“No, I just want to go home.”

“Hanna,” a voice called out, making us both look up.

Marcus was walking quickly towards us, arms pumping, clearly agitated.

“What the hell? You can’t even talk to me about this. I have to hear about it in PE of all places?”

“Marcus, it’s not …”

“No,  I don’t want to hear it. I asked you out because I always thought you a  good person. We were getting along, and everything was going great, and  then I find out you’re two-timing me, with Greg Carlton of all people.  What, it takes some stuffed shirt, goody two shoes for you to get  interested. Of course, his whole ‘God would want people to wait’ was  bullshit then as soon as you agreed to spread your legs for him.”

The  Hanna I knew disappeared before my eyes. Gone was the confident take no  bullshit girl I’d met at the beginning of the year. She practically  shriveled up into herself, the entire day overwhelming her. It was quite  possibly the most heartbreakingly sad thing I’d ever seen.

“Hey!” I yelled to break Marcus out of his rant. “Walk away!”

“What?”

“Walk away! I may be crippled right now, but I will beat you to death with this crutch unless you walk away from her.”

As is the go-to for most teen boys, he started to puff up, preferring a fight over letting someone call him out.

I  dropped one crutch, flipping the other upside down like a club, “Did  you know my father is in prison for manslaughter after stabbing a guy  during a bar fight? Do you want to find out how far the apple fell from  the tree?”

I wasn’t actually planning on trying to do him any  permanent harm, and I’d like to think I was pretty far from being my  father, but I was serious in that I was ready to hurt him if he kept  coming at Hanna. He must have seen some of that in my eye, because he  gave one glance her direction and backed away, before turning and  walking off.

Hanna started softly crying behind me.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, using the one crutch to swing walk as fast as I could to catch up with Marcus.

“Hey!” I yelled as I started closing the ground between us.

“What the hell, I walked away,” he said, stepping back and putting his fists up.

A  part of my brain instantly went to Chef’s lessons about how to cover  yourself in a fight, both to block and be ready to return a punch.  Marcus was almost in the exact pose Chef had used as an example of what  not to do, both fists chest level and extended.

“I’m just going to talk, and you’re going to listen.”

“About what?”

“About  you being a massive fucking dumbass. Did you even look at that account?  Someone’s trying to smear Hanna and get people to gossip about her. You  fell for it, hook, line and fucking sinker.”

“I saw the picture.”

“Of  her holding the guy’s hand? Did you look at anything else in the  picture? She’s wearing a jacket, and so is he. Does it feel like jacket  weather right now? You can see trees in the distance, they have no  leaves. Look over there. Do you see fucking leaves on that tree?”

“I didn’t … uhhh …”

“You  didn’t think. You just saw a picture and probably heard some of your  fucking jock friends making comments about you being a simp or some  other God damn thing, and decided to ride out here on your fucking high  horse, ready to tell Hanna off. There are dozens of reasons why, during  last year when it was cold enough for jackets and the leaves to fall off  trees, she would have been holding some guys hand, not that it even  matters since you two weren’t fucking dating back then.”

“I didn’t know? It seemed so real.”

“Did  you ask her? Did you trust her enough to talk to her about it and find  out what was happening? No; you jumped to conclusions, stormed out here,  and called her a slut.”

He was quite for several beats as it sunk in.

“Shit.”

“No kidding.”

“I should go talk to her.”

“Yes,  but not right now. You just fucking pile drove her; she needs some time  to get back up. What you’re going to do is go home and call her  tonight. You’re going to beg for mercy and promise her anything to show  her you’re sorry. Maybe she takes you back, and maybe she doesn’t, but I  promise you she’s worth the attempt. Besides, eventually, everyone is  going to figure out this was all a setup and you don’t want to look like  a chump, do you?”

“No, I mean I’ll call her, but not because of that. I do want her back.”

“Then you’d better figure out how to show her you’re really sorry.”

With that, I turned and hobbled away.

“What did you say?” Hanna asked as soon as I got back to her.

“I made him understand that he’s a moron. We agreed his best option was to call you tonight and beg for forgiveness.”

“Why should I even listen to him after he …?”

She had to stop and regain her composure, fighting back more tears.

“You  don’t have to. I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you before I went and  talked to him, but the longer people get dug into a position, the harder  it is for them to admit they’re wrong.”

“It’s fine, but I’m not sure I can forgive him after what he said.”

“I  know, and if you don’t want to that’s really okay. He was way the hell  out of line. When he saw the picture and the tweets suggesting what that  picture meant, he should come to talk to you first. That would have  been the adult thing to do, or so I’ve been told. I think it’s important  to remember none of us are adults yet. You two may be seventeen, but  we’ve all still got a long way to go before we grow up. He saw something  and believed you cheated on him. He was hurt and angry, kind of like  you are now. He made a mistake. You know him better than I do, does this  seem to fit in with who he is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was just pretending to be nice.”

“Maybe.  I’m not saying you have to forgive him or take him back. Only you can  decide that, and whatever you decide will be perfectly valid. I’m just  saying you have to try and look at both sides, ya know?”

“Sure,” she said as we got into the car. “How the hell did a kid who just got his first girlfriend figure all this out?”

“I  haven’t figured anything out, but my parents had a shitty marriage  those last couple of years. I’ve seen what a really bad relationship  looks like, up close.”

“Is your dad really in prison? I know you said he went away, but you were never very specific.”

I  sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, “Yes. He was a raging  alcoholic in those last few years. After getting smashed in a bar he got  into a fight, which he did pretty much every week, but this time the  guy pulled a knife. Somehow my drunk-ass father got it away from him and  ended up stabbing the guy. Since it was the other guys’ weapon and the  fight had been mutual, he only got ten years for manslaughter.”

“Holy shit, Charlie! I had no idea. Here I am crying because people put mean stuff about me on the Internet.”

“That’s  something worth crying about. Especially after Marcus came after you.  Besides, I’m glad he’s gone. I love that my dad taught me music, but he  was a massive asshole, especially those last few years. I’m honestly  glad he’s gone.”

“Don’t say that. I’d do anything to get my father back.”

“You never talk about him.”

“I know. He died of cancer when I was little.”

“Do you remember him?”

“Yes,  and no. I get flashes, you know. Of him playing with me, teaching me to  ride my bike, stuff like that. Mom doesn’t talk about him much, and she  keeps all his pictures put away.”

“I’m really sorry, Hanna.”

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

“Well, let’s just say our memories of our fathers are very different.”

We  ended up pulling up to Hanna’s house. I’d been talking and hadn’t paid  attention and was surprised we were here and not at the Blue Ridge.

“Why are we here?”

“Ohh, sorry. I went on autopilot. I’m just … I don’t know.”

“Do  you want me to call Chef and tell him I can’t make it? I’m new to this  kind of thing, but I can eat ice cream with you and listen to you vent.  I’ll say things like ‘that asshole’ and ‘what a bitch’ at all the right  moments.”

A smile broke through for the first time since lunch,  when she learned about the posts. After seeing her absolute misery  earlier, it made me feel like I’d finally done something right.

“No. I just want to take a hot bath and then crawl under my blankets.”

“How  about this? I’ll call Chef and see if there is another way to get up to  the Blue Ridge. You go inside and take your bath and try to wind down  for the day. When Marcus calls you later, if you decide to forgive him,  make sure to let him dangle a little bit.”

“I’ll think about it,”  she said, leaning over and throwing her arms around my neck, squeezing  me tight. “Thanks, Charlie. You’re a really great friend.”