Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 17

Even though I got home at almost midnight, I  was up early to catch Mom before she went to work. I hadn’t seen her in  days and she looked incredibly tired. Ever since we’d moved here, she’d  basically worked seven days a week to keep us afloat except for a rare  day off here or there. It was a wake-up call, in a sense. It reminded me  of what I was really doing this for.

The recognition and support  was great, but if I kept pushing, I’d be able to make an actual  difference in our lives. My goal needed to be helping Mom quit one of  her jobs and still be able to keep food on the table, because I didn’t  know how long Mom could take working every single day.

“You look  beat,” I said, sitting across from her. “You were asleep when I came  home last night. It’s been a while since that’s happened.”

Despite how much she was working, she had still made breakfast for us.

“It  was just a tough day yesterday. One of the other crews quit, so they  added half their schedule to our list of buildings to clean. Plus, I  haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“Thanks for making breakfast.”

“Of  course, kiddo. I’ll always make breakfast for us. Since we don’t have  Saturday mornings anymore, this is the only special time we have left. I  feel like I hardly get to see you anymore.”

“I know. My schedule  has gotten crazy. I mean, not as hard as yours, but it does make it hard  to find time together. I do have something for you, though.”

I  hadn’t seen her since I was paid on Friday, so I hadn’t had a chance to  give her the check I’d gotten from the bank for half my paycheck. She  took it and half looked at it before looking again, more seriously.

“Charlie,” she said, starting to sound angry. “We’d agreed you would keep half your check.”

“That is half my check,” I said, smiling.

“What? How? This is twice what it should be.”

“They’re  paying me to play, as well as for the work in the kitchen. I only play  for half an hour and my cut of that is almost as much as what I make for  all the other work. What’s even better is they said last night that,  since I’m bringing out a whole new crowd for them, they’re going to give  me the entire first hour. I haven’t actually talked to Willie yet about  how that changes my cut, but knowing Willie, I’m betting I’ll get a  larger share. Plus, the band gets paid based on the audience, and if my  hour manages to bring out a whole new group, there will be more overall  to spread across all of us, in addition to getting a larger percentage.”

I was surprised when she didn’t seem excited by that.

“Charlie,  I’m not sure this is a good idea. This is the kind of thing that led  your dad to skip college and try making it as a full-time musician. We  both saw how that worked out. I don’t want you getting a taste of this  life and letting it push you into bad decisions.”

“I promise it won’t, Mom. I understand that my first priority is school. It’s why I’m only playing one day a week.”

“You’ve been going to practice a lot too.”

“Most  of that extra practice time was coming out of the time I spent training  with Chef, so it’s not that much extra time, and we’ll be back to only  practices on Friday’s next week.”

“Charlie, I want you to listen.  You’re young and it’s hard to see where things could end up. I watched  your dad go through this and heard a lot of horror stories over the  years. You just started playing for them two weeks ago, and they’ve  already increased your time. What if this goes well? Will they ask you  to play Friday nights and Sunday nights? What if they see the extra  money and decide to add music to the rest of the week?”

“Chef  believes in schooling. He makes sure I get my homework done first,  before anything else. He might expand it to Sunday and Friday, but I’d  bet he gets me out after my set and lets Willie finish off the second  set on Sundays. That would mean I’d be coming home the same time I do  now, working in the kitchen. He wouldn’t push me to do something that  would hurt my school work.”

“Maybe, but I think it’s time I call this Chef of yours and have a serious talk with him.”

“Mom, please don’t mess this up for me.”

“Charlie,  I need you to remember who’s in charge here. I love you. I want you to  have everything you dream of, but you’re only sixteen years old. I know  this lecture’s going to go in one ear and out the other, because I’m  sure you’ll hear it from other grown-ups and discount it, but I want you  to listen. Do you know the big difference between grown-ups and kids,  even teenagers?”

“You’re smarter than us,” I said, perhaps a bit too flippantly.

“No,  and watch the sass. We aren’t smarter, not really. You kids surprise us  all the time with just how intelligent you are. What we have that you  don’t yet, is experience. We’ve been where you are and made the  mistakes. Most of the time you aren’t going to listen to us, and you’ll  make the same mistakes, and that’s fine. That’s how you’re really going  to learn. Sometimes, though, you need to hear us, especially when the  mistakes are too big and you can’t change your decisions afterward. This  is one of those times. If you make the choice to follow your dreams and  don’t take the necessary steps, just in case those dreams don’t pan  out, you won’t be able to go back and get the education you need, at  least not easily. I want you to follow your dreams, sweetie, but I want  you to be smart about it.”

“I promise you, I’m not going to become  Dad. Ever! I plan on going to college, and honestly, this is the only  way I see that happening. Can you look at me and honestly say we have  any hope of paying for college, even community college, where we are  now. Loans and grants only go so far. I think this is a way I can make  some money and put it aside for college. I promise I will not let  playing music get in the way of what’s important.”

“You’d better  not. I’ll let you keep playing, but I want you to understand that if  your grades slip, you will not be playing anymore. I’m also going to  call and have a talk with this Chef of yours.”

“Okay, but please  be careful. I know how you get when you go full mamma bear, and I really  don’t want to waste this. Not just the music, but all the training I’ve  been getting. I’m in the best shape of my life, and I love it. I even  love learning to cook now that I’m working Saturday mornings. I can’t  remember a time I was happier than right now, and the Blue Ridge is a  big part of that.”

“As long as he promises me that he’ll look out for your best interests and then never breaks that promise, we’ll be fine.”

I groaned and dropped my head down onto the table into my arms.

“Now, tell me what your plans are for today.”

Hanna showed up after Mom had left for work.  She was a little later than I’d thought, since it would take time to get  down there, but since I was bumming rides, there wasn’t much I could  say.

The first stop was Walmart, where she helped me pick out a  few new clothes. It wasn’t a lot, since the remaining half of my check  wasn’t all that large, but it was enough to add a little variety into my  dates and when I played. My original plan went out the window as soon  as she saw what I was planning on picking out.

“Nope, no dress pants,” she declared as soon as I started heading towards a rack of pants.

“I  thought I should have a pair to wear when I play at the Blue Ridge. The  rest of the band wears button-up shirts and slacks, and a few add vests  or whatever. I thought if I wore slacks and a button-up shirt, even if  it wasn’t white like theirs, it would be close enough.”

“Charlie, not only do you not need to dress like them, but you shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“The  whole point of you playing is to bring a different feel. They don’t  need another old blues musician. They have that. They need a young guy  who plays modern music to bring in a new audience. You’re that guy. You  just need to dress the part.”

“Okay, then how should I dress?”

“Well,  if you were playing rock, I’d say a t-shirt with an open flannel.  Country and we’d go hat and denim or plain button-up. For you though,  your best bet is a t-shirt and jeans.”

“That’s what I wear to school every day. Seems like cheating to wear that on stage too.”

“What you wear to school is … umm,” she stammered, trying to find a diplomatic choice of words.

“Cheap.”

“I’m trying not to be mean.”

“I  know. I don’t have any illusions of who I am, Hanna. We’re poor. Until  now, the only things we could afford came from Goodwill. That’s what I’m  trying to change. Just tell me what I should get. I’m not going to get  mad just because you point out that my clothes are old and worn out.”

“I wasn’t trying to say that. The shirts you have are what a teen boy would wear.”

“Which I am.”

“At  school you are. On stage, you’re an artist. Not all t-shirts are the  same. Since form-fitted shirts won’t really be available here and can be  a little pricy, we’ll go with a plain or maybe ribbed shirt a size down  from what you normally wear.”

“Won’t that be tight?”

“That’s  the point. You’re starting to put some meat on your bones and getting a  little muscle definition. If you keep working with Chef, it’ll be  noticeable, and will look good in a tight shirt. The jeans you have are  fine. Hell, some people pay a lot of money to have new jeans that look  worn out. We’ll still get one good button-up, so you have some options  for dates with Rhonda, although I bet once she sees you in a tight  t-shirt, she’ll probably prefer that, too.”

“I’m not sure about this.”

“Trust me. On this, I’m right. You want to stand out, and this will look good.”

“Fine,  I trust you. Only because I don’t have a clue when it comes to clothes.  If I look like an idiot, though, I’m going to come after you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving me off and heading towards the shirts.

We  ended up finding some on clearance that looked half-way decent and had  the fit she liked. I was right when I said I’d feel weird wearing them.  It felt like the fabric was trying to squeeze me to death. The only real  problem we had was finding ones that didn’t end up being too short. A  few labels were out, since once we went down a size, the shirts barely  got to my waist.

In the end, we got one button-up shirt and two  t-shirts. It wasn’t really enough, but she promised to take me again on  the next payday, and the couple I had should work for me. She did say  that if I felt too self-conscious, I could pair the button-up shirt with  it, since it was plain and dark and would look good over the t-shirts.

Our  next stop was the mall. It was an interesting experience. We spent an  hour and a half walking to several shops, where I’d stand off to the  side while Hanna picked through racks of stuff, holding it up, and then  putting it back. I thought she’d end up not buying anything, but  eventually, we got to one store where she seemed to like the product  better, picking out several things to try on.

Considering the  things she was saying, it seemed like she was familiar with all the  stores where she couldn’t find anything, which apparently never had  anything she liked. I made the mistake of asking her why she didn’t just  go to the store where she seemed to always find stuff she liked, and  skip the places where she couldn’t find stuff.

“They might have something good,” she said, looking at me like I was an idiot.

“You  said, ‘these places never have anything good.’ If I went somewhere a  half dozen times, and never liked what they had, I’d assume they never  did and stop going.”

“It’s not that they never have anything I like, it’s just not the right stuff I’m looking for.”

“It all looked the same as this to me.”

“That’s  because you’re a guy. You don’t actually know anything about fashion.  Plus, I like shopping; it’s fun to see what they have and if it’ll  work.”

“It’s fun to go somewhere you always decide nothing matches  what you’re looking for, confirm they still don’t, before going to the  place that always has stuff you like?”

“Yes. Now shut up and tell me if this skirt looks okay.”

I  gave her my opinion, which she promptly declared I was wrong and it was  ugly. I wasn’t sure why she kept asking my opinion, since she made it  clear she didn’t think I knew what I was talking about, but she did. I  honestly think she just liked the interaction and being able to tell  someone about clothes, more than anything else.

In the end, she  did find some things she liked, buying a few of them. While I won’t say  it was the most enjoyable morning I’ve ever had, it was nice to just  hang out with Hanna.

I realized on Monday, as we got to school,  how much better my mood had been since starting to play on Saturdays.  This was the third week in a row I’d started the day happy and upbeat.

My  math teacher, who I actually liked despite hating the subject, was the  person who ruined my mood this time. Once we were all in our seats, she  announced it was time for the first quiz of the year, to check in on how  we were doing with the section we were on.

While I’d paid  attention in class, mostly, and done every piece of homework, I was  still struggling with a lot of the concepts. I could do the steps that  consisted of simple arithmetic, but once we got beyond that into  algebraic equations, I just couldn’t work out what to do. I knew you had  to move numbers and letters around to find out what the letters meant,  but sometimes they were in parenthesis, and sometimes they were set up  like fractions, and I just didn’t know what to do. The furthest I’d ever  gotten with Mom was essentially elementary math, with fractions and  word problems.

I was the very last one done, eventually just  giving up and leaving some problems uncompleted. We graded it in class,  and to say I bombed it would be charitable. My conversation with Mom was  sitting in the back of my head the whole time we went over the  problems.

I’d promised her I’d find a way to go to college, but I  was so far behind in some subjects, that it honestly didn’t seem  probable. I’d tried to get help at lunch a few times, but they’d start  explaining the problem, only to realize that they had to go back four or  five steps, needing to explain more straightforward concepts. In the  end, they just got frustrated and gave up. I didn’t blame them, I was  equally as frustrated.

While I knew I wasn’t a genius, I didn’t  think I was dumb. Considering I could keep up in some of my classes just  fine, that seemed to be confirmed. Yet, every time I got into one of  the math or science classes, I was hopeless. I wasn’t sure there was any  way I’d make up the years of little to no teaching in those subjects,  which meant graduating high school, let alone getting to college, would  be impossible.

What was worse was, once Mom found out how much I  was struggling, she would almost certainly put a stop to me playing on  weekends.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Rhonda asked as we walked away from English.

I  hadn’t been able to shake how bad I did in math, and had been somewhat  distant again during class; not ignoring her, but clearly acting ‘off.'  This was starting to become something of a pattern, me having a bad day  and becoming distant. Hopefully, she didn’t take it personally, since it  was difficult to keep from getting in my own head.

“Sorry, I just bombed a math quiz.”

“It’s just a quiz,” she said, trying to be helpful. “You can make up the grade.”

“It’s  not just the one quiz, I’m really struggling. My mom did her best,  homeschooling me, but I missed too much, and I’m not sure I can catch  up.”

“You still have time; maybe they’ll move you to an easier class if you ask.”

“Maybe,  but that would still be a problem. My mom made it clear that school  comes first, and if I start having problems, she expects me to drop  playing music and focus on it.”

“What? Why would she do that? You’ve got real talent.”

“She  saw how my dad did, chasing his dream of being a rock star. She doesn’t  want me to go down the same path, and she’s already pretty hard against  me playing as anything other than a hobby. It won’t take much to push  her over the edge.”

We’d walked outside and sat on the bleachers to eat, although much of my appetite was gone.

“So, you think she’ll make you quit?”

“Maybe,  unless I can turn things around. I’ve been able to get through getting  my homework in, so that grade is okay, although I haven’t really  understood a lot of it and needed a bunch of help. I just can’t bomb any  more quizzes or tests.”

“I wish I could help, but I’m not that great with math. My sister is the brains of the family.”

“It’s okay, just having someone to talk to about this helps.”

She  stopped eating and leaned against me snuggling into my shoulder. The  feel of her pushing against me did help. I knew I still had to deal with  math and it was still a big problem, but at the moment, I didn’t care  so much. It was a problem for later.

“Rhonda?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

“Yes,”  she said, snuggling against me harder. “So, I guess this means you want  me to go with you when you change lunch tables now, huh?”

“Yes,  but you don’t have to. Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean I’m going  to make you choose between your friends and me. I’ll still sit with you  at your friends’ table sometimes too, either way.”

“Right answer. It’s fine, I’ll go with you, but if my sister starts giving me a hard time …”

“Then, I’ll stick up for you.”

I  wrapped my arms around her and put my cheek against the top of her  head. We sat like that for a while, just enjoying each other’s presence.

I told Hanna that afternoon that I’d asked  Rhonda to be my girlfriend. She said she was happy for me, but didn’t  seem to think it was particularly earth-shattering news. I was probably  taking it more seriously than everyone else, since I hadn’t really dated  before and definitely never had a girlfriend before.

They’d all  started in junior high and had a string of relationships by now. I was  sure the newness would eventually wear off, but for now, I was just  really enjoying it.

Even though I was still worried about my math  grades and what I was going to do about it, I wasn’t as depressed about  it as I had been. Rhonda and I talked on the phone every few days  before, but that night our phone call was a lot longer. We didn’t really  talk about anything in particular, just made idle chit chat while we  each went about our night.

Once again, school managed to put a  dent in my good mood. This time it was in Coach Bryant’s class, which  shouldn’t surprise me at all. If ever there was a place to ruin a good  mood, it was around him.

To be fair, this time he actually had a  reason to call me out. I’d been daydreaming and hadn’t been paying  particular attention when he called my name, pulling me out of my  reverie.

“Mr. Nelson. I know you think you don’t have to pay  attention like everyone else, so show us how smart you are. We were  discussing the characteristics that we use to define a civilization. I  gave you six. Name three for me.”

Shit, I was screwed. I’d done  the required reading and the book had talked about that, but hadn’t  answered that specific question.

“Umm … Agriculture.”

“At least you got the obvious one. Two more.”

“Language?”

“Is that a question?”

“No, language.”

“A shared system of communication. One more.”

“An army?” I said, guessing completely.

“This,  ladies and gentlemen, is why it’s important to pay attention in class.  Some of you,” he said, not even pretending not to look directly at me,  “think you’re too good to put in the work. I’m here to tell you that  isn’t how the world works. My boys can tell you how hard I make them  work on the field. I know some of you are less athletically inclined …”

He  paused to look at me again before continuing, “So you might not have  had the chance to learn this. Take Mr. Nelson’s incompetence as a life  lesson. You have to do the work and stay focused if you want to win. Or,  you can follow Mr. Nelson here and decide winning isn’t everything.  Someone’s gotta make fries for the rest of us. Now, let’s continue …”

I  tried to keep the anger off my face. The last thing I wanted to do was  let him see he’d scored some hits. It wasn’t easy, considering the three  football players in the class who seemed to think my embarrassment was  hilarious.

I could have kicked myself, in hindsight. I knew Coach  Bryant had it in for me, and I’d made myself an easy target by  daydreaming.