Chapter 14

My first day of school went ... surprisingly well. Even with Dr. Wallace’s assurances, I’d just assumed something was going to go terribly wrong, based on the last two years. Instead, I had normal classes, wasn’t singled out; and by lunch, I’d had no run-ins beyond the one with Harry that morning. That had been more of a runaway, than anything else.

I spotted my friends still holding down our normal table in the cafeteria. Of the original group, only Joseph, Payton, and I remained, although we’d added some new people last year that seemed to be working out, including Cameron, who’d become a fixture by the spring semester. There were also some new faces that I didn’t know, either people the others had met in class or maybe freshmen. The one real surprise was David, who was sitting next to Payton. He normally sat with the other baseball guys, so I didn’t understand why he was sitting at our table.

Sliding into the seat next to him, I asked, “Hey, man. Don’t you normally sit with the other guys?”

“He and Payton are dating,” Joseph supplied, before David could finish chewing and answer.

“Really? When did this happen?”

“Beginning of summer,” Payton said. “We were working at the pool together, and he asked me out.”

“Man, that’s cool, although I’m sorry to be so late hearing about it.”

“It’s okay,” David said. “You’ve had so much going on the last few months, I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Yeah, but that’s no excuse. We basically haven’t even talked since I quit baseball. I feel like I’m completely out of the loop. Hell, I don’t know half the people sitting here, and I know some joined us last year.”

“This is Amy and Thea; they’re the ones that joined last year,” Joseph said, pointing at two of the girls sitting near the other end.

“Amy and I are in theater together,” Cameron said, indicating the girl with short, pixie-cut blonde hair and thick black glasses.

“And ... uhh, we’ve actually met before,” Thea, the petite girl with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail said.

“Ohh, yeah, of course,” I said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

She waved it off like it was no big deal.

Before I could apologize further, Joseph continued, “David brought Jake and Ryan today, and that’s Lily, who knows Payton. Maybe our new couple decided they needed new faces to take the pressure off themselves.”

“It’s not like that,” David said. “I know Jake and Ryan from playing pick-up ball, and they’re planning to try out for the team in the spring. I told them they could hang with us until then.”

“It felt weird to just go and sit with the rest of the team when we hadn’t even tried out yet,” Jake added.

“And Lily’s my next-door neighbor,” Payton said.

“Hey, I’m not complaining. Glad to have some new people since two-thirds of us have gone off and graduated.”

“A few weeks ago, Hanna said you were going to go up to UNC when Kat moved in,” Peyton said.

“Yeah, we moved her in on Saturday. She’s already trying to think of how to redecorate; God help Hanna.”

“So how is your first day going?” Peyton asked after the conversation lulled a bit. “We were all kind of worried, after everything that happened last year.”

“It’s actually going really good,” I said. “I mean, it’s still school and I’d rather be somewhere else, but nothing bad happened. No getting yelled at in the office, no fights in the hallway. Even better, I think it wasn’t just an accident. I got intercepted this morning and sent to see our new principal as soon as I got in the building.”

“I thought you said you weren’t sent to the office today,” Cameron said.

“It wasn’t like that. I thought it might be, at first, but it turned out Dr. Wallace just wanted to talk and clear the air. He said all the stuff from last year was taken care of and I’d get a fair shot this year.”

“That’s a good sign,” David said.

“I know. He was actually pretty cool about it. He said I wouldn’t get any special treatment, but I also wouldn’t be targeted. He added that I should just focus on having a normal senior year. Which works for me.”

“After they had to shell out money over what happened last year, I’m not surprised,” Cameron said.

“Yeah, and that’s not everything. I also had a run-in with Harry on the way to class.”

“He back down and run away again?” David asked.

David had been there for a couple of confrontations the previous year, where I’d gotten into Harry’s face and forced him to back down.

“Yeah, but not like that. I turned the corner and he was right there in front of me. For a second, I was sure we were going to end up at least insulting each other, posturing, or whatever, like always, but instead he literally just turned around and walked off in the opposite direction. I was so shocked I didn’t even say anything as he ran away.”

“That doesn’t sound like Harry,” David said.

“Maybe he’s trying to turn over a new leaf,” Peyton said.

“I doubt it,” David said.

“Yeah, me either, but if he wants to stay away from me, I’m more than happy to let him,” I said.

The rest of lunch was just catching up with my friends and getting to know the new people. With Hanna, and now Kat, off to college, it was nice to still have some friends I could hang out with.

The next three weeks, I started getting into a routine. I’d go to school, then home for band practice for an hour or so. Then, I’d go to Warren’s apartment, now that he’d moved to Wellsville, where we’d work for an hour or so making calls, trying to find us some gigs. So far, the only interest we’d gotten was from very small clubs paying less than what we were making at the Blue Ridge. We’d have to drive at least five or six hours to get to these clubs, meaning the costs were going to be high. We could do one of those if we had another one that paid better, but even two of those back-to-back would end up with everyone making less money.

We kept their information for when we were able to put something more substantive together and then we could set up something with them as an add-on to a more profitable stop, which is what we kept working on. After that, I’d swing by Willie’s house and visit him for an hour or so, now that he was home from the hospital. Then I’d head home. It was a pretty busy schedule and didn’t leave a lot of time for homework, but really at this point, I was just looking to pass and graduate. My grades were never going to get me anything beyond a simple diploma anyway.

Today, I was a little earlier to Warren’s than I had been most other days because Seth had to run to Asheville for something and didn’t have time to practice. We were working on another song from Lyla, which was a little less wild than her previous one but still very much rock and fun called “Friday Night Fights,” about getting into drunken fights outside a bar at night. When she’d first pitched it, I’d been unsure, since I didn’t think that would be all that fun, but it really was more silly than serious and worked well with the upbeat sound she had in mind. We still had a long way to go on it, but it gave us something to do, which we were all happy about.

Warren was in a small group of apartments on the other side of the central part of Main Street from me. Parking was kind of a pain, but it was just far enough that walking from school would have been annoying. Three weeks was enough time to know the area, and I’d found a section on a side street that usually had a good spot to park.

“You’re here earlier than normal,” Warren said when he opened his door. “Don’t you have homework ... or something?”

“Nah, I took care of it already, and we had to cancel practice today, so I figured we could get an early start today.”

“Sure,” he said, walking back into his apartment, leaving me to close the door. “I’ve made it through the list of clubs in Birmingham. I have some callbacks with a few of them, but ... I’m not confident that’ll happen.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“We haven’t touched Montgomery, but it’s a little far to go. We might need to start looking at smaller cities. Tupelo, Tuscaloosa, Springfield, places like that.”

“If we can’t make enough money on clubs in the larger cities, what are the odds that we’ll find one in a smaller town that pays enough?” I asked.

“Not good, but ... I do have an idea I want to run by you.”

“I hope it’s a good one because our current plan just isn’t working.”

“I know,” he said. “Do you know the show The Stage?”

“The singing competition show? I’ve seen segments of it, mostly as clips on Widget. I don’t really watch much TV.”

“Well, they’re going to film their next season around Christmas, and they’ve announced their audition locations; one is in Atlanta.”

“Okay,” I said, still a little confused.

“I think you should audition for it,” he said.

“For a singing competition? Isn’t that ... I don’t know, a step back. We’ve played actual shows. Big ones. And recorded an album. Aren’t those shows for amateurs?”

“That’s how they pitch it, but a lot of the people who show up already play gigs regularly and some have already made an album. Sure, there are some amateurs who’ve never performed in front of people or have only sung in church, but they’re actually the minority. Most are people just like you. They’ve made a little progress, but their careers are not where they want them to be or moving as fast as they’d like.”