Chapter 21

The new song, especially the guitar intro, was still on my mind the next day after baseball practice, and I mostly wanted to just get done with training so I could get back home to work on it. All that focus meant I was a little annoyed when Hanna announced she needed to run home before we could go to the Blue Ridge.

“I don’t suppose you can drop us off and then go back for your textbook?” I asked.

Okay, I was being a little bit selfish, but the bug had hit me and I couldn’t get the song out of my head. I’ll admit I was becoming a little obsessed.

“No. We’re close to my neighborhood now. You really want me to drive to the Blue Ridge, back home, then back to the Blue Ridge, and then drive us all back here? You hear how that sounds, right? You’re not even late. Chef doesn’t expect you until four-thirty, so you can spare a few minutes.”

“You’re right, sorry,” I said, realizing that it did sound bad when said out loud like that. “I was just being selfish.”

“Good boy,” she said, laughing when I gave her a side-eyed glare.

Sometimes she decided our age difference meant I was her little brother who was in danger of sticking a Lego up my nose. Or maybe it means I was some kind of puppy. Either way, she thought it was hilarious while I found it less so.

She pulled up to her house and said, “I don’t know how long this will take, so maybe you two should come in.”

“Fine,” I said, getting out and following her to the front door. “Let’s just hurry up. What was it you’re looking for?”

“My pre-cal textbook. I forgot it this morning and need it for an assignment. I’d planned on working on it while you trained.”

“Are you sure,” I said. “I could have sworn you had that with you this morning.”

“Nope, I didn’t,” She said, walking through her front door and into the dark living room.

I paused in the doorway as two things occurred to me. One, she normally flipped on a light at the other end of the hallway while the light from outside could show her where it was, instead of going directly into the dark living room, and two, the living room was a lot darker than it should have been. They had these big, thick curtains, but they normally had them pulled back during the day letting in a lot of sunlight.

I was about to ask what was going on when Kat pushed me hard from behind, causing me to stumble inside. I was just turning to ask her what the hell was going on when the lights flipped on in the living room.

“Surprise!” came a chorus of voices. “Happy Birthday!”

I was stunned. I mean, I knew it was my birthday, of course, but we’d never made a big thing of it. Mom usually got a cake and sang happy birthday, and that was about it, since we hadn’t had money for presents in a long time. I’d expected to go through my day like normal and we’d celebrate when she got home from work, which was why I was doubly surprised when I saw she was in front of the small group of people who’d just yelled surprise.

“Happy birthday, baby,” she said, giving me a big hug.

“What? How? Why aren’t you at work?”

“I took the afternoon off. Hanna called last week to find out what our plans were for your birthday, and when I explained we didn’t really have anything planned, since we normally just had a cake at home, she asked if she could plan something. When she told me what she wanted to do, I had to ask off work and be here.”

“You did this?” I asked Hanna, who was smiling from ear to ear.

“Yep. Can’t let my best friend go without a ... urp,” she suddenly cut off after I let go of Mom and wrapped her in a crushing hug.

“Can’t ... breathe,” she said in my ear.

I wasn’t squeezing that hard and she was speaking just fine, but I let her go anyway, holding her at arm’s length by the shoulders.

“Thank you,” I said, getting a little misty.

I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I’d really wanted to have something like this.

“Of course.”

Our little display done, everyone else came up and started wishing me happy birthday. Hanna had really outdone herself, since besides her and Kat, Mom, and Mrs. Phillips, she’d managed to bring in most of the lunch crew, Chef, Willie, Mr. French, and even Seth and Marco, who’d driven up from Asheville.

“Guys, y’all didn’t have to come all the way out here. You barely know me.”

“That’s what I said, but this girl on the phone threatened to break my legs if we didn’t come, so we didn’t have much of a choice,” Seth said.

“Shut up,” Hanna said, punching him in the arm playfully. “I mentioned it to them on Saturday after the audition and they jumped at the opportunity. Of course, that might have been because I mentioned there’d be food.”

“First thing to learn about the music business,” Marco said, holding up a plate of what looked like fajitas. “Musicians are always on the hunt for free food.”

“There’s food?” I asked, starting to look around.

“God, I swear all you think about is food sometimes,” Hanna said, laughing.

“I’m a growing boy.”

“Keep eating like that, and the only direction you’ll be growing is out,” Kat said, uncharacteristically getting in on the teasing.

“Leave my baby alone,” Mom said, putting her arm around me.

That set off a whole new round of teasing that I think might have been Mom’s goal. I managed to extricate myself and made my way around the room to greet everyone. It was probably just a coincidence the next person I stopped to talk to was Chef, who was standing by the table with all the food on it.

“Thanks for bringing the food,” I said as I started putting together a few fajitas for myself.

“When I asked what she was doing for food, Hanna had the gall to tell me she was thinking about picking up pizzas. I would have thought she’d learned better by now.”

“No kidding. I’d take your food over pizza any day.”

“See, sucking up. I’ve always said you were a fast learner.”

“Seriously though, thanks for coming. It means a lot.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it. You’ve made quite the impact around here this year, you know that? It wasn’t that long ago you showed up on my porch, not knowing anyone but Hanna, and that only by coincidence. It takes something special to have this many people wanting to celebrate you in such a short period of time.”

“I’ve been lucky, that’s for sure.”

“See, just when I complimented you for being a fast learner, you go and say something stupid. What have I been teaching you about luck?”

“That the only luck we have is the luck we make. I know.”

“Right. Luck has nothing to do with this. Work hard, treat people honestly and with respect, and try and do the right thing when you can, and the right people will find you. And here you are. They seem like a good bunch.”

“They are.”

“Good, now go socialize so I can find a grown-up to talk to. I’ve reached my youthful vigor limit for the day.”

“Xie xie, Shifu,” I said in one of the few mandarin phrases I’d learned.

“Your Chinese still sucks though,” he said as a said parting shot.

That was Chef’s way, teach and encourage when needed with the odd insult and slap to the skull when our heads started getting too big.

I moved around again, this time finding Willie talking with Mr. French.

“Hey, guys. Thanks for coming.”

“Happy to be here. Willie was just filling me in on your audition last weekend. I guess I might have spoken too soon. He says it went well and the three of you seemed to mesh pretty good.”

“I think so, but I’m still going to try and listen to your advice. I figure if I just wait and go with what feels right, I should be okay.”

“That’s the way I’ve always done it,” Willie said. “Kevin tells me you’ve got a new song going, and they’ve convinced you to start featuring your playin’ a little more.”

“Yeah. Seth mentioned it after the thing on Saturday, actually. He pointed out that I hadn’t really given myself any places to really let loose, and I was missing an opportunity.”

“He wasn’t wrong,” Mr. French said. “I know you’re trying to follow all the stuff we’ve said about what makes good or bad music, about getting an emotion out of the crowd, and about the different styles you work best in, but don’t let that trick you into thinking you need to sound like everyone else. Sure, you’ll be safer if you stay within the lane, but don’t limit yourself. You’re starting to find your own feet on the songwriting and you’re a pretty good singer, but those aren’t where your real gift is.”

“Yep. You’re the best natural guitar player I’ve ever heard, and I’ve played with a lot of guys over the years,” Willie said.

“Don’t hide that behind making other people’s music.”

“I understand. That’s pretty much what Seth said the other day too. I’ll look back at my other songs and see if I need to add something to them too.”

“They’re good and you’ve made great progress on them, so don’t make changes just to have them in there. Only do it when it feels right,” Mr. French said.

“I wouldn’t touch your first one, I don’t think,” Willie said. “It’s pretty good as it is. I think the other two are fast enough that a good riff wouldn’t sound out of place.”

“I’ll think about it. Enjoy the food guys.”

It was funny how, with some people, the conversation always seemed to turn to music, even when you were just saying ‘hi.’ Next I came to all of my lunch friends. I was happy to see that Cameron was included in that group. Things had been kind of crazy so far this year, and we hadn’t had a lot of chances to socialize once we got back into school, although I knew he’d more or less migrated permanently to eat with the lunch group every day. He was a little different to them, so I’d been a little worried that he might not mesh with them.

We talked for a while, just sharing gossip and being kids while the adults ended up migrating to the other side of the room with each other. I’d been half watching this even as I socialized, since it was interesting to see the dynamics. Some of them knew each other, but most didn’t interact in any way, except through me, so I didn’t know how people would split off.

The only wildcards were Seth and Marco, who were older than the rest of the kids but much younger than the adults, and who only knew Hanna and me, and I guess Willie. In the end, I guess they decided high school kids were a better option than forty-year-olds.

I’d been equally surprised when it came time to hand out presents. Partially because I never expected anyone to buy anything for me and partially because I’d never had a birthday party before, growing up on the road with my dad.

“This is from all of us,” Hanna said, handing me a present.

All of us was the entire lunch crew, including Kat. I tore into the paper and was surprised to see a pay-as-you-go cell phone not that much different from the one I’d gotten for Kat so she could call us without her dad finding out. It was really light on the frills without data or anything that most modern cell phones had, but that was fine by me. One day, if money wasn’t a huge issue, I’d worry about getting something better, but for now, this was perfect.

“You are impossible to get a hold of and you’re always having to bum a cell phone or having to find a landline,” Hanna said. “We put two-thousand minutes on it, so it should last a while, and put the information for re-upping in the box.”

“Thanks, guys. I guess this is as much of a present for you as me then.”

“Pretty much,” Jordan said. “It’s already activated and the number’s in the box.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it. It is annoying not having one.”

Seth and Marco looked at each other, a little embarrassed, and said, “Sorry man. We didn’t get you anything. We’re both kind of broke.”

“I told them they didn’t need to,” Hanna said.

“No problem. I’m just happy you guys came.”

“I wish someone would have told us that,” Megan said.

“You can hush it,” Hanna said, both of them smiling.

“I guess I’ll go next,” Mr. French said, handing me a present.

“Guys, you all didn’t have to get me stuff, really.”

“It’s your birthday,” he said. “This is how it’s done.”

His present turned out to be two books on songwriting, one by a guy I’d never heard of and one by a fairly famous if somewhat old musician.

“This guy was one of the best producers who ever lived. I read this one when I was in college and found it fascinating,” he said, pointing to the one I hadn’t heard of before.

“Great,” I said.

Normally, I wasn’t a huge reader, so a book wouldn’t have been my go-to gift, but these were actually great. I still felt like I was flying blind, when it came to music; so any information I could get, I was happy to receive.

The box from Willie had a small electric tuner and metronome combo that would clip on the end of the guitar. The tuner was helpful, since while I could normally get it pretty close, I had to use a piano or something similar to get it just right. That was fine when I was playing at the Blue Ridge, or somewhere else with a tuned instrument available; but when I played at home or that one party last year, I’d had to just live with ‘close enough.’ I guess it was nice that it came with a metronome, although I rarely used them. I understood how they could be helpful, but every time I’d tried one out, I found I didn’t need it to keep a steady rhythm, and it was just one more thing to pay attention to.