Chapter 44

Monday, it was weird waking up and having nowhere to be. My first year of public school was over and I’d more or less survived it. I spent most of the day at Hanna’s just hanging out with her and Kat, not really doing anything in particular.

Since the audition was over, the daily practice sessions had ended, which meant the only thing I had to do was go train with Chef. I honestly felt a little at loose ends, since my schedule had suddenly gone from completely packed to empty literally overnight.

This is how I found myself sitting on the floor of Hanna’s living room watching a dumb romantic comedy that both of the girls were tearing up over when my phone rang.

“Charlie?” the voice said, a little unsure.

It took me a moment to recognize the caller as Rowan, since he’d never called me before and his voice sounded a little different on the phone.

“Yeah.”

“Are you, your band, and your mother able to be available tomorrow afternoon at four pm?”

“Mom works during the day, but I can ask her if she can get off. Why?”

“I don’t want to say yet, because things are still being finalized, but if at all possible, I’d like for the two of you to meet us at that restaurant place where you played the other night. It’s important that she’s there with you.”

“You’re being really cryptic.”

“I know! I can’t give any specifics right now, because I don’t want to promise anything that won’t happen, but this could be a big deal.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to her,” I said.

“Great. See you there.”

“What was that?” Hanna asked.

“It was Rowan. He wants me, the band, and Mom, I guess because I’m a minor, at the Blue Ridge at four tomorrow, but he won’t say why.”

“It has to be about that label scout, right? I mean, you only know him through music stuff and they said the other day how he and the scout kind of knew each other.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe it’s just a series of gigs or something. I don’t want to start thinking I’m going to become famous and then find out it’s just a tour of Jim-Bob’s music and hotdog stands across the southwest.”

“I hear that’s how Alton Stone got his big break,” Kat said, referring to one of the big names in early rock.

He’d made his name traveling tiny venues in the 50s, exposing audiences to an up-tempo version of blues that would lead the way into rock. Of course, he was a fluke. Most people who spend a large part of their career playing in tiny venues never made it out of those tiny venues.

“That was also like a hundred years ago. I’m just saying, let’s not get our hopes up.”

I called Mom and luckily, she normally got off at five. She asked around and she found someone who’d cover her the last hour, and she could work through lunch, which meant she wouldn’t even have to make up the time. While that did have her getting out just as the meeting was supposed to start, it was a small town, so it wouldn’t take her long to make it to us.

The rest of the guys all said they could make it, but I hadn’t been worried about that. They’d all been scraping by before we formed up, and the regular gigs we had at the moment meant none of them had to have a day job, although the tiny amount we got paid for all those gigs meant they still lived hand to mouth.

Despite what I said to Hanna, I was completely in my head about what the meeting was about the rest of the day and had a lot of trouble falling asleep that night. Thankfully, I didn’t have anywhere else to be, so I could sleep in, but I couldn’t keep from working through scenarios in my head of what might happen. It was hard to not dream about getting some big record contract and having them fly me out to the coast, where’d I’d cut my first record and play in a stadium to tens of thousands of fans.

Of course, I knew that wasn’t how it worked. Just because someone got a record contract, unless they started getting picked up for a lot of air-time or ended up on some kind of viral video, it just meant more regional sales, small tours, and a slow build building fan base. If getting a record contract was a one-in-a-million shot, turning that into being an A-list act was a one-in-a-billion.

Of course, the pessimistic part of my brain told me that Rowan was just being nice, the scout had actually hated the show he saw, and Rowan wanted to come down and let us down easy. Of course, the logical part of my brain also had something to say about this, since if that was what was happening, there was no reason for my mother to be there.

I’d expected Mom to be the last one there, but she showed up fifteen minutes after four, and still no sign of Rowan. Everyone was a little antsy and Mom was more than a little annoyed when it looked like she took off work just to get stood up. We were just talking about everyone leaving when Rowan finally pushed through the doors, followed by a man in a suit I didn’t recognize.

“Sorry I’m late. There was an overturned eighteen-wheeler that backed the freeway up. I appreciate you all staying I ... Chef Tang, you’d mentioned a lawyer?”

“Yes. He’s also coming up from Asheville, so he probably got caught in the same traffic you did. Let’s give him a few minutes.”

“What...” I started to ask when Mr. Eaves came through the door accompanied by another stranger, making it a day of reunions, of a sort.

“And here he is now,” Chef said. “We have to open for dinner in forty-five minutes, which gives you less time than I think we all prepared for, so I think it’s best if we skip all the formalities and get right to it.”

“Not a bad call,” Rowan said, gesturing for everyone who’d stood up to take a seat at the big table Chef had put us at. “I’m going to start off by doing something that I think Mr. Goodman here might not like, but I’m going to give you a little background. I think most of you have heard of MAC records, and probably know them as the label for a lot of the big Pop names. What you probably don’t know is they’ve been looking at branching out into more genres to compete with Double-A and Echo, who are the big names in the business. The problem they’ve been running into is that they aren’t comfortable signing an artist that works purely in a genre they don’t know very well, which is where you come in. Last week a scout for MAC records came to one of your shows, and went back with a pretty favorable review, especially about how well you’ve managed to blend several genres together, with some songs that would fit well in ‘country’ and others that would fit in ‘rock,’ but all of which had enough ‘pop’ base to them that it’s not out of MAC’s wheelhouse. He talked to the acquisitions team, and they decided to send Mr. Goodman down here to talk with you. Since I have a long relationship with MAC, they asked if I’d tag along and sing the label’s praises ... which brings us to today.”

He finally wound down and paused, I guess to see if anyone had anything to say, but all of us were a little too stunned to actually say anything, because it sounded very much like he was saying we were about to be offered a record contract.

“Well,” the man I assumed was Mr. Goodman said, “we normally go into this trying to not overplay our hand but I guess that’s the downside of having someone like Rowan here in the meeting. He is correct in saying we received a favorable report from Mr. Singleton about your performance, some of which he recorded and passed around the office. On the strength of his recommendation and the little bit that we heard, we do feel that you would be a good fit for MAC records, and I’m here to convince you to join our family.”

“Seriously?” I said, still not quite able to wrap my brain around it.

“Believe it,” Rowan said.

I think it sunk in for everyone at the same time; because - except for Chef, Mr. Eaves, and his guest, Rowan, and Mr. Goodman, all of whom I suspect already knew what was coming - we all exploded into pandemonium. Hanna had joined us as our not quite official manager and Kat had tagged along because she didn’t want to be left in the dark while everyone else was here. We were all out of our seats and Kat and Hanna were jumping up and down, hugging each other.

Mom at least managed to maintain her composure to some degree and stayed in her seat while the rest of us acted like fools.

I looked up to see Chef tap his watch in reminder and said, “Okay, okay. Let’s settle down. Chef wants to open up in a little bit and I’m sure there’s more to this than just waving a magic wand and giving us the contract.”

“Not as much as you’d expect,” Mr. Goodman said, pulling a stack of papers out of the briefcase he’d been carrying. “The contract for first-time artists is pretty boilerplate, so it shouldn’t take much work. I know the entire band is here, but I think I should say up front that the offer is for Charlie as a solo artist. Now, that doesn’t preclude the entire band from being a part of the deal nor does it mean that any product will be solely under Charlie’s name. What this really means is that Charlie is the one under contract, and all rights and requirements of the contract will be placed on him, although he’s free to share that, as well as any payments, across the entire group based on whatever agreements you as a group draw up.”