Chapter 20

I was right about the article not bringing a ton of turnout. There were a few new faces, and we were still packed both Friday and Saturday night, but there were less people than the previous weekend for our return show, which was to be expected. That was a lot of people, friends or fans, who’d come out to welcome us back. I hadn’t expected that kind of turnout two weekends in a row. As it was, we were still at capacity and Chef was happy.

I think Willie might have been happy, too. He made a few comments about his hands hurting and this maybe being the last few months of his playing regularly. I hadn’t talked to the rest of the guys in his band yet, to hear if they were going to keep playing after Willie retired, but I hoped so.

Willie might be a legend, but they were great and it would be a shame if they didn’t keep it going. Besides, I don’t know if any other groups lived in the area and I couldn’t imagine very many groups from Ashville or somewhere else coming up to play a gig here on their own. The Blue Ridge was great, and I’ll always love playing there, but compared to pretty much every venue we’d played on tour, or any of the other places I had played when I toured with Willie, Chef’s restaurant was just too small and was not designed for any significant performance. It would be hard for most bands to justify driving back and forth for a gig like this.

It worked out for me, because I played there three nights in a row, since I lived here. True, the rest of the guys had to drive up, but they were taking the hit for a regular gig, and they’d be living here soon, so it would be the same for them.

Still, most of the people at the show had read the review, based on the number of people who mentioned it to me when I went out into the crowd after we finished each night. Actually, I think maybe word had gotten around and most people in town had read it. I tried to not let it go to my head. Wellsville was a tiny town and I know Chef and Mrs. Phillips had been mentioning it to friends. It didn’t take much for the two of them to get the word out to everyone. It would be very different even in Asheville, which wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis.

Sunday I had to beg off practice with the band, because it was Kat’s first pre-season swim meet, and one of the few where the other towns came here, instead of Kat having to travel to somewhere else to compete. Even with our boundary issues, she’d not only been with me the entire summer, but had done a lot of the busy work that needed to get done, letting us focus on either playing a gig or working on songs in the studio. If she was willing to give up her entire summer for me, the very least I could do was be there to cheer her on.

Not that I expected her to lose. Swimming mostly happens in the fall and was over before we really got to know each other, so until now I’d only seen her practice. However, from how much she blew away her teammates without really pushing herself, and some of the things I’d heard her coach say, I doubted most of the kids at nearby schools were at her level. She’d won state last year and had qualified for the junior nationals team as an alternate.

Even with getting away from her father and all of the mess that caused, she’d trained hard all spring to get ready for this year. She defied her coaches and came on tour with us instead of continuing that training through the summer, which was another reason I owed her to be at her meets, but she was back now, and had been training every single day to try and catch up.

She was also the team captain, which meant she was busy the whole time, checking on her teammates, making sure everyone was where they needed to be and cheering them on from poolside. This was a different Kat than I’d seen elsewhere. She was aggressive and outspoken, never shying away from anyone. She even had to be pulled back by her coach when someone pushed one of her teammates. I’d never seen her like this, but found it to be was refreshing. It was confirmation that, at least somewhere inside of herself, she was capable of being her own person, not dependent on anyone else for direction.

She had just finished her first heat, where she absolutely smoked every other girl in the pool, finishing half a pool length ahead of the next closest competitor, when I saw a girl I didn’t know heading towards me. She had short, shoulder-length dirty blond hair and was wearing a long t-shirt over a swimsuit, which I could see part of around her neck, when the t-shirt shifted. Aside from the swimsuit, the t-shirt was a Carr High swim team shirt, so I assumed she was on the team with Kat. Since Kat mostly trained one-on-one with the coach and I’d missed all of last year’s competitions, I didn’t actually know any of the girls on the team, so it wasn’t surprising I didn’t know her.

“You’re Charlie Nelson, right?” she said, stopping several steps from me.

“Uhh ... yeah,” I said waving at Kat as she got out of the pool and giving her a thumbs up. “What’s up?”

Kat stopped for a second, looking back up at me and the unknown girl, before the coach said something to her and she hurried back to the other side of the pool.

“Ohh ... I’m ... sorry, I shouldn’t bother you,” she said, her cheeks flushing and turning to go back down the bleachers.

“Wait! You came all the way over here. If you run away now, I’ll be trying to figure out what just happened for the rest of the day.”

She turned back, her cheeks still flushed, and said, “Sorry. I just had some time before my group goes, and I wanted to say ‘hi.’”

“Hi,” I said, giving her a half-wave and pointing to the seat next to me. “See, that was underwhelming. Did you want to sit down and say something else, or just say hi and run away?”

“I ... uhh ... didn’t really think this through. Katharine’s talked about you and said how great you are, and I’ve seen you play at the Blue Ridge a bunch of times, and I watched you play baseball last year, and I just thought you were kind of great.”

She paused, looking embarrassed again. Once she started speaking, the words had gotten away from her and come tumbling out of her mouth, like she had no control over them. It was actually kind of cute. Now that she’d said all that, she’d gone back to being shy, standing with her legs twisted, so the left foot was on the right side and the right foot on the left, almost like when a little kid has to go to the bathroom. She was actually kind of cute, too. She had light blue eyes and her nose turned up a bit at the end. That, with the tops of her ears poking through her dirty blond hair, gave her an almost elfin appearance.

“Sooo ... are you going to sit down, or run away?”

“My suit’s still damp, I wouldn’t want to get you wet.”

“I’ll live. Please, if you have a second, sit down and talk to me. Drive-by compliments feel weird.”

“Okay,” she said sitting a half arm’s length away and crossing one leg over the next before pulling the t-shirt over her knees.

“So, you think I’m great, huh?”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I’d hoped she had some backbone. Although it had bitten me in the ass with Rhonda, I liked it when girls had forceful personalities.

“Hey, you’re the one who came over and practically swooned in my lap.”

“I never,” she said, slapping my shoulder.

“Okay, it wasn’t quite a swoon. You did, however, forget to introduce yourself. You know who I am, but I don’t even know your name.”

“Sarah.”

“Good to meet you, Sarah. So you’re on the swim team?” I said, pointing at her shirt.

“Yeah. I swim butterfly and freestyle in the relay.”

“I haven’t seen you around school.”

“I’m not surprised. I was a freshman last year, and was absolutely terrified of Katharine. I didn’t really start talking to her till this week, when she was telling stories about your tour.”

“I find it hard to believe that anyone is scared of Kat.”