Elegy - Chapter 18

Besides seeing her at the game, or at least thinking I saw her at the game, and twice the next day, I almost bumped into her in the hall before she turned and abruptly walked in the other direction. She acted like she’d heard someone call her one time, and like she’d forgotten something, ducking back into her classroom the second time; I wasn’t imagining it. She was avoiding me.

I know Chef had said I needed to be patient, the pond and all that, and wait for her to make the next move, but it was killing me. On my way to practice after sixth period, I saw her standing next to her locker, by herself for once, digging through her backpack. I tried to tell myself to just turn and walk the other way, to give her some space, but my body didn’t seem to want to listen to my brain.

It was almost like I watched myself from the outside as I marched up to her locker, stopping and leaning casually against the locker next to hers, saying words that I couldn’t seem to stop from coming out.

“Were you at the game yesterday?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

She looked up at me in surprise, something like panic crossing her face before she smoothed her expression.

“What?” she said, incredibly casually, like we’d been talking all day.

“I thought I saw you in the stands yesterday after the game ended.”

“Nope. I had homework. Did you win?”

She was lying. I hadn’t been positive when I’d first walked over here, but as soon as she answered, I knew she was lying. What I couldn’t figure out was why. Why hide that she was at the game? It wasn’t like I was the only guy on the team she knew, so she could say she was there to see someone else if she really wanted to dig into me.

“Yes,” I said, and then did exactly what Chef told me not to do. “Why are you avoiding me? I know you were upset, but we can at least still talk.”

“I’m not avoiding you. Like I said, I had homework.”

“What about in the halls today? Twice you saw me and turned in the other direction.”

“Charlie,” she said, exasperated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m not avoiding you. I’m sorry if you saw me and thought I was being rude or whatever, but whatever you saw, I didn’t see you. If I turned the other way, it was probably for a reason, and you just misread the situation.”

She was gaslighting me hard, but other than calling her a liar to her face, which I was pretty sure wouldn’t give me the result I was looking for, I wasn’t sure what to do about that.

“I didn’t,” I said, trying to stand firm without actually accusing her of anything. “You looked right at me and turned away. You ducked into Mrs. Philips’ room the second time, and you don’t even have her class. Why would you go in there if it wasn’t to avoid me?”

“One of my friends was in there and called my name. Charlie, I can’t help it if you’re sad or whatever, but I don’t really want to stand here and argue over what you think I said or did.”

“Okay, maybe I misread it. If you aren’t avoiding me, then can I call you later so we can talk?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of homework, and my dad’s been piling on the chores. I might not have time.”

“Then you tell me when we can talk. I’m willing to work around your schedule. You say you aren’t avoiding me, but you can’t even find twenty minutes to just talk.”

“I’ll try,” she said.

“Come on, Sydney.”

Sydney sighed again, louder, dropping her gaze to the floor. “Charlie, we’ve been over this. I told you I’m not avoiding you and explained why I’ve been busy. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“I just want the truth. We can’t fix this if you won’t even admit why you’re mad at me or why we’ve barely spoken for days.”

Sydney rolled her eyes. “God, why are you being like this?”

I frowned. “Like what?”

“So clingy and desperate. I said I was sorry, what more do you want?”

She wasn’t wrong, I was being clingy and desperate, but I didn’t know what else to do. I really liked her, it was all slipping away, and there was literally nothing I could do about it.

“I’m just trying to have an honest conversation,” I said, trying hard not to sound exasperated. “Can you really blame me for being concerned?”

Sydney crossed her arms, leaning back against the lockers. “I told you, I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve just been busy. I don’t know why you can’t seem to accept that.”

I mimicked her stance, watching her closely. “Because I know you, and I know what happened Saturday. If we can’t talk about this, we can’t fix anything.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

“Sydney, I miss you. I miss spending time with you. I miss our lunches and phone calls. I just want to get things back to where they were.”

She glanced up at me, a flicker of some emotion I couldn’t read passing over her features. But as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, and her expression was guarded once more.

She shrugged. “People grow apart sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”

I blinked, stunned by her words. “Two days ago you told me you loved me, now you say we’re grown apart. That doesn’t make any sense. I know I didn’t say it back, but I still care for you a lot. I just need more time. I tried to explain this …”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, pushing away from the locker.

When she tried to brush past me, I grabbed her arm. It wasn’t hard, and I put no pressure on it, because I wasn’t trying to hold her hostage. I just didn’t want her to storm off, especially with things like they were.

“But if we don’t talk about it, then how will we fix our problems?”

“I didn’t say we had problems. You made your feelings clear, and I’m just leaving it at that.” She was getting angry now, eyes flashing. “Why does everything have to be so dramatic?”

“You can’t be serious. You told me you loved me, and when I didn’t say it back, you shut down. Since then, we haven’t talked at all, and you’re trying to act like it’s just a coincidence and has nothing to do with what happened. I just want honesty, Sydney.”

She pulled her arm free and said, “I can’t do this right now, Charlie. I’m sorry.”

With that, she turned and walked off down the hall without a backward glance. I stood watching her go, a hollow ache in my chest. This entire conversation was probably a mistake, but I was certain if I let her she’d just avoid it. If she wouldn’t even talk about it when I confronted her, she definitely wouldn’t deal with it on her own.

It was hopeless.

***

Thursday, everyone was still riding high from the game on Monday. We had another away game on Friday, which was going to play hell with my schedule since I’d have to drive separately and rush from the game all the way back to the Blue Ridge for our gig that night. Worse, I still hadn’t gotten Coach Dean’s approval.

Technically, all students had to ride to and from away games together on the bus unless they had a waiver signed. Emancipation was making that difficult since the official forms still required a parent or guardian’s signature. At any other school, they probably would’ve figured something out.

I didn’t go to any other school though, and Mr. Packer was making it a pain for me. I’d tried to come up with a workaround and have Mrs. Phillips sign off on it, but Mr. Packer shot that down too. Since I only lived with her, she apparently didn’t count as a guardian. Coach Dean said he’d try to work something out, but so far, it looked like I was going to be almost an hour late to our gig, which was going to cut down on how long we could play and maybe lose us part of the crowd.

I could’ve sicced Mr. Eaves on him, but I still owed a boatload to Chef that I was trying to pay back. Lawyers were crazy expensive, and I didn’t exactly make the kind of money where that bill was no big deal.

At least things were going well with the team. Harry aside, I was getting a ton of support from the other players after my back-to-back plays over the last two games. Even Paul said something nice, and he only hated me a little less than Harry did. I guess the difference is that Harry hated me more than he wanted to win baseball games, and Paul apparently didn’t.

The team had also apparently taken my catch two games ago as a challenge. They kept hitting balls farther and farther out to right field, seeing if I could still chase them down. I didn’t catch them all, but I got enough to maintain my reputation.

I’d just missed one that had come in too high for me to get my glove on and grabbed it off the ground when, looking up, I saw Warren. Cast on one leg and a crutch under his arm, he was leaning against the fence, watching me.

I waved to Coach Dean, indicating my visitor, and got the go-ahead signal as I tossed the ball back to the second baseman and walked over to the fence.

“Well, this is unexpected,” I said.

“Well, it’s a surprise visit,” he said with a grin and then pointed at the field. “You’re pretty good at that.”

“I’m all right. I love playing, but after high school it ends. I maybe could get on a team in college, but it’d never get further than that, and I’d rather use my time for music. I always wanted to play as a kid, so I wanted to play some before I couldn’t anymore.”

“Smart,” he said, and then paused as if gathering his thoughts. “So, after the thing in Raleigh and not being able to get you on the Charity show, I thought I should come by and check on you guys. I haven’t seen one of your shows here in a while, so I thought I could hang around, watch tomorrow’s and Saturday’s, and maybe meet with you and the band at your practices.”

“Great. We’re always happy to have you come see us.”

“First, I want to apologize again for the Raleigh debacle,” Warren said. “I still feel bad it all went the way it did, and I feel responsible.”

“I know, and it’s okay. I agreed to play, so we’re equally responsible.”

“Well, I’ll worry less now that I have this for you,” he said, holding up a check. “We haven’t gotten the actual reimbursement yet, but their insurance and ours both approved the claims, and Kent wanted to get this to you as soon as possible.”

The number was much larger than I was expecting, and more than we actually spent on the replacement equipment. Not that I was going to tell Warren that.

“Really? That’s great. We kind of cleaned ourselves out replacing everything, so I know the guys will be happy not being broke again.”

“Good. I appreciate how hard you’ve been working and that you got right back up on stage as quickly as possible. A lot of people would have been gun-shy after experiencing something so traumatic, so you’ve really shown me something.”

“I’m not going to let a disaster keep me off the stage. I love it too much.”

“That’s good to hear. I didn’t just come with the check, though. I have some good news I hope will help make up for everything that happened. How would you like to do a live radio interview to promote the album and your Philadelphia and Florida shows? ”

“Sure. We’ve done a couple already, and they’ve gone well.”

“True, but this isn’t just any interview. It’s with Axel Rivers.”

That name I knew. He was maybe one of the biggest radio DJs right now and had just signed a multimillion-dollar contract with one of the satellite radio companies for his show to be syndicated there as well as on radio stations. We even got him on the radio here, although his show happened when I was in school, so I didn’t listen to him much. He had a huge following though, and his audience numbered in the millions.

“Holy crap. How’d you manage that?”

“They reached out to us. The news stories about Raleigh are starting to really get some traction, especially how you took charge and helped get everyone out. We’ve already been fielding calls from several TV stations, but Kent wanted to find a way to really use it as a promotional opportunity.”

“So it’s going to be about the fire? For our first major interview, is it a good idea we focus on something like that instead of our music? It might not have been our fault, but ‘come to our show and you probably won’t burn to death’ isn’t exactly a winning message.”

Warren laughed. “That’s a little extreme. No one will think that. Yes, it’s going to start off being about the fire, which is where the work of an interview comes in. Interviewers always come in with their own agendas. If every interview was ‘love the album, buy it!’ anyone could do this. Your job is to steer the conversation away from the fire and to your music. The fire is just how we get our foot in a door that only a select few artists ever get a chance to do that.”

“This guy is a legend and I’ve given maybe a dozen interviews in my life. How in the world am I going to redirect him?”

“We can work on that, but it’s not as hard as you think. You have a lot more control in this kind of situation than he does since he has to ask you open-ended questions to keep the interview from tanking. Your answers will direct the conversation. As long as you keep it conversational and don’t let it bog down, you’ll get us the publicity we need.”

“You’ve got more faith than me. I’ll try my best.”

“Even if it is mostly about the fire, it doesn’t matter. Your name will be mentioned to millions of people, some of whom will look you up. I’ve already talked to marketing and gotten a small ad push on several streaming platforms to follow just after the interview. If they hear your name and then see an ad pop up for you, you’ll get some traction. The goal here is to convert that into repeat listeners and names for your mailing list. We’re still building your brand, and anything we can do to put your name in front of people is good.”

“If you say so. Does this mean we have to go to New York?”

“No. We’ve set up a remote through a station in Asheville that syndicates him. We’ll do a live remote with him.”

“Damn, I kinda wanted to see what their setup is like. I can’t remember the sidekick’s name, but I always wondered if they were in the same room or if, like his producer, he’s in another room.”

“Tommy Ducks, and yes, they’re in the same room. They call him a producer, but that’s kind of an act. He’s a comedian Rivers hooked up with early in his career. They have an actual producer you never hear on the radio. Running a show that big is too much for someone to produce and be on air at the same time.”

“And the magic is ruined,” I joked.

“That’s how it is once you see behind the curtain. I’ll stay here through the weekend and go with you to the studio and back Saturday morning, if that’s okay?”

“Sure. So we’ll all ride together? I guess you’ll get to experience the van, since five of us won’t fit well in a car.”

“Sorry, I thought I was clear. It’s just you. They don’t want the whole band.”

“You’re killing me,” I said. “Marco’s going to blow a gasket.”

“I told you this was going to happen more. I can talk to him, but you have to find a way to put a lid on him.”

“No, I can handle it. I was just thinking it would be easier if we could all do it, to save the conversation. Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it.”

“You sure? This isn’t a newspaper article. It’s a nationally syndicated interview. Considering the problems you’ve had with him I don’t know how easy this will be to smooth over.”

“I realize that, and I will take care of it. You told me to get my house in order, and I’m going to.”

“Good. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to treat you like a kid. I would have asked any of my clients in your situation the same thing.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and then had a thought. “Actually, since you’re here, I do have a problem I need help with. I’m not sure if you’re the right person to go to or not, but … I figure it might be worth a shot.”

“I can try. What’s going on?”

I dove into the explanation about Mr. Packer and some of the background of his previous actions, so he understood there was no easy way I could get around it myself, and then the latest issue for Friday night’s gig and my baseball game out of town.

“So you want me to talk to a school official on your behalf about being signed out of a school event? I’m not sure that’s something I’m allowed to do.”

“Normally, it wouldn’t be, and if you don’t feel comfortable with it, then don’t worry about it. I fall into a weird crack in the policy, and the school isn’t willing to work with me as one of the exceptions to the rule. If I wasn’t emancipated, this wouldn’t be a problem. I could just get a parent’s note. But I am, and it makes the situation unclear. The reason you’d be involved is that it involves a performance, and you’re my manager in charge of performances. I know the Blue Ridge isn’t considered a performance for the label, and you don’t get paid for it, so like I said, if you don’t want to deal with it, I understand. I just didn’t want to miss a performance.”

He was silent for a moment, considering, and then sighed, “Fine. I’ll call them and see what I can do. No promises though. Not being a parent, there’s a good chance they won’t talk to me.”

“I’d appreciate anything you can do.”

It did seem like a long shot, but Mr. Packer was doing enough shady stuff that I hoped he’d be afraid enough of even the smallest outside attention to maybe drop his objection. If not, at least it was at the Blue Ridge, so we could work around it without too much long-term damage.