Dissonance - Chapter 43

More days passed with no further news from either my parents or the reporter about the story on Cameron, who was on complete lockdown at home and not allowed to talk to anyone. So far, as far as I’d heard, he hadn’t been sent off to the alternative school, and was just cooling his heels. We didn’t know if that was because his parents were waiting to see what would happen, maybe hoping the school district would change the ruling, or had sought legal advice, but limbo seemed better than being permanently moved to the bad kids’ school. I wanted to tell him I’d talked to some people and there was a chance help was coming, but Megan had already called his house once and gotten an ear full from his parents, so calling was not an option. If this stretched through next week without any action, I’d call the reporter back and see if he could give me an update and try to find a way to sneak a message to Cameron, but for now, I would wait, since the last thing he needed was someone getting him in more trouble.

Apparently, even thinking “things sure are quiet” was enough to get the universe's attention when Friday night, or I should probably say very early Saturday morning, rolled around and a phone ringing woke me up in the middle of the night. Fridays were very long days for me, starting at about six in the morning, and ending when I got home from the Blue Ridge around twelve-thirty Saturday morning, so I usually just took a shower and passed out as soon as I got back home. This Friday was no exception, or it wouldn’t have been an exception if my cell phone hadn’t rung an hour after my head hit the pillow.

My first thought was that something had happened with Mom and Dad. Maybe he’d gone too far, was pissed off about the restraining order, and had taken his aggression out on her like he normally did. They were the only ones I could think of that would call this late, especially since everyone I knew was aware of my schedule.

“Hello?” I mumbled into the phone.

“Charlie, it’s Lyla. I need some help,” she said.

Wherever she was, there was some noise in the background that didn’t sound like their house. Maybe something was playing on TV, but it didn’t really sound like that.

“What’s up?”

“I need someone to bail me out,” she said.

“What?”

“I … uhh … got arrested. The deputy said it was for simple assault and there is a set bail that can be paid for that. If it isn’t done, they’ll transport me to the Ashville prison in the morning.”

“How much is bail?” I asked, doing a quick calculation of my very limited funds on hand.

I’d taken two hundred out, leaving the rest of my money with Chef on Monday, and spent maybe seventy-five of it so far to pay my phone bill and for gas. Since I didn’t have a bank account and I was basically living off of my earnings from one gig until the end of the weekend, Chef wasn’t holding much more than that for me.

“Four hundred. It’s for me and Tabitha both.”

“I don’t have that kind of money on me and my bank account is sitting empty. Have you called Seth or Marco?”

“Yes. Marco answered and said they couldn’t help.”

Of course he did. The more Lyla had come to my defense, the more Marco had been giving her the same attitude he gave me. I was pretty sure he didn’t check with Seth at all, but this wasn’t really the time to deal with him.

“You’re at the sheriff’s station?” I asked.

“Yeah. They’re letting me use the phone to make calls about bail, then they’re going to put me back in one of the holding cells.”

“Okay. Well, let me see what I can do. Someone will come down to bail you out in a little bit.”

“Thanks, Charlie. I really appreciate it.”

“I know. Just hang tight.”

I hung up the phone and looked at it, thinking. I could ask Mrs. Phillips for the money, but I knew things were tight for her. Enough that, if I thought she’d take it, I’d start giving her money like I had Mom. She was a single parent, just like Mom was, with a kid in college, and paying to feed and house two additional kids. Except for food and what we used in electricity and water, Kat and I were paying for all of our own stuff, or at least I was paying for my own stuff and Kat’s father was paying for hers, but that still had an impact on how much money Mrs. Phillips had available.

I clearly couldn’t go and ask Mom and Dad for it. Besides the fact that Mr. Eaves very specifically warned me about not going near them or interacting with them in any way, it was unlikely they’d have the money for this. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dad had already blown through the money he pulled out of the band and my bank accounts, and Mom didn’t have my income coming in to supplement hers any longer.

That left only one option, which I felt very bad about taking. Chef was already funding my emancipation, and probably whatever bill Mr. Eaves had sent over for getting the restraining order done as well, and was already paying the band a big chunk of the door every weekend night to play at the Blue Ridge. He seemed to be the guy I went to every time there was trouble, and I was starting to feel more than a little guilty about that.

But, I couldn’t leave Lyla in jail, or worse, sent to Ashville for arraignment. Besides needing her for our shows the next two nights, she was my friend. Maybe not super close, but she’d asked me for help. I was annoyed that Marco had bailed on them like that, but being mad at him didn’t solve anything.

“Charlie?” Chef asked, groggily when he answered.

Since Chef preferred planning out the day’s menus and prepping in the morning, he’d recently decided to have Vinney run everything after the dinner rush and close the bar down at two. How he slept with all the noise below his bedroom I’d never know, but it was apparently working for him. Or at least, it had until I called in the middle of the night.

“Sorry to wake you, but I need some help. I wanted to ask if I could get an advance on this weekend’s split and the rest of the money you are holding for me? And if I could get it tonight?”

“Are you in trouble?”

“No. Lyla and her girlfriend got arrested and I need to go bail them out.”

“You realize they’re not going to let a minor bail them out, right?”

“Shit,” I said, having not realized that at all until he mentioned it.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll go get them.”

“I want to come down there with you, then. I don’t know what happened yet, and I want to make sure they’re okay.”

“You know you don’t have to make everyone’s problems your own, right?”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” I said. “This isn’t everyone. She’s my friend and bandmate. Besides being worried for Lyla, I also need to find out what happened and find out if it’s going to cause other problems. She might not be on the record contract, but I’m already really pushing the line with the label. If this is going to cause more problems, I need to know about it, and I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep while I worry about it.”

“Fair enough. Are they at the sheriff’s station until the morning transport to Asheville?”

“Yes,” I said, not bothering to be surprised that Chef would know police policy for people arrested overnight.

“Fine. And don’t be too worried. If we can bail them out tonight, it means whatever they did was minor enough to be covered by either call-in or video night arraignments. They only do that for stuff that’s cut and dried, to keep the jails from filling up and to control costs. If it was serious they’d require a full arraignment, which wouldn’t happen until Monday during the day.”

“I still want to go,” I said.

“Fine. Twenty minutes.”

I got there in ten. The process of posting bail was pretty easy, although it took forever to process her out. The other person being bailed out while we were there was a drunk, which was probably the thing they had the most of. Alternate Fridays were payday at the factory, and the crowds, even at the Blue Ridge, got pretty rowdy as some of the younger workers blew chunks of their checks on drinking with friends.

“Okay, I’m going back to bed,” Chef said when they led a very rough-looking Lyla and Tabitha out to us. “You okay to get them home?”

“Yeah, I got it. Thanks, Chef,” I said, waving to him as he left the station.

“You two okay?”

“Yeah. I’m so sorry about this, Charlie,” Lyla said.

“We really appreciate it,” Tabitha said, although she was giving me a perplexed look.

I imagined, from her perspective, it was strange to see a kid being the one to come bail them out. I’d only talked to Tabitha a few times when Lyla had brought her to practices. I didn’t have anything against her, but she tended to prefer to talk to Marco, Lyla, and Seth. I didn’t blame her for that. She was old for Lyla, which made her almost my parents’ age. There wasn’t a lot that a sixteen-year-old and a thirty-year-old had to talk about.

“What happened?”

“One of the guys from the factory got tanked and started putting his hands on Tabby. His buddies thought it was funny when I threatened to kick his ass, and things kind of got out of hand.”

“At the Blue Ridge?”

“No. After our set, we went to The Well to drink,” Lyla said.

I didn’t really know that place, besides the fact that it was on the south side of town next to Emmett’s Auto Service and was some kind of hole-in-the-wall dive bar. I’d only ever seen it in the daytime when it looked like it was shut down. It, however, didn’t surprise me that Lyla would like to drink there. The Blue Ridge had a bar, but it wasn’t ‘a bar,’ and was pretty tame even compared to several of the places we’d played on our tour.

“I’ll pay you back, I swear,” she said.

“I know. I’m not worried about it. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t in any trouble. Is this going to be a problem?”

“Nah,” Tabitha said. “They’ll knock it down to misdemeanor disorderly, everyone will pay fines, and that’ll be it.”

It sounded like this wasn’t Tabitha’s first bar fight. Although, to be fair, it probably wasn’t Lyla’s first one either.

“Ohh,” I said. “Well, good then. I guess you need a ride back to your car?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Lyla said.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

“Thanks, Charlie. I really owe you.”

“Nah, this is what friends are for.”

I could see Tabitha giving Lyla a ‘what the hell is going on’ glance as we walked out to my car. She’d either get over the fact that I was a lot younger than everyone else or not, it didn’t matter to me. I only needed to be able to work with Lyla. I didn’t need to be friends with her girlfriend if she found it uncomfortable.

I was exhausted when I fell back into bed, only to be woken up by Kat screaming at nine AM. I could tell by the partial words I could make out that it was happy screams, but part of me wanted to just pull the pillow over my head to try to block out the noise. When it didn’t stop, I groaned and got up.

Kat was in the kitchen with Mrs. Phillips jumping up and down, holding her cell phone. When she saw me come into the kitchen, she ran over and threw her arms around my neck, almost taking me off my feet.

“I got in. I got in,” she kept shouting, practically in my ear.

I knew I’d been a shitty friend for the last few months, but it didn’t occur to me how shitty of a friend I’d been until that moment, when I realized I had no idea what she was talking about.

Thankfully, Mrs. Phillips must have seen the confusion on my face, because she said, “Kat was the alternate for the Pan Am games. They don’t normally take the alternate, but one of the swimmers had to drop out, so she gets to go.”

“Really?” I said, holding her at arm’s length so I could actually talk to her, and so she’d stop trying to squeeze me to death.

“Yeah. I was so close to making the team, but Leah, she’s from California, kept edging me out on the turn. We’ve been working really hard on that, and my coach said I might be able to make the team next year, but Leah went jet skiing last weekend and broke her arm. The games are in a month, so I’m in.”

She was speaking so fast, I could barely catch what she was saying.

“Kat, I’m so happy for you! I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up with your swimming. Things have been so crazy, I …”

“No, no, no. It’s fine. I know your parents and everything have made it hard for you to focus on much else. Mrs. Phillips said we can all go. It’s in Toronto this year. Can you go? Can you?”

“When is it?” I asked Mrs. Phillips.

“The first weekend in December,” Kat answered. “She said I can’t miss any school, especially if you and Hanna go, which means we have to fly up Friday night and back Sunday night, since if I do well in the prelims on Saturday I’ll get to swim in the final heats on Sunday.”

“That’s going to be pretty expensive, all of those flights,” I said.

I already owed Chef a lot of money for Mr. Eaves and all of my royalties were currently in limbo until after the hearing. If the hearing went well, I’d be able to afford it, although it would mean paying Chef a little later. If I lost, there was no chance.

I think Mrs. Phillips saw what I was thinking on my face, “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be part of my Christmas present to all of you. I think Kat could really use the support and we’ve all worked hard this fall, we could use the break.”

“In that case, I’m in,” I said, which elicited more screaming from Kat, who returned to jumping up and down.

Not everyone was having Kat’s good fortune though. At least this time, the people feeling pressure actually deserved it.

***

On Monday I was pulled out of my third-period class and taken to the office. I didn’t know what was going on, but it wasn’t hard to guess that whatever was happening probably involved Cameron, since I hadn’t done anything to get pulled into the admin offices so far this year. Oddly, they didn’t take me to Mr. Packer’s office, but instead lead me toward Principal Snyder’s office.

I wasn’t, however, surprised to find Mr. Packer in the office with Principal Snyder. There wasn’t a chance I’d be in trouble and he wouldn’t somehow be involved, or at least be there to see it.

“Thanks for coming, Charlie,” Principal Snyder said, apparently serious, like I had a choice.

“Sure,” I said. “Although I’m not sure what I’ve done.”

“You know what you …” Mr. Packer said, before being cut off by a gesture from the principal.

“We received a call from a journalist with the Asheville Herald this morning asking questions about our school's policies over expelling students, freedom of speech protections for our school newspaper, our administration of the state SALT surveys, and firing policies for teachers. It isn’t difficult to work out why a reporter would be asking these questions, nor how a reporter got interested in a story about this school in the first place.”

“Okay,” I said.

He hadn’t actually asked me a question yet. Mr. Eaves’ warnings about not talking myself into trouble might have been meant for dealing with the police, but they seemed very applicable to this situation as well. I knew what he was getting at, but I wasn’t going to admit to anything without a good reason. Apparently, that was what Principal Snyder was hoping for, since he looked to Mr. Packer when I didn’t add anything else.

“We know you are friends with one of the expelled students and you did an interview with that newspaper last month. Do you expect us to believe that it is just a coincidence that this paper started asking questions right after your friend was expelled?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking me, Mr. Packer,” I said.

“I’m asking if you’re behind this story about the school newspaper and the SALT Scantrons. Did you call this reporter at the Asheville herald?”

“I don't even know what reporter you’re talking about?” I said, which, strictly speaking, was true.

“He said his name was Devin Fowler,” Principal Snyder said.

“And he said I called him?”

“Don’t get cute with us. We know you’re the one who called him. You need to call whoever you talked to over there and ask them to not do this story. Otherwise, you are skirting dangerously close to expulsion yourself.”

“That would be a mistake,” I said.

I probably should have just kept playing dumb, because they had no proof that I’d done anything, but the last month had left me full of anger. I couldn’t do anything about what my parents kept doing to me, at least not until the emancipation hearing, but I wasn’t going to sit here and get yelled at for standing up against obvious corruption at the school. They broke trust with the students and maybe even the law, then expelled the people who found out about it.

“How so?” Mr. Packer said.

“Because you’re already in enough trouble as it is. I don’t know who copied those Scantrons, but I do know mine was one of them. I also know the district didn’t know anything about it, but they do now. How do you think they’re going to respond to all of this? If anyone is facing serious trouble in this room, it’s not me. If you were smart, you’d reverse the expulsions, reinstate the fired teacher, and apologize publicly. Or you can keep doing what you’re doing. I’m sure nothing’s ever gone wrong covering up a story in the middle of bad press.

Both men just stared at me, and I could see Mr. Packer wanted to explode, but was I just waiting to see what Principal Snyder was going to say.

“I’m disappointed in you, Charlie,” the principal finally said. “I’d hoped you’d be more of a team player.”

“My team doesn’t lie to its students, telling them something is anonymous, then keeping the answers from all the problematic kids. My team doesn’t expel students because they don’t like people telling the truth.”

Mr. Packer looked like he was about to start shouting again, but the principal put his hand on Mr. Packer’s arm and said, “You can go, Charlie.”

I was honestly surprised I’d mouthed off and still got out of there without getting expelled myself. Of course, the day wasn’t over, but Principal Snyder seemed a lot more controlled and reasonable than Mr. Packer, who would probably have kicked me out of school the second I started mouthing off.

To my complete and utter shock, not only did Mr. Packer not find a way to get back at me by the end of the day, the next day at lunch Cameron suddenly appeared with his lunch tray and sat down next to me.

“Hey, you’re back,” I said. “They reversed your expulsion?”

“Yes. My parents are still worried and are keeping me on lockdown, but I’m back. So is Albert. They called us yesterday afternoon and said ‘after an investigation’ they’d decided to not expel us after all.”

“After an investigation my ass,” Megan said. “I sicked Charlie on them, and he got it reversed.”

“You did?” Cameron asked, looking at me in surprise. “How in the hell did you do that? I thought Mr. Packer hated you.”

“Ohh, he does,” I said. “And I didn’t really do anything. I called that writer at the Asheville Herald and told him what was going on, suggesting it would make a good story. Apparently, he agreed, because he handed it off to a writer that does city stuff, or something. That guy called the district and the principal for a quote for his story. They called me into the office yesterday. They were pissed off, saying they knew I was behind it and demanding I call it off. Since I can’t call anything off, I suggested their only option was to let the expelled students come back, rehire the teacher, and apologize before the story was published. I was sure I would be the next one expelled after mouthing off to Mr. Packer and Principal Snyder, but I guess they’re in more trouble over this than I realized, because I never dreamed they’d actually do what I said.”

“They’re letting Mr. Brock come back to work?” Cameron asked.

“I have no idea,” I said, assuming Mr. Brock was the newspaper’s faculty advisor that got fired. “All I did was call someone at the newspaper. No one actually consults with me about anything.”

“You still made this happen,” Megan said. “You said you’d come through, and you did.”

I had actually been very careful to not promise anything, but I wasn’t going to keep arguing the point, and instead wanted to change the subject.

“So why are you still on lockdown if the school reversed its decision?” I asked.

“Mom and Dad are still worried this might be temporary or that something else will happen, and want me to lay low until we’re sure this is over. They actually told me they didn’t want me talking about this or, God forbid, writing anything else for the newspaper for a little while, until they’re sure we’re in the clear. They’re afraid I might piss off the administration again, and get re-expelled. They talked to a lawyer this weekend and found out how much it would cost to fight the school district, and it was a really big number. I think they’re worried they might have to pay something like that after all.”

“So they weren’t going to make you go to the alternative school?”

“No. They know how much getting into a good drama department means to me, so they were willing to put the house up as collateral if that’s what it took to hire a lawyer to fight it. It’s why I’m not complaining about being on lockdown too much. They always gave me the side-eye over my acting, but them being willing to go to the mat for me like that … it really hit me, ya know?”

I didn’t know. I had the reverse problem. I was really happy for Cameron, who’d struggled with his identity and worrying about coming out to his parents. Rural North Carolina isn’t the most liberal of places, and he’d told me how his parents had trouble when he’d first come out. The fact that, in spite of that and the fact that they didn't really understand his drive to be a professional actor, they were still willing to do whatever they could to support his dream, was amazing.

I’d actually thought Mom was that person for me, when we’d finally moved here and she’d started acting like a real parent. It really hit home how much Dad had taken from me. I think, more than endangering my music career or the money he took, his stealing Mom from me was the thing that hurt me the most.