Dissonance - Chapter 27

Saturday my practice with Chef was moved to the early morning, before Chef needed to start getting food going for lunch. I’d tried to beg off completely, but apparently a date isn’t a good enough reason to skip training. Even though I wasn’t going to do any more competitions, both because I hadn’t enjoyed the last one that much and because of possible injury ending my music career, he still insisted I keep training with him, pitching it as valuable to my mental and physical well-being. Considering all he’d done for me, I couldn’t really say no, and besides, he wasn’t wrong. I felt the best I had in my entire life physically and it was kind of effective as a form of therapy.

Not that I would have minded missing a week. I ended up having to rush home to take a shower and get all of my stuff in my car for the show that night. Since my ‘show clothes’ were essentially my best non-church clothes, they also doubled as my dating clothes, which meant at least that part was covered. I’d dropped Sydney off once at her house, so I knew how to get there. She’d arranged for a ride home from the Blue Ridge, so we’d agreed I’d pick her up at her house and she’d go with me to practice.

I pulled up to her house and jogged up to the door, equal parts nervous and excited as I waited for someone to answer the door. When the door opened, all of that excitement rushed out of my body as I realized the Sheriff was standing in front of me.

Most of my run-ins had been with his deputies, but we had crossed paths a few times, including when he’d arrested Aaron, although that had mostly been Mom reading him the riot act. The one thing I did know about him was he was friends with Kat’s father, who was absolutely not a fan of mine.

“Nelson?” He said, looking equally as shocked to see me standing on his porch as I had seeing him open the door.

“Sheriff?” I said.

It had been a question, but my brain was already doing the calculations to explain what was happening, and I didn’t like the answer I was getting. I’d briefly met her mom, but her dad had been out the last time I’d been here and I hadn’t really gone inside, so I hadn’t seen any pictures or anything. She’d mentioned her father, but we’d never really talked about it. I was almost positive it hadn’t been a purposeful omission. She didn’t strike me as the kind of girl to try and hide that kind of thing or to be talking to me to get some kind of reaction from her father.

From the look on his face, she hadn’t exactly spelled out to him who I was either.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to pick up Sydney.”

“You’re her date?”

“Uhh … yeah.”

“No. Nope. No way in hell. Sydney! Get your but down here. Meredith!” He yelled back into the house, addressing none of it towards me.

After a moment Sydney appeared, followed closely by her mother, and a girl who looked like a younger version of Sydney.

“Yes, daddy?” she said, looking confused by her father’s anger.

“What is he doing here?” he said, pointing at me.

“That’s Charlie?” Sydney said, confused.

“Joel, what’s all the yelling about. That’s Sydney’s date.”

“Do you know who this is?”

“Yes. I met him when he dropped Sydney off the other day.”

“But do you know who he is? He’s the kid who plays up at the Blue Ridge. The one that got Samuel Moore’s daughter taken away and hurt Aaron Campbell.”

“Maybe I should go,” I said, seeing this go rapidly downhill.

“Maybe you should,” he said, finally saying something to me.

“Wait!” Sydney yelled as I started to back away from the front door. “Daddy!!”

“Charlie, please don’t go,” Sydney’s mom said, much calmer than either her daughter or her husband. “I think there has been some miscommunication that needs to be straightened out, but I don’t think my daughter wants to cancel her date. If you could just wait for a few minutes, we’ll go inside and sort this out.”

“I don’t need to work …”

“Joel, please,” she said.

Surprisingly, it worked. He didn’t take defeat well, but he took it, frowning and stomping back into the house.

“Don’t leave yet.”

“Please,” Sydney said, on the brink of tears.

I really, really did not need to be involved in yet another crisis, which dating, or even going on dates with, the daughter of the sheriff who clearly hated me definitely was. Between new managers and rogue fathers, I had enough on my plate. But … I also liked Sydney. And I felt bad, because she didn’t deserve this either.

My struggle only lasted a few seconds, and really was probably a foregone conclusion. I was, apparently a glutton for punishment. At least where a pretty girl was concerned. I made a ‘I guess’ hand gesture and nodded before turning and heading towards my car. I didn’t look at them, but I heard the door shut as I went to my car and sat on the hood.

The yelling must have been pretty intense, because I could hear it all the way out by the curb. Not so much that I could make out words, but enough that I could hear her father yelling. To her mom’s credit, I couldn’t hear her yelling back, but maybe that was just because his voice carried more.

I sat there for almost ten minutes, and started wondering if they’d decided on no after all, and hadn’t bothered to tell me, when the door flung open and Sydney came running out. Her mom followed behind her at a much more reasonable pace. Her father was back in the doorway, arms folded, apparently trying to see if it was possible to stare a hole through someone.

I thought for a second Sydney might leap on me in a hug, but I think the realization that her parents were watching, especially her father, made her think twice, since she skidded to a halt next to the car, putting her hands behind her back and rocking slightly on her heels. It would have been a funny sight, if it wasn’t for the commotion that had just happened.

“They said I could go,” she said, beaming.

“Good,” I said, smiling back at hear, before again looking past her to her mother and father, who were sending very mixed signals.

I pushed myself off the car and tried to stand up and keep a friendly posture as her mother walked up. Of Sydney’s two parents, she was apparently the closest thing I was going to get to an alley, and I didn’t want her to get the impression I was being dismissive or rude.

“So … everything’s okay, ma’am?” I asked her mom when she walked up.

“Yes. You two go and have fun. Her father has agreed to let her see you as long as she abides by our curfew rules, although I think it best in the future, if you let her either meet you at the location or be dropped off somewhere reasonable to meet you. At least for the time being. You might also want to be … cautious and avoid her father, if you two happen to cross paths.”

“That’s good advice,” I said.

“Okay. Bye Mom,” Sydney said, opening the passenger door and getting into the car. “Stacey will bring me home before curfew.”

“Okay. You kids have fun,” her mom said, giving a wave and walking back towards her house like nothing weird had happened.

I hustled around to the driver side and got in.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Sydney said as soon as I was in the car. “If I’d known that was going to happen, I would have met you somewhere.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said as I started the car.

Since her dad was still in the doorway staring daggers at me, I tried to pull slowly away from the curb and drive as correctly as possible, since he seemed like exactly the sort who’d run out and pull me over for reckless driving or something in order to end the date.

“Why didn’t you mention your dad was the sheriff? I thought everyone in school knew about my run-ins with the police, both at prom and with all the stuff with Aaron.”

“I didn’t even think about it. I knew daddy had been up at the school on Prom, but I heard Aaron got arrested and you hadn’t, so I didn’t think there had been that big of a thing. He doesn’t ever talk about his work, so I didn’t know you’d had any bad experiences with him.”

I believed her that she wasn’t being malicious. One of the things I liked most about Sydney was how she always looked on the bright side of everything. I guess there was a downside to that after all.

“It’s okay. I was mostly just shocked. How did you manage to talk him into letting you still go out? I was sure there was no way this date was still happening.”

“That was Mom. Dad makes a lot of noise, but he always ends up doing what Mom says. She pointed out that you hadn’t ever broken the law. She also said out that whatever happened with Katherine’s dad, he was really the bad guy in this, and we should thank you for helping her, not blame you for exposing what he’d done. What did happen with her father?”

For a second, I was surprised she didn’t know. I guess because Kat, Hanna, Mrs. Phillips and I all accepted it as fact and had to regularly deal with the consequences of his actions, it felt like it was public knowledge. We didn’t really talk about it outside of our small group though, and the fact that he was still running his factory and hadn’t been driven out of town on a rail suggested it wasn’t that widely known after all. The Sheriff had been required to enforce Kat’s removal from her father’s house, so he would have known about it and probably talked to his wife, but that had been the extent of it. Her father hadn’t even been arrested and months later the county DA hadn’t brought any charges against him, so there wasn't any kind of public condemnation.

So far, Mrs. Phillips and Kat’s psychologist had agreed they didn’t want to push it any further, prioritizing her treatment over vindication. If they had pressed it Kat would have almost certainly had to testify again, which had practically destroyed her the first time.

“She was removed from his custody and went to live with Hannah Phillips’s mom. It’s not really my place to say what happened there, though.”

“Ohh,” she said, looking down at her hands, worried.

Kat was already predisposed to disliking Sydney and I didn’t think having Sydney suddenly treat her different, or worse, asking questions, would make that situation any better. Right now, it also wasn’t a topic of gossip around the school, and it was juicy enough that it would be if Sydney started mentioning it to others. I didn’t think she would gossip about it maliciously, but this was the kind of thing that even an offhanded mention or innocent question would be enough to get it going again. I figured in this case, a discussion was also the best course of action.

Besides, a conversation about extended child abuse wasn’t exactly first-date material. This date was already off to a rough start and I wanted to save it if at all possible.

“Hey,” I said, reaching over and taking one of her hands in mine. “Let’s not let this ruin our date. You’re mom got us permission to go out, so let’s make the best of it.”

“I just feel really bad about all of that. I’ve never seen Dad like that. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine. Really. You look really pretty, by the way,” I said.

She did. She was wearing a white sundress with little pink flowers all over it, and looked absolutely adorable. Sitting in the car, the dress really showed off her legs, which were toned and smooth.

“Really?” She said, smoothing her dress. “I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, but you said casual, which I thought meant we weren’t going hiking or anything.”

“We’re not. I got some sandwiches and stuff from Chef after I finished training this morning and packed a cooler. I thought we could go to Lake Reed and have a picnic. It’s a beautiful day and seems a waste to sit inside a restaurant or something.”

“That sounds great,” she said, his troubled mood finally lifting.

There wasn’t really a pull-off or a parking lot by the lake, but I’d driven by it a few times and noticed cars pulled off to the side of Merrimon Road where it got closest. There was an easy path to the lake that opened up into a large field that was perfect for picnics. I know some kids went out here on weekends and it was a popular make-out spot, but in the middle of the day on a Saturday I hoped it would be more or less empty.

Thankfully, I was right, aside from an older guy fishing on the far shore. The lake itself wasn’t huge. If it was any smaller, it’d probably qualify more as a pond than a lake, but I guess calling it “the pond” sounds a lot less cool than “the lake.”

I spread out a large quilt I’d borrowed from Mrs. Phillips, who called my date idea adorable, and set out the cooler and bag of food. While we ate, we talked, getting to know each other better. I did notice she avoided talking about her father, which was fair since I did the same. We talked about how she got into swimming, what touring was like, things we liked to do, and just about everything else. She wasn’t the brainiac that Kat was, but she was very clever, a lot more so than her innocent persona suggested. I still couldn’t tell if she did that on purpose, but there was a lot more depth to her than first impression suggested. She was witty, insightful, and had a cutting sense of humor at times. The more I talked to her, the more I liked her.

It seemed like no time at all had passed before I looked at my watch and realized we’d been there for almost three hours. If a family hadn’t walked down the path from the road, pulling us out of the conversation enough for me to look at my watch, I would have missed my pre-show practice entirely.

“We should probably get going. Do you still want to come to our practice?”

“Absolutely. I love watching you play.”

“Good, cause I like having you there,” I said, helping her up.

We loaded everything in the trunk and climbed into the car. The family that had shown up was parked a little behind us, but they’d ventured off into the woods, looking like they were headed around the lake, and Merrimon Road was as usual, completely empty of traffic. I’m not sure if it was the sense of privacy or the nervousness that Sydney hadn’t been able to shake all afternoon that prompted me to do what I did next.

She’d leaned over to plug her phone in the phone charger I kept in the car and when she sat up, our faces were inches a few hand spans apart. I think she realized it, because she gave a shy smile, looking up at me with those big brown eyes of hers. Before she could sit back, I leaned in and kissed her. It was just a simple kiss on the lips and nothing more, but I could feel electricity as we made contact. Maybe she did too, because I felt her tense up for a second before relaxing, the pressure increasing as she kissed me back.

We weren’t making out and it was only a few seconds before we broke it off and both sat back, but I could still feel that excitement going down my spine that I’d felt every time I’d kissed a girl.

“Sorry,” I said, mostly to fill the air. “You were so nervous by the lake, I thought maybe you were still worried about everything that happened with your dad. I wanted to make sure you knew I didn’t care about that, and I still liked you.”

“Thanks. I mean, I knew you still liked me, but I was nervous about it, cause of everything.”

“Okay. Well, let’s get to the Blue Ridge.”

“Sure,” she said, buckling up.

It wasn’t a long drive, since the lake was just outside of town, but it was still nice. We held hands the whole way, listening to the radio and just enjoying each other’s presence. When we got to the Blue Ridge, I went to let go of her hand so I could go around and get her door, when she surprised me by instead gripping tighter and pulling me towards her. It was my turn to be surprised this time when she leaned over and kissed me. It confirmed there was a spark there, since just like the first time I felt that tingle down my spine. Then she surprised me when I felt her tongue lightly graze my lips. She pulled back and was out of the car before I could respond, but I did notice the devilish little grin she had as she got out.

Maybe she wasn’t quite the shy innocent girl I’d pegged her as after all.

***

Sunday I was back out of the Phillips house early, this time with Hanna in tow as we headed to the meeting with Kent and our potential new manager. I spent most of the drive trying to get Hanna to tell me what she and Sydney had talked about the night before. Hanna hadn’t shown up till shortly before we went on stage, and I’d noticed her pull Sydney aside as our set started. They remained in one far corner near the kitchen door for almost thirty minutes talking, which was distracting enough for me that I even dropped a few notes. To the point where Lyla had to catch my attention and give me a look that said ‘get your head in the game.’

It wasn’t that I was concerned Hanna would try and torpedo things, but she could be mischievous when she got it in her mind, and I was still thinking about that smile Sydney had after she kissed me the second time. It hadn’t occurred to me when Hanna had talked about pulling Sydney aside the other day, but there was a chance the two of them putting their heads together could be more than I bargained for. It didn’t help that Hanna caught my eye when the two finally broke apart to come back and join the crowd listening, and gave me an equally as devilish smile. Unlike Sydney’s, this one suggested I hadn’t been wrong to be worried about my mischievous side.

She’d refused to tell me what they talked about after the show and still wouldn’t budge. I’d see, and grill, Sydney about it on Monday, but I thought it wise to refrain from calling her house. I’d made sure Sydney knew I wasn’t going to call so I didn’t make her dad angry, but now that prudence was working against me.

Ultimately, I knew Hanna wasn’t going to be actively mean to me, but it was annoying that she now had this little tidbit of information over me. And that she found amusement in making sure I knew she had it. She continued to tease me, and ignore my please, the rest of the way to the club. Once there, though, we both put on our game faces.

Kent was already there, along with a man maybe a few years older than Marco. Chef must have recognized Kent, because he put us off in one far corner. The lunch rush was almost over, but it was still a little noise, and this would give us a bit of privacy.

“Charlie. Hanna,” Kent said, standing up as we approached the table. “I’d like you to meet Warren Rice. Warren, this is Charlie Nelson, the wunderkind you’ve heard about, and his friend Hanna, who studies business and UNC and has helped work with Charlie and his bandmates to get things off the ground.”

“You’re the one who produced all the merch, right?”

“Yes,” Hanna said, surprised she was being addressed directly, since I’d told her I just wanted her there to listen.

“Kent forwarded me the business plan you sent him for that. I’m impressed. When I was told a college freshmen was handling it, since the label passed, I’ll be honest, I had some probably not too kind preconceived notions about what that meant. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong before. Not only was it a really professional plan, but the owner let me check out some of the merch you have on sale here, behind the bar. It’s pretty good. At some point, and of course, everything I say assumes you agree to bring me on board, I’d like to have a call with you to get notes on who you’ve used. If things go well, the label is almost certainly going to want to bring all of that in-house under Charlie’s deal, but I’m a big believer in maintaining continuity between what the band has done before and what we do after we take it over. assuming that work is worth carrying over, which this very much is.”

“Uhh, sure,” Hanna said, a little overwhelmed by the torrent of words that came spilling out.

To his credit, I didn’t get the sense he was playing some kind of game. I wouldn’t put it beyond Kent to mention to him how much I wanted Hanna involved, but I didn’t get the sense he was mining that to win favor or something. He sounded genuine when he said he’d been impressed with her work. Of course, I could just be naive, which wouldn’t be out of character for me, but that’s why I brought Hanna.

“I also understand Charlie has expressed interest in having you continue to have some kind of involvement in his management going forward. I don’t have a problem with this either. Honestly, this isn’t the first time I’ve had an artist ask that someone they’re personally involved with, usually a relative, has some kind of involvement in their management, so it’s not unprecedented. Usually, those requests make my job harder and is a downside of my job, but hearing that you’re actually majoring in talent management, I think this might be the first time it helps, instead of making my job harder.”

“Thanks,” Hanna said.

“No problem. Since most everything else about your contract is pretty standard, I wanted to address that one caveat you included first and let you know I didn’t have any problem with it,” he said, turning his attention to me.

“What about the other parts of the contract? Specifically, the fact that I’m a minor and have made it clear I do not want to drop out of school or go on some kind of tutoring program until I graduate. Our last tour manager found that part inconvenient and worked really hard to have me drop it so I could tour full time.”

“Yes, I heard about all of that and no, I don’t have a problem with it. It does make getting you booked harder, since you’re limited both on dates and distance, but part of my job is to work with what I have and still make sure you’re out there. As long as you keep me appraised of your availability, I’ll do my best to work around it. That being said, I know you have several long holidays when you’re out of school, and I’d really want you to keep those available. I know they all fall on holidays you probably want to celebrate with your family, but with your limited schedule, we really have to have those to make it work. Besides, for new bands, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and especially New Years are golden times for us. Those weeks people have time off work or out of school and the big names don’t really want to perform, giving you a larger potential audience pool to work with than you’d have on other dates.”

“I can live with that,” I said. “I need to check with the band, but they’ve made it clear they’re committed to making us succeed and have said they want to tour more, so I don’t think they’ll cause any problems.

Right now, I couldn’t imagine sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner or opening presents under the tree with either my mother or father. The excuse that I have to be working would be a pretty good excuse to get out of both. I also wanted to imagine it would make my mother feel less guilty about pushing me away for dad, but so far I hadn’t seen any evidence of that, so maybe it would just suffice to make my guilt feel better.

“Good. For those weeks you have an entire week off, or over the Christmas break when you have two weeks, how do you feel about going out on a shortened tour? It would probably remain east coast, because we’d lose too much time getting you across the country and back, but if we have two weeks we could even consider a gulf coast or Midwest run, assuming album sales in that area are good enough to support decent audiences.”

“I wouldn’t have a problem with either.”

“Good. Good. Speaking of your album release, I usually like to handle that end of the market as well, if I’m managing gigs and tours for an artist that has a record release. Assuming you give me the thumbs up, Kent has already agreed to it, since a lot of the contacts I use to promote shows also work well-promoting records. Kent would still handle anything national, which for someone like you, whose on their first album without prior nationwide exposure, is probably going to be limited to internet and streaming.”

“I don’t have a problem with it, but would that mean we’re only pushing sales on the east coast?”

“Good question, and no, not at all. For shows, where travel expense and time are both a concern, yes, we’re sticking to the east coast. If we were guaranteed enough sell-through for a series of shows on the west coast or even in other territories, we wouldn’t have a problem setting those up for you, but without that kind of guarantee, transportation costs just don’t make it feasible. I’m not saying that to downplay you or anything. I just have always felt it best to be straightforward and direct with the artists I work with.”

“But that doesn’t apply to marketing the record, right?”

“Right. For stuff like radio call-ins, we can of course spread out much further. I have connections in most of the major markets and I’ll try and set up as many calls as I can to get you out there. With your schedule, that will probably mean a little of the early drive time stuff out here, and the evening drive time across all markets. I know your album comes out in a week, so there isn’t much time to get on that. I couldn’t find anything Brent set up, which is actually a problem. You really should have been on the radio across the country pushing your record for at least the last month. If we get you on the radio starting tomorrow, that’s still not going to be enough time.”

We’d done spots for each city we stopped at on our tour, but I hadn’t even thought about having to do the same for the record. Of course, it was obvious and I should have thought about it, but between Brent and Dad, I’d been so distracted, I hadn’t stopped to think. I could kick myself. If I was really going to do this as a career, I needed to take it seriously.

“How screwed are we on record sales, since we haven’t done any marketing?” I asked, looking at Kent.

“You’re not screwed. Warren’s right, we should have had you doing radio spots already, and I’ll take the blame for that. This is your first go, and we don’t expect you to know what marketing needs to be done or need for you to push us to do the marketing. Since our tour guys have most of the radio contacts, we let them focus on that side of the marketing, and with Brent leaving, you fell through the cracks. However, the bigger push for you was always going to be streaming. Even if we set you up with a drive-time appearance twice a day for the last month, it would only have moved the needle a little. There’s a difference between drive-time interviews or drop-ins and continuous record play, and program managers are going to be very hesitant about giving an unknown two-and-a-half minutes of playtime. We use that mostly for name id, so that when you show up in a streaming service, they see something they recognize and give you a listen. We get a similar boost from straight streaming ads and digital ads, both of which started in August.”

“Ohh, good. I guess I just kind of expected an interview to have the biggest impact.”

“Twenty or even ten years ago, you probably would have been right, but radio doesn’t get the play it used to. Half the listeners are streaming from a device, and those are the ones most likely to be in your target demo. Like I said, it helps, but it isn’t the end all be all. that being said, the sooner we can get Warren in place, the better. Not having you out there is going to cost us some money, both on your direct earnings and on record sales.”

I glanced at Hanna, who gave a small shake of the head. I knew it wasn’t lost on either Kent or Warren, but I wasn’t trying to hide the fact that I valued her opinion and had brought her for exactly that reason.

“I’m sold.”

“Excellent,” Warren said, reaching out to shake my hand. “I’m really looking forward to meeting the rest of your band and putting you to work making the rest of us money.”

“Good,” I said.