Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 8

The next day I was sitting in Mr. French’s office again, eating lunch and talking about music, when we both jerked up at the sound of a knock at his office door. Neither of us had heard the main door to the choir room open and we were caught off guard.

I was surprised to see Kat standing there, balanced on one foot with the other hooked around her ankle, grasping her hands in front of her again. I recognized the body language. It was one of the things she did when she was working up the courage to state an opinion, or ask someone to do something.

“It’s Ms. Moore, right?” Mr. French asked, putting his food down. “What can I do for you?”

“Umm … she said, looking away and trying to keep from making eye contact. “I know you and Charlie work on music at lunch sometimes, but I was wondering if some days I could come here and tutor him at lunch.”

Mr. French looked over at me, a confused expression on his face.

“Kat used to tutor me during study hall, but I was told I couldn’t use the student tutoring program while I was dealing with the restraining order. Something about limiting access to school functions. Apparently, they’re afraid Aaron might get lost and end up in the library at the same time I’m there studying,” I said before turning back to Kat. “I thought you were going to keep coming by and helping me study on the weekends?”

“I am, but you were doing three days a week before, and if we study on Sundays and Saturdays, that’s only two. I know you feel like you’re getting caught up, but I still think you’re too smart to settle for C’s. You’ve got a lot of ground to make up if you want to start getting A’s and B’s and we need more than one or two days a week to get you there.”

I could see her point, but I found the lunch breaks working with Mr. French to be some of the best progress I’d made on making my own music before. Willie was a big help, but he just did things that felt natural when it came to writing songs. Mr. French explained the technical reasons for doing things in music in a way that really helped me understand why things worked and didn’t work. I really didn’t want to give up my time with him, since once this whole restraining order thing was over, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep meeting with him every day like this.

“Kat, I appreciate …”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” he said, interrupting me. “Charlie, I really enjoy our talks, but she’s right. We’ll keep working at lunch, but you need to take your schoolwork seriously. I know a lot of musicians just want to get out there and do it, but I think you’d really benefit from studying this stuff at a higher level. To do that, you need to get good enough grades in the next few years to get into a good college program. I think more musicians would benefit from a college education, not just in theory but also in business. I swear the place where most musicians have things fall apart is on the business side of the industry and not in their creativity. I’ve seen a lot of talented people sign awful deals that basically guarantee they’ll never break big just because they didn’t understand what they were agreeing to.”

“But …” I said, still trying to find a way to keep our lunchtimes from becoming studying sessions.

“Nope, no buts. You need to focus on school, first. The fact that you have a young lady willing to track you down and make you study is a huge step in the right direction. You should listen to her.”

“I do,” I said with a sigh, realizing I was beaten. “How many days a week do you want to study?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quivering. “I should have asked first, I just …”

She turned and started to run out of the choir room. Mr. French looked at me confused as I got up to chase after her.

“I’ll explain later,” I said over my shoulder.

She was already halfway down the hallway when I ran through the choir room door and shouted after her.

“Kat, stop!”

She skidded to a halt and put her hands to her face, not looking back at me.

“Come here, please,” I said, trying to sound gentle but still authoritative enough that she’d listen to me.

She paused for a second before turning and walking slowly back towards me, like a condemned man to the gallows. She stopped in front of me, hands clasped in front of her again, keeping her head down to hide her face behind her hair. She was in full-on defensive mode, trying to hide from me. It’s what she did when she thought she’d done something wrong or upset someone, since she knew being confronted with that disappointment would send her into a full-on panic attack.

“You think I’m upset about losing some of my time with Mr. French working on music, right?” I asked in a gentle voice.

She nodded, keeping her head down.

“Hey,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “I’m not upset with you at all. Was I a little disappointed that I would lose some of my lunches to doing school work instead of working on music? Yes. What did I tell you when we agreed you’d keep tutoring me after our new arrangement?”

She said something I couldn’t hear.

“Kat, I’m not mad at you. Not even a little bit. What did I say when we’d agreed you’d keep tutoring me.”

“That … that you liked how I took charge when we did school work, and that I was the boss when we were studying.”

“Right. So, you making sure we’re getting enough study time is doing just that. You’re doing exactly what you are supposed to do. I know it was really hard to come in and tell Mr. French you wanted me to study with you during some of the lunches. I’m so proud of you for being able to do it. I’m not even a little bit upset with you.”

“Really?” she said, looking up, her cheeks still wet with tears.

I wiped them off with my sleeve and said, “Really. Even if you ask me to do stuff I don’t want to do, like homework, I could never be mad at you. How could I? You’re looking out after my best interests, after all.”

“So you’re not mad at me?”

“Not at all.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart. Now, should we go back inside before Mr. French decides he needs to come and chase me down?”

She nodded yes, wiping her eyes and taking a deep breath. I kept holding her hand as I led her back into the choir room. Mr. French was standing in the doorway to his office, still looking perplexed.

“Everything okay?” He asked when we came back inside.

“Yeah. It’s hard to explain. Kat was just worried she was getting in the way of music time because I was being difficult. You’re both right, of course. School comes first. Would it be okay if, a few days a week, Kat comes and tutors me here?”

“Sure. I really should be doing work during these times anyway.”

“Ohh, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think. I didn’t mean to cause problems,” I said.

“You’re not. I enjoy the work we’ve been doing and I’m not really that far behind. I haven’t had a chance to do this kind of work in years; and honestly, I’ve missed it. I still get everything done, so it’s a win-win.”

“I know Charlie wants to keep working on his music as much as possible,” Kat said. “We don’t need to work every day, especially if we keep working at his place on Saturday mornings. We could probably do two days a week and you two could work on music the other three, if that’s okay?”

She wasn’t looking at the floor anymore, which was a good sign. She was still nervously fidgeting with her hands, clasped in front of her, but this was a really good step. She’d been making progress asking me for things she wanted, but this was one of the first times I’d seen her do it for someone else. Of course, it was partially tutoring-related, which was an area she felt comfortable in, which helped. Still, it was a big step.

“Works for me, as long as Charlie gets all the study time he needs. I’m serious about that.”

“Kat won’t cut corners. She takes tutoring very seriously.”

“I can see that. Weekends and tracking you down at lunch is pretty dedicated. Okay, you two go study, I’ve got work to do.”

***

That night I was at Hanna’s house eating dinner, which was something I did a few days a week. Mom occasionally worried that I was overstaying my welcome with them, but Mrs. Phillips had assured me enough times that she was happy to have me with them that I’d decided to just take their word for it. At this point, I felt almost as comfortable at their house as I did at my own. Better actually, at dinner time, since what they had was almost always better than three-day-old leftovers or a sad sandwich.

Tonight, it was Brunswick stew, a North Carolina staple. She’d made chicken the other day and this was one way to use the leftovers so you didn’t have to keep eating the same chicken for several days. She’d had a house to show that afternoon, so I’d gotten to their house around the same time as she had, and she’d let me help finish and season the stew. After working in the kitchen at the Blue Ridge with Chef, I found I actually enjoyed cooking. Although I didn’t have time to do that anymore, Mrs. Philips sometimes waited for me to cook with her, which was nice.

“So, did Chef say what he was going to do to help?” Hanna asked.

We had the same routine when I ate with them, and I assumed they did it when I wasn’t here. We took time telling each other what was going on in our lives, starting from the last time we’d all eaten together. The other two would eat and listen intently and then ask follow-up questions. Each person had to ask at least one question, which had a way of making everyone pay attention to the person talking.

Hanna found it annoying and wished they’d just eat in silence, but I loved it. When we were traveling with Dad, I ate in the kitchen while Dad played, if they had one, or back in the RV if they didn’t. Mom was with Dad most of the time during gigs, so I was always by myself. Since moving here, I ate with Mom more often, but most of my meals were still by myself, ‘cause she had to work so much. I found these mealtime conversations almost relaxing. It was almost like something out of an old TV show.

“He didn’t say, just that he’d talk to some people and see what he can do. We have until next month to submit our reply, or whatever. I’m not really clear on how it works but Mom said she was going to wait until the last moment to go through with her bankruptcy plan, to make them sweat. I think she’s just hoping a better option comes up between now and then, which tells me how bad an idea this really is, regardless of what she said.”

“It isn’t great, that’s for sure. If you have to move, a bankruptcy will make it harder to rent a new place,” Mrs. Philips said. “Depending on how much of a hardass your landlord is, it could be a problem next time you have to renew your lease. It’ll also make it harder to get any job that does a credit check on her. On the flip side, she’s right to be looking for another way out. If they want to, the Campbell’s lawyers could drag things out and really drive up the cost of fighting it. Hanna’s father did that during our divorce, just to make me spend more money.”

“Mom,” Hanna said, warningly.

“I know and I’m not talking about it. I was just trying to give Charlie an idea of what could happen.”

Hanna didn’t like talking about her dad, even in passing. She was furious he’d left them and basically written them off. Since the divorce, he’d had no contact with her at all. No birthday presents and no Christmas cards. It’s one thing to divorce your wife, but it took a special kind of bastard to completely walk away from your child. Dad, for all his faults, still wrote me from prison every few months. Her dad was walking around living in Florida somewhere, just pretending Hanna didn’t exist. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to deal with the bastard.

“Well,” Mrs. Phillips said, continuing. “I’m confident Chef will come up with something. That man is nothing short of a miracle worker when it comes to protecting his kids. He’s come through for Hanna several times.”

Hanna shot her mother another look. She also wasn’t a fan of her mom talking about her in the third person when she was there. Actually, Hanna seemed to find a lot of things her mom did annoying, which I didn’t get. I thought Mrs. Phillips was amazing; but then, I wasn’t her kid. I’m sure she wouldn’t find the stuff my mom said embarrassing, but sometimes it drove me up the wall. I think that was probably true of every kid and their parents.

“Hanna got back her first acceptance letter today,” Mrs. Phillips said, which elicited another eye roll from Hanna.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked Hanna, who was obviously not into the idea.

“It’s from Florida State. I do not want to go to live in Florida.”

“Then why’d you apply.”

“’Cause she made me.”

“Hanna’s plan was to just go to the community college in Asheville and get an associate’s degree. Her grades may have fallen last year, but not enough for that to be necessary. I tried to explain to her that in today’s workforce, you really need a four-year degree if you’re going to make it in your field.”

“I asked, but Hanna wouldn’t tell me what field that is.”

“I don’t know, okay? It’s why I just wanted to start at community college until I figured out what I want to do. How can I decide on a college when I don’t know what program I want to join? Maybe I’ll end up driving big rigs across the country. Who knows?”

“And I said you could start by going in as something simple, like a general business degree or undeclared and switch to a program once you figure out what you want. If you have to switch schools, it’ll be easier to do that from a four-year institution than a community college. Eventually, you’ll figure something out and you don’t want to make a decision now that you regret later.”

“I didn’t mean to cause an argument,” I said, feeling massively uncomfortable.

“You’re not. If Hanna really wants to just go to community college, I’ll support it. I just wanted her to apply to colleges in state and a few with a wide range of good programs, just in case she changes her mind. It’s better to have options and not use them than need options and not have them.”

“Whatever,” Hanna said, but I recognized the tone.

She was just digging in her feet now. Hanna was one of the most stubborn people I’d ever met. Sometimes, if you asked her at the wrong time or in the wrong way, she’d flatly refuse to do something even if she really wanted to. Worse, once she’d decided to take a stand, even one contrary to what she wanted, she’d rather make things worse for herself than be forced to change her mind.

“Mom really wants me to go to college. I had to agree to get a four-year degree for her to agree to let me play at the Blue Ridge. Talk about unnecessary. How many performers took time out to go to college before trying for their break?”

“More than you’d think,” Hanna said. “I still think you’re mom’s right. I thought you said Mr. French had convinced you to go for a music theory degree with a minor in business?”

Hanna, ever the study in contradictions, had immediately agreed with my mom when I told her about Mom’s requirement for me playing. I hadn’t realized at the time that, despite what she said about me, she was refusing to go to a four-year college. It didn’t surprise me though, since it was very much in character for her.

“I said he had a good point. I’m not sure a degree in music will satisfy Mom. She wants me to get a degree that I can use to get a ‘good job’ if music falls through. I’m not sure a music theory degree will qualify.”

“There are still options,” Mrs. Phillips said. “Getting a teaching certificate and teaching in primary education comes to mind first, but you could try interning with a producer with an eye to becoming one yourself. You could also argue that the minor in business is your fallback, since you don’t need much to go into sales.”

“I’m not sure how great I’d be in sales, but yeah, I was thinking about an argument along those lines. I won’t have to start dealing with that until late next year when I have to start working on college applications. Until then, I’m going to just keep it all very hypothetical and keep playing on weekends.”

“Not telling parents everything is the way to go,” Hanna said.

“Yes, we’re all evil for wanting our kids to succeed in life. What a cruel life you’ve led.”

Hanna rolled her eyes again, but she couldn’t hide her smile. I really did enjoy spending time with the pair of them. I wouldn’t trade Mom for anything, but Mrs. Phillips was running a close second, as far as parents went.

***

Thursday at practice, I was sent over to Coach Cooper to work on hitting. So far Coach Dean had mostly worked on position play, since I was really lacking in that area. While I knew how to play baseball, it had all been informal and I’d never had coaching before, mostly figuring out what worked and didn’t work on my own.

While my hands and reflexes were good, I made the wrong call a lot, especially when deciding which base to throw to. So he’d focused on getting me up to speed on making fielding decisions. Of course, there were a lot of other guys on the team who needed work too, so he sent me off to learn how to bat better while he worked with them.

That worked for me, since I loved batting. There were nine other guys in my group, going through hitting in a round-robin. I watched the first few guys go, listening to what he had to tell them as I waited for my turn. The first guy had played in a little league team, and apparently, at least his form was good, from what coach said. What he had a problem with was hand-eye coordination, which basically meant he whiffed a lot.

The guy after him had power issues, which coach said mostly came from his stance. He was too crunched in, so he couldn’t get the full range of motion, which limited how much power could be applied to a hit. While watching him, something Chef had said in our training on defending blunt weapons came to mind. He’d talked about how the attacker had more power the further out on the weapon he struck with, since a bat was basically a big lever. I noticed that the kid ahead of me was choked up on the bat pretty far and standing inside the box a little too much, which meant he wasn’t getting the full use of the bat as a lever. Even if he connected at the end, he didn’t put as much power into the hit as he could if he stood further back and didn’t have his hands so high. Coach Cooper said most of those things to him when he started giving pointers, which made me feel good, since I’d worked it out on my own. His explanations were different, since I was thinking of it based on what Chef had said, but it was essentially the same.

I looked down at the bat in my hands and realized I was too high on the bat too, and readjusted my grip. I’d never hit this way before, and the bat felt different as I gave a few test swings, but I figured I could work with it.

My turn was up next. I checked my position in the box, to make sure I wasn’t too close and gave coach the nod that I was good for him to have the pitching machine throw a few down the stretch. Everything was coming as just fastballs at the moment, straight down the middle, since he was mostly looking at the batters’ form right now, and not teaching how to hit different pitches.

I whiffed on the first one, but I think that was mostly nerves. I’d gotten into my head a little bit as I tried to incorporate everything he’d told the guys ahead of me, instead of just doing what felt natural.

“Sorry,” I said as I set back up.

“First one’s a freebie. Keep your eye on the ball and stay relaxed.”

I nodded but didn’t reply, keeping my eyes on the machine’s pitching arm. I tried not to think about what I was doing too much, just swinging when it felt right. I got it right at the tip of the bat, shanking the ball off to the left.

“You’re a little too far back. Take a half step in and do that again. Don’t pull the bat after you hit. Just keep swinging through. Anticipating pulling back is taking power off the swing.”

Again, something Chef said came to mind. He’d shown me how with any hit, whether a punch or a kick, you struck through the target, continuing the power all the way through, even if you already connected. The reason behind that was the same as Coach Cooper said. If you anticipated the hit and started thinking about pulling back, you actually ended up pulling the punch before you connected. Punching through forced you to apply full power. I hadn’t realized how much fighting and baseball could have in common although I guess punching someone and hitting a ball with a bat wasn’t all that different.

This time I connected solidly at the end of the bat and continued the swing through. I got all of it and sent it sailing back over the pitching machine in a good line drive.

“That’s what I’m talking about. Do a few more of those and then switch out.”

I tried to do the same thing each time. The last one I shanked again, but not so far that it would have been out of bounds. I got good power on all of them, sending them sailing into the netting behind the batting machine.

“Good job,” coach said as I walked off, feeling good about myself.

“Hey, look at that,” Harry said from off to one side. “Can you believe they let the kids have a turn? Y’all should go back to playing catch and let the real ballplayers get their turn.”

I tried to keep my distance from Harry at practice, but that wasn’t always possible. While the facilities were pretty impressive for a small school like ours, they didn’t have the money to afford a full coaching staff for both teams beyond Coach Dean and Coach Bryant, we took turns at the position stations. When it wasn’t our turn, we normally ran or did drills. What that meant was that I often ran into Harry when one of us was waiting for the switch over, either out on the field or here in the batting cages.

The good thing was that Harry was as dumb as a sack of hammers, and his insults were rarely hit home. I don’t think it occurred to him that stuff like that pissed off everyone else on junior varsity and even some of his varsity teammates. He was a junior on a team that was half made up of seniors. That meant a lot of the people he was insulting would end up being his teammates next year. Not that any of that occurred to him.

I just ignored him. I wanted my second turn in the batting cage before we had to give the station up to varsity and I didn’t want to get pulled aside for being ‘disruptive’ if Coach Bryant saw me arguing with harry.

“Seriously, why do you even bother? Everyone knows you can’t hit for shit.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Harry?” Christian said from behind him.

Christian was one of Hanna’s boyfriend Marcus’s friends and was the captain of varsity. We weren’t exactly friends, but he had little patience with Aaron and his whole crew. I’d heard Christian was going to be scouted by some pretty big-name teams this year. He played first base, and I’d watched him practice a couple of times. He had a hell of an arm on him.

“He smoked all of his pitches after that first one. You were what, one for five yesterday on just fastballs down the center of the plate?”

Harry mumbled something and shuffled to the other side of the batting cage. I tried not to smile, since I didn’t want to throw more fuel on his hatred for me, but I couldn’t help it.

“Good hitting in there,” Christian said to me. “You’re also making progress at shortstop. You’re going to kill ‘em next year on varsity.”

“I hope so. We’ll see if I choke when I get in a real game.”

“Nah, you’ll be fine, man.”

“Thanks,” I said as Coach Cooper called me for my turn in the cage.

“Okay, before we start we’re going to make a few corrections to your stance. First is your body position. Right now, you could only get one eye on the pitcher all the way without twisting your neck too far. You’re going to instinctively twist back a bit, to relieve the pressure, which is going to cause you to partially block your vision. Stand like you normally would, and close your eye that is facing the pitcher.”

I closed my left eye and found that he was right, I could only see part of the pitcher without turning my neck more. I opened my right eye and could see the pitcher again, but he was right, I was using mostly only one eye in my stance. I hadn’t really noticed it before.

“Having one eye partially blocked is affecting your depth perception some, which is why you shanked those two balls. You need to shift your body a little more towards the pitcher like this,” he said, grabbing the sides of my hips and forcing me to face the plate a little more. “The second problem is you’re in too much of a crouch. Your frame’s wrong for that. Stand up straighter, using your shoulders and arms more for power instead of your back. You might lose a little oomph on the ball, but you’re going to pick up a lot more control, which is more important in the long run.”

He pushed in on my lower back, forcing me to stand up straighter, and then stepped back.

“Take a few practice swings, see how it feels. Make sure you don’t shift back to your old stance when you reset. You’re going to have to focus on this new body position for a while until you correct your muscle memory.”

I swung the bat a few times, and I did feel a difference, standing up more. I couldn’t tell if there was less power, but I could feel my control over the bat was somewhat better.

“Okay, let’s try a few,” he said, hitting the button for the pitching machine.