Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 15

Rhonda about flipped the next day when I told her about the party. I’d sat with her group at lunch. While it wasn’t as painful as other times, I still found myself having to hold my mouth shut multiple times. Her friends, Camille especially, seemed surprised I’d get an invite to what was apparently a high profile party. Apparently, this was a party thrown by the varsity football team and cheerleaders, mostly for juniors and seniors. All of Rhonda's friends had been limited to parties thrown by the freshman team or junior varsity, and I could just feel the jealousy coming off Camille.

Honestly, as soon as I heard it was going to involve the football team, I almost wanted to head over and tell Hanna I wasn’t going to go. I was all but guaranteed to run into Aaron and his pals, which would probably end badly. Looking at Rhonda though, I didn’t think I could do that. She was so happy she looked like she was about to burst. Plus, Hanna must have known what group was throwing this party, and she didn’t think it was a big enough deal to tell me. I figured she would have warned me if it was going to be a problem.

Still, I was suddenly less excited for it than I had been.

The thing I was looking forward to happened Friday afternoon when I got to the Blue Ridge. To keep from having to bring up the rest of the band extra times in the week, Willie and Chef decided that the best time for practice was Fridays before dinner service. Most of the guys came up fairly early on Fridays anyway, so it was easy for them. I had to skip training with Chef, but I understood I needed to fit into everyone else's schedules since they were all doing me a massive favor.

I’d spoken to Willie, and he said he was fine with cycling in new songs since if this experiment panned out, we’d need a bigger repertoire so it wasn’t always the same stuff. He limited it to one new song a week though since he didn’t want to make the band do all week practices like we did before.

He liked the idea of trying out a country song, considering it was a popular genre of music in rural North Carolina. Megan would roll her eyes when she learned that was the song we added, but I thought Willie had a point. Plus, I didn’t have a problem with country, especially some of the songs that had more of a pop bent to them.

After practice, Willie and Chef pulled me aside to talk. Considering Willie had just agreed to practice a new song for me to play on Saturday, I was only a little worried about them wanting to talk to me together.

“Charlie, I’ve started getting feedback from some of our regulars, and it seems like Saturday night went over pretty well,” Chef said once we’d sat down at one of the out-of-the-way booths.

I let out the air I’d been unconsciously holding, causing both men to chuckle.

“This is still a test, mind you. Good word of mouth is one thing, but what I really want to see is if we can get butts onto seats. I’ve also been hearing from a few of the younger staff members, who’ve been talking to their friends. Because we’re a restaurant and music venue, we don’t have the same limitations.”

"Wouldn’t your regulars have a problem with suddenly changing the music? I mean, I thought you’ve been doing live blues music forever.”

“That was mostly good timin’,” Willie said. “I was gettin’ tired of traveling the circuit, playing at a different club every weekend, and was looking for some way to settle down and still play. I met Chef here around then and we got to talkin’ and he said, ‘let’s give it a shot.’ It worked out, and it’s been goin’ the same ever since.”

“Then why change at all?”

“This area's getting younger every year as kids take over for their parents' farmland or come to work at the factory,” Chef said. “When I say our clientele has stayed the same, I don’t mean the same age or same demographic, I mean largely the same people. Sure we get a good business of people traveling through, but that isn’t enough to make this work. We’re getting to the point where a lot of our regulars are getting up there in years, and we aren’t bringing in as many new folks.”

“You think it’s the type of music?”

“It’s one idea. We have other things we’ve thought about trying, but when Willie started teaching you, he came to me and said he thought you might be part of the answer. You’re young, of course, and in a few years you’ll be off to college, but we’ll know by then if updating the kind of music we offer on weekends will shake things up.”

“I guess I don’t understand why you didn’t offer someone else before Willie met me?”

“A couple of reasons. The first one is selfish on our part. This isn’t your livelihood. You can play one night a week and be happy. We can also gradually work you in, testing the waters. If we were to get a professional who sang something more modern, we’d have to go all-in or lose money on the experiment.”

“That makes sense. I guess that’s why Willie wanted me to play stuff from a bunch of different eras.”

“Yep. Once we get a sense of what people are liking, we’ll probably narrow things in a bit, or maybe not if they like the variety. He mentioned you’d asked about playing a country song, which isn't a bad idea. We just stuck with pop and early rock because that seemed like it was in your wheelhouse.”

“It is, but I’d be open to trying other stuff too. Before Willie offered to give me lessons, I just practiced because I found it fun. Beyond daydreams of ‘making it big someday,’ I’d never really thought much about music beyond playing stuff I found interesting. I don’t even really know what my wheelhouse is yet. It’s only been the last week that I started thinking about music in anything more than an abstract way.”

“That’s good. This could be a win-win for all of us if it pans out. If there’s something you want to try, talk to Willie. I know there’s some music he just isn’t interested in, but I’d bet you'd be surprised at what he’d be open to trying.”

“Yep,” Willie said. “Only reason I picked the country out of the suggestions you made was ‘cause I thought it might please the most people. I love comin’ out here to play, but I’m gettin’ old. It would be nice to leave Chef here with an idea of what to do after I retire.”

“You can’t retire,” I said before really thinking about it.

“I’m well over seventy years old, Charlie. While I don’t think I’d ever want to stop playin’, my bones are feelin’ mighty old these days. My fingers aren’t as fast as they were and I don’t know how much longer I can be on stage for three or four hours in one night.”

“That’s still a ways down the road,” Chef said. “I’m not looking to replace Willie at all. He’s welcome to play here forever, as far as I’m concerned. We’re just looking to the future.”

“Well, I don’t think I can thank either of you enough,” I said. “You’ve both done so much for me over the last few weeks, and you still don’t even know me that well. I promise I won’t let you down.”

“Which is one of the other reasons we picked you. You’ve got a good heart and you’ve shown you’re willing to work. You’re exactly the kind of person we want to give a chance to.”

Our meeting broke up and I started to head back to the kitchen when Chef stopped me.

“Almost forgot, here you go,” he said, handing me an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“It’s payday. Like I said two weeks ago, we pay every other Friday.”

“No, I know that. This isn’t right, though. I think you’ve made a mistake.”

“How so?”

“It’s too much money.”

Chef took the check from me and looked at it.

“No, it’s right. See, you have two payment lines. One’s for your hourly work in the kitchen, and the other is your share of what we pay the band. They get paid every week, but since you’re a minor, it’s easier to put it in your paycheck. I hope that’s okay?”

“I’m getting paid for that?”

“You didn’t think we were just going to take advantage of you, did you? We may have decided to do our experiment with you because you were easier than bringing in a professional, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to make you play for free. I’ll admit that if you check, you’ll find you have the smallest portion of what we pay the band, but that’s only because you play the one night and they play three.”

“Chef, you guys are already doing me a favor. You don’t have to do this.”

“Well, it’s done. Besides, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, Willie’d never stand for me letting you play for free. You’ll just have to live with the extra money. Besides, if this works out, the whole band will be thanking you. We pay based on the cover fee for people who aren’t eating and a portion of the meals during our music hours. If the change in music styles starts putting extra butts in seats, the whole band will stand to make more money.”

The money from four hours I played with the band that one night was more than I made the entire two weekends working for Chef. While I liked the idea of doubling my pay, I wasn’t sure Mom would see it the same way. Being given a chance to learn something she didn’t approve of wasn't the same as having a second job doing something she didn’t approve of.

Hanna and I finished up the shift and drove us back to her house so we could get ready for the party. I’d packed clothes that morning and left the bag at her house, which made it easier to get ready there instead of crossing over the creek getting ready and crossing back.

They had two showers, so she used her mom’s bathroom while I got ready in hers. I was still pretty limited in the clothes I could wear, so I opted for a slightly less nice button-up shirt than my last date with Rhonda and the same jeans. The overall effect was just different enough that I couldn’t be called out for wearing the same thing on dates.

It did bring up a thought that, since Mom was letting me keep some of my paychecks, I needed to get a couple of half-way decent clothes to go out on dates in. It was going to have to be Walmart or Target level clothes, but that was better than Goodwill stores, so it was still a step up.

I was ready and waiting on Hanna when the doorbell rang and Mrs. Phillips answered it. Since we’d agreed to go on a double date, Marcus had offered to drive all of us, I guess, knowing that neither Rhonda nor I had a car.

I turned sixteen over the summer, making me one of the older people in my class, but there was no chance of a car in my future. Rhonda was almost certainly getting a car when she turned sixteen, something she’d already pointed out several times, but her birthday wasn’t until December.

Since Rhonda lived not far from Marcus, he’d offered to pick her up on the way and then get us at Hanna’s house. I did feel a little weird about having another guy pick up my date. Not that I thought something was going to happen. I trusted Rhonda, and Marcus didn’t seem like the kind of guy to make a pass on someone while on the way to another date. It was just strange, even if it made the most sense.

“Hey, guys. Hanna’s still getting ready.”

“I swear that girl takes forever,” Mrs. Philips said. “You two come on in and wait.”

In the long tradition of teenagers feeling awkward around strange adults, especially when one of them was your date's mother, Marcus kind of shuffled inside, standing just by the doorway to wait.

Rhonda must have felt more comfortable, probably because I was there and didn’t seem bothered by hanging around other kids' parents. She came over and held my hand, giving me a big smile. She was still excited about going to this party and had been extra affectionate ever since I told her.

Eventually, Hanna made her way down, looking casual but still much more dressed up than I ever remembered seeing her. It was strange seeing her in more than the very basic makeup she wore most days to school.

After a few minutes of awkward pleasantries between Mrs. Phillips and Marcus, we all headed out and piled in his car. Hanna sat up front while we were in the back.

On the way to the party, Marcus told us that, while this was essentially a party to celebrate the beginning of the season, pretty much all upper-class athletes would be there, regardless of the sport they played. He said that wasn’t always true, but this was the first party of the year, which made it different.

We pulled into a small neighborhood just off the main street that I’d never seen before, since it was down past the school. The houses were all pretty nice, making even Hanna’s place seem plain by comparison. I didn’t want to know what the people who lived in this area would think of my trailer. The house wasn’t a mansion, at least not the kind you think of from TV, but it was very large with a circular driveway.

Marcus must have seen my stunned reaction because he said, “This is Christian Hume’s place. His dad is the main land developer around here and their family basically built this town.”

“Ohh,” I said, not sure how to follow up on that.

We parked a little down the street, mostly because the party was already in full swing and the street was kind of full. Marcus walked in like he owned the place, although since he was on the baseball team with Christian, they probably knew each other well.

It was loud inside the house and packed with kids. I wasn’t sure exactly what a high school party was really like, but I couldn’t imagine a parent would turn their house over to dozens of teenagers and just leave them unsupervised. I know Mom sure as hell wouldn’t.

Rhonda must have been almost as nervous as I was, because she was content to stay with me, following in Hanna and Marcus’s wake. While I was sure she wasn’t a stranger to parties, she clearly wasn’t in the same social circles as most of the people here. While the kids at lunch tended to be spread across all grade levels, I noticed that was an aberration. Most of the kids at school didn’t socialize with those in lower classes although, except for the seniors, they all seemed to want to be seen socializing with kids in grades higher than them.

The only thing that seemed to break that barrier was being on one of the varsity sports, which was a ticket for juniors and the occasional sophomore to get in with the older kids.

Marcus led us into the kitchen and went to get a beer from the keg on one side of the large room.

“I just want a soda,” Hanna said, grabbing his arm and stopping him as he picked up two red cups.

“Ohh, sure. Charlie, Rhonda, want a beer?”

“Not for me. I’ll go find a soda for Hanna and me.”

“I’ll take a beer,” Rhonda said.

She followed him to the keg while I started looking around the kitchen, hoping they had something other than beer. I eventually found a large blue cooler that had a mixture of bottled water and soda. I was just reaching down to grab two when I was roughly shoved.

It was only sheer luck that I didn’t fall over since I’d leaned with my weight on my good foot. I bumped into someone behind me and stood up, completely unsurprised to see Aaron and his two flunkies.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Aaron said.

“Getting a drink,” I said.

“No, dumbass, I mean here, at this party. Shouldn’t you be off with your loser friends? What do you think you’re doing here?”

“I think I’ll go wherever I want to go.”

“You’ve made a big mistake this time. There aren’t any teachers here to keep me from beating you unconscious.”

I was getting my weight on my good foot, thinking over Chef’s latest lessons as Aaron took a step forward, a hand starting to reach out to grab me. We were both stopped by Marcus’s voice from behind me. I turned to find him, Hanna and Rhonda stepping through the crowd of kids in the kitchen behind me.

“Aaron, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Aaron looked confused for a second, his alcohol fogged brain looking from me to Marcus and back again, trying to work out why he’d been stopped yet again from taking a swing at me.

“He doesn’t belong here.”

“He came here with me.”

“What? Why? This isn’t even your party. This is for the football team.”

“Aaron, when’s the last time you guys won anything. Hell, you got your asses kicked again tonight. We made it to the fourth round last year; you guys haven’t gotten out of the first round in, like, ever. So maybe back off on the ‘this is for the football team’ bullshit. You know the first party of the year is for everyone. If it wasn’t, this whole thing could fit in your mom's living room.”

Aaron turned beat red, and for a second, I thought he was going to swing at Marcus. I was surprised when, instead, he turned and stormed off, Paul and Harry following in his wake. I noticed the same girl that I’d seen in the hallway the last time I faced off with Aaron turn and follow a few steps behind his henchmen.

“Don’t worry about him,” Marcus said, turning to me. “He thinks he’s hot shit, and sometimes he has to be reminded of the pecking order.”

“I thought the football team was a big deal in every high school.”

“In some, sure, but this isn’t Texas or Ohio. Here, baseball and basketball are the main sports. We actually win games and we get a hell of a lot more people in the stands than they do. I might grudgingly admit that the basketball team edges us out. We’ve had several kids picked up by UNC and Duke, which gives the program more prestige, but I’ll never say that where they can hear it.”

“Too late,” a tall, lanky kid a few steps away said.

“Anyways, let’s go dance,” he said, grabbing Hanna’s hand.

“Can we go, too?” Rhonda said, watching them go.

“Sure,” I said.

Rhonda downed the beer in her cup and set it down, grabbing my hand and dragging me after Marcus and Hanna. On the other side of the entryway from the kitchen and dining room was a large room with a big TV against one wall. It looked like someone had pushed all the chairs and things out of the way to open up a big area in the middle of the room. Someone was playing rock music on a stereo and kids were bouncing around the middle of the room.

I think I surprised Rhonda when I started dancing and I was able to keep up with her. She seemed to keep forgetting that I’d grown up in bars and clubs and had been treated like a cross between a kid brother and a mascot by the employees and entertainers. I may not be a dancer, but I could do this kind of thing all day long, bouncing with the music, moving and swaying with the beat.

Some of the people around us went in for just grinding on their partner, but I opted to just hold Rhonda's hand as we moved around our small spot. It wasn’t any kind of coordinated dancing. We were just having fun, going along with the music. She seemed to have fun, laughing and smiling as we danced, especially the one time I spun her around.

We made it through a half dozen songs before I started getting hot and thirsty. Rhonda didn’t want to go at first, having too much fun dancing, until I reminded her that she’d gotten a drink, but I’d been interrupted. She begrudgingly let me lead her back to the kitchen. I went back to the cooler and grabbed a soda while Rhonda made her way back to the keg for another beer.

We wandered around for a bit until we found our way outside, where it was quieter. The back yard had a massive pool in it with a big open deck. Kids were scattered around talking to each other, although a lot less than inside the house.

“You’re drinking soda?” Rhonda asked now that it was quiet enough to talk.

“Yeah, I don’t drink.”

“Really?” she said, surprised.

“My dad was an alcoholic. He drank all the time and could get pretty mean. I’m not sure how genetic alcoholism is, but I don’t ever want to find out.”

“Except for when you talk about him playing in clubs when he was younger, you don’t talk about him much.”

“I know. He’s … not around any longer.”

“He left your mom?”

“He went to jail.”

“Really? For what?”

“Manslaughter. He was drunk one night and got in a fight with a guy at a bar he was playing with. He pulled a knife he usually carried and stabbed the guy, who died on the way to the hospital.”

“Holy shit.”

“I know. That’s why I don’t want to drink. Besides it making him an asshole, he got drunk and lost control. I don’t ever want to lose control like that.”

“I get it.”

“Anyways, Do you want to go back in and dance some more?”

“Of course,” she said, downing the last of her drink, again.

She’d only had two beers, but Rhonda wasn’t a big girl. She was a good ten inches shorter than I was and, despite the little bit of baby fat still on her cheeks, she weighed less than a hundred pounds.

She wasn’t drunk, but she was starting to get a lot more physical with me while we danced, grabbing me by my hips and dancing extremely close. While I hadn’t had a lot of chances to test the theory before now, I found I wasn’t big on aggressive displays of public affection. I didn’t mind holding hands or a peck on the lips, but I couldn’t help but feel like people were watching us as she ground herself against me.

No one really cared, of course. Half the kids still dancing were being a lot more explicit, but it didn’t stop me from feeling a little strange about it. I let the song finish and pulled her off the improvised dance floor.

“Hey, I wanted to keep dancing.”

“I know, I just want to take a break and get something to drink,” I lied.

“Sounds good. I could use another beer.”

“How about a water instead.”

“Don’t be a stick in the mud Charlie. Just cause you don’t drink doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“I know. I was just hoping that when we left we could spend a little time together, and I think that be more fun sober, don’t you?”

She thought about it for a second so I added, “Just spread the drinks out so you keep a good buzz going.”

“Alright, I’ll get water, but you better bring your A-game later.”

Anything I might have said in response stopped as soon as we stepped into the dining room on the way to the kitchen. Hanna was standing in the pathway between the front hallway and the kitchen, face to face with some other girl I didn’t recognize.

“You’re just scared of a little competition … again,” the other girl was saying.

“You’re a skanky ass ho who can’t keep her hands off taken men. Your little minions might not mind that, but you come for mine again and I’ll rip those hair extensions out of your head.”

“Bitch, try me.”

“Hey, Hanna, let’s get going,” I said, coming up behind her and putting a hand on her arm.

“Another guy? Jeeze, party favor, you really do live up to your name.”

I felt Hanna lunge at her and grabbed her around the waist before she could launch herself at the other girl. The other girl was smart and took a step back as Hanna’s arms started swinging wildly. I picked her up and started carrying her out of the house while she screamed obscenities at the girl mocking her.

“Go find Marcus, meet us at the car,” I told Rhonda as I struggled to get Hanna out of the room.

The fight finally went out of her as we got to the front door, which was good, since I didn’t actually know how I was going to hold her and open the door.

“You can put me down,” Hanna said.

“You’re not going to charge back in there, are you?”

“No.”

I set her down and opened the front door, saying, “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Are you okay?”

She sighed, looking up at the stars as we walked down the front walkway to the street. I saw a tear streak down her cheek, but she didn't say anything for a moment. We walked quietly until we got to the car, where she leaned up against it and wiped her eyes.

“Sorry.”

“For what?” I asked.

“You and Rhonda were having fun.”

“Yeah, but we were done dancing. I’m not a hundred percent sure big parties are my scene anyway. Who was the girl?”

“Karen Brooks.”

“I take it you two don’t like each other?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“What happened?”

“She suggested to Marcus that he go upstairs with her. He told her no and found me. He knew we didn’t like each other, so he didn’t say anything, but one of Karen’s little bimbettes tried to stir shit by telling me.”

Marcus and Rhonda showed up, keeping me from asking any more questions.

“I hear you and Karen got into it.”

“I heard about what she said to you.”

“Come on, you know I’d never go near her! She's trying to check off the captains of every team. I have no interest in being one of her trophies.”

“I know, and I wasn’t worried about you. You know my history with her?”

“Yeah. How about we get out of here?”

“Sounds good.”

I was fine with it too, but Rhonda seemed a little unhappy about it. She’d been as happy as I’d ever seen here and clearly didn’t want to leave. She didn’t complain though and we all got into the car and headed back to Hanna’s house.

Nearing her subdivision, Hanna said, “I don’t want to go home yet. Can we drive down to Douglass Lane?”

I didn’t know what Douglass Lane was, but Rhonda visibly perked up at that. Marcus, on the other hand, seemed less sure, glancing back at me for a second.

“Are you sure? We’re not …”

“Don’t worry about them. I’m sure they’ll be able to keep each other busy. We’ll keep it PG.”

He glanced back one more time and said, “Okay.”

Rhonda was practically vibrating as she smiled at me. We were halfway up the road that led from downtown towards the subdivisions north of town when Marcus turned off on a dirt road into a heavily wooded area. We crossed over a small bridge as the road made a slight right then a slight left, winding further into the woods. We came out into a pretty large cleared area. I was surprised to see two other cars there, both parked far away from each other.

Marcus pulled into a spot along the circular cleared area facing into the trees, well away from the other cars, and turned the engine off. I was unsure of what was happening and had just turned to ask Rhonda when she unbuckled and crawled up onto my lap, kissing me.

I was surprised and pulled back, wondering why she was being so aggressive in a car with other people, when I noticed Hanna had leaned over the center console and started kissing Marcus. My brain finally kicked into gear and figured out this was some kind of teenage make-out spot.

I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure this was a great idea. It was a little weird being in a car with another couple, especially when that other couple included a friend of mine, but Rhonda made her feelings known. She grabbed my head and made me look directly at her. She didn’t say anything, but she made her intentions perfectly clear.

I unbuckled so I could turn enough to be comfortable, shifting her on my lap, and kissed her back. This was like the time behind the Blue Ridge, except Rhonda was much more aggressive, probably because of the beers that I could still taste on her lips.

I was surprised when her hand slipped under my shirt and started roaming across my chest as we made out. I kept mine outside her clothing, but let them wander as well, avoiding anything intimate. I’d hugged her several times, but this was my first time really exploring Rhonda’s body. She was much more firm than I’d thought she would be, considering how light she was. Her body was tight and muscular.

I moved from her mouth, kissing across the side of her neck, and nibbled on her ear, a move I’d once watched a drummer do to a girl backstage. Rhonda seemed to appreciate it, because she let out a quiet moan, her mouth near my ear, as I kissed and nipped along her neck. I returned to kissing her again but kept that move in mind for the future.

I have no idea how long we sat in that car, making out, but we were interrupted by the single whoop of a police siren.

“Shit,” Hanna said from the front seat.

“They’re just chasing us out,” Marcus said, adjusting himself and buckling back up before turning on the car.

We all got re-buckled as he reversed out of the spot he’d picked for himself and drove around the police cruiser, followed by three other cars. Apparently, other people had arrived while we were making out, and I didn’t notice. The car windows were fogged up, so it was impossible to see the people in those other cars.

Rhonda reached over and held my hand the rest of the way home, looking immensely pleased.

When we got to Hanna’s, I gave Rhonda a quick kiss before sliding out. They waved and pulled away as I awkwardly walked down the walkway of Hanna’s house, feeling weird about what just happened. Right before I turned off to head around towards my house, Hanna turned and punched me playfully in the shoulder.

“Nice moves,” she said.

I gave her a look and she just laughed as she went into her house. I just shook my head and walked home, smiling.