Chapter Fourteen
Stone
After discovering where Payden kept the pancake mix, slicing some of the strawberries we’d picked up at the grocery store, and sprinkling sugar on them so they’d produce a bit of extra juice, I managed to pull off breakfast before he got out of the shower and served it to him with a sprinkle of fresh blueberries and a small mound of whipped cream on top, since I hadn’t wanted to send him out the door too sugared up.
Wow, look at me being all domestic.
We ate breakfast together and shared kisses at the door before I turned him loose, then I finished wiping the counter and explored his kitchen cabinets, seeking out components I knew what to do with, since my culinary skills were severely limited.
If it started in a box or a plastic pouch, I was a whiz at doctoring it, so spotting a box of Fried Rice Rice-a-Roni offered the perfect opportunity to make something easy and delicious and have it ready by the time he came home from work.
Since he’d said that with traffic, he expected to be home by six at the latest, he’d given me a good idea of when to start prepping the food.
Thankfully, it didn’t require much cooking time, but there were several things I wanted to dice up and add to it, including a steak I pulled out to thaw and several shrimp from a large bag of raw, frozen ones that I put in a bowl in the fridge until I needed them.
I left a small red onion next to a carrot I hoped I was still capable of cutting into slivers without taking off a finger.
When my band was in its infancy, we’d driven around in a van we often slept in too, cooking the meals we couldn’t afford to buy at a restaurant over campground fire pits and the hibachi we kept for when we had nothing else to cook on.
Two cast iron pans, one pot, and an assortment of thrift store cooking implements had been the bulk of the supplies in the milk crate, easy to lift in and out of the back of the van whenever we needed them.
We were supposed to rotate cooking duties, but Sammy never served anything without charring it first, so he’d been relegated to permanent dish duty while Mark, Griff, and I handled all the cooking, in defense of our poor taste buds.
Out of all of them, I missed the fuck out of Griffin the most, but I’d resisted the urge to look online and see what he was up to when I finally fired up the laptop.
Instead, I looked up the phone number for Pete’s diner, so I could at least let him know I was okay.
“Was wondering where you’d gotten to.”
“I met someone who offered to let me join him on his adventure and fell in love along the way.”
“Uh-huh, now what was that you left here going on about the last time you stopped in.”
“I was wrong. I guess someone could see past the mess I’d made of myself.”
“Don’t you go forgetting when things get hard.”
“I won’t.”
“And make sure you keep in touch so I don’t go grayer wondering what happened to you.”
“I will,” I promised, “and Pete, thanks for always watching out for me.”
“You’re welcome, kid. Don’t make me do it again.”
“I won’t,” I said before we ended the call.
I’d miss him, and if the chance ever arose, I’d take Payden to meet him, because Pete had saved me more times than he’d even known, which had been the other reason I’d lingered in the area as long as I had.
I sat there going through the old business cards I still had in my wallet, searching for the one for Tavish Michelson.
If no one else answered my emails, I knew he would, as long as his contact information was still the same as when he’d given me that card.
It had been a few years since we’d spoken last, a brief exchange in which he’d tried to open my eyes to the direction my band was headed in, and I’d just laughed it off and asked if he was going to take a turn on the mechanical bull or not.
His answer has been no. Mine had been to get up there and tell them to turn the son of a bitch up to the highest setting, which they had, right before I’d ridden the hell out of it, sticking in the saddle for the full eight seconds, just to earn a free beer and jumbo platter of wings I could have easily afforded to pay for.
He’d been after me about collaborating with him on some songs, not to play on stage together, but for an up-and-coming band he was working with at the time.
“Your words are honest, raw, and dripping emotion from every syllable,” he said while I’d been enjoying my free wings and beer. “When was the last time your band recorded anything that wasn’t trying too hard to be a war cry for excess and depravity?"
“I don’t know, man, our fans seem to dig that shit.”
“Your new fans do,” he pointed out. “Trust me when I say that your old ones are starting to give up hope and move on to other bands.”
“The songs for the albums are determined by majority vote,” I explained.
“And?”
“And what?”
“What happens to the notebooks full of music they won’t even consider?
The shit you play in dive bars and pool halls with your damned hoodie pulled so low that if it hadn’t been for the guitar you were playing, I wouldn’t have known it was you.
Fortunately for me, the air brushing on her is so distinctive she’s impossible to forget. ”
“A friend did the paint job,” I muttered.
“Was one of his last before he gave up on his artwork altogether and let his old man get him a job with his advertising firm. Last time we talked, he said that the only thing he’d drawn in the last year was big red x’s through the images he wanted swapped out in the ad layouts that landed on his desk.
He’d even cut his hair and had fucking product in it.
He used to have the coolest hair, five shades, mermaid hues, like someone had taken the time to paint every strand with a different brush. ”
“See, that right there, is why you and I need to work together,” he said. “At least come out and meet the guys, hang out with them, listen to them talk about the shit they’ve been through to get this far. I know you’ve got songs that would resonate with them. I’ve fucking heard you playing them.”
“What are you doing, stalking me now?”
“I found you here, didn’t I?”
The band he’d been working with had probably sorted out their songwriting by this point, but Tavish had been in the industry for over two decades, so the chances that he’d know of a few bands who were looking for fresh material were high.
Right now, they were just words in a notebook, worthless as the paper they were written on and of absolutely no good to me when it came to getting on my feet properly and being able to contribute to the household Payden and I now shared.
After I hit send on the email I’d typed and retyped until it, hopefully, didn’t sound as pathetic as I felt writing it, I went through the rest of the cards I had, throwing some away I knew I’d never reach out to, emailing others who might be willing to point me in the direction of someone who might be interested in, well, something that would allow me to help out with the bills around here.
When I finished with that task, I started going through the classifieds, looking for music stores with job openings, and filling out the few applications I came across.
My heart started pounding an excited beat when, an hour later, I received a response to one, only to have a bunch of laughing emojis at the top, along with a message telling me to maybe not pretend to be a widely known guitar player if I wanted someone to take me seriously.
Well, shit.
That was unexpected.
Maybe it was desperate, but I lifted the computer, carefully balanced it, and used my phone to take a picture of myself with his message open on the screen to prove it was me before I sent one back, explaining that I was sincerely seeking employment and would like to be considered for the position.
It rankled a bit to have to do it, but for Payden, I was willing to restrain my fingers and stay composed.
If living on the streets had taught me anything, it was humility.
It didn’t matter who I’d been, everyone out there had known a different life, once.
Some had even fallen farther than I had.
Still, it was disheartening to realize that one of the challenges I was going to run into while trying to put myself out there in the industry was that people were going to question if it was truly me or not.
I checked out a few of the music studios in the area, but most were only looking for classically trained musicians who had actual degrees and accolades involving the symphony and classical orchestra.
I could play any goddamn thing I heard enough times, including a few classical pieces, though I’d always gravitated towards somber compositions with darker undertones.
When I crafted a song, it was through sheer repetition, adjusting, tweaking, cursing out the chords, and waiting for what the song sounded like in my head to mesh with what was coming out of my fingers.
It wasn’t a skill that came with any paperwork, so I kept scrolling, checking the job listings I came across, occasionally filling out a new application if I thought I had a hope of qualifying.
I hadn’t been in any of my social media accounts in well over a year, but I’d always used the same password, one I knew I’d never forget because it was the name and birthday of the one foster mother who’d truly made living with her feel like I’d had a home, which for a thirteen-year-old who’d already been bounced around a ton the way I had, was huge.