Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs

by Valerie Thomas

  ***

  I waited a few days to tell the boys, leading them on with hints at a big surprise. We had five days between when I planned the big reveal and when our meeting was scheduled, but I figured it would only take ten minutes to relay the news. The rest could just be a big celebration.

  The money in my bag weighed on my mind. I kept worrying that someone might steal it or somehow sense that I was five-hundred dollars heavier. Neither Charlie nor I said much as we walked toward his house, which was fine by me. I didn’t want to spill the beans early, and that was easier if we weren’t talking.

  It wasn’t until the garage door was rising that he turned to me and spoke. “So what’s the surprise?”

  “Not yet,” I said cryptically. Joey hadn’t arrived, but I knew from experience that he would within a few minutes. He took a different route than the school bus, for no other reason than to enjoy the fact that he could. Maybe it was to discourage us from riding with him—the last time I’d tried, he’d explained that ‘driving time was Joey time,’ which probably just meant that he preferred to listen to music other than Queen Anne’s.

  While we waited, we moved to our usual spots, even though we didn’t grab our instruments. It had just become so ingrained in us; when we were gathering after school, we habitually gravitated toward the positions where we practiced.

  Someone had formed a small army of paint cans leaning against the wall in front of me. I frowned at them. “What are you guys painting?”

  “The garage,” Charlie answered. “I told Dad we hadn’t been using it for a while, so he figured it would be a good time to do it.”

  “Oh.” To my right, Joey’s car had come into view. The sound of sand being pressed under tires announced his arrival. He climbed out and ran a hand through his hair. “Hey guys, what’s up?”

  Charlie answered for both of us. “I don’t know. Ash hasn’t told me yet.”

  Taking that as my cue to start explaining, I crossed over to my bag in the corner and pulled out the envelope with all of the cash from the old man. I held it close to my chest, like a well-guarded secret. “Guys, I went to Cat’s Cradle the other day… And look.” With dramatic flair, I upended the envelope; bills came floating out, slowly falling to the ground between the three of us.

  “Holy shit,” Joey said. “Holy shit, what did you do? Rob the store?”

  “No, of course not.” Even Charlie seemed impressed, despite his attempts to maintain an angry expression. He whistled low. “Ash, what did you do?”

  I giggled, happy that my big reveal had affected them just like I’d expected. “I went into the store. It was actually the owner who did this. He sold all our CDs. And—“

  “Wait, those shitty CDs?” Joey interrupted. “How’d he sell them? Put a gun to someone’s head?”

  “No. Here, just hang on.” I made a calming gesture; I could see the pair of them eyeing the money, looking very much like they wanted nothing more than to fall to their knees and pick up the spilled cash. “That’s actually not the big surprise. The big surprise is… Okay, Almond Records wants to sign us!”

  Two pairs of blinking eyes stared back at me. Charlie was the first to speak. “Um, sorry, I feel like I’ve just… I don’t know, should I pinch myself or something?”

  In response, Joey socked him hard on the arm. They both grunted. “Nope, definitely not a dream.”

  “Not a dream at all,” I said, fighting to speak past my excitement. As fun as the initial surprise had been, it was more fun watching my friends react to the news. “And guess what? We have a meeting with one of their representatives next Wednesday!”

  Charlie seemed to choke on nothing; he coughed, looking at me like I was crazy. “What?”

  “We have a meeting. With one of their representatives.”

  “No, I got that. What I’m asking is…” His smile faded, replaced by a heavy scowl. “How long have you known, Ash?”

  The garage fell into silence. It hadn’t occurred to me that Charlie might be mad I had kept something from him. “Um, just a f-few days,” I stuttered, feeling heat fill my cheeks. “I thought it would be a fun surprise.”

  “You knew for days and didn’t tell us? And you negotiated a contract without even asking me or Joey!” Charlie’s face was gaining some color of its own, but his was coming from anger.

  “What? No, I didn’t negotiate anything.” I looked to Joey for help. “I just called the lady and…” Everything was going wrong; we were supposed to hug and laugh and celebrate. Why was Charlie so mad?

  Even Joey seemed to be on my side. “Dude, relax. This is good news. I mean, I get being angry if something bad happened and she didn’t tell us. But this is awesome.” As far as I was concerned, Joey telling someone to relax meant that they were really out of line.

  Charlie turned to focus his glare on Joey. “This is not good news. Maybe for you, maybe for Ash. But… Do you realize how complicated you just made this? Ash…” He didn’t finish the sentence; he turned toward the door leading inside and pushed it open.

  Joey and I stood there, dumbfounded. “Complicated?” Joey asked, but I couldn’t begin to know what Charlie had meant any more than he could.

  Complicated, I thought. It doesn’t make anything complicated. It makes things un-complicated. We sign a deal, we make money. What could be easier than that? But after five minutes, Charlie was still gone. I leaned down to pick up the money and put it back in the envelope.

  After I’d finished, I began to worry that Charlie might never come back. “I thought it was good news,” I said weakly.

  “It was. Maybe Charlie just needs someone to tell him to shut up.” Joey smiled, a half-smile full of the same worry I was feeling.

  “Maybe.” I closed the envelope and handed it over to Joey. “Here, I’ll be back.”

  I didn’t know where to look for Charlie once I’d gone inside, but thankfully he found me. He stepped out of a room on the side of the hallway, and without a word gestured for me to follow to the living room. He took a seat on the recliner while I found one on the couch.

  “Ash, you knew things were hard between us before this, right?” he asked once he was ready to speak.

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess so. But I thought this would fix it.”

  “Fix it? What does this fix?” Charlie started to get angry again, but he took a deep breath. “The problems with us are still there. This just adds another layer. I’m happy that we might be signed, but I’m mad at you, too. You should have told us right after you found out… And to be honest, I could forgive you for that, but part of me is still just pissed off that we can’t find common ground.”

  So it all came back to his grandpa. I decided not to respond until I had a better idea of what I wanted to say. Just pretend to agree with his side, I told myself. That’s what he wants. He wants to be the victim, and nothing you say will turn him away from that. “Charlie, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. And yeah, it was really terrible of him to leave you like that. I can’t believe he would be so selfish.” My nails dug into my palm, but it had the intended effect.

  He visibly relaxed, sinking into his padded chair. “Right? Ash, I’m so glad you’re finally seeing my side.”

  “Yeah, me too. I guess I just didn’t see it before because I was focusing on the wrong things.” That was a lie. But I reasoned that since I was lying to cheer Charlie up, to pull him out of his funk as much as I was trying to help myself, it wasn’t immoral.

  Charlie nodded. “That could be it. So, what made you finally see my side of things?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it just sort of happened.” I felt sick, like the physical effects of my lie were threatening to show themselves in a nasty way.

  “Oh. Well then, I guess there isn’t too much point in arguing anymore.” He exhaled heavily. “Phew, you have no idea how hard it was to be mad at you. I feel like my head’s been clamped in a vice for the past month, and it’s finally been let go.”

  Funny, I thought,
because it seems like a vice just clamped down on me. But I faked a smile. “I know, same here. It’s nice to be friends again. So… Um, are you still mad about the record company thing?”

  “No, not really. I mean, it will still be a lot of work. But it’s the kind of work we’ve always wanted to do, isn’t it?” He grinned. “Besides, we won’t be bringing in any outside problems. So there won’t be any complications. How much money did we make from the CDs, anyway?”

  My smile became real; I leaned forward on the couch. “Guess.”

  “I have no idea… That was a lot of fifties.”

  “Yup. Ten of ‘em. We made more than five hundred dollars. What do you think we should do with it?” Five hundred dollars would pay for some of the best recording equipment available, but I wasn’t sure we’d need it.

  Charlie frowned, pondering the question for a few seconds. “That’s a lot of money,” he finally said. “I think we should set up a system so that we reinvest some of it, but still get to enjoy some of our profits.”

  I pushed off from the couch, realizing that the conversation was quickly turning toward subjects the two of us shouldn’t try to decide alone. “Hang on, I’ll grab Joey. See what he thinks.”

  Joey was still out in the garage, playing some game on his phone when I poked my head out of the door. He looked up at me questioningly.

  “Everything went well,” I said, in answer to his unasked question. “Charlie and I were just about to talk about what we should do with the money. We figured you might have an opinion.”

  “Well, of course I do.” He thumbed through the envelope, as if he’d just been reminded what it held. As he walked over, he fell into a half-skip that was equal parts awkward and funny. It even created a decent rhythm against the concrete of the garage.

  Together, we pressed the button to close the giant metal door and stepped inside Charlie’s house. We strode back into the living room, where Charlie had moved onto the couch.

  “Did you tell Joey about my idea?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, not yet. I think it’s a good one, though.” The couch was small enough that there was only one obviously open spot, which I promptly filled.

  Joey collapsed dramatically onto the recliner. “Okay, what’s this idea?”

  “Well, I think we should split the money,” Charlie said. “Reinvest some of it in the band, but keep some for ourselves.”

  “Ah. Well, that sounds good to me.”

  “Me too,” I added. We spent a few more minutes discussing the exact percentage—fifty would have been simple, but Charlie wanted to keep less for ourselves—and then Joey mentioned something about having to feed his dog and got up to leave. He was sure to pick up his fifty-nine dollars first, though.

  It was just Charlie and me sitting there. Charlie and me and a whole lot of money. He looked at me; we were close on the couch, close enough that I could feel his body heat. “I would have gone to that meeting no matter what, you know.”

  Sure… I thought. “Oh yeah, of course.”

  “We had a contract.” He started stroking my hair, in a classic move that wasn’t nearly as heart-warming as popular culture made it out to be. “Do you remember that? The one we made on a baking sheet?”

  I laughed. “God, how could I not? I still have it in my room. Somewhere.”

  “Nice. I just realized we never set out any penalties for breaking the contract. And I mean, we kinda did by not practicing for a while there.”

  “Mhm, I guess we did.” I didn’t point out that he’d been the only one to stop practicing.

  Charlie cupped my chin and gently moved my head so we were looking into each other’s eyes. “How about this?” When he moved to kiss me, everything else went blank. It felt almost like it always did—warm, wet, slow—but what mattered more was what it meant.

  We’d finally fixed our relationship. And we were about to be more successful than any of us had dared to dream. All it had cost was a simple lie; something so small, pretending I didn’t think his grandpa had been right to make his own choice about whether he wanted to live or not.

  We’d fixed our relationship, but I felt terrible about it. It was like I’d used a band-aid to cover a broken bone. At some point, I’d have to admit that there was a bigger problem to deal with.