June
By Erik Schubach
Copyright © 2014 by Erik Schubach
Self publishing
P.O. Box 523
Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026
Cover Photo © 2014 Vita Khorzhevska / ShutterStock.com license
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Manufactured in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-9909806-0-5
Prologue
My eyes snapped open as the sun peeked through my bedroom window in my tiny studio apartment, warming my face. I grinned in excitement. This was it; it was finally June, the month of renewal for me. I was born in June, I was named for my grandmother June, who I had never met. June has always been a time I could re-evaluate my life and take stock of where I have been and where I am going. It excited me to no end to have this symmetry in the month that bears my name.
And this June will be the most spectacular one in my life. It is where I finally take the reins and take control of my life. A chance to step out of the shadow of my mother and show the world that I am a force unto myself. That I am defined by my own actions, not those of my larger-than-life mother who is a force of nature in her own right.
It is time for me to take the world by storm and show them just what June Elizabeth Harris-West can do! I swung my legs out of bed, stood, and promptly fell flat on my face when my feet got tangled up in my covers.
I gleeped as I hit the floor. I looked around for the friggin gremlins that must have done this to me. I mean, I'd never trip myself up like this... two mornings in a row. Hey, come on, give me a break, I've been massively distracted with prepping my bombshell announcement for my family today. I giggled at myself and got to my feet and made my way into the bathroom.
I reached in to start the shower for the water to warm up. It took forever for the hot water to start flowing here. The pipes moaned, groaned, shuddered, and complained like a herd of mechanical platypuses. I pulled my hand out of the ice cold water, wiped it on the towel hanging beside the little bathtub. Then I turned around and placed my fists on the sink and leaned in to look into a little oval mirror above it.
I lifted one hand to push my fingers through the matted brunette nest of bedhead hair and grinned. Hey, I know that lady! I looked at my greenish colored eyes. They were the only part of me that I thought looked ok. Well, them and my smile; I think I have an awesome smile. I had more than enough personality to compensate for what I felt were my imperfections, though.
I stared into my eyes to give myself one of my pep talks to psyche myself up. I had seen all my friends and family coming into their own. Getting hitched, moving forward in their careers, creating art that took my breath away. Even my baby sister graduated college last week. But I have just been treading water, still in the shadow of my mother. Well, both of my moms really.
My mom is none other than Mandy Fay Harris. Queen of emotional rock. She cast a long and wide shadow in the music industry, even decades after she retired. She founded a non-profit record studio, Harmony Traxx, that works FOR the artists and has nurtured dozens of young superstars. She is one of the most amazing women I know and I love her dearly. We found out early on that I was just as musically inclined as she, but I decided to lock that away. I could never be taken seriously in the music world if I attempted to break into the business. Any success would be attributed to riding on my mother's coattails.
She is one of my two heroes, my guiding lights. The other is my other mom, the nations first deaf Congresswoman, Anabella West. She has brought the fight for so many worthy causes, to the top, and she is an unstoppable force in her own right. I love her gentle soul and huge heart.
I'm in my mid-twenties, and after getting my masters at one of the finest art schools in the world, I went to work for my mom at Harmony Traxx. Well, really I'm not down in Vancouver, Washington, with them. I have lived in Seattle the past couple years, coordinating our advertising and marketing with the company that has an exclusive contract producing the music videos for our artists, Cornfed Potatoes Productions.
But after watching the last of my friends, Hank and AJ... Samantha Roth and Abbey Jacobs, get hitched last year and begin making their mark on the world, I decided it was time I found out just who I was.
I have been developing a plan the past few months, one I think has a great chance of success and will define me as a force of my own in the music industry. It is time to put my money where my mouth is and prove that I can be a force of nature I always pretend to be. My facade, my mask. For once, I'm going to be brave for myself, and not for others.
It will move me out of my comfort zone, as well as out of the country. I need to make a clean break if I'm going to prove to myself, and others, that I can make it on my own.
The mirror started steaming up indicating the hot water had arrived. I took one last look into my eyes, psyching myself up, my body humming half in fear and half excitement as I said with confidence, “Ok June, you've got this shit!”
Chapter 1 – Harmony
I arrived in Vancouver, the city that will always be my home and made my way past Uncle Dave's diner and past my destination, flipping a u-turn and parking next to Harmony. The music school I have known my entire life. I looked over to the giant record hanging over the door to the attached record studio, Harmony Traxx and smiled. So many fond memories here.
I hopped out and smiled at the fiery redheaded woman who came zipping out of the little glass front office inset between Harmony and Harmony Traxx. The little place was headquarters for the AWK. An activist group spearhead by the youth of the city.
I was almost lifted off the ground as she engulfed me in a tight side to side hug. “Gack!”
She giggled and released me, holding onto my hands. “Hiya Squirt! I didn't know you were coming down today.” Her emerald eyes sparkled with happy mischief.
I blushed at the old nickname and almost whined at my stunning cousin, “Zoey. Please stop calling me that. It undermines me in front of others.”
She snorted, and somehow made it look good. How the hell can everyone in my family have more natural charisma than me? She chuckled out, “Your 'little miss unstoppable' routine don't fly with me lady. I used to change your diapers and check the integrity of your tickle circuitry when you were a baby. You'll always be Squirt to me.”
I blushed at her, I modeled myself assured demeanor after her and my moms, I wish I were as confident as I always pretend to be. I looked around. “School's out for the year, the rugrats around?” I simply loved the trouble twosome, Maxine and Teddy, Zoey and her husband Harrison's kids. I'm the cousin that spoils the hell out of them then returns them to Zoey with their hyperactivity circuits welded open and their volume controls cranked up by all the junk food we eat.
She smirked at me. “Yes, they're in the daycare inside. You are such a corrupting influence on them, almost as much as Lizzie.”
I grinned at her. “I aim to please.”
She smiled warmly then said in a more serious tone, “They love you to death you know.”
This brought a huge smile to my lips. “Well, the feeling is mutual. The stinkers make it hard for you to not love e
m.”
She tilted her head in a way that reminded me so much of her mom, Aunt Sarina, and it was easy to see the mother-daughter semblance. She said, “You had a pretty determined look on your face when you got out of your car. What's up?”
I just cocked an eyebrow at her, and both of her's rose. “Oh. It's time?” I just nodded and she gave me a quick hug. “Well, good luck. It's going to go great. Trust me.”
I smiled crookedly. “I certainly hope so.”
She shot me a stern look. “What have I pounded into you your whole life lady?”
I smiled and straightened up. It was almost a tag line for me. Zoey always had unshakable faith in me, and my smile turned into a smirk as I said like a little kid reciting a lesson, “I got this shit.”
She beamed a Zoey Smile 5,000 at me that almost rivaled the one my mom reserved for her. She said, “I got a couple things to do, but I'll hunt you down with my mini-mes in a bit. Go get em.”
I nodded and entered the Harmony side of the blue building. I waved at Tina at the reception desk. She grinned at me and waved back as I marched up to her. “They in? Where they be?”
She smiled a conspiratorial smile and said, “Well let me think about this a second. Congress is recessed for two weeks, your birthday is in two days. Those two don't get to see each other enough. What do you think?”
I squinted at her then my eyes went wide in realization. “Sound room.” She gave me an ear to ear grin. I winked at her and set off down the hall of the original portion of the music school.
I passed one of the rooms and had to smile at the little voice singing the scales, I glanced in the open door to see Mrs. W nodding at the little girl. Mrs. W, my surrogate grandmother, was eighty-one and still going strong. She knew more about music than anyone I have ever met. Mom keeps trying to get her to retire and travel the world, but Mrs. Wellington just keeps saying that she was going to teach children till the day she dies.
I continued to the door at the end of the hall. As I approached it, I could hear through the heavy soundproofing, the disjointed piano music and the musical voices of the women I most respect in life being amplified through the large speakers in the room.
I opened my mouth wide a couple times as I approached, popping my ears to prepare myself. I grabbed the handle and swung the door open and stepped into the wall of sound that threatened to blow me back out of the room, and closed the door quickly to minimize the disturbance in the school.
I smiled in awe. No matter how many times I see it, this is my favorite thing in the seven known universes. Watching the love on my parent's faces when they sing with each other. Mother has sworn never to sing commercially again, but she would sing every day with mom if she could.
The harmonic resonance of their voices together makes the sound something more than the sum of its parts. And mom's piano playing is something that is so inspired, you would never be able to convince me that she was deaf if I didn't know it. The cascade of notes merges together to make a living breathing entity that caresses their song and coaxes even more emotion from it. This is something that never leaves this room, it is something that is for them and them alone. It is their ultimate expression of love to each other.
I smiled as I stepped into their view from where they sat on the speaker they used instead of a piano bench, and smiled and signed with my hands, “Hi moms, I'm home.”
They both smiled hugely as they finished their song. I stepped over to the ancient reel to reel recorder and turned it off as mother switched off the amps and mics around them. I labeled the tape with the date and stepped over to the opened cabinet and slid the tape into the proper shelf reserved for their music together. The shelf of tapes that only family would ever hear, then turned to the super smiley women as they stood and moved swiftly to me.
They snagged me into an over tight thee-way hug causing me to, “Gack!” Wait, I already used gack today. “Glurk!”
They finally released me so I could reinitialize my breathing subroutines. There is some weird rumor going around that we need air to survive. I don't put much stock into rumors, but I think that one is true.
Mom was signing as she looked back and forth between Mother and me, shaking her head and giggling. “You two and your internal dialogues.”
I grinned at her and signed back, “Hi Mom.” I looked over at Mother and signed as I spoke, “I'm sorry for dropping in a couple days early, but I have something important we need to discuss as a family. Is Lizzie around?”
Mother, always scary perceptive, a skill she said she learned when she was on tour with the recording studio, said and signed, “Of course it's important. It's June baby girl, your season of renewal.”
I just nodded as the butterflies already started. Come on June, calm down, no need to be nervous yet.
Then Mom signed without saying, “Your sister is at Traxx, sitting in on a recording session.”
Mother interrupted. “This something we can do over lunch or should we use the offices at Traxx?” I grinned at the speed and grace Mother signed with. It reminded me of all the old stories they tell me of how clumsy and awkward her hands were when they first met and she was learning American Sign Language. I had been signing since I was a baby so I always find it odd how difficult people find learning it.
I thought for a second. The offices would make more sense, but I was hungry. So I just gave a cheesy smile and signed, “Yes.”
Mom snorted at Mother's puzzled expression and said, “Both it is then. Go collect Lizzie, and we can hit Dave's.”
I nodded as Mom leaned in and gave Mother a delicate kiss on the lips. Eww, parents and public displays of affection! I don't need to see that stuff! But really... I think it is so amazing that they are still so much in love after all these years of marriage.
I chuckled as I escaped, they followed and went to the entry lobby while I took the employee door between the school and the recording studio. I still marvel at Harmony Traxx, my mother's creation. The first record studio dedicated to the artists.
When my mother was first discovered when she was a teenager, the studio that signed her crafted a persona around her that was what they wanted, not what she wanted. Mandy Harris, bad girl rocker. She had lost her real self in the persona they created. They limited the types of songs she could sing and wouldn't produce the ones she wanted, the ones that made her feel something, anything.
The studio profited more than she did and it was destroying her. Alcohol, sex, and drugs were her life. To hide from the shame she felt, to hide from the sense of loss. She was spiraling past rock bottom, with no control over her life, she was just a resource of the studio, a product of the industry.
But then she had me. To this day, neither she nor I know who my father is. She was sleeping with any random fan every night so she didn't have to feel. Man, woman? It didn't matter to her. The day she found out she was pregnant with me she stopped it all, the drinking, sex, drugs... she dedicated her life to me and she ran from the business.
She kept moving and staying under the radar until I was born. She returned to her hometown, here in Vancouver, Washington to raise me away from the industry. That's where she met Mom. She did a farewell tour where she sang her songs, the ones the studio wouldn't let her sing. She threw away the Mandy Harris persona and let the world see her for who she really was, Mandy Fay Harris, the queen of emotional rock. She has never performed again, except on a single charity album for the Callahan Foundation.
She created Harmony Traxx as a nonprofit recording studio. Traxx works for the artist instead of controlling them. Taking just enough commission to pay for production and distribution and the worker's salaries, not a penny more. It doesn't need to make a profit, even now, twenty years after she retired, Mother's residual yearly royalties are in the seven figure range.
Countless superstars were cultivated here at Harmony Traxx. Amber LaLanie, Conrad Chase, Elise Tran, September Grace, Satin Thunder, and Sarah Kreitz-Qualls to name a few. Mother is very selective a
bout the artists the studio produces for.
I wandered through the hall and toward the stairs. I waved at Jimmy at the front counter. The man shot me a smile and waved back. I waked past Nick's office, the man Mother took on to run Harmony Traxx for her. He was in some sort of heated conversation on the phone, but he glanced over and gave me a smile and a nod as I continued down the hall to the first recording booth.
I slipped into the control room and was happy to hear the latest track from Veracious being laid down. It has a smoky groove to it, Mother was sure this twosome would hit the big-time and she was rarely if ever wrong. They had such passion and a unique modulated rhythm to their music and a tasty contrast in their voices. One raspy and deep the other a smooth contralto counterpoint. There was a subtle emotion that saturated the song.
I grinned as I felt my body catching the beat as I closed my eyes for a second as I allowed it to sweep over me, my head bobbing. Mother is right... again.
I looked at the man at the mixing panel and the tall, lithe woman who stood next to him. Her arms held high above her head as she moved and swayed with a silky smooth grace I have always been jealous of. Her jet black hair, that that hung almost to her waist, was whipping around in time with the beat, complimented her Pacific Islander complexion.
I stepped up and tapped her shoulder then stiffened and cringed for what was coming next as she swung around and a gorgeous smile spread across her beautiful face, chocolate brown eyes twinkling in glee. The next moment I was lifted off the ground in a tight hug as my baby sister, Elizabeth... Lizzie, squealed.
The sound man's head dropped and he hit some controls as he cued his mic to the band in the booth. “Cut. We need to take it from the top... again.” He shot an accusatory look at Lizzie with a grin.
She put me down and scrunched her shoulders up and crinkled her nose in a cute apology. Most likely the mics in the booth didn't pick up the squeal but the guy, Joe, I think his name is, was not taking chances.
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