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Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1)

Travis Starnes

Cover

Playing By Ear

Country Roads, Book I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travis Starnes

Table of Contents

Playing By Ear

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

About The Author

Other Books

 

 

 

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

 

 

Playing By Ear

A John Taylor Story

Copyright © 2021 by Travis Starnes

 

All Rights Reserved

 

ISBN 978-1-7372156-1-5

173721561X

 

 

 

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http://tstarnes.com/preview-notification-newsletter/

 

 

Chapter 1

“Baby, wake up. Come on, you’re starting school today.”

 

I moaned as the dream I was having vanished, the mansion we lived in replaced by the fake wood-paneled walls of our trailer.

 

“I was having such a good dream,” I whined, rolling over and pulling a pillow over my head.

 

“I know, sweetheart, but you don’t want to be late for your first day of school, and I have to get to work. Come on, I made you eggs.”

 

“Urrf,” I mumbled as I felt her get up from the edge of the bed and go back towards the front of the trailer, flipping on my room light as she left.

 

I lay there, head covered for another moment, wishing I could go back to sleep. I knew, however, she’d just be back, and I didn’t want to skip breakfast. While Mom wouldn’t be mad at me, I knew we couldn’t afford to waste the food, and I didn’t want to be the reason she was late for work.

 

Rolling over, eyes still squeezed shut from the light, I leveraged myself up, planting my feet on the rough carpet. I stumbled my way through getting dressed and brushing my teeth, finally managing to get my eyes open by the time I walked through the small living room into the kitchen that doubled as the entrance to our trailer.

 

I found her sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee next to my spot, where she’d set out some scrambled eggs, a piece of toast, and a cup of milk.

 

“Just coffee for breakfast?”

 

“You know me; I’m not really a breakfast person. I just need to have my coffee.”

 

“What about your lunch?”

 

“I’ll get something at the cafeteria.”

 

“Don’t do that,” I said, sitting down my fork and giving her what I thought was a stern look.

 

“I’m not doing anything. You worry about doing good at school today and let me worry about the parenting stuff. You may be the man of the house, but I’m still your mother.”

 

“Mom, I’m not a kid anymore. Things are different now. We’re not getting handouts from bar kitchens, and Dad isn’t here to steal groceries anymore.”

 

“Don’t talk that way about your father, Charlie.”

 

“I heard Uncle Tony tell someone that once.”

 

“You shouldn’t listen to gossip, Charlie. He may have done some things I don’t approve of, but he’s still your father. He did what he had to do to support us.”

 

“What he had to do was not drink every dollar he made,” I mumbled under my breath.

 

I know she heard me, but she let it pass.

 

“Baby, I promise I’ll take care of myself. Okay?”

 

“Fine. I just worry about you.”

 

“And I worry you aren’t going to finish your food and make it to the bus on time. Get a move on.”

 

I rolled my eyes but wolfed down the rest of my eggs without argument. Looking at the clock on the stove, she wasn’t wrong.

 

I grabbed my backpack, which had the school supplies she’d gotten for me over the weekend in it. It was really light without any books in it yet.

 

“Bye, Mom. Have a good day at work,” I said, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

 

“Have a good day at school, sweetheart. Make lots of friends.”

 

I gave a wave over my shoulder as I pushed through the screen door of the trailer and skipped down the wooden steps that had been set up in front of them. Our trailer was at the very back of Oakdale Estates, which was a ridiculous name for the single loop that made up the trailer park. We’d only moved in a few months ago, and most of the people who lived here were either young adults just starting out or older people living on a fixed income. There were a few other families, but all the kids I’d seen before were all a lot younger than me.

 

I assumed I was the only public school-aged kid since there wasn’t even a bus stop at the front road that led into the ‘mobile home community.’ Mom had called the school and asked about having a bus stop at the front of the park, but they said they couldn’t create new stops unless there were no currently available stops nearby. They decided since there was a stop just a few hundred yards from our trailer that was close enough. Never mind that I had to walk through a stand of trees, jump over a creek, and then either circle my way around twenty houses or go through someone’s back yard to get to it.

 

I circled around the back of our trailer and crossed the ten feet of open space into the trees. It had rained the night before, which made the ground a little spongy, and drops of water fall onto my head and the back of my t-shirt every time I bumped into tree branches as I pushed my way through to the creek.

 

That was another thing that made it so obvious no school-age kids lived in Oakdale. No one had crossed through this section of trees often enough to make a path, making me push through wet leaves. I broke a couple of branches off and made a mental note of where I entered this small patch. I figured if I took this same way every day and broke off some obstacles each time, I’d have an easier time of it by next semester.

 

The other thing the lack of trail told me was that no one from the nice houses on the other side of the creek ever crossed over to play with kids in the trailer park. Of course, that might not say anything about them, since there weren’t really any kids in the trailer park old enough to get visitors who’d be cutting through a grove of trees and over a creek, but I’d met enough people in the kinds of houses I was walking towards to know what to expect.

 

I slipped as I jumped over the creek, my ratty sneakers sliding in the mud, sending my right foot into the chilly water.

 

“Shit.”

 

Now I’d have a wet sock all morning.

 

I was just starting to shake the extra water off my foot when I heard a kid scream.

 

“Hey. Stop it.”

 

It was a little kid’s voice, still high pitched. It sounded like it was coming from in front of me. I assumed at first it came from some kids arguing in their back yard or something until I got a little closer and heard a second, much older voice.

 

“Harry saw the money, kid. Just give it to us, and you’ll be okay.”

 

“Aunt Jennifer,” the kid’s voice screamed.

 

It was probably as loud as he could get it, but it wasn’t loud enough. As I came around the back of the yard, I could hear someone say ‘ooff’ and a light thumping sound. When I got to a point where I could see who’d been talking I saw three kids about my age standing over a much smaller kid.

 

The younger kid was probably in elementary school, maybe seven or eight years old. He was wearing a costume of some kind with patches on one shoulder and some kind of toy space gun in a holster on his hip.

 

He was sitting on his butt, and it looked like he’d been pushed down, although he probably wasn’t actually injured. The three guys were standing over him menacingly as the little kid tried to push himself away from them. When one of the guys started to reach for him I decided I needed to do something.

 

I normally tried to not get involved in other people’s business, since that hardly ever ended well for me. Especially in situations like this. I wasn’t a fighter, and while I was fairly tall at an even six feet, I was rail thin. Not so much from genetics, since my dad was broad-shouldered and pretty well built, but more from just a lack of a good diet. We didn’t normally eat a lot and what meals we did have were made out of the least expensive things on the shelf, which never included things with actual nutritional value.

 

I might not have been the right person to try and do something about this situation, but I couldn’t stand bullies.

 

“Leave him alone,” was the cleverest thing I could think of as I dropped my backpack in what looked like a dry piece of grass and walked towards them.

 

“Unless you want your ass kicked too, you need to turn around. Right now,” the biggest kid in front said.

 

“So three of you can gang up on one little kid?”

 

“Listen you …”

 

He never got the rest of his sentence out. I’d watched my dad get in plenty of fights in bar parking lots over the years as we followed him from gig to gig, and the one strategy I’d picked up from that was, always get the first hit in.

 

Sadly, that was the only thing I’d managed to pick up from my dad’s fights since he got his ass kicked more often than not. I ran up the last two steps to get some momentum and threw a wild left swing that caught him completely off guard, landing in between his nose and his right eye. The punch hurt my hand like hell, but it dropped him to the ground like a bag of wet cement.

 

That was the last thing that went well for me. His buddies didn’t waste any time. One of them punched me in the cheek and the other one hit me square in the stomach. I had a weird thought as I doubled over that the punch to the stomach actually hurt more than the punch to the face. I didn’t have long to dwell on that, however, as the guy who punched me in the stomach followed up with a punch to my other cheek, knocking me to the ground.

 

“Run,” was all I managed to get out before a foot smashed into my chest, almost picking me off the ground.

 

I grabbed at his leg, managing to catch the end of his tennis shoe and pulled, sending him falling over backward, his wheeling arms catching their leader who was just getting back up, knocking the both of them down.

 

I was halfway to standing again when a foot smashed into my stomach again, sending me spinning over, crashing to the ground on my other side. A heel smashed into my foot, sending a burst of pain that almost felt like electricity shooting up through to my hip.

 

I tried to ignore it and punched straight out at the guy who’d smashed my leg, catching him right in the nuts. He fell over, giving me a moment’s breather. I tried to stand, but as soon as I put weight on my left leg I almost fell over again. I managed to shift my weight at the last second, staying upright, but my foot hurt like hell.

 

“I’m going to beat you to death,” their leader said as he finally got back up, blood streaming from his nose.

 

I took another wild swing, but he ducked back, and I missed badly. I was already stumbling and on the verge of falling when his fist smashed into my temple, sending me crashing hard to the ground, my head banging off the mud and grass.

 

I tried to push myself up again, knowing if they got me on the ground and got on top of me, I was done for. I got partially up, half kneeling, and managed a few more wild swings, clipping one of them in the hip and missing the second one entirely but unable to dodge or otherwise get out of their way, since I couldn’t put any weight on my back foot.

 

A kick at the knee on the leg I was using to hold myself upright sent me sprawling on the ground again. Thankfully it didn’t hit my knee directly, or I would have had serious long term damage, but it was enough to get me back on the ground.

 

The guy I’d punched in the junk was back up, and all three were on top of me. I pulled myself up into a ball as they surrounded me and started kicking the crap out of me. I tried to protect the center of my body by doubling over almost in the fetal position and put my arms over my head, trying to block the kicks they were trying to land on my face.

 

“Hey, get off of him,” a voice yelled from somewhere far away. “I called the cops.”

 

I wished I’d thought about doing that instead of trying to take on three guys bigger than me all by myself. I watched their feet run away, around the side of the house, and then half saw another blurry pair of legs come into my eye-line before I threw up and passed out.

♦♦♦

There was a low murmur of sounds as I came to. It wasn’t loud, but it wasn’t particularly quiet either. More distracting than the noise was the strong smell of disinfectant.

 

My confusion only lasted a second or two as a wave of pain hit me the moment I tried to take a breath. The pain brought back the memory of getting my ass kicked. I tried to open my eyes and sit up, and then shut them again to keep out the piercing light that kicked my headache into high gear, lying back on the pillow.

 

“Gahh.”

 

“Are you okay?” a female voice came from somewhere a few inches from my head.

 

That stopped me cold. The voice wasn’t one I knew. I pried my eyes open slowly to adjust to the light and saw a girl sitting in a chair next to the bed I was in. I had no idea who she was.

 

At least now that my eyes were open, I could figure out where I was. The railing on the bed, some kind of monitor next to it with a line snaking down into my arm, the florescent lights and off-blue curtain that circled a small area around the bed I was laying it.

 

At some point, while I’d been out, someone had taken me to the hospital. I vaguely remembered a voice saying something about calling the cops right while those guys were kicking the ever-loving hell out of me.

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I’m Hanna. You were fighting Aaron Campbell and his buddies in my back yard.”

 

“I didn’t get his name. I just saw him picking on some little kid, tried to help, and got my ass kicked for my trouble.”

 

“The kid was my cousin Sam. He ran in and told us some big kids were trying to take his money, pushing him down, and you’d come running out of the woods and had gotten into a fight with them. He said you’d told him to run and get help. He was very impressed.”

 

“If he’d stuck around a few seconds more, he’d have been less impressed.”

 

“I saw that part. How are you feeling?”

 

“Like I got my ass kicked. My side hurts, my head hurts, my face hurts.”

 

“You’re going to have some massive bruises you know?”

 

“Don’t girls find bruises sexy?”

 

“That’s scars. Bruises, not so much.”

 

“Man, I can’t win for losing.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Something, my dad, used to say. I have no idea what it means, but …”

 

We both fell quiet, the topic of me getting my ass kicked having more or less run out of steam. I looked her over, although I tried to not be so obvious about it. I thought she might be a little older than me, but I was a terrible judge of that kind of thing. She had wavy brown hair that looked to go down her back and wore a hoodie with the logo of the school I was supposed to be starting today.

 

“Shit, my backpack!”

 

We’d had to get that and the school supplies from the school late last week as part of their ‘helping the families’ program, and I didn’t think they’d just give us a second helping.

 

“My mom has it. Sam saw where you dropped it, and went and got it.”

 

“Actually, I need to call my mom. She thinks I’m at school.”

 

“My mom’s doing it.”

 

“How does she know how to get a hold of my mom?”

 

“Inside your backpack was some of that paperwork they always send out for you to get signed and brought back to school. Her number was on one of them.”

 

“Ohh. So you go to Carr?” I asked, gesturing at the sweatshirt she was wearing.

 

“Yeah, I’m a senior.”

 

“Today was supposed to be my first day.”

 

“Did y’all just move here?”

 

“At the beginning of the summer.”

 

“What grade are you going into?”

 

“Tenth.”

 

“Ahh.”

 

Being complete strangers, we really didn’t have anything to talk about. I groaned as I tried to roll back to lying flat, looking at the ceiling.

 

“Are you okay? Should I get the doctor?”

 

“No, it just hurts to move. I appreciate you calling my mom and getting my backpack. You don’t have to hang out here with me.”

 

“Actually, I do. My mom would shit a brick if I left before she came back.”

 

“Well … I appreciate you sitting with me.”

 

“No problem. I really like my little cousin, and we appreciate you helping him.”

 

“Next time, I might try and get help first.”

 

“Might be a good idea.”

 

I tried to laugh and ended up groaning as the curtains slid open revealing a man in a doctor’s coat, and a woman I guessed was Hanna’s mother from the family resemblance. Behind them, I could see other beds and curtains, which explained the constant hum of lowered voices I’d heard ever since waking up.

 

“How are we feeling?” the doctor asked as he walked over to me and checked the bag of fluid dripping into my arm.

 

“I’m pretty sore, and my head is killing me.”

 

“We’ll give you some Advil here in a minute. You had a pretty nasty concussion.”

 

“Is it serious?”

 

I’d read somewhere that concussions were what drove football players and wrestlers crazy.

 

“We were a little worried when you took so long to wake up, so we’re going to keep you here a few more hours just to keep an eye on you.”

 

“How long was I out?”

 

“About an hour, which is why we were worried. Being down that long makes this a moderate brain injury. You don’t seem confused or disoriented, which is a good sign. When your mother gets here, I’m going to talk to her about getting a CT scan, just to be sure everything’s ok. She’ll have to keep an eye on you, just in case there are any delayed symptoms.”

 

“Is it serious, though? Any, like long term stuff?”

 

“If there aren’t any additional symptoms like nausea, blurry vision, or confusion; then no, you should be fine as long as you don’t get hit in the head anymore. After about a month, give or take, any damage should be reversed. When it comes to this kind of injury, repeated incidents are where things start getting pretty bad.”

 

I tried to push myself up but stopped as the doctor put a hand on my chest.

 

“Just lay still. I’ve scheduled you to get some x-rays here soon. I want to look at your ribs, and all the bruising on your foot suggests you might have some damage there too. Just lay still, till we look everything over.”

 

The curtain pushed open again, and my mom rushed in.

 

“Charlie. Are you okay?”

 

“I’m fine, Mom,” I said, which was pretty much the most obvious lie I’d ever told her.

 

“Fine, my rear end. Look at your face. They said you’d been in a fight.”

 

“Mrs. Nelson?” the doctor said.

 

“Yes. I’m Charlie’s mother.”

 

A man in a pair of blue scrubs came in and stopped when he saw all the people that were starting to pile up in my little curtained area.

 

“Go ahead and take him,” the doctor said to the new arrival before turning to my mom. “He’s going to take your son up to get some x-rays. He’s a little tender around the ribs, and I want to make sure he didn’t break anything.”

 

“Is he …” I heard my mom start to say before the guy in scrubs pushed the bed I was sitting on out of the curtained area and began wheeling me into a hallway, cutting the rest of her questions off.

 

The process of getting an x-ray was more annoying than anything else. The orderly pushed me against a wall outside of the radiology lab and went off to move someone else. Apparently there was a whole position in the hospital to just push people from one place to another.

 

I sat on that thing for what felt like forever, with nothing to do, just staring at the florescent lights on the ceiling. About the time, I thought I should hop off the damn bed and go looking for someone, a nurse came out of the lab and rolled me over to the machine. She then took pictures of my leg and chest.

 

When someone eventually rolled me downstairs, the doctor was gone, and instead, my mom was talking to a police officer.

 

“Here he is now,” she said as I was rolled up.

 

“Son, could you give me an account of what happened?”

 

“Sure. I was cutting through the woods behind our trailer to my bus stop. When I came out of the woods, I could hear some kids arguing and came across the three kids pushing down a little kid, telling him to give them his money. I told them to get away from him, and when they didn’t I got into a fight with them. They knocked me out, and I ended up here.”

 

“Did you see them push the other kid?”

 

“No, when I showed up, he was lying on the ground. The other kids were standing atop of him threatening him.”

 

“Can we press charges for what they did to my son?” my mom asked.

 

“We were told that your son threw the first punch. Is that true, son?”

 

“Yes,” I said, looking away from my mom as her head swiveled towards me.

 

“We’ve talked to the other family involved, and they’ve agreed to not press charges if the three boys don’t press charges on your son.”

 

“So they put Charlie in the hospital, and get to walk away scot-free?”

 

“Ma’am, all the parties agree, and your son admits he was the aggressor. If they decided to press charges on him, he could end up in juvenile court. This seems like the best scenario for everyone involved.”

 

“I was trying to help that other kid!” I said in protest.

 

“Next time you should find an adult, or call the police. Taking matters into your own hands isn’t how anything should be handled. Now, if there’s nothing else …” he said, flipping his small notepad over and sliding it into his shirt pocket.

 

Mom just shook her head no, a frown on her face.

 

“That’s how things seem to go around here,” the woman I’d noticed earlier said from the doorway after the policeman left.

 

“What?” Mom asked.

 

“Sorry, I was stopping by to thank you personally and overheard what the officer said. They talked to me about Sam pressing charges, but made the same point that if he did then the boys would press charges against you.”

 

“It’s almost like they are protecting these kids.”

 

“There’s no almost about it. Around here people only have the high school football to root for, which gets these boys special treatment.”

 

“That’s not right. My son was just standing up for someone else. I don’t have insurance through the factory yet. There’s no way I can afford…”

 

Mom turned around, putting her hand over her mouth, her shoulders quivering as she tried to hold in her sobs.

 

“Ohh, honey,” the woman said. “You don’t have to worry about that. I was just down in billing, and we’re taking care of it.”

 

“I can’t let you do that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

“Maybe, but the people who did, aren’t going to do anything about it, and you helped out my nephew. As I see it, that makes this my responsibility.”

 

Mom looked indecisive for a moment. I knew her pride made her want to turn down charity no matter what, but with our finances the way they were, a hospital bill would put us out on our butts. She was stuck.

 

“Besides, I’ve already paid. It’s a done deal.”

 

“Thank you,” Mom said.

 

“Yeah, thanks,” I added.

 

“My name’s Jennifer Philips. You met my daughter, Hanna earlier.”

 

“Well, thank you very much, Jennifer. We really appreciate your generosity. I’m Rebecca, and that’s my son Charlie.”

 

“How would you folks like to have dinner with us tonight?”

 

“I appreciate it, but I actually have to be at work at eight.”

 

“I thought you said you worked at the factory?”

 

“For my night job.”

 

“Ohh. Well, then we’ll have Charlie over for dinner. That saves you the trouble of having to figure out dinner and get to work after being here all morning.”

 

“I don’t …” Mom started to say before I interrupted.

 

“That sounds great.”

 

Most nights, it was a sandwich or a can of soup as she hurried out the door. It might be selfish, but I wasn’t going to turn down a chance at a better meal if I could help it.

 

“Excellent. I know it isn’t fair, but I don’t want to have to worry about you crossing the creek if you’re still hurt. So Hanna will come by at six to pick you up.”

 

Mom gave me a look to let me know she knew why I accepted, but smiled and said, “Okay. We’re number two-eleven.”

 

There was only the one long circle that made up the trailer park, so if they knew where it was, all you needed to know what the trailer number since everyone lived on the same street.

 

“Great. We’ll see you at six.”

 

Hanna’s mother left, leaving me to deal with Mom.

 

“Charlie …”

 

“Mom, I’m really sorry. I know this puts us in a bind, or it would if it wasn’t for Ms. Philips, and you had to take off work.”

 

“Well, I can’t say I’m happy that you got into a fight, but I’m proud of you for sticking up for someone else. You’re a good boy. I just hope you learned a lesson, and next time go get help instead of biting off more than you can chew.”

 

“I definitely learned that lesson.”

 

“Okay. Consider yourself chastised. Let me see what I have to do to spring you from this joint.”

Chapter 2

It turned out ‘springing’ me from the hospital was a lot more complicated than I had hoped. We waited for the x-rays to come back, which showed I only had bruised ribs, not broken ones. The actual bad news was that I did have a hairline fracture in one of the bones in my foot. Luckily, the fracture was on the top of my foot instead of the bottom. The doctor explained that, since the bone would not get a lot of pressure when I walked, they could just put a boot thing on me instead of a full cast. The location of the break also meant that I should only need a few months to heal at the most, and there should not be any lasting problems, as long as I only took off the boot to shower and was careful.

 

The doctor wanted me to use crutches as much as I could, but I could also get away with just walking when needed. He told Mom that while all the bruising looked bad, they should all be healed up by the end of the week, except the bruising around the ribs, which might take a few days longer than everything else to stop hurting.

 

Of course, none of this was enough to get me out of more school.

 

Mom drove us home and dropped me off, before rushing out to her night job on a cleaning crew that serviced a bunch of the local businesses. A part of me wanted to ask her to stay, but I pushed that down. I was not seven anymore and could stay home without my mommy. Plus, she already missed a shift today, and we really could not afford for her to take any more time off.

 

I was just settling into a funk when the doorbell to the trailer rang. I had forgotten that I was supposed to be having dinner with the family whose nephew I helped out, and his cousin was supposed to come to pick me up.

 

I awkwardly pushed myself up and hobbled towards the door, grabbing the crutches I had leaned against the wall. I was really bad on them, but I did not want to push myself and have to wear the stupid boot thing any longer than I needed.

 

Sure enough, Hanna was standing on the wooden steps that lead out the front door of our trailer.

 

“Hey,” was the cleverest thing I could think of to say.

 

“That looks bad?” she asked, pointing at my foot.

 

“Actually, not too bad. The doctor said the break was small and that I should be fine in a few months. Since none of my ribs are broken, I’m counting myself lucky.”

 

“You ready to go?”

 

“Actually, I need to change. Sorry, by the time we finished at the hospital and got home, I’d forgotten about your mom inviting me.”

 

“I can tell her you need to have dinner another night if you don’t feel up to it now.”

 

While that actually did sound like a good idea, since my sides and face still hurt, Mom would ask me about the dinner in the morning, and I did not want to have to admit I ditched. She always made a big deal about upholding social obligations, and she would not be happy if I blew this one off.

 

Also, whatever they were eating had to be better than the little blue box of mac and cheese I would end up eating if I did not go over.

 

“No, I can still go. I just forgot, and these clothes have mud on them from this morning. Do you mind waiting for a couple of minutes? I promise I’ll be fast.”

 

“Sure,” She said, although her tone was in the ‘undecided’ category.

 

I pushed the thin aluminum door open wider, inviting her inside. She stepped hesitantly past me, looking around the kitchen that served as our entryway. The kitchen was not actually dingy, but everything was an off shade of brown that gave even a freshly scrubbed apartment a dirty look.

 

I hobbled past her, trying to move without the crutches, which I found hard to use inside the trailer, and led her into the living room, which was essentially a small couch, two chairs, and a narrow pathway in between that led to the back of the trailer.

 

“Have a seat, I’ll be right out.”

 

She sat down wordlessly, still looking around. I limped down the hall as fast as I could, and into my room. Dropping my dirty pants and shirt on the floor next to the bed, I tried to make a mental note to pick the clothes up later. I knew I would probably forget again, leaving them for Mom to grab as she picked up my laundry.

 

I changed into a clean t-shirt, the bulk of my wardrobe, and a pair of track pants since they seemed easier than getting blue jeans over the boot.

 

“Your dad isn’t home?” Hanna asked, standing up when I limped back into the living room.

 

“He and my mom split up.”

 

While that was not completely true, I figured the statement was close enough to not count as a lie while saving me from having to explain the whole truth.

 

“Ohh. Mine, too.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

I never knew how to respond to something like that.

 

“It’s cool. He left while when my mom got pregnant, so I’ve never really known him.”

 

I grabbed my crutches that had been leaning against the door frame and made a try of going down the steps. I managed to not actually fall on my face, but that is about the only positive thing I could say about my attempt. In the three steps to her car, I realized I was not sure what to do with these then.

 

I was just considering trying to limp back to the trailer when she said, “Just slide them in the back seat.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” I said, as though I had already thought of that, instead of having a mini-panic.

 

I was not much of a car person, spending most of my life driving around in a beat-up Winnebago; but hers seemed nice. Her sedan was not particularly showy, but it was nice, with a sparkly blue paint job. I laid my crutches with the bottoms on the floor, trying to not get her seats dirty, and then lowered myself into the passenger seat.

 

The inside of the car was meticulous. The dashboard was not covered in dust, and there was not a speck of dirt anywhere. Mom always prided herself on keeping things clean, and her car was not anywhere as nice as this. I caught a whiff of a faint flower smell, although I was not sure where it was coming from.

 

“How do you like Carr?” I asked, trying to fill the silence that closed in as soon as the doors closed.

 

“Carr’s just like any other prison.”

 

I gave her a sideways glance, trying to figure out if that was supposed to be a joke.

 

“Sorry. I showed up late to school, and my math teacher wouldn’t let me retake the quiz and hit me with a zero. She’s such a bitch.”

 

“The teachers are bad?”

 

“Not really. Some are, but most are at least okay. I guess the school isn’t that bad.”

 

The drive did not take long, although a lot longer than my walk across the creek that morning had taken. We had to take a left out of Oakdale, drive down a half mile and take another left, down a bit and take another left, then we were winding through their neighborhood. The drive between my trailer and their house was a big square that took about five minutes despite there being just over a hundred yards between my trailer and her house.

 

Pulling into her driveway, I found getting out of the car was harder than getting in the car. I had to swing my boot out and managed to whack it against the door frame, sending a shock of pain up my leg.

 

“Ahh!” I said in surprise.

 

“Do you need help?” she asked, stopping as she was halfway out of her door.

 

“No,” I said, moving my foot out slower and getting my left foot planted before pushing myself out. “I’m just not used to moving this thing around.”

 

“I get ya. I broke my leg at the beginning of my junior year. It was a massive pain in the ass. I had a cast and had to keep my leg straight all the time.”

 

“I’m glad I didn’t end up with that. This is the first time I’ve ever broken anything, and this boot is bad enough.”

 

I retrieved my crutches and swung my way along behind her. She pushed the unlocked door open and walked in, leaving it open behind her. I followed her inside, stopping to push the door closed with my air cast.

 

“Mom, I’m back,” she hollered as she walked through the entryway.

 

She had not said anything, but I followed behind her. Her mom appeared at the end of the hallway, wiping her hands on a dishcloth.

 

“Charlie, how is your foot?”

 

“Only a hairline fracture. The doctor said the break should be better in a month or so, and I didn’t need a regular cast. Where’s Sam?”

 

“My sister picked him up this morning,” Ms. Philips said. “She wanted me to tell you thanks for helping him out. He really wanted to stay for dinner tonight, but she has work in the morning, and they have a long drive back to Raleigh. Now, I know those crutches can start to hurt until you’re used to them. Hanna, will you show him to the table while I get the food?”

 

Hanna had reached her mom and stopped, looking back at me and then turning to the right. I eventually got to the end of the hallway, which opened up into a wide area with a kitchen on one side and an area with a dining table on the other, the kitchen counter forming sort of an L to separate the two.

 

Leaning my crutches on the wall by the door frame, I limped to the table and stopped.

 

“Mom usually sits here,” she said, pointing to the end of the table closest to the kitchen, “and I usually sit there, against the wall. You can sit here.”

 

‘Here’ turned out to be the chair in front of me, in which I pulled out and lowered myself into, keeping my leg stretched forward and the boot out of the way.

 

I thought she might go help her mom, but she sat down on her side of the table and pulled out her phone. Not wanting to interrupt her, since she did not seem to want any more idle chit-chat, I looked around the room. The table was a dark brown wood that seemed to go well with the two-toned walls, a darker color on the bottom half, and a light brown on the top half. I did not know much about design, but the house seemed nice, with everything well maintained.

 

Square plates with a black swirling pattern in one corner were already on the table, a napkin with a fork was sitting next to them, and a glass of water in front.

 

Ms. Philips came out carrying a large white bowl with a pile of spaghetti sticking up from the top. The scent of tomato, meat, and herbs filled my nose causing my mouth to water instantly. My mom tried hard, but she would never be a great cook. We lived on things that originated in a box and could be made with only a few steps, or simple foods like sandwiches. Spaghetti may not be the most complex meal someone could make at home, but it was several steps above what I usually ate.

 

“That smells great!”

 

“I’m glad you think so,” she said, using a large spoon to scoop a big portion on my plate.

 

While she served herself and Hanna, I twirled several strings of the sauce-covered pasta around my fork. I was just opening my mouth to take my first bite when she said, “We need to give thanks.”

 

“Huh?” I asked, closing my mouth, and lowering the spaghetti covered fork back to my plate.

 

“She means we are going to say the prayer.”

 

“Ohh,” I said, setting the fork down.

 

While we were not atheists, my family had never been particularly observant. If I thought really hard, I could come up with maybe one or two times I ever set foot in a church. I knew for certain we had never said a prayer over a meal.

 

Hanna and her mom held hands, and both held a hand out to me. I reached across the table and took Hanna’s and then her mom’s, unsure of what to do next until both closed their eyes and slightly bowed their heads.

 

I followed suit as Ms. Philips began.

 

“Heavenly Father, we thank you for the bounty we are about to receive and all the blessings you have given this family. We thank you for Hanna’s health and well-being. We thank you for Dad’s successful recovery. Thank you for the prosperity you continue to give us. We especially thank you for our new friend Charlie, who you sent to watch over Sam this morning and keep him safe. In all things, we give thanks, oh Lord. Amen.”

 

Hanna echoed the ‘amen,’ and I joined her, although a fraction too late.

 

“Tell us about yourself, Charlie,” Ms. Philips said after folding her napkin and putting it in her lap.

 

My fork was, once again, hovering inches from my open mouth.

 

“Uhh,” I said, setting down the fork and stalling for time. “I’m not sure there’s much to tell. We moved to town this summer after my mom got a job at the factory.”

 

“Where’d you move from?”

 

“Nowhere specific. Before my dad … uhh … left, we kind of moved around a lot.”

 

“Is he in the military?” Hanna asked.

 

“No, he’s a musician. We would kind of live out of our Winnebago and drive from gig to gig. Sometimes we’d stay at a hotel or whatever.”

 

“You didn’t have an actual home?” Ms. Philips said, sounding scandalized. “Where’d you go to school?”

 

“I mean, I always thought of the Winnie as my home. Mom had me in the homeschooling program, and taught me in between helping my dad manage his career.”

 

“That’s so cool,” Hanna said. “Did you like, go into the clubs and party and stuff.”

 

“No. When I was little, Dad was in bands, and they’d handle the behind the scenes stuff. I stayed with Mom in the Winnie or a hotel if we had one. By the time Dad started playing solo gigs I was nine, and they let me hang out in the green room if they had one, or sometimes the manager’s office. If they had neither, I just hung out in the Winnie by myself.”

 

“That doesn’t seem like a good way to raise a child.”

 

“I guess not. Everything seemed normal to me, but I think Mom would agree with you. As soon as Dad was out of the picture, she found a regular job and moved us here.”

 

“Good for her. I know getting out of a toxic relationship can be tough with a controlling partner. I’m glad she was able to get out for your sake.”

 

“Yeah, but we were left in a tough spot. Dad never made much, and what he did make he couldn’t hold onto very well. When he left we were flat broke. Mom borrowed enough cash from some of their friends to be able to move us here; but she’s killing herself, just to get us through each month. Now that we’re in one place I was thinking I could get a job after school and help her out, although I’m not sure how I’ll get anywhere without a car.”

 

“Isn’t Chef Tang always looking for people?” Ms. Philips said. “I bet if you ask him, he’ll let Charlie have the same shifts as you, and you two can ride together.”

 

“Mom,” Hanna said, her tone switching to ‘exasperated teenager.'

 

“That’s okay, Ms. Philips. I don’t want to put you guys out. If you just tell me the name of the place, I can go and talk to him and see if he’s looking for people.”

 

“His place is called the Blue Ridge, and you won’t put us out. Hanna would be happy to talk to them and get you rides.”

 

I would have had to be blind to not pick up the looks passing between mother and daughter. Hanna clearly was not a fan of this idea, but her mother seemed to be winning. I really did like the idea of getting a job, especially one where I had rides back and forth. What I did not want was to make the only person I knew in town that I had not actually been in a fight with suddenly have a reason to dislike me.

 

“Really, I know Hanna has a lot of things to do with her senior year. She’s going to be too busy to drive me back and forth.”

 

One last look passed between them before Hanna let out a sigh and said, “No, I’m fine driving you. Chef won’t mind us having the same schedule if I’m your ride. He’s really good about that. He also teaches some people self-defense. I bet if we ask, he can teach you enough to not get beat up.”

 

“My pride wants to disagree, but my ribs think that’s a great idea.”

 

“Excellent. I know Hanna also won’t mind giving you rides to school,” Ms. Philips said.

 

“MO-om,” Hanna said again, this time cranking the exasperation to a ten.

 

“Hanna, Charlie went out of his way to help us and even got hurt. If you think for a second, you will remember you were supposed to be watching your cousin until I got out of the shower. He might not have gotten involved if you were with Sam. This is the least we could do to repay his help.”

 

“I guess,” she said, switching deftly from exasperation to sullen with practiced ease.

 

“You don’t have to …”

 

“Nonsense. Hanna will drive you.”

 

She made her statement seem very final. Hanna did not look angry, but she definitely looked annoyed by all the chauffeur work her mother had just volunteered her for.

 

“I’ll walk across the creek in the morning. At least you won’t have to drive any further.”

 

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

 

“I’ll be fine. Getting across the creek might actually be easier with the crutches.”

 

“That works for me,” Hanna said, even though her mom still looked dubious.

 

I decided my best course would be to change the subject and hope her mom did not volunteer Hanna to help me anymore, otherwise I would be starting school with someone already hating me.

 

“What’s the Blue Ridge like, is it a restaurant or something?”

 

“It’s something,” Hanna said. “The sign says ‘bar and grill.’ During the day the Blue Ridge is mostly a restaurant getting business from people traveling up to the Smokey Mountains. At night the customers are there to drink and listen to Willie play.”

 

“Who’s Willie?”

 

“Willie Johnson. Apparently, he’s a big deal on the blues circuit and made a name for himself as a traveling musician in the forties and fifties. He’ll tell anyone who asks stories, but none of the names he mentions means anything to me. He’s nice though, and he really does play well. Plus, the tips go up when he’s playing.”

 

That was a preview of Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1). To read the rest purchase the book.

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