Chapter Three
Carolyn
I was amazed to be singing in the club.
“I just drove for two days to get here,” I said. “It’s nice of you all to welcome me to the Playground.” I thought about the journey as I strummed my guitar.
This man just sent me four hundred dollars. Four hundred dollars!
It was definitely enough to pay for gas to get there and at least two nights in a hotel along the way, as well as enough to eat. With the extra hundred in my pocket, I had more available cash than I’d had in a very long time.
I didn’t understand why he was being nice like this. It seemed beyond me that my music had impressed him as it had. Time and time again, music executives and agents had refused me, and rejected professionally-created studio albums. This man had seen me in an online video, where the sound quality couldn’t have been very good.
Before I’d headed in his direction, I’d felt the temptation to run, and it was damned strong. It would be easy to go to a fleabag motel and just get my bearings. I had enough for a week at least. A week to get my bearings would—
Well, it would be two or maybe three days of me not feeling stressed and then four days of nothing but stress followed by me flailing about trying to figure out what to do when the week ran out. I’d be right back where I was now, except I wouldn’t have the money and I wouldn’t even have the hundred I’d started with. I certainly wouldn’t have an opportunity like the one I had here.
“Damn it!” I remembered shouting. The windshield and the dashboard didn’t reply at all. I took a deep breath and didn’t so much decide as I just stop thinking. I pressed the link for the directions and started driving. I put on music and sang along in order to keep myself from thinking and that occupied me until I was two hours into the journey.
When I realized I was actually doing it again, I told myself I would drive another two hours and if I still wanted to run, I could run. I put the music on a little bit louder and sang a little louder and drove on. The two hour mark came, and I pulled into the next gas station. I told myself it was decision time, but since I needed gas one way or another, I filled the tank with the gas card.
I glanced at the freeway. The side headed toward Carl was clear. The other direction had heavy traffic. I went back inside the gas station and got a soda and some road snacks and told myself I would drive another two hours, and then I could run if I wanted to. I got in my car and then dialed his number.
He answered and I said, “Mr. Fontaine, hello.”
“Call me Carl, Rollie,” he said.
“Sorry. Carl. Hi.” I turned the engine over. “I just got gas in… Um, I think it’s called Halston. At least that was what the signs said a few miles back.”
“How’s traffic?”
“Not bad. I just wanted to give you an update.” I didn’t want to mention traffic was a hell of a lot worse, if I wanted to turn down and run away.
“I’m glad you did,” he said. It was such a strange thing to hear sincerity in his voice, real sincerity, and about such a mundane topic. I felt as if I could almost trust him, already. I wished to high Heaven I was the kind of person someone could trust.
“Okay. I’m going to get driving again.”
“Sounds great,” he said. “Call me when you stop for gas again.”
“Okay,” I said. “I will.” I had no idea why it gave me comfort to know I’d be calling him. I didn’t understand how readily I found myself wanting to please the man. I figured it had a lot to do with that crisis moment, when I’d decided I would drive to his club instead of hiding from life as I always did.
“Good girl,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”
“Okay, bye,” I said.
As I hung up the phone, I realized that simple praise had affected me deeply. How in the hell could ‘good girl’ do that? There was familiarity and intimacy in the phrase that seemed almost out of line, but it filled me with… with something. Again, I found myself excited about pleasing him, and I found myself particularly excited about receiving more praise from him.
Maybe I couldn’t get my life in order, but I could absolutely drive another four hours or so and stop for gas again. I could call him. Those things I could do, and if I did, and he called me a good girl again…
Jesus! I was happy!
I looked at myself in the mirror and I was smiling a goofy smile. I didn’t know how in the world I’d got so happy, but I sure as hell knew I wanted more. I pulled onto the freeway and drove, this time singing without playing the radio and singing happy songs rather than sad ones.
It was strange how pleasant the rest of the trip had felt.
On stage, as I sang, I interspersed the show with talk of travel and the like. I could feel the old joy of singing coming back, as though two days on the road and this opportunity finally meant something could work.
This was an interesting club. It wasn’t a one like back in the city, with neon lights or anything like that. It definitely served food and—. It was almost like an old-style jazz club, except the music wasn’t jazz. I supposed there were a few times I sounded like jazz. I was bluesier, though, with a singer/songwriter vibe.