Dirty Little Secret

by Jennifer Echols

  “And you agreed,” Sam said, “and lied to the cops, and that’s why you’re in so much trouble?”

  “Oh, no. I was halfway considering it, honestly, because it would have pissed off my mother. Toby knows me pretty well by now. But then he made me mad with that crack about me being worthless. It’s one thing to think you’re worthless, and quite another for somebody else to tell you that you are. I’m like, ‘Fuck you,’ and I proceeded to ascertain that the car was not in fact sinking, and I called 911.”

  Sam frowned out the windshield. “What an asshole,” he muttered.

  I nodded slowly, like I was still puzzling through it. “Pretty much.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t give in,” he said. “Besides all the trouble you would have been in for wrecking his car, the cops would have figured out you were lying to them. If they’d investigated at all, they would have seen that the bruise on your thigh matched up to the handle on the passenger side of the car, not the driver’s side.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted. “Impressive. You’re always thinking, aren’t you, Hardiman?” I tapped my temple with one finger. “Spoken like a true criminal.”

  He laughed uncomfortably. Possibly he was realizing this outlaw chick he’d picked up was more genuine than he’d bargained for. “Did that guy get his ass handed to him by the cops?”

  “No. They didn’t take him in. His parents got there before the cops did, and I didn’t tell anybody what he’d tried to pull, because he just would have denied it. I heard that his folks have already replaced his soaked Toyota. You know, some parents cover their eyes and would rather not know what their kids are up to. It’s only my parents who look forward to me screwing up so they can scream, ‘I told you so.’”

  Sam nodded. “So why are you in trouble with your parents? You didn’t screw up.”

  “It’s partly because I’d been at this wild party. A couple of other people who’d been there got in trouble, too, later that night. The parents started texting each other frantically. The party became infamous. And my folks are like, ‘How could you be hanging out with these people?’ and I’m like, ‘I’ve been hanging out with them for a year and you didn’t notice.’ They don’t enjoy hearing the truth about that sort of thing. And then my sister told me that since I clearly don’t have any respect for myself, she doesn’t respect me, either. She hasn’t spoken to me since.”

  I’d been able to talk about my parents’ misplaced anger with a dry tone and an eye roll. But as I talked about Julie, my chest felt tight. I wished I’d never given Sam this window into everything that was wrong with me.

  “Oh, Bailey.” Coming from any other teenager I knew, these two words would have been sarcastic, imitating an old person commenting on a terrible shame. Coming from Sam, they sounded sincere.

  Swallowing, I went on. “Honestly, I think a big part of why my parents lost their minds over this was that they had to leave town the next day. They didn’t have time to stand over me and make sure I was sorry. Instead of letting me stay by myself at home, they made me move in with my granddad. And if I get in any more trouble this summer, they won’t pay for Vanderbilt.”

  “You’re going to Vanderbilt? I’m going to Vanderbilt.”

  He said it lightly. I wasn’t sure whether he meant we could hang out together there.

  Anyway, to me it was still a long way to Vanderbilt, with no guarantee. “I’m not going if my parents find out about this gig.”

  “Right, the bar thing.”

  No, it was not the bar thing. I wasn’t supposed to play any gig at all. But that wouldn’t make sense to Sam, so I only nodded.

  “I’m not trying to get you in worse trouble with your parents. . . .” He frowned at himself. “Okay, I guess I’m asking you to play in a bar and that would seem pretty bad to them, plus lying to your granddad. I’m guilty. But besides getting along with them, what would it hurt if they decided not to pay for Vandy? I certainly don’t have perfect pitch, and I got a full scholarship from the music department. I can’t believe you didn’t.”

  I shrugged. “My grades were good, but I didn’t do any extra-curriculars or community service work when I was in high school. None. I told you. I never did anything but tour bluegrass festivals.”

  Exasperated, he opened his hands on the steering wheel. “Yeah, but didn’t you audition? Didn’t they hear you?”

  “No. If I auditioned and got a scholarship, they’d want me to major in music or at least be in the orchestra, and I don’t want to do that.”

  “You don’t want to major in music? What is the matter with you?”

  A loaded silence settled between us. The truck zoomed on through the night. He watched the road. I couldn’t give him my go-to-hell stare effectively when he wasn’t looking.

  Then he glanced over at me and let out a huge sigh. I hadn’t realized how tense he looked, hunched over the steering wheel, until his broad shoulders relaxed. “I’ve been giving you hell, Bailey. I have no right to do that. You just caught me off guard. I had a good friend who died driving drunk last year.”

  “Oh!” In my own short exclamation I heard surprise, sympathy, and relief that he was as much like me as I’d thought when we talked at the mall. He only acted different because he’d gone through something lots worse.

  He cupped my bare knee under his hand—just long enough for fire to shoot across my skin—and took his hand away. “I’m really sorry. The third degree about your boyfriend—”

  “Ex,” I reminded him.

  “—and your family, and Vandy . . . I’m sorry. That was none of my . . .”

  Business. It was none of his business. If he didn’t finish the sentence, I would finish it for him.

  No, I didn’t have the heart. He’d seemed so driven when we played at the mall today, when he upstaged his dad, and when he came to my granddad’s house to rescue me. Now he was still driving toward downtown Nashville, but the fire had gone out of his eyes. He seemed lost.

  He shook his head as if to clear it, then flashed me a grin. Just like that, he was back to the glowing Sam I’d met that afternoon. “We’re going to have fun tonight, you’ll see.”

  “What’s the name of this band, anyway?”

  “The Sam Hardiman Band, but don’t look at me like that! Believe me, I’ve already caught plenty of flak for that from the other members. I had to write something down when I sent in the audition video, and we hadn’t discussed a name before. We need to think of something else.” Pulling to a stop at the next intersection, he thumbed through the MP3 player plugged into the dashboard. When a funky beat began, he drove on. “I wanted to play this for you. Have you heard it before?”

  I listened for a second. “Yeah, but it’s been a while. Justin Timberlake?”

  “Exactly. What key is it in?”

  “F minor,” I said without thinking.

  “Wow,” Sam said. “That is amazing.”

  I didn’t think it was amazing. It was more of a nuisance. But after years of my mom telling me my miraculous ear was a hindrance rather than a help because of how much I complained about pitch problems she couldn’t even hear . . . if Sam wanted to call it amazing, I would let him.

  “Hear the disco violins?” he asked. “The band’s been playing this song for a while without that part. It’s almost like I knew you were coming. I was hoping you could give the song a listen and pick up those licks after one hearing. I’ll bet you can do that, can’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I acknowledged.

  Admiration evident in his voice, he said, “Like a machine.”

  Yes, that’s exactly what it felt like.

  5

  Parking in downtown Nashville was always crazy, but the biggest country music event of the year, the CMA Music Festival, was coming up next week, and the tourist area was even more crowded than usual. We parked near the riverfront in a dark deck that I would have thought twice about if I’d been alone.

  “There are Ace and Charlotte.” Sam lifted
his hand to an African-American guy driving by in a minivan that looked brand-new. “Good. They’ve unloaded Charlotte’s drum kit and the amps at the gig already.” Watching the van search the packed deck and finally stop in a space several rows over, he said, “I know this is kind of awkward, but if you would act like we don’t like each other very much when we’re around them, that would really help me out.”

  As we pulled our instrument cases from behind the seat of the truck, I said, “Okay. Around my granddad, I’ll act like we are on a date, and around your band, I’ll act like we’re not.” I eyed Sam closely, wondering which scenario he thought was the truth.

  “Great.” He flashed me a conspiratorial grin, revealing nothing. Then he took a few steps across the concrete to bump fists with Ace. Gesturing to me, he said, “This is Bailey Wright. She’s going to play fiddle with us tonight.” He turned to me. “This is my bud Ace Hightower.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I shook Ace’s huge hand, looking way up into his deep, melty eyes.

  “Pleasure,” Ace said. Maybe Sam had given him the speech about looking older, too, but unlike Sam’s shadow, Ace’s beard was carefully groomed into a goatee. If he was supposed to look like a rockabilly hipster, like Sam and me, he hadn’t gotten that memo. But if Sam was counting on a female record company executive discovering his band someday, between himself and Ace, they probably had that base covered. Ace wore tight jeans that hugged his muscular thighs and a tight red T-shirt with a chemical formula on it, a joke for nerds who’d paid attention in high school and forged a career path.

  No, he hadn’t grown the goatee for the bar’s benefit. He’d had it for a while. I recognized this guy, and his last name. “Your dad owns the car dealership.”

  “He does,” Ace acknowledged with a wry smile.

  “You’ve been in some of the TV commercials.”

  “So have I!” Sam called, waving.

  Ace told him, “You were dressed up as a dinosaur.” Ace turned back to me. “Sam was convinced that if we put him in a commercial, he’d get discovered, and somebody would hire him for their big-time band.”

  “I was kidding about that,” Sam protested. “Nobody would discover me if they hadn’t heard me sing and they hadn’t seen this face.”

  “Oh, Lord,” said the girl standing behind them.

  Sam looked around at her like he was noticing her for the first time. “And this is Charlotte Cunningham,” he told me.

  She was a tomboy, a fierce one. She wore high-top Chucks and baggy cut-off jeans that came down to her knees so there wasn’t even anything Daisy Duke about them, with her drumsticks protruding from one back pocket. Her plain black tank was tight, showing off her cute figure and toned drummer’s arms, but she covered up her cleavage as best she could with her long hair, parted in the middle and placed in front of each shoulder. Her hair was medium brown and had a little wave in it—not curly enough to be stylish and not straight enough to be flat-ironed, like that was how it came out of the shower and she hadn’t bothered to have it cut since February.

  She wore no makeup, which arguably she didn’t need because her skin was porcelain and perfect, her eyes an arresting blue-green. But the fact that she was a chick my age without makeup made her look aggressively plain. I got the impression she was trying to give off the same vibe as me—leave me alone—only she was coming at it from the opposite direction. I cared very much how I put my look together. I suspected she did, too, but the look itself was supposed to say that she didn’t give it any thought at all.

  I was about to step forward with my hand out to this girl. I stopped myself when she said flatly, “Hi,” and then turned a pouty face to Sam. “I thought you wanted to make a big push to get a gig on Broadway while all the industry bigwigs are in town for the festival.”

  “I”—Sam’s eyes slid to me—“do.”

  “And suddenly you invite somebody else?” she insisted.

  He grinned at her. “This is just for tonight, to see how it works out.” When she continued to scowl at him, he set down his guitar case, wrapped both arms around her, and pulled her into his chest. “Now, Charlotte. You’re the beauty of this operation. I’m the brains. Let me do the thinking.”

  “Wow, if you’re the brains, we are in trouble.” She pushed him away. Both of them were laughing. Ace stared across the garage and huffed out an exaggerated sigh.

  Sam scooped up his guitar again. Turning as one unit, he and Charlotte headed for the stairs down to the street. With no other choice, Ace and I fell in behind them. Charlotte asked Sam in a lower tone, “How’s your dad?”

  “Sober.” Sam held up his hand with his fingers spread.

  “Five days!” Charlotte exclaimed. “That’s great.”

  I’d been thinking again how calculating Sam was, and how careful I needed to be not to lose my heart to him when he only wanted me for his band. But listening to him and Charlotte talk, I got the feeling there was a lot more depth to him. He obviously had real problems with his dad, if his friends knew about them, too. And I could tell from the concern in Charlotte’s voice and the way her eyes never left his face as they entered the stairwell how much she cared about him—even if the relationship was, as I suspected, one-sided.

  I nodded toward her as I asked Ace, “How do y’all know Sam?”

  “We went to the same high school,” Ace said. “Sam and I played football together.”

  I refrained from saying, That explains a lot. It explained why Sam and Ace had chests like trucks. It also explained why Charlotte was trying so hard to stake her claim on Sam now that a new girl had arrived. I hadn’t even known Sam a full day, and I was already getting myself tangled up in his drama. I reminded myself that none of this was worth my college education.

  But as Ace and I emerged behind Sam and Charlotte onto the street, I changed my mind. A singer wailed one of my all-time favorite country songs from the stage in the first restaurant we passed. Before her voice had faded, the voice of the singer in the next bar competed with it for my attention and affection. I loved that song, too. I loved the music and I loved Nashville. I was walking down the street toward my first gig on my own, without my parents controlling my every move. If my granddad found out what I’d been up to tonight, I’d be in big trouble whether I went ahead with the gig or not. Might as well.

  “How about you?” Ace asked, startling me out of my thoughts. I’d gotten so lost in the neon lights on the dark, crowded street that I’d almost forgotten he walked beside me. “How’d you meet Sam?” he asked.

  “At the mall today. I played in a trio with him and his father.”

  “No way,” Ace said. “Were there groupies? A lot of times girls from school follow him around. Pisses his dad off.”

  “Not today,” Sam said, turning around, my first clue that he’d been listening to us. “It’s the weekend after Memorial Day. They’re probably still at the beach. Oh, man, it smells like a strip club.”

  Ace laughed, but I thought that was a weird thing to say. Sam was pretty desperate to change the subject. Then I caught a big whiff of the air being forced out of the next bar and onto the street: stale cigarette smoke and air freshener. I tried to breathe more shallowly.

  Charlotte turned to Sam. “And how do you know what a strip club smells like?” Her tone was light and teasing with a hint of ugly jealousy somewhere at the bottom, like a dirty film nobody ever scrubbed off the strip club floor.

  Sam said simply, “I had a gig.”

  “In a strip club?” Charlotte shrieked.

  “I’d forgotten about that,” Ace said, and chuckled. “He was the pride of the ninth-grade football team.”

  “How old were you?” I asked Sam, trying not to sound like a shocked church lady, but ninth grade?

  “Fourteen,” he said. “Fourteen when I started, and then fifteen. It was my longest gig to date.”

  “How could your parents let you do that?” Charlotte pressed him.

  I thought: They weren’t paying attention.
Like my parents. In my case, my parents were gone. In his case, maybe something had happened to his mom—I was afraid something had, since he hadn’t mentioned her—and his dad was drunk.

  “Oh, it was my dad’s gig,” Sam said.

  I couldn’t hide my shock anymore. “And your dad took you into the strip club with him?”

  Sam spread his hands. “It was a gig!” As if that explained everything.

  “The strippers were very nice to him,” Ace offered.

  I looked to Sam for confirmation. He nodded at me. “They brought me Cokes. One of them wanted me to go out with her daughter.”

  “Ew!” Charlotte shrieked.

  “Strippers aren’t ew,” he scolded her. “It’s just another way to make a living.” But he turned around and winked at me, like he’d enjoyed the strippers more than he wanted to let on to Charlotte. And like I understood something about him that she didn’t.

  “How was the band before us?” he asked Ace.

  Ace shrugged. “It’s never a good sign for a band when they ask a waitress to take the lead for a couple of songs. I don’t think we’re following a whole lot.”

  “Depends on how good the waitress was,” Sam said.

  “She wasn’t as good as you,” Charlotte said. Sam grinned at her and chucked her gently on the chin. I wanted to throw up.

  “That’s positive, right?” Charlotte insisted. “We’ll look great in comparison.”

  “It could be bad,” Sam said. “Nobody’s softened up the crowd for us.”

  We walked past the one District club I’d been in before—Boot Ilicious, which pointedly flashed a cowboy boot in the middle of its sign, between the “Boot” and the “Ilicious.” It was an eighteen-and-up club Toby had taken me to a couple of weekends in May, right after my birthday. He’d bitched at me before because I wouldn’t go out of my way to find a fake ID. Once inside, he was skilled at acquiring drinks without a wristband. This would have impressed me at the beginning of the school year, but now it seemed immature and lame.

  Which didn’t explain why I felt so relieved that we weren’t turning in at Boot Ilicious, or why I held my head down as we passed, hoping he wouldn’t recognize me if he happened to be hanging in the doorway. Toby had made me feel like my talent was something to be embarrassed by. Worse, I half believed him. For some reason, I was concerned about what he thought of me even though I hated him—just as I’d been disappointed to learn I wasn’t the only fiddle player Elvis wanted in his back pocket.