Chapter Three
“The next available appointment we have is like in three weeks with Doctor Averi. Now would you like in the morning or afternoon? Okay, I have an eight, eight thirty, ten, ten forty five and eleven thirty appointment available for the morning….I’ll pencil you in for ten forty five Mrs. Richards. I’ll make sure to send you an email reminder, is your email still Anna Richards nineteen forty two at yahoo dot com?...Great, I’ll be sending it to you right after I get off the phone. Have a great day.” I continued with giving her the confirmation and went onto the next call. This was my day to day thing I did. I answered phones, made appointments, canceled appointments, directed calls to doctors, got messages. Yup, this was my life at work and even though the pay was good, I hated working as a receptionist.
It wasn’t until the calls kind of died down a bit that I was able to go to the bathroom, so I could call up this guy about the demo tape. I’d been in a bit of a rush this morning and didn’t get the chance to call him but now, I had the chance. Going into my purse, I looked for the piece of paper that had his number written down on it and once I found it, I dialed and waited for him to answer.
It wasn’t until the third ring that a man with a pronounced strong voice came on to say, “Hello.”
“Yes, can I please speak to Anthony?”
“You are talking to him.”
“Hi Anthony, my name is Melanie, a friend of a friend of mine referred you since you do such a great job on demo tapes.”
“A friend of a friend you say. Who was this friend of a friend of yours?”
I chuckled a bit. “Well, the friend of a friend of mine is name Aliana. Her roommate is my friend, so that’s how I got your number, from a friend of a friend of mine.”
This time, I could hear him chuckle a bit. “Well Melanie, you said you wanted to know about a demo tape?”
“Yes, well I heard you are the best out there and I want my tape to be just that, the best.”
“How many songs do you plan on putting on this tape?”
“Just six.”
“Just six huh, well I will charge you only four hundred to do the tape. You can give me half upfront and the rest when the tape is done.”
That sounded fair I thought since most of the others I knew wanted to charge me triple that amount just for the six songs. “That sounds fine with me, when can we arrange to meet?”
“When do you have a day off?”
“Well, it won’t be until Wednesday, is that all right?”
“Sure, Wednesday is fine. I just asked because I’m not available during the weekends because I’m usually out on gigs but can you come around ten in the morning and we can get started.”
“Wednesday at ten but I do have another question to ask though.”
“And what’s that?”
“Where will I be going to on Wednesday at ten?”
“Do you know where Baker’s Loft is?”
“Of course, off of Lincoln and Randall.”
“Yes, when you go inside take the freight elevator up to the fifth floor and I’ll be waiting.”
“Alright then and thanks.” Hanging up, I went back to my desk to continue on with my job. I felt anxious. I had felt as if I were finally making some steps towards getting this long awaited project I had tried over and over again started.
“So you made the appointment with Anthony huh?” Sara told me while we sat at a bar after work to eat dinner together since she was treating me this evening.
“Yup, say have you ever met his guy before?”
“Me, no but of course, Aliana spent a lot of time with him. From what I was told, he’s very handsome but you know Aliana’s idea of handsome is totally different than anyone else’s.”
“That’s so true, remember that one guy she kept telling us about that she met in the bar? She kept telling me that he was too hot for words with curly brown hair and baby blues.”
“Oh, my God! I so remember that and when we got to the bar, she was sitting with some guy that looked like he had done fifteen rounds with Tyson and when he smiled?”
I literally choked on my pasta that I was eating. I grabbed my wine glass to take a long sip to get it my food down.
“He had nothing but gold grill in the front of his teeth. I asked her the next time I talked with her, where the hell she dug up these guys from. You know what she told me, said she met this guy when he came into the shop to get his car fixed.”
We both ended up laughing it up some more as the evening went on with more talk, food and wine.
When I got home, I took a shower to relax after a long day. I went through the songs that I had planned on singing for my demo. I wanted to make sure that these were the ones I had wanted to do, even though I knew deep down I was going to use them. Last minute jitters I guess, I always did get a bit scared before I performed and I always ended up having a hot cup of tea to sooth my nerves, which helped plenty. “All I ask you lord is to give me the voice I need on Wednesday to be able to make this tape.”
Baker’s Lofts was formerly known as Baker’s Textiles back in the forties and fifties. The building itself was built in nineteen forty’s and was the leading manufacturer for linen, cotton, wool, thread in our town as well as our state. But after Daniel Baker passed away in nineteen seventy two, his brother took over until he ended up becoming greedy and bringing down what his brother had done so well in. It was only about ten years ago when someone had bought the building from the city and decided to renovate the floors and make them into loft apartments which were reasonable.
Actually, I’m lying, they were expensive as hell and you had to be uber rich or your grandma or some rich relative that no one in your family ever talked about because he or she was the ‘weird one’ left you a big chunk of change. I knew that if I ever hit the lottery, I would so get myself an apartment there. When I parked in the visitor’s parking lot after going through the security guard, I grabbed my purse and folder with my songs.
Inside, a woman around my age sat behind the welcome desk. She smiled and said, “Hello, how may I help you?”
“Oh, I was just going up to the fifth floor thank you.” I went over to the elevator, pressed the up button and waited, looking over towards the lady who went back to whatever the heck she was doing. I could hear it coming down and soon the doors opened up as I got in, pulled down the handle which let the doors down as I pressed the button that would take the elevator on up. Before I even got to the third floor, a rhythmic sound could be felt vibrating the walls and into my ears. I don’t know what it was but as I did make it to the fifth floor and opened up the door, immediately music flooded the elevator. Walking out into a very large open loft area where in the middle of the room, it was set up like any home. It had a huge living room set along with a dining room table and a setting for six. A beautiful dark cherry wood kitchen with shiny stainless steel appliances that glistened against the sunlight as everything looked brand new. But it was over towards the right of the loft to where I had heard the vibration of the music from behind walls of a room.
I followed the music towards the room. There was a large window when I rounded the corner and once I peeked in, I saw a man sitting in front of a motherboard. He was busy into whatever he was doing as he continued to bob his head while turning knobs. When I tapped on the glass, he didn’t hear me at first but when I tapped even louder, he suddenly sat up, looking towards me as he got up from his chair.
Damn, he was a tall drink of water, must have stood at least six foot six.
He turned a knob or two before he came to the door. “You must be Melanie?”
“That I am and you must be Anthony.”
He walked out of the room, wearing a black t shirt that showed toned arms with his left arm lined with tattoos all the way up his neck with three crosses there. Giving me a hearty handshake, he continued looking over me before saying, “Did Aliana ever get anyone to sign her up?”
“I don’t know if she did or not. But she told my friend you do some awesome work.”
He chuckled while going over to a corner that had about three milk crates full of albums. Grabbing one of them, he brought it over to the table where I had been standing near. “Would you like a drink, some tea, or water perhaps?”
“Yes, some water would be good.” Looking around the loft, I went to the window looking out onto Lincoln while traffic continued to go through it. I wondered how much money it cost him to live it up in this place. “You must have some great parties here.”
“Yeah.” He handed me the bottled water. “I have one at least twice a month. I play some tunes with my band or I have a DJ friend of mine that plays for me in exchange for me doing some tapes for him. Speaking of tapes, this is how I normally do with getting the demo tapes done. Since you want to do six songs, we will do the recordings depending on how much time you want to take for each song. If you want to do like two songs a day or even if you want to do one song a day, then we can do it like that.”
“I’d like to take my time with each song I sing. I want it to sound right for whoever will be listening to it.”
“I understand. Nothing wrong with that. I’m fine with it. We can get started right now if you want.”
“Great. Well, the first song I wanted to try is one that I wrote.”
“You write your own music?”
“Oh yes, I always have a song playing in my head off and on. I like to have my book with me at all times along with a pen, so I won’t forget what came up,” I told him while we walked over to the booth.
He motioned for me to go on in while he went back into the room where I saw him when I came into the loft. “Now I want you to sing it just like you hear it in your head, take a deep breath, and let it all flow out. Let me get everything together real quick and once you are ready, just nod your head and I’ll start to record.”
I nodded while shaking off every bit of worry that had settled itself in my mind, making me not want to sing. I hated this, I really hated that I got like this when it came time to record. But I had developed a system to where I would repeat the same words over and over again in my mind, ‘You can do this sweetheart, just sing.’
I know it sounds silly but often times, it worked really well because it always seemed to calm my nerves and let me get the words out. Looking over at him, I nodded and that’s when I saw a light that said ‘RECORDING’ in big bright red letters overhead as I began to sing my song. It was a song that I had written when I was in my teens, a song of falling in love and having your heart broken by that first love.
His name was Reginald Campbell. At the time, I had met Reggie, which was a name that he hated to be called, when I was freshman. He was however, a junior with caramel skin, brown eyes that sparkled when he talked and a smile that blazed for days. Despite the fact that we was older, that made up for some amazing dreams of a first date, first kiss and of course, getting married and living happily ever after with kids. But of course, those were just thoughts that I often had when I saw him walking down the hall with his friends since he was very popular with everybody at school. This was due to the fact that he was on the football team and track. I would follow up behind him like a lovesick puppy, often getting to my own classes late because I was so stuck on him. I had written sonnets about this guy, pledging my undying love and admiration for him. But like most boys that I had dealt with at that unnerving age of first crushes, I was extremely shy when it came to expressing my feelings. I had wondered if he even knew I had been following him like I was and what the hell he would think about me doing it. Would he think I was crazy? Would he laugh at me?
I wouldn’t find that out until one day when I was heading to my locker and saw him coming from around the corner. Now mind you, in the school I went to, each grade had their own halls and they were supposed to go only to the classes along those halls. The only time you could go outside the halls was to gym, exploratory classes, lunch and to the buses. So when I saw him coming, all I could do was stare.
He walked up to me and stood there, leaning up against the lockers with a killer smile and dazzling brown eyes. “Hello.”
I couldn’t get anything out. The words were just stuck there in my throat but luckily, I was able to say, “Hi,” back which made him smile even more.
“I was wondering whether or not you had plans after the game.”
I know he wasn’t asking me out, was he asking me out? “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Actually, yes I am. So would you like to be my after the game date? Some of us are planning on heading over to Jackson’s house for a party. I thought maybe my shadow would like to come along with me. Maybe I can get to know more about her.”
“You knew that I was following you, I didn’t mean to.”
He chuckled and told me, “You don’t have to be sorry, I find it to be a great compliment, plus don’t you think we need to have the chance to get to know one another?”
I nodded and then laughed as we made plans for after the game to meet up. I had no idea what was going to happen that night. We got to his friend’s Jackson’s place and it was nothing more than seniors and juniors around. None of which I knew since I seemed to be the only sophomore there. I have to admit I felt completely uncomfortable and when I was offered a drink, I found that it had been spiked with liquor which was nasty and I decided to just drink from the sodas that were in the cooler. But what was in store for me when he took me upstairs would be cemented in my mind for years.
We had gone up to a room that must have been Jackson’s sister’s room since it was obviously a girl’s room. Sitting down on the bed, he beckoned me to sit next to him which I did. Then it happened, he went in to kiss me which was my first kiss ever from a guy and what made it special was the fact that it was from a guy that I loved. But then he tried to grab hold of my breasts, actually hurting me when he did which caused me to stop and shout, “Hey!”
“I’m sorry baby. I thought you probably would like me kissing on you like this. Plus, this is what you wanted didn’t you?” He came up on me, my back up against the door.
I was starting to get scared. “Not like this.”
“Why not like this?” His hands moved along my hips even as I shooed them away but he was persistent even while I kept telling him to stop. So I did the only thing that I could do to get myself out of this crazy predicament…I gave him a swift thrust of my knee right in his balls.
He squealed and crumbled to the ground before me holding his balls while he moaned.
I never did look back, I continued out of the house and down the road until I was able to make it to the gas station to call up my friend Nancy to pick me up. When I got back to school on Monday, everyone had found out what I had done including the coach who asked to speak to me personally which I did.
Let’s just say that Reggie didn’t play for about two weeks after that incident which didn’t help my rep much because most of the football team hated me during those two weeks he was off. That day made me realize that all of my thoughts and dreams didn’t need to be put on just one guy as there were more than likely more down the road.
When I opened my eyes after I finished, I found myself tearing up a bit as I wiped them away from my cheek.
Anthony stared at me. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I went into my purse, getting some tissue that I had in there to clean myself up. “I always get emotional whenever I sing something I wrote. You will know this while we are recording. The songs I write have a lot of meaning for me.”
“Well, that just means that what you’ve written not only means something to you but whoever will be listening to it as well. You’ve got a gift.” He smiled as he asked, “Would you like to do it again?”
“Yeah, I felt like there was a part that I kind of messed up on. Let’s start over again.”