Chapter Eleven
Owen
“Owen, you feeling okay?” Talon asked just after we finished up a song.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said a bit defensively. “Why are you asking? Does it seem as if something’s wrong with me?” The moment the words left my mouth, I realized why he might have asked.
“You just seemed a little off on the last song. You sure everything’s all right?”
I knew he was right, but I didn’t feel like getting into it. “I’m fine, man, seriously. Why don’t we just do that song again?” I suggested. Talon nodded, but then my phone went off.
“Owen Young,” I answered.
“Mr. Young, this is Sally from Touring Unlimited. I was calling to confirm the dates you requested for the tour bus. We have you down for the first week in September.”
I let out a sigh. I had called them over a month before and set it up, and I knew I’d told them the beginning of August. I’d even double checked it. “No, that’s incorrect. We need it the beginning of August. First week of August. I'm pretty sure I specified that quite a while ago.”
“Oh…I’m sorry about that, Mr. Young. Let me see if we can change the reservation.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose as she put me on hold. The other guys watched me curiously. No one made a sound. The silence grew more and more uncomfortable with every passing moment. It took Sally over two minutes to return to the line.
“Mr. Young? If it’s okay, I’m going to call you back once we get this straightened out,” she assured me. “I'll do my best to sort this out.”
“Fine,” I sighed, shook my head, and then hung up and watched Jeremiah place his guitar on its stand.
“How’s the search for an assistant going?” he asked, clearly aware of the frustration I was currently experiencing. “You any closer to finding someone who’s gonna fit the bill?”
“Actually, man, I met a really good candidate yesterday. Her name’s Nalia. She’s supposed to be stopping by today to meet you guys, to get a feel for the band and how we operate. So, instead of asking me about her, you’ll get to meet her for yourselves and then you guys can ask her whatever questions you might have.”
I looked down at my watch. It was only fifteen minutes later than the time I’d told my secretary to give her. It was no big deal. I figured she should be arriving any minute.
“Did you still want to run back through that first song?” Talon asked. I nodded and we started over.
I tried to get my head in the right place, but couldn’t help wondering why Nalia hadn’t shown up yet. We made it through the song, but I knew I was still a little off. It was really hard to focus; I still felt like my mind was in a million different places at once. Still, we pressed on, running through a few more songs. We had to; we had to be super tight for this tour.
“Okay, I’m going to call the agency to see where she is,” I finally said as we finished another song. It was nearly 2:45. I called Mike, tapping my foot impatiently on the floor as I waited for him to answer the call. “Hey, Mike, have you heard from Miss Dean? She hasn’t shown up yet,” I asked when he finally picked up after what seemed like forever. He put me on hold to check with his secretary.
“No word from her. Which seems odd compared to how on top of things she’s been so far. We’ll try to reach out to her and see what’s going on,” he said. “Just hang tight, and I'll get back to you as soon as I know what's going on.” I sighed and thanked him before hanging up.
I stared out at the studio window, trying to swallow my disappointment. I didn’t get it; she’d seemed so interested in coming by today, and I'd had such high hopes for her. It was fine, I tried to tell myself. It would simply mean going back to the drawing board again, unfortunately. I wasn’t looking forward to having to do more interviews, though. In fact, I was loathing the thought.
The others were watching me as I stood there, so I tried to shake it off. Regardless, we needed to practice, whether Nalia showed up or not.
“All right, let’s finish practice guys,” I said, doing my best to round them back up. “We've only got a few more songs to get through, then we're done for the day and can all just chill.” Everything else seemed to be going wrong. I wanted to finish practice at the very least, just so that something felt like it was moving in the right direction.
Talon counted us in for the next song and the others joined before I hit the vocals. I tried to push away all the worries and stressors in my head and simply focus on the music instead. That helped some. Music always helped me relax and take my mind off things that were bugging me, and that song went a lot smoother than the first few. I loosened up a little, getting into it like I remembered doing back when I first started the band, eventually putting every ounce of my heart and soul into it—truly singing my heart out.
It helped that the song was about loneliness, something I knew plenty about. I tended to write about what was relevant to me and, unfortunately, being lonely had been a major theme in my life. Singing about it was a way to get all the pain and angst out.
We finished up the song and went right into the next one. I was feeling a bit better, we were sounding better together, and I was finally focused fully on the music. By the time we hit the last song, we were jamming smoothly and rocking hard.
For the first time all day, we were right in our element. It was amazing; this was how things had been when we had first started out. A sensation I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to experience again, but there I was, feeling it once more.
“That sounded amazing! I cannot wait to go on tour, man!” Jeremiah smiled. “Wow, I mean, it's been really great jamming again and getting back into the music, but now... Now I feel like we're really in the pocket, you know? We're totally hitting it again the way we used to. Man, this feels epic!”
The others were equally as pumped, Jay and Talon high-fiving over his drum set.
“We totally owned it!” Talon exclaimed with a look of pure joy beaming from his face. I could see how pumped he was and how important this was to him. That, at least, made me feel better. And to tell the truth, I was really pumped about it as well. It really felt as if all the pieces were falling into place—musically, at least.
But that left the business side of things a little unstable. My mind kept wandering back to thoughts of Nalia. I looked down at my watch and saw that it was now quarter past three. The guys were starting to pack up. Nalia must have decided against coming. I couldn’t think of any other logical explanation for her being so late and not at least calling to let me know.
Fuck it, I thought. It looked as though I would just have to find someone else. It was a huge bummer. I really felt like I had lucked out finding her. She seemed so perfect for what I needed. What the band needed, I reminded myself.