The High Notes: A Novel(14)
“What’s up?” She smiled at him.
“I want to give you something,” he said, with a piece of paper in his hands. He could see how fed up she was. And he had an odd feeling about it. She noticed that there was a name on the piece of paper and a phone number with an unfamiliar area code. The name on it was Clay Maddox. He was a god in the music world, one of the most important impresarios. He had discovered some of the biggest artists in the business.
“Go see him,” Judd said in a whisper, and she looked sad.
“Are you crazy? He’d never see me. I don’t even have a demo to give him.” And Hendrix had never made the album he had promised. He had said it, but never put it in her contract.
“You’ve got reviews, great ones. You’re one of the biggest talents I’ve ever worked with. Run like hell, Iris. Get out of here. You don’t belong here, working for that asshole.”
“If I walk out, he’ll sue me,” she said, thinking about what Pattie had said.
“So what? What’s he going to get? Your guitar? Your running shoes? I’ve got a wife and kids, and I’m forty-two years old. Pattie has her boy and her mom. You’re a baby. All you have is yourself. Go see him in New York.” He pointed to the paper she was holding. “I want to say I knew you when.” He smiled at her, and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and went back to the hole-in-the-wall dressing room he shared with the rest of the band. Iris closed the door behind him, and stood staring at the piece of paper. She knew Clay Maddox would never see her. She’d been singing for fifteen years by then, and what did she have to show for it? She was touring across the country, singing in small towns and beat-up auditoriums. At least Pattie had a home to go to between tours, and a child. She had nothing and no one. All she had was her voice. She had saved a little money this time, since her father couldn’t get his hands on it. She shoved the paper Judd had given her into her purse, and she looked around the dressing room when she left, to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything since they weren’t coming back.
She returned to the hotel with Pattie, who went to bed as soon as they got to their room. They were both tired after the upsetting visit from Glen the night before. It had stayed with them all day, and affected their performances that night. Pattie fell asleep as soon as she got into bed, and Iris quietly locked the bathroom door and got busy. They were both packed to leave the next day, so they’d have nothing to do in the morning except get into the van and drive further into Wyoming. All they had to do was climb into their clothes, pick up their bags, and leave.
Iris took out the package she had bought at the drugstore that afternoon. She had made the decision, and there was no turning back now. She mixed the chemicals and shook the bottle. She winced as she did it. She spread the dye into her hair according to the directions, waited the appropriate amount of time, and then rinsed it off, and stood staring at herself in the mirror. She had selected a dark shade of brown. She had no idea where she would go, or what she would do, but if Glen Hendrix sent anyone to look for her, it would never occur to him to look for a woman with dark hair. With brown hair, she looked like an entirely different person. She shampooed it, and dried it with a towel, so she didn’t wake Pattie with her hair dryer. She hardly recognized herself, but like this, if she took any jobs along the way, Glen’s scouts wouldn’t recognize her.
She dried her hair as best she could, and was just coming out of the bathroom when she walked straight into Pattie, who had woken up to go to the bathroom and screamed when she saw Iris. At first she thought it was a stranger in the room.
“Oh my God, what did you do?” Iris grinned sheepishly. Pattie would have seen the mess of stained towels in the morning anyway, and guessed. “What are you doing?” And then looking at her, she knew. Tears filled her eyes and she pulled Iris into her arms and hugged her. “Iris, don’t…you can’t leave.”
“I have to. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t care if he sues me. We can’t let ourselves be abused like this, and get taken advantage of by every manager we work for. It’s not right.” And Judd was right when he said what would Glen get from her anyway. She had nothing for him to take. Her father had taken five years of her earnings when she’d worked for Billy Weston. Someone was always trying to rip her off, exploit her, or abuse her. She felt squeezed to death, like a lemon. All she wanted to do was sing, and all they wanted to do was use her, find a way to make money from her God-given gift, and turn her into a money machine. She’d been putting up with it for fifteen years, since she was just a kid. And she couldn’t let it go on forever. It would kill her and destroy her soul and her music.
“Where will you go?” Pattie asked her and they sat down on her bed. It was two o’clock in the morning, and they were both wide-awake.
“I don’t know. I’m going to buy a car, some old piece of junk, in Ketchum, and see where it takes me. New York maybe. I can get work there. I can wait on tables if I have to. I can’t go to L.A., it’s too close to Vegas, and he’ll find me. I don’t know how hard he’ll look. I only have a year left in my contract.”
They sat and talked for a while, and then Pattie went to sleep, and Iris lay on her bed, thinking of where she would go and what she would do. She was scared, but not as scared as she was of staying and what that would do to her. She wanted to leave before the others woke up. She left the room at six. She smiled at Pattie, sleeping soundly. She had promised to write to her when she settled somewhere, or send her a text to say she was okay. She walked to the bus station, and sat on a bench waiting for the first bus out of town. She boarded it at seven, and she climbed in with her one suitcase and her guitar.